Chapter 42: Stop randomly stamping seals all over other people's paintings!

After dinner, looking at the heavy night outside the window and the gradually drifting moonlight, Liu Yunxi turned her head to glance at Feng Xue, who had returned to busy himself in front of the altar. Finally, she gritted her teeth and said,

"I am going to harvest the moonlight. Let me know when you need to cultivate! Make sure you don't flood the entire house with light again out of nowhere!"

"Got it, got it." Engrossed in grinding traits, Feng Xue watched as traits like 【Fire Transformation】, 【Lightning Transformation】, 【Metal Transformation】, 【Wind Transformation】, 【Connection】, 【Replacement】, 【Identity Discrimination】, 【Extraction】... increased one after another. He was in a state of absolute euphoria.

It started with the property changes based on the 【Lightning Summoning Incantation】, and then grew increasingly complex. Until he finished all the modular mana operation processes, Feng Xue felt it hard to resist the pleasure, akin to a complete-collection gamer watching the blank spaces in an illustrated guide get filled in bit by bit.

As long as his cheat successfully triggered once—even for the most insignificant fraction of a second, no matter how clumsy and crude—it could be permanently fixed. This allowed Feng Xue, while locking in the trait, to achieve the maximum precision currently attainable by his soul—

Yes, it was his own limit, not the limit of the spells. He only realized this after noticing his spirit-attachment time increasing while crafting magical artifacts.

Once Feng Xue completely abandoned "slow practice" and instead pursued "succeeding at least once even if purely by coincidence," in just six hours, all the traits among the eighteen spells that could be achieved without fine-tuning were successfully acquired.

And Feng Xue finally snapped out of the high of filling the guide.

He let out a huge yawn, but instead of starting his cultivation or simply going to sleep as usual, he locked his lifespan again, set up another ritual altar, burned incense, and lit candles. He placed the pieces of jade emitting various magical auras along with the seal engraved with ritual scripts in front of the altar, and only then took out the scroll harboring the spirit ghost.

If the target were any other entity, Feng Xue would definitely have asked Liu Yunxi to stand guard. But spirit ghosts, or rather the vast majority of ghosts and spirits, were different.

Because ghosts beneath the crimson attire primarily relied on illusions and ghostly qi erosion, their physical interference capabilities were even inferior to those of a child. Moreover, once Feng Xue locked his lifespan, this kind of ability—where succeeding in the resistance rendered the attack invalid, and failing meant losing lifespan—was practically a free gift. Not to mention a spirit ghost that had never tasted blood, even a red-eyed fierce ghost would be forced by Feng Xue to experience the sensation of bathing in solar vital energy without being able to take even an inch of it.

"Must not overthink, must not overthink, stay calm, stay calm..."

Taking a deep breath, Feng Xue banished the images popping up in his mind, circulated his visualization technique, and as his soul—which was gradually starting to deviate from a perfect circle—emitted a brilliant glow like the rising and falling of breath, his emotions gradually calmed down.

Then, he picked up the seal, but after pausing for a moment in a daze, he put it down again, reached into his robe, and took out a... magnifying glass.

***

"As expected of someone in this line of work, the preparation is truly thorough."

Clamping the single-lens high-magnification magnifying glass, commonly used for gemstone and cultural relic appraisal and gifted by the owner of Moyu Pavilion, onto his left eye, Feng Xue searched for the "immortal in the painting" within the rather small landscape scroll.

Although Feng Xue possessed the supernatural ability 【Gaze Upon Heavenly Lifespan】, it could only reveal the lifespan of "living beings." Deceased people, stones, ghosts, and the like could not be anchored by the ability. Although the over-the-shoulder perspective could capture the traces of ghosts, without the ability to highlight them in red, it was somewhat difficult to spot a distinct ink dot amidst a splash-ink landscape painting.

