"Damn, deliberately cutting my own finger really didn't feel good." Tang Liu's face twitched as he watched his blood drip continuously, his heart turning cold as well.
After the blood had roughly covered the bottom of the Calla Lily bowl in a thin layer, Tang Liu hurriedly plucked all the leaves from a small patch of grass within reach, as instructed by the system. He crushed them quickly and applied them to the wound. Before long, the bleeding stopped.
Incidentally, the system had also told Tang Liu where to place the bowl.
After the bleeding stopped, Tang Liu discarded the crushed leaves. Then, gripping the snapped bamboo branch in his right hand as though it were a brush, he lightly dipped it into the fresh blood in the bowl.
Then, he carefully wrote on the stone in his left hand with the bamboo branch.
Whenever the blood on the bamboo branch ran low, he dipped it into the bowl again before continuing to write. Once he had used up all the blood in the bowl, the character on the stone was complete.
He had written the character for "store." Of course, it was written in small seal script.
Naturally, Tang Liu did not know the small seal script version of "store." The system had simply projected the seal-script character onto the stone, and he traced it stroke by stroke.
Setting down the bamboo branch, Tang Liu looked somewhat stunned. "That's it?"
"Not yet," the system said. "Please release your Third Martial Soul and use the first soul skill, Haolan—Mark, on this stone."
Tang Liu followed the system's instructions and left a mark on the stone.
"Then sit cross-legged. Place the stone roughly ten centimeters in front of you, with the blood-written character facing you."
Tang Liu did so again, sitting cross-legged and positioning the stone correctly.
"Now, please use the Hao-Lan Mark to inject Soul Power into the stone."
Tang Liu froze at that.
"I can use the mark to inject Soul Power into the body of whatever I mark?" he could not help asking.
"You can," the system confirmed.
Having received an answer, Tang Liu's thoughts immediately began to race.
If I can inject Soul Power into a marked target, then conversely, can I use the mark to absorb the target's Soul Power?
Or, more broadly...
I can inject my life force into a marked target, and I can also plunder a marked target's life force.
I can give a marked target everything I have, and I can also plunder everything a marked target has!
"And there are no restrictions of space or distance," the system responded to Tang Liu's thoughts.
"My god..."
Tang Liu's excitement was beyond words.
This was practically truly invincible!
"However, I advise the host not to attempt it lightly, because such operations consume a great deal of Soul Power," the system warned.
"I know. They're mana-consuming spells, after all. I get it," Tang Liu said calmly.
Ever since killing that Mandala Snake, Tang Liu had gained a deeper understanding of the Haolan Spells Martial Soul.
For example, the first soul skill, Haolan—Mark.
Although marking a target with this Soul Skill did not consume Soul Power, the moment he wanted to use the mark to do anything, it would consume Soul Power on a massive scale.
For instance, when Tang Liu used the mark to freeze the Mandala Snake in place and make it explode, that operation had drained all the Soul Power from his body in an instant.
At the time, he could clearly feel that if his Soul Power had not been insufficient, even more would have been drained.
After all, that had been a five-thousand-eight-hundred-year Mandala Snake!
For another example, if Tang Liu used the power of the mark to make Tang San suddenly freeze in midair like the Mandala Snake, his Soul Power would also be nearly drained in an instant. If Tang San were replaced with Tang Hao, it would happen even faster.
It was like an ADC whose basic attacks all consumed mana, with every single attack costing as much mana as someone else's ultimate skill!
Wasn't that exactly what mana-consuming spells were?
Once he understood that, Tang Liu finally realized why the words "Haolan" had felt so out of place with the rest of the title when he had read the Compendium of Haolan Spells in his previous life.
So "Haolan" had been completely altered afterward!
Tang Liu seriously suspected that the Compendium of Haolan Spells had originally been called the Mana-Consuming Spell Compendium!
What, did they feel bad about changing only "consuming" to "Haolan," so they even made a new version of the perfectly fine word "mana"?
Then why not just change "Spell Compendium" too?!
Did they not have enough money to pay the editing fee?!
After finally suppressing his blazing urge to complain, Tang Liu refocused on the stone before him.
As his attention concentrated, the phenomenon that had once appeared on the Mandala Snake also appeared on the stone.
In Tang Liu's eyes, the stone gradually faded away, leaving only the Hao-Lan Mark rune within it shining with a bright light.
Staring at the mark, Tang Liu began trying to channel his own Soul Power into the stone through it.
With a thought, Tang Liu felt the Soul Power in his body begin to diminish. At the same time, the light emitted by the Hao-Lan Mark grew stronger in his eyes.
In merely three seconds, one-tenth of Tang Liu's Soul Power had been consumed.
"Now, please point at the stone with your right hand in the sword-finger gesture and shout, 'Descend,'" the system said, displaying an image of the gesture at the same time.
It was simply extending the index and middle fingers together, pressing the ring finger and little finger against the palm, and resting the thumb atop the ring finger.
The kind of hand gesture commonly seen in xianxia dramas.
Tang Liu's mouth twitched. He found it absurdly out of place, but he still followed the instructions and shouted, "Descend!"
The moment his voice fell, the stone rapidly lit up with a dazzling blood-red radiance.
From Tang Liu's perspective, the blue-black glow emitted by the mark was instantly covered by a sudden flash of blood-red light. In the end, even the mark itself was dyed red, making for a deeply eerie sight.
Tang Liu had no time to be surprised, because the stone that had faded from his sight appeared again. He finally saw the source of the blood-red light: the character for "store" that he had written on the stone.
After roughly three breaths, the blood-red radiance emanating from the stone gradually faded away. The character for "store," which had originally been written on the stone's surface, seemed to come alive and began to seep into the stone. In the end, it was forcibly engraved into the stone.
At the same time, the originally irregular stone had actually turned into a perfectly round bead. It was truly miraculous.
"That did it?" Tang Liu was still somewhat unable to believe it.
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