Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Sheng rode his bicycle, heading straight toward the abandoned factory in the suburb. The journey took half an hour, and this made him ponder the idea of finding a new staging area that was nearer to home. His thought was further encouraged by the fact that the current location of the factory was not adequately stealthy.
“Let me first settle the things here.” He hid his bike in a bush and then strode through the doorway of the factory. Three young men were sitting in a circle around a bonfire, seemingly on to something. When they heard footsteps, they looked in the direction of the doorway. One of the young men, bald and wearing earring, rose to his feet and tidied his leather jacket as he saw a taut man marching in. He did not utter a word but just balefully stare at Lin Sheng, hoping to scare the intruder away with his menacing look.
“This place belongs to me. Don’t ever come here again.” Lin Sheng demanded as he came and stopped not far away from the bonfire.
“Who the f*ck do you think you are?” The bald young man snorted, lunging forward to grab Lin Sheng’s shirt collar. But he ended up being lifted up with his two legs kicking frantically in the air. “What the…” Before the bald young chap could finish, he was summarily tossed to the ground, hands pressed on his stomach as he curled up in pain.
Just when the other two surged to their feet with one of them drawing out a knife, they saw what happened to their companion and husked. But what surprised Lin Sheng was that the young man and woman did not quickly flee. He could see that they were afraid; the young woman was literally quaking in her boots. But they remained at where they were, eyes darting between their bald friend and Lin Sheng. A while later, they only began to say, “We apologize for trespassing your place. We are leaving right away!” said the young shorthaired chap with a smile, tucking the knife away before coming forward with the young woman to hold their friend up from the ground. Knowing that Lin Sheng would not do anything to them further, they breathed a sigh of relief and quickly left.
“Wait a minute.” Lin Sheng suddenly spoke. “Would you like to make some quick buck?” He looked at the tattered clothes they three wore, an explicable expression flashed across his eyes.
The three young men and woman halted and looked back, visibly confounded by what they heard.
Ten minutes later. Lin Sheng had finished cleaning up the place. He would not conduct the ceremony in the factory again. Since this place was exposed, it meant that it was no longer safe. Besides, he had a new plan in mind.
Leaving the abandoned factory, he hung this stuff behind his bike. He carried the bike and walked into the dense woods. He trudged along a dark forest path for ten minutes before arriving at a gray, abandoned monastery.
The rotten wooden door of the brick-and-tile monastic building hung askew on its frame, seemingly it could fall at any time. The central part of the building was a small courtyard, but half of the surrounding walls had collapsed, making accessing the courtyard from multiple sides possible. The roof was gone; the walls were blackened with a faint but horrible burnt smell. The entire monastery was overgrown with weeds and veins. The exposed roots of the nearby giant trees had swallowed almost half of the building. The large and strong roots had invaded through the monastery’s entrance, the opening of which was now only half the size of its original.
“This is the place.” Lin Sheng carried his bicycle into the courtyard. After putting the bike, he snapped his fingers in a loud and crispy click. Immediately, a crow swooped into view and circled above the monastery to scout the surroundings. He took the bag containing the materials for the ceremony and briskly went into the monastery.
Inside, there were five rooms. Roots and veins had covered the entire space of the main hall. It was not usable. The side halls, kitchen, and living quarters were in an utterly dilapidated condition with roof tiles all over the place. There was absolutely no place for one to rest one’s foot on. Except for one guest room, where there was still the roof was still partially intact. Other than the moss and some wild fungi on the ground, it looked a lot neater than the rest of the building.
With location identified, Lin Sheng quickly put down the backpack and swept away the dark-green plaguey veins in the surroundings. The veins were covered in little tiny poisonous spikes, but they could inflict no harm to Lin Sheng’s skin. Instead, the poisonous spikes felt like soft and fluffy fur of the bird in Lin Sheng’s hand. He made space by briefly clearing up the veins and other overgrown in the surroundings. He then took out the plastic ritual drawing that he had previously used but still in good condition. He just had to wipe it clean, and it was reusable again.
