Summoning Souls

Climbing out of the coffin.

Xiao Ran took out his phone, opened the camera, turned off the beauty filter, and snapped a gorgeous selfie.

His face was a gaunt skull, with only a thin layer of skin stretched over his entire body. Blue flames flickered in his eye sockets. If he summoned Red Skeleton now and stood beside him, they could easily pass for brothers.

He had to admit, he looked pretty cool.

"Warning! Your identity has temporarily changed to Night Ghost!"

"Tip 1: You will temporarily lose the ability to speak, but you will develop a special connection with the Night Ghosts."

"Tip 2: You can use Campus Badges to strengthen yourself."

"Tip 3: Do not reveal your identity, or every Night Ghost will hunt you down."

"Tip 4: You must return to the spirit coffin before dawn. You'll be responsible for the consequences if you don't."

A series of tips appeared before Xiao Ran. Just like in the dormitory, a chart appeared before his eyes as well.

Ordinary Abilities: Claws, Speed, Physique, Ghost Sense.

These four abilities worked just like the dormitory's ordinary upgrades. Each upgrade required Campus Badges, and the number of badges needed doubled each time.

Xiao Ran wasn't very interested in those. His gaze was fixed on the four special exchanges below.

[Ghost Language] (LV1)

Requires Campus Badge of Suffering

After awakening, you can control students inside their dorm rooms through Ghost Language, even from outside their doors.

[Evil Curse] (LV1)

Requires Campus Badge · Despair

After awakening, you can corrupt an area. Within the corrupted area, all your attributes increase by 30%, and doors and windows gain enhanced defensive corrosion.

[Spirit Walk] (LV1)

Requires Campus Badge · Cruelty

After awakening, you can enter a state where physical attacks cannot lock onto you, and your movement speed increases by 300%.

[Evil Ghost Treasure Vault] LV1; Requires Special Badges · Hatred + Cruelty + Suffering + Despair

Summon the treasure vault and randomly obtain three special items from within.

"I see!"

Xiao Ran took out the Campus Badges he had left and upgraded Speed, Claws, Defense, and Ghost Sense to Level 3. Then he took out the two other special badges in his possession: Suffering and Cruelty.

He activated the two special abilities, [Ghost Language] and [Spirit Walk].

After a round of strengthening, Xiao Ran felt that his once emaciated body seemed a little fuller than before.

A dark red ghost mist also appeared around him.

It shrouded his body like a mysterious veil.

Xiao Ran climbed out of the coffin. He tried activating the [Black Swan Brooch] to confirm that he had become a Night Ghost, then checked that his original abilities were unaffected. Only then did he dare head outside.

The moment Xiao Ran stepped out of the dormitory, all kinds of negative emotions began surging toward him.

They didn't affect him much. They were more like wireless signals transmitted between ghosts. By reading the emotions, he could sense the messages they carried.

Xiao Ran carefully sensed them and couldn't help feeling exasperated. They were all more or less the same: eat, eat, eat, kill, kill, kill.

Still, these emotions let him quickly pinpoint the Night Ghosts' locations.

The place with the most intense emotional fluctuations was also where the screams were loudest.

"I'll go take a look."

He had to admit, after turning into a ghost, even walking felt light and floaty. He lightly touched his toes to the ground and was already three meters away. Once he activated [Spirit Walk] and increased his speed by 300%, no one would be able to catch him.

After reaching the third floor, Xiao Ran had only taken a couple of steps when he stopped and turned toward a dorm room, puzzled.

Yang Kai's enormous shoe print was still on the door. From inside came the creaking and squeaking of a bed.

"Damn, it's this bad out here, and you're still having a great time in there? Since I've run into you, I can't just let you off the hook. Gotta follow the rules, right?"

He checked the door. Its level was pretty high, even higher than his own dorm room door, though only by one or two levels, it seemed. Xiao Ran didn't have time to start smashing his way in.

This was the perfect chance to test his newly activated special ability, [Ghost Language].

At Xiao Ran's thought, a string of low murmurs slipped from his lips. They made no sound, yet he could clearly feel sound waves trembling through the air and slipping in through the cracks around the door.

The next moment, the scene inside the room appeared in Xiao Ran's mind.

There were three beds, but only four people in the room at that moment: three men and one woman.

Two of the men were lying in the lower bunks. One had a blanket over his head. Beneath it, the blanket kept bulging and sinking, as if he were polishing his glasses.

The other man lay on his bed with a look of utter despair, staring at the swaying bunk above him. Who knew what he was thinking?

After using Ghost Language to check the room, Xiao Ran immediately turned his awareness toward the student practicing his craft beneath the covers, his head tucked in.

He hadn't chosen that one because of some weird fetish.

As the saying went, a person's vital essence was their soul, while their physical body was their spirit. When vital essence dispersed, the soul could not gather; when Yang Energy waned, the spirit could not focus.

That kind of person was in the worst mental state, making him the easiest to control.

Some people might wonder: why not choose the two on the bed?

That was another matter. People said dry wood and raging flames went together. When desire burned like a furnace and yin and yang joined, a person's energy was actually at its strongest.

