NovelPantheon

Lu Tao

Early Foundation Establishmentlightning cultivator and rare-insect seekerRogue cultivator

Lu Tao is a secretive rogue cultivator who tracks Meng Hao's Thunderclap Leaf. He claims to need it for lightning cultivation, but his deeper objective is to combine it with a Frigid Snow Larva and produce the legendary Eyeless Larva.

Biography

Tracking the Thunderclap Leaf

Lu Tao uses a wood-and-iron detector that reacts to the leaf's lightning aura. He approaches Meng Hao carefully, offers access to a Secret Trade Alliance meeting, and initially describes the leaf as material for a lightning life magic. Meng Hao follows him in secret and learns that Lu's real interest is refining an Eyeless Larva. At the masked meeting Lu submits the first request for a Thunderclap Leaf, but becomes submissive after watching Meng Hao kill with speed and decisiveness. His trade strategy therefore combines deception with a realistic willingness to retreat from stronger people. (Chapters 139–141)

Black Sieve expedition

Lu later joins the Black Sieve Sect's recruited cultivators traveling into the Blessed Land. His earlier contact makes him one of the few guests who pays particular attention to Meng Hao, but he does not reveal their history or openly renew the trade request. Remaining inconspicuous lets him carry his private insect-refinement project into a much more dangerous site. (Chapter 145)

Bargain under the Hundred Spirits Tower

Inside the Blessed Land, Lu shelters beneath a sacrificial formation powered by three controlled cultivators and their Dao Pillars. Meng Hao threatens to break the defense unless Lu explains the leaf's real use. Lu says that a Frigid Snow Larva fed leaves from the Sieve Net Mulberry Thunder Tree may transform into the fourth-ranked Eyeless Larva, whose silk is effectively unbreakable. After Meng Hao leaves, Lu admits that the explanation was ninety percent true and ten percent false. The encounter preserves his life and formation, but it also confirms that even under direct threat he retains a final layer of information as leverage. (Chapters 164–165)

Appearance and personality

The corpus emphasizes Lu's guarded conduct more than distinctive physical features. He uses a mask at the secret market and avoids open displays of his objective. He is acquisitive, patient, and habitually deceptive, preferring partial truth to outright refusal. His willingness to sacrifice controlled cultivators makes that caution morally ruthless. At the same time, he is not suicidally proud: direct evidence of Meng Hao's power quickly produces compliance.

Abilities and cultivation

Lightning life magic

Lu has early Foundation Establishment cultivation and refines a black, electrically charged stone within his body as a life magic. The Thunderclap Leaf can supply compatible lightning energy, which makes his stated cultivation interest plausible even though it conceals the insect project. The text does not establish that the leaf alone completes or upgrades the life magic, so its exact improvement remains uncertain. (Chapters 139–141)

Detection instrument

His wood-and-iron device absorbs or responds to the lightning aura associated with Thunderclap Leaves, allowing him to locate one even when the owner is not displaying it. This is specialized detection, not general treasure sensing: its usefulness depends on the target material's distinctive lightning property. Meng Hao's awareness and superior movement still allow him to reverse the surveillance and follow Lu instead. (Chapters 139–140)

Sacrificial protection

Lu's Blessed Land defense uses three controlled cultivators as living components and draws on their Dao Pillars to resist the Hundred Spirits Tower. The protection is powerful enough to give him temporary security in an otherwise lethal area, but it has an exploitable dependency. Meng Hao can threaten the formation itself, and Lu believes losing it would expose him to immediate danger, forcing disclosure. (Chapters 164–165)

Rare-insect refinement knowledge

According to Lu, feeding a Frigid Snow Larva leaves of the Sieve Net Mulberry Thunder Tree can trigger transformation into an Eyeless Larva. The resulting insect's silk is prized because it cannot be broken by ordinary means. Since Lu explicitly says his account contains ten percent falsehood, the broad recipe is credible but at least one condition, limitation, or outcome remains intentionally unreliable. (Chapter 165)

Relationships

  • Meng Hao: Owner of the leaf Lu seeks. Meng Hao discovers his hidden objective and later extracts an incomplete explanation by threatening his protection.
  • Han Bei: Both operate within the same secret-trade and Blessed Land environment, though their schemes remain independent.
  • Controlled cultivators: Lu reduces three people to sacrificial components for his defense, illustrating the practical cruelty beneath his cautious manner.

Items

  • Wood-and-iron detector: Specialized instrument for tracing the lightning aura of Thunderclap Leaves.
  • Thunderclap Leaf: Desired material for lightning cultivation and the proposed Eyeless Larva refinement; it remains in Meng Hao's possession.
  • Frigid Snow Larva: Required insect precursor in Lu's partly reliable recipe.
  • Black lightning stone: Life-magic object refined within Lu's body. (Chapters 139–141 and 164–165)