Vol 6 Chapter 19: Remnant Soul of an Immortal
On the other side, Porcelain City.
Dao Alliance leader Hu Yousong personally arrived; Lin Jing had returned, and Hu Yousong judged that he must be going home.
This Porcelain City must now be Lin Jing’s residence.
However, before he could go search for Lin Jing at the temporary address where Dao Alliance investigations had located Lin Jing’s parents, Hu Yousong, a False Core cultivator, suddenly felt a chill down his back.
He froze in midair, his whole body growing cold. Without realizing it, he found himself bound by pure white silk from head to toe, unable to move.
“T-this…”
Hu Yousong was terrified and struggled violently, but still could not move. Even the precious armor his junior disciple had given him—supposedly able to defend against attacks from the Nascent Soul Transformation stage—and the talisman strips that could form Talisman Clones, beneath these threads, were completely unresponsive.
His sensory awareness had already been frozen by frost…
“Yu… senior, I don’t know which senior this is. I am Hu Yousong of the Dao Alliance, I mean no offense.”“It’s you.” After a moment, everything before Hu Yousong changed; darkness surrounded him and he felt trapped inside a huge white birdcage.
A spider-like creature dropped down along a white thread from the sky and appeared in front of Hu Yousong.
Hu Yousong was utterly shocked, not understanding what it was. Wasn’t his junior disciple skilled? Why had the items his junior had given him completely failed in front of this spider monster?
“S-senior, do you know me?”
The Ice Soul Offspring Gu nodded slightly, since it inherited the mother Gu’s memories in real time.
Naturally, it recognized Hu Yousong.
However, upon seeing Hu Yousong it was disappointed!
Why wasn’t it an enemy!
After the mother Gu’s single mission failure, the offspring Gu’s standards had become stricter; it feared that any protection task assigned by Lin Jing might also encounter mishaps.
Faced with the mother Gu’s death punishment, the offspring Gu executed security duties even more stringently.
So here in Porcelain City, the Ice Soul Offspring Gu directly used webbing in the form of a birdcage to surround the whole city. It could immediately sense every cultivator entering or leaving.
For cultivators above Foundation Establishment, it intercepted them without fail, examined their intentions, and if harmless, erased their memories before releasing them.
Although exhausting, to avoid disappointing the mother Gu, the offspring Gu worked itself to the bone.
“Are you here to find your master? What’s your business?” the offspring Gu asked.
That question jolted Hu Yousong awake, and he immediately understood the spider’s identity. “Master? Right, I came to find Senior Lin. I have something to deliver to Senior Lin—absolutely no malicious intent!”
A token appeared in Hu Yousong’s hand.
The Ice Soul Offspring Gu tugged it over to inspect.
“This is the Dao Alliance’s Supreme Law Enforcement Token. The Dao Alliance decrees that anyone who sees this token must not resist or refuse the bearer’s requests; violators are deemed enemies of the entire Dao Alliance.”
“You see, Senior Lin is outspoken and bound to attract some brazen types. Without this token…”
“No need.” The offspring Gu curled its mouth, tossed the token back to Hu Yousong. At that moment, it had also received a remote instruction from the mother Gu: “If you must deliver it, take it straight to Purple-Gold Mountain. Master, we’ll stay here.”
Purple-Gold Mountain? The Jiangnan practitioners’ gathering… Senior Lin was going there!
“All right, I’ll head there immediately.” Once freed, Hu Yousong hurried away and didn’t dare approach Porcelain City another step.
Meanwhile.
Purple-Gold Mountain, Cultivator Town.
Lin Jing and the Ice Soul Gu strolled through the streets while conversing.
Stalls on both sides sold antiques, pills, and magical treasures; some cultivators even set up small booths with a scrap of cloth laid down.
This Earth had many treasures but also a lot of trash. Lin Jing didn’t understand why anyone would take pills freshly produced on an assembly line last week, smear them with a bit of fluorescent substance, and pass them off as spirit elixirs for sale. Wouldn’t they get beaten to death?
“Hu Yousong actually went to Porcelain City—bringing the Supreme Law Enforcement Token…” Lin Jing shook his head. What would he do with such a thing?
If someone was blatantly rude, a smack to the face would settle it; waiting for the Dao Alliance to mediate took too long.
Still, his family would remain on Earth after he left, so Lin Jing planned to sell the Dao Alliance some face and accept the token. He was already an enemy of Fangjie; he understood the pressure and didn’t want his relatives to become global public enemies.
“This is currently the most valuable thing here.”
After walking a while, Lin Jing reached an arena. On the stage sat a large table with three prizes arranged in different tiers.
Champion prize: a near low-grade magical treasure.
Runner-up prize: a spirit pill without a grade.
Third-place prize: a spirit jade containing the remnant soul of an immortal.
Lin Jing looked up at the sky—well done, Organizing Committee, the rewards are well arranged.
It made sense, though: the organizers of this arena couldn’t have known the jade actually held a remnant immortal soul. At most they thought it an ordinary jade stone imbued with spiritual energy, worth the equivalent of a few spiritual stones and useful for cultivators to absorb its energy.
Now Lin Jing had two options: disguise himself as a Qi Refining cultivator, compete in the arena, take third place, and claim the jade; or he could simply snap his fingers and the jade would be in his hand.
He made a small gesture, and the jade came to him.
On the table, the prize transformed into a spirit jade materialized by the Spell Elemental Mushroom’s illusion.
The spirit energy and appearance were indistinguishable from the original jade, except that the immortal remnant inside had been replaced by the soul of a Zhu Yan.
Having taken the original third-place opportunity away, Lin Jing left the other party another opportunity more suited to them: the Zhu Yan’s soul could manifest as an illusionary pet, grow by devouring spiritual energy, and protect its jade-bearer.
After receiving the remnant-soul jade, Lin Jing slowly entered the void to inspect it. The immortal soul inside seemed still asleep, barely clinging to life—its power less than Nascent Soul.
Lin Jing prodded the spirit jade; the consciousness inside immediately stirred groggily.
But in the next instant, a shocking soul-usurpation force erupted from inside the jade. Lin Jing sneered—so it wasn’t a fortunate opportunity but a deadly calamity.
The remnant immortal soul within the jade, relying on its hazy consciousness and survival instinct, attempted to usurp the jade-holder. In response, Lin Jing slapped it back with a palm condensed from his Immortal Power.
Smack.
The remnant soul instantly regained clarity. A short distance away it clutched its face in shock and scanned Lin Jing and the surroundings.
“Void? How is this possible? In the age of magic decline, how could there still be a Void Refining cultivator…”
“No—even if your realm is Void Mystical, why could you harm me… Immortal Power, you actually possess Immortal Power?!!”
“Who are you?”
“Awake now? Your state won’t last long. Before your soul scatters, hand over any inheritance you have. It’ll make your passing more comfortable.” Lin Jing produced a web-silk handkerchief and wiped his hand.