Xiao Ran was afraid that if he forced his awareness in, he'd only be disturbed.

Why take on the harder challenge when there was an easy one right there?

Of course, there was another small reason. Xiao Ran couldn't stomach the idea of suddenly controlling someone's body and having to experience the pleasures of another man's plowing.

The young man practicing his craft on the bed suddenly felt a chill at the back of his neck. The next instant, everything spun before his eyes. His mind went hazy, and in a daze, he sat up in bed.

"Huh? Third Bro, you're done already?"

Seeing Third Bro suddenly sit up, his roommate looked at him strangely.

But Third Bro jumped out of bed completely naked, his eyes rolling back as his body twitched uncontrollably.

"Third Bro!"

The strange behavior made the other man's heart tremble. A sense of impending disaster swept over him. The next instant, Third Bro suddenly rushed toward the door.

"Don't!"

The man panicked and screamed, charging forward to stop him. But Third Bro seemed ready for him and kicked him away.

"Crash!"

The tables and chairs toppled over, clattering noisily.

"What the hell are you doing?"

The man and woman in the upper bunk poked their heads out from under the covers. The man whose... activities had been interrupted couldn't help cursing at the mess below.

The dorm room was pitch-black, and he couldn't see what had happened. But he could see Third Bro standing naked by the door. He stared at him in disbelief. "Are you fucking crazy?"

Third Bro's ashen skin twitched a few times. The corners of his mouth lifted as he reached out and pulled back the door latch.

"Click!"

The moment the thumb-thick latch slid open, the dormitory fell into utter silence.

"Buzz..."

As the door opened, a thin, withered hand reached through the gap behind it and settled on Third Bro's neck. A skull-like head slowly peered out from behind him. Flames flickered in its eye sockets, and its sharp nails tore open Third Bro's throat.

"Bang!"

The dormitory door slammed shut, and a woman's scream rang out from within.

Soon, when the noise died down, blood began seeping out beneath the doorframe.

Xiao Ran got four badges. He searched the dorm room as well, but found nothing of value, so he left at once to look for other prey.

At the other end of the hallway, a torrent of intense negative emotions surged toward him.

"The negative emotions are strongest over there. Maybe there's a powerful Night Ghost!"

Xiao Ran was very interested in Night Ghosts—or, more specifically, in their corpses. After thinking it over, he deactivated Black Swan and combined Trainee with Ghost Cloak.

As the two merged, Ghost Cloak's privilege took effect.

Privilege 1: Night Stalker

At night, you can enter a semi-invisible state. If you remain still, you become completely invisible, but this won't conceal your breathing, scent, or sound.

After all, his identity had changed, so Black Swan's warning ability could no longer be used to its fullest.

Now that he had become a Night Ghost, he had no breath or heartbeat and was no different from a corpse. But he wasn't a real Night Ghost, either. He could only receive the negative emotions scattered through the air, while producing none himself.

With Ghost Cloak's help, this flaw was now perfectly concealed.

A layer of shadow shrouded Xiao Ran, and he entered a semi-invisible state, quickly heading toward the source of those negative emotions.

Before long, he spotted an old beggar in another corridor, standing outside a dormitory. He held a white banner in his hand. Faces writhed across it, each one occasionally letting out a shrill scream.

With each scream, another soul flew out of the room and landed on the white banner in the old beggar's hand.

"Summoning souls?"

Xiao Ran looked at the white banner in the old beggar's hand. "So this thing really exists."

When Xiao Ran was little, his grandfather had told him that during the years of war and chaos, a group of beggars had appeared from who knew where.

The beggars had a leader, a figure with a name known throughout the underworld: Doll Master.

By day, they begged along the streets. In truth, they were keeping watch on the wealthy families' homes, finding out whether they had children, how much money they had, how much land, and so on.

At night, they would go to the family's door, raise a white banner, and call the child's name. After a few calls, they would summon the child's soul away.

The next day, they would send someone with a message and extort the family. They'd fleece them for a huge sum, leaving them penniless if they could.

But some stingy landlords refused to pay, while others simply didn't believe in such things. Then their children would lose their souls and become dazed and foolish.

That was where the saying "the landlord's stupid son" came from.

Later, the man disappeared. Some said he'd offended someone he shouldn't have and his whole family had been wiped out.

Others said the beggars had made enough money and quit.

But most people believed the beggars had committed too many sins and done too much evil, and had finally suffered retribution.

Xiao Ran hadn't expected that besides rare Malevolent Objects like the Embroidered Shoes, there would be practitioners of this kind of dark art at the school.

At that moment, the beggar seemed to sense something and turned around. His hollow eye sockets were packed with tiny skulls, each no bigger than a fingernail. After those fly-like eyes swept over the surroundings, he turned back with an annoyed look and continued toward the next dorm room.

"This thing's even harder to deal with than the Embroidered Shoes!"

A moment later, Xiao Ran emerged from the shadows. Watching the beggar's back, he wasn't sure what to do. He could sense the heavy Death Qi around the beggar. If he rushed in recklessly, he might not be a match for him.

As he was thinking, Xiao Ran's gaze suddenly shifted. He noticed the beggar's bare feet and immediately came up with a plan...