Lingxu looked at the receding sun and the half moon rising into the sky, then he patted his little cat who spit out a little sphere. The sphere wanted to run away but was quickly bound by dark cloth straps.
He reached his hand forward and touched it while reciting a sutra in his mind, absorbing the soul little by little. At first the soul was still trying to protest, but gradually, it became too weak to do so.
In Lingxu's sea of conscious, the soul sphere came became dim and without power, swaying next to the other soul.
'Well, father's soul power is weaker than mothers, but since I've had mothers in my sea of conscious for so long, they can be said to be of comparable strength now.'
After thinking so, he stopped hesitating and started making symbols with his hands and chanting a sutra in his mind. It was the Spectre Embryo Cultivation Sutra. As the sutra was said, the two souls slowly approached each other.
Cold sweat dripped down Lingxu's face at one point, but he didn't stop. He ignored the pain and continued. This step had to be done together in one point, each try would reduce the further quality of the embryo, which can only be replenished by using rare soul spiritual treasures.
There was a plop sound and suddenly the two souls fully melted together. He breathed a sigh of relief and cut off a piece of his own soul, pushing it towards the new embryo. This step was a lot easier, the previous sphere took this piece of soul and put it into the centre.
Now, it was basically over. He looked at the sphere in his sea of conscious. The core would grow slowly under the nourishment of the parents until it was born. He already completed the key steps, from now on, no matter whether he cultivated or not, this was the first art and the core of his soul and body. It will evolve gradually as he become stronger.
He smiled at this, when he opened his eyes again, he saw that it was nearly day. He looked at his cat and said slightly "protect me" before he fell backwards, instantly losing consciousness. Although the last process was relatively easy, it damaged his soul, exhausting him a lot. Since it was transferred into a different medium, he wasn't injured, but the sensation of tearing would remain, stinging him for some time until his soul fully realised the situation.
Sleeping is a natural process which helps the recovery of body and mind.
…
A few days passed. Mingxuo kept guard, nothing major happened, only a few small animals passed, which it had hunted and eaten. As a spirit, it had a real body and a spectral body. The spectral body could be nourished from the yin-spiritual power. The exhaustion of that battle already recovered majorly. The body on the other hand needed the nourishment of food.
This is the difference of yin and yang – yang is very active and uses a lot of power, while yin is passive and barely uses any power. If it wasn't for this, there would be no way to feed the soul, since all treasures that help, recover or nourish the soul are expensive.
Lingxu woke up, he saw his little black cat laying quietly on his abdomen. He smiled, knowing full well it was just acting asleep. Although it was very much like him, in the end, it was still more spirit than beast, so it didn't need sleep as long as it wasn't injured.
He patted it and looked into the sky. Seeing it was bright, he decided to eat something.
Through his connection, he told Mingxuo that it should get something some berries and fruits. Creating fire in the open wasn't an easy task, it was already somewhat late anyways so he wasn't willing to work long since it was soon time to cultivate. Fortunately, although cultivators need to eat, their appetite for mortal food is low.
In comparison, when it comes to spiritual food, everyone eats at least three meals a day. This is the difference of eating until one is sated and eating nourishing food. One can even cultivate to consume the food faster, since it was a good way to gather spiritual power without gaining pill poison, everyone loves eating.
Mingxuo soon came with a few dates and berries, which he ate while looking through his inheritance in his mind.
'There are really many…' he quickly saw different kinds of cultivation arts, not only ghost, even normal cultivation arts. But, thinking of his next plan, he didn't want to cultivate any kind of art for the body just yet, so he focused on arts for full spectres that left their body.
He saw a few but only one really spoke to him 'Nine Ghost Transformation Art' – this art is to transform the spectral form into different kinds of ghosts, cultivate the spiritual power of ghosts, posses the abilities of those ghosts and so on. It is a rather basic art but goes the furthest in this world, all the way to the transcendent stage.
'There are many kinds of ghosts, their abilities vary. Cultivators of this kind can also freely switch between the spectral form to use normal nether spells and techniques, as well as switch to the ghost form. Every ghost form has different abilities, one fixed and two learnable, the fixed is gained in the early stage, the learnable in the middle and late stage of the respective stages.'
Thinking of this, he also looked through different kinds ghosts 'Hungry ghost, resentful ghost, bone ghost, lonely ghost… water ghost!' he nearly jumped when he saw the last. From what he knew, this should be exactly the kind of ghost he needed!
He read further about water ghosts and saw their abilities 'Fixed ability: water control – Water Ghosts have authority over their surrounding waters.'
"Haha!" he said aloud, startling Mingxuo, then he continued in his head 'This ability is exactly what I need!'
He had a clear plan – the eastern archipelago wasn't very friendly to demon cultivators on land, or rather, they had the enemy of sea beasts, so any kind of trouble wasn't allowed on the islands. Demon cultivators can only be pirates… a fancy term for them who spend all their life at sea, barely getting scraps while being hunted by immortals and sea beasts.
There was no way for him to accept this kind of life. Even if he was a water ghost, he wouldn't take this path. Rather, he wanted to use this ability to leave the eastern archipelago… or at least go to the place he wanted to bet on – the Earth Devil Palace!
For most, this palace is a myth, only few know the truth and fewer have any interaction with this. It is an organisation made up of immortals, demons, buddhists, officials, tribes and even evil cultivators. They all gather together with the goal of becoming an earthly devil!
There is heaven above and earth below. Heavenly tribulations are part of the heavenly punishment to reduce excess, to remove those unworthy of the path of cultivation, which opens resources for those that are worthy.
The earth, on the other hand, has earthly devils. They, like heavenly tribulations, kill and murder to reduce the excess.
For many, earthly devils are like certified evil cultivators who create chaos all over the world without causing the wrath of heaven but instead get rewarded by earthly luck. Heavenly luck is luck at birth, earthly luck are opportunities of the living.