Demon Taming: Start by synthesizing a Lantern Ghost with Divine and Demonic Talents

Chapter 9 The Poor Guy's Great Adventure (Please add to your favorites and read on!)
Half a month later, a dried-up riverbed appeared.

Li Chunfeng skillfully lit a soul-summoning incense stick, gathering many lantern ghosts.

A cold wind blew by, rustling the tall snake vines ahead, and carrying a strong smell of blood.

"Splash~"

The snake vines split in two. One was a monster with half of its body rotting, the rest of its skin like that of a leper, with black sideburns and hard thorns like iron, bulging muscles, and green eyes like copper bells. It opened its blood-red mouth and bared its half-foot-long, sharp fangs at Li Chunfeng.

A line of information appeared above the monster's head.

[Ghoul Hound, unranked. Extremely bloodthirsty, its weakness is the head. It craves to mingle with your blood!]

Ah, so this is a ghoul!

This guy, who's about the size of a calf, is just a nobody?

As expected, the information I saw online was far less impressive than the actual product.

"Swish, swish, swish~"

Four more identical ghouls leaped out from all sides, surrounding them and leaving them no way to escape.

Li Chunfeng remained calm and composed. With a thought, a large red lantern, about a meter in diameter, appeared above his head. An invisible barrier of mental energy was erected around the lantern, firmly protecting him and his master.

Then, Li Chunfeng held the Soul Gun in his hand, raised the gun, aimed, and fired.

"Oh!"

A stream of fire shot out, turning into dazzling fireworks in the night sky, directly blasting the head of the first ghoul to pieces.

The other four crashed into the shield as if they had hit a reef. Li Chunfeng was unharmed, but they were left dizzy and disoriented.

With a flick of his hand, Li Chunfeng's Soul-Slaying Gun vanished, replaced by the Demon-Slaying Blade.

The gleaming silver blade flashed in the moonlight, vaguely illuminating his expressionless face. A thin line of blood had appeared beneath the blade, gathering at the tip before dripping down as a drop.

The heads of the four ghouls slid off neatly, and the blood emitted a foul stench.

Li Chunfeng flicked the blade and sheathed it.

"Yes, the official assessment is correct; it really is second-rate."

During his long journey to survive in the apocalypse, Li Chunfeng experienced numerous life-or-death battles. His combat skills were not rigorous, but rather self-taught, honed through countless battles amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

Reborn, his physical abilities have declined significantly, rendering most of his skills useless; all that's left is experience.

The ghouls were just a minor incident and didn't affect his pace in catching the lantern ghosts at all.

The lantern ghosts that had just gathered were scared away by the battle, wasting half a stick of incense, so they had to find a new place to light the soul-summoning incense.

"Click, click~"

Before long, a tattered white skeleton, dragging a bone knife, staggered out of the thick fog. In the mist, two bright orange-yellow soul flames flickered conspicuously in the empty pupils of the skull.

[A skeleton soldier, lowly and uncouth. It wants to invite you to dance!]

"Oh!"

"Dance your head off!" The Soul Gun spewed forth a stream of fire, blowing the bone soldier's head off with a single thrust.

He immediately opened his mouth and inhaled, like a soul-devouring demon, swallowing the soul fire overflowing from the skull's shattered head. A red light flashed in Li Chunfeng's eyes, then he tightly closed his five orifices and quickly refined it.

After a while, a feeling of comfort spread throughout my body like an electric shock.

He let out a long sigh, exhaling a few wisps of indigestible, turbid soul fire, and a faint smell of sulfur filled the air.

"Ding~"

A crisp sound reached his ears, and Li Chunfeng reached out, sending a dark yellow crystal flying out of the skeleton. Good luck; he'd actually gotten a soul crystal.

Compared to the less common ghouls, skeleton soldiers are much more common.

Perhaps because they were getting further away from the city, the number of ghosts and monsters appearing in the vicinity was increasing, and Li Chunfeng had become used to it.

After all, he had already visited all the mass graves near Jiecheng in the past two weeks.

Starting from the first day when only a few hundred lantern ghosts could be captured, the number captured each day thereafter increased.

His ghost-catching skills became increasingly proficient, and the spiritual energy consumed by each manifestation of the inner realm was constantly decreasing. Meanwhile, his cultivation level was increasing day by day, and his technique was not far from being upgraded.

Now, more than 4,000 lantern ghosts can be caught every night.

Half a month passed, and even he himself didn't know how many lantern ghosts he had caught.

He can be called the 'Lantern Ghost Killer'.

The continuous captures have made the lantern ghosts in the vicinity increasingly sparse, and it will take some time before they reappear. In order not to affect the capture efficiency, they had to go further away from the city and come to this untouched wilderness.

This dried-up riverbed was discovered by accident. It doesn't qualify as a spiritual land for entry-level cultivators, yet there are an unusually large number of lantern ghosts.

One manifestation of the inner landscape can capture more than 600 animals, which is more than twice as rich as a first-tier mass grave.

It was truly a blessed place for him.

The downside is that it's too far from the city, and walking in the wilderness is extremely inefficient; in the event of an emergency, escape might be impossible. Therefore, transportation is of paramount importance.

Forget about flying boats; even the cheapest flying magical artifact from the Great Zen Temple, the 'One Leaf Boat,' costs around 15 Dao Gong. Secondhand ones are less than 5, and you won't find them on the market.

Having a means of transportation allows you to venture deeper into the wilderness and escape if you encounter trouble.

