I

Lan Yue stood silently in front of them, unmoving. A couple of steps away from her were Hao Zhen and Tian Jin.

Hao Zhen had his back against a tree as he leaned against it. Usually, Lan Yue didn’t take long to finish communicating with the surrounding vegetation and settling on a direction, but sometimes—when she found out about nearby monsters—she’d take a while longer.

Hao Zhen pressed his back against the tree and extended his arms above his head. As he stretched himself, he felt some of his joints pop.

Tian Jin was standing beside him, his gaze distant as he absentmindedly rubbed his master’s ring. A week had passed since the conversation in which Tian Jin revealed to them how the ring had acted up when the inner elder working with Du Qing appeared. Ever since that day, the other boy seemed to have unwittingly developed the habit of fiddling with the mysterious gray circular band.

Hao Zhen had already asked Tian Jin what that was about. It turned out he had been unaware he was doing it, but even after he knew, he didn’t stop, claiming that maybe that’d provoke some kind of reaction from the deceptively mundane-looking accessory.

Shifting his attention back to Lan Yue, he saw that the girl had yet to move. He stood up straighter. Usually, when Lan Yue took that long…

“There are four monsters nearby,” Lan Yue suddenly said as she fully turned back toward them. Hao Zhen and Tian Jin perked up. “One at the first level, the other three at the second level.” She then pointed out the direction each monster was in and roughly how distant they were from them.

Two of the monsters were alone—both of them at the second level—whereas the remaining second-level one was together with the sole first-level creature.

“I’ll take one of the lone second-level ones,” Hao Zhen promptly said.

Lan Yue nodded, turning to Tian Jin, who shrugged. “I don’t mind either way.”

“I’ll be taking the pair, then,” Lan Yue decided, to which Tian Jin simply nodded.

No more words were exchanged, and they split up, setting off in the different directions Lan Yue had pointed out. Hao Zhen took off running. It wasn’t as if he was pressed for time or in a hurry. It was just that the sooner he found the monster, the sooner he could start experimenting.Over the last week, he had proved himself by killing a couple of second-level monsters on his own, so now, whenever Lan Yue detected multiple monsters nearby, they’d split up and hunt alone. Depending on the distance between their targets, however, his teammates would often arrive before Hao Zhen was done with his target. They only split up when their targets were close enough that they’d be able to reach each other in under a minute if something happened. On top of that, once his teammates did get to their targets, the ensuing fight—if it could even be called that—would be over in a matter of moments.

Tian Jin and Lan Yue had already been able to quickly dispatch second-level monsters when they were second-level redsouls. Now that they were both at the third level of the Red Spiritual Realm, they could kill second-level red-grade monsters with brutal and effortless efficiency.magic

Hao Zhen soon found his target: a second-level magical lizard standing near the edge of a clearing, just outside the shadow cast by the surrounding trees as it took in the warmth of the sun. It wasn’t as big as the other second-level monsters he had come across so far, but it was still tall enough to reach his chest, and about twice as long as he was tall, with an elongated body. It had four thick, stocky legs. Its scales were dark green, and like those of many of the other scaled monsters in the forest, they glowed under the midday sun.

The moment he appeared in the creature’s line of sight, it stilled, regarding him with its pitch-black, unblinking eyes. Responding in kind, Hao Zhen came to a sudden stop and stared back at the creature.

The two of them stood on opposite ends of a clearing, and the distance between them was big enough that Hao Zhen would be able to easily get out of the way if the monster launched an attack. And that was fairly important, considering he was alone.

Hao Zhen took a deep breath. Over the last few days, he had fallen into a rhythm of sorts. During the day, he’d wander around the forest with Tian Jin and Lan Yue, hunting monsters they’d come across. In the evening, he’d train with Tian Jin, and once night fell, they’d call it a day and spend the rest of the day cultivating.

Training, hunting, and cultivating weren’t the only things Hao Zhen did, however. While they were exploring the forest, he’d ponder Ethereal String Puppetry. And when he got to hunt alone, he’d experiment with the skill, trying out the ideas he had.

Before the wary monster in front of him could decide whether to flee or fight, Hao Zhen willed an Ethereal String into existence—he was already channeling spiritual power into the Ethereal String Puppetry skill seed—and promptly attached the other end of the string to the creature.

With that, Hao Zhen concentrated on the Ethereal String. Over the last few days, he had only reaffirmed his belief that against same-level opponents, Ethereal String Puppetry was most likely the most useful skill out there.

In his mind’s eye, a complex, lizard-shaped array of nerves appeared—the monster’s nervous system, reproduced in his head through his spiritual skill. Hao Zhen didn’t just see a collection with uncountable thin, branching lines. Instead, he also saw a sea of possibilities—if not an ocean. It was easier to count what his spiritual skill couldn’t do than what it could. Just as innumerable as the nerves currently being reproduced in his mind’s eyes were the things he could do with them.

