Chapter 355: Earth Vein and Shackles
The cost of using extraordinary items is indeed to draw from a person’s flesh and bl**d.
As someone who has complete control over my own body, I can clearly feel that this is a form of flesh and bl**d extraction that takes precedence over the sacrifice ceremonies performed by those dream demons.
In the previous sacrifice ceremony, I could ignore the effects just by perfectly controlling my entire body, but now, I find that I cannot perfectly resist the cost of using this extraordinary item.
However, I discovered that as long as I focused completely on controlling my body, the cost of using the extraordinary item could be offset by my own strength.
And the effect… has not been diluted!
What does this imply?
It means that the principle of operation for extraordinary items does not consume a “cost” to achieve an “effect,” but is a higher-level operation, somewhat akin to completing a ceremony to produce effects. Could this be understood as extraordinary items being a special type of ceremony?
Paying a cost to complete a ceremony, and the ceremony produces effects.
No wonder the first generation city lord consumed those flesh and bl**d energies so quickly; he had no personal strength to offset the cost of the extraordinary item, meaning he had zero resistance to the side effects, which required a massive cost to achieve even a common effect.
So, if I pay the price with my own body, I should be able to achieve effects that are not inferior to those of the first generation city lord.
Indeed… I have used the resurrection spell as an insurance properly.
At this moment, my right hand, being the first to come into contact with the extraordinary item, has become dry first, and this effect is gradually spreading to the whole right side of my body.
But at this moment, I have once again obtained the blessing of fortune.
That’s right, this time the blessing relies on my own means; the power of fortune does not manifest simply because it is in me; its use requires prerequisites.
For example, the child of fortune, falling into a desperate situation, turning the tide against the odds, and so on, only under such special states will the power of fortune explode. But now, with the extraordinary item formed by this fortune seed, I only need to pay a cost to trigger the active explosion of the power of fortune.
What the former dream demon said was correct; the power of fortune, being favored by the world, can indeed become addictive, but I have not yet reached the point of addiction.
With the power of fortune at my disposal, I naturally want to find and lock onto this abstract concept known as the earth vein shackles.
Although I want to find this thing to sever it, fortune is not some artificial intelligence searching device; it does not care what I am looking for!
When I place this thought as my primary focus in the instant that fortune explodes, the unreasonable power of fortune will strive to push the script forward.
The academy head also wants to use the power of the script to promote the creation of the great spellbook; why can’t I use fortune to find something?
Moreover, I have some leads.
The repeated deaths and resurrections, experiencing the boundaries of d*ath, sensing the existence of the soul, and the earth vein shackles that penetrate deeply into the essence of my life.
The earth vein shackles that carry the spellbook and magic source within me serve as the basis for finding them.
In this world, there are only two steps to obtain something: the first is to discover it, and the second is to reach out for it.
No matter how complex something may be, like the starry sky or the truth, people first see it, understand the concept of its existence, and everything that follows is preparation for reaching out.
Once I accepted the effect of the Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell, my mindset underwent a slightly special transformation; perhaps this is the manifestation of wisdom?
Of course, maybe this is just a one-sided understanding of wisdom.
But you cannot deny that I did obtain useful things from it; the effect of the Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell has always existed, and that will not change.
And now…
Facing this abyss demon, whose name I do not yet know, I just need to enrage it.
“Now’s the time!” I said to myself in my heart.
In the next moment, I seized the opportunity to strike its face, or rather, its eyes; eyes are the windows through which most life observes the world, and they are also incredibly vulnerable organs.
Now, this strike directly uses body cultivation strength as the main means, concentrating fireball spell as a means to break through its eyelid’s defenses.
I shattered the entire structure of its right eye.
But that alone is not enough; corrosion curse, explosive trap, floating spells, thoroughly and continuously damaging its vision. Aren’t you supposed to heal? Aren’t you supposed to regrow severed limbs and organs?
Then let your passive regeneration become the trigger for your pain sensation.
And now… perception enhancement, five senses elevation, implanting the concept of pain into its mind.
Unfortunately, I do not possess spells like numbness dispel and so on, so once this monster adapts to this pain and visual deprivation, I will still be in danger.
But for now, this is enough; after all, I just want to enrage it.
To anger it is to unleash even more terrifying power, and blinding it increases my margin for error and buys me more time.
“Earth vein shackles…”
To turn an abstract concept into a tangible thing, I may not yet be able to achieve that. When tackling something concretely, one realizes how difficult it truly is; but when attempting to solve a problem, one discovers it is merely a deduction from the known to the unknown.
“I found you!”
When I said this, the extraordinary item had already drained me completely. Because of this, it sent me once again to the brink of life and d*ath, and this time, I will not miss the opportunity!
In this nothingness, I grasped tightly what I believed to be the earth vein shackles; it carried the magic source and the spellbook. Even though these two items have never truly belonged to me, at this moment, they became the lighthouse guiding my path, indicating the direction I pursue.
In this realm of nothingness, a consistent golden thread of fortune accompanies me, always guiding me in the right direction whenever I feel lost.
It seems to be a shore that I can never reach, yet I march forward without hesitation because I have no choice.
Until that ray of light magnifies in my eyes, inching closer, within reach… the white glow enveloped my entire world, transporting me from that realm of nothingness to a place I had never been.
Until I turned around, a vast celestial river obscured the horizon, originating from an unreachable distance, rushing toward me, and its end was also unclear.
It flowed along the boundary of the world, winding and meandering, traversing countless twists and branches. The rushing waters lent vitality to the world.
The endless unknown power carried by the river crashed at every turn, splashing waves that transformed into ethereal shadows of life, from birth to decay in but a moment.
It is a long river, filled with information, flowing with soul material; it seems to be the source of all life’s development, drawing me forward.
