Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Next to the stream, a farce was playing out.
The little ghost in Tang Jie's hand suddenly warped away, producing ripples in the air as it easily escaped Tang Jie's grip. But then, Tang Jie would grab the ghost once more. Then the ghost would blink away, and Tang Jie would grab it.
The human and ghost continued this game of tag. The little ghost could never escape Tang Jie's grip, and Tang Jie could never truly catch the little ghost, for this ghost's skill was some kind of spatial shift ability, one that was on an even higher level than the Chaoswind Step. Even Tang Jie couldn't predict its movements, and there seemed to be no restraining it.
But after several dozen rounds, the little ghost finally began to tire out.
One had to use an ability to dodge, while the other simply needed to grab. The energy consumption just wasn't on the same level.
Thus, by the end, the little ghost finally gave up and let Tang Jie grab it, panting for breath. What kind of ghost needed to pant for breath?
Tang Jie looked at it and smiled. "Not running anymore?"
The little ghost shook its head.
"That's how it should be." Tang Jie shook it and said, "I was once your master, you know. Although I've left you all by yourself in these last few years, it's because I was looking for a way to raise you. After all, you were too dumb back then to tell me. And you've only been able to get this far now thanks to me, as I was the one who got you that hand."
Tang Jie was afraid that it didn't understand, so he pointed at the white dust and then at himself. "Mine! It was mine!"
The little ghost understood what he meant and then turned away with a look of scorn on its face.
"Hah, you're throwing a tantrum?"
Tang Jie turned the ghost's head back, but the little ghost looked away again. Tang Jie pulled it back, and then it looked away, and this went on for several dozen times, until the ghost's neck was so sore that it couldn't move anymore, but its eyes continued to look to the side, not even glancing at Tang Jie.
Tang Jie was amused by this little fellow's temper.
Seeing that the ghost was intent on ignoring him, he said, "Fine, fine, why don't we do this? If you listen to me, I'll find you more ghosts to eat, okay?"
These words finally worked, and the little ghost turned to look at him.
Tang Jie smiled and said, "You're interested as soon as food is brought up? That's fine. Follow me."
Tang Jie brought the little ghost over to where he had thrown the ghost remains. Pointing at them, he said, "Will these do?"
Unexpectedly, the little ghost glanced at them and proceeded to ignore them.
It wouldn't eat them?
Tang Jie was taken aback.
He asked, "Are you full?"
The little ghost shook its head.
"You don't like it?"
The little ghost thought it over, and then it shook its head and then nodded.
Tang Jie was rather confused by its attitude. After thinking it over, he questioned, "You think you're above it?"
The ghost nodded.
Shit!
Tang Jie inwardly cursed, and then he patiently asked, "Can you do with it for now?"
The little ghost gravely shook its head.
"Or what will happen?"
The little ghost pointed at its body, and its translucent body briefly shone with a rainbow of colors.
Tang Jie was startled. "You'll change color?"
The ghost grew furious, repeatedly shaking its head while gesticulating at Tang Jie and shouting.
Alas, this wasn't in any sort of language, so even a translation spell wouldn't make Tang Jie understand. He could only guess, but none of his ten-some guesses were right.
Just when he was about to start throwing out guesses at random, Tang Jie suddenly recalled the ability the little ghost gained after absorbing energy from the ghost hand, and he understood, shouting, "It will affect your ability?"
The little ghost nodded its head in delight.
Thinking of that random jumble of colors, Tang Jie finally understood what they meant. "They will make your abilities impure?"
The little ghost vigorously nodded.
Tang Jie now completely understood.
Looking at the ghost, he cried out, "Devouring… Damn, your real ability is devouring!"
A ghost with this devouring ability grew by devouring other ghosts, even gaining their spell arts, turning them into its own skills.
This was the ghost's real specialty.
Through repeated "conversation", Tang Jie finally understood what was going on with the little ghost.
Devouring was the natural ability the ghost had been born with, and even among ghosts, this ability was extremely rare.
But devouring wasn't an ability to be used lightly. Once the little ghost devoured a certain kind of ghost, it would gain a part of that ghost's abilities, but this also meant that its future path was fixed. From then on, it could only devour ghosts of the same sort. If it devoured other kinds of ghosts, while it would gain more abilities, the mixture of abilities would result in them clashing against each other and lead to an overall drop in strength.
This was why the first target the little ghost devoured was quite important. The more open it was, the better its future development.
It was actually quite lucky that Tang Jie hadn't found a way to make the little ghost stronger when he had been weak. If he had given it just any random ghost, perhaps he would have ruined this promising ghost.
But now, the little ghost had devoured a hand that belonged to a Titan of the Nether Domain, of peerless power and numerous abilities.
When the little ghost devoured this hand, it had gained the core power hidden within that Titan's soul flame: Space.
It was because of this Nether Domain Titan's proficiency in the Dao of Space that it was able to immediately sense the Nether Gate's existence, link up with it, and stabilize it with Withering Yin Vines.
