Chapter 122

With sufficient and high-quality raw materials, Zhou Shuo quickly refined several protective magic items that could detect others' malice; this type of item he had already conceived the principle while refining his flying sword, causing the nurtured treasure to produce a unity of spirit and flesh sensation, and upon encountering external hostility, it immediately creates a protective layer for its owner.

Protective magic items are the lowest grade in the Divine Machine Hundred Reflections; of course, such items also improve in quality with intelligence and defensive strength, but Zhou Shuo had no time to fuss over this for his subordinates—those who could bypass the malice-activated items and kill their opponents would find higher-grade items useless, yet Zhou Shuo also added a small tweak allowing them to nurture the items with their own true qi, gradually increasing the items' defensive power, which he considered a minor trial.

He sent out each refined protective item, paying no heed to the astonished crowd, and began attempting to craft Devouring Pouches to study their spatial ability; a Devouring Pouch, simply put, is after nurturing an object, making it produce an independent ability to shrink, store, and contain the object's life.

Regarding space, Zhou Shuo felt it could not be understood with his ordinary knowledge, so he chose direct action: following the notebook's contents, he handcrafted an embryo, which first required true qi conductivity—a necessary condition for all magic item materials; second, the embryo's interior must contain a certain hollowness; third, that interior space must connect to the outside.

Zhou Shuo directly carved a hollow sphere from jade, then infused true qi to complete the temperature-difference step in a short time, and following the notebook's steps, used true qi for a fine manipulation-like nurturing refinement until the hollow jade sphere derived an independent ability; however, during this process, Zhou Shuo had the intention of experiment and research, so in the fine true-qi structuring process he implanted one of his full-moon thoughts into the treasure.

Zhou Shuo's original intention was to use his own thought to personally feel the treasure's construction process, but the situation was not as simple as he imagined; the full-moon thought inside the treasure, during the observation and nurturing refinement, was actually affected by some change and directly disappeared—though not truly gone, for a faint sense remained, yet the thought could no longer be summoned from within the treasure.

Losing a thought, Zhou Shuo was somewhat taken aback, but after repeated consideration he continued refining the Devouring Pouch; as the pouch was slowly refined, his thought completely vanished, yet after the pouch passed a certain stage, the thought's presence faintly reappeared, and once the pouch was fully refined, that thought returned in full, responding to his mind and flying out as a round Devouring Pouch—however, the crystal-clear thought, like a night pearl, upon appearing, shot into his brow before he could react.

The thought flew into his brow, leaving Zhou Shuo somewhat unprepared; in the hurry he felt as if struck by something, his whole body shot backward, but after that instant the sensation turned into a feeling of falling into an abyss, and he sensed himself continuously flying.

Zhou Shuo's gaze swept his surroundings, feeling that color and shape had lost all meaning; his body constantly rubbed against the air, began to slowly twist and deform, his consciousness gradually grew sluggish, as if the world were receding from him, giving a sense of impending death.

"Can't go on like this." Zhou Shuo felt his stagnant consciousness, slowly forming a thought—a thought that should be a single idea, yet it seemed endless, as if it would take ten or twenty years to finish; his subconscious primordial spirit instantly awakened, he exercised meditative concentration, his body emitted endless light filling the void; the receding world suddenly slowed, its colors and shapes suddenly became clear.

"The soul is completely gone, only the primordial spirit remains—what's going on?" Zhou Shuo looked at the pitch-black starry sky above and the azure planet beneath his feet, raising his slightly transparent hands; it was that thought that knocked his soul out, but now his soul has completely vanished, leaving only the primordial spirit.

If the physical body is a boat and the soul the person in it, then Yang likens the soul to a boat and the primordial spirit to the person in the boat; the Dao and law of the Yang Spirit world and Yin Spirit, the first emergence of the settled mind-monkey is the primordial spirit, but thereafter all movement is the mind-consciousness spirit; the extruded soul is like a ghost, hence the title "ghost immortal"; and Zhou Shuo, by accident, had his soul knocked out by something, his soul was worn away, leaving only a bare primordial spirit.

"What is this?" Zhou Shuo looked up at the twinkling stars in the darkness, lowered his head and couldn't help but startle—a huge azure sphere, this sphere he had seen before, but what he saw was a simulated toy globe, Earth?

"I'm in outer space!" Zhou Shuo jumped in fright, raised his head to look at the starry sky above, wanting to confirm his thought, but before he could confirm, something flying past before his eyes attracted his gaze.

