After 100 years of leatherworking, I have become a giant in the magic sect.

Chapter 53 53. Abnormal Soul
rustling.
The carving knife chiseled and pushed, pulling out strands of "snowflakes" on the fox demon skin.

The leather is very tough. If Song Yan hadn't channeled his mysterious energy into the carving knife, he wouldn't have been able to even carve it.

At this time, the "rustling" sound occasionally turned into a teeth-grinding "cracking" sound, as if the blade was about to break at any time.

Obviously, this fox demon is by no means comparable to low-level demon beasts like the "Two-Headed Wolf", but it is a little inferior to the strong mid-level demon beasts like the "Bodyless Phantom Crow".

However.
Song Yan paused for a moment and stroked the demon's skin.

He could feel that the skin had not yet grown back.

This is a fox cub that has not yet fully developed.

If it were healthy, it would probably be better than the "Bodyless Phantom Crow".

It has been only four or five years since Grandma Fox came to the North. If she can give birth to cubs every few days, then over the years she would have formed an "army of fox cubs" of one or two thousand.

The fox demon in his hand was just one of them, and it was the one that had not yet fully grown.

Song Yan closed his eyes slightly, recalling what he had gained from the previous soul search.

The memory of this man-eating fox demon is very simple: birth, dominated by "hunger", and a gentle and charming voice always echoing in his mind: "Eat, eat, eat, grow up quickly, become strong, and come back to your mother."

The owner of the voice no longer cared about them, and did not care whether they lived or died.

It relies on some knowledge that is born in its blood to cheat, eat people, grow, and quickly gain wisdom.

Then one day, he and a large group of "brothers and sisters" broke into the Puppet Sect, swarmed out from the dark corners of the deep mountains and old forests, and went to remote places to eat people.

They have keen perception, agile movements, and are extremely good at changing their self-image through illusions. Without special spells, few people in the same realm can detect them.

This makes them completely without natural enemies in low realm areas.

Song Yan couldn't help but think of a description - the invasion of alien species and the outbreak of ecological disasters.

In the world before the time travel, humans were high and mighty, standing at the top of the ecological chain. They did not participate in the natural selection of species, and they looked on things like "crayfish infestation" and "rabbit infestation" with a sense of mockery. But in this different world, it seems that is not the case.

If there were no monks, or if the monks could not stop them, the "foxes with high ecological niches" would eat up all the "indigenous humans", and then turn this place into a demon country filled with fox demons.

In this vast and unknown world, human beings are just one of many species, neither below nor above, and have no arrogant privileges.

that is it.

brush~
Song Yan raised his hand and shook the shadow puppet he had made. Then he put his hands together as if offering incense and slowly bowed to the shadow puppet. Then he pressed the shadow puppet with one hand and raised the other hand and gently waved towards the dark void.

The shadow puppet, which had obviously cooled down a long time ago, suddenly regained its temperature, and the hard leather surface even had a warm and soft touch of a living being.

But the hand that was calling back the spirit became extremely cold.

Strands of indescribable, piercing ink flowed through Song Yan's fingertips, then stopped on the surface of the shadow puppet, slowly solidifying.

This is the "summoning of spirits" in "Painted Skin: The Conjuring".

Together with the Stone Master's "leatherworking experience", there are three "soul sources" for "summoning souls".

The first one is also the most common one: the residual soul of the original owner.

Even if the original owner is dead, there are still broken souls scattered in the skin. In addition, the newly dead soul will stay in the human world for a few days, during which time it will quickly disintegrate and throw away all the fragments of the soul that contain the cause and effect of this life, and then leave this world.

The so-called "When the body dies, the Tao disappears, and all cause and effect are gone" is exactly this principle, which also implies the concepts of "the first seven days" and "Meng Po soup", which Song Yan can understand very well.

And these fragments are the best source of "summoning souls".

To put it simply, it means "make the leather while it's hot and make sure it's original."

The second place is: a lonely soul in the wild.

The soul fragments that contain cause and effect will not be taken to reincarnation, so they are scattered here, or combined with mysterious energy to form evil spirits, or form some invisible and intangible "lonely ghosts" that will make you seriously ill if you accidentally bump into them.

There are such lonely ghosts scattered everywhere in the world. When they feel the power of flesh and blood coming from the "shadow puppet", they will instinctively come closer and be sucked into it. After that, they will be confused and combine with the residual soul on the "shadow puppet", thinking that they are the existence carved by the "shadow puppet".

This is the most common.

But because it is "not original", the shadow puppets produced will naturally be a few points worse.

The third place is Master Shi’s guess: the residual soul of a powerful being.

Master Shi believes that since the death of the body will leave behind fragments of the soul, if a great man dies, will he also leave behind such fragments? If the remaining soul of a great man is recruited into the shadow puppet, the power exerted will be even stronger.

As the soul slowly gathers and solidifies.

Song Yan's gentle soul-calling hand suddenly became violent. He tightly grasped the solid soul and pressed it into the skin.

This step is the "Painted Skin Soul Slave Technique" which is a mutated version of "Painted Skin Necromancer Technique".

The art of summoning spirits is to let the spirits enter the skin by themselves. There are dangers in the process. For the sake of safety, the shadow puppet masters are likely to fail at this step, which will lead to the destruction of the shadow puppet and the flight of the summoned spirits.

But for the slave soul, there is no problem at all, because no matter whether the soul is willing or not, Song Yan will just press it in.

