“Simple. We first need to strengthen our Spiritual Power, which requires consuming the spirits of various items. The types of spirits needed depends on the individual. I, for example, only needs the spirits of cloth and armor, and can’t absorb anything else.

After we have strengthened our power sufficiently, we need to form five Spiritual Flowers within us, which would absorb all leftover Spiritual Power to bloom and bear a single fruit. If we succeed, we enter the second phase, which we call Spiritual Fruit.”

San Bu paused, seemingly waiting for Lu Sheng to process the information.

“After that is the third phase. If the Spiritual Fruit sprouts and grows into a sapling, it would extend many branches to cover itself, forming a new body. This is the Final Form.

“After Final Form, most ordinary Protectors would have reached their limit. Only very few of us could continue to evolve and improve. The strongest among us could even reach 4th, 5th, or 6th tier. The difference between tiers is vast. The legends even tells of someone above the 9th tier, the King of Living Spirit.” San Bu’s tone was filled with envy.

“Got it… You can go rest now.” Lu Sheng nodded.

He got all the information he needed. If Deep Blue recognized it, that meant his body had truly gained control of the Spiritual Power even though he couldn’t sense it.

Unsensible meant uncontrollable, but as long as Deep Blue could evolve it, it was enough. Everything else could be solved by dumping Mental Energy into it.

Lu Sheng lacked many things at the moment, but his Mental Energy was in abundant supply!

If it hadn’t been for the big investment for Death Blaze, he would’ve had several times more Mental Energy than he had now.

After San Bu left, Lu Sheng packed his room, cleared all signs of the ceremony, then walked out after making sure everything was in order. A servant was waiting outside already.

The servants in the villa would be switched out regularly to prevent secrets from being leaked.

The door to the courtyard opened with a creak. Lu Sheng looked at the maid Shui Lu waiting by the door.

“What time is it?”

Shui Lu blanked out, then looked toward the sky before hurriedly answering.

“About… about the 3rd hour?” This place separated each day into 12 ‘ hours ¹ ‘, though they used numbers for them.

The 3rd hour meant the 3rd hour of the day, which was 6 in the morning.

Lu Sheng nodded, and was about to walk out.

“Young Master, would you like breakfast? I will bring you the menu!” Shui Lu asked hurriedly.

“No need. I’m just taking a stroll.” Lu Sheng smiled.

“Of course… of course…” Shui Lu was afraid to say more, and lowered her head.

Lu Sheng left his own courtyard, and started to walk along the walkway toward the back of the villa.

The Liancao Hall was on the last row. The family usually held ceremonies there, but that wasn’t where Lu Sheng want to go.

He planned to see what this seal of evil spirits actually looked like.

He opened Deep Blue, and clicked the modify button as he walked, starting the evolution of the Unknown Spiritual Power Technique.

As expected, the Unknown Spiritual Power Technique rapidly broke through the Basic level and entered the Stable level. Two units of Mental Energy were expended.

On top of that, Lu Sheng was pleasantly surprised to find that his body stopped feeling that throbbing pain as his Spiritual Power improved. That meant there was even more room to strengthen his physical body now.

He immediately decided that he should prioritize Spiritual Power and pile Mental Energy onto it.

It was a several hundred meters walk from his living quarters all the way to the back of his villa, but for Lu Sheng, that several hundred meters allowed his Spiritual Power to go from the Basic level to the Spiritual Fruit level.

After basic, there were Stable, Sub-mastery, Full-mastery, Limit. When he evolved even further, the Spiritual Power somehow started to circulate in a special pattern that Lu Sheng never imagined before. As it circulated rapidly, a Spiritual Flower started to form in the empty air one inch outside of his chest.

A total of five flowers, which Lu Sheng could actually see, appeared. He vaguely saw five clear flowers float in front of the empty air in front of his chest as if that space had become a part of him.

Lu Sheng wanted to continue to evolve more, but realized to his surprise that although he still had plenty of Mental Energy left, the evolve button had disappeared.

He was forced to give up. It might be that all of his previous experience and knowledge weren’t enough to extrapolate a way to continue the evolution since this was a brand-new system.

He couldn’t completely follow the example of Protectors, either, since they had a completely different body structure.

“Bam.”

Lu Sheng pushed open the ancient tightly shut door leading into an old mansion within the villa.

The old mansion, hidden within the Purple Smoke Villa, was where the evil spirits were sealed.

When the door was pushed open, two tall men wearing silver white armor standing on both sides came into view. Both held a cup of tea as they chatted.

When the door suddenly opened and they saw that it was Lu Sheng, they were both surprised at first, but quickly sighed in relief.

“Young Lord, why are you here so early? If some evil spirit escaped, you don’t have the evil-warding armor for protection, unlike us.” The guard to the left frowned, and said in a low voice, “Hurry and go back. This is not a place you should visit.”

Lu Sheng’s eyes looked past them, and saw the pitch-black hole in the ground. It looked as if something had slammed into the floor.

“Where is my dad?”

“The Villa Lord visited last night, and took care of the escaping evil spirits. Everything went quite smoothly,” the guard answered.

“Thank you for your hard work. I have brought a Protector too, and want to check the situation down there.” Lu Sheng smiled.

“Young Lord, you must be joking. You haven’t held a ceremony yet, and even if you managed to establish a contract with a Protector in private, the strength of the summon is far from enough. Please go back, this place is truly dangerous…” The two guards continued trying to persuade him. Luckily, they took care of a leak incident last night, and evil spirits didn’t escape very often; hence, they didn’t resort to force to try and stop Lu Sheng.

“It’s fine. Evil spirits don’t escape that frequently, right?” Lu Sheng smiled.

“Young Lord…” The guard to the right wanted to say more, but Lu Sheng suddenly charged forward and jumped into the pitch-black hole before he could blink.

