PS: After midnight, it'll be my first time getting a recommendation. I'm nervous.
All this time, Su Qingqiu had believed the Snake Abyss had eighteen layers.
After all, that was what the memories of the Evil Remains had shown.
But after comparing them with the ox demon's memories, he suddenly realized that at least three hundred and sixty years ago, the Snake Abyss had no upper layer at all. The Second Layer Serpent Pit Abyss had been the first layer back then.
Su Qingqiu furrowed his brow.
Had the current First Layer Serpent Pit Abyss been created after the Dragon-Raising Temple was built? Or was it... that the Snake Abyss itself was growing and changing?
Had it really grown another layer in the span of three hundred and sixty years?
If it was the latter...
Su Qingqiu shuddered for no reason.
If that was the case, then things were serious. The Snake Abyss as a whole could be a living creature, and they Spiritual Serpents might only be parasites on its body.
No, he had to figure out what was going on. Ideally, he would find other Spiritual Serpents and ask them.
The ox demon's remains were exceptionally difficult to digest.
It took three whole days to complete the Exorcism and Blessing.
[Obtained 780 years of Daoism Cultivation]
[Obtained Shape-Shifting Illusion]
[Obtained Spirit Void Order]
The Daoism Cultivation had directly transformed into Spiritual Light. Su Qingqiu was now drawing ever closer to ten thousand years' worth.
As for Shape-Shifting Illusion—
It was an incredibly wondrous ability. Like the Rain Accumulation Technique, it was a lesser spell of the Thirty-Six Celestial Transformations.
Outside of combat, it could temporarily transform him into a particular object, confounding the senses until it was impossible to tell the real from the false.
In short, it was an illusion spell.
"Not bad. Though it isn't a method for transforming into human form, this spell will make it much easier to move about in the human world."
Su Qingqiu nodded in satisfaction.
The spell had most likely arisen from the ox demon's Five-Ding Livestock-Creation Technique. One worked outward, the other inward.
At present, he could only transform into one kind of object. Su Qingqiu gave it a try—and found himself transformed into a feminine-looking man with a red mark between his brows and snake scales covering both cheeks.
Strangest of all, he had no legs. In their place was a huge snake tail.
Su Qingqiu was left speechless.
He had only just obtained the spell and wasn't proficient with it yet. It was only natural for it to turn out like this on his first try. With diligent practice, it would surely improve.
"Just as I thought. My body hasn't changed at all; other people are simply seeing an illusion."
"A trick played on the senses."
Su Qingqiu frowned. He could even feel his enormous body still pressing against the surrounding rock walls, leaving deep indentations in them.
As he moved, he even heard stones grinding beneath him.
These were all flaws caused by his lack of mastery. Once he cultivated Shape-Shifting Illusion to an unfathomable level, these telltale imperfections would naturally disappear.
"Right, there's also the Spirit Void Order... What is this thing?"
Su Qingqiu murmured to himself.
Floating before him was a white snake scale about the size of his palm, engraved with the words "Spirit Void."
He seemed to have seen something like it before. It was almost identical to the snake-scale token he had obtained from Hundred-Eyed Devil's Soul Fragment No. 25, except that the latter did not bear the words "Spirit Void."
Could the Spirit Void be connected to the Dragon-Raising Temple?
Just as Su Qingqiu was about to examine it more closely, his expression abruptly shifted. His Spiritual Light surged, forming a massive shield around him.
The next moment,
he felt the air around the cave enveloped by a powerful force of pure yang.
Buddha-light filled the cave.
"Amitabha. To think a Spirit Lord stands before me. How wondrous, how wondrous. Please forgive this humble monk for arriving uninvited."
A long-browed monk glowing all over with white light passed straight through the stones Su Qingqiu had piled up at the cave entrance and walked inside.
Standing before the shield formed from Su Qingqiu's Spiritual Light, the long-browed monk gave a bitter smile and said, "Spirit Lord, could you withdraw your Spiritual Light? My soul cannot withstand its erosion. Before I depart for the Western Paradise, I merely wished to see who had resolved the obsession in my heart."
