Miko Becomes a Demonic Cultivator

Looking at this string of prayer beads, Yotsuya Miko hesitated. If what the Godmother before her said was true, these beads might be able to suppress the Soul Devouring Sensation inside her for a long time.

"Mm, thanks to you, little girl, I've finally come to my senses now."

Seeing this, Yotsuya Miko hesitated no longer. She reached out and slipped the prayer beads onto her right hand, then—revealed a thoroughly satisfied smile.

Powerful energy.

Watching Miko put on the beads, Granny Saegusa also smiled.

Inside those beads is the power I gathered at my peak. This third-rate fraud ends today. The Godmother is about to be reborn...

Before her thought could finish, she watched the prayer beads on Yotsuya Miko's hand snap apart one after another.

From a perspective she couldn't see, the ghost let out a violent roar the moment Miko put on the beads, as if in agony from their overwhelming power. The beads' force was so strong that it even conjured a human face out of the void in the ghost's body, struggling to resist.

But that wouldn't do.

Having learned from past experience, Yotsuya Miko had already gathered Spiritual Qi into her right hand. Hundreds of threads—no, over a thousand tiny threads of Spiritual Qi tugged at the power within the beads. Just as the beads were about to self-destruct under the ghost's influence, she forcibly extracted most of their energy.

"Aaaaaaah...!!!"

The ghost let out a heart-rending roar, but Yotsuya Miko covered her lips with her left hand, hiding the smile she could no longer suppress.

Thank you, Godmother.

The moment the beads shattered, three streaks of black light were severed from Yotsuya Miko's Spiritual Sense, all shooting straight toward the ghost.

Soul Collision Art, used again after so long.

The Spiritual Sense, torn apart in chunks, sent sharp pain through her, but Yotsuya Miko didn't mind at all—it only meant those Soul Collision Arts would be exceptionally powerful.

To deal with this ghost, she had used nearly thirty times the Spiritual Sense fragments of an ordinary ghost.

The black light struck the ghost in a flash. Caught off guard after just resisting the beads' power, it was hit by all three Soul Collision Arts at once, three large holes blown through its body. But that was only the beginning—Soul Collision Art wasn't a bullet; it was dynamite.

At nearly the same moment the holes were opened, the immense impact forced the Soul Body around those areas to tear outward. In just one breath, the original holes were ripped into even larger voids. The massive ghost's form became like a tattered doll, only its neck and left foot still intact.

It was over.

Another Soul Collision Art flew out from her Spiritual Sense, heading straight for the ghost's head. With the sound of a watermelon cracking, a dull thud of collapse reached only Yotsuya Miko's ears.

Next, it's time to...

"Granny, are you alright?"

Yurikawa Hana's anxious voice made Yotsuya Miko's Spiritual Qi, already shooting out again, pause. The Qi swiftly gathered the shattered ghost's Soul Body into her own, and the gentle energy from the prayer beads was rapidly consumed once more to counter the sudden surge of the Soul Devouring Sensation.

Having done all this, Yotsuya Miko finally came back to her senses.

"Mm, are you okay?"

Seeing Yurikawa Hana helping up the Godmother, who had been struck by the flying beads, Miko quickly went over to assist.

With an unspeakable sense of relief.

That was close. Almost...

Chapter 17: Profound Nether Qi That Turns Ten Thousand into One

When she walked out of the fortune-telling shop, the sky had begun to change.

The golden-red of dusk dyed the entire sky, soon turning into orange-red. The blazing sun slowly sank, leaving a blurry outline on the horizon.

Though things had ended a bit unexpectedly, getting through it safely was the best outcome.

Yotsuya Miko thought this as she looked up at the bridge stained red.

That Godmother and her cultivation system seemed completely unrelated. While helping Yurikawa Hana lift Granny Saegusa, who had been hit by the beads, Miko probed Spiritual Qi into the Godmother's body.

Inside her was energy as gentle as that in the beads, and in considerable quantity. But faced with Miko's probing Spiritual Qi, the Godmother showed no reaction at all, as if she couldn't even sense it.

This discovery made Miko pause.

It seemed the same during the fight with the ghost—the beads, packed with so much energy, couldn't kill it, and were even forced to self-destruct by its interference. So what exactly was the Profound Nether Qi inside her?

With just three strands of Profound Nether Qi and a few thousand strands of Spiritual Qi, she had been able to kill such a powerful ghost using Soul Collision Art. If her Profound Nether Qi—no, even if just her Spiritual Qi reached the level of the Godmother's internal energy, she could probably wipe out all ghosts within a hundred miles in one go.

