Chapter 243: Knowledge of Evil God Rituals

Chapter 243: Knowledge of Evil God Rituals

Recently, the tasks on Zheng Yichen’s hands were all in development and couldn’t be resolved immediately. As for Potionology, aside from daily routines, studying desperately at other times made little progress. After all, there was only so much energy each day, and once he lost his focus, it became much harder to concentrate again. That wasn’t something that could yield results in a day or two.

So, after noticing positive changes in the newly forged magic arms, Zheng Yichen decided to pay more attention to this matter. He had already been quite intrigued by the changes in Apophis before, though at that time he had too many things on his plate and couldn’t spare extra time or energy for it. Now that he had the time… he also wanted to figure out the origin of this change!

“Hmm? When did the changes in Apophis start?” Zheng Yichen muttered while pinching his chin. Did it begin after the Demon Sword Sect appeared? “Loli! I’m going out for a bit.”

Zheng Yichen picked up the “landline” beside him—a device resembling a walkie-talkie, with a range limited to the Underground Base. It was mainly for convenient communication because, after settling down, he had been digging this place bigger and bigger, and it was impractical to run hundreds of meters just for minor matters.

“Mm.”

Loris’ response came through the landline. Afterward, Zheng Yichen went to Qin’s place. Seeing Qin sitting in a Booth Area, sipping a glass of purple-hued wine that emitted a misty vapor, Zheng Yichen didn’t stand on ceremony and directly sat down opposite her. “I’m curious, are you always here normally?”

“Of course not, but when I’m free, I’m usually here at this time.” Qin checked the time on a ladies’ wristwatch—a creation from Zheng Yichen’s hands. In this world, there were many things for telling time, and items similar to watches existed too, but they weren’t as convenient as those developed on Earth. Disregarding precision, a cheap one could be bought for a small sum—their numbers were practically overwhelming…

But the ‘watches’ of the Otherworld weren’t like that. Only families of moderate means could afford them. Ordinary commoners didn’t use such things—need to know the time? Just look at the sun in the sky. What use was a watch? Spending extra money on that? Qin had seen Zheng Yichen pull out a Pocket Watch to check the time before. Interested in this miniaturized item that had no Mana Fluctuation, she had asked him to make one.

“What’s the matter?”

“I want to inquire a bit about the Demon Sword Sect. Not the previous intel—something more detailed. Deduct the cost from my share of the profits.”

How much money did he have now? Zheng Yichen wasn’t quite clear. Of course, he wasn’t entirely in the dark—he had a rough idea. The specific amount was managed by Loris, though the difference was she hadn’t imposed any so-called restrictions on his spending… After all, he was a dragon now—where could he possibly squander money wildly?

Find women? Heavens! Don’t bring that up; Zheng Yichen was still troubled by this matter. Find a Mother Dragon? Uh, he expressed that the Dragon Clan and such should just continue existing as background elements for now. Why would he expose his identity for no reason and attract forces that could remain background for a long time?

Zheng Yichen had casually calculated before—aside from small expenses like beverages, the money he spent elsewhere was surprisingly little. The bulk of his spending was still on various materials. As for any trickery in the profits, with two Witches around, they had no reason to play tricks over such petty sums.

There was plenty of time ahead; everyone involved here belonged to the Longevity Species. Time was the greatest wealth—there was no need to create rifts over such matters.

Qin didn’t say much. She reached into a crack of her Personal Space opened beside her, pulled out a folder, and handed it to Zheng Yichen. Using his Bionic Alchemical Avatar, he sat casually and quickly flipped through the material. It recorded highly significant intelligence about the Demon Sword Sect.

After reading it, Zheng Yichen returned the material to Qin and let out a slight sigh. He hadn’t paid attention to this matter for a while; he didn’t expect that what was initially only a suspicion had now been confirmed as definite—the Evil God within the Demon Sword Sect truly had a close connection with Apophis in the Magic Weapon Summoning Book.

Of course, confirmation was confirmation, but the contents of this intel were currently still confidential, known to very few. However, as time passed, the secrecy of this intelligence would gradually lessen. Once more people knew about it, he guessed those itching to cause trouble would probably grow restless.

Especially the major well-known Cults…

Don’t think that a Cult only had a single Evil God—there were many reasons why Evil Gods seemed to endlessly appear alongside Cults, and one was precisely these Cults themselves. Cultists within Cults often stirred trouble, conducting new Evil God Rituals in certain places to generate Evil Gods.

