Witchcraft

In principle, a White Lotus Sect cultivator proficient in divine path arts, an old hand skilled in soul-bewitchment, curses, and nightmare suppression, plus a controlled martial arts expert and several high-quality ritual implements, should have been enough to handle most situations.

Unfortunately, they ran into me! Yu Chen smiled and shook his head, casually putting away the three ritual implements. As someone well versed in witchcraft and sacrificial rites, he countered those three in every possible respect.

Though the folding fan, small bell, and treasured mirror were all fine ritual implements—better than the Fire Snake Dart and Yin Snake Chain Yu Chen had brought into the instance, and no inferior to the Snake Shadow Banner he had left in the Southern Barbarian Lands to guard the physical body that might have remained there—

Yu Chen himself did not know whether this transmigration had involved his physical body or merely his divine soul. Compared with ritual implements he did not know whether he could take back, he naturally cared more about scriptures that could be memorized.

He opened the scripture. It was a fragment of the White Lotus Sect's secret inheritance, the <White Lotus True Faith, Dispelling Doubts, Uncultivated Attainment Free and Easy Treasure Scroll>. After flipping through it a few times, a trace of understanding flickered in Yu Chen's eyes.

"Just as I thought! There's no road ahead for the path of witches!"

Yu Chen put away the <White Lotus True Faith, Dispelling Doubts, Uncultivated Attainment Free and Easy Treasure Scroll>. Though he had long anticipated this outcome, he still felt some regret when he truly understood it.

It made sense. If there were still a road ahead for the witch's path, he could not possibly have heard not the slightest hint of it in the Southern Barbarian Lands.

In fact, Yu Chen had heard in his previous life that one of the origins of the immortal path was the witch path, while the witch path itself was part of the divine path.

According to the research of certain explorers within the game world, they believed that the witch path, whether in the game world or the real world, was itself a dead end—or rather, one of the preliminary paths of the divine path.

One origin of the immortal path was a group of witches who could not become gods and had no choice but to settle for the next best thing, seeking immortality through other methods.

Yu Chen had always harbored doubts about this theory, whether in his previous life or until today. But his experiences in the Southern Barbarian Lands, combined with the records within the Free and Easy Treasure Scroll, gave him a fairly definite answer.

According to the Free and Easy Treasure Scroll, the core of a mortal's cultivation of the divine path lay in a spark of divinity.

In the immortal path, this spark of divinity was called Dao Heart and Dao Nature; in the Buddhist school, Zen Heart and Buddha Nature. In essence, it referred to the product of one's innate spiritual light after its spirituality had been elevated.

But unlike Dao Heart and Dao Nature or Buddha Heart and Buddha Nature, divinity could be forcibly condensed through the prayer power of all living beings and offerings of incense and fire.

If cultivated by oneself, it required one to grasp the corresponding principles and laws of the Dao through all manner of methods, just as with Dao Heart and Dao Nature or Buddha Heart and Buddha Nature. The snake-shaped pattern formed by the Snake Shamanic Script Yu Chen had comprehended within his mind was one such method, and could be considered the embryonic form of divinity.

Theoretically, so long as Yu Chen merged his soul into the Snake Shamanic Script and then followed the secret techniques recorded in the Free and Easy Treasure Scroll to gather Incense and Fire Prayer Power, he could become a snake god.

Moreover, the records in the Free and Easy Treasure Scroll completed the final missing piece in Yu Chen's deductions regarding the witch path.

In that instant, the information the cheat system had deduced over the past dozen years linked together, then swiftly extended further downward, granting Yu Chen an understanding of the witch path closer to its essence.

In ancient times, the character for "witch" was written as two "ren" characters crossing each other. In ancient usage, the horizontal strokes above and below "ren" represented Heaven and Earth respectively, while the vertical stroke in the middle signified their connection. Together, it meant one who communicated with the spirits of Heaven and Earth.

The character "witch" was formed from two crossed "ren" characters. Its vertical line represented communication between Heaven and Earth, while its horizontal line represented communication with the four directions.

Thus, a witch was one who communicated with Heaven, Earth, and the four directions.

