Chapter 46: Don

After dinner, watching the dense night outside the window and the gradually falling moonlight, Liu Yunxi turned her head to look at Feng Xue, who had returned to the altar and was busy, and finally bit her lip and said:

“I’m going to collect the moonlight. Let me know when you’re about to cultivate! Don’t just suddenly flood the whole house again!”

"Got it, got it." Feng Xue, lost in scrolling through entries, watched as terms like 【Transform Fire】, 【Transform Thunder】, 【Transform Metal】, 【Transform Wind】, 【Link】, 【Replace】, 【Identify Sameness】, 【Extract】… appeared one after another above his head, leaving him in a state of ecstatic euphoria.

It had begun as a property change based on the 【Summon Thunder Spell】, then grown increasingly complex—until every modifiable magical operation process was completed, Feng Xue found it nearly impossible to resist the thrill, like a completionist watching blank slots in a bestiary slowly fill in.

His golden finger could lock in a result after even one success, no matter how fleeting, how crude or immature—allowing Feng Xue, while locked onto a term, to achieve the maximum precision his current soul could possibly attain—

Yes, his own limit, not the spell’s limit. He’d realized this only after noticing his spirit-attunement duration increased during artifact crafting.

After Feng Xue completely abandoned “gradual practice” and instead pursued “even if it’s coincidence, just get one success,” within just six hours, he acquired every term among his eighteen spells that required no fine-tuning.

And Feng Xue finally snapped out of that “filling the bestiary” high.

He let out a huge yawn, yet didn’t begin cultivating or simply fall asleep as usual; instead, he relocked his lifespan, set up a new altar, lit incense and candles, placed the jade materials radiating different magical auras alongside the seal already inscribed with the ritual on the altar, then took out the scroll imbued with the spirit ghost.

If the target were another being, Feng Xue would have had Liu Yunxi guard him—but spirit ghosts, or most yao creatures, were different.

Because the ghosts beneath the red robes primarily relied on illusions and ghostly corruption; their physical interference was weaker than a child’s. And after locking his lifespan, this ability—resist and it’s useless, fail and you lose lifespan—was practically handing him victory. Even a spirit ghost who’d never seen blood, let alone a crimson-eyed wrathful ghost, he could make her experience the sensation of bathing in yang essence yet unable to take even a single drop.

“Don’t overthink, don’t overthink, calm down, calm down…”

He took a deep breath, shook the images from his mind, activated his visualization technique, and as his soul—now slightly deformed from perfect circularity—pulsed like breathing, emitting faint radiance, his emotions gradually calmed.

Then he picked up the seal, paused for a moment in hesitation, and set it down again, reaching into his robe to pull out a… magnifying glass.

“Of course, someone in this line always prepares thoroughly.”

Clipping the single-lens, high-magnification magnifying glass—gifted by the owner of Mo Yu Xuan and commonly used for gemstone and artifact appraisal—onto his left eye, Feng Xue searched the relatively small landscape painting for the “Immortal Within the Painting.”

Although Feng Xue possessed the ability 【View Heavenly Lifespan】, it could only perceive the lifespan of living beings—dead humans, stones, ghosts—could not be anchored by the ability. Though his over-the-shoulder view could detect ghostly traces, without red highlighting, finding a single different ink dot within an ink-wash landscape was still difficult.

Fortunately, this spirit ghost seemed fond of roleplaying within the painting and never moved her position when observed. After a thorough scan, Feng Xue finally spotted her: standing atop the mountain, nearly merged with splashed ink, yet—as in the illusion—she had not fully fused with the scroll.

“Perfect!”

Feng Xue locked his right eye—without the magnifier—onto the ink spot, then removed the magnifier, fixing his gaze on that dot as he channeled magical energy toward the two candles.

Normally, one would tread the Gang steps and form spirit seals to guide energy into the ritual pattern—but Feng Xue had already inscribed the spirit-subjugation incantation’s talisman into the jade seal. As magical energy surged in, an abstract, snowflake-like pattern glowed on the seal’s surface. Feng Xue gripped the seal and began chanting:

“Spirit, spirit, name unknown, I grant you a pact-name, come to my altar…”

As previously mentioned, Daoist cultivators who have entered the path can use the altar to connect heaven and earth, drawing upon the Great Source’s pure qi and collective will. Each such invocation leaves a “memory” in the human spiritual mechanism.

Cultivators who haven’t entered the path can mimic those who have, using the human spiritual mechanism to replicate the process and perform spells requiring willpower—much like a child using an adult’s bank card and password to withdraw cash.

Perhaps initially it was mere theft, but once practitioners realized the convenience of this technique, many accomplished elders deliberately standardized their rituals and established password systems to make imitation easier for juniors. This standardized system became known as the “Zhaijiao Ke Yi.” Yet because the more the human spiritual mechanism is used, the deeper its memory becomes and the better the replication, many non-secret, widely circulated incantations spread far and wide—and the 【Spirit Subjugation Spell】 Feng Xue now chanted was among the most widespread.

As Feng Xue chanted, he clearly sensed a change within his magical energy—yet this change was far too complex, nothing like the singular 【Transform Jade】 or 【Transform Thunder】; it was more intuitive, and if forced into words, it felt like “a contract brimming with vast information.”

Even though this was his first time using it, Feng Xue knew exactly what to do!

“Those who obey me prosper; those who defy me perish. Aid me on the Dao, assist me to achieve truth…”

Still chanting, he poured all his will-infused magical energy into the seal. As the snowflake mark blazed brightly, without hesitation, he pressed it down onto the spot in the painting.

“Hum!”

An invisible vibration surged from the painting the instant Feng Xue’s action landed. Though there was no physical resistance, his magical imprint refused to press onto the scroll no matter how hard he pushed.

But Feng Xue felt no tension—this scenario was recorded in the 【Spirit Subjugation Spell】!

Weak ghosts can only wield illusionary power. This “cannot be pressed down” was merely the spirit ghost’s illusion, making him believe he’d encountered a barrier.

Having thoroughly read the 【Spirit Subjugation】 manual multiple times before acting, he’d deliberately chosen to set up the altar against the wall. Now he simply pushed his right foot backward until his heel pressed firmly against the wall—power generated from his roots, his entire body’s force pressing forward.

Illusions could only affect Feng Xue’s perception—but when combined with Earth’s gravity, even if he felt the seal wouldn’t go down, gravity would force it down anyway!

The illusion vanished in an instant. The seal, which had already touched the scroll, had somehow lifted several inches—but his entire body was already leaning forward, and he couldn’t stop. At that very moment, a burst of spiritual light shot out from the painting.

Simultaneously came a furious shout—

“Don’t just randomly stamp other people’s paintings!”

Note ①: Although I don’t want to use dialects later, this line absolutely must be in Wu Chinese for the right flavor. Also, the first character of the title sounds like “Fuyao” spoken quickly; the rest, I think, needs no explanation.

ps: About self-developed transformations… they’re possible, but extremely troublesome.

Ritual patterns have been explained: rituals are actions that assist in engraving trajectories.

But first, you must know how to engrave the trajectory—like a LEGO set worth thousands, where the instruction manual is the trajectory, and finding numbered pieces in order is the ritual. You need the manual first to cut the pieces; otherwise, you’re left to trial and error.

It’s not that you can’t assemble it—you just waste enormous time and energy. The protagonist lacks time, so he prefers using others’ already-tested methods.

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(End of Chapter)