Xu Qingjia stood up.
Electrolux opened his eyes nearby. "Heading back?"
Xu Qingjia shook his head gently. "I intend to explore the Nether Sea."
The Nether Sea-at first, because the waters beneath their feet were unfathomably deep and boundlessly vast, Xu Qingjia and Electrolux had regarded them as an ocean. An ocean in the Netherworld was naturally the Nether Sea.
In reality, however, the waters of the Nether Sea were simply the Netherworld's aura condensed into liquid form.
Xu Qingjia and Electrolux had explored it a little before. This so-called Nether Sea was actually a "sea of corpses," or, more accurately, a sea of souls. Countless broken souls struggled within it. Only a small portion could float to the surface; far more sank completely into its depths. And the farther down they went, the more incomplete the souls they encountered became.
"I'll come with you." Electrolux stood up.
Xu Qingjia shook his head gently, his expression brimming with confidence. "Rest assured, Elder Yi. Here in the Netherworld, even if I encounter an ordinary True God, I'm confident I can ensure my soul returns safely to my body."
The protection of the Book of Life and Death was his greatest source of confidence.
Hearing this, Electrolux said no more. "In that case, be careful."
Over their three years together, he had come to understand quite a bit about Xu Qingjia, who could be considered half a student of his. Besides the intelligence and courtesy he displayed in everyday life, he had countless threads of connection to the Netherworld, along with a steadiness and maturity far beyond his years. If he truly needed help, he would certainly ask. Saying this now probably meant he did not want Electrolux to follow him.
Everyone had their own secrets. An old man like him was not that curious.
Xu Qingjia slowly walked to the edge of the Divine Domain, gently reached out to the Book of Life and Death with his will, and stepped beyond the barrier. With a splash, he plunged into the Nether Sea as though falling into water. An invisible force wrapped around him, pushing the sea's waters aside.
"Book of Life and Death, capture souls."
With a thought from Xu Qingjia, a beam of ink-black divine light shot from the brow of his soul. Like an enormous invisible net, it began dredging the Nether Sea.
Rustle, rustle...
The Book of Life and Death began turning its pages on its own, and over a thousand unfamiliar names appeared upon them.
Xu Qingjia used the Book of Life and Death to check their cultivation levels in life and whether they had possessed Martial Soul Fusion Skills. Finding no suitable souls, he released those he had captured.
He wanted to find two suitable souls, grant them Divine Investiture as ghost marshals and officers, and have them serve him. If he truly had something good, the people close to him would naturally be the first he thought of. But finding ghost officers to command was purely a matter of getting others to work for him. He needed both ghost officers to remain entirely under his control.
As for Elder Yi, his current power was still insufficient to restore a divine soul to completeness.
There was no rush to grant Divine Positions to his friends and family. If he could successfully become a god and attain eternal life, those close to him would naturally be able to enjoy that blessing alongside him.
Besides, there was a difference between granting Divine Investiture to the living and granting it to the dead.
The living had physical bodies. As King Yama, he was not yet at his peak and might struggle to control them. What sense would there be in a subordinate god being stronger than their principal god? The dead, however, had only souls. Once their souls entered the Book of Life and Death, they were entirely under his control. With the book serving as their vessel, the Divine Domain could also sustain them.
On the other hand, the two ghost officer positions he intended to form would not be particularly powerful. More precisely, they would not break through to the level of hundredth-rank True Gods. That would consume far too much power of faith. Though Quasi-God and True God differed by only a single word, the difference in their consumption of power of faith was over a hundredfold. He did not even have that much power of faith himself, so naturally he would not spend it on his subordinates. Even if he did have it, he would use it on himself first.
The level of a hundredth-rank True God was actually rather awkward on the current Douluo Continent. Call them weak, and they could sweep aside every mortal in the entire Douluo Plane. Call them strong, and the Plane Master Tang Hao or the Abyssal Sage King could slap them dead without effort. They would probably even be no match for the grievously wounded Silver Dragon King.
They would not be particularly useful, and their divine aura might instead expose him to the Plane Master Tang Hao ahead of time.
Under these circumstances, giving his parents the positions of ghost marshals and officers would offer them little enhancement.
As for why he wanted two...
Xu Qingjia hoped to find a pair who possessed a Martial Soul Fusion Skill.
A powerful Martial Soul Fusion Skill could practically be called a bug in the current version of the Douluo Continent.
