novelraw Chapter 22 : Chapter 22
Chapter 22 : Chapter 22
Chapter 22: The Black Mud Monster
The principle behind this Evolution Formation was to accumulate a sufficient quantity of yin energy inside Mo Ling’s body. But there was a crucial point involved: liking places rich in yin energy and directly enduring yin energy being poured into one’s body were two completely different things.
It was like how some insects liked living near volcanic craters. If you truly threw them straight into lava, they would be reduced to ashes in the blink of an eye.
That was why the core of the Yin-Gathering Formation Lin Bai had set up lay in “guidance” rather than “infusion.” It allowed the pure yin energy to seep into Mo Ling’s body like a trickling stream, slow and steady, avoiding the disaster of a raging flood.
As for the Phosphor Fireflies he had fed her earlier, they were a second layer of protection. These little creatures had unusual medicinal properties. Once inside Mo Ling’s body, they would transform into a gentle warm current that protected her heart meridians and channels, resisting the erosion of yin energy.
Otherwise, no matter how slow and pure the yin energy output of the formation might be, drawing it directly into the body would still be little different from courting death.
With all preparations complete, Lin Bai took a deep breath and watched as Mo Ling beat her wings and flew into the center of the formation.
The formation sensed the talisman carried on Mo Ling’s body and was activated in an instant. Lin Bai could clearly feel the cold yin aura diffusing through the room begin to gather toward the floor, flowing slowly along the intricate formation lines.
Then the formation on the ground resonated with the talisman on Mo Ling’s body. The formation diagram on the floor began to squirm and completed the final pentagram talisman on its own.
That talisman and the one on Mo Ling’s body were two halves of the same whole. The formation transmitted yin energy to Mo Ling through the pentagram talisman, while Mo Ling absorbed that yin energy through the talisman on her body.
It worked!
Lin Bai’s spirits lifted. At this point, he no longer even needed to sense it deliberately. With the naked eye alone, he could see a faint gray thread of yin energy steadily linking the formation to Mo Ling.
As the pure yin energy continuously invaded her body, Mo Ling’s small frame visibly trembled, and she sent Lin Bai a sharp sense of discomfort through their soul link.
Lin Bai noticed it at once and quickly soothed her with his thoughts.
“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. Just endure it a little longer, little one. It’ll be over soon.”
Mo Ling truly lived up to being a Dark Crow King with three Traits. Her intelligence was extremely high. She understood that this ritual concerned the evolution of her bloodline, so she forcibly endured the pain. She neither moved about wildly nor cried out.
After all, to a Spirit Beast, the chance to evolve its bloodline was worth giving up its life for, much less a bit of pain and discomfort.
Fortunately, the Phosphor Fireflies Lin Bai had just fed her began to take effect. As time passed, their medicinal properties started to clash with the yin energy inside Mo Ling’s body, then transformed into a warm current that gradually wrapped around her body.
Through the dark crow emblem in his Sea of Consciousness, Lin Bai could clearly sense that Mo Ling’s discomfort was no longer as severe.
The first step had finally been completed smoothly. What came next was seven days of painstaking effort.
Lin Bai did not dare grow careless in the slightest. He sat down cross-legged on the floor, regulating his breathing while staring fixedly at the formation’s operation. Mo Ling, meanwhile, remained seated motionless within the formation as yin energy continued to accumulate inside her body. Man and beast fell into a strange state of stillness.
The two of them thus shared this rare moment. Unfortunately, this was an evolution ritual, not a holiday. Whether it was Lin Bai or Mo Ling, both kept their minds taut, without the slightest trace of relaxation.
Over the next two days, Lin Bai did nothing but feed Mo Ling Phosphor Fireflies at fixed times each day. Fortunately, with Lin Bai’s current physique and mental state, going seven days without sleep was a trivial matter.
There were no knocks or pounding at the door during those two days either, and Lin Bai had thought his luck was not bad.
On the third night, Lin Bai sat quietly inside the room. Through the soul link between him and Mo Ling, he could sense the accumulation of yin energy within her body, along with the condition of her frame.
Suddenly, Lin Bai noticed a fluctuation in the yin energy. At the same time, a faint sound of wind reached his ears, making him frown.
This room was completely sealed, and it also contained some basic formations. One of them was bound to be a Soundproofing Rune or something similar, so how could there be wind?
Whenever something abnormal happened, there was bound to be something sinister at work. Most likely, some unclean thing had already crept near his room. It simply had not yet intruded, which was why his senses had not immediately locked onto it.
Lin Bai opened his eyes and observed carefully. Then, all of a sudden, he heard a knock at the door.
Thunk...
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The knocking gradually grew louder and louder, quickly turning into violent pounding.
Lin Bai signaled to Mo Ling to remain at ease inside the formation, then quietly rose and went to inspect the door.
The seemingly ordinary wooden door did not budge in the slightest, as if that deafening pounding were nothing more than his imagination. But Lin Bai was absolutely certain that the source of the sound was right there.
“How strange,” he muttered under his breath.
On the surface, he was still calm. But though he had lived two lives, this was the first time he might truly have to face something like a ghost. It was inevitable that his scalp prickled. This was humanity’s instinctive awe toward the unknown.
Still, as long as it was only knocking, both Lin Bai and Mo Ling could endure it.
And the mountain watchman had clearly said that it was best not to go outside at night. Lin Bai had always been the sort to heed good advice.
