Full-Time Magister: I Had No Intention of Reaching the Dimensional Throne

Chapter 165 The Soul Returns to the Deep Earth, Mysterious Bones

The four of them split up and buried the element detector, then stood guard nearby for a while before retrieving it.

The information was handed over to Sikong Wen for reading, and it didn't take long for Sikong Wen to read the survey information.

"I've found the location of that soul seed. Luckily we arrived early, otherwise, at this rate, the soul seed would have fully matured and been exposed, and then it wouldn't be mine to obtain."

"So that means the rock tortoise must have sensed something was wrong and came looking for it."

Bai Mo turned his head and glanced at the dead rock tortoise.

Nodding in agreement, Sikong Wen added, "..."

"I will absorb it on the spot. There may be residual effects of the soul seed that will spread out. I would appreciate it if you could protect it for me."

Ye Xing nodded silently, her expression resolute, without uttering a word.

"Don't worry, we'll keep watch for you from the outside." Bai Mo nodded slightly, then took Ding Yumin and flew up to sit on the back of the Flowing Rock Turtle.

Sikong Wen acted quickly, and in no time he had opened the location of the soul seed and begun to absorb it.

Strands of pure earth elemental energy rippled outwards, attracting the demons on the island—mostly servants and warriors who acted solely on instinct.

With a flick of his finger, Bai Mo sent arrows of sound piercing through a hundred meters, easily eliminating them.

He also used his mind control to capture a few more and stabbed them to death with his silver hairpin spear, only to discover that their essence was indeed gone!

Like those demons that were killed by the silver hairpin spear from time to time, both their remnants and their essences disappeared!

Bai Mo's eyes were filled with thoughts. He remembered that before he came to this island, he could see the remnants of the demons that had been killed. He first ruled out the possibility that his own vessel for the dead was broken, because his vessel still contained the essence of the demons.

Secondly, he remembered what Ding Yumin had said about her discovery, so he turned to look at Ding Yumin.

"You mean the discovery you mentioned earlier refers to the fact that the essence and remnants of these demons disappear?"

"almost."

Ding Yumin nodded slightly, then shook her head. "They haven't disappeared. Although I can't see those spirits, I can sense their soul power."

"If they didn't disappear, where did they go?"

After saying this, Bai Mo suddenly realized something and stared intently at the ground beneath their feet.

"I can feel that the spiritual power is being absorbed by the ground beneath our feet. There must be something special about this island."

Ding Yumin affirmed his idea, and at the same time, a pale white flame ignited in her hand. With a flick of her wrist, she burned a patch of grass in the distance to ashes.

"Furthermore, I discovered that even the faint spiritual energy of ordinary plants after they die can be absorbed by the ground."

"Could it be because of that soul seed?"

Bai Mo looked thoughtfully at the deep pit where Sikong Wen had absorbed the soul seed, asked subconsciously, and then immediately denied it.

"No, the energy emanating from that soul seed is earth-based, and it can guide souls and absorb their essence under my Soul Vessel. It must be necromancy!"

After speaking, his brows furrowed even more, another question arising in his mind: "How could this island possess necromancy?"

"When we first arrived on the island, I noticed that the soul power of the demons you killed suddenly disappeared. At first, I didn't pay much attention, but as we went deeper and slaughtered more demons, I discovered that the souls of all the lives we destroyed were being absorbed by the ground."

Knowing that he might want to explore, Ding Yumin recounted her discovery: "This power, which appears to be necromancy, covers the entire island."

"I want to go down underground and take a look." Bai Mo stared at his feet.

Ding Yumin showed an expression of surprise and nodded slightly.

"Let's wait until Sikong Wen finishes absorbing the soul seed, then I'll go with you."

"it is good."

It didn't take long for Sikong Wen to successfully absorb it. Bai Mo explained his discovery, which immediately attracted the attention of the two of them.

When Sikong Wen heard that Bai Mo wanted to go underground to explore, he immediately suggested that they go together.

"There aren't any caves or anything like that on this island. I'll help you dig a tunnel, it'll be faster."

"No need, I can go down using ground waves, but I can't take too many people with me."

Bai Mo refused, and at the same time, dark golden earth elements gathered around him. A faint dark golden light spread from his feet upwards, covering his entire body, and then spread to Ding Yumin.

