Two Chapters Released Together: Level Up, Dharma Protector Evil Eye, Sudden Premonition

Lin Xu checked his personal panel. His class level had quietly risen to level 4.

Name: Lin Xu

Race: Human

Identity: Inner disciple of Xuanwei Monastery

Class: Daoist (level 4)

Strength: 14 (+1)

Agility: 13

Constitution: 14 (+1)

Spirit: 19 (+1)

Intelligence: 16

Charm: 14

Health: 143/143

Mana: 105/105

Skills: ...Rejuvenation Art · cyan (expert), Illusory Rock Form-Refining Spell · cyan (grandmaster), Lamp Kindling God-Descending Chapter (basic section) · dark gold (grandmaster)

Talents: Focus (gold), Thought Overclocking (gold)

Dharma protectors: Yin soldier corporal ×1, Evil Eye ×1, Chen A'niu, Liu Jiayao, wronged soul (elite) ×1

Equipment: Ice Heart Jade Pendant, Dao Rhyme Bright Light Lamp, Azure Soul Bottle, Profound Light Eight Trigrams Robe, Yin Soldier Command Flag, Cloud-Treading Shoes, Azure Blade Soul-Pacifying Sword...

"Not bad. I finally look like a Daoist." Looking at all his gear, Lin Xu felt somewhat gratified.

His magical implements were complete, and his cultivation had advanced. At last, he had some means to protect himself.

With a thought, the door quietly opened.

The floating Evil Eye flickered with a dim light as it slowly drifted over to Lin Xu.

It was the monster he had subdued on an earlier patrol mission. Its injuries had healed over the past week.

Considering the great battle that might break out at any moment, Lin Xu decided to refine it completely into a Dharma protector to strengthen his side's fighting power.

He stared into the Evil Eye's deep pupil. The Bright Light Lamp in his hand suddenly shone brighter, and a wisp of candlelight leaped from the wick and shot into its enormous pupil.

In the Evil Eye's sea of consciousness, an illusory candle flame slowly kindled, illuminating the chaotic spiritual power within.

"As expected of an Evil Eye. It was born with immense spiritual power. It's just so disordered that it can bring less than one or two tenths of it to bear."

Lin Xu examined the Evil Eye's somewhat chaotic sea of consciousness, considering how to untangle this knotted mess.

The first thing he thought of was the Yin Pupil Nether-Peering Record, one of the secret arts sent by Xuanwei Monastery. It specialized in eye techniques, and at a profound level, one could refine the Nether Pupil, perceive the netherworld, and see through illusions.

But he immediately rejected the Daoist art. "No, condensing a Dharma Seed would cost me five points of maximum mana. If I can't recoup the cost, I'd be taking too big a loss..."

What would count as recouping the cost?

In Lin Xu's view, unless it could, like the Lamp Kindling Spirit Transformation Chapter, cause the recipient of the Dharma Seed to gradually refine itself into his Dharma body through cultivation, it wouldn't truly pay for itself—his sights had risen.

"The Lamp Kindling Spirit Transformation Chapter is too difficult to cultivate, and it isn't suited to a creature like the Evil Eye..." In the state of Thought Overclocking, Lin Xu's thoughts flashed like lightning as he weighed the possibilities:

"To be precise, nonhumanoid monsters like the Evil Eye would all encounter physical constraints when trying to cultivate Daoist arts. Their meridian structures are also completely different from those of humans..."

The Lamp Kindling Spirit Transformation Chapter inherited the Bright Lamp Spirit Kindling Art's approach to awakening guardian spirits, allowing beings including spirit entities and monsters to be refined into Dharma protector deities.

If differences in body and meridians prevented the Dharma protector deities from cultivating, then the Daoist art would lose its greatest advantage.

With a thought, the formulas of the Yin Pupil Nether-Peering Record flowed through his consciousness. Its profound principles were dismantled by his overclocked mind and transformed into a cultivation framework Lin Xu could understand.

