The Altered Person

"Sun Qin, is thy heart insincere?"

Looking at Sun Qin's devout expression, yet seeing no change in her whatsoever, Yin Yunze thought it over and could only venture a guess.

"How could that be!" At his words, a hint of hurt at being doubted appeared on Sun Qin's face. "Lord Yi Yun, are you questioning the love between Wan'er and me as mother and daughter, or the sincerity of my faith in you?!"

"Th-that's true..." Hearing her, Yin Yunze also realized that this really did seem unlikely.

After all, her level of faith was second only to Zhao Wan's. If even Sun Qin's heart was insincere, then the others probably had even less chance.

Besides, Sun Qin's main goal now was not to offer herself up, but to take Zhao Wan's place.

No matter how he looked at it, Sun Qin would not dare harbor any underhanded thoughts at a time like this.

If anything, Sun Qin was the one among the three who most wanted the Spirit Descent to succeed!

Having worked that out, Yin Yunze could only laugh it off. "Then why don't you try again?"

"Fox Immortal, descend into my body! Fox Immortal, descend into my body! Fox Immortal, descend into my body!"

This time, Sun Qin simply shouted it several times in a row. Even from her expression, it was clear that she was putting effort into it!

But matters of Technique Methods were not something one could bring to success merely by exerting oneself and gritting one's teeth.

There was still no sign on Sun Qin that the Spirit Descent ritual had succeeded.

Clearly, the problem lay with the Spirit Descent Technique itself.

After obtaining the divinity of a Land God, the Power of Incense Offerings had gained other wondrous uses besides activating skills.

By consuming the Power of Incense Offerings to work through the information he already had, Yin Yunze did indeed discover where the problem lay.

The reason the Spirit Descent could not succeed was not Sun Qin, but Yin Yunze himself.

It was the same problem as before: Yin Yunze had no anchor in this world.

Just as Yin Yunze could not become the local Land God without an anchor, he could not use Spirit Descent without a temple and a gilded statue of himself.

The essence of the Spirit Descent Technique was to let a deity possess a believer. But from the very beginning, Yin Yunze had not obtained the divinity of a Land God!

In other words, Yin Yunze should have been unable to use Spirit Descent from the start.

To put it in gaming terms, although Yin Yunze had the skill, he had not met its requirements, so it should have been grayed out and unusable.

But reality was not a game. Even if he had not met the requirements, the skill would simply fail to produce an effect instead of graying out to warn him.

Thinking of this, Yin Yunze suddenly wondered whether Blessing had been the same before: had it failed to take effect because he had not met the requirements?

Both skills had been unable to function normally because Yin Yunze himself was incomplete.

Thus, Yin Yunze's Spirit Descent skill should have been stuck in an impasse.

Yin Yunze first needed to possess the divinity of a Land God before he could use Spirit Descent.

But only after Spirit Descent formed an anchor could Yin Yunze obtain the divinity of a Land God.

So Sun Qin's failure was actually the normal outcome for Yin Yunze.

And yet, before Sun Qin, Yin Yunze had encountered the abnormal outcome of a success.

Once the other interfering factors were ruled out, it was clear that this time, the issue lay with Zhao Wan!

Thinking of this, Yin Yunze suddenly remembered what Spirit Medium Wang had said during the first sacrifice: Fox Seventh Aunt had demanded Zhao Wan as the offering by name and said something about Zhao Wan having an affinity with immortals.

At the time, Yin Yunze had thought Spirit Medium Wang had simply made up a lie to bully the orphan and her widowed mother.

But now, it seemed Spirit Medium Wang had not relied solely on swindling and deception. She possessed a little supernatural power.

If there was some truth to what Spirit Medium Wang had said,

had Fox Seventh Aunt or Spirit Medium Wang discovered something about Zhao Wan that set her apart from ordinary people?!

Considering the current situation, Yin Yunze could only say that it was very likely.

Unfortunately, the Power of Incense Offerings could only help Yin Yunze piece together information he already had. It could not conjure knowledge out of nothing and reveal exactly what was unusual about Zhao Wan.

