From today onwards, will this be who I am?
Having not stood for a long time, Wei Gongcheng looked around in a daze, but even though he was standing, he didn't feel grounded. His feet were clearly on the ground, but he felt like he was far away from it.
The world before my eyes was completely different from before. Looking up, I could see the familiar mortal world, seemingly within reach, yet also seemingly difficult to approach. Looking down, I saw only a small, gray space in front of me.
The space wasn't actually that small, about a thousand square meters, which was quite large for a residence, but it seemed to fall far short of the Samsara Underworld I had imagined.
"Is this the Underworld?" Wei Gongcheng finally couldn't help but complain.
"Ah, that's how it is for now." Chen Qing stood behind Wei Gongcheng, looked around, and also felt that it was rather shabby. Well, very shabby indeed.
"This is very different from the blueprints that the lord gave me before." Wei Gongcheng looked around and suddenly remembered the blueprints that Chen Qing had given him before. The blueprints showed a huge underground city overlapping with Liuzhou. It looked both magnificent and incredible. At the time, he thought that underground engineering of that scale was impossible to complete.
Now it seems that the blueprints were not for a mortal project, but were intended for the Underworld. However, judging from their current appearance, they are not exactly the same, but rather completely unrelated!
"I already said that's how it is for now." Chen Qing coughed lightly, looking at the other person's expression that seemed to say, "Are you just making empty promises?" "Come with me first."
The narrow space wasn't empty; there was a huge pavilion, clearly made of metal, though it was still unfinished, just a frame.
"This is your Underworld palace."
Wei looked up, paused for a moment, and then asked, "Won't it collapse?"
Chen Qing rolled her eyes. "Close your eyes and feel it."
Upon hearing this, Wei Gongcheng closed his eyes and immediately felt as if he and the surrounding space were connected. With a slight thought, he clearly felt that he could control the framework of this pavilion!
Upon realizing this, he opened his eyes and looked around, only then clearly sensing that the tall attic frame was actually a liquid.
"This thing is the Power of Karmic Fruit of the Underworld, the foundation of your supernatural abilities!" Chen Qing gently waved his hand, and one of the clumps on the frame transformed into a light house model that flew towards Chen Qing's palm.
"With this thing, you can create everything in the underworld. Your palaces, your execution grounds, even those eighteen levels of hell from storybooks—you can build them all. This Underworld can be completely customized to your imagination, making it the most perfect underworld in your mind."
"So amazing?" Wei Gongcheng quickly tried to control it, and sure enough, the black liquid could indeed form all sorts of shapes under his control.
But after operating it for a short while, I felt a wave of fatigue.
"You've just formed your divine soul body, your state is unstable, and your spiritual power is limited. Don't rush things," Chen Qing said, glancing at him. "You can take it slowly later."
"My lord," Wei Gongcheng frowned, "I feel this amount isn't quite enough."
Although he couldn't control too many, after actually controlling them, he could clearly sense that the more intricately crafted the items made from these liquids, the more quantity was required. This three-story pavilion, at most, could only support a government office, right?
It seems to fall far short of the luxurious underground city the other party had drawn for him.
"Nonsense, of course it's like this at the beginning," Chen Qing rolled his eyes. "Use it sparingly, okay? A newly established Underworld, no matter how rudimentary, needs the basics. There needs to be a hall for office and trial, a prison to suppress evil spirits, and some torture platforms for execution. This is very important; we need to give evil spirits enough torment to demonstrate the Underworld's authority to judge good and evil. Oh, and we also need to prepare accommodations for the people of the Underworld. When a spirit arrives here, it needs to be assigned a proper burial place based on its merits in life. This will show that rewards and punishments are fair and just, and it will also better establish our authority!"
Wei Gongcheng: "."
Is there a problem?
"There are many problems!" Wei Gongcheng gritted his teeth and said, "Are the Power of Karmic Fruit we have right now enough of what you've mentioned, sir?"
"Well, that's why we need to be flexible," Chen Qing said, avoiding the other person's gaze. "Many unimportant things can be a little simpler, like... ah, our own lodging, or the backyard of the government office. These things aren't really necessary for now."
Wei Gongcheng: "."
He understood. So, the Underworld meant sleeping on the streets? Oh... there aren't any streets yet!
Suppressing his speechlessness, Wei Gongcheng patiently asked, "How does one obtain this Power of Karmic Fruit?"
He could sense the wondrous and boundless Power of Karmic Fruit, which was likely more than just the establishment of the Underworld.
"Two ways," Chen Qing said with a smile. "The first is faith, which can be obtained from any person in Liuzhou. The Power of Faith in the mortal realm can grant you more Power of Karmic Fruit, while the Power of Faith among the underworld's inhabitants can grant you higher Spirit Energy and mental strength."
Wei Gongcheng frowned upon hearing this. "The underworld is manageable, since, as our lord said, once someone dies, their soul can be summoned here, and various methods can be used to instill reverence and faith in the spirits. But people in the mortal realm can't see me, so how can they have faith in me? Are you going to rely on your lord to spread the word in the mortal realm?"