"Ground Waves - Patrol the Frontier!"

The two figures, enveloped in dark golden light, sank into the earth like raindrops falling into water, causing slight ripples in the ground.

"Holy crap! A level 5 ground wave!"

Sikong Wen stared dumbfounded at the two figures merging into the ground, astonished by Bai Mo's extravagance.

The effect of a level 5 ground wave is similar to that of a level 5 wind track.

Patrol allows earth mages to merge with the soil and rocks, freely traversing underground. As long as they have enough magical energy, they will not exit this state.

Unlike the Earth Wave Teleportation, which can carry five or six people at a time, the patrol can only carry one person at most.

Bai Mo took out a spirit from the vessel of the dead and let it fall into the ground, only to find that it was not absorbed.

Instead, it keeps sinking down. The patrol has a perception ability called Earth Vision, which allows it to find the spirits it has released.

Guided by this spirit, the two ventured deeper and deeper. Once they reached a sufficient depth, the dense rock and soil greatly reduced their ability to patrol.

Bai Mo could only maintain this state by continuously providing more magical energy, thus avoiding being left behind by the constantly sinking spirit.

Suddenly, a flash of light appeared, and the spirit before them vanished.

Huh? Bai Mo was slightly taken aback, then accelerated and moved forward.

Suddenly, they felt their surroundings disappear, and their figures became heavy, as if they had suddenly fallen into a pit, and they rolled to the ground without warning.

Bai Mo stood up with his arms around Ding Yumin, but his hand, which was in the wrong place, was slapped away.

He pretended not to know anything, turned his head and looked around, but it was all darkness. He saw nothing, not even the spirit.

"Boom!"

A flame rose from Ding Yumin's hand, its bright light illuminating the entire surrounding environment.

This place is actually an underground cavity!

The underground space is not large, only about ten square meters in size, and its shape is irregular. There is only five meters of space for them to walk upright.

The surrounding land was black, and on one of the earthen walls, a section of white stone protruding from the wall stood out conspicuously.

Bai Mo and Ding Yumin exchanged a glance before heading towards the white stone.

The burrow near the white stone was very low, and the two of them had to crouch down to get there. They took a few more duck-like steps before finally reaching it.

As they got closer, they saw that the white stone wasn't actually all white; it had fine, dark red veins on it.

When they landed, neither Bai Mo nor Ding Yumin sensed any danger or life force, so Bai Mo casually tapped the white stone.

The stone is shaped like a cone, but the tip is rounded and the whole thing is somewhat flat.

The sound produced by tapping was carefully probed against the white stone again, but nothing was found.

"You think this is what's causing the problem?" Ding Yumin asked Bai Mo.

"I don't know, let's give it a try." Bai Mo shook his head and took out another servant-level essence, letting it fall into the air.

As soon as the spirit appeared in the air, it seemed to be subjected to immense gravity and merged into the white stone in a flash.

"It absorbed the essence, so it seems this thing was responsible. But how could such a small stone cover the entire island?"

Bai Mo raised an eyebrow and touched the surface of the stone with some doubt. It felt cold to the touch, as if he were touching glass in winter.

Suddenly, a faint streak of light, barely noticeable under the bright, pale white flame held aloft by Ding Yumin, swept across the stone.

The two of them stared at each other, and after confirming that they hadn't been seeing things, Ding Yumin said with some doubt.

"I just sensed a faint mental fluctuation up there, similar to that of ordinary plants."

"I found that this doesn't seem to be a stone; I can't sense any earth element on it."

The two voices rang out almost simultaneously. Upon hearing each other's words, both focused their gaze on the white object, seemingly lost in thought.

"If it's not a stone, then..." Bai Mo was about to say whether it could be some kind of strange treasure, but his gaze was drawn to the light emanating from the tip of Ding Yumin's neck.

"Your totem is glowing."

Ding Yumin also noticed the totem device trembling, as if it was about to make some change. She immediately remembered the time she took Bai Ze to see the hollow willow.

In an instant, he activated the power of Bai Ze's Hundred Beasts Diagram.

Then the Bai Ze totem artifact slowly took flight, and at the same time, a mysterious white light shone on its ancient patterns, connecting to the object that appeared to be a white stone.

The light shone brightly and showed no sign of fading, but it remained unchanged.