As his understanding of the art deepened, the Yin Pupil Nether-Peering Record was broken down into even smaller units. Seal script characters appeared in his sea of consciousness like a sky full of stars, each one flickering with a deep, mysterious light.

With a thought, Lin Xu used his own spiritual sense as a guide to recombine thirty-six core seal characters, stripping away the original art's reliance on humanoid meridians and instead simulating the Evil Eye's innate spiritual pathways.

In an instant, the many seal characters intertwined in his sea of consciousness into a rotating talisman array. It glowed with a dark purple halo and radiated strange spiritual ripples.

At this point, the core principles of the Yin Pupil Nether-Peering Record had been laid bare. But the talisman array alone was not a complete Daoist art, just as an engine needed a casing and transmission system to function.

At his thought, the seal characters drifted like points of starlight, nesting layer upon layer around the talisman array to form the prototype of an array suited to the Evil Eye's spiritual pathways.

As the final seal character fell into place, the core of the talisman array abruptly contracted into a dark purple, eye-shaped imprint, suspended in the center of his sea of consciousness.

Done!

An understanding quietly surfaced. At that moment, Lin Xu knew that his insight into the basic section of the Yin Pupil Nether-Peering Record had surpassed the bounds of the original text and reached the grandmaster realm, no longer constrained by the human form.

But he did not stop there. With a thought, the seal characters that had already taken shape scattered once more, rebuilding themselves into an entirely new system of talisman arrays around the array of the Lamp Kindling Spirit Transformation Chapter.

Lin Xu's spiritual thoughts surged like a tide. He dismantled the originally ordered structures of the two different seal-character systems, then reconstructed the talisman array according to the new art's operating principles.

As the creator of the two entirely new arts, Lin Xu understood their connections and differences better than anyone. With the Lamp Kindling Spirit Transformation Chapter as the bones and the Yin Pupil Nether-Peering Record as the soul, he perfectly grafted their spiritual pathways and routes of spiritual sense together.

The core of the new talisman array glowed purple and gold, bearing the power of lamp-kindled Dharma protection while also matching the Evil Eye's innate sensory traits.

In the time it took an incense stick to burn, the new talisman array stabilized completely. It rotated slowly in his sea of consciousness, its purple-gold halo spreading like ripples and sweeping across every corner in an instant.

Lin Xu gazed at the purple-gold talisman array in the Evil Eye's sea of consciousness. He condensed a Dharma Seed within it and opened its Divine Aperture.

A creature like the Evil Eye was very unusual. Before creating the new art, he had specifically studied its anatomy and discovered that it lacked a full complement of acupoints. Of the three apertures of essence, Qi, and spirit, only the Divine Aperture remained, hidden within its sea of consciousness.

Once the Dharma Seed formed, the Divine Aperture naturally opened.

The instant the Dharma Seed took shape and the Divine Aperture opened, it was as though a new source of gravity had appeared in the formerly chaotic sea of consciousness. All the scattered spiritual power rapidly converged on the talisman array, which transformed and condensed it into pure mana.

The moment the first wisp of mana appeared, the purple-gold talisman array suddenly trembled. Mana surged naturally, circulating through the nerve nodes throughout the Evil Eye's body with the Divine Aperture at its center.

The nerve nodes lit up one by one, like starry veins awakening in the dark of night. Mana flowed in tiny streams, circulating along the nerve pathways with the Divine Aperture in the sea of consciousness as its core, reaching the nerve endings in its twisting tentacles.

Drawing on the theory of neural synaptic transmission from the brain science he remembered from his previous life, Lin Xu perfectly fused supernatural power with neuroscience and reconstructed the pathways of mana transmission.

Although this would not bring about very noticeable changes in the short term, the nourishment of mana would subtly strengthen the transmission efficiency of its neural synapses, gradually improving the Evil Eye's neural reaction speed and intelligence.

