"Heh! Gathering souls to restore its power?"
This Gege-wu, which was suspected of having fallen from the Morning Star realm, was likely trying to collect a massive number of human souls to restore its former strength.
As an artificial amalgamation of resentment, the Gege-wu didn't need to advance its Spiritual Power through meditation like a
Once it had collected enough souls, it would naturally recover its original strength.
On the South Coast, this would inevitably be a catastrophe!
For the Gege-wu to restore Morning Star-level power, it would need at least thirty million ordinary human souls—a number that was nearly a third of all mortals on the South Coast. Neither Dark Wizards nor Light Wizards would ever agree to that.
And what the Gege-wu would do after restoring its power was anyone's guess.
Leylin sneered. "But what does that have to do with me? Let the leaders of the Dark and Light Wizards deal with that headache!"
He wasn't some saint, nor was he one of those lunatics from the Jenna family who took it upon themselves to maintain world peace.
With the memory of the old ghost's guidance from his last visit, Leylin was now thoroughly familiar with the town's streets. He walked through the now-desolate town center and arrived at the same two-story wooden villa from before.
The location had always been rather remote, the doorframe covered in cobwebs and dust, and now it looked even more decrepit and dilapidated—as if a gentle breeze could bring the whole thing crashing down.
Leylin was, of course, not deceived by such outward appearances. He extended a finger, and a small ball of white light trembled at its tip.
Hummm!
It seemed the ball of light in Leylin's hand had triggered some kind of resonance. Hidden runes crawled out from the crevices like ants, making their way to Leylin's feet.
"The concealment barrier I set up last time is still here?"
Leylin was somewhat surprised. He then made his way to the villa's second floor. At the end of the corridor, there had once been a painting of a noblewoman in court dress—the entrance to the secret realm—but it had long since been destroyed by Leylin.
"This secret realm is only a small one, so the spatial barrier isn't all that powerful. If it had been a super-sized resource secret realm like the Ganges Secret Realm, that Gege-wu probably would have been trapped inside to its death."
Leylin reached out with his right hand, running it along the dark, rough wall.
On the wall, there was an additional layer of fine, ashy-black residue. Running a palm across it produced a subtle, gritty sensation.
Leylin's expression grew solemn. On the wall, besides detecting traces of his own fire element particle damage, he had also sensed an extra layer of spiritual force!
This power was extremely faint—without careful attention, one would never notice it. It gave Leylin a vague sense of familiarity.
"This blend of every kind of soul energy, brimming with chaotic, malevolent thoughts! There's no mistake—it's the soul imprint left by that Gegewu! It's already gotten out…"
Although his intelligence had already suggested the possibility, seeing actual evidence with his own eyes still eased the tightness in Leylin's chest.
"So it also set up an early-warning ward? It must have been waiting for me…"
Leylin chuckled. The precautions this Gegewu had laid down were quite covert. But that only applied to ordinary Wizards. The previous Leylin might have had some chance of detecting them through the Chip, and now, with his strength at the second rank, this Gegewu's little arrangement was completely exposed.
This was simply because Leylin had progressed too quickly, while the Gegewu was still judging him based on his strength the last time they had met. Naturally, such miscalculations were bound to happen.
"Chip! Scan!" Leylin murmured.
Immediately, an invisible ripple of scanning waves swept across the wall. After Leylin's advancement to second-rank Warlock, the Chip had seemingly received a major upgrade as well—the scanning task that would have taken time before was now completed in an instant.
"Detected concealed Spiritual Power, assessed as left by a second-rank Wizard-level entity! Classification: Ancient Soul Ward, Type Two Sensing Model. Decryption protocol…" The Chip reported faithfully.
Within the Chip's database, Leylin had accumulated a vast collection of books and documents. After seizing control of the Ganges Secret Realm headquarters, he had further reviewed every resource he could get his hands on and recorded it all into the Chip's library. The current Leylin could truly be called a polymath—one of the very few the entire South Coast could scarcely produce.
A slender thread of silver Spiritual Power emerged from the space between Leylin's brows, radiating a distinctive luster that was at once powerful and enigmatic. It hovered and spiraled through the air before coalescing into a twisted Wizard rune that pressed itself against the wall.
Crack! With a sound like something shattering, the sensing ward the Gegewu had set up was completely destroyed.
As a second-rank Warlock himself, dismantling this arrangement was trivially easy for Leylin—and without alerting the other party in the slightest.
"Substantiated Spiritual Power! Its might really is formidable indeed!"
Leylin felt the firmness and terrifying potency of his Spiritual Power thread, and a smile crept across his lips.
Unlike a first-rank Wizard, a second-rank Wizard had already ascended to a higher realm. At this level, one could extensively reshape one's own body, acquire all manner of extraordinary abilities, and the basic path and its branches had already been firmly established, allowing one to delve ever deeper within one's chosen domain.
