A Season of Troubles / A Change in Fighting Style ...

"Thanks, Hana."

The latter merely rolled her eyes before swiftly climbing off her.

"Miko, you really are something."

Though she spoke with disdain, she still extended her right hand and pulled the fool she saw before her from the ground.

"Did you really have to do that?"

Watching the curious gazes of the girls around them, she felt embarrassed, even the tips of her ears turning red. Those people's looks were not merely curious; there was also a trace of excitement in them.

"After all, I really don't want to lose you."

Ignoring the surrounding scrutinizing gazes, Miko gripped Hana's right hand tightly, as though the instant she let go, the owner of that hand would leave her side.

"I really, really like you, Hana."

The pronunciation of "like" was clearly imprinted in the minds of every onlooker—and in Hana's mind as well.

In an instant, the watching crowd erupted into a commotion. Sounds of exclamation rose one after another, and more than a few busybodies began egging them on.

"Hey, just say yes, Hana. Besides, the two of you are already so normal."

"Say yes to what?!"

Yurikawa Hana covered her head, trying to pretend she could not hear them. Her face had already flushed pink as she loudly rejected their teasing.

"What on earth are you people thinking?! We only made up, that's all!"

However, paired with her reddened face, probably not many people would believe her.

"What the heck..."

The female teacher who had hurried over in an attempt to suppress the commotion at school finally understood what had happened.

"It's just a confession. Is it really necessary to..."

Then she suddenly remembered that this was an all-girls' school, with none of the boys who had existed at her own high school.

She glanced at the two people standing in the circle again, rubbed her eyes, and confirmed that she had not seen wrong.

Only then did she hesitantly walk into the crowd and haul away the two people involved.

"This kind of thing isn't allowed!"

At the same time, she dispersed the students who had gathered to watch.

Yet inwardly, she suddenly sighed with emotion. It was wonderful to be young—they actually played things this boldly.

In the end, of course, the misunderstanding was cleared up, disappointing everyone who had been looking forward to something, including the female teacher.

"My reputation..."

When Yurikawa Hana returned to her seat, she collapsed onto the desk and could not get up. Looking at Yotsuya Miko beside her, who acted as though nothing had happened, she puffed out her cheeks.

"It's all your fault."

"Yes, yes, it's all my fault."

Yotsuya Miko merely smiled and nodded as she looked at Hana before her, finding her unbearably adorable.

An Eventful Time

The mountain—let's provisionally call it Kamikakushi Mountain.

Everything that had happened on Kamikakushi Mountain was reported in full to the superiors of this special operations team. Sanryu had also brought the matter back to his own temple. Before long, the investigation of Kamikakushi Mountain came to a complete end.

"Was that really a god?"

On the street, in a towering high-rise building, a young man who had been drinking coffee and had not properly rested for several days rubbed his head. The swollen feeling in it had already been bad enough, and the newly delivered documents only made his headache worse.

He could not help looking away. One of his colleagues, likewise still young, let out a sigh.

"There isn't the slightest clue. Even if we wanted to analyze the mysterious power within those Silver Pellets, we simply can't. Those trying to use Spiritual Power rituals to trace the source can barely get any response at all."

"Besides..."

As he spoke, he recalled the new documents and information they had just received.

"That mountain... the gate on it is gone. It disappeared forever."

"From the looks of it, this god's power is truly terrifying."

The colleague nodded, his expression solemn.

"Just relying on creations imbued with divine power, it could annihilate several or even dozens of spirits. Those spirits rated as Wolf- or Tiger-class had no ability to resist at all. Only Evil Spirits above Dragon-class could withstand it. And now, this god has killed the Dragon-class spirit on Kamikakushi Mountain, along with the even higher-level spirit underground that we were completely unable to oppose. If not for the benevolent attitude it has displayed, the entire Divine Gate would probably be terrified."

"...Yeah. The higher-ups have ordered us to completely abandon the investigation into the Silver Ball God. Looks like they were scared badly."

The young man said this while looking at the coffee before him with disgust, his tone filled with complaint.

"It's not as though we found nothing from the Silver Pellets. The owner of the inscribed Silver Pellet—Natsukawa Yuki—is a very worthwhile starting point. We discovered the pellet's origins through her. It was a Silver Pellet abandoned by its former owner. Its original owner was Tono Zen. Even after abandoning the Silver Pellet, this gentleman continued to receive the protection of Silver Pellets, and his personality changed drastically. I have to say, that power is truly miraculous. Through Tono Zen, the person connected to him through the Silver Pellet was his student, Yotsuya Miko. But Yotsuya Miko seems to have little connection with the Silver Pellets."

As he spoke, he took out the information he had painstakingly reviewed. It was an investigation into the movements of the Silver Pellet holders.

"Some colleagues and I investigated and collected the movements of these Silver Pellet holders to see whether we could discover any other common points, aside from the fact that they had all suffered misfortune before this. The workload was enormous. Even after learning a specific date from them, investigating the entire day was still extremely difficult. Everyone had multiple contacts, and their range of movement was extensive. Some of them had traveled dozens of kilometers in a single day. After preliminary eliminations, the scope gradually narrowed. But..."