He was unable to directly incapacitate or kill a target on the same level because of the target’s heightened unconscious resistance, but he found that wasn’t much of a limitation. At least against monsters.

Deciding on a course of action, Hao Zhen deactivated some of the target’s optical nerves, and the lizard took a step back, its head snapping around wildly. In his mind’s eye, he saw some of the bundle of nerves around the monster’s eyes dimming. Just as he started feeling some conscious resistance, Hao Zhen activated the nerves that released dopamine and kept them activated, causing some nerves to light up in his mental reconstruction of the creature’s body.

The monster stilled, and its budding conscious resistance immediately disappeared. Although Hao Zhen couldn’t tell what the creature was feeling through the Ethereal String, he could hazard a guess: a surge of pleasure and euphoria like no other.

If the target was a human, they’d probably realize that there was something off about the sudden wave of pleasure. Monsters, on the other hand, weren’t nearly as intelligent, and so they’d allow themselves to be consumed by the sensation instead. Or at least that was what Hao Zhen had determined after some experimentation over the course of the previous week.

He began making his way over to the massive lizard, whose legs were now trembling. As he walked, he started deactivating more of the monster’s sensory nerves, dimming its senses even further. He did so gradually, lest he startle the creature. By this point, even its unconscious resistance was starting to fade as it consciously tried to sink into the ecstasy clouding its mind. Hao Zhen felt the drain on his willpower and spiritual power become lower and lower, even though he was seizing more and more nerves.

Eventually, Hao Zhen arrived right in front of the creature. He stood close enough that if it were to reach forward only slightly with its head, it’d be able to bite off a good chunk of his waist. Normally, he would be unwilling to take such risks, but because of the Ethereal String, he knew the monster’s condition better than anyone.

All of the monster’s sensory nerves had already been seized and deactivated. It was completely and utterly locked out of reality, and as such, completely harmless. Its entire body was now trembling, and its eyes were closed.

With a thought, Hao Zhen seized the nerves that released adrenaline and momentarily fired them.The lizard’s legs went limp, and then it fell to the ground, reduced to a shaking, spasming mess. He could see the tightly coiled muscles shifting erratically under the creature’s skin—muscles that it could have used to tear him apart under different circumstances.

The mental pressure that had originally been on his mind was now long gone, as there was no longer any drain on his spiritual power. The creature had unwittingly given up even its unconscious resistance. All that remained was the drain on his spiritual power, and it was only the little that was required to keep Ethereal String Puppetry activated.

Hao Zhen looked down at the downed creature, and he found himself frowning despite himself. Something sharp and dark bubbled up inside him. A part of him felt… because of what he was doing, if not upset.

Even if you were to use Ethereal String Puppetry the conventional way—giving the target commands or seizing their skeletal muscles—the skill was already rather… , in his opinion.

But this?

Hao Zhen narrowed his eyes at the pathetic state the creature at his feet was in. A creature that would usually require multiple second-level redsouls to take down. A creature whose mind he had effectively just broken.

What he had just done—what he was doing—was nothing short of warped.

.

Hao Zhen shivered, feeling as if freezing water had just been poured over his head. He closed his eyes, then pushed the thoughts plaguing his mind—and the feelings they bore—to the back of his head. He didn’t have the luxury to ponder the morality of his actions. Ethereal String Puppetry was the only power he had, and despite the bad taste it sometimes left in his mouth… He didn’t regret assimilating. Nor did he regret what he was doing right now—or what he had done already, or what he would do in the future.

This wasn’t the kind of power he could be proud of. But it was power, and it was his.

And to survive in this world, he'd need all the power he could get.

“Let’s see…” Hao Zhen murmured to himself, opening his eyes again, his previous revulsion at his own actions dulled to only a distant echo.

There were literally thousands of ways he could kill the monster before him. It ranged from simply taking out one of his swords and stabbing it, to deactivating the nerves that controlled its vital organs. Now that it had given up all resistance, he was no longer inhibited from using his spiritual skill in a way that could kill it on the spot. With just a thought, he could seize and deactivate the nerves that controlled its heart or its lungs. If he wanted to, he could even cause total organ failure.

But there was no point in doing any of that. The purpose of his experiments was to explore the full capabilities of Ethereal String Puppetry. Maybe he had already figured out everything the skill could do, but… What if he hadn’t?

Ethereal String Puppetry could already do a lot of things—if not too many things—but he couldn’t really do anything too sophisticated or complex. Through seizing, he was limited to provoking simple, crude effects in his target, as the skill didn’t give him an intuitive understanding of how the target’s body interpreted signals. It wasn’t like commanding, which simply allowed him to effectively tell the target what he wanted it to do.

If only he could use commanding on nerves, then all of his…

Hao Zhen froze. His heart skipped a beat.

Commanding. On nerves.

Trembling a little, anticipation coursing through him, Hao Zhen tapped into the Ethereal String.