"There are many ways, but the most important is through dreams," Chen Qing explained. "By spending a little spiritual energy, one can occasionally have the people of the Underworld appear in dreams of their immediate family members. In this way, the people of the mortal world will naturally gradually come to believe in the Underworld."
Upon hearing this, Wei Gongcheng fell silent again. If he wanted the people of the mortal realm to believe in the Underworld, he would first have to govern the Underworld well. Only after the people of the underworld were convinced could he slowly influence the people of the mortal realm. This sounded like a rather long process.
Five years
Wei Gongcheng felt like he had really been tricked.
What about the second one?
"The second method is to hunt down evil spirits!"
"Evil spirit?"
"Yes, evil spirits!" Chen Qing said solemnly, "So-called evil spirits are spirits filled with great resentment, unwilling to enter the cycle of Samsara. If such spirits are not controlled, they will devour other spirits to become stronger, and can even transform into ghosts to harm people in the mortal world."
"Is that so? I've never heard of it before." Wei Gongcheng was a little skeptical, because he had seen many beings who cursed others before they died, saying things like they would become vengeful ghosts and do this or that to you, but he had never heard of anyone actually being vengeful by a ghost.
"It wasn't there before, but it is now." Chen Qing sighed and pointed to the liquid frame, saying, "Listen carefully."
Although Wei Gongcheng was full of doubt upon hearing this, he still listened attentively.
He soon heard groans coming from beneath the frame, and quite a few of them at that!
Curious, he approached and peered inside. Upon seeing what was inside, he gasped in shock.
At the very bottom of that frame, countless evil spirits were being suppressed. Why could he tell they were evil spirits at a glance? Because their obviously ugly and malevolent appearance immediately aroused his heartfelt disgust as a righteous god of the Underworld.
Some of these evil spirits are still humanoid, only their appearances are grotesque, fierce, and terrifying, but at least you can still see some human features. However, a large portion of them have degenerated into completely deformed monsters, and just looking at them gives you a chill from the depths of your soul.
These monsters were suppressed at the bottom, squeezed by the framework, with a constant stream of sparse liquid gushing out like juice being extracted. However, the liquid squeezed from their bodies was viscous and foul-smelling, but at first glance, it looked very similar to the Power of Karmic Fruit on the framework.
So he couldn't help but ask, "Is that the Power of Karmic Fruit?"
"Yes." Chen Qing nodded. "However, it's unpurified Power of Karmic Fruit, so you can't use it directly, otherwise your condition will worsen."
How to purify it?
"There are also two ways. First, you can purify it with the Power of Merit and Virtue. People who accumulate good deeds and virtues in their lives carry the Power of Merit and Virtue with them after death. If they have faith in you, they can use this Power of Merit and Virtue to exchange for things here with you, such as Underworld Lifespan, a better burial site, or something else. You can use this power of Power of Merit and Virtue to purify the negative Power of Karmic Fruit."
"May I ask, my lord, are the so-called 'Underworld Lifespan,' 'death dwelling,' or anything even better, all of these things formed through the Power of Cause and Effect?"
"Yes"
"Doesn't that mean there's nothing at all?"
"How could there be nothing?" Chen Qing looked at the other person as if they were an idiot. "You can make a profit from the Power of Merit and Virtue you need to exchange for how much stuff is up to you. Do you really think you can just honestly exchange it for the same value?"
"I"
Wei Gongcheng's face twitched violently upon hearing this. So, all this time, he, this so-called righteous god of the underworld, was just a middleman?
"What about the second one?" Wei Gongcheng gritted teeth.
"The second method is transformation!" Chen Qing grinned. "Whether through torture or by converting it with scriptures, whatever the method, as long as the evil spirit repents or is tamed, its evil karma can be purified."
"I see." Wei Gongcheng suddenly realized why the design drawings contained so many gruesome torture instruments that made one's scalp crawl, such as boiling in oil, scraping flesh raw, and freezing hell; they were all for torturing and taming evil spirits.
Chen Qing gazed down at the scene below with a melancholy expression. "These evil spirits, once tamed, can be put to good use; there are many places where they can be put to good use."
At this moment, several Ying Yi hiding inside the dense horde of evil spirits, clearly trying to avoid Chen Qing.
Chen Qing had already seen it all, and sneered inwardly.
Most of the evil spirits here come from the Yin-Yang Road, and many of them are monsters that have been completely transformed in the Yin-Yang Road. Unexpectedly, those guys are here too.
That's right, the guys who were dodging were the same Chen Household who had been tortured to death by Chen Qing not long ago.
Before the establishment of the Underworld, all living souls in the human world were uniformly absorbed into the Yin-Yang Road. Now that the Underworld has been established, as long as the barrier is sealed, any evil spirits that can escape into the barrier can be considered as souls of the Liuzhou Underworld. These guys actually managed to escape in.
But it's good that they dared to lay a hand on the Laoda; it would be too good for them to die so easily!
We're still a little short of 3,000 first-time subscribers, but the draft is all ready, Mofang I thought I'd just release it. Thanks again to all my brothers and sisters for your subscription support!