The Frightened Fourth Spiritual Practitioner

This time, Peony once again led the mechanical guards in assembling the Stone Slab Wall. Wang Jixuan, Fu Jian, and Zheng Shiduo set up a table and chairs in the corner, prepared some grilled meat and beer, and waited at ease.

Zheng Shiduo knew about this matter and had been called over to lend a hand.

When Zheng Shiduo tasted the dried squid Commander Fu Jian had grilled himself, the Psionicist who had once been a frontline soldier became so moved that his eyes reddened.

Zheng Shiduo was rather sentimental at heart.

It was just that...

Wang Jixuan asked, "Did you really take that medicine?"

"I did," Old Zheng muttered guiltily. "After taking it, I felt warm all over, and then... there was no then."

Wang Jixuan asked, "Did you have any other reaction?"

"A reaction, well..." Zheng Shiduo mumbled shyly, "That night, I used the Thorn Entanglement Technique all night long. I cranked the voltage way up, and in the end, I only stopped after getting shocked unconscious."

Fu Jian asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," Zheng Shiduo hurriedly said. "Just a little technical exchange."

Wang Jixuan snapped, "Who was exchanging that technique with you?! I'm asking about the pill!"

"What does that medicine do?"

"It's nothing." Daoist Wang continued skewering meat with full concentration. "I'll be refining pills over the next few days anyway. I'll save up some scraps for you."

The three turned to look at the completed wall ahead.

The wall emitted no fluctuations at all, like an ordinary work of art.

Fu Jian asked, "How do we activate it?"

"He was probably scared by me last time." Wang Jixuan smiled faintly. "Should I step aside?"

Fu Jian said, "You can't step aside. That would keep you from suspecting us of reaching some unspeakable agreement with the Spiritual Practitioners."

Zheng Shiduo eagerly opened two fresh beers beside them and quietly offered his opinion. "Isn't Professor Shen Qionglin an expert at the forefront of Spiritual Practitioner Civilization research? Should we call her over to try?"

Wang Jixuan looked at Fu Jian.

Fu Jian had previously made it clear that Shen Qionglin was not to come into contact with this thing.

Fu Jian pondered carefully, lowering his head to fiddle with a meat skewer. He slowly asked, "After observing her for so long, do you trust her now?"

"She's basically trustworthy," Wang Jixuan said. "And she's been a great help lately."

"Fine." Fu Jian tapped the air a few times with his fingers. "She'll be here in three minutes."

"Drink."

Wang Jixuan clinked his bottle against Zheng Shiduo's and naturally began discussing the upcoming troop deployment with Fu Jian.

The sudden "revival" of high-end combat power gave the D5 Comprehensive War Zone the strength to expand outward.

Fu Jian had always been extremely cautious about launching a counteroffensive. He had to consider the consequences of a Blade Beast counterattack, as well as whether they could actually hold those territories.

But this time, the battle plan Fu Jian had drafted was rather bold. They would open a land route between D5 and D7 and seize several key mining resource sites.

Wang Jixuan asked, "How much has the Ninth Pillar awakened?"

Zheng Shiduo swallowed a mouthful of artificial meat. The intelligence he heard here was perhaps a little too explosive.

"Twenty-eight percent. It's still trending upward."

Fu Jian let out a quiet sigh:

"We have no force capable of confronting a Pillar-Class Blade Beast head-on.

"Back then, I presided over the development of the Special Grade Terror Mech, but the technical bottleneck was obvious.

"The Psionic Mecha path Shen Qionglin is researching may actually be the key to breaking through that bottleneck. I had them use the prototype Shen Qionglin developed to conduct a theoretical feasibility test."

Daoist Wang was well suited to play along. "So how did it go?"

"The technology has enormous development potential, but it's still not mature enough at this stage."

Fu Jian looked toward Peony and the Maid Group, who were standing guard near the stone slab, and muttered softly:

"Once a technological development path is determined, we'll have to invest a vast amount of resources.

"We don't have many resources to begin with.

"At this stage, the limits of Mechanical Technology are still far from being reached. Continuing down this path is the least costly approach.

"I'll think about it some more."

Wang Jixuan smiled without speaking.

They had only been talking for two and a half minutes when Shen Qionglin appeared outside the warehouse entrance, undergoing a full-body inspection by the mechanical female soldiers.

When Shen Qionglin entered the warehouse and saw the scene in the corner, along with that stone wall—

Her expression clearly changed. She stared at the stone wall for a long while without looking away, excitement rising in her eyes.

A Spiritual Practitioner!

A complete Spiritual Practitioner inheritance wall!

Almost everything Shen Qionglin had previously encountered had been secondhand material, information copied down by the Six Elders.

This was the first time she had directly come into contact with a Spiritual Practitioner.