However, as he consumed more of the Power of Incense Offerings, Yin Yunze discovered that Zhao Wan's own peculiarity was only one of the reasons this Spirit Descent had succeeded.

More important was a fact Yin Yunze had never truly paid attention to.

Zhao Wan had been presented as a sacrifice to Yin Yunze, the Fox Immortal.

During that first sacrifice, Yin Yunze had called it to a halt halfway through. But as the recipient of the sacrifice, he had not truly rejected it. Judging by the outcome, he had instead chosen to accept it.

As far as the ritual was concerned, the process of the villagers presenting an offering and Yin Yunze, as the deity, receiving it had been completed.

Under the normal process, after receiving the offering, Yin Yunze would have to respond to the sacrificers' request as soon as possible.

A sacrificial ritual like this was essentially more like a transaction than an unconditional contribution between believers and a deity. You could choose not to accept the sacrifice, but once you did, you had to fulfill the other party's reasonable request.

However, Yin Yunze had not really treated Zhao Wan as food, nor had he even treated her as his own property.

Thus, Zhao Wan, who was still alive and kicking and could even go home with Sun Qin, was in a state of having been received by Yin Yunze, but not completely.

On top of that, Yin Yunze had continued to make do with the villagers through clever shortcuts afterward.

Since they had received some satisfaction, the villagers had not come to think that Yin Yunze was failing to fulfill their request.

As a result, no resentment arose from Yin Yunze breaking the agreement, leaving the sacrificial ritual stuck at that point without progressing.

If that situation had continued, then barring any surprises, the ritual would most likely have remained stuck at that initial stage. In the end, because neither side cared about it anymore, it would have been worn away by time.

But at that very juncture, Yin Yunze brought a heavy rain down upon Clear Creek Village.

Regardless of whether Yin Yunze was still taking a shortcut, the rain had ultimately fallen.

The villagers offered a sacrifice to pray for rain. Yin Yunze received the sacrifice and brought the rain.

Once both conditions had been met, the sacrifice, though it had been stalled for a long time, ultimately skipped the other steps and reached completion.

Because Yin Yunze had fulfilled the villagers' prayer for rain, Zhao Wan, as the sacrifice for the rain, became a "thing" that belonged entirely to Yin Yunze.

On top of that, Zhao Wan herself had once promised to offer herself up in exchange for Sun Qin's protection.

Thus, under this double sacrifice, Zhao Wan's nature as an offering altered her existence as a person.

Viewed from the lofty perspective of an immortal, Zhao Wan's essence was now less that of a person than an "object" with a human form and a human way of thinking.

It was no exaggeration to say that, after realizing this, Yin Yunze could take Zhao Wan's life with a single thought. Moreover, without violating the condition that Sun Qin be treated well, even the continued existence of Zhao Wan's soul after death remained subject to a single thought from Yin Yunze.

It was precisely because Zhao Wan was merely a living appendage to Yin Yunze, combined with her own peculiar nature, that the Spirit Descent, which should never have succeeded, had been forcibly pushed through.

For the same reason, Yin Yunze, while descended into Zhao Wan, could even directly wield the full authority of a Land God.

Yin Yunze had originally thought that his own unusual circumstances had caused the effects of Spirit Descent to change as well. Now it seemed that this particular abnormality had a great deal to do with Zhao Wan's own peculiar nature.

As a result, when Yin Yunze descended into Zhao Wan, it was to some extent equivalent to his true body descending.

With a normal Spirit Descent, a believer could bear only a portion of a deity's power.

Faced with an "object" capable of bearing the entirety of their power, if Zhao Wan had encountered any other incense god instead of Yin Yunze, the first thing that god would probably have done upon discovering this was erase her personality and consciousness, turning her into a Law Treasure like a living avatar!

But when Yin Yunze considered it, his first reaction was not joy. He felt that it was far too unreasonable.

Zhao Wan had clearly done nothing wrong, so why had she been altered into an "object" merely because a group of outsiders had forcibly offered her up as a sacrifice?!

Was a world with supernatural powers really this unreasonable?