Spirit Incantations

"Heaven and Earth are naturally so; foul qi disperses. Within the cavern lies mystic emptiness, bright and vast is the Great Origin. Mighty gods of the eight directions, let me be as I naturally am... Let baleful filth scatter; let Dao qi endure forever!"

After the sacrifice ended, Yu Chen recited the revised Pure Heaven and Earth Divine Incantation once more. Faint thought-force spread outward from him in every direction. The two already decaying Ironfeather Eagle corpses rapidly vanished, their remaining blood qi merging with the faint vitality and spirituality within several eagle eggs before sinking into the surrounding earth.

Threads of murky radiance surfaced across the ground, forming the image of an Ironfeather Eagle. This was the spirituality Yu Chen had condensed by sacrificing the Ironfeather Eagles to the land. Yet beneath the repeated cleansing of Yu Chen's thought-force, that spirituality was gradually purified, shedding the traces of the Ironfeather Eagle and growing closer to his own aura.

If someone observed this place with dharma sight, they would see that the ground was covered in a thin layer of spiritual light. That light resisted the mixed, obscure, yin and sinister auras in the surroundings.

This was one of Yu Chen's gains from recent years. Its prototype had been a rather unusual shamanic art within the Snake Tribe, used by Snake Tribe shamans to establish nodes outside their territory and facilitate the drawing down of totemic power.

When he had first studied this shamanic art, Yu Chen had found it quite interesting. If the aura being drawn upon were switched from the totem to himself, it would carry a faint resemblance to the Earth Immortal path recorded in many texts and game worlds from his previous life.

Unfortunately, the methods of the Earth Immortal path were not so easily deduced. Yu Chen had once poured immense effort into deducing even the incomplete <Incomplete Orthodox Three-Mountain Talisman Energy Formula>, and he still had no idea how to continue perfecting it.

Naturally, it was even less possible to create the foundational method of the Earth Immortal path from a single shamanic art.

The technique he was using now was merely a method he had derived and revised with considerable effort on Teng Mountain, based on that shamanic art and the Pure Heaven and Earth Divine Incantation of Daoism from his previous life. It could purify the land and establish the rudiments of his own Daoist sanctuary.

Its entry in the system read—

Pure Heaven and Earth Incantation — Sacrificial Variant: Uses one's own thought-force and shamanic sacrificial methods to establish a personal Daoist sanctuary. By continuously reciting the Pure Heaven and Earth Incantation in ordinary times, one may accumulate the power of incantatory thought-force. When released in conjunction with sacrificial rites, it can purify the turbid qi of the land within a certain range, forming something akin to the rudiments of spiritual land or a Daoist sanctuary, making it better suited to one's cultivation. It can ward off the invading yin souls that wander at night and can even, to a certain extent, obstruct the prying of totems.

After forming the spiritual land, Yu Chen began stabilizing its spiritual radiance. He silently recited scriptures that he had pieced together and modified according to his own needs, gathering his spirit and turning it into faint spiritual brilliance that blessed the Daoist sanctuary, making it more stable and concealed.

By the time Yu Chen had stabilized the spiritual land, nearly half a day had passed, and night had fully fallen.

A bright moon hung at the edge of the sky, its cold moonlight spilling down. Faint yin-turbid qi rose from the surrounding earth, and the lingering souls of some wild beasts began to drift about.

Sitting within the spiritual land, Yu Chen paid them little heed. He simply tidied up the miscellaneous items around him and prepared to rest.

Yet while cleaning up, he noticed something was wrong. Not far from the cave he had prepared, he spotted clusters of purple flower buds amid a small patch of weeds. Under the moonlight, those buds slowly breathed in and out spiritual essence and primordial qi. One of the largest buds gradually bloomed beneath Yu Chen's gaze.

Purple flowers? Yu Chen's expression darkened at the sight of the little bloom.

For Yu Chen, who had lived in the Snake Tribe, purple flowers—spiritual plants particularly beneficial to birds—were a blind spot in his knowledge. He only knew that they aided the growth of birds, stimulated their development, and strengthened their spirituality.

But he truly knew nothing about the conditions required for purple flowers to grow and bloom, nor what they looked like at different stages.

Thus, when he had chosen this place to settle, he had never realized it was an environment suited to the growth of purple flowers.

Looking at it now, the reason that pair of Ironfeather Eagles had nested here was entirely because purple flowers grew here, making it suitable for their young to mature.

Rubbing his temples, Yu Chen felt somewhat troubled. He had surveyed this location for quite some time before choosing it. Geographically, it lay at the edge of the hunting ranges of the Crow Tribe and Wolf Tribe. Both sides consciously or unconsciously avoided this place while hunting, making it an excellent temporary foothold.

But encountering the Crow Tribe shaman at noon indicated that they would soon come out searching for purple flowers. He did not know whether they were aware that purple flowers grew here.

If they know, that's another trouble!