So he remained there, confronting it through the door. Fortunately, after pounding for nearly half a shichen, that ghostly thing seemed to grow bored and gradually retreated before finally disappearing.
On the fourth night, that maddening pounding arrived right on schedule.
Just as before, it knocked without end for half the night. This time, the fear in Lin Bai’s heart had lessened considerably, replaced instead by a surge of rising anger.
Even a clay figure had a measure of temper. This “knocking ghost” just would not stop. Did it really take him for some soft persimmon?
And Lin Bai had an instinctive sense that this knocking ghost had probably fixed its sights on him. By tomorrow night, it likely would not stop at merely pounding on the door.
He just did not know whether he himself was unlucky, or whether everyone who came here had to go through something like this. Lin Bai leaned more toward the latter, since the mountain watchman’s warning meant this had happened before.
But that no longer mattered. If the ghost outside dared come in, then Lin Bai would have no choice but to use his fists to teach it a few principles.
Sure enough, on the fifth day, the knocking came again!
But this time, the situation was completely different.
A black mass, like rotting mud, was squeezing its way into the room through the cracks of the wooden door.
How could Lin Bai simply sit by and do nothing? If he let it in and it interfered with or even damaged the Evolution Formation, then all the hardship of the past few days would have been for nothing.
Fortunately, Lin Bai now possessed Force, and he could project that Force beyond his body.
Without hesitation, he attacked from about a meter away, sending several deliberate punching blasts of Force crashing into the thing.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
The Force struck its target with dull impacts. The Black Mud Monster was driven back slightly, but then it stubbornly and slowly continued to wriggle inward.
It made no other move. It did not even cry out, as though it had neither awareness nor emotion.
Lin Bai’s brows knit tightly at the sight. Force worked, but the effect did not seem all that great. He did not dare stop, so he could only keep hurling punch after punch of Force at it.
And so another bizarre scene came into being.
A black, mud-like mass radiating yin energy was stubbornly crawling into the room, while a young man stood not far away like a tireless human cannon battery, unleashing continuous long-range firepower.
After pounding away for quite some time, Lin Bai’s hands were beginning to ache, and he also felt rather helpless. In the end, he could only try speaking to the thing in front of him.
“Senior, when I entered the Profound Yin Cavern, I offered incense and paid my dues.”
“As a person—ah, no, as a ghost, you ought to have integrity. You can’t just take the money and not do the job, can you? There’s really nothing good in here. Please be magnanimous and let me go. Could you not come in?”
“How about this? Once this junior leaves, I’ll definitely burn you a huge pile of gold ingots and silver ingots.”
“You can at least give me a clear answer. Are you male or female? What style do you prefer? When the time comes, I’ll burn you a few exceptionally beautiful paper effigies as well. Genuine Zhong Family products from Yunmeng City—a major brand. The quality is absolutely guaranteed.”
Lin Bai talked for ages.
It was useless.
That thing still kept trying to come in and ignored him completely.
Seeing this, the fire in Lin Bai’s heart flared up, and he said fiercely, “Fine. You want to drag this out, do you? Then let’s see which one of us can outlast the other.”
His hands never stopped. He continued to pour out Force. His qi and blood were vigorous, his Force recovered quickly, and he even had pills in reserve. If it came down to a contest of endurance, he truly was not afraid.
Then let it drag on. Lin Bai could accept that outcome too. He would just treat it as fist technique training.
Still, this Black Mud Monster really was absurdly tough. If an ordinary Transcendent-Realm peak cultivator had taken this many of Lin Bai’s punches, he would have been beaten into meatballs long ago.
And so one side remained fixated on invading, while the other resolutely blocked it. This tug-of-war lasted an entire night.
Only when the eastern sky began to pale did that lump of black mud retreat soundlessly like a receding tide.
Lin Bai estimated the time. The sun should have been just about to rise.
He had thrown punches the entire night, every single one carrying force. It had tired him out badly, but fortunately the Black Mud Monster had finally retreated.
As he sat down to rest, he thought to himself:
Is this a little ghost? Probably not. Although it didn’t show any aggressiveness, it was simply too troublesome.
Unfortunately, when Lin Bai tried using the Detection Skill to inspect it, nothing appeared. The thing was not a living creature at all.
If it had been a little ghost, it probably wouldn’t have been able to withstand so much Force. It should be some other kind of uncanny thing. This Profound Yin Cavern truly deserves its reputation as a genuine Yin-Nurturing Ground. Even its outer perimeter has things like this lurking around.
Lin Bai chose to think of the bright side. The thing had no real offensive power. It was just a giant lump of meat to be beaten on. Granted, it was an incredibly durable target, but at least it did not bite.
He had kept it outside the door and had not allowed it to come in and disturb Mo Ling.
Inside the formation, when Mo Ling saw Lin Bai resting in exhaustion, she sent concern and anxious worry through their soul link.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m just too tired. Stay in there and absorb the yin energy properly. I’ll deal with what’s happening outside.”
Mo Ling could distinguish priorities clearly. Only by growing stronger herself would she be able to help her master better.
When the time came, she would tear to pieces everything that bullied her master!
Through their soul link, Lin Bai sensed the little one’s urge to protect him.
He let out a soft laugh, and his mood improved greatly. Even his body did not feel quite as tired anymore.