The two guards looked at each other. They didn’t react fast enough to follow.

“So be it. We did just take care of the evil spirits last night, and the recorded smallest gap was three days. Never had there been an incident every two days or every day. He should be fine.” One guard smiled wearily.

“I could sense the Protector around the young lord, so he should be fine. Sigh…”

Both guards didn’t know what to do. It was too late to stop him when he jumped in.

***

Inside the damp, dark cave beneath.

Lu Sheng counted the oil lamps along the wall while calculating how far he had walked. The oil lamps were placed in equal distances from each other, making them a perfect reference.

The cave was pitch-black, and a thick layer of black sand covered the ground, making a crisp, crunching noise as he walked on it.

Lu Sheng slightly breathed in the secent in the air, while his spirit expanded all around to sense the change in the environment.

A faint sense of familiarity rose in his mind.

‘ This is the aura… of the evil creatures within the Gate of Illusion in the Eastern Sea?’ He instantly remembered why the aura was familiar.

‘If they are the same, this would be very difficult… ‘ Lu Sheng frowned.

The evil creatures within the Gate of Illusion were horrifyingly powerful, probably at Weapon Grandmaster level. Otherwise, the powerful Weapon Grandmasters could very well enter the Gate of Illusion and take care of the evil creatures once and for all instead of sending people to guard it.

Lu Sheng thought about it as he walked, a slight fear of this seal forming in his mind.

If one could see into his heart, they would see that Lu Sheng’s true body within the heart was tightly holding the black raven figurine in one hand, ready to shatter it at any time.

“Crunch… crunch… crunch….”

He walked forward step by step, and lost track of time. Finally, the path ended, and a 10 meters or so tall bronze door appeared in front of him.

Dark clouds, flying fish, and tree leaves were carved into the door. Its edge was engraved with a circle of white skeletal hands, and looked as if a giant arm was hugging the door from afar.

Lu Sheng walked in front of the door, and noticed that the door was slightly open somehow, exposing a finger-wide crack.

 ‘Another bronze door…’ He again thought back to the bronze door under the Golden Ruins that led to the World of Pain.

At this point, the aura of evil creatures filled the air. Lu Sheng could sense the looming aura of evil in the air even if he closed his eyes.

 ‘If Spiritual Power could suppress this Evil Qi… then…’ Lu Sheng reached out with his hand, and lightly pressed onto the bronze door.

“Boom!!”

As soon as he came into contact with the door, something exploded in his mind. Vast, even infinite, amounts of Mental Energy madly flowed into his body like water from an enormous dam that had cracked instantly.

The maddening amount of Mental Energy flowed into Lu Sheng in a torrent, and was immediately sucked up by Deep Blue like a thirsty wheel, then stored into the space in his chest.

“Crack…”

Slowly, the bronze door opened even more, and the crack became big enough for Lu Sheng to step through.

By then, the torrent of Mental Energy finally stopped.

Lu Sheng slowly recovered from the shock, and looked at the cracked door. He hesitated for a moment, but still stepped through the crack with determination.

Inside was a wide space that looked like the great hall of a palace. A muscular man sat on the cruel-looking black throne facing straight toward the door.

The man’s eyes were closed as if he was asleep. He wore a pitch-black tight-fitting armor that had stars and the sun and moon embroidered on it. His posture was straight, and countless scratches and dents could be seen on his armor. It was obvious he had experienced countless battles before.

“Finally, after all these years, another human that can contain Spiritual Power has found his way here…” The man didn’t open his eyes nor his mouth, but the voice still rang clearly in Lu Sheng’s head.

“Who are you?” Lu Sheng stood in front of the door, prepared to shatter the raven figurine at any time.

“Me?” The man’s lips tilted upward into a strange, soft smile. “I’m only a failure. A failure that was sealed here for countless years.”

The language he spoke was strange, and sounded like a laid encore that combined syllables of every language Lu Sheng knew. Strangely, he still understood exactly what it was trying to say. Yet, it wasn’t purely sent to the mind, either.

“You let me in, does that mean you have something that I should do?” Lu Sheng asked calmly. He didn’t think this mysterious man would randomly open the door for him.

It was the place where the evil spirits were sealed, not some random park.

“Are you not afraid?” The man sound a little strange. “Oh, that must be it… you have a strange aura about you… that’s similar to… a Heavenly Devil… But how come you still have a clear mind after being possessed by a Heavenly Devil? And cultivate Spiritual Power? How strange…”

Lu Sheng calmly waited for him to get to the point, and stood in front of the door silently.

“Heavenly Devils couldn’t be completely killed, yet they are still part of you. You on the other hand… are very strange… the Heavenly Devil looks more like your true form,” the man said with curiosity.

“Is that so?” Lu Sheng was prepared to leave.

“Don’t be afraid. I won’t harm you.” The man smiled. “The evil spirits are all here as parts of my seal. They might be a disaster for mortals, but the few that do escape pose no threat to you.”

“Just tell me what I need to do,” Lu Sheng said calmly. He couldn’t sense the depth of this man at all, nor how powerful he was. But, he did have the strange feeling that he was facing the vastness of space, similar to back when he first saw the Eight-Headed Griffon.

His gut told him to never anger him, or there would be unforeseeable consequences.

“It’s simple. I admire your style. You are quite similar to me years back, and I wanted to chat with you,” the man said, which left Lu Sheng speechless.

“Is ‘I’m busy’ an acceptable response to that?” Lu Sheng said wearily.

The man smiled slightly, and continued, “Relax, I will tell you a secret in exchange for your company.”

“Secret?”

“Yes… A secret about you Heavenly Devils. An important secret that could allow you to see the situation you are truly in…”