How, then, did witches communicate with Heaven, Earth, and the four directions? In the past, Yu Chen had never reached a precise conclusion. Now, he vaguely grasped the key point. The essence of the witch path's power was spirituality. Through spirituality, witches merged with Heaven and Earth, merged with deities, and even their eventual apotheosis involved elevating and divinizing their own spirituality.

Thus, at the starting stages of the witch path—the minor witch and witch apprentice stages—one needed to learn shamanic script and worship totems to condense magical power. Put plainly, one used shamanic script and totems to let one's own spirituality exchange with the primordial qi of the outside world.

Therefore, at this stage, cultivators of the witch's path relied heavily on their own spirituality when casting spells, and their magical power was also exceedingly mixed. Without an external force such as a totem to forcibly unify it, cultivating one spell could easily result in one type of magical power. The more spells they cultivated, the more mixed and disorderly their magical power became.

Beyond minor witches and witch apprentices, witches referred to those whose spirituality had already undergone elevation, allowing them to grasp a certain number of shamanic scripts at once and gain a small measure of their true meaning. They could initially unify their own magical power and freely cast spells within a corresponding range.

Greater witches went a step further. Their spirituality had fully elevated, allowing them to take one shamanic script as their core and form their internal magical power into a cycle, condensing something akin to foundational magical power.

Yu Chen currently stood between a witch and a greater witch. Because he cultivated the Orthodox Three-Mountains Talisman Qi Formula and had condensed foundational magical power, his realm was slightly higher than that of a witch. Yet because he had not taken any one shamanic script as his core, his spirituality had not fully elevated, and his control over witchcraft was inferior to that of a greater witch.

Likewise, if Yu Chen chose the witch path now, he could enter the next stage, Witch Spirit, in the shortest possible time.

According to the results of the cheat's more than ten years of calculations, the way to enter this realm was nothing more than "the unity of Heaven and man" or "the unity of god and man."

The key to "the unity of Heaven and man" lay in taking Heaven and Earth as one's teacher, comprehending nature's transformations, and thereby borrowing the power of Heaven and Earth and wielding nature's might. In movement and stillness alike, one could possess boundless force. At profound levels, one could even, to a certain extent, replace Heaven's heart with one's own—both following Heaven to borrow its momentum and acting against Heaven.

In the end, the fundamental purpose of "the unity of Heaven and man" was to find, occupy, or even create the place in Heaven and Earth most suited to oneself, allowing one to better use the power of Heaven and Earth. It could be considered the foundation of the later immortal path.

"The unity of god and man," meanwhile, bore unmistakable traces of the primitive divine path. It meant worshipping a certain concept, a certain totem, a certain law, or even Heaven and Earth itself as a deity. One then acted according to some supposed will hidden in the unseen, emphasizing that one was part of the deity and should draw close to it, worship it, and ultimately merge with it.

So there really is no road ahead for the witch path! Yu Chen sighed again.

The more he thought and researched, the more despair Yu Chen felt toward the witch path. If one cultivated the witch's path and chose "the unity of Heaven and man," one had to face the pressure of all Heaven and Earth. Relying on spirituality alone, even if one could contend against Heaven and Earth for a time—or even rule the will of Heaven and Earth within a region—such a state could never last. Sooner or later, one would become part of Heaven and Earth's will.

Choosing "the unity of god and man" was even more unfortunate. Unless you were the one who opened the path and succeeded on the first attempt, occupying the corresponding concept, when you returned to the deity, you would face not merely the concept and the principles and laws of the Dao, but a collective formed from those concepts and laws, the spirituality of countless witches, and the prayer power of all living beings. The best possible outcome was becoming a slightly more important part of that collective.

As for solutions to these two paths, the various "pioneers" in the game world had long found them.

The solution to merging one's spirit with Heaven and Earth was to merge one's body with earth veins, transform into an earth deity, and use the veins of a region to withstand Heaven and Earth's might; or merge one's spirit with spiritual roots, open up a blessed land and grotto-heaven, switch to the Earth Immortal path, and stand apart from Heaven and Earth.

For merging one's spirit with a deity, one could directly become a divine official or priest. Those more rebellious could gather faith and prayer power to tear apart the deity's authority. More rebellious still, one could choose a totem, swallow it whole, and take its place.