“What is that?”
My voice echoed within my consciousness, yet no one provided an answer.
However, that rushing river and the familiar feeling it evoked informed me that this is the earth vein. Could this be the river of the earth vein?
As I continued to step forward, a golden thread suddenly wrapped around my waist, pulling at my form and obstructing my progress, yet I still moved ahead.
With each step forward, more and more golden threads entangled themselves around my wrists, ankles, and neck…
But I still pressed on because that river of the earth vein surely has a tributary that leads to me. I do not know what it is; perhaps it is the most primal, protective earth vein shackles.
“Almost there…”
I stretched my arms desperately, reaching for the earth vein shackles that were just out of reach.
More and more threads of fortune wrapped around my body at that moment, rooting themselves within me.
Until the tips of my fingers touched that earth vein…
Shh!
The tributary of the earth vein pierced my body at the moment of contact.
No… here, even my body is merely an abstract concept of my consciousness.
In the next moment, I felt unknown things beginning to manifest within my body, taking root in every part of me, controlling all that I am.
And the source of all this connected to the tributary of the earth vein that pierced through my body.
“So this is the earth vein shackles… Finally… I see…”
That tributary from the earth vein, rather than piercing through my body, established a connection with my very being. It is this connection that allowed my spirit vision to share information on the earth vein shackles, thus slowly revealing them within my sight, for they are inherently rooted in my life.
At this moment, it felt as if all my energy was drained, letting the threads of fortune pull me back. If, at this moment, I looked back, I would discover that the source of those threads of fortune… is also a river…
When I opened my eyes again, I understood that I had returned; the ceremony of the resurrection spell dissipated after the fragments of my consciousness.
In the void of consciousness, the process of seeing the river of the earth vein to the earth vein shackles felt like it had taken an eternity, but now, it seemed that everything was merely a fleeting moment.
The sightless monster still roared.
Having experienced that earlier miraculous encounter, when I used spirit vision to examine myself again, I saw the earth vein shackles that rooted in every part of my body like a network enveloping me entirely. They resembled a cage, imprisoning my life within shackles woven from my body.
Thus… I now understand how incredibly difficult it is to sever the earth vein shackles. Perhaps after transcending to the extraordinary, a new level of life would hold enough power to eliminate these shackles one by one, but I have no choice.
To completely escape these shackles, I must utterly destroy this whole.
But my repeated use of the resurrection spell proves that even resurrection magic cannot sever these earth vein shackles that cling to me like parasites, for it binds not just my body but my essence as well. Otherwise, no matter how I replace my body, the earth vein shackles can still use me as a medium to turn the body into a cage.
It is hard to imagine how desperate the person who first discovered the earth vein shackles must have felt.
So… I must “d*e” once more.
I am not afraid of d*ath; I fear dying without value. Precisely because the earth vein shackles are rooted in every part of my body, I can no longer use the resurrection spell, at least not before severing the earth vein shackles. Using the resurrection spell under these conditions is meaningless to me.
Only by losing the body can the connection between the earth vein shackles and my essence be exposed before my eyes.
But now, there’s still a problem: lacking a body means there is no vessel to carry my soul; without a vessel and five senses, there is no channel to interact with and perceive the world, just like the void I experience each time I d*e, which is formed by losing the communication channel with the outside world.
Is it truly impossible to perceive the world without a body?
No… there is one thing that made it clear to me: even without a physical body to carry consciousness, they can still observe the world in dreams, especially here, where dreaming and reality overlap.
Dream demons.
So… dreams can also carry consciousness… but can dreams carry an independent soul?
How is that achieved?
Perhaps I need a dream demon to derive the original rune ceremony as I did with the nightmare, eventually summarizing it into nightmare spells.
Then I can similarly deduce dream demon spells through dream demons…
Even if I cannot do it, that’s fine because I only need to prove one question: can dreams carry my soul after I lose my physical shell and allow me to regain a channel for perceiving the world?
However… there is still a serious issue: I have killed all those dream demons…
No, there is still hope. At the extraordinary research base, there are still dream demons I haven’t had a chance to deal with yet. Although those dream demons seem like mere defective products, they can travel between dreams and reality, which is enough.
I am confident that with the support of fortune, the Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell, spirit vision, the memory shelf spellbook, integration of knowledge and action, and practical application, I can transform their talents into spells I can control.
Unknowingly… I have acquired so many learning methods…
But it is not enough; it is far from enough. As long as I am obstructed by difficulties, even for a moment, it is insufficient.
Greed is being vividly embodied in this moment.
“Hmm? It seems I don’t need to run so far to the base.”
Just as I was about to flee, I suddenly caught sight of a figure—the same dream demon that brought the extraordinary item underground, and indeed, not going all out back then was the right choice!
Once I locked onto this dream demon, she directly met my gaze. After all, she stayed here hoping to see that black stone giant smash her enemy to pieces.
The black stone giant indeed smashed me to bits several times as she wished, yet it was obvious that her brain wasn’t quite functioning, as I ultimately resurrected.
“Don’t… don’t come over ah ah ah!”
“It’s okay! It doesn’t hurt; I’m not here to k*ll you~” I revealed a “kind” smile at her; encountering her at this moment is truly my fortune!
“As long as you cooperate with me, I guarantee you will face no danger to your life during this time; if you don’t cooperate, I can’t guarantee that.”
I seized her, wanting to understand her innate abilities, and traveling between reality and dreams naturally required her to continuously demonstrate and cooperate with my observations.
More importantly, I wanted to learn how she carries consciousness in dreams, and how her consciousness receives information from the outside world.
Resolving this issue would allow me to officially attempt to sever the earth vein shackles. Isn’t this my purpose for this journey?
Everything to escape the script as soon as possible; for this, I am willing to pay any price.
