I have seen dragons

Chapter 4 Lantern Monster [Thanks to "Ziche Chenju" for the Silver Alliance donation]

The next morning, Yue Wen received the news that the mission had been accomplished.

Actually, as soon as he gave his price, everyone in the group knew there was no suspense. He was already accepting orders for 1,000 yuan, so why would anyone compete for it?
This job might take two or three nights, averaging three to five hundred yuan a night. To earn that little money, you have to stay up all night. Dude, you might as well go work as a male model in a bar.

Yue Wen simply smiled and let it go in the face of his colleagues' indignation.

Since he can earn extra money by defeating monsters, real cash isn't that important; he can only swindle money from everyone.

We'll endure hardship together, and I'll bear the blame.

Having arranged to meet the employer in the evening, Yue Wen could focus on his own work at the firm during the day.

He first created a job posting.

"We are now recruiting one demon-slaying assistant. Cultivation level is not limited, and both men and women of all ages are welcome. The monthly salary is expected to be between 3,000 and 100,000 (base salary of 3,000, with a 50/50 split based on task participation), with no upper limit. Interested parties should apply as soon as possible."

After Yue Wen finished writing, he looked at it and added a sentence.

“The number of places is limited and it’s on a first-come, first-served basis.”

With just a base salary of three thousand, it would be difficult to recruit even a college student intern, let alone a cultivator. Therefore, he could only offer a higher commission rate. Other similar firms, even partners, would not split the profits 50/50.

"Shouldn't this be a little more appealing?" Yue Wen murmured.

After all, there were no cultivation requirements for him.

Even practitioners in Jiangcheng City aren't that precious.

Five hundred years ago, the Blue Star, which originally only had a purely technological civilization, suddenly experienced a significant increase in spiritual energy concentration, and soon reached a stage where all things in the world began to manifest their spirits.

A descendant of an ancient immortal sect emerged from the mountains, claiming that the spiritual energy in the world is like the tide, rising every three thousand years, declining every three thousand years, and drying up every three thousand years.

One rise and one fall, spanning millennia.

The period of spiritual energy depletion has now completely passed, and the human realm will enter a three-thousand-year period of spiritual energy growth, until it reaches its peak.

People were initially overjoyed, calling it a "resurrection of spirituality."

But it was soon discovered that this resurgence brought immense chaos to the world. Not only humans could develop spirituality, but the earth itself and its inhabitants were also transformed into a desolate wasteland; all living things were plagued by rampant evil spirits.

The most dangerous aspect is the spatial barrier that has weakened as spiritual energy surges.

The various realms beyond the human world were thrown into turmoil as powerful demons from other worlds descended, nearly bringing annihilation to Blue Star, whose cultivation civilization was just beginning at the time.

For nearly a century, the human world was almost destroyed, and the survivors lived in constant fear and dread.

The spiritual energy revival was then referred to as the "spiritual energy catastrophe".

In the end, the power of human cultivators gradually accumulated and grew stronger. In addition, a group of immortal sect successors found the legendary Four Seas Dragon Palace by following the map and retrieved a large number of immortal treasures left over from the previous spiritual era.

This turned the tide and restored order to the world.

Even today, although large areas of wasteland and restricted zones still exist outside the satellite city, and various levels of demons and evil spirits still roam, at least the people in the city can live and work in peace and have rediscovered their former technological lifestyle.

Otherworldly demons can only descend during occasional spatial rifts, and large-scale invasions of other realms have not occurred for many years.

Over the past few centuries, the cultivation civilization has flourished. Although those with spiritual potential capable of cultivation are still one in ten thousand, on a planet with billions of inhabitants, even one in ten thousand represents several million. Add to that the evil cultivators who have undergone artificial transformation, and the number becomes even larger.

Naturally, the lower the cultivation level, the more people there are. Among the nine levels of cultivation, the lower three levels account for more than 70%. And there are countless cultivation "enthusiasts" who spend their entire lives only at the first level.

Yue Wen's requirements were not high, and he didn't need his assistant to really help him; he just wanted to comply with the regulations of the Supermarket Management Bureau.

Hiring one enthusiast is enough.

……

The day passed quickly, and Yue Wen spent the entire day cultivating alone in the firm, with no one coming to his door.

The reputation of "Yue's Cultivation Agency" is still too small.

On a tiny telephone pole, signs like "Seeking a Child for a Large Sum of Money," "Cheap Exorcism," "Same-City Home Service," and "Weight Loss Without Dieting" are crammed together. It's hard to believe that one of them is actually genuine.