“Luckily it was written with water-proof, wear-resistant, highly concentrated ink.” Lin Sheng took out a torch and carefully examined the plastic ritual sheet that he had laid open on the ground. The patterns were complete, and the symbols were clear as if it had never been used before. He began to prepare the ingredients, taking out the gold nuggets, and setting up the flat pan. He then collected some dried branches and built a rudimentary stove with rocks. Quickly, Lin Sheng had made a small bonfire.
Acrid smoke was billowing from the small bonfire. Lin Sheng placed the flat pan on the fire, took out the plastic water bottle and poured out the pre-boiled water out into the pan. He then lit the butter lamp, and a waft of faint beef aroma began to drift about in the air. The less than ten-meter-square room instantly brightened up under the illuminations of the bonfire, butter lamp, and torch.
Lin Sheng checked the circle on the plastic sheet for the last time. After making sure there was no whatsoever mistake, he got to his feet and placed the prepared ingredient mixture at the preset positions. He had not forgotten to put the white spider into the pan filled with water. After doing all this, he stood straight and began to chant the initiator.
“Mu, ba, en, di, yu, yi…” Strange-sounding syllables came out from Lin Sheng’s mouth. Gradually, a cloud of white smoke rose from the butter lamp. The smoke swiftly drifted to the water surface in the flat-bottom pan, stirring rings of riddle in it. Before long, the water seemed to boil in a hiss as steam began to rise from the pan and surrounded Lin Sheng in it. Lin Sheng shut his eyes like he had done it a hundred times over, and his vision went dark.
Groups of light began to appear one after another in the dark. There were three types of light balls: blue, gray, and red, drifting in Lin Sheng’s field of vision. “The blue light ball is the soul of a bird in Gray Angel. The gray light ball is the armored soldiers of the Fay Vault. The red light ball is the Blackfeather swordsmen.”
Lin Sheng was transfixed, wrinkling his brow. He could feel his soul has enough capacity, but what he lacked was powerful-enough summoned creatures to fill it.
“After the last blood infusion, I can no longer summon the fire-spitting fat dude again. I need to go into the dream as quickly as possible to look for new summoned subjects.” He started to make sense of the inner working of the ceremony. The number of soldiers he could summon seemed to depend on the number of monsters he killed in the dreams. Just like Sacred Shield Tyrant, whom he had only killed one, so he could only summon on Sacred Shield Tyrant. Same went for the flame-spitting fat dude. But it was different for the armored soldiers and Blackfeather swordsmen, which he had killed many, and he could summon them again.
“The armored soldiers are suitable for open confrontation. In terms of strength, they are below level three, mostly likely level two, slightly powerful than the Blackfeather swordsmen but have much higher defense ability and occupy less space in my soul than the Blackfeather swordsmen do. The downside is that they are slow.” Lin Sheng calculated in his mind. “They all have nightmare void forming abilities. The Blackfeather swordsmen are assassins. The armored soldiers are forward-charging type… since they come from the Fay Vault, I might as well call them the Vault Guards.” After making up his mind, he shifted his attention to the gray light ball.
He had chosen the vault guards because they appeared like any ordinary human beings without the armors, camouflage ability was far better than the Blackfeather swordsmen were. Instantly, Lin Sheng was shrouded in a flash of gray light.
When he finally recovered his vision, he found himself floating above a massive medieval temple. A general, tall, wearing a white helmet with a black cloak behind his back, was standing in front of the gray and white temple. The military man was bare-chested, his strong muscles looked like a wall of solid steel. Below the temple was an army of shield and sword, armored soldiers.
“I will make your souls mine, we become as one.” The general unsheathed his double-edged broadsword and raised it in the air. “The sun protects us!” he roared, and then the army below raised their swords and echoed with a deafeningly fiery roar.
“The sun protects us!”
Lin Sheng’s vision went dark, and he left the memories.
A vault guard in full silver armor was floating in his field of vision. Below the guard was the Ancient Rehn numeric character of the number four.