Thanks to Li Chunfeng's tireless efforts, the attributes of the Burning Lamp have undergone a dramatic change:
[Lighting the Lamp]: Ghostly Level 5
【talent】:
1. Soul Devouring (Low-grade Yellow Rank)

II. Heart Lamp (High-grade Mystic Rank)

[Spell]:
灵魂火弹（黄阶9级）、幻影分身（灵阶1级）、念力护盾（灵阶5级）、念力拳头（灵阶5级）、烽火狼烟（人阶9级）
……

With these attributes, can you still tell that it belongs to a lantern ghost?
It took considerable effort for both of them to rise from their unremarkable mortal rank to their current level.

Putting aside the talent of the Heart Lamp, there are at least some Lantern Ghosts with decent rank.

The Soul Devouring talent was truly built up by sheer quantity.

From the lowest level of the Mortal Rank to the Human Rank, Spirit Rank, and then the lowest level of the Yellow Rank, it's equivalent to advancing nine levels.

A careful calculation reveals just how difficult it is.

Three low-grade mortal items can be combined to form one mid-grade mortal item. Combined to reach the low-grade yellow rank, that's equivalent to three high-grade spirit items, nine mid-grade spirit items, 27 low-grade spirit items, 81 high-grade human items, 243 mid-grade human items, 729 low-grade human items, 2187 high-grade mortal items, 6561 mid-grade mortal items, and 19683 low-grade mortal items.

In other words, advancing to the next level would require nearly 60,000, which is really too difficult to handle; otherwise, the higher and lower levels could be combined.

Even so, although the efficiency of the low-grade Yellow Rank Soul Devouring Spell was still low, it was gradually showing its extraordinary qualities compared to the low-grade Mortal Rank. The most significant change was that the growth rate of Li Chunfeng's soul power had far exceeded that of his methodical cultivation.

As a result, the cultivation efficiency of the "Black Lotus Sutra of the Turbid World" was also greatly improved.

It will be a success!

With the 'Soul Devourer' in hand, Li Chunfeng could already foresee that his future path of cultivation would inevitably involve crawling through mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

The effect of soul replenishment brought about by upgrading the level of the Burning Lamp to Ghost Level 5 is also obvious.

Now, tens of thousands of black lotus petals have been condensed in Li Chunfeng's inner realm.

The cultivation technique is also about to meet the upgrade requirements, half a month ahead of schedule.

【Black Lotus Sutra of a Turbid World - Level 982: 1 (1/1000)】

Once we catch the ghost today, we'll be able to level up.

As dawn broke, the number of lantern ghosts in the river became visibly sparse. This trip yielded at least six thousand lantern ghosts, and the next level-up is not far off.

Li Chunfeng was about to return to the city when his 'Mind's Eye' suddenly spotted a lantern ghost with the ability to create illusionary clones, and he gave chase without hesitation. As he chased, he unexpectedly arrived at a patch of grayish-black land. The soil here was fertile, but no vegetation grew. The lantern ghost, having drifted to this place, mysteriously vanished.

"what?"

He muttered to himself, recalling that he hadn't passed through this area on his way here. He pulled up his phone's map to confirm that he hadn't wandered into any dangerous zone.

With the 'Mind's Eye' activated, divine sense is released, scanning the surroundings in all directions.

After walking around, we still found nothing.

He was certain he wasn't seeing things. He recalled a saying circulating on the Ghost Realm City forum: many cities in the Ghost Realm were built underground or within small void realms, difficult to detect even with divine sense. Some explorers, while clearing the wilderness, would be lucky enough to discover such mysterious places. The chances were neither high nor low; once inside, it was like a small secret realm, teeming with all sorts of ghosts and monsters. Defeating these monsters would yield some local specialties, and might even open a portal to the next level of the dungeon.

He wasn't sure if the dried-up riverbed was really that far from the border city.

In this situation, a novice might bravely explore, digging deep to find out what it is. A more experienced person, however, would take out a weapon and cautiously observe and probe.

Even someone as experienced in taking risks as Li Chunfeng felt a growing unease, an urge to turn tail and run. He was currently alone, without a team, and any situation would be difficult to handle. He only had one life; everything else was secondary.

But he still decided to take the risk.

No other reason than being too poor!

For the past two weeks, Li Chunfeng has only had expenses and no income.

Anything of value near Jiecheng would have been looted countless times long ago; there's no way he'd have a chance.

On the path of cultivation, wealth, companions, methods, and environment are all important, with wealth being the most important. If he is wealthy, he can certainly afford all the tools and elixirs that can aid in cultivation, and he can also experience high-level cultivation rooms, which will accelerate his cultivation progress.

He is a decisive person. Since he is unwilling to give up directly, he will take a gamble.

Li Chunfeng summoned his natal demon pet.

He himself retreated to a distance of 100 meters and used his mind to guide the lamp to make a test.

Upon hearing the command, the lantern flickered and instantly created eighty-one clones, searching from all directions. Its main body, however, stealthily circled back, hiding behind Li Chunfeng with a sly air, peeking out from his shoulder and glancing sideways.

Li Chunfeng: "...6!"

A mortal-level phantom clone can still split into three phantom clones, but they lack any deterrent power.

A human-level phantom clone can split into nine clones, no longer easily dispersed by a gust of wind, and possesses one-tenth of the original's strength. A spirit-level phantom clone can now split into 81 clones, capable of unleashing nearly 9% of the original's strength.

The 81 clones scattered and began to roam freely.

His idea was simple: since the lantern ghost could disappear but the cultivator's mental power couldn't detect it, then let the lantern ghost explore.

(End of this chapter)