Old Jack's Evil Spirit, Unexpected Gains

The lingering scent of meditation oil still hung in the basement air.

Just as Tylen pulled on his signature brown linen robe and prepared to head out, a familiar flapping of wings came from the window.

Caw!

The crow, its eyes burning with ghostly green flames, landed on the windowsill once again.

Tylen immediately stopped what he was doing, turned, and clasped his hands together in a flawless apprentice salute.

"Master."

The crow said nothing, only opened its beak and spat out a heavy black cloth sack, which landed on the table with a dull thud.

Then, it pointed its pitch-black claw at the sack, signaling Tylen to open it.

Tylen stepped forward and untied the cord.

Inside the sack were two items:

A palm-sized token, made of a material that looked like metal but wasn't, its surface a brownish-yellow. The front bore a relief of a roaring lion—the emblem of Cain Wizard Tower—while the back was engraved with intricate anti-counterfeiting runes.

And four crisp, 500-value purple-gold banknotes.

"This is my wizard token, representing my identity."

Makley's voice came through the crow, carrying an undeniable authority.

"If some blind fool gives you trouble, show them this. In the lower districts, no one dares to disrespect me. At the very least, it'll keep you safe."

"As for the money, it's your senior sister's payment for collecting the body. Don't let her down."

With that, the crow flapped its wings and vanished from the window.

"Thank you for your protection, Master."

Tylen bowed once more to the empty windowsill.

But he didn't immediately put the token away.

He picked up the heavy lion-head token, his fingers lightly tracing the runic patterns on its back.

The basement was silent, save for the sound of his own breathing.

Turning to continue packing his things, Tylen suddenly realized he no longer felt that light, carefree sensation.

"Now it's still a closed, isolated space, and I'm alone, but the Slacker Saint Body isn't activating..."

"That means..."

A flash of understanding crossed Tylen's mind.

This token wasn't just a protective charm—it was a mobile surveillance camera.

There had to be a high-level spell like "Eagle Eye Spell" or "Arcane Mark" attached to it.

Makley had given him a chance, but trust was a luxury for wizards.

Since it was a delivery job and a corpse retrieval, this was a full-scale test in itself.

Tylen's expression remained calm, as if he had noticed nothing. He solemnly placed the token close to his body, right against his chest.

Then, he folded the four large banknotes neatly and tucked them into an inner pocket.

"Time to go."

He picked up the rune framework he had hastily assembled the night before, pushed open the door, and drove the carriage away from the wizard tower.

The carriage jolted over the gravel road.

Tylen drove skillfully, crossing the bridge and heading west along the river until he reached the boundary between the slums and the lower district—Old Mine Street.

This was where Old Jack lived.

Though he had already said his goodbyes yesterday, Tylen had a sinking feeling in his heart. But since he was passing by anyway, he wanted to take a look.

Knowing the Red Wine Gang as he did—a bunch of scum who would squeeze every last drop of profit from anyone—they wouldn't let a target go easily.

If possible, he wanted to lend a hand.

Ten minutes later.

The carriage stopped in front of a dilapidated, rickety wooden house.

The door was ajar.

Tylen jumped down and pushed it open.

The room was empty.

On the only wooden bed, only a few torn rags and a pool of still-drying blood remained.

The bodies of Old Jack and Granny Linda were gone.

"Those bastards."

Tylen's fist clenched tightly, his knuckles turning white.

"I already made myself perfectly clear, even drew the runes for you... and you still couldn't leave the dead alone!"

He knew full well that Old Jack's state yesterday had been one of resolved death-wish.

He only wanted to accompany his wife through her final journey, to see her leave this world cleanly.

But now, even that last wish had been trampled.

Tylen took a deep breath, suppressing the rage in his heart.

"To the warehouse."

He leaped onto the wagon and gave the reins a sharp snap.

The old horse seemed to sense its master's fury as well, neighing once before bolting toward the Red Wine Gang's stronghold.

The Red Wine Gang's stronghold was located in an abandoned warehouse in the dock district.

Before he even got close, Tylen felt something was off.

Though it was a bright, sunny morning, a chilling cold permeated the air around the warehouse.

That cold wasn't a drop in temperature—it was a bone-penetrating gloom that seeped straight into the marrow.