The documents were placed back into the briefcase and were about to be sealed away.

"After getting this far, the higher-ups refused to investigate any further. All the work we put in has gone to waste."

"...That really is a tragic story, Director Okita."

Okita collapsed onto the sofa behind him. He felt that his superiors were a bunch of idiots. Since the Silver Ball God possessed such tremendous power, if their investigation had truly angered it, then those diligent workers among them would have been gone days ago.

"Don't say anything else. I just want to apply for a long vacation now. I'm exhausted."

Okita really was tired. Although he had gradually discovered a key figure during his investigation over the past few days, he no longer intended to tell his superiors. After all, they were afraid of the Silver Ball God and did not intend to continue investigating.

"Even if they refuse to approve it, I don't want to come here anymore. What exactly do those people think the Investigation Department is? The Urban Legend Verification Department? Whenever there's any rumor, the first thing they think of is sending us in. They practically hope those urban legends are real. If we hadn't debunked so many fakes, would we have treated the urban legend of the Guardian of Silver Pellets as nothing? Heh. When this first appeared, they probably thought it was fake too, but they didn't want the Investigation Department sitting idle. In the end, once there really was a god, they blamed the Investigation Department for doing a poor job and ordered us to investigate everything related to the Silver Pellets with all our strength. And now they've actually backed down... What a bunch of bastards!"

He muttered under his breath, then glanced at his colleague, no longer wanting to say anything more.

"Don't make it sound so tragic... Didn't they pay your salary in full anyway? And didn't you buy a car and a house too?"

"I did. How many times have I driven the car myself?"

Okita instinctively retorted, but a knock on the door interrupted their idle chatter.

"Director Okita, Deputy Director Neo, please review the new documents."

A bespectacled woman entered from outside, placed the documents on the desk, and then turned to leave.

"Another new urban legend?"

As he spoke, Okita casually broke the seal, carelessly removed the documents inside, and glanced through them.

Then his stomach began to hurt.

"Neo, quick—quick, get me the trash can."

The moment Okita clutched his stomach, Neo realized that his old ailment had struck again. He expertly handed the trash can over. As Director Okita vomited, Neo picked up the documents and studied them carefully.

Then he glanced at the coffee on Okita's desk and paused.

"I think perhaps we should apply for another coffee subsidy."

"Is this something a subsidy can solve?! It's those people! Those perverts!"

Okita wiped his mouth and looked at Neo's still utterly expressionless face. All the emotions brought on by the pressure burst out at his colleague.

He grabbed Neo's tie tightly and shook the Deputy Director, whose expression had never changed.

"If this goes wrong, the entire Investigation Department is going to get replaced! At least show some reaction!"

Neo merely looked at him calmly.

"Calm down, Director Okita. Just do it without worry. My father will protect me."

"That protects you, not me, damn it! You second-generation official!"

"I'll have you promoted."

"..."

Okita's anger drained away. The pressure of the past few days finally made it difficult for him to breathe. He kicked out both legs, closed his eyes, and fainted on the spot.

Neo caught the overworked Director Okita. Seeing the canine emblem exposed on the documents, he could not help sighing as well.

"What an eventful time."

A Change in Fighting Style

The Nine Nether Profound Soul Treasure Record was a cultivation method that pointed directly toward the Great Dao. Zhang Qiudao had absolute faith in this.

After clearing up her misunderstanding with Hana and making up with her, Yotsuya Miko finally felt her heart settle into peace and tranquility. She sensed the Profound Nether Qi in her Soul Repository. The Profound Nether Qi gifted to her by the creations of the Nightmare Refining Art was already enough to let her enter a new realm. As her Spiritual Sense gradually grew stronger, she naturally crossed that threshold—which had never truly been a threshold to begin with.

She looked at the several small objects placed before her and manipulated her Spiritual Sense to attach itself to them. Then she imagined her Spiritual Sense lifting those objects. At that instant, the Spiritual Sense that had originally been formless and intangible suddenly became something tangible. Following her thoughts, it caused the objects to float inexplicably in midair. However, its power could not be considered very great.

After testing it repeatedly, Miko roughly figured out how much weight her Spiritual Sense could bear. It was probably around eighty pounds, and the size of the object could not exceed twenty cubic meters. Otherwise, her Spiritual Sense would lose accuracy.

"But this should be enough, right?"

As she manipulated the objects, she pondered. Manipulating objects with Spiritual Sense included throwing and catching them. In other words, she could use Spiritual Sense to block objects flying toward her, and she could also fire an object out like a bullet. The force was merely limited.

However, no cultivator would be foolish enough to use Spiritual Sense to fight someone else head-on. Compared with spiritual energy, before Spiritual Sense underwent a qualitative transformation upon reaching a certain level, it was still not as useful as spiritual energy. The cultivators who frequently used Spiritual Sense were basically those in the Nascent Soul or Soul Transformation realms, or those who had reached the Enlightenment Realm.

For low-realm cultivators, the most obvious effect of strengthened Spiritual Sense was sharper perception, intuition approaching divinity, and greater ease in controlling spiritual energy. This principle applied to Miko as well. With her Profound Nether Qi strengthened and her current Spiritual Sense supporting it, the arts that Yotsuya Miko had previously been unable to use gradually opened themselves to her.

