Chapter Twenty-Six: The Monster’s American-Style Student Loans

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Teaching Liu Yunxi to read was not nearly as difficult as Feng Xue had imagined. Perhaps the Word-Seal had something to do with it, but Liu Yunxi possessed an excellent memory. Memorizing the pronunciation and written forms of the characters was no great challenge; she merely needed more time before she could read and write with ease.

Nor was the process without its benefits. After only three days, Feng Xue discovered that his mental composure had risen another level. Both the speed with which he entered meditation and the precision with which he manipulated his magical power had improved considerably.

Teaching a student truly was a test of patience.

One more morning, Feng Xue slowly awoke from his meditative state. When people spoke of cultivation, they generally imagined someone sitting cross-legged with all five centers turned toward Heaven. But visualization arts placed no demands on posture. One could even lie down—or, for that matter, practice while in the middle of sexual activity. So long as one could enter meditation, one could visualize.

Feng Xue belonged to an even more unusual category: he did not need to maintain the state at all. Since he could refine more primordial energy at once than his spirit could absorb, he could spend ten minutes squeezing out enough energy to last an entire night, immerse his spirit in it, and then drift into childlike sleep.

When he awoke, he felt indescribably refreshed. His spirit even seemed slightly swollen.

As for the drawbacks…

“Grrrrr…”

Yes. It made him hungry.

“There’s still so much primordial energy left… It feels like such a waste.” Feeling the bloated fullness of a spirit that had overeaten, Feng Xue confirmed that he could not absorb any more and could only let the excess dissipate.

When he stepped out of the bedroom, he saw Liu Yunxi carrying breakfast to the table.

Three days were not enough for her to understand a cookbook, but she had at least learned how to prepare several breakfasts under Feng Xue’s close instruction.

Feng Xue picked up a steaming bun, blowing on it as he said, “Judging by the look on your face, your progress is pretty good?”

“Yes. At this rate, I should be able to form the Lunar Inner Core in about ten years.” Liu Yunxi nibbled at her bun, her narrowed eyes curving into crescents. The Lunar Inner Core was something even thousand-year-old great demons could only dream of. When she thought of it that way, perhaps this life of repaying karmic debts was not so terrible after all.

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Just as Liu Yunxi was quietly reassuring herself, Feng Xue, who was eating his bun, suddenly asked, “By the way, are you really unable to use human primordial energy?”

Liu Yunxi, who had been savoring the taste on her tongue, froze at once. Then she shook her head decisively.

“I can’t use it. Absolutely not! Any demon that needs primordial energy to cultivate is an evil demon that eats people. I intend to attain the righteous path!”

“Oh…” Feng Xue shook his head. He had also wanted to ask about methods for refining a bonded magical weapon, but since he still could not manipulate his magical power with precision and had no suitable treasure to serve as the weapon’s foundation, he abandoned the thought.

Seeing the regret on Feng Xue’s face, Liu Yunxi’s eyes shifted.

Although the house was already quite large, the primordial energy that overflowed from Feng Xue whenever he cultivated still interfered with her own practice. Every night, she now had to cultivate on the rooftop diagonally opposite his bedroom to avoid being affected by it. And this was only the beginning. In a few years, would she have to run several miles away merely to escape the surging tides of his primordial energy?

As for fleeing altogether, she had never once considered it. After all, she bore the Word-Seal.

To put it plainly, the Word-Seal was much like a loan. Under the witness of Humanity’s Spiritual Providence, humans lent their own spiritual providence to demons so that the demons could assume human form. Afterward, the demons had to repay that “karma” through various means.

When an ordinary person borrowed money and fled without repaying the debt, the creditor would demand payment from the guarantor. But Humanity’s Spiritual Providence, acting as guarantor, did not even need the creditor to come knocking—it simply went straight to the indebted demon to collect.

What was more, this “karma” accrued interest over time. It was not difficult to understand. If one borrowed good fortune from a young person, even a very small amount, then the benefits that person would originally have gained from that good fortune during the course of their growth would be diminished. Naturally, the karmic debt would grow larger and larger.