In his heart, his ideal candidates for the two ghost officers were actually the Amorous Douluo and the Ruthless Douluo, whom he would prefer to enslave. There was no other reason; it was purely a matter of strength. Their Martial Soul Fusion Skill, Emotions Move the Heavens, had actually sealed the Abyssal Sage King for three days in the original story. He hated people from the Tang Sect, but these two really did have the strength to back themselves up. They would be very useful in the Legend of the Dragon King version, and using members of the Tang Sect to fight their own forefather sounded like a wonderful thing.
For instance, letting Tang Wulin demonstrate "a loving father and a filial son."
After all, these two had only been Quasi-Gods during that war between planes in the original story. Even if they had sacrificed their lives and offered up everything they possessed, being able to seal a First-Level God without a Divine Position for three days was utterly absurd in terms of energy levels!
If they could seal the Abyssal Sage King, who was comparable to a First-Level God without a Divine Position, then in theory they could also seal the Plane Master Tang Hao, or even the wisp of Divine Sense Tang San had left inside Tang Wulin. At a critical moment, they would absolutely be a powerful card capable of deciding the entire game.
Unfortunately, he could not kill those two at present.
There was even less chance of approaching them while they were alive to discuss it. Willingly exposing his trump cards to people beyond his control was something only an idiot would do.
"Capture souls."
He reviewed the souls' lives.
"Still nothing suitable."
Xu Qingjia continued descending.
Fortunately, this region of the Netherworld seemed to correspond to the Douluo Plane.
Most of the souls he found had come from the Douluo Plane in life, though occasionally there were people from other worlds.
Capture souls, review their lives.
People from five hundred years ago.
People from three thousand years ago.
People from eight thousand years ago...
They did not necessarily have to possess a Martial Soul Fusion Skill. A genius who had towered over an entire era would also do. After all, Martial Soul Fusion Skills were extremely rare to begin with. Finding two people in this boundless Nether Sea who could form one together would probably be even harder than fishing a needle from the ocean. If he truly could not find them, he would have to settle for the next best thing.
It was just like pulling characters without a pity system.
Whether he pulled a gold depended entirely on his luck.
Several hours gradually passed.
It should already have been daytime in Mingdu, but Xu Qingjia was in no hurry. He had said the previous night that he was going into seclusion.
But the deeper Xu Qingjia descended,
the more doubts filled his mind.
"What exactly happened to the Netherworld?"
The farther down he went, the more broken the souls he found became.
People had three ethereal souls and seven corporeal souls. But according to the feedback he had received from his King Yama Martial Soul, even if a human soul was so broken that only its final wisp of true spirit remained, it could still enter reincarnation and gradually become whole again during rebirth. Damaged divine souls were the exception.
But why had so many broken souls accumulated in the Nether Sea without entering reincarnation?
"Could the Nether Sea have formed because too many remnant souls piled up here?"
As a trainee King Yama, Xu Qingjia felt that something had gone seriously wrong with reincarnation in the Netherworld. The place toward which those souls drifted should have been where reincarnation lay. Some souls had successfully reincarnated, while many others remained trapped here.
Still, none of this had much to do with him at present. He had yet to grow strong enough to change anything about it.
"Long Xiaoyao..." Xu Qingjia spotted a familiar name.
Pass!
After all, this was Legend of the Dragon King.
And he remembered that Mu En's soul seemed to have been poured into the Golden Tree.
Xu Qingjia had little fondness for this accomplice of the Holy Spirit Cult, either.
He kept at it for another few hours.
"Looks like I won't get anything today."
This was bound to be a lengthy process. He had already used the Book of Life and Death to quickly screen several hundred thousand souls, but compared with everyone who had died in the Douluo Plane over all these years, those hundreds of thousands were merely a single hair on nine oxen. More people than that died in the Douluo Plane in a single month. And that was counting only humans. The souls here were not all human; even a blade of grass had a soul, as long as it was alive.
Xu Qingjia had already prepared himself for a long-term undertaking.
He cast his net once more.
There was no way he was going home empty-handed. He had to bring something back.
"Yu Xiaogang? Why is this fellow's true spirit here? Have I already dredged down to the depth of twenty thousand years ago? Tsk, the teacher of a God King, reduced to such a state that he can't even reincarnate. Wait, Ghost Douluo Gui Mei, Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan?"
He had pulled gold-and two golds at that.