Watching the purple-gold talisman array slowly turn in the Evil Eye's sea of consciousness, condensing its scattered spiritual power into mana, Lin Xu raised the spirit lamp in his hand. Its candlelight flickered as it drew Spiritual Qi from a Spirit Stone and fed it into the wick, transforming it into spiritual light that flowed into the Evil Eye's sea of consciousness and combined with its dim spiritual power to condense newly formed mana.

During this process, the Evil Eye's body trembled slightly, and its nerve pathways glowed dimly as mana washed over them. It instinctively focused its attention on the depths of its sea of consciousness, sensing the profound principles of the art conveyed by the purple-gold talisman array and gradually grasping their true meaning.

Half a shichen later, Lin Xu withdrew the spirit lamp. The Evil Eye's sea of consciousness had become completely clear.

A trace of purple-gold luster appeared in its once gloomy pupil, bright and clear as the first light of dawn.

Name: Evil Eye · blue

Race: Monster

Level: 3

Strength: 8

Agility: 12 (+1)

Constitution: 8

Spirit: 17 (+1)

Intelligence: 10 (+1)

Health: 47/47 (+2)

Mana: 96/96 (+6)

Skills: Soul Shock Blast · blue (intermediate): Releases a mental shock, dealing area-of-effect mental damage and briefly stunning targets

Paralyzing Gaze · blue (intermediate): Locks onto a single target, slowing or even immobilizing it

Nether-Peering Yin Pupil · blue (expert): Opens spirit vision, revealing hidden objects and the movements of spirits within a hundred zhang and dispelling illusions and obscuring barriers

Group Sensing · blue (advanced): Multiple Evil Eyes fight in coordination, sharing vision and some resistances

Lamp Kindling Spirit Transformation Chapter · Yin Pupil Nether-Peering Section (basic section/incomplete) · dark gold (expert): At major completion, the Nether-Penetrating Divine Eye can be refined, illuminating the netherworld and discerning the origins of all things

Evaluation: Originally a dungeon monster, it had its spiritual sense tempered by the divine chapter and unexpectedly showed signs of budding intelligence

Lin Xu sank into a meditative state, his consciousness merging with the Evil Eye's so that he could control it as easily as his own arm. With a slight thought, the Evil Eye looked beyond the village.

The thick earthen wall seemed transparent as the Evil Eye's gaze pierced through it. Everything within and around three hundred zhang came into view, and even a venomous lizard crawling three chi underground had nowhere to hide.

Farther away, mist drifted among the wooded mountains. Several nocturnal beasts hiding their tracks revealed their outlines under the Nether-Peering Yin Pupil's gaze, their every movement laid bare.

A flash of white light vanished among the trees. The instant the Evil Eye caught it, its pupil abruptly contracted. The Nether-Peering Yin Pupil pierced the mist, revealing a yin soul wandering through the woods in the shape of an old woman, decaying resentment coiling around her.

With a thought, invisible mana gathered into a beam along the Evil Eye's pupil. The instant it locked onto the yin soul, Paralyzing Gaze activated.

The yin soul's body abruptly halted, its movements frozen in midair as the decaying resentment fell into disorder.

Lin Xu's thoughts stirred again. Mana circulated around the Evil Eye, and the paralyzed yin soul was instantly swept backward. In the space of a breath, it crossed roughly a kilometer and appeared three chi before the Evil Eye, held fast by the dim light of its pupil.

The Bright Light Lamp in his hand trembled gently. A wisp of candlelight enveloped the yin soul, and with a contraction of light, swallowed it into the depths of the flame.

The candle flame swayed gently and flickered a few times, completely refining the yin soul. A few drops of lamp oil quietly condensed in the lamp.

Lin Xu then controlled the Evil Eye to look farther beyond the village. More than three li away, invisible mist spread like a curtain, cutting the mountain path into an illusory realm where reality and illusion were hard to distinguish.

From a distance, an invisible boundary divided the near and the far into two separate worlds. Beyond it, mist churned, and nothing could be seen clearly. Within it, the mountains looked as they always did, and frost coated the grass and trees.