Su Qingqiu fixed the Eyes of the Spiritual Snake on the long-browed monk.
The person before him was a wandering soul—in other words, nothing more than an obsession that had lingered after death for who knew how long.
Had he come because of the ox demon?
The face of the wandering soul before him closely resembled that of a monk in the ox demon's memories. Su Qingqiu's heart stirred. He withdrew the Spiritual Light shield and asked, "Are you the long-browed monk Puzhi?"
Puzhi looked surprised. Then he pressed his palms together and said, "Amitabha. I never imagined that, after so long, a Spirit Lord would still remember this humble monk. I am deeply honored. I am only an obsession left behind by Puzhi, not Puzhi himself. Please forgive me, Spirit Lord."
So it really was Puzhi!
The eminent monk from the Dragon-Raising Temple who had ended the ox demon's rampage all those years ago was none other than the long-browed monk Puzhi, hailed as the Eternal Saint Monk.
He had never expected to encounter the monk's wandering soul here.
"What do you want with me?" Su Qingqiu asked. He had originally intended to ask why Puzhi's lingering obsession was here, but changed his mind. He couldn't just ask so bluntly.
That would make him seem far too ignorant. Better to be cautious.
At the same time, he secretly gathered Spiritual Light throughout his body, ready to destroy Puzhi if the monk made a move.
"Spirit Lord, would you hear a story from this humble monk first?" Puzhi didn't answer. Instead, he made a request.
Su Qingqiu furrowed his brow and fell silent for a moment. When no warning of danger came, he nodded, inviting Puzhi to begin.
With Shape-Shifting Illusion, Puzhi couldn't see his true form anyway, so Su Qingqiu didn't mind hearing the old monk's story.
After all, this fellow was an antique from three hundred and sixty years ago.
"Thank you, Spirit Lord!"
Puzhi began to recount his story.
Three hundred and sixty years ago, two suns hung in the sky, and drought descended.
The people of Zhaoyang Country suffered terribly.
Deep in the mountains of Great Wasteland, in a remote village, people resorted to eating their own children.
At the time, a naïve boy fled to the Dragon-Raising Temple with the big yellow ox he had raised himself since childhood, desperate to escape being sold as food by his own parents.
He hoped to enter the Dragon-Raising Temple, learn how to end the drought, and bring peace to the land.
"The boy gnawed on tree roots and ate clay to stave off hunger, relying on the big yellow ox for company. Even in the hardest of times, when they went more than ten days without finding food, he never once considered slaughtering the ox."
"In his heart, it was the only family he had."
"After wandering for three years and six months, the boy finally reached the Dragon-Raising Temple. But because he had spent so long living alongside an ox, he was accused of being tainted by the aura of evil demons and monsters, and the temple turned him away."
At this, Puzhi paused and sighed. A trace of sorrow crossed his face before he continued:
"Starving and freezing, the boy died outside the temple, and the big yellow ox disappeared with him. Seven years later, word spread through Great Wasteland that an evil demon was using the Five-Ding Livestock-Creation Technique, transforming countless refugees into cattle and sheep. The monks of the temple were then sent to secretly uncover the truth and wipe out the monster responsible."
"In the end, the least remarkable long-browed monk in the temple discovered the ox demon's trail. After a fierce battle, he destroyed it. From then on, Long Brows became known as the Eternal Saint Monk. The court even rewarded him, and he became one of the Dragon-Raising Temple's favored disciples."
"Spirit Lord, that is the story I wished to tell. Did you hear anything in it?"
Faced with Long Brows's question, Su Qingqiu furrowed his brow and went over the story again from every angle. A thought surfaced in his mind: "Was the ox demon the big yellow ox that had accompanied the boy and depended on him for survival?"
"Wait. You know the earlier events in such detail... You aren't just Long Brows. You're also that boy from back then!"
Only then did the long-browed monk's story make sense.
Before you continue