It’s rather amusing—at first, he saw that monkey as being just like himself, not human in form, and so he regarded the fellow as a monster of the same ilk. That’s why he felt at ease following him to learn the Ninefold Celestial Immortal Art. But he overlooked a crucial point.

After all, he and George are different.

Although he had transmigrated, his body was, at its core, still that of a crow. And a crow is just an ordinary creature—even if it gains sentience, it’s still just a common demon, with average aptitude, average physical condition, and average intelligence. You could say that if not for Henry Clark’s transmigration, this body would have been nothing more than an ordinary crow.

But what about George? What is he? He is the Stone Monkey born of Heaven and Earth. And what does that mean? To borrow the words of the Tathagata, a Stone Monkey born of Heaven and Earth is neither celestial nor terrestrial, neither god nor human nor ghost, nor scaled nor finned nor furred nor feathered nor insect. Of the four monkeys that run rampant in the world, he is one, not belonging to any of the ten categories. On the Flower-Fruit Mountain in the land of Aolai, he was born from a celestial stone, which, since the dawn of time, absorbed the purest essence of heaven and earth, the sun and the moon. After countless years of forging, with so much innate spiritual energy gathered within, only then was such a being born. If that’s not something special, it would be an injustice to the very heavens and earth that nurtured him!

So, in short, the essence of sun and moon that the monkey absorbed—whether intentionally or not—after transformation, became not demonic energy, but immortal energy, the purest and most potent kind.

And if not for this, would the Celestial Court have let him become an official? Think about it: after just a couple of decades of cultivation on Spirit Platform Mountain, he could beat celestial soldiers and generals who had trained for thousands of years as if they were dogs. Does that make any sense? Of course not!

Precisely because of this, Elder Wright taught the Ninefold Celestial Immortal Art to the monkey as an introductory method. Only such an immortal art would suit the monkey. But for the monkey, the Ninefold Celestial Immortal Art was just a starting point. For Henry Clark, it was a different story. He was just a crow—a demon, a demon who hadn’t even taken human form. The Ninefold Celestial Immortal Art, aside from its basics, was only of limited help to him. Referring to other methods the Patriarch had mentioned, Henry Clark had managed to figure out a few techniques that were useful to himself, but it was far from enough.

He needed more methods, ones better suited to himself. And the techniques the Patriarch revealed during his lectures were just right for him.

However, because of this, it was now very difficult for him to go and listen to the Patriarch’s lectures. Why? Because of his demonic energy.

You see, Henry Clark was no longer an ordinary demon. Although his aptitude was worlds apart from the monkey’s, his intelligence far surpassed the monkey’s—by more than just a little. Who was Henry Clark? A PhD in physics, a Harvard PhD in physics. Could he afford to be slow-witted? No way!

So, all in all, his progress in those demon cultivation techniques was quite rapid. In just a few years, his body was already suffused with demonic energy. The result was that he couldn’t get anywhere near the Slanting Moon Three-Star Cave. Not to mention the arrays around the cave, which were extremely sensitive to demonic energy—even the young Daoists could easily sense the demonic energy of a little demon like him and had the ability to drive him away.

Perhaps this was the Patriarch’s intention in teaching him those demon cultivation methods. He was just a little sentient demon, and out of respect for his sincere pursuit of the Dao, the Patriarch passed on a few techniques to give him a way out. If he got greedy, that would be going against the will of Heaven!

Henry Clark could understand this way of thinking. After all, the Patriarch owed him nothing, yet had already taught him so many techniques—he had done more than enough. Whether human or demon, one should know their place.

Still, he wasn’t about to just let things go.

Those arrays could sense demonic energy, and the Daoists could sense it too. So, after Henry Clark concealed his demonic energy, apart from those lively eyes, he was no different from an ordinary crow.

He knew a few methods for hiding demonic energy. Samuel hadn’t taught him these; he’d figured them out himself. But this was based on two premises: first, his demonic energy was weak and easy to hide; second, the duration was short—he couldn’t hide it for more than half an hour. It was like when he was human, practicing holding his breath while diving. And Samuel’s lectures always lasted a whole day—half an hour was useless. But for others, half an hour might be useless; for him, it was enough.

He didn’t use that half hour to listen to the lecture, but to set up a listening device.

I know, this might sound unbelievable at first, but in fact, it was quite simple. Although he hadn’t yet taken human form, his claws were even more dexterous than human hands. With these claws, he made a simple listening device.

He’d made something like this back in elementary school during craft class—it was also his trick for flirting with the girl upstairs. Back then, it was just a piece of string with a paper cup at each end, and with this, he and the girl upstairs would whisper to each other at night. It worked surprisingly well. Although now, who knows where that girl had gone, he hadn’t lost the skill.