"Ahhh—!!"

A bloodcurdling scream erupted from the warehouse, shattering the silence.

Then came a cacophony of pleas for mercy and the thud of heavy impacts.

"Don't kill me! Don't kill me! I was wrong, boss! I was really wrong!"

"Help! This old bastard's gone mad!!"

Tylen pulled the reins, his brow furrowed tightly.

Through the gap in the open warehouse door, wisps of gray-black mist drifted out.

"Yin wind... resentment..."

A word flashed through Tylen's mind: corpse mutation.

Three thousand years had passed since the Third Era, when the Ancient Magic Court fell.

Three thousand years since the magic tide receded, and three thousand years since the Source Fire went out.

Before that, the Source Fire blazed, the land bathed in light, and the undead and demons were mere legends.

It was a true golden age—people wielded transcendent power under the Source Fire's radiance, commanding vast amounts of magic at will.

But with the Source Fire's extinction and the magic tide's retreat, darkness from the Abyss began to erode the land.

From that point on, the corpses of the dead began to undergo all sorts of terrifying mutations—souls could become vengeful ghosts, bodies could turn into zombies.

Demons gradually tore through the laws of matter, slithering through the veins of magic.

Even the mighty Lord of the Abyss could corrupt the magic tide, tempting wizards into depravity.

It was precisely this reason that led the Church to monopolize the entire funeral industry.

Because if normal corpses weren't properly handled, they would mutate for various reasons.

As the Church's monopoly grew increasingly excessive, the entire Wizard Alliance officially lifted the corpse ban 300 years ago.

They allowed wizards to directly purchase corpses in bulk for their experiments, thereby digesting the growing surplus of bodies.

It gave the lower classes a way to survive.

Among the many corpse mutations, corpse mutation itself was a fairly common phenomenon. It typically targeted fresh bodies that had been dead less than 24 hours, where the deceased harbored immense anger and resentment.

According to the Basic Necrotic Creature Compendium, corpse mutations were divided into two main types:

The first was when, at the moment of death, driven by great rage and obsession, the soul embraced the Abyss's power and transformed into a vengeful spirit.

These spirits had no physical form but could directly attack both the mind and body of their targets, classified as second-tier demonic creatures.

The second was when, at the instant of death, powerful longing and resentment refused to leave the body, turning into a wandering ghost.

Instead, the twisted, dark spirituality fused with the flesh, creating a terrifying monster.

This monster was typically covered in black fur all over, its body gaining far greater toughness and strength than any normal human.

To draw an analogy, the former was a fierce ghost, the latter a zombie.

"Old Jack..."

Tylen murmured the name under his breath, striding toward the warehouse.

The moment he stepped inside, a thick stench of blood hit him.

The scene before him was nothing short of a living hell.

The ground was littered with severed limbs and broken bodies, blood splattered across the walls like spilled ink.

Five Red Wine Gang thugs lay in pools of blood—some with their necks twisted, others disemboweled by their own weapons.

And in the center of the warehouse, Old Jack's withered corpse was clutching Granny Linda tightly.

Two corpses lay tangled together, as if clinging to each other in their final moments of life.

But at this moment, there was no unusual movement on Old Jack's body.

Instead, in the air, clusters of gray-black shadows were frantically swirling and howling.

"It's you! You damned bastard!"

A roar interrupted Tylen's observation.

A bald, burly man with blood streaming down his head charged out from the shadows.

It was the same petty thug who had been arrogant toward Tylen yesterday.

He was completely unhinged now, swinging a cleaver in his hand, eyes bloodshot, his face twisted into a grotesque mask of fear and rage.

"None of this would've happened if not for you! If you hadn't stuck your nose in, that old bastard would've died long ago! He wouldn't have turned into this monster!"

"Die!!"

The bald man bellowed, lunging at Tylen like a desperate beast.

Tylen stood still, barely making a move.

Because he didn't need to.

Whoosh!

A gust of eerie wind rose from nowhere, coalescing into a blurry human face, and instantly plunged into the bald man's body.

"Urgh... ah!!"

The bald man's charge came to an abrupt halt.

He looked as if an invisible hand had seized him by the throat, freezing him in place.

