Lingxu's eyes were like stars when he thought of this place. He read about this in the guide inside the inheritance. It explained the purpose and also that there were quite a few members who tried to cultivate the ghost path to the supreme with the help of the earthly devil palace… unfortunately, they all had different complications and didn't succeed.
The palace is extremely exclusive and only members can invite others to join. Fortunately, the invitations are hidden codes that can be passed down through knowledge. This is to ensure that everyone who is invited truly has the invitation and didn't just steal a key. Of course there are still such cases happening, but the palace just titles them as lucky people and doesn't care.
There are several such invitations inside the inheritance, the highest would directly make him a member without having to go through many tests. There is also a note that although one becomes a member, they will still be tested through the missions they take.
Different cultivators are graded differently, the higher the grade the higher the access to resources. The reason for this is that the palace doesn't want to waste its resources on people who fail in the end, but it is very willing to give talented people those resources.
After all, the earthly devil palace is made to cultivate earthly devils that destroy the accumulated bad karma in the world. Their resources come from the earthly luck they gather, so of course they are willing to spend resources on those that bring more such luck.
'The nearest branch of the earthly devil palace is… the underwater Lingyun branch between the Lingye and Hongyun islands. It should be a three month's trip with a ship, I wonder how long it will take diving there as a ghost…' as he thought of this, he was suddenly very excited.
He wanted to test it directly before he learned the technique.
A thought came up his mind, he focused and closed his eyes. A moment later he opened his eyes, looking around. He suddenly felt as if he didn't weight anything, barely holding to the ground because of his will. If he wanted, he could fly.
He did exactly that the next moment – or rather than flying, it was hovering… "Wooohooo!" he screamed, scaring a few sleeping birds, not only because he screamed when it was evening, even more so because his scream had a natural sound charm… like a banshee's scream. Of course the effect wasn't that strong, but it still affected the souls of little mortal animals.
He calmed down and tried to feel exactly how it was, until he could only summarise it with an unfamiliar-familiar feeling 'It's like those astronauts on the moon, they can jump high as if they barely weight anything… at least it feels the way it looks like.'
Unwilling to directly give up this new feeling, he jumped around a bit more, until he was finally satisfied. Only then did he see that it was already dark. 'Spiritual power is consumed in this state when I move around while the sun is out, while the night is like a free ticket… this is much better than ghosts who can only hide during the day, but it is likely that the consumption is high.
Compared to just walking during the day, it should be a lot higher. Well, now I can walk during the day and fly at night, which is also a new feeling, a marvellous way to work day and night…'
He smiled, then sat down and started practicing the nine ghost transformation art. This art could only be practiced when he was in spectre form, which meant that he would most likely only cultivate at night…
This isn't really any different from what he did before, so he kept doing that. For the next few days, he would walk during the day and practice at night.
Five days later he finally arrived at the shore. Looking at the long yet empty beach, he felt unreal.
"If those people knew there was such a huge empty beach, they would scream in joy and instantly come here with the hope that they get a nice spot before anyone else arrives. Well, it seems the culture here doesn't appreciate beaches, what a shame!"
He smiled and sat on a stone, appreciating the view. 'Cultivation is about cultivating and practicing, cultivating is gathering spiritual power into the body and doing other things at higher stages, while practicing is gaining experience in the world, forming the mind and becoming unmoved and steady like a stone, or vicious and unrelenting like a vengeful spirit…'
Many things were omitted, and he didn't think he had to intentionally go into the mortal world to experience such things either. After all, he had experienced a third of the life of a mortal in his past life, he would be fine as long as he experienced a few more things here along the way.
Such moments where he didn't need to do anything could just be used for that.
'I'm planning to enter the earth devil palace anyways, there should be a lot of stuff happening there. Even if I want to have a fully quiet life, it won't be possible. After all, being a devil is a full-time 24/7 job, relaxing is only a privilege you have in between missions.
The mind of a cultivator is fortunately more advanced and is able to handle more thoughts, I can't imagine the nervousness of those agents who had to do many things while acting low… I can already feel the strong processing power of the cultivator's mind.
Rather than saying it can think more, it is a whole evolution of higher control. Maybe this is why they say cultivators are indifferent, in fact, they can just keep a good control of their feelings while also processing everything quickly. Alas, even if they process things quickly, if they don't have experience, then everything that happens will still take a long time of procession. During that time, who knows how much chaos they can cause.'
Night soon broke and Lingxu transformed into a spectre. Then, he jumped into the water and went deeper and deeper. Weirdly enough, unlike the feeling of being wet and weightless when swimming, the feeling of coldness was much more pronounced in Lingxu's opinion.
The waters were deep and it didn't take long until he was ten metres below ground. Here, he started to cultivate the nine-ghost transformation. Every stage requires more preparation, if he was a foundation builder, then he would have to prepare water-element treasures to become a water ghost, while qi-refiners only need to stay deep under water.
He started cultivating and absorbing the yang-water element in the sea. Everything has yin and yang, the death are yin while the living are yang, cultivators balance yin and yang. Spectres are nether beings, so they have more yin, but they still need the yang of cultivators, so one has to cultivate both yin and yang.
In the large water bodies, there is yang water, water outside these water bodies are yin water, such as snow, mist and rain. He would have to find a better place to practice yin water, but for yang water, the eastern archipelago is perfect.