This was the Spirit Realm's Soul-Devouring Mist, whose very name struck terror into those who heard it. Even though he had cultivated spiritual perception, he still could see only twenty or thirty meters through it.

The Evil Eye's gaze silently crossed the three-li distance. Under Lin Xu's expectant gaze, it passed straight through the barrier of mist, revealing a barren stretch of scattered rocks a hundred zhang beyond the curtain.

Withered bones lay scattered like patches of lingering snow. Three skeletons stood there, grim and eerie, ghostly flames flickering in their empty eye sockets as they slowly closed in on a battered corpse puppet half buried in the earth.

The corpse puppet, missing both legs, lay on the ground, clawing at the dirt with fingers like dead branches.

It suddenly raised its head, its broken neck bones producing a grating scrape as its empty eye sockets turned toward the nearest skeleton.

Clearly, this was an internecine battle among the monsters in the mist.

With a thought, the Evil Eye focused its gaze on the group of skeletons.

Its invisible gaze fixed on a skeleton, and a shock wave spread with the eye technique.

"Pop!"

The skeleton's shuddering frame swayed, and the ghostly flame in its skull burst into dim sparks before vanishing in an instant.

"Clatter!"

The intact skeleton fell apart into individual bones, scattering across the ground.

The three monsters present noticed nothing amiss and remained entangled, fighting one another.

The Evil Eye turned its gaze to another skeleton.

Repeating the same method, it killed the few minor monsters several li from the village from afar in a matter of seconds. They died without a sound.

A few specks of Source Fire Fragment crossed space and entered Lin Xu's body in an instant.

"I remember the Evil Eye's gaze could only reach nearly one li at most before, but now it's gone straight up to two or three kilometers...

"When its cultivation deepens and its pupil power grows more refined, ten li or a hundred li will be nothing out of the ordinary."

Lin Xu severed the mental connection in satisfaction. The Evil Eye's entire body was one big eyeball; it could be called a born genius at eye techniques.

After cultivating an art tailored specifically for it, its eye technique abilities had actually multiplied severalfold!

The observation range was one thing. The key was that the Evil Eye's innate eye techniques could indeed penetrate the Spirit Realm Mist-even though they were likewise obstructed and weakened, they could still see much farther than human eyes.

In Lin Xu's view, in this mist-shrouded Spirit Realm, that ability alone made the Evil Eye irreplaceable.

"If there were more Evil Eyes, there'd be no need to assign people to keep watch at night..."

Such long-distance vision also consumed the Evil Eye's mana, so this useful living radar could only be used at the most crucial moments.

Early the next morning, Lin Xu ate breakfast and went out to inspect the village's defenses.

After a week of construction, the traces of the previous battle had disappeared.

Even the earthen houses in the village had been transformed into sandstone houses by Lin Xu, who had found the time to spend mana on them, greatly increasing their defensive strength.

By now, the villagers were working collectively on the wasteland outside the village, under the militia's protection and organization.

They were not clearing land for cultivation, but laying traps.

The village's only hunter directed the villagers as they dug pitfall traps.

They did not need to kill or wound the enemy; as long as they could break up the enemy's formation, they would help the defenders.

Just then, Wang Yue hurried over. "Senior Brother Lin, a patrol that went out this morning has disappeared."

Lin Xu was startled, and an intense sense of unease instantly surged in his heart.

This was a sudden premonition!

His expression changed drastically. "Quick! Have all the villagers working outside and the patrolling militiamen withdraw immediately!"

Watching Wang Yue hurry away, he reached out with a thought and immediately contacted the Evil Eye.

The Evil Eye had only received its Dharma Seed and opened its Divine Aperture the previous night and was currently cultivating in a quiet room.

Upon receiving the order, it waved its tentacles and flew out, hovering above the village.

Its unimaginably huge pupil swept over the wasteland outside the village. A fan-shaped scanning area with a radius of more than two kilometers and a central angle of more than thirty degrees extended instantly, covering a vast stretch of wilderness.