Ghost Eye

"Heh, this trip was worth it after all. I actually got this much Psychic Energy!" Green had already made his plans. The rest could wait. Once he had scraped together two thousand points, he would upgrade the crypt first.

Green was still working through the numbers when a voice began cursing from a nearby cubicle. "Damn it, what are you..." The door swung open halfway through the sentence. At the sight before him, the man swallowed the rest of his words.

He was a man covered in bulging muscles and heavy makeup—yes, heavy makeup. His manner was strikingly effeminate. A handsome young man stood behind him. Both were disheveled, and their relationship was clearly no ordinary one.

Green turned toward the sound and frowned. He had been so careful, yet he had failed to notice anyone in that cubicle. Fortunately, the two had been off their guard and had not even checked what was happening before coming out. Otherwise, an ambush might have wounded him, or even caught him by surprise and threatened his life.

There was no time to dwell on it. The instant the two appeared, Green issued a mental command. Maxim, the Evil Spirit, and the Hard-Skin Ghoul charged wildly at them, while the three nearest Gun Skeleton Soldiers raised their guns and fired.

Bang, bang, bang!

The shots came in a ragged volley. The effeminate muscleman who had emerged first died on the spot. One bullet struck his forehead and blew the top of his skull clean off.

His corpse hit the floor with a thud. The handsome young man froze, eyes wide and mouth agape, as blood and brain matter splashed across his face.

Though the young man was also a Junior Apprentice Knight, he was a complete novice with no combat experience. Faced with this, he went utterly blank. He stared at the fallen muscleman, even forgetting that the enemy was still there.

The next instant, the Windlike Agility of the Hard-Skin Ghoul carried it forward in two bounds and a leap. It skimmed along the ceiling and wall to the young man's side, then struck with its Sharp Claws, sweeping across his neck. At the same time, Maxim rushed in first, intending to kill the young man with a soul attack. But just as he turned into a white streak and was about to pass through the young man's body, Maxim suddenly shrieked. A suction force caught him, and he could not break free. In a flash, he was drawn into the pendant hanging on the young man's chest.

At almost the same moment, the Hard-Skin Ghoul's claws snapped the young man's neck. The sheer force sent his corpse flying like a doll tossed aside after being played with too roughly. It slammed into a heap of clutter in the corner.

Green sensed something was wrong. He had wanted to keep the young man alive for questioning, but it was too late. He gave up on the idea and ordered a Skeleton Soldier to drag the body back.

There was nothing particularly special about this young man with his unusual tastes. The one exception was the Sapphire Pendant on his chest: it was a Magic Artifact. As soon as Green got his hands on it, a prompt appeared: "Magic item: Ghost Eye. A magical device made by an ancient Necromancer from the eye of a young dragon. It can hold souls and transform them into Ghosts... Can be converted into 1,495 Psychic Energy!"

This was the first time Green had seen such a long description for a magic item. His eyes lit up, and the conversion value set a new record too. A single item was worth nearly fifteen hundred Psychic Energy, roughly equivalent to killing two or three Advanced Apprentice Transcendents. But the Ghost Eye's true value was not its Psychic Energy. It lay in the item's own properties: holding souls and transforming them into Ghosts.

Green did not know how the young man had obtained this Magic Artifact, but one thing was certain: as a Junior Apprentice Knight, he could not possibly have known what the Ghost Eye was worth to a Necromancer. It could absorb souls and turn them into Ghosts, a Tier Three Unit. What did that mean? It was practically a Divine Artifact. And judging by how Maxim had been sucked inside against his will, the Ghost Eye also countered spirit entities. Even an Evil Spirit a rank above a Ghost could not resist its pull.

Green had no intention of converting it into Psychic Energy. Still, he took a precaution. Rather than pick up the pendant directly, he ordered a Skeleton Soldier to carry the Ghost Eye into the Graveyard.

The next moment, Green sent his consciousness into the Graveyard. He found the Skeleton Soldier holding the pendant and watched, waiting for the Graveyard's Psychic Energy to seep into it.

This was something Green had learned through long study of the Graveyard. No matter what entered from outside, it would be affected by the Graveyard's unique Psychic Energy. The Enchanted Rifles he had bought from Old One-Eye, for example, had all been brand-new. Once inside the Graveyard, the Psychic Energy had made them look rusty and worn. Yet far from losing performance, the rifles had grown stronger.

