Gacha games can't save this bizarre world.

Zhao Hao smacked his lips. "You guys eat first, I'll go look for it."

Zhao Hao was quite prescient, leaving a mark on everyone to facilitate mid- to long-range location perception. And now it's coming in handy!

Although Zhao Hao told them to eat first, who could possibly eat it?

They all hurriedly stood up, grabbed their weapons, and followed Zhao Hao in one direction.

Not far away, just a few dozen meters, I heard the sound of flowing water; there was a stream there.

Er was kneeling in front of the stream when a withered old man, probably less than a meter tall, sat cross-legged on a rock in front of him, his back to the crowd, rubbing Er's hands together.

Chapter 423 When the Demon Encounters, the Cursed Spirit Arrives

In Japan, extraordinary events have their own special names.

After all, Japan is not like America, which has only a history of more than two hundred years and has not experienced the psionic era.

In Japan, the mysterious objects referred to in the context of the Bureau of Mysteries fall into two main categories.

"Cursed spirits" refers to individual strange entities such as monsters and vengeful spirits.

"Spiritual disaster" describes a supernatural event that causes regional incidents, similar to the phenomena and strange objects in the Bureau of Mysteries.

The Onmyō-tei (Yin-Yang Hall) mentioned earlier is Japan's official supernatural organization since ancient times, a place specifically for training superhumans to combat various supernatural events.

In recent years, with the resurgence of psionic energy, the Onmyoji Agency has also split into two subordinate organizations.

The Cursed Crime Investigation Department, or simply the Investigation Department, is specifically designed to target crimes committed by individuals with supernatural abilities.

The Bureau of Exorcism is specifically designed to deal with cursed spirits and spiritual disasters.

The former is a cursed official used against people, while the latter is a cursed official used against strange creatures.

Of course, the Onmyoji Bureau, as a thousand-year-old institution, has a very prestigious reputation. They only train sorcerers and Onmyoji, with a clear lineage.

They generally don't accept the inheritance of other superhuman lineages, or the kind of superhumans who naturally awaken their abilities.

Therefore, in recent years, the government has taken the lead in establishing the Ministry of the Environment, the Bureau of Natural Environment, and the Office for Countermeasures against Supernatural Disasters.

On the one hand, they absorb young members from ancient superhuman sects and families, such as exorcism families, temples, and shrines; on the other hand, they absorb superhumans with special abilities from the general public.

Furthermore, the Countermeasures Office is quite knowledgeable about psionic technology, and many of the psionic equipment used by the Ministry of Defense's Special Tactics Team are imported from them.

Therefore, the special tactics teams of the Ministry of Defense are the most incompetent.

The monsters of Japan are very strange; some are extraordinary beings, such as the tanuki (raccoon dog) clan and the fox spirit clan.

The majority of the spirits are cursed spirits.

For example, there are monsters that make strange noises in empty valleys—the Echoing Valley Monster; monsters that make creaking noises in abandoned houses—the Roaring House Monster; and monsters that form fireballs on the sea or in the forest for unknown reasons—the Shiranui Monster.

The formation of these monsters is due to people's "awe" towards certain things or phenomena in their negative emotions! Many great monsters need to maintain people's awe of them in order to maintain or even increase their power.

There are also some cursed spirits that are similar in concept and should be classified as yokai that cause spiritual disasters, such as the Seven Ninja Gozen.

This monster is extremely powerful, almost on par with a rule-based necromantic disaster.

It is said that if one of the seven is lost, the next person to take their place will be the one to replace them. If you encounter seven people traveling together, you are certain to die.

As long as one of them attains Buddhahood and liberation, a living person will take their place, thus maintaining a total of seven people.

Encountering this kind of monster carries an extremely high chance of death.

The human eye cannot see seven people walking together, but it can be seen between the legs of a cow, and people with movable ears can also see them.

Legend has it that a man was leading an ox along the road when, at a crossroads, the ox suddenly stopped moving.

The cattle driver found it strange, so he looked through the cattle's legs and saw seven people walking in a procession.

Then he disappeared and became one of the seven, replacing one of them.

It's a bit like China's scapegoat.

These kinds of monster legends cannot be eradicated. Even if they are eradicated at a great cost, they will soon reappear in other places.

It's somewhat like the legends never end, and the monsters never die.

That would be a good way to try Ami's approach of erasing concepts!

Forget written records, we'll even erase people's memories, solving the problem at its root!

Ami: I can't solve the problems of monsters, but I can solve the problems of people who are afraid of monsters!

Zhao Hao and his group have undoubtedly encountered a monster, and it doesn't seem to be a monster or a supernatural being, but rather a cursed spirit!

……

At this moment, Akiha was kneeling in front of the stone, seemingly unconscious or trapped in some kind of illusion, and remained motionless.

Meanwhile, the withered old man was slowly rubbing his hands together.

Zhao Hao placed his hand on the hilt of the demon sword White Serpent, flicked his thumb, and "hum~" the demon sword extended an inch, and spiritual energy quickly spread, forming a giant white serpent!

"Wait!" suddenly the young monk Zongchun behind us called out, "Don't attack! He means no harm!"

Everyone looked at Zong Chun, and the little monk pointed at the withered old man and whispered, "This monster should be Grandpa Xi Hongdou..."

"Grandpa Washing Red Beans?" Zhao Hao had never heard of it, but Chosokabu, Miyoshi Shoju, and Chika all seemed to know, so they must know.