She could now cast Ten Afflictions multiple times.

Moreover, she could also begin using other arts that were more powerful or practical than this one.

For cultivators of the Xuanhui Realm, the main difference between the Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment realms lay in the number of arts they could use. This could be seen from the amount of spiritual energy available.

Many arts had spiritual-energy requirements, which meant that the number of arts usable in the Qi Refining realm was extremely small. Many Qi Refining cultivators relied almost entirely on Magic Tools or talismans in battle, since these reduced their expenditure of spiritual energy. After entering the Foundation Establishment realm, however, they would gradually treat arts as their foundation, unless the quality of their Magic Tools or talismans was exceptionally high.

But in Zhang Qiudao's view, Foundation Establishment was the true beginning of a cultivator.

A Qi Refining cultivator only needed to advance step by step into Foundation Establishment. However, a Foundation Establishment cultivator had a great many things to do before entering the next realm.

Arts, Artifact Refining, talisman drawing, formations, and the like all had to be studied. Compared with Qi Refining cultivators, Foundation Establishment cultivators possessed far more varied fighting methods. Therefore, if they lacked the knowledge to deal with various methods, their situation would be extremely poor. Pursuing the quantity and quality of spiritual energy too obsessively could instead lead them into trouble.

Zhang Qiudao had spent five years in the Qi Refining realm before establishing his foundation. During those five years, he had exhausted nearly all the cultivation knowledge he could learn. His understanding of Artifact Refining and talisman drawing, for example, was enough to rival that of cultivators who had struggled through Foundation Establishment for decades. This was why, after becoming a Foundation Establishment cultivator, his cultivation rose steadily, finally earning him the reputation of a genius.

This principle applied very well to Yotsuya Miko too.

At the very least, her performance when dealing with the Mountain God could indeed be considered that of a classic traditional cultivator. In fact, she was even worse than a traditional cultivator. Traditional cultivators at least knew something about the Mountain God's roots, whereas she had thrown everything she possessed at it like a headless fly—and had wasted it all.

If she had paid even a little attention, she could have found a way to overcome the Mountain God instead of directly using the Talisman Iron Pellets she had accumulated to ram head-on into its highly resistant outer armor.

Zhang Qiudao's requirements for his disciple were not quite as high as the standards he had held himself to when establishing his foundation. He had left Miko three cultivation methods in total: the Nine Nether Profound Soul Treasure Record, the Soul Nourishing Artifact Path Understanding, and the Soul Merging Artifact Casting Understanding. Together, they involved four areas: soul cultivation, arts, talismanic patterns, and Artifact Refining. However, he had probably never imagined that his disciple would perform so poorly. Even in talismanic patterns and Artifact Refining, she had barely produced any qualified items. Only the combined talismanic patterns of a few dolls were barely acceptable. One defensive Prison Spirit Remnant Soul Clothes was half acceptable. Everything else was shoddy enough to make even Qi Refining cultivators shake their heads.

These shoddy products were naturally very useful against Ghosts without even a trace of Qi Refining cultivation. Against slightly stronger Ghosts, however, they were not very effective. Of course, thanks to the theory of the new talisman system, they were not inferior to normal products after being infused with a large amount of spiritual energy. But normal products would become even more powerful after being infused with the same amount of spiritual energy.

After fighting the Mountain God, Yotsuya Miko finally understood. She felt that producing more shoddy products would be useless. Besides, she had just entered the realm of controlling objects with Spiritual Sense, and many new arts were extremely difficult to cultivate. She might as well focus her thoughts on those arts. With her current spiritual energy, using those arts skillfully would produce power many times greater than her former Talisman Iron Pellet tactics.

Furthermore... the Ghosts within that gate would probably be difficult to injure with shoddy products such as Talisman Iron Pellets. As for qualified talismanic and artifact products... she had none at all, and there were essentially no suitable substitutes.

She thought silently, reminiscing about the Talisman Iron Pellets she had once possessed.

Those astonishingly numerous Talisman Iron Pellets had once been her best means of fighting, helping her kill countless Ghosts. Now, however, they had lost their usefulness.

"Does that mean Silver Pellets are out of print too?"

Miko suddenly had this thought. The legend surrounding the Silver Pellets probably could never be recreated. She would no longer need to spend money buying fish and meat as materials for making Talisman Iron Pellets, nor would she need to continue fabricating the existence of a cat when speaking to her mother and younger brother.

Come to think of it... that fifty thousand yen seemed to be available now, too?

Having suddenly lost an expense, Yotsuya Miko silently opened her phone and checked the balance in her account. The prize money from the calligraphy competition had remained untouched. Although she had not been the one to kill the Mountain God... she could still celebrate. She could treat it as a reward for surviving by the skin of her teeth.

"Hey, Rom, let's—"

So that was what she did.

We Call It Efficiency

In the end, Rom was the one who treated them.

Although he looked like a down-and-out street magician, Rom had actually made quite a bit of money through his spirit-exorcism programs.

"I really didn't expect you to survive a situation that dangerous."