Chapter 120: Devouring Pouch

Speaking frankly, if Zhou Shuo heard Wang Ye's thanks, he would surely just smile and dismiss it, because he truly wasn't trying to attract the company's attention for them; he really had intentions toward Divine Machine Hundred Reflections. It's really because Village Chief Ma's displayed ability was too much, making him envious—in just a few seconds he completed the control and transformation of objects.

Zhou Shuo himself cultivated a long narrow sword, having invested a great deal of spirit, he deeply knows the pain of energy consumption in forging weapons, while the speed at which Divine Machine Hundred Reflections produces magical artifacts is truly heaven-defying; even if he were to tear off his face in front of Xia Liuqing and still not hesitate to stand against the Omnipresent Company, he couldn't restrain himself.

"Not becoming a human-shaped nuclear bomb, it's absolutely impossible to return to that world." Zhou Shuo sighed, feeling somewhat anxious and gainful, but upon seeing the leather-bound notebook inside the Devouring Pouch in his hand, he couldn't help but laugh—this is the second of the Eight Extraordinary Skills he has obtained; perhaps later he can find a way to collect all the Extraordinary Skills completely.

"Ah, I forgot to ask how to operate the Devouring Pouch." Zhou Shuo looked at the leather-bound notebook inside the Devouring Pouch with his naked eye, which wasn't much besides dust, and suddenly thought of something—this thing probably can't be operated just by inputting true qi, right?

Zhou Shuo tried inputting a wave of true qi into the Devouring Pouch, which indeed had no effect; fortunately, this magical artifact's level isn't very high, so he tried to implant his thoughts into the Devouring Pouch. After sensing the existence of the Devouring Pouch and its internal space, a mere thought caused the pouch's eye to suddenly spit out a vortex, and that notebook, as fine as dust, naturally emerged from the vortex and was expelled from the Devouring Pouch.

"Not bad." Zhou Shuo took the Divine Machine Hundred Reflections notebook in hand, looking at the Devouring Pouch in his hand with delight; this spatial treasure's quality may not match the Heaven-Earth Pouch, but it excels in ease of use, requiring no massive mental control—opening the Heaven-Earth Pouch alone demands enormous mental effort, which he alone cannot manage, though it's said that when eighteen ghost immortals operate it together, it can directly shuttle through space, a function the Devouring Pouch certainly lacks.

After sighing over the Devouring Pouch in his hand, Zhou Shuo turned his attention to the booklet in his hand; this booklet lacked the ancient, simple binding of the Heaven-Reaching Canon, but it made up for it in thickness. Upon opening it, the first page, like the Heaven-Reaching Canon, introduced the origins of Divine Machine Hundred Reflections.

The Divine Machine Technique is not as ancient as talismans; its existence is part of human engineering, the earliest origin of mechanical art being Lu Ban and Mozi, who carved wood into kites that flew for three days without falling. The creator of Divine Machine Hundred Reflections was Ma Benzi among the Thirty-Six Thieves, also an ancestor of Ma Xianhong—though which generation is unknown—but Zhou Shuo knows he had a nickname, 'Three-Foot Little Ban Output'.

Just as learning talismans requires refining true qi to seek the existence of 'spells', studying Divine Machine Hundred Reflections centers on controlling the divine mind, essentially being a method to deepen the manipulation of internal true qi; however, the next step is that drawing talismans requires knowing all varieties of talismans, mainly through practice, whereas Divine Machine Hundred Reflections is different—learning it makes numeration techniques a most crucial aspect.

"It seems Ma Xianhong hasn't fully mastered Divine Machine Hundred Reflections either; please have Zhuge Qing help him perfect the Self-Cultivation Furnace, and Wang Ye was likely also summoned, his Wind-Post Mysterious Gate being the Eight Extraordinary Skills' specialist in numeration." After looking at the outline of Divine Machine Hundred Reflections, Zhou Shuo couldn't help but feel somewhat enlightened—no wonder Wang Ye and Zhuge Qing are in Azure Tour Village.

Although the most important aspect of Divine Machine Hundred Reflections is numeration techniques, this notebook contains little about them; instead, like the Heaven-Reaching Canon recording various talismans, it records the crafting methods and diagrams of all kinds of treasures. Compared to the talismans gathered by Zheng Zibu from various places, these treasure mechanism diagrams were likely designed by Ma Benzi and Ma Xianhong themselves, with room for improvement and missing parts.

"Devouring Pouch." Zhou Shuo skipped several outline sections and found the content on refining the Devouring Pouch; he urgently needs to supplement his knowledge of space.

"Got it." Zhou Shuo turned to a page of paper; seeing the yellowed sheet had no sphere, but recorded the method for refining a spatial Devouring Pouch—unexpectedly, the space inside the Devouring Pouch ball is not like the Heaven-Earth Pouch that opens up space; its essential physical space hasn't changed, it merely shrinks and stores items, returning them to normal when released.

"Shrunk, enlarged—this in a certain sense ignores the existence of space." Zhou Shuo felt the principle of the Devouring Pouch is actually a kind of spatial reference comparison, but the Devouring Pouch only ignores part of space; why only part? Because the Devouring Pouch has flaws.