Their rationale? Nothing more than wanting to capture a newborn Evil God as a sacrifice to offer to their own Evil God to please it. As for why they had such thoughts and actions? On one hand, doing so genuinely pleased the Evil God. On the other hand… most Cultists’ minds weren’t exactly normal—how could ordinary people fully guess what they were thinking?

They could chop off an arm or a leg and gleefully claim it resembled their Evil God’s trait—an honor. What normal person would think like that?

Evil Gods produced by Cultists: the lucky ones captured newborn Evil Gods, sacrificed them as offerings, greatly pleased their own Evil Gods, and then these troublemaking Cultists engaged in intense competition to see who could receive the majority of the Evil God’s blessings. The winner’s status would naturally rise dramatically—from a grassroots leek to the sickle level that harvested leeks.

How to get most of the blessings? Simple: once the fellow Cultists who presided over the Evil God Ritual with you were all dead, or mostly dead, wouldn’t you get the blessings?

That was for the lucky ones. The unlucky ones, of course, became ‘believers’ or nourishment for this newborn Evil God. After all, those who pulled off such things were mostly grassroots Cultists in charge. Grassroots Cultists often belonged to the type where death struck in large swathes—no one cared. Even if devoured by a newborn Evil God, their Evil God wouldn’t pay much attention.

Maybe it was because Cultists had bad karma, but those who performed such rituals usually ended up with misfortune as the main outcome… Thinking about it, it’s normal: If you wanted to please an Evil God, naturally you needed better sacrifices. Using a weak, low-quality Evil God as a sacrifice might succeed, but even if they captured and sacrificed it, the Evil God they worshipped would at most taste a small snack and wouldn’t be that happy.

If it were a high-quality newborn Evil God—like sleeping at home and finding a lottery ticket winning second prize—though not the grand prize, it’s something to jump for joy over. However, where were high-quality newborn Evil Gods so easy to get along with?

Cultists meticulously orchestrated a high-quality Evil God Ritual but ended up with an Evil God they couldn’t control. Perhaps they had considered this possibility, but as brain-dead fans devoted to an Evil God, they only endlessly desired to obtain more of its blessings, without excessively considering the severe consequences of failure.

What if… what if they succeeded? After succeeding, weren’t they just like other senior Cultists, becoming a follower of great focus to the Evil God?

Fight for it! Of course, they had to take the gamble. Rising in a Cult depended entirely on gambling. Putting in years of service? Which grassroots Cultist could truly rise through seniority? If you wanted to rise, you still had to rely on luck, on whether you were daring enough. If you were daring enough and leaped over the dragon gate, you profited. If you failed to leap, you fell to your death—pretty much similar to outlasting your fellow Cultists.

Under such a vicious cycle, Cults were like weeds that couldn’t be eradicated—sprouting back with the spring breeze—suddenly emerging in large waves from somewhere.

“So, for the sake of my magic arms, should I take the time to study Evil God Rituals while learning Potionology?” Zheng Yichen muttered, leaning back on the Booth Area couch, slightly narrowing his eyes. He looked as if he had fallen asleep, but in reality, his attention had shifted to the Projection left at the Castle. Following a Ghost Maid’s guidance, he found the section of the Underground Library that stored books related to Evil Gods.

He randomly flipped through the directory here, and Zheng Yichen’s mouth twitched involuntarily. Tsk, just for Evil God Rituals, there were records of no less than a hundred types… truly weeds, so many! He pulled out a book about Evil God Rituals placed on the periphery and opened it to read.

The Evil God Ritual recorded in this book was relatively low-level. Of course, because it was low-level, the setup conditions were simple—no need for extra precious materials, not even high demands for sacrifices. Zheng Yichen stared at the ritual Rune Patterns recorded in the book regarding setting up an Evil God Ritual… Conventional Magic Rune Arrays were neat, orderly, and patterned.

Evil God Ritual arrays were chaotic and disordered, yet within this disorder, there were multiple variations that could be further expanded and extended. This was probably the reason for the multitude of Evil God Rituals. This extendibility alone was enough for people to randomly alter and mess with them… and they could still succeed!

Because the main characteristic of Evil God Ritual Rune Patterns was chaos—to put it bluntly, describe it as doodling. Drawing—to draw well required sufficient foundation and Talent, just like Magic. Doodling—anyone could do it, even someone without hands could try with their feet!

“Such sinister stuff!” Closing this book on Evil God Rituals, Zheng Yichen scratched his claws. Well, after reading this book, he himself actually developed a thought—to personally design Rune Patterns for an Evil God Ritual and nurture an Evil God to try.

No wonder all books related to Evil God Rituals were of the highest-level forbidden category. Note that this book had no power fluctuations whatsoever, so naturally it could hardly be described as seductive. Yet, precisely this seemingly unappealing forbidden knowledge, after being read and reflected upon afterward, made one feel the urge to experiment.

