“Just that simple?”
“Just that simple.”
“Then why did we have to use up so many herbs back in the Heavenly Demon Domain? Why not just find a place with abundant spiritual energy?”
“You think that’s easy to find? The places with the densest spiritual energy are pretty much all in the wildlands. Not like Earth—honestly, give it a few more years of evolution, and I reckon the average spiritual energy concentration here will surpass even the Heavenly Demon Domain. There’ll definitely be no shortage of spiritually rich spots.”
Su Mu and Hong were discussing the matter of soul transfer, with Ye Qingyu sitting quietly nearby. Though she still acted aloof toward Su Mu, she was listening with razor-sharp focus.
“So the main purpose of all those herbs was simply to supplement spiritual energy, and they’re not entirely irreplaceable, right?” Ye Qingyi voiced her confusion.
“You’re absolutely right.” Hong nodded, then added: “That said, the spiritual energy you supplement with needs to be exceptionally pure. Ordinary spiritual energy just won’t cut it.”
A thought suddenly struck Su Mu. He reached into his white jade ring and pulled out a high-grade spirit stone. “What about this?”
“Hmm… still falls short.”
“And this?” He took out one of his few premium spirit stones.
“Now this is good stuff. The problem is, spirit stones can’t permeate your body the way herbs do, especially premium ones. Getting their spiritual energy to seep evenly and comprehensively into your body is no easy task, unless you’re willing to have a third person there to help you out.”
Su Mu cleared his throat. “Yeah, let’s pass on that…”
Hong smacked her lips. “Then you’d best get serious about finding a place with abundant spiritual energy.”
“Wait!” A lightbulb went off in Su Mu’s head, and he clapped his hands. “But I’m the disciple of Elder Tianquan, you know. This little problem isn’t gonna stump me.”
“You’re not thinking of using a spirit-gathering array, are you? That won’t work either.” Hong gave him a kindly warning.
Su Mu flashed a mysterious smile, looking completely confident. “Who said I’m using a spirit-gathering array?”
He pulled out a brush—the Six Harmonies Brush that the Immortal Master had given him back in the day. Since he didn’t use it often, not many people even knew it existed.
But Hong remembered it vividly. Back when that volcano ruin exploded, she nearly lost her life in there, and this brush had played no small part in saving her.
According to the records of the Hundred Immortals Sect, the Six Harmonies Brush could speed up array drawing and improve success rates. However, Su Mu had discovered that its uses went far beyond that.
It had one absolutely overpowered function, which Su Mu liked to call “copy-paste.”
Just like the name suggests, the Six Harmonies Brush could instantly reproduce anything it had ever drawn before, as long as the user supplied spiritual energy and mental focus to sustain it—just like copying and pasting.
The only limitation was also the same as copy-paste on a computer: you could only paste the last thing you copied; anything earlier would be automatically overwritten.
“Anna!”
“Right here!” A little puppet flew out of the ring, looking radiant and full of energy. “What are your orders, Master?”
Su Mu handed her the Six Harmonies Brush and said with a smile: “Use it to draw that sauna array you told me about last time.”
Anna said urgently: “It’s spirit-dispersing, not sauna!”
“Alright, alright, spirit-dispersing array, spirit-dispersing array.” Su Mu indulged her like she was a little kid and told her to get to it.
Hong’s eyes lit up at the sight of Anna, delighted. “What an adorable puppet!”
Ye Qingyi pursed her lips. Since Su Mu had told her about Anna before, she already knew she existed and had seen her before. Seeing that woman who always tried to one-up her acting so starstruck now secretly made her feel pretty pleased.
Anna held the brush—which was as tall as she was—and effortlessly drew the spirit-dispersing array. Apart from Su Mu, the other two were totally lost, having no idea what just happened.
Su Mu took the brush back and began modifying the array based on the spirit-dispersing one. Before long, a brand-new array that combined both spirit-gathering and spirit-dispersing functions was successfully born.
“What are you doing?” Hong asked, genuinely baffled.
“I combined the spirit-gathering array with Anna’s spirit-dispersing array. That way, we won’t have trouble drawing out the spiritual energy from premium spirit stones, and we won’t have to worry about it not permeating the body evenly either.”
“Just that simple?”
“This isn’t simple at all. The spirit-gathering part is easy—just absorb and you’re done. But the spirit-dispersing array isn’t just about spreading spiritual energy out; it also distributes it evenly. And that alone is far from simple.”
Hong’s expression turned odd, and she said suspiciously: “I’m starting to wonder if you’ve peeked at the secrets of heaven and forced fate to help you out. Otherwise, there’s no explaining how you get so lucky—everything you need just happens to be right at your fingertips.”
Su Mu grinned. “Maybe I’ve got cheats enabled.”
That offbeat joke cracked him up.
Then again, who knows? Maybe there really is some higher civilization out there controlling how things run, and he just happens to be the one blessed with good luck—the one with the cheats. In novels, that’s the kind of treatment only the protagonist gets.
To test the array’s feasibility, Su Mu first used a high-grade spirit stone as a guinea pig. The result was a complete success—all the spiritual energy in the stone was drawn out and evenly dispersed into the space around them.
With the herb problem solved, although premium spirit stones were precious, the cost of trial and error had dropped significantly. Until they found a truly blessed land with supremely dense spiritual energy, they could keep experimenting.
Su Mu then recounted what he’d experienced in the Temple Ruins, hoping Hong might find some insight that could help the two of them.
Unfortunately, Hong drew a blank too. She could only chalk it up to who they were. After all, both of them were Chosen Ones, so theoretically they should both harbor divine essence within them. Using that as a reason actually made a fair bit of sense.
“Looks like we’ll have to find another way—building on top of the Heavenly Demon Eye.” Su Mu mused.
“As long as you’ve got a direction, that’s fine. I’ve accomplished what I came here for.” With that, Hong made to get up and leave.
Su Mu certainly wasn’t about to let her just head back like that. She’d come all this way specifically for him—the least he could do was treat her to a meal.
“Hold on.”
“If you’re going to say something like ‘thank you,’ forget it. I did what I had to do.”
“Sister Hong, what are you saying? Do we only have a transactional relationship?” Su Mu said. “The Heavenly Demon Clan will eventually return to Earth, and humans and your clan need to become friends. If even you—a pioneer—aren’t open to that, how can you expect the clansmen who’ve just arrived on Earth to be?”
“Friends…” Hong paused, lost in thought for a moment. She looked at Su Mu, then at Ye Qingyi, and gave a wry smile. “We’ll talk about that when the time comes.”
With that, she walked off without looking back, not forgetting to add: “Call me if anything comes up. I’m usually not too far from you—you’re just too weak to notice.”
Su Mu’s eyes went wide. “Weak? …Excuse me? Is that any way to talk to your princess?”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than he felt a fierce beast’s gaze boring into him from behind—cold enough to pierce straight through his soul.
Oh no. I just let it slip. Wait, no, not let it slip—I said it wrong! What princess? I don’t know anything about that…
“Oh ho, it’s the Princess! This lowly one bows to you~”
Su Mu blinked his big, innocent eyes, then suddenly broke into a humming, sing-song tune: “Those fleeting years—how many times did we say goodbye…”
