"Haha, I've leveled up and recovered to my peak state. I have to thank that old man." Davion laughed wildly in his courtyard as he had reached level 26.

"Now the only thing that's bothering me is that I still couldn't learn the Devil Soul Art with all the experience points I had." He really wanted to see how strong this art was but it always made him discouraged.

"However, I have a feeling that I can learn it soon." He thought and took out the spirit ring that he had obtained from the Pope.

He opened it and had a wide smile on his face. Inside it was a large number of spirit stones. It almost amounted to 2500 lower grade spirit stones.

"Good, I was running out of them. I can even exchange them for contribution points." He was about to put it back when he suddenly saw a small bell in one of the corners. It was very small and looked ordinary.

He took it out and exclaimed, "Don't tell me this is also a middle-grade artifact just like the staff?"

He poured his spiritual energy and found that nothing happened.

"So, it should be a devil artifact." He knew that the devil artifacts could only be operated by devil essence.

"Since this bell and staff are useless to me, I might as well sell them in the Artifacts Peak. Then I should finally visit the Alchemy Peak to buy the Qi refining pills." He made up his mind and left.

Not only that, deep inside his heart, there was a notion to learn more spiritual arts of the remaining elements. However, he let it slide for the time being. He knew that he was too weak infront of a Nascent Soul Cultivator. So, the first thing he wanted to do was level up to 30 and become strong enough to face them.

***

A month passed by in the blink of an eye. During this time, the masked disciple became the most popular person in the sect. It was due to the fact he completed all the S-ranked missions that were available.

As stated by the young man in charge of the mission hall, he took five such missions and completed them in just a month. These missions included the killing of demon beasts at the late stage of the Golden Core Stage and notorious evil cultivators.

Everyone's eyes nearly popped out when he brought the head of a Frost Wyvern from the Frozen Lake in the North. These demon beasts were considered to be one of the strongest demon beasts among the Golden Core Stage due to the fact that they possessed a dragon bloodline. Even though it was very thin, it made them tremendously powerful. As a result, the disciples could only try to take this mission after teaming up. But who could have thought that someone would complete it alone?

Nonetheless, among these missions, the achievement of his first mission still remained unmatched as he killed a Devil King. The most surprising thing was that as his fame increased day by day, more and more elders became interested in him. Especially Elder Warren, who was the first one to go for his rescue to Crocus City.

According to the witnesses, Elder Warren seemed to be in a bad mood after he returned to the sect as he couldn't find that disciple. He might have thought that he had died and had failed to rescue him. But the next day, he immediately came to the Inner Court Disciples Peak after learning that the disciple had returned.

However, he still couldn't meet him as that disciple never revealed who he really was. There were even rumors that none of the elders could discover him. This made everyone curious about who he was and why he was so secretive.

Even so, Elder Warren came here frequently in search of him. But he always left with disappointment. Thus, everyone thought that he would get angry and give up as he had lost enough of his face.

Indeed, as they had thought he gave up after a few days. But before leaving he declared that he would be ready to accept him as his personal disciple as long as he visits him in the Elders Peak.

This made all the inner court disciples jealous. They knew how hard it was to become a personal disciple. One had to at least reach the Nascent Soul Stage and become a core disciple. So, it was extremely difficult.

As they say, jealousy fosters hate, some of the top disciples couldn't control it and even challenged him for a duel. They wanted to prove that they were also worthy of being a personal disciple. However, they were also meant to be disappointed. They waited for a whole day and didn't even see any sign of him.

Hence, this became an object of ridicule. News spread like wildfire that the masked disciple became scared and had escaped somewhere. Many didn't believe it as they knew how strong one must be in order to complete those missions alone. But there would always be someone believing it. In this way, arguments between disciples would take place and thus the masked disciple became a hot topic in the sect.

***

"Wew, it's a good day." Davion smiled while looking at the sky.

"Today's the day to receive the monthly pills. Even though I only get two pills, it's better than nothing. Sometimes I also think of becoming the disciple of Elder Warren. But what would happen if he finds out that I can't cultivate." He shook his head.

"Let's forget about it. I should just get going." He slowly ascended the peak.historical

On his way, he found that the atmosphere was not as lively as previously. He saw many disciples moving around while having many wounds in their bodies. They seemed dispirited and weren't talking with each other. By using his Mind-Eye he found traces of devil essence in them.

"Humm, how could all of them get injured by it?" He was confused.

"In the past few days, I had seen many missions related to the devils in the mission hall. Although these missions were quite tempting to me as I can earn experience points, the devils mentioned were far too weak for me to focus my energy on. Especially when I can easily earn a considerable amount of experience points daily from the Devil Summoning Art."

The whole month, he had been summoning a peak stage devil commander and killing them regularly. Only during the mission, he wouldn't summon them. Yet it was still so productive rather than taking those missions.

"But seeing them hurt must mean that the stronger ones might have come out." He was in deep thought.

The moment he reached the peak, he saw almost all the disciples gathering in the mission hall rather than the spiritual arts hall.

"Eh! I thought that everyone must be waiting for the old man to distribute the pills. It looks like I am wrong." He exclaimed and followed them into the mission hall. He wanted to see what was happening here.

Inside the mission hall, a middle-aged man was standing with his hands behind his back. He was closing his eyes and seemed like he was waiting for something. The disciples also stood there respectfully without making any noise.

After a while, only when the hall was completely filled did the middle-aged man open his eyes. He glanced at everyone and said, "Greetings disciples."

"Elder Nelson" Everyone bowed together and greeted him back.

"Humm, all of you must have a faint guess why I'm here, don't you?" Nelson asked.

They nodded their heads and looked solemn. They had never seen nor heard of something like this happening before.

"As all of you know, devils are invading our territory. Not only ours but the other middle-grade sects too. We just received this news from them." Nelson said while looking at their reaction.

He saw many of them panicking and starting to gossip with each other.

"Damn, how could this be?"

"I had thought that these devils might have escaped from a space crack that must have opened accidentally."

"But it seems like it's all planned."

"Is this an invasion from the devil world?"

"Doesn't this mean that we will be fighting with them every day?"

Some of them even had their faces becoming pale from fright.

"Silence" Nelson coldly said while releasing his aura.

The hall immediately became silent when they felt his aura. It felt warm and comfortable which helped them to calm down.

"Are all of you afraid?" Nelson smiled.

Seeing him smiling, they finally came back to their senses. With their elders being here, what was there to be afraid of? Thus, they confidently looked at him.

"Good. That's how the disciples of the Thunderbolt Sect should act." He complimented them and continued.

"I want all of you to take some outer core disciples with you and take care of those filthy creatures. Now, they are only near the Wild Northern Forest and are slowly entering our lands. You all don't need to worry about meeting a Devil King on the way as we haven't sensed any of them until now. So, all of you should be able to handle them with ease if you are careful."

"And last but not least we have even decided to award all of you.."