This comparison made Yotsuya Miko's feelings toward the Nine Nether Profound Soul Treasure Record even more complicated.

She had originally thought this technique was merely sinister, never imagining its true power. Still, for it to let an ordinary person achieve in a few days what normal exorcists couldn't in decades—its negative effects were indeed negligible.

"Prayer beads really break easily, huh."

Yurikawa Hana remarked beside her, holding out her hands. The two strings of beads that had been on her wrists were gone too.

"Mine burst at the same time."

"...I guess so."

Ordinary prayer beads might protect normal people from ghosts, but once they encountered a powerful one, they were completely useless.

Maybe I need to find Hana something more protective...

As she thought this, she couldn't help but sense the ghost's Soul Body in her mind. It hadn't moved since she killed it. To suppress her craving for high-grade ingredients, much of the Godmother's bead energy had been used. She didn't know how many more times the remaining energy could last.

And it was still being consumed.

With a sigh, her consciousness entered that dark space again. The massive ghost appeared before her once more, in the form of food.

Gray-black granular matter was being converted in large quantities from its body, occasionally mixed with some particles of an even darker hue.

This time, the taste in her mouth was far less bitter than the previous ghosts, with sourness dominating over bitterness. That sourness was even more intense than a lime.

Perhaps the quality of this ghost was indeed decent, or maybe she was simply growing more accustomed to this awful flavor.

By the time this ghost's Soul Body had completely turned into Soul Extract, Yotsuya Miko looked within herself and saw that the portion of Soul Extract was substantial.

"Miko?"

Yurikawa Hana, preoccupied with the matter of the Prayer Beads, looked at Miko, who had suddenly stopped walking, with some confusion.

"What's wrong?"

"No, nothing. I just suddenly remembered something."

Yotsuya Miko shook her head, letting the Soul Extract circulate through her body as she gradually refined it into Profound Nether Qi. She had done this step three times before and was getting the hang of it. Moreover, now that it had been converted into Soul Extract, re-refining it into Profound Nether Qi posed no danger at all. She could even let the Soul Extract linger inside her for a long time and let it dissipate on its own.

"What is it?"

"When's the next time we go to Butt Mochi?"

"Oh, their mochi is really good, right?"

"Yeah."

Casually opening up a topic like that, they chatted idly as the Soul Extract inside her body slowly transformed into Profound Nether Qi.

One strand, two strands...

The later strands of Profound Nether Qi quickly followed the earlier ones, exhaling Spiritual Qi to nourish Yotsuya Miko's Spiritual Sense, making up for today's consumption.

By the time they reached the station on the street and were about to part ways, the Soul Extract had been completely converted.

Unexpectedly, this portion of Soul Extract brought her a full eleven strands of Profound Nether Qi. And perhaps because it had been extracted from a tall, powerful ghost, these strands exhaled far more Spiritual Qi than the previous three strands—roughly over ten thousand strands of Spiritual Qi?

Miko pondered this, smiled as she waved goodbye to Yurikawa Hana, and boarded the bus home.

She still didn't have a clear grasp of the quantity units in the Xuanhui Realm, such as the conversion between strands and wisps, or the conversion of Spiritual Qi within her body. As for the principle behind Profound Nether Qi generating Spiritual Qi, she wasn't very clear either. According to the Nine Nether Profound Soul Treasure Record, the Spiritual Qi consumed by Profound Nether Qi should need to be replenished from the outside world, yet Profound Nether Qi seemed capable of producing Spiritual Qi endlessly—only the output was limited, capped by the quality of the Profound Nether Qi.

Right now, the lowest-quality strand of Profound Nether Qi could produce three hundred and twenty-one strands of Spiritual Qi, while the best could produce one thousand two hundred and thirty-seven strands.

That seemed like an absurdly large number, but in reality, it wasn't. Using a single Soul Collision Art consumed one hundred to two hundred strands of Spiritual Qi, and replenishing that consumed Spiritual Qi would take several hours from the Profound Nether Qi—well, with two strands, the time was halved.

So, rather than using "strand" as the unit, it was simpler and more convenient to use "hundred strands" as a unit. But using "strand" for Spiritual Qi was a trait of Profound Nether Qi.

Take Miko, for example: she could manipulate several hundred to nearly a thousand strands of Spiritual Qi for relatively simple fine control, like using scattered strands of Spiritual Qi to pull back splattering Soul Bodies one by one.

If she became more skilled, she could treat the ten thousand strands of Spiritual Qi currently in her body as different sub-units, controlling them with simple commands in different directions.