“That’s right, Grandpa Washing Red Bean isn’t a bad monster…” Zong Chun explained.

It turns out that not all monsters are bad, or rather, whether a monster is good or bad depends on the monster itself.

Even within the same category, such as the roar houses mentioned earlier, some roar houses can harm people, while others can provide temporary shelter for the homeless, elderly, sick, disabled, and pregnant.

Grandpa Washing Red Beans didn't have any bad ones, or rather, there weren't many of them to begin with.

Legend has it that Grandpa Red Bean can cleanse people's souls and dispel negative emotions such as wounds, confusion, guilt, and pain.

It is considered a very good and precious monster.

Zhao Hao turned to the side and saw that the old man was washing his hands with a stone basin filled with water and red beans.

Although Er was in a dazed state before, his expression was not unusual.

Zhao Hao glanced at the aura above his head, and it was actually improving!

He really is a good monster!

"So what do we do now?" he asked.

"Huh? Well... I think we should wait a bit!"

The young monk only knew about this because he had read many ancient books before; this was the first time he had encountered such a monster.

The group sat down by the river and began to eat lunch.

After about ten minutes, the old man stopped washing.

Er looked up and realized, "Ah! Thank you, grandpa, I feel much better now! I really can't sleep hanging from the treetops every day, my body can't take it!"

The special training Zhao Hao gave Nijō and Chōsokabu was a bit too harsh. Although it squeezed out a lot of potential in just a few days, it still caused a lot of psychological damage.

Hanging from the treetops, you feel the "power of the wind," and in your dreams, you fight against several wooden warriors or nightmares, and you die frequently.

Even if someone was a carefree and reckless teenager before, they would still inevitably suffer some psychological damage.

After all, this was Zhao Hao's first time consciously instructing a disciple, and his methods were somewhat crude.

Remember this: from now on, I need to arrange a "pure dream" (a euphemism for a romantic getaway) for him every now and then, like a full-service foot massage parlor, to let my protégé, myself, feel good and relieve some pressure. (The same principle applies to writing every day.)

Seeing that Er had become quite radiant, the old man grinned, picked up the basin, and got up to leave.

Suddenly a large hand pressed down on the stone basin. "Don't rush off!"

Zhao Hao squatted down to one side and said with a grin, "It's fate that we met. Why don't you give us all a wash, old man?"

Grandpa Washing Red Beans' withered lips parted slightly; he had never heard such a shameless request before!

"Of course, we can't let the old man work for nothing! Here are two spirit energy beads, just a small token of my appreciation~" Zhao Hao said with a grin, taking out two spirit energy beads.

The old man washing red beans tried to lift the stone basin, but the basin, held down by Zhao Hao, remained motionless like Mount Fuji. He then looked up at the large white snake above Zhao Hao, its red forked tongue as thick as his own thigh, looking down at him.

He took the two spirit energy beads with his withered hands. Well, at least they paid him. There was a fair amount of spirit energy in those two beads, so it wasn't a bad deal.

The group of people behind Zhao Hao were stunned. The great swordsman was indeed... extraordinary!

The young monk Zong Chun, being quite curious, leaned closer to examine the two spirit energy orbs. "Lord Yaso, where did you get these orbs? They're very strange!"

Zhao Hao was taken aback. "Uh, what's wrong? Is something not right?"

The young monk took out a small, embroidered pouch from his pocket and poured out several jade stones shaped like magatama of different colors. These things also contained spiritual energy.

"Lord Yasuo's beads and magatama are similar, but not quite the same, and they're transparent, so it seems like they're not differentiated by rank!"

Zhao Hao was taken aback. "Um, well, this is something I got while traveling abroad. It's definitely different from what I have here in Japan."

The young monk Zongchun was puzzled. Why was Lord Yasuo acting so strangely? Had he never seen a magatama before?

The shrine maiden Chika, on the other hand, was very understanding. She stepped forward and pointed at the magatama in Munejun's hand, saying, "Oh, three blue magatama and one purple magatama. I didn't expect you to be so wealthy, Munejun!"

She then glanced at Zhao Hao and said, "I heard that on the black market, a single white magatama can sell for 60 yen! One purple magatama is equivalent to three blue magatama, which is equivalent to nine green magatama and twenty-seven white magatama, worth at least 1620 million yen! And some are even priceless!"

Er exclaimed with admiration, "Chika, you're really good at math!"

So the Magatama is actually the spiritual energy orb from Japan. 600,000 Japanese yen is roughly equivalent to 3,000 US dollars. The prices are about the same.

However, in Europe and America, psionic beads are popular, but they are not graded; instead, they are measured by quantity.

The supernatural forces over there are also used to mass production. Without levels, production is relatively simple, and it doesn't affect usability anyway.

In Japan, the hierarchy is very strict; even magatama (magatama-shaped ornaments) are graded...

Zhao Hao felt as if the other person was explaining something to him!

Then look at that sneaky little girl eyeing his Sanhao liquor. Sigh, kids these days are really hard to fool!

Zhao Hao paid for the team members to cleanse their souls, which was considered a benefit for them.

Grandpa Washing Red Beans spent half the afternoon making everyone comfortable, then wiped the sweat from his brow and left, vowing never to return to this area.

Zhao Hao and the others continued their journey.

Because of this little incident at noon, we definitely won't be able to reach the beach before evening. We'll need to find a place to set up camp.

However, this night was destined to be anything but peaceful.

As dusk fell, Zhao Hao sensed the spiritual energy surging in his surroundings.