Green had also discovered that the Graveyard's Psychic Energy had a powerful corrosive effect. Even Magic Arrays or Runes hidden too deeply to detect could not escape it. If the Ghost Eye concealed any secrets, the Psychic Energy would erode them and render them useless.

Green was not worrying over nothing. Some forms of magic in this world were vicious and insidious. So-called "chance encounters," "blessings," and "pleasant surprises" were not necessarily good things.

The Mages Association had records of one such case. Four hundred years ago, Archmage Gilkins Nant had suddenly vanished. Soon afterward, the spellbook he had spent centuries studying began to circulate. Many mages specializing in soul magic regarded it as a treasure. They flocked to it and fought over it madly. In the end, the spellbook was divided into six parts and claimed by six Formal Mages. Within a mere century, all but one of them—who died unexpectedly—had used Gilkins Nant's spellbook to advance to Archmage.

Yet two hundred years ago, the long-missing Gilkins had suddenly returned, having advanced to Magus.

At the same time, the five people who had studied his spellbook and become Archmages all turned out to be stepping stones for his advancement. Their bodies were destroyed, their souls sacrificed, and they became nourishment for Gilkins's growth.

Reading this, Green had been reminded of a novel from his previous life. It featured an evil technique called the Nine Mother-Children Demon-Seeding Art, which worked in much the same way. The art had a mother technique and child techniques. Its practitioner released seeds of the child techniques and gave them to nine exceptionally gifted youths to cultivate. When the youths completed their training, it was time to harvest. The mother technique specifically restrained the child techniques. By then, the practitioner held the knife and they were fish on the chopping block; their fates had long since been sealed. When those youths first received the child-technique seeds, they had believed destiny favored them. Rare treasures were theirs for the taking, and they thought they had become the heroes of their own stories. Little did they know that from that day on, they were sewing wedding robes for someone else.

That was why Green treated the Ghost Eye's sudden appearance with particular caution. He feared it might be a trap.

This time, however, he had worried too much. After the pendant entered the Graveyard, the Psychic Energy seeped into it without producing anything unusual. It contained neither an extra soul imprint nor any abnormal mental energy. Instead, under the Graveyard's influence, the entire Ghost Eye burst into light, more dazzling than ever!

Ghost Eye (2)

The Ghost Eye was unlike the Enchanted Rifles Green had bought before. The Graveyard's Psychic Energy had immediately made those rifles mottled and old. Perhaps because this Magic Artifact already belonged to the Necromancy School, exposure to the Graveyard's Psychic Energy made it shine all the brighter.

Green checked it again and found that the Ghost Eye's Psychic Energy conversion value had actually risen by another twenty percent!

"Did the Graveyard repair this Magic Artifact?" Green's eyes lit up. "I didn't know the Graveyard could do that. Can it repair magic items from the Necromancy School? But that doesn't quite fit. That bone flute back then... No, the bone flute never entered the Graveyard. It was consumed to restart it."

Green could not be sure, and he had no time to investigate further. His consciousness returned, and he summoned a Skeleton Soldier to bring the Ghost Eye back into the real world.

Green took the pendant from the Skeleton Soldier and immediately noticed something unusual. At the touch of his Magic Power, it shone blue. He gave a soft exclamation as his vision changed. A pale blue film seemed to cover everything before him, lending the scene a cold, eerie, supernatural air.

At the same time, numerous orbs of different colors appeared in the lobby of the abandoned office building, which the Undead Troops had already cleared.

Each orb represented a soul. They came in five colors—green, red, yellow, white, and black—corresponding to the five basic soul attributes. Their strengths varied greatly. The Transcendents' powerful souls formed orbs the size of basketballs, while ordinary people's souls were far smaller: some the size of fists, others no bigger than billiard balls. They floated and bobbed in midair.

Green finally understood why the pendant was called the Ghost Eye. Its bearer could look directly at souls. This ability was a level above the sight granted by Death Spirit Sight; at least, Green could not see these newly departed souls when he used Death Spirit Sight.

Near Green, two orbs rose from the bodies of the effeminate muscleman and the handsome young man, both just killed. The former was the size of a basketball; the latter was slightly smaller, about the size of a volleyball. They had only just died, and their souls were still drifting up from their corpses. They were close enough to Green to fall within the Ghost Eye's range.

Without any deliberate command from Green, the Ghost Eye flashed blue and drew both soul orbs inside.