But it hadn't been next to the Nether Gate at the time, so it could only use spatial methods to control everything from a distance, just like how Ming Yekong had used the Space Crystal to engage in a long-distance battle with Feng Muyuan. But this Titan was clearly much stronger than Ming Yekong, able to use such powerful spatial techniques without the Space Crystal and even able to send its hand through the Nether Gate to attack Tang Jie. This was like having a layover in the middle of one's trip, one body simultaneously existing in three places.
This was much more impressive than what Ming Yekong had shown, and it required space to be much more stable. This was why Tang Jie had managed to destroy the arm that the Titan had sent over. For it to have suffered such a loss was like an expert swimmer drowning.
After devouring the ghost hand, the little ghost had gained this spatial ability.
Besides the spatial ability, the little ghost had gained a few other abilities, but they were not on the soul fire level, so their potential for improvement would be limited for the average cultivator. However, when a spell art was converted into a natural ability, its potential for improvement was greatly improved. That stealth ability had been gained in this manner.
Besides space and stealth, the little ghost had gained three other spell arts, converting them into natural talents. These were Spirit Touch, Corpse Domination, and Nether River Crossing.
Spirit Touch was a soul-type spell art, and that Nether Domain Titan had primarily used it to control ghosts. But now that it had been converted to the little ghost's talent, it had even more potential for improvement.
As for Corpse Domination, it was like that bone-decaying arrow used by the ghost king, able to control corpses and bones to use in battle.
Nether River Crossing was one of the most mysterious abilities of the Nether Domain. It was said that when it was cultivated to the apex, it could link life and death, exchange Yin and Yang. As the Nether River was linked to the underworld, it was said that the Nether River Crossing had the ability to decide life or death with a single thought.
The little ghost had gained five abilities by devouring the remains of a Titan, which was truly a great blessing. Even Bao'er, a descendant of the White Tiger, didn't have this many abilities.
Of course, this didn't mean the little ghost was invincible.
Gaining these five abilities meant that its future development was limited to these five aspects, and getting any other ability would be extremely difficult. While cultivation wasn't impossible for ghosts, as a ghost that devoured to gain abilities, cultivation was its weakest aspect. Even if it were to gain other powers through cultivation, they would never be on par with the natural abilities it had gained through devouring.
To put it simply, this sort of ghost had no cultivation prospects. It could only get stronger through devouring.
Its advantage was devouring, and its flaw was devouring.
But Tang Jie didn't mind.
For him, the little ghost's unique ability was far more meaningful than pure cultivation level.
Although it was still a little weak, that didn't mean it wouldn't be strong in the future. It had to be understood that the Verdant Cloud Domain wasn't the Rosecloud Domain. This place didn't have some fear of ghosts, so Tang Jie could openly bring Little Three around to search for food. The Inkcloud Abyss alone had so many ghosts that he was sure that Little Three would find something it liked there.
Tang Jie recalled that quite a few of the ghosts he had killed had spatial abilities.
He took the little ghost out.
Upon going outside, the little ghost really did become excited, rushing over to find suitable food.
This guy had the best idea of what it could eat and couldn't eat, and it flitted around, moving ghost corpses here and there.
Yiyi recognized Little Three, though it had been a long time since she had last seen it. Curious as to why it was rushing around, she asked Tang Jie, "What is it doing?"
After some thought, Tang Jie answered, "Picking food."
After a while, Little Three finally finished. It had made a large pile of bones and was standing atop it, shouting as if it was declaring that this was its sacred ground.
After picking out what it could eat, Little Three proceeded to go into a feeding frenzy.
Although the quintessence of these ghosts was far inferior to that of a Titan, they made up for it with sheer volume.
The little ghost's strength rapidly grew, and it quickly reached the peak of Mind Opening. But it still needed some time to break through the threshold.
In this time, Tang Jie and Little Three gradually refamiliarized themselves with each other, but Little Three still wasn't willing to get close to Tang Jie.
By now, Tang Jie understood that this wasn't because it disliked him, but because he was too rich in Yang energy. While ghosts fed on Yang energy, Yang energy that was too concentrated would hurt ghosts. But once this guy grew stronger, this would cease to be a problem. In comparison, it was much more familiar with Yiyi, for Yiyi was a sprite and didn't have so much Yang energy.
Yiyi and Tutu didn't feel so lonely now that they had another playmate.
Tang Jie chuckled. "I once made a joke that I was going to get a fiend, sprite, ghost, and monster under my command, so when I got this guy, I called it Little Three. But then I ignored it, never expecting that it would show up and regain its shine. Now, it seems like I really do have a complete set."
There was naturally no need to explain Yiyi and the little ghost. As for the Mother Cloud combat puppet, while it was primarily made of Mother Cloud Essence Metal, it had the ghost guard as its will. From a certain perspective, it was extremely close to a monster.
So it wasn't wrong to think this way.
Tutu happily said, "I'm a fiend, so I'm first."
Tang Jie glanced at it and coldly said, "The fiend I'm talking about isn't you. You're just a mount."
The image of a little tiger surfaced in his mind.
Bao'er, are you doing okay out there?
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