"What kind of creature do you think this might be?" Bai Mo guessed her thoughts, recalling the effect of the Bai Ze Hundred Beasts Painting she mentioned—it could materialize the scene of a living being before its death.

Ding Yumin nodded slightly, her eyes fixed on the totem.

After a long time, perhaps the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, perhaps two hours, perhaps half a day.

The light from the totem remained connected to the unidentified white object, but nothing happened.

Just as Ding Yumin thought she had misjudged the situation and was about to retrieve the totem artifact, the Bai Ze totem artifact suddenly burst into brilliant light!

The intense light transformed the totem into a two-foot-wide scroll, its light continuously connecting with the stone as it slowly unfurled.

A faint white light, like a mist of celestial clouds, spread across the fully unfurled scroll, and the two of them stared intently at its surface.

After a wave of light swept across the scroll, a somewhat tattered image appeared on the small roll.

The location appears to be above the sea, where the sky is blurry, with only the silhouette of the bird soaring in the sky relatively clear.

The bird appears to be over five meters long, with a graceful figure and long, flowing feathers on its head that resemble flowing hair, obscuring its face.

It was falling downwards, as if it had lost its strength and was about to fall into the sea, or as if it was about to fight to the death with this endless ocean.

The image only appeared for a few seconds before suddenly shattering. Unlike the previous photograph of the hollow willow tree, there was no change in perspective.

The only thing the two could deduce from this was that the white object exposed in the underground space was likely the skeleton of the mysterious bird.

Another question is why her bones are here.

"It seems to possess necromancy-based powers."

Bai Mo's gaze fell on the dark red patterns on a section of white bone in front of him. The dark red color also represented the undead element. He hadn't thought of this before and had overlooked it.

He continued:

"Absorbing souls may have been its inherent power before it died. However, it was a creature that died a long time ago. Its power after death can still penetrate through a hundred meters of ground and cover the entire swamp island. It must have been very powerful when it was alive."

Ding Yumin nodded slowly, her gaze shifting slightly as she added her comments.

"There's another possibility: it didn't die. It's using this necromancy to heal itself, accumulating power in an attempt to awaken."

Bai Mo's expression stiffened slightly, but he quickly recovered. Thinking of the creature's death, he looked at Ding Yumin.

"Do you think it's possible that this is a totem beast?"

"I don't know, this bone didn't emit any totem-like glow." Ding Yumin shook her head.

"It's also possible that it has been dead for too long and is no longer able to react. It can only rely on absorbing soul power to stay alive. After all, there isn't much soul power that naturally falls off on this island."

"Perhaps we can look for it." Bai Mo looked at the bone fragment thoughtfully.

"This exposed bone is very intact. There should be other parts of its body in the ground. We'll search them one by one. If it's a totem, there should be totem markings or patterns."

"it is good."

So Bai Mo used Patrol again, escaping into the rock and soil along the direction of the protruding bone. During this time, he discovered that his Patrol could not escape the places where these bones were located.

This undoubtedly reduced a lot of work, as they gradually explored along the bones embedded in the rock. Using the images from before, the two sketched in their minds the image of a divine bird helplessly sinking to the bottom of the sea.

Gradually, Bai Mo realized that the bone they initially found should be the wing of this mysterious bird, and they went around counterclockwise for a long time before finally finding the head of this ancient creature.

When they first saw the projection of the Bai Ze Hundred Beasts Picture, the two thought the bird wouldn't be very big. But after this exploration, they discovered that this ancient creature was about twenty meters long.

Although birds don't have large heads, even with only bones remaining, the enormous size of this dead creature is comparable to the small villas they live in.

At the location of this ancient creature's head, slightly above the center of its window-like eyes, Bai Mo finally saw an almost invisible pattern.

Bai Mo used his earth-based abilities to create a small space in front of the pattern and imprinted it.

The pattern closely resembles the flowing, long feathers in the video, about two meters in size.

Aside from these patterns, the two gained nothing else. So they decided to return to the surface.

It can now be confirmed that this skeleton is likely a bird totem.

Based solely on the simple and blurry image and the pattern, they could hardly determine what the totem was, but it should be somewhat related to the undead.

Before leaving, Bai Mo gave it the remaining five servant-level essences.

Hopefully, this divine bird can truly be reborn by absorbing souls.

(End of this chapter)