Chapter 12: The Underground World, the Holy Spirit Cult Headquarters
However, after thinking it over again, Zhang Peng felt that if Chen Ming's talent were not strong enough, then perhaps this child would never have survived absorbing his 1st Spirit Ring in the first place.
Since ancient times, there had always been one point in the world of Spirit Masters that people tended to overlook.
For children whose Martial Souls had just awakened, the Spirit Power inside their bodies was like an extra hand.
People used both hands naturally only because they had become accustomed to them during the long process of growing from birth. What many people often ignored was that newborn infants did not know how to use their own hands at all.
Those who were Innately gifted but not Innately full of Spirit Power were like infants gradually learning how to use this extra hand. By the time their Spirit Power reached Rank 10, they had long since become familiar with this additional "hand."
Zhang Peng knew that there had once been Spirit Masters on the continent who possessed Innate Full Spirit Power and then went on to absorb a hundred year 1st Spirit Ring. Even though both their physical quality and Martial Soul had originally met the standard, they still died from Spirit Power deviation during the absorption process purely because their control over Spirit Power had been too poor.
A normal master, even if the Disciple possessed Innate Full Spirit Power, would still spend at least 1 or 2 weeks teaching the Disciple about meridians and Spirit Power, making sure the Disciple's control over Spirit Power was passable and that they had a theoretical understanding of Spirit Ring absorption before allowing them to absorb a 1st Spirit Ring.
Those who taught nothing at all and then forced a student to absorb a Spirit Ring immediately were simply idiots.
For a normal Spirit Master to absorb a Spirit Ring, they should at least understand how Spirit Power was used and through which meridians it flowed. Otherwise, trying to absorb a Spirit Ring by brute force alone... it was not impossible to succeed, but the difficulty...
It was roughly equivalent to an infant trying to pick up a peanut with chopsticks.
To be able to directly absorb a 1st Spirit Ring without knowing anything, and to absorb a 1st Spirit Ring beyond his own rank, this kind of talent could not be described as merely "not bad."
If Zhang Peng did not find the matter of taking in a Disciple too troublesome, and if there were not such a major difference between their Martial Souls, he might even have considered accepting Chen Ming himself.
Over the next few days, Zhang Peng led Chen Ming in the direction of the Sun Moon Empire while also taking the time to teach him the basic common sense of Spirit Masters. Aside from stopping once to buy Chen Ming a set of clothes at a place that sold clothing, Zhang Peng showed absolutely no intention of approaching any human settlement.
The mind of a child worked quickly, but their Heart-Nature was restless, so they could not learn things properly. An adult's Heart-Nature was steady, but their mind no longer worked as quickly, so learning new things became difficult.
But Chen Ming now possessed the Heart-Nature of an adult and a brand new mind. His rebirth had also brought him Innately higher spiritual strength, making his learning ability far superior to that of ordinary people.
He was like a shriveled sponge, greedily absorbing knowledge and common sense about Spirit Masters. Things that normally took a person half a month, or even a full month, to learn were memorized and thoroughly understood by Chen Ming in just 3 or 4 short days. There was not the slightest sign that he was a novice Spirit Master who had awakened his Martial Soul less than a month ago.
Zhang Peng was not certain whether Chen Ming would be able to become a Titled Douluo in the future, but judging from his current performance, Zhang Peng felt that Chen Ming at least possessed the potential to reach that level. It was only impossible to tell just how far he would ultimately grow.
The Holy Spirit Cult Headquarters was located in the Evil Demon Forest deep within the Sun Moon Empire.
Unlike the Star Dou Great Forest, the Evil Demon Forest was a Spirit Beast gathering ground unique to the Sun Moon Empire. Although its overall quality was far inferior to that of the Star Dou Great Forest, it was home to the Evil Eye clan and many rare Spirit Beasts with mental attributes.
Logically speaking, this should have been a treasure trove for the Sun Moon Empire, yet very few Spirit Masters of the Sun Moon Empire dared to enter it to hunt Spirit Rings.
Because, unlike the Star Dou Great Forest, the ruler of the Evil Demon Forest, the Evil Emperor, a Tyrant Evil Eye with 790,000 years of cultivation, was an extremely active and extremely protective existence.