The Devouring Pouch can only contain certain objects, even living beings, but with a necessary precondition: the creature's consciousness must not remain awake, otherwise the artifact will automatically expel what it has stored; if one fully grasped spatial theory, not only the Devouring Pouch but a refiner could shrink and enlarge objects—and even themselves—making space utterly meaningless before them, rather than merely using it to craft Devouring Pouch.

"Interesting, very interesting." Zhou Shuo set down Divine Machine Hundred Reflections, feeling greatly intrigued; space is formless and intangible, yet it truly binds human existence—his transmigration gate, the Heaven-Earth Pouch, the Devouring Pouch he now holds, and his own bodily existence—all are manifestations of space; if he could fully master space, he would probably no longer be called human, but a deity.

"Should I go to Yangshen or Qinshi next?" Zhou Shuo stood in the vast space, ignoring the black-and-white gate to the strange-person world, looking at the crimson-red gate to the Yangshen world and the bluish-black gate to the Qinshi world.

After a moment of silence, Zhou Shuo still stepped forward and pushed open the gate to the Qinshi world—no other reason, for he needed a quiet place to experiment with Divine Machine Hundred Reflections, while the Yangshen world is destined to be unsafe; even as a human immortal, he would not be safe there, whereas in the Qinshi world, as long as he doesn't provoke major powers, he can basically suppress the whole scene, and most importantly, he is not entirely at ease with his subordinates who have settled in the Northern Frontier Grassland.

The facts prove Zhou Shuo's concern was justified, for as soon as he passed through the gate and arrived at the city he had built, he felt a wave of oppressive killing intent; few people were inside the city, everyone had climbed onto the walls, outside the cement-plastered square walls, killing intent coiled on all sides, battle cries echoed from afar—the city had already been surrounded.

"Who dares to cause chaos on the grounds of my Abode of Life?" Zhou Shuo gazed at the killing intent filling the sky and the battle cries coming from all around, raised his energy and let out a great shout—his voice like a thunderclap on a clear day, sound waves rolling outward in all directions, dispersing the killing intent across the sky and simultaneously suppressing the battle cries.

A great shout suppressed the surging aura; Zhou Shuo released his flying sword, then stepped on it and flew into the sky. From high above, looking around his city that occupies about eight hundred acres, he saw only groups of cavalry units, each rider wearing a feathered fur cap and leather armor, lashing their horses and swinging knives in a siege battle.

"Wolf tribe, heh." Zhou Shuo looked at the masses of cavalry, instantly recognizing who they were; he pressed his sword light downward, first landing east of the city below, where the cavalry surged before the walls—the very place where the bloody smell was strongest, though the stench was thick, yet hardly anyone was still fighting; everyone's gaze was fixed on him.

"Hmm, seems like two-bare people!" Zhou Shuo landed in the midst of the battlefield, seeing everyone's gaze fixed on him, he couldn't help but blink his eyes, for he realized these Wolf Tribe fighters seemed to be two-bare people fighting each other; that bloody smell appeared not to be caused by his subordinates, but by the Wolf Tribe people themselves.

"Chief." Ye Jiujie's excited shout came from the wall.

"Which of these two-bare people is enemy, which is friend?" Zhou Shuo looked at the figure shouting from the stone-cement-steel-reinforced wall, unable to help but roll his eyes.

"No friends, all enemies, Chief, grab the two Wolf Tribe chieftains from the south and north for me—the fattest, sturdiest, wearing animal-skin robes with bare shoulders, the fiercest in spirit." Ye Jiujie gave Zhou Shuo the next step in the most direct, concise words.

"Understood." Zhou Shuo listened to the words from the wall, his gaze swept once and found the two targets, sending two thoughts as yin wind that instantly lifted those two onto the wall, throwing them down before Ye Jiujie.

"There are still three other gates; we've been besieged by several Wolf Tribe tribes." Ye Jiujie had the two pale-faced barbarian leaders tied up, then shouted toward the low-flying Zhou Shuo.

"I got it." Zhou Shuo turned his flying sword, landed on the southern battlefield, sent thoughts to seize three people and throw them onto the wall, then flew to the western battlefield, seized two more and threw them onto the wall, then went to the northern wall, seized four and threw them onto the wall; seeing all the barbarians on the battlefield staring blankly, while on the wall after a moment of stillness erupted a huge cheer—as for those barbarians, they sat foolishly on their horses, knife-hands dangling, not knowing what to do.

After circling the city and throwing the ten Wolf Tribe chieftains onto the wall, Zhou Shuo felt there was nothing more for him to do, so he directly rode his sword back up into the city; inside the city there was still no large-scale construction, aside from the central cement houses where he and his officials lived, the rest was originally empty, but Zhou Shuo noticed many tents set up there, and some places had earthen houses built—clearly many residents had gathered.

"Looks like some development has taken place, not bad!" Zhou Shuo looked at the white tents in the city, roughly able to guess what was happening, though not surprised, for the followers he brought were hardly saints; if they did nothing and just sat consuming the mountain's bounty, that would indeed be strange.