However, Shen Qionglin was very good at controlling her emotions. She did not rush over, instead walking to the barbecue stand in the corner and lightly nodding to the others.

"What do you need me to do?" she asked.

Fu Jian gestured for Wang Jixuan to speak.

Daoist Wang briefly explained their previous encounter with the Fourth Spiritual Practitioner.

When Shen Qionglin heard Wang Jixuan casually say:

"Last time, I used a few methods. I may have scared this Spiritual Practitioner."

"You scared a Spiritual Practitioner?"

Shen Qionglin gave an awkward smile.

"I keep feeling that one of us is joking.

"Spiritual Cultivation Civilization is an Advanced Civilization. Though you're remarkable, and though I still can't fully understand how you use psionic energy, I don't really believe you could make a powerful Spiritual Practitioner who calls himself a god fear you."

"Then I'm definitely not the one joking."

Wang Jixuan set down his beer bottle and said seriously:

"First, Spiritual Practitioners are not gods.

"Second, the six Spiritual Practitioners were probably all severely injured when they came to this planet.

"The Beast Speaker had a brief exchange with me—he came over to threaten me, that sort of exchange—and he revealed that the Blade Beasts came to this planet because they were hunting these six Spiritual Practitioners.

"All six Spiritual Practitioners broke out of the encirclement while badly wounded."

Shen Qionglin thought for a moment. "All right. After all, all my information came from the Six Elders. Their foundation lies in these Spiritual Practitioners, so they were probably biased."

"Let's see how to awaken Number Four."

Wang Jixuan said seriously:

"I don't have much time. There are still all kinds of preparations to make for dealing with the Beast Speaker's attack... though of course, we'll be the ones launching the ambush.

"Let's get results as soon as possible."

Shen Qionglin nodded, naturally picked up two meat skewers, and turned to study the Stone Slab Wall.

Fu Jian kept a straight face and blinked at Wang Jixuan.

Wang Jixuan raised his brows, signaling Fu Jian not to be so stingy. What was wrong with letting the girl have a couple bites of meat?

Very soon, Shen Qionglin tossed aside the metal skewers.

Since Wang Jixuan had said to save time, she would simply use a method that was less rigorous but relatively straightforward.

She walked forward until she stood ten meters before the stone slab, then activated the mysterious symbols engraved upon herself.

Azure light enveloped Shen Qionglin;

Her shoulder-length hair drifted behind her, while the powerful wind pressed her white lab coat tightly against her body, outlining her petite and delicate figure.

Three seconds later.

The stone slab suddenly trembled lightly, and a string of symbols appeared upon it.

Wang Jixuan caught a familiar aura.

The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner had awakened again!

Wang Jixuan's first reaction was to channel the trace of demonic energy remaining in his body from his previous activation of the Dragon Python Strange Soul into the Dragon Python Strange Soul.

He was ready at any moment to use the Dragon Python Strange Soul to raid the Fourth Spiritual Practitioner's spire.

Then he came to his senses and used a concealment technique, temporarily hiding his aura and bringing the rotation of his qi sea nearly to a halt.

—This was to avoid detection by the Fourth Spiritual Practitioner.

Fu Jian and Zheng Shiduo watched the scene nervously from the side.

Shen Qionglin closed her eyes. The azure light around her began to flash continuously, one symbol after another like dancing notes.

The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner's fluctuations grew stronger.

Whoosh, whoosh...

The sound of waves washing ashore appeared once more.

A mass of milky-white light cautiously and tentatively extended outward.

The white beach, the waves rolling back and forth, the twin moons on the horizon, and that spire descended once more.

This time, the spiritual energy in the air did not gather toward the stone slab.

A clever Spiritual Practitioner who had learned from his mistakes.

At this moment, the Fourth Spiritual Practitioner was expending the psionic energy stored in the spire in an attempt to contact Shen Qionglin.

Shen Qionglin looked at the scene of light and shadow before her. There was a trace of shock in her eyes, but more thoughtfulness than anything else. She heard a faint, almost nonexistent call...

"Save me..."

Shen Qionglin tilted her head slightly. Rather than approaching the spire, her eyes became more guarded.

In her impression, would a Spiritual Practitioner as powerful as a god, one who had created Blade Beast Civilization, need humans to save him?

Shen Qionglin subconsciously took two steps back and calmly asked:

"Who are you?"

The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner's sigh echoed in Shen Qionglin's heart. "I come from a High-Tier Civilization. I am humanity's hope of defeating the Blade Beasts. I came to this planet, ravaged by the Blade Beasts, to save every life here. We are called Spiritual Practitioners."

Shen Qionglin nodded slightly. "I've heard of you from the Six Elders in the Psionic Capital."

"The symbols on your body are very strange."