That was how Zhang Qiudao earned his title of Myriad Transformation Devil Venerable. At his peak, he could spread his strands of Spiritual Qi across the entire Xuanhui Realm, then infect every living being that touched those strands, pulling their Soul Bodies toward his main body. Otherwise, even if his Spiritual Qi were inexhaustible, he couldn't have infected trillions of beings at once. But to achieve that level, he still relied on the power of formations.

Sitting on the bus, she scrolled through her phone idly, then looked at the fourteen strands of Profound Nether Qi inside her, wondering if they amounted to a wisp yet.

But as if to put a perfect end to her day, within Yotsuya Miko's Spiritual Sense perception, a familiar ghost was also on this bus.

"...Fate, truly ineffable."

Soon, she had gained four more strands of Profound Nether Qi.

Chapter 18: Zhang Qiudao Clarifies Doubts

When she returned home, the sky was just darkening. She took off her light gray combat boots at the door, swapped them for slippers, and looked thoroughly worn out.

"I'm home."

"Ah, sis, you're back."

Yotsuya Kyosuke's voice came from the living room.

"Hurry up, we're about to eat."

"Yeah, yeah."

She said it out loud, dragging her feet toward the living room. She wasn't too hungry—she'd eaten a mochi with Yurikawa Hana and "eaten" two Malevolent Ghosts along the way. Both physically and mentally, she was quite energized.

Still, eating a little wouldn't hurt.

She walked silently to the dining table, sat down in a chair, picked up her bowl and chopsticks, looked at the family of four, and closed her eyes:

"I humbly partake."

Her younger brother Kyosuke, her mother Touko, herself Miko, and across from her, as usual, her father Masamori sat with a newspaper in hand, no bowl or chopsticks in sight.

Well, of course—her mother couldn't see him.

Her gaze naturally swept past her father, then she ate slowly and methodically, like an ordinary high school girl.

Not long after she started cultivating the Nine Nether Profound Soul Treasure Record, she had noticed a permanent resident in her home... and his terrible pet.

Ghosts could appear in the form of normal people as a kind of disguise, and there indeed existed beings like her father who still retained their rationality—truly curious. Like the Bakeneko, like her father—this world wasn't entirely made up of Malevolent Ghosts.

But even so, there was still a difference between humans and ghosts. So, even though she could see her old father at home, Yotsuya Miko chose to ignore him.

And, incidentally, she let some of the ghosts in the house off the hook.

Really, couldn't he at least "ask" these ghosts to leave?

Yotsuya Miko chewed as she thought. That pet of his looked absolutely deli—ahem, very powerful—couldn't it do something useful for once?

Muttering to herself, she hastily ate dinner, and then—spent a peaceful evening.

Tonight, as usual, after bathing, she watched Creepy with her younger brother Kyosuke—full title Creepy True Stories.

This show specializes in the paranormal, in other words, it's all for show. They often take photos and process them with special effects, hiding one or two faces inside. But as a variety program, it's pretty decent.

That is, if you ignore the ghosts actually acting as background props on the TV to heighten the atmosphere.

"One hundred paranormal photos in a row, next up is this photo..."

By now, she probably didn't need to worry about ghosts anymore, right?

Yotsuya Miko thought to herself as she watched the ghost on the screen flailing its claws.

Except for the troublesome Soul Devouring Sensation, she could now handle most ghosts with the Soul Collision Art. It was like suddenly giving the protagonist of a horror game a weapon, instantly turning it from a horror game into—a hot-blooded battle, slaughtering everything in sight with that weapon.

But even with such power, according to the Nine Nether Profound Soul Treasure Record, she had only just begun her training. She hadn't even received any instruction from that "Zhang Qiudao," who had become her master without her consent.

A wisp?

Even though the show was fake, the production team's excellent atmosphere-building really made the audience feel that creeping dread. That sense of horror was what made the show so famous, even occasionally serving as a topic of discussion among students at Nanatsumisaki Academy High School.

By the time the broadcast ended, it was already late. Yotsuya Miko turned off the TV, and she and Kyosuke each went to their own rooms.

Would that master come today?

Thinking this, Yotsuya Miko sent Yurikawa Hana a "good night," placed her phone beside her pillow, and closed her eyes.

Although cultivating the Nine Nether Profound Soul Treasure Record meant she needed very little sleep, tonight her consciousness still slowly sank after she shut her eyes.

After an indescribable, inexplicable sensation, she opened her eyes again, and the scene before her had transformed into a landscape of beautiful mountains and rivers.

Green waters coiled around verdant peaks, sturdy pines clung to rocky cliffs, white egrets flew in unison across the blue sky, and a hundred birds warbled through the forest.

The red sun blazed fiercely, with no clouds or rain; a gentle breeze brushed her face, carrying a faint chill.