Then, his complexion turned pitch-black at a visible rate, his eyes rolling back until only the whites showed, black bloodshot veins crawling across them.

"Gah... gah..."

A bone-chilling grinding sound escaped his throat.

His body began to convulse violently, his limbs twisting at unnatural, reverse-jointed angles.

Through it all, his ghastly white eyes locked onto Tylen, and a hoarse, broken voice rasped out:

"Ty... len...?"

That wasn't the bald man's voice.

It was Old Jack's.

Filled with endless pain, confusion, and a faint trace of lingering sanity.

Tylen's heart jolted violently.

He looked at the possessed bald man, at those eyes that were both familiar and alien, and slowly pulled back his hood.

"Uncle Jack."

Tylen's voice was low and heavy with grief.

"I'm sorry I'm late. You've suffered."

At those words, the soul inside the bald man's body seemed to tremble.

The murderous frenzy receded noticeably in an instant.

"Ah--!!"

The next second, the bald man let out one final, piercing scream.

The shadow burst out of him, draining all his life force and spirit.

His body collapsed like a heap of mud, instantly lifeless.

With the bald man's death, the shadow didn't dissipate. Instead, it howled and flew straight at Tylen.

The chill wind struck his face, biting to the bone.

An ordinary person would have been scared out of their wits by now.

But Tylen didn't dodge.

He stood there, letting the cold, dark aura envelop him.

As a wizard apprentice, he knew the nature of Vengeful Wraiths well.

They were products of obsession, attacking only those they hated in life, and unless something went wrong, they lasted at most twenty-four hours.

If Old Jack truly hated him, he wouldn't have paused when calling out his name just now.

"Uncle Jack."

Tylen reached out, gently touching the empty air, as if patting an old man's shoulder.

"The book you gave me—your son's book—it's been very useful to me."

"Because of that book, I learned magic, and I'll even have a chance to earn my mentor's recognition in the future."

"You are my benefactor."

The yin wind wailed, coiling around his fingertips.

That bone-piercing chill gradually softened, like a helpless sigh.

"I know this world is cold, and people's hearts are cruel."

Tylen spoke softly, his gaze firm yet gentle.

"But I still believe that good people should be rewarded."

"So, Uncle Jack, go in peace."

"Those who hurt you are already dead. Leave the rest to me—I have money now."

He pulled out the burial money Violet Star had given him, two crisp 500-denomination bills.

"I'll give you a proper funeral. I'll bury you on a sun-facing hillside, so you can be together forever, with no one to disturb you ever again."

"May your souls find eternal rest, until the end of time..."

As Tylen murmured, the mass of shadows began to tremble violently.

Woo...

A long, relieved cry echoed through the warehouse.

The yin wind gradually dissipated, turning into faint specks of phosphorescent light that dissolved into the air.

Old Jack's obsession had faded.

The warehouse fell into a deathly silence.

Tylen stood there, silent for a long time.

Then he turned and looked around.

Seven people had died here in total.

Five had been killed by each other in mutual slaughter, their deaths gruesome.

And the other two...

Tylen walked over to the bald man's corpse, then looked at another body in the corner.

That was a scrawny thug, dead in exactly the same way as the bald man: ashen face, no lividity, eyes rolled back, body stiff.

This was the classic sign of death by evil spirit possession, with all spiritual essence drained.

"Heh."

Tylen let out a sudden laugh, tinged with irony, yet also with relief.

"The third type of corpse Senior Sister Violet Star was looking for—the Withered Shell."

"Requirement: someone who died after being possessed by an evil spirit, with their spiritual essence completely drained."

"This one-in-ten-thousand rare material, and here I am, gifted two of them at once."

Was this what they called "good people get good rewards"?

Old Jack, with his final act of revenge, had not only cleaned up the trash for Tylen but also given him a great gift.

"Thank you."

Tylen thanked the void once more.

He didn't rush to leave.

First, he walked over to the bodies of Old Jack and Granny Linda, carefully separated them, then placed each into a clean body bag and loaded them onto the cart.

Next, he took out two more sealed bags and put the bodies of the bald man and the scrawny thug inside.

He wasn't in a hurry to go, because the rune framework hadn't been delivered yet!

His connection with the person who needed that rune framework had to be made today!