The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner murmured:

"This does not belong to the awakening ritual of any of the six of us. It seems incomplete, yet it worked."

"Oh." Shen Qionglin answered simply, "I replicated it based on the materials provided by the Six Elders."

"So those six really have been studying us."

The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner sighed.

"But that is only human nature. I can understand their actions. But you, a Psionicist who managed to replicate an Awakening Circuit.

"You are truly a genius among humans."

"Thank you. Others have said the same."

Shen Qionglin gazed at the spire.

"Your soul is inside the spire. There are also some Psionicists hidden there, dried up like mummies.

"And there is an Infusion Wall. That should be your personal Infusion Wall. The Psionicists infused using them and their replicas will all be marked by you and become your spiritual slaves, correct?

"From what I sensed... do you want to rule this planet?"

"No." The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner sighed. "You know more than I expected. That is good. It can save me a lot of time. I am already very weak."

Then his tone shifted:

"I am searching for an inheritor, someone who can inherit my power.

"Every Spiritual Practitioner possesses a core Psionic Energy Circuit for their own inheritance. Or rather, that circuit itself is the vessel of Spiritual Cultivation Civilization, while we are merely its guardians.

"We created the Blade Beasts based on our own core Psionic Energy Circuits.

"The awakening of Psionicists is actually just giving them some elementary and low-level Psionic Energy Circuits. More advanced circuits often bring uncontrollable power.

"On the journey to this planet, we were attacked by Blade Beasts. We fought desperately to break out of the encirclement, but it became difficult for us to sustain ourselves.

"The three who directly communicated with the Six Elders were in somewhat better condition, and they were also the first to awaken.

"My injuries are severe. I probably cannot survive much longer... Do you want my power? I can give you a replica of my Core Circuit. Once your body has been transformed to approach that of a god, I will pass the Core Circuit on to you."

"Then," Shen Qionglin asked, "what is the price?"

"The price?"

"What do I have to give? Just say it directly."

"First, take me away from here."

The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner said softly:

"It is still this location. I can sense the nearby environment. Last time, there was also a devil here—a demon, a strange cultivator a hundred times more terrifying than the Blade Beasts. He nearly destroyed me!

"If you can directly kill him, that would be even better, but he is far too cunning.

"So take me back. To the Six Elders, or to that snow mountain—anywhere is fine. Just return me to my friends.

"This is not a trade. It is a request. If you do not trust me, I can first help you correct the flawed parts of the circuit you replicated."

Shen Qionglin pursed her lips slightly, seeming rather tempted.

The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner added, "You must believe me... Don't you want to save your civilization? That devil has already driven me into a corner. You are the only opportunity... Since you were able to come here, would taking my stone slab away really be difficult?"

"It would be difficult." Shen Qionglin nodded lightly. "From your behavior, I can tell that you can only perceive the range covered by the white light."

"Hm?" The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner had trouble following Shen Qionglin's train of thought.

"If I understand correctly, the devil you mentioned was the one who called me here... I belong to him."

Shen Qionglin added simply:

"I am currently loyal to him."

The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner fell into continuous contemplation.

Wang Jixuan put down his beer bottle and strolled over with his hands behind his back.

The white light immediately began to withdraw.

But Shen Qionglin said, "He will not attack you again. I can guarantee it. We are here to discuss cooperation."

"Cooperate?"

The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner snapped, "Why would I need to cooperate with you?"

"How would we know whether we can work together if we don't try?"

Wang Jixuan's voice carried over.

He did not rashly step into the area covered by the white light. Instead, he snapped his fingers, and Peony, who had been waiting nearby for quite some time, immediately began playing edited footage of the Beast Speaker's call.

Both the projection and the sound were within the range of the white light.

The Fourth Spiritual Practitioner successfully picked up all kinds of information from it and made several deductions based on that information.

Wang Jixuan cautiously stepped into the edge of the white light.

Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, the Fourth Spiritual Practitioner instantly withdrew the white light back into the Stone Slab Wall. Shen Qionglin also heard a roar:

"Don't come any closer!"

Shen Qionglin was almost unable to contain her curiosity.

What exactly had this guy done to the Spiritual Practitioners last time?

Wang Jixuan called out loudly:

"Come out and talk, friend.

"I recently came up with a Blood Stains Array. We can use the blood of a King-Class Blade Beast to create a Blood Pool and soak your stone slab in it.

"You're hiding in a subspace. If the entrance is destroyed, you may only be able to die alone in there from then on."

The stone slab remained perfectly still, but it was still intact as a whole.

Wang Jixuan turned his head. "Commander-in-Chief! This stone slab might be broken. How about we give it to the Beast Speaker as a bargaining chip?"

Buzz.

The white light reappeared.