However, Yue Wen remained optimistic. As long as he hired an assistant and obtained a formal business license, he could openly use some sophisticated advertising methods—such as handing out flyers on the street.

Seeing that it was almost time, he locked up the shop, got on his electric scooter, and set off. Heading east, he arrived at the edge of Satellite City No. 7, where he could already see a hazy, indistinct curtain of light stretching to the sky and boundless in the distance.

The main city is surrounded by satellite cities, which are protected by a protective array. Beyond the light barrier of this protective array lies a vast wasteland.

This grand formation cannot isolate all demons and evil spirits; some individual evil spirits can still slip through the gaps. However, once the aura of the invading demons and evil spirits becomes strong enough, the formation will be triggered, preventing a large-scale demon tide and protecting the overall safety of the city.

The East City Cemetery is located in this remote suburban area.

As dusk settled, several areas separated by trees on the hillside were filled with protruding stone tablets. Many of them were blank, or only had the time of death written on them, in case a family member came to claim them someday.

In this era, the living conditions for ordinary people have actually deteriorated, with a considerable number of accidental deaths every year.

At the beginning of the spiritual energy revival, a group of ordinary people were terrified of cultivators who wielded powerful abilities, fearing that the proliferation of power would cause social chaos. At that time, some experts even advocated that "everyone should cultivate, then it will not cause chaos."

It makes people laugh when they think about it.

There was a small hut on the hillside next to the cemetery, where the caretaker lived. Yue Wen rode his electric scooter to the hut, parked it, and locked it.

A somewhat disheveled, balding old man came out of the house. He greeted us with a smile and said, "Young man, you've come to exorcise evil spirits, haven't you?"

“That’s right, sir,” Yue Wen replied.

"My surname is Huang, and I'm the cemetery caretaker. I'll be taking care of you for the next few nights. You can come in and rest when you're tired from work." The old man led Yue Wen into the small hut and gave him a tour.

"Uncle Huang, you can rest assured that you'll leave it to me," Yue Wen said with a smile.

The small house was simply furnished with some everyday household appliances and a yellowed little bed.

“Our cemetery is for ordinary people, so there won’t be any major evil spirits buried here. There’s definitely no problem,” Old Huang said, pointing to a few stacks of yellow paper in the drawer. You can use them whenever you need them.

"Okay." Yue Wen nodded.

He's made a lot of preparations, but he hasn't learned any talisman techniques, so he doesn't need them yet.

"There are a few cucumbers in the refrigerator. Feel free to eat them whenever you need them," Old Huang pointed again.

"I understand." Yue Wen nodded again, thinking to himself that the old man was quite considerate.

"There are a few pornographic books on the shelf. You can use them whenever you need them..." Old Huang pointed to the bookshelf again.

“There’s no need for that,” Yue Wen quickly shook his head.

Good guy.

Everything in this house has to have your surname, right?

I'm a respectable man, sir.

"That's true, the internet has become so developed now." Old Huang sighed and smiled, seemingly lamenting that the new era no longer had a flight to carry him.

As dusk approached, after leaving the key with the little yellow duck to Yue Wen, Old Man Huang rode off on a small yellow electric scooter.

Left alone in the room, Yue Wen browsed through a few books on the shelf—purely out of curiosity.

As expected, they were all works with titles like "I Can't Be a Goddess," "Please, My Wife, Slay the Demon," and "The Fairy Has Ordered Me," which sounded anything but serious.

After killing some time, as darkness fell completely, the evil spirits were about to make their move.

Yue Wen then walked out of the small house and came to the cemetery area.

Compared to demons with physical forms, "nightmare," an evil spirit formed from the residual spiritual power of living beings, is far more ethereal and elusive. It leaves no trace in the sunlight but can be reborn in the night.

Yue Wen hadn't walked far when he saw a wisp of eerie green will-o'-the-wisp drifting from the distant woods. Although it wasn't the first time he'd seen it, out of caution, he put on his demon-revealing mirror, concentrated his inner energy, and scanned the creature's information.

The Demon-Revealing Mirror can not only detect the aura of evil spirits, but also identify their origin, analyze their combat strength, and provide a lot of crucial information. The weaker the evil spirit's spiritual power, the more information will be revealed by the mirror.

A sense immediately surfaced in Yue Wen's mind.

[Lantern Monster: A nightmare creature formed from the remnants of resentment from a corpse clinging to tattered cardboard. It is undoubtedly the weakest evil spirit in the world, with an adult form having a combat strength roughly equivalent to a quarter of a healthy human grandmother.]

(End of this chapter)