Fortunately, this spirit ghost seemed keen on role-playing within the painting and did not change her position when being observed. After a round of carpet-style scanning, Feng Xue finally spotted the figure standing on a mountain peak, almost blending seamlessly with the splashing ink. Yet, just like in the illusion, she ultimately failed to truly merge with the scroll.

"Very good!"

Feng Xue locked onto the image with his right eye—the one without the magnifying glass—then removed the magnifier. Keeping his gaze fixed dead on that ink dot, he began to channel his mana outward toward the two candles.

Ordinarily, one should pace the Dipper steps and pinch magical seals to guide the mana into forming ritual scripts. However, Feng Xue had long since carved the command talisman of the Ghost-Driving Incantation into that jade seal beforehand. As mana poured in, a pattern resembling an abstract snowflake lit up on the face of the seal. Grasping the seal in one hand, Feng Xue began to chant the incantation—

"Spirits and sprites, names unknown, I grant thee covenant, come to my altar court..."

As mentioned earlier, Dao-achieved mysterious cultivators could use ritual altars to connect heaven and earth, mobilizing the primordial clear qi and aspiration power of the Great Source. Every single mobilization would leave "memories" in the spiritual mechanism of humanity.

Cultivators who had not yet achieved the Dao could replicate this process by imitating Dao-achieved cultivators through the spiritual mechanism of humanity, thereby completing spells that required the participation of aspiration power. It felt somewhat like a child withdrawing money using an adult's bank card and password.

Perhaps it was initially nothing more than "theft," but as everyone discovered the convenience of this system, many accomplished senior practitioners would deliberately make every ritual of theirs formulaic and set up a password system to make it easier for juniors to imitate. This set of passwords, summarized, was the so-called "fasting and offering liturgy." However, because the more the spiritual mechanism of humanity was used, the deeper the memory became, and the better the replication effect, some non-secret public incantations spread everywhere. And the 《Ghost-Driving Incantation》 that Feng Xue was chanting at the moment was one of the most widely circulated ones.

As Feng Xue chanted, he distinctly felt a transformation taking place within his mana. Only, this transformation was far too complex, far from being as single-faceted as 【Jade Transformation】 or 【Lightning Transformation】; instead, it was much more perceptual. If one had to describe it in words, it was a kind of "contract containing a massive amount of information."

Even though it was his first time using it, Feng Xue knew what should be done at this moment!

"Those who follow me shall be blessed, those who oppose me shall perish; assist me in attaining the Dao, aid me in accomplishing truth..."

***

Continuing to chant the incantation, Feng Xue poured all the mana infused with aspiration power into the seal. As the snowflake mark flared with brilliant light, without a second thought, he pressed it down toward the location within the scroll!

"Hum!"

A silent sense of vibration rippled from the scroll the moment Feng Xue made his move. Clearly, there was no physical resistance, but Feng Xue found that his mana seal, no matter what, simply could not press down onto the surface of the scroll.

However, Feng Xue did not feel the slightest bit of tension, because this situation was also recorded in the 《Ghost-Driving》 secret manual!

Weak ghosts could ultimately only utilize the power of illusion. Right now, this so-called inability to press down was merely the spirit ghost using illusions to deceive Feng Xue, making him think he had encountered a barrier!

Having thoroughly read the 《Ghost-Driving》 secret manual several times before taking action, he had deliberately chosen a spot against the wall to set up his altar and perform the ritual. At this moment, he simply kicked his right leg backward, bracing his heel firmly against the wall behind him. With force rising from the roots, his entire body's weight pressed down accordingly.

Illusions could only affect Feng Xue's perception, but when combined with the force of Earth's gravity, even if Feng Xue felt the seal couldn't go down, gravity would help him stamp it!

The original illusion vanished in that instant. Feng Xue's seal, which had already been touching the scroll, had somehow lifted a few inches higher, but his entire leaning body was destined not to stop. At that very moment, however, a ball of spiritual light actually flew out from the scroll.

Simultaneously, it was accompanied by an extremely angry rebuke—

"Stop indiscriminately stamping seals on other people's paintings!" (Note ①)