As the orbs entered, Green instinctively focused on the Ghost Eye. In an instant, he seemed to enter a space filled with boundless mist.

It felt somewhat like entering the Graveyard for the first time, though the sensation was much weaker. The two were not remotely on the same level.

Green surveyed the space. With his experience controlling the Graveyard, a magical space of this lower order posed no difficulty. At a thought, his viewpoint rose rapidly, giving him a bird's-eye view. The Ghost Eye's entire mist-filled interior spread out before him.

Mist separated the space into square cells. Each cell covered about five or six square meters, and there were sixteen in all, arranged four by four. Maxim, the Evil Spirit who had been forcibly sucked inside, floated motionless in the first cell. The second and third held the two soul orbs that had just entered. The remaining cells were empty; the pendant's previous owner had left nothing behind.

Green released Maxim first. Then he tried to transform the two soul orbs into Ghosts. According to the Graveyard's description, this was one of the Ghost Eye's basic abilities.

But when Green extended his mental power and attempted the transformation, the Ghost Eye merely trembled twice. Blue light moved across its surface as though it had begun operating, yet even after he waited a long while, nothing happened.

Green frowned. "Is it defective? That doesn't seem right. Even if it was damaged, entering the Graveyard should have repaired it. Could it be short of materials?"

The situation reminded Green of the crafting and forging systems common in many games. The Ghost Eye seemed to work in a similar way. He immediately went into action, circling the lobby and absorbing the larger of the floating soul orbs.

Soon all sixteen cells were full. When he tried again, the Ghost Eye finally responded.

Blue light bloomed from it like a brilliant aurora, beautiful and dazzling. Magic Power surged, and the pendant trembled faintly. It went on for a full minute!

When the blue light faded, Green swept his awareness through the Ghost Eye. The sixteen soul orbs inside had vanished. In their place were three spirit entities resembling Maxim, though weaker and less substantial. They were ordinary Tier Three Units—Ghosts!

"It worked!" Green was delighted. He promptly took the Ghost Eye back into the Graveyard and released the Ghosts inside.

As the Graveyard's Psychic Energy touched them, the three newborn Ghosts were quickly registered. They appeared near the ruins of the Abandoned Tower, though they were so wary of Maxim, the higher-ranked Evil Spirit, that they hardly dared approach him.

Green also noticed that the Graveyard's stored Psychic Energy had fallen by forty-five points. Registering each Ghost had cost fifteen points on average—half the thirty Psychic Energy it would cost to recruit one in the Graveyard. Besides, Green had not yet built the Abandoned Tower that produced Ghosts. Without the Ghost Eye, he could not have recruited any even if he had been willing to spend the Psychic Energy.

Overjoyed by the result, Green wandered around the abandoned office building's lobby collecting soul orbs, like a child flying a kite. He performed two more transformations in succession. Unfortunately, the remaining orbs were far inferior to the first batch. The two transformations yielded only three Ghosts, bringing their number above that of his Ghouls.

Ten minutes later, Green entered the passage to the underground ruins, satisfied.

Based on Maxim's earlier reconnaissance, Green suspected that most of the Tower of Yin Spirits' core members were inside the ancient Pyramid. Even its Pontiff, David Tru, might be there.

According to the intelligence Green had obtained, the Tower of Yin Spirits' Pontiff and founder, David Tru, operated mainly in Landon City and nearby Nant County. The last time David's son had kidnapped Viscount Paul's daughter, he had provoked a fierce backlash from Landon City's leadership. They had destroyed most of the Tower of Yin Spirits' bases, leaving its members in a state of panic. Some who had joined only to receive Divine Power from the Void Yin Spirit, rather than out of firm faith, had begun to drift away. The drunken, pleasure-seeking state of the people Green had encountered in this secret base made that plain.

Under these circumstances, David Tru had to be here in person to steady the situation.

Green soon passed through the corridor and entered the underground ruins.

Wary of the Pyramid's effect on Undead creatures, Green recalled most of his Undead, keeping only the Hard-Skin Ghoul and Maxim for protection. He wanted to approach the Pyramid and see how strongly it affected Undead creatures when he was controlling them directly rather than from afar. If the effect was too great, he would retreat. He had already gained plenty from this trip. Besides, ninety percent of his combat strength lay in his Undead Troops. If he could not summon them, he would be fighting with his hands tied. Pushing on anyway would be walking straight to his death.