On the wings that flap oppositely, there are black-and-white patterns like eyes; the slender body is covered in white-gray, two antennae on the head sway. Zhou Shuo, looking at the thing flying past before his eyes, couldn't help but widen his eyes: "Butterfly, are there butterflies in cosmic space? What the hell is going on? Where am I?"

"Ah!" Zhou Shuo, watching the butterfly fly past, in an instant felt his body being pulled down by something, gravity seemed to resume, his whole body kept falling toward the azure planet below; this time he didn't rub against the air, his body didn't feel scorching, but…

"The farther I fall, the farther I feel from 'Earth'..." Zhou Shuo looked at the azure planet that was originally huge but now continually shrinking as he fell, and couldn't help but be startled; he felt that the environment he was in seemed to have space completely lose its meaning.

"Space..." Zhou Shuo had a flash of insight in his mind, but before he could think it over, he felt that during the fall, the surrounding scenery was changing: the azure planet and countless stars disappeared, replaced by an ever-enlarging scene; the shapes of those things varied, but most were round, covered with various spines, like, like the bacterial shapes in a biology textbook.

"I've fallen into..." Zhou Shuo looked at those variably shaped, planet-sized rod-shaped bacteria that kept expanding, and a thought arose in his mind, but lacking knowledge, he couldn't even say the academic name of this field.

The ever-expanding rod-shaped bacteria, after reaching a certain size, began to shrink and disappear; Zhou Shuo felt he had fallen into a dust world, where sound and form gradually lost meaning, replaced by countless variegated colors; those colors kept enlarging, and each particle began to reveal its shape.

"How should I get out?" Zhou Shuo didn't know what to call the environment he was in, but he knew that if he didn't get out, if he kept going like this, time and space would continually cycle and evolve, and he would probably vaporize in the human realm!

"Don't be anxious, meditate, meditate." Zhou Shuo looked at the world that kept expanding then shrinking and disappearing, steadied his divine thought, began meditative concentration, called upon his true nature, his body emitted a sheet of pure light filling the void, fixing his body in midair.

"Go back." Zhou Shuo fixed his body, instantly following the path of his fall, began trying to return the way he came, but before he could fly out, he suddenly felt his body tighten—no, he felt the whole heaven and earth tighten—and at some point he had already fallen into a black-purple space.

"It's been a long time since anyone came to see me; since you've come, why bother going back?" A huge face appeared behind him, with a copper face and iron forehead, each side sprouting a black horn; Zhou Shuo looked at this demon-like giant face, feeling that the light he emitted was like a drop of amber, and he himself was like an ant in the amber, unable to move at all.

"You're afraid, are you afraid of me? Do you want to know who I am?" The giant face looked at the tiny speck barely maintaining its light, and a mocking smile appeared on its face.

"I don't want to know." Zhou Shuo looked at the mocking expression on the giant face, his will began to blur, it was too terrifying, a terror hard to put into words; he had seen the heavenly corpses of the Witch Ghost Dao and the incense spirits raised by the Profound Heaven Pavilion, both could be called terrifying, but compared to this giant face before him, they were like fireflies versus the bright moon; this giant face before him was not a person, but a god, a true god.

"Rest easy, don't be afraid, I won't kill you, not only will I not kill you, I will instead help you, I will help you find the way home and give you strength...." The giant face felt Zhou Shuo's extreme fear, involuntarily broke into a smile, but that smile had just appeared when it froze, because Zhou Shuo summoned a door.

"I still have a door." When Zhou Shuo heard the giant face say "go home", he immediately thought of a certain key point, thus trying to summon a portal, and unexpectedly he actually managed to summon the door.

"Enough." The roar made Zhou Shuo feel his heart about to jump out of his chest, though he clearly didn't have one; but the door that appeared with a crack from the sound made him feel his primordial spirit about to shatter.

"You can't escape, obediently become my servant……damn it." The giant face shouted, looking at the hazy pure light that was about to dissipate, involuntarily gave a chuckle, stabilizing Zhou Shuo's primordial spirit that was about to split while also tempting him, but before he could finish speaking, the giant face's expression instantly turned angry and it let out another angry roar, because the pure light enveloping Zhou Shuo's primordial spirit began to continuously contract, and in a flash of birth and extinction it vanished completely, together with Zhou Shuo's primordial spirit disappearing as well.

"Xuannü, one day I will get out." The terrifying roar spread through the boundless space, the black-and-white butterfly slightly tilted its body, then steadied its flight posture again.