If even he felt this way, imagine others. Even if they could suppress such an impulse now, before long they might not resist and would personally attempt it!

This should be another reason for the rampant spread of Cults. Without mentioning much, as long as someone continuously disseminated knowledge of Evil God Rituals, where could ordinary people resist such ‘demonic temptation’? Knowing just a little, they would become immersed in it… bizarre, sinister stuff!

Dispersing the thoughts in his mind about a few test tries of ‘perfecting’ the Evil God Rituals he had memorized, Zheng Yichen directly sat on the floor. He waited for nearly half an hour before picking up the next book. Though he had thoughts of perfecting, he held no related obsession. Such experimental thoughts were entirely under his control—he could have them if he wanted, discard them if he didn’t.

The second Evil God Ritual book differed in style from the previous one—even the ritual Rune Patterns were completely different, as if two entirely unrelated things. But upon careful observation, one could discover that although they looked unrelated, in terms of disorderly extensibility, comparing the two Rune Patterns showed no difference.

Both were the kind that made you think, ‘Damn, I’m practically a genius! Just a glance at this thing and I can think of at least ten ways to complete its structure!’ Even if the ritual Rune Patterns appeared quite ‘complete’ already—hmm, perhaps this was the reason Evil Gods produced by Evil God Rituals were like drawing cards, full of uncertainty…

After reading several books on Evil God Rituals consecutively, Zheng Yichen rubbed his head and shifted his attention back to the Bionic Alchemical Avatar at the Bar. The entire Booth Area had only him now; Qin had already left, and no one else came to disturb him—as if Zheng Yichen didn’t exist here.

Narrowing his eyes, he rested for a while. Then Zheng Yichen downed the beverage in front of him—who knew how long it had been sitting there—stood up, and left the Bar. The sky had completely darkened; going out of the city now would definitely invite questioning. Zheng Yichen shook his head and didn’t return. He found a decent-looking inn and walked in, planning to stay overnight. Come to think of it, though he had been in this Otherworld for so long, this was his first time staying in an Otherworld inn.

Staying in the room, Zheng Yichen folded his arms, sorting through the information he had read today. Evil God Rituals were divided into many levels. High-level ones required plenty of precious materials and sufficient sacrifices; low-level ones just needed digging a pit. However, though they were graded, that only affected the Evil God’s initial power, not overly affecting its abilities. Abilities in that aspect were completely random… entirely based on luck.

Those high-level Evil God Rituals that produced Evil Gods with formidable power from the start might not necessarily be superior in ability traits compared to some weak Evil Gods created from casually digging a pit with explosive luck. Of course, producing an Evil God with excellent abilities and strong power from the outset meant directly skipping the time needed for the Evil God to grow, possessing extremely high initial strength.

And the produced Evil God was often a one-shot deal… Unless there were powerful existences like Witches who could effortlessly erase those Evil Gods with high initial power—if not workable, kill them and start over. Of course, the used sacrifices and materials couldn’t be retrieved. Using high-level Evil God Rituals was behavior that risked good resources without easily reaping benefits.

Generally, moderately-leveled Evil God Rituals were sufficient. The sacrificial requirements weren’t too strict, material demands weren’t many, and the initial strength of the produced Evil God was decent—not so weak that upon appearance it lacked direct lethality, only capable of subtly interfering with others. Those kinds of Evil Gods, really—if discovered by some Spellcaster, with a bit of care, they could be slapped to death.

“Hmm… let’s understand a bit more related knowledge.” Anyway, intelligence about Magic Weapon Evil Gods wouldn’t leak significantly within one or two months. Zheng Yichen had ample time to make some preparations. Moreover, the magic arms were under his control. If he kept an eye on things himself, why worry about others using his magic arms to stir trouble against him?

What a joke! If it were confirmed that those Magic Weapon Evil Gods had an inseparable connection with the magic arms, Zheng Yichen expressed that if he encountered such troublesome Cults in the future, he could simply have that magic arm reforged. Under such a premise, which Cult related to magic arms would dare cause trouble for him?

Even if those Cultists dared to do so, would Evil Gods based on magic arms dare? Thinking this, Zheng Yichen waved his hand, summoning the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. He pulled out Apophis and the Holy Spirit Hammer, observing them left and right, occasionally nodding. Hmm, after learning more about Evil God Rituals, he would try it with the Sword of Promised Victory…

What would the produced Evil God be like then?

Immediately, a huge ahoge appeared in Zheng Yichen’s mind.