As the original owner's residual soul entered his body, Song Yan's left fingertips shot out a ray of mysterious energy to connect with it, like the "strings" on a "puppet". The fox demon shadow puppet suddenly stood up on the table as if it was inflated, and then moved with its legs swinging.

But Song Yan's right hand did not stop.

The hand continued to wave in the darkness.

If any leather master saw this scene, he would be so scared that he would shout “Stop, stop, stop immediately, do you want to die?” Because this is a taboo in “summoning spirits”.

"One skin, one soul" is already quite dangerous, and "one skin, multiple souls" is simply forcing the shadow puppet to riot, devour its owner, and kill people.

Sure enough, another solid ghost appeared on the shadow puppet.

But the ghost seemed to sense that there was already a soul in the shadow puppet, so it began to become angry.

However, before it could get angry, the dark hand grabbed it fiercely in an even more violent posture than its own, and pressed it forcefully into the fox demon shadow puppet.

Two souls, one shadow puppet.

All of a sudden, the shadow puppet began to emit a sound "similar to that of boiling water or water entering boiling oil". The originally light and nimble fox demon shadow puppet also began to become deformed.

Although it is deformed, it can still be seen as a fox.

Of course.
The hand that was summoning souls had not stopped yet, and continued to summon wandering ghosts in the air, and then continued to stuff the condensed ghosts into the shadow puppet.

This was the first time that Song Yan actually tried to use the second perfect variation of "Painted Skin and Deformed Soul", a spell second only to "Hundred Aspects of Demonic Body", a spell that took him more than 3000 years to comprehend.

As the ghosts in the shadow puppets mutated and became deformed, Song Yan felt that the shadow puppets were also becoming stronger. They transcended their previous lives and were climbing step by step towards a higher realm.

If the fox demon was only a mid-level demon beast that could not match the "Bodyless Phantom Crow" before, now it has surpassed the "Bodyless Phantom Crow" and is even approaching the level of a high-level demon beast.

The remaining soul of a powerful being entering into a shadow puppet is probably no more than this.

"Ah"

"Hahaha"

In the darkness, Song Yan let out a low laugh.

Outside the crystal skylight on the dome of the cave, the spring rain had stopped overnight, and golden light fell from the sky, shining on the man's ink-black hair from top to bottom, but making his face seem completely immersed in darkness.

He put away the "Deformed Soul One-Tailed Fox Demon Shadow Puppets" that he had made, which was of a grade that was infinitely close to that of a high-level demon beast, and then heaved a long sigh of relief.

Feeling tired, he took off his clothes, went into a cave at the side, hugged the two girls from the Fu family, and fell asleep.

A few hours later.

Song Yan opened his eyes. He had slept soundly and had recovered quite well. However, as soon as he opened his eyes, he saw the Queen's beautiful eyes that were burning with anger.

"Would you please stop doing this?!"

Song Yan smiled and asked, "How is it?"

If he didn't have some special hobbies, it would be impossible to explain why he gave the two women such large doses of hypnotic powder.

In the previous few times he staked out, he always came back in the second half of the night and did not increase the dosage, so it could be explained that the Xuanqi Cave Mansion was a good place to "aid sleep" and allow people to sleep until dawn.

And last night, he added a lot more to make the shadow puppets.

Fu Shirong is different from Qiu Lianyue. She is a very smart and perceptive woman. She will definitely guess that she has been drugged, and then she will definitely guess that Song Yan is going to do something secretly.

Therefore, Song Yan might as well let her guess that what he was going to do secretly was just stealing someone's beauty.

After all, what else could he do?
On the other side, Fu Hongmian was lying weakly because of Ji Yuan.

Song Yan stood up, put the Guben Ginseng Pill on the table, and turned to leave. After walking a few steps, he suddenly remembered the Queen's hot temper, so he took out a martial arts book, put it on the stone table, and said, "I'm really bored, so I'll practice."

The cover of this martial arts booklet was made from some old booklets, but the content was compiled by him.

His martial arts skills were so good that he could defeat the leader of Jiangnan with just one blow. He looked like a god and had long been invincible. What was taught in this booklet was even more than the essence of the "Four Birds".

Fu Shirong looked disgusted and didn't want to touch the booklet, but Fu Hongmian flipped through it out of curiosity. When she did, the young guard was stunned.

Her stunned look aroused the Queen's curiosity.

Fu Shirong couldn't help but move over to take a look.

Once you see it, you can’t take your eyes off it.

Song Yan came out of the cave. The bright afternoon sun shone on him, but it could not make him feel a bit of warmth, because he already knew through soul searching that many fox demons had broken into the Puppet Sect.

Among them, there are also many "mature forms", that is, fox demons at the high-level demon beast level.

He felt that the top leaders of the Puppet Sect should know.

But why didn't the top management take any countermeasures?

A strange feeling arose in Song Yan's heart.

Or maybe he didn't know because of his lower status?
Just as he was thinking, a disciple suddenly ran over from a distance. When he arrived in front of him, he bowed respectfully and said, "Senior Brother Song, the peak master is giving a martial arts class at the top of the peak, and all the disciples who have reached the first level of Lianxuan are invited to go."

"What kind of art is it?"

"It seems to be some magic after entering the Xuan realm, as well as some common sense of cultivation. I don't know the rest of the junior brothers either."

Song Yan nodded, said "I'll be there", and then went to the top of the mountain.

This looks like a sect.
It was also a good opportunity for him to brush up on his common sense.

(End of this chapter)