Yu Chen looked at the spiritual land he had just established and decided to change his original plan of concealing it. He picked out several bone materials from the supplies he had prepared. Dharma power flowed over his fingertips as he carved shamanic script into each piece, then buried them in the soil to form a crude and simple formation around the area. The originally obscure yet pure spiritual radiance gave off faint ripples, becoming slightly mixed and mottled.

Likewise, characters of seal script invisible to the naked eye floated within the spiritual radiance, rising and sinking around the spiritual land. They cut off the circulation of surrounding auras and prevented news of the purple flowers from leaking out.

Go. Yu Chen stroked the Yin Snake Chain in his hand, and the white snake appeared once more. Compared to before, however, many cracks now marked its scales. Under Yu Chen's direction, it slithered into the brush, cautiously watching the surroundings as it devoured nearby insects, small birds, and beasts, using their flesh, blood, qi, and essence to repair its injuries.

Seated cross-legged atop a bluestone, Yu Chen silently recited the Golden Light Mantra toward the great sun. A weak current of thought-force mingled with the surrounding sunlight and continuously gathered around him, entering his body bit by bit through the crown of his head.

Combined with the somewhat meager dharma power coursing through Yu Chen's limbs, bones, extraordinary meridians, and twelve primary meridians, it became a thin layer of golden light that nourished the constitution which had gradually turned yin-cold through his cultivation of shamanic arts.

Luckily, everyone in this world has all their meridians open. Once dharma power is cultivated, it can travel freely... Otherwise, with this tiny amount of dharma power, who knows how long it would take me to open the extraordinary meridians and twelve primary meridians? But right now, I can only circulate dharma power. As for how to break through to the next step, I don't have the faintest clue...

Yu Chen slowly exhaled a breath of turbid qi, then turned to look at the increasingly numerous purple flowers nearby.

I've already set up a formation around the area to stop the purple flowers' aura from leaking out. Logically speaking, everything should be fine once their flowering season ends. Of course, that depends on whether they know purple flowers grow here. Besides that...

The flowering period of purple flowers should only have lasted five to seven days. Yet three and a half days had passed since the first purple flower bloomed, and not only had the spiritual essence of that first blossom shown no sign of weakening, its vitality had instead continued to grow stronger. Was it because of the spiritual land? Or some other reason... such as the Pure Heaven and Earth Incantation?

Unable to make sense of it, Yu Chen gave up on investigating further and instead began sorting through the cards he had in hand.

The three magical artifacts I possess now were all refined in Teng Mountain. The Snake Shadow Banner uses a century-old spiritwood pole, with its banner woven from snakegrass; the Yin Snake Chain is woven from materials such as snakegrass, snake souls, and powdered snake bones; the Fire Snake Dart uses the bones of a demonized snake as its main body, fused with a small amount of metal during forging. The core of all three lies in the shamanic script incorporated into them. I don't even know whether to call them shamanic artifacts or magical artifacts. Still, judging from the battle with the Ironfeather Eagles, their power is enough for me to use at present.

Secondly, the shamanic arts I am best at were all derived and branched from the Shamanic Incantation — Serpent. They can produce snake-driving, snake shadows, snake curses, and more. Although they can be combined with other shamanic scripts to cast shamanic arts of various attributes, the system uniformly displays them as Shamanic Incantation — Serpent. Below that, the things the system can record are the Purifying Heart Incantation, Purifying Mouth Incantation, Purifying Body Incantation, Golden Light Mantra, and Pure Heaven and Earth Incantation, all originating from the Eight Great Divine Incantations of my previous life.

The reason I could recite those Eight Great Divine Incantations was because of that advancement mission back then. Unfortunately, among them, the Land-Settling Divine Incantation requires borrowing the power of the Merit Virtue Divine Lord; the Incense-Blessing Divine Incantation is used to transmit one's thoughts—simply put, to send messages to one's ancestors or patriarchs; and the Mystic Accumulation Incantation is used to form ties with immortal worthies and divine generals of every path, making it easier to invite deities in the future. None of them are of use right now.

Of the remaining five incantations, the Pure Heaven and Earth Incantation became a Sacrificial Variant after being combined with shamanic arts. As for the Purifying Heart Incantation, Purifying Mouth Incantation, Purifying Body Incantation, and Golden Light Mantra, perhaps because they lack the empowerment of corresponding deities, they can only be activated by my own thought-force. They are degraded versions, unworthy of the name divine incantations, and their power falls far short of the legends from my previous life or the versions found in games.

The only advantage is that after the Purifying Heart, Purifying Mouth, and Purifying Body Incantations have been recited ten thousand times, they can produce permanent effects, which naturally grow stronger as the number of recitations increases.

The Golden Light Mantra, on the other hand, accidentally condensed a faint principle of the great sun on one occasion. It contains the principle of the great sun's radiance and can be called the bane of most curse-type and yin-soul-type shamanic arts. When I fought the snake shaman of the Mist Serpent Tribe, if not for the Golden Light Mantra's assistance, I could never have temporarily suppressed the curse he unleashed before his death and quelled the Mist Serpent Tribe's final counterattack.