There was one ability, however, that every second-rank Wizard was required to master: Spiritual Power substantiation!
It meant transforming the intangible, ethereal Spiritual Power into the most fundamental energy particles of the real world, rendering it fully manifest.
This process of substantiation could only be performed after elevating the elemental composition of one's Spiritual Power to over 80%, and the substantiated Spiritual Power was vastly superior to ordinary Spiritual Power in its ability to draw upon ambient energy particles. Moreover, it served as the cornerstone for a second-rank Wizard's future advancement to the third rank!
For a second-rank Wizard to break through to the third rank, besides meeting the requirement for total Spiritual Power volume, the degree of substantiation also needed to be raised to a very high level.
Although Lei Lin's Spiritual Power substantiation had only just begun, he had already discovered the benefits of these substantiated spiritual particles.
When Wizards cast spells, they essentially used their own Spiritual Power as a catalyst. Through the amplification and transformation of a spell template, they drew upon the energy particles in the surrounding air.
Now, with the catalyst—his Spiritual Power—strengthened, the power of any spell he cast would be enhanced!
Therefore, even if a second-rank Wizard only used a first-rank spell, its resulting potency would far surpass that of a first-rank Wizard.
"A spell formation to break through the spatial barrier... Fortunately, I came prepared!"
After repelling Gegewu's Spiritual Power, Lei Lin examined the destroyed entrance to the secret realm before him, took a quick look around, and began pulling various items from his spatial pouch to set up an arrangement.
Through several instances of extortion and plundering previously, Lei Lin had amassed a staggering amount of top-tier resources that would leave even a second-rank Wizard envious. He had nearly filled his
Lei Lin moved swiftly, continuously extracting various brightly colored ores and strange objects from his pouch and placing them on the ground. Using a silvery powder, he traced out the triangular shape of a spell formation on the earth.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
His right hand formed into a claw, instantly gouging out several regular indentations at key energy nodes of the formation.
Immediately after, his left hand pressed various ores and energy crystals onto these nodes.
Crack!
One by one, crystalline threads, each radiating a different hue, sprouted from within the ores at the energy nodes. Like flowing water, they quickly filled the entire spell formation.
The formation seemed to come alive, trembling slightly as it began to emit a hazy, shimmering glow.
Numerous transparent distortions started to appear in the air above the formation.
Within these distortions, tiny red specks of light flickered constantly, like fireflies dancing in the twists.
"Next, I need to pinpoint the location of the secret realm!"
Lei Lin closed his eyes, recalling the memory of his last breakthrough into the Soul-Slaughtering Sect's secret realm. He began searching for that familiar wisp of presence amidst the vast array of spatial distortions.
Countless red points of light flickered in and out — these were all kinds of strange weak points in space. If he picked the wrong one, Lei Lin would instantly be lost in the spatial turbulence and ground to dust by the immense spatial forces!
At that moment, a dark crimson point of light suddenly surfaced, and upon it was a jumbled soul aura that Lei Lin recognized all too well!
There! Lei Lin's eyes snapped open, and a streak of silver lightning seemed to flash through his pupils!
"Right here!"
"Excalibur!" Lei Lin's right hand closed around empty air and slashed forward with savage force!
In a flicker of silver radiance, a slender longsword exuding a translucent sheen materialized in his grip.
The narrow blade struck the surface of that dark crimson point of light with pinpoint precision.
Crack!
Like a bolt of lightning, the dark crimson point of light shattered, forming a pitch-black passage.
Lei Lin charged in without a moment's hesitation.
After a dizzying blur of disorientation, Lei Lin found himself once again inside the Soul-Slaughtering Sect's secret realm.
"Ugh!" Lei Lin steadied himself with a hand on his forehead. "Opening a spatial passage on my own really is a hassle — these chaotic spatial currents are tough to handle..."
He then took stock of his surroundings.
The location was not far from where he had entered last time, and Lei Lin vaguely recognized the area. But unlike before, the environment now looked as though it had been ravaged by a Category 10-plus hurricane — devastation was everywhere.
"Gegewu really tore this place apart! I hope the teleportation array is still intact!"
Lei Lin thought for a moment, then suddenly sat cross-legged on the ground.
Hiss! Behind him, billowing masses of black mist rose up, coalescing into swarms of small black snakes with crimson eyes.
"Go," Lei Lin said softly.
At his command, the swarms of black snakes began slithering outward in every direction at remarkable speed, while Lei Lin closed his eyes and used his Spiritual Power to sense everything within the secret realm.
Thanks to the secret-realm map he had recorded during his last visit, this exploration would be far simpler.