Liu Yunxi had even heard from Granny Fox Immortal about one unfortunate fellow who still had not finished repaying his debt by the time the master who had bestowed his seal died of old age. When that master was reincarnated, the debt only grew larger.

There were all kinds of ways to repay it. The orthodox methods included performing good deeds, accumulating virtue, and secretly protecting one’s benefactor. A more worldly approach was to repay the debt with wealth. And some people simply gave up altogether, offering themselves in marriage and bearing litter after litter of children to settle the account.

Whatever the method, one fundamental rule had to be observed: providing timely aid to those in need.

If one repaid a poor farmer with gold and silver, substantially improving his living conditions, the debt repaid would be considerable. But if one gave gold and silver to a wealthy man, it would amount to little more than paying interest.

And Liu Yunxi had clearly reached the point of no return—

Because she had borrowed far too much.

Though Liu Yunxi did not understand how Feng Xue could keep increasing the amount he lent her, the fact remained that by the time she realized this talent had not come for free, her mountain of debt had already grown so high that even the interest was beyond her ability to repay.

Why had she resisted helping Feng Xue cultivate so fiercely?

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Perhaps at first it had merely been because she did not want to become a furnace vessel, nor have all her cultivation turned into kindling for someone else’s advancement. But now, she almost wished she had agreed to become one from the very beginning.

With the debt she had accumulated, even if she agreed to help Feng Xue cultivate in order to repay it, becoming a furnace vessel would not be enough. She could let him strip her flesh, draw out her marrow, and refine her soul, and it still would not suffice.

Thus Liu Yunxi could only maintain the appearance of someone who absolutely refused to accept anything, while remaining ready whenever Feng Xue called. For now, she would perform odd jobs and pay back a little interest. Once she attained the righteous path, she would naturally have countless ways to settle the karma.

Until then, she absolutely could not accept anything beyond what the Word-Seal itself required. If she also took cultivation resources—in other words, primordial energy—from Feng Xue, then even if she attained the righteous path, part of her spiritual rank would belong to him. And she would no longer be able to use it to repay the debt.

For a mere forty-four-year-old little demon to bear a colossal debt capable of crushing even a thousand-year-old great demon, Liu Yunxi could only sigh inwardly before continuing to coast along. What was borrowed was already borrowed, and she could not repay it anyway. Rather than be declared bankrupt by Humanity’s Spiritual Providence and subjected to compulsory enforcement, she might as well borrow a little more. The sooner she attained the righteous path, the sooner she could repay the debt.

Still, she really did have to find a way to deal with all that primordial energy.

Liu Yunxi pondered for a moment, then suddenly had an idea.

“If you truly have more primordial energy than you can use, why not raise a ghost? They love primordial energy. The two at the Fox Immortal Shrine were pretty good before…”

“Good idea. But not those two. I have a thing about spiritual cleanliness. Using public property for private purposes is unacceptable.”

Feng Xue spoke words Liu Yunxi did not understand, but inwardly he was considering whether the idea was feasible.

Among the spells he had obtained from Ninth Aunt, both Ghost Taming and Nightmare Prayer required him to raise ghosts. Calling Things, if he wanted it to summon objects at a moment’s notice, also required the assistance of a ghost. Besides, if he had a ghost in hand, he could put all the primordial energy he wasted to good use.

As for why he did not capture the two evil ghosts from the Fox Immortal Shrine, it was not truly because of some spiritual-cleanliness obsession. It was simply that they had already gone astray.

According to the Ghost-Taming Charm, the best method was to find a weak, wandering spirit and imprint it first. After that, one had to tame it like a hawk, feeding it only the tamer’s own primordial energy and magical power so that it would remember the tamer’s aura. Only then could it be controlled with ease, without making it likely to turn on its master.

A ghost in the wild that had already tasted meat and fed on human beings could never truly be domesticated, no matter how much one tried to correct or educate it.