He regarded the entire Evil Demon Forest as his own forbidden land, and any Spirit Master who trespassed would provoke his rage.
All Evil Eyes were descendants of the Evil Emperor, and every Evil Eye shared a bloodline connection. Attacking an ordinary Evil Eye would invite retaliation from a thousand year or ten thousand year Evil Eye, while attacking a thousand year or ten thousand year Evil Eye would invite retaliation from a hundred thousand year Evil Eye.
In theory, as long as one had enough bad luck and enough stubbornness, a Spirit Master could keep escalating all the way from a hundred year Evil Eye to the Tyrant Evil Eye overlord himself, the Evil Emperor.
However, most of the time, when the Evil Eyes united to attack Spirit Masters, it was not because their feelings for each other were especially deep, nor because their bloodline connection was especially strong. Rather, it was because they hated Spirit Masters, and their retaliation was more about their own dignity and the dignity of the Evil Eye clan than any true kinship.
In the history of the Sun Moon Continent, under the Evil Emperor's fury, the Evil Demon Forest had launched beast tides several times, destroying more than 1 nation on the Sun Moon Continent.
Even after the entire Sun Moon Continent had been unified into the Sun Moon Empire, the Evil Demon Forest remained a forbidden land no Spirit Master dared to tread in because of the Evil Emperor's existence.
At most, Spirit Masters of the Sun Moon Empire only dared to secretly hunt a few Spirit Beasts along the outermost edges of the Evil Demon Forest. As for the inner and core regions of the Evil Demon Forest, they remained an unknown mystery within the Sun Moon Empire.
It was precisely because of this that the Evil Spirit Masters had chosen to make a deal with the Evil Emperor, using the fact that outsiders could hardly enter to establish the Holy Spirit Cult Headquarters deep within the Evil Demon Forest, with the Evil Eye clan and the Evil Emperor serving as a deterrent to isolate the outside World.
Zhang Peng was extremely familiar with the route to the Holy Spirit Cult Headquarters. He naturally dragged Chen Ming along through the Evil Demon Forest, crossing the territories of 1 Spirit Beast after another, until he finally entered a dark and damp underground cavern and passed through a secret tunnel to reach the Holy Spirit Cult Headquarters.
Just like the stereotypical villain's lair in many people's imaginations, the Holy Spirit Cult Headquarters was built inside a hollowed out mountain, and its interior was enormous. A great number of structures were buried deep underground, while countless artificially excavated roads and natural caverns formed an environment much like a labyrinth.
Dark, damp, oppressive, and stuffy...
Even though Chen Ming's Martial Soul was already an Evil Martial Soul in the traditional sense, the moment he entered this environment, which seemed deliberately designed to torment people, he still instinctively felt uncomfortable.
Living in this kind of place, let alone Evil Spirit Masters, even someone with a normal mind or strong mentality would eventually be driven insane by such a sunless environment over time.
The lighting along the tunnels came entirely from Spirit Tool lamps embedded in the rock walls. Moss clung to the stone walls, and even the Spirit Tool lamps themselves were coated in filth of unknown origin. Their dim, gloomy light was even fainter than candlelight, and their occasional flickering was even more terrifying than complete darkness.
The deeper they went, the heavier Chen Ming felt his heart become.
However, after Zhang Peng led Chen Ming through many twists and turns into a very deep area, the originally dim and oppressive atmosphere suddenly changed.
Chen Ming and Zhang Peng arrived at a huge plaza. The stone ceiling above was decorated with massive lamps. Although the light they emitted resembled the cold, shadowless lamps of a hospital, carrying no warmth whatsoever, the bright surroundings and spacious environment still gave people a sense of relief.
Countless Spirit Masters dressed in black robes and strange clothing hurried across the plaza. Chen Ming could even see small stalls arranged neatly in certain areas, selling everything from food and water to metal goods and all kinds of bizarre items.
Although the atmosphere here was still oppressive and gloomy, compared to the moss covered tunnels from before, this place was at least an environment humans could accept.
.....
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