Start slaying demons from the proficiency panel.

The Shang dynasty did not allow local organizations to exist among the common people, nor did it permit any extraordinary individuals to secretly perform rituals or practices among the people.

As the outermost part of the Great Shang territory, Donghai Prefecture has a small number of personnel stationed in the Demon Subduing Division, and many fishing villages are built on the coast, scattered and messy. Therefore, if you encounter some difficult problems, it will be very troublesome to go to the Demon Subduing Commandant.

In this environment, a special group of people called 'shamans' emerged in various villages.

They possess a very special status and abilities, enabling them to help villagers with fortune telling and divination. If a child has a persistent high fever or has lost their soul, the shaman will also use methods such as calling back the soul or using grass ash to heal the child.

Even if some strange things happen in the village, you can ask the shaman to handle them. Over time, in these coastal fishing villages in Donghai Prefecture, the shaman has become a very high-status and highly respected figure.

Many older and middle-aged villagers trusted the shamans even more than they trusted the exorcists.

People often say that shamans have divine power behind them, which gives them various abilities to exorcise evil and bring blessings. These gods may be a tree, a blade of grass, or a flower.

It could also be a wild beast, a bird, or a large fish.

Even stones and pools of water could be the embodiment of a shaman's deity, from which the shaman could pray for considerable power.

Several villages have experienced missing children, and the locals are naturally turning to the village shamans, including the woman's fishing village.

Today is the day the shaman has chosen to perform his ritual. He deliberately chose this deserted area to set up the altar and try to communicate with the real culprit who abducted the child, threatening them to return the lost child.

"My lord, that's all I know," the woman said, kowtowing.

Judging from the conversation with that pockmarked old woman, she should know some hidden story. If we can talk to her, we should be able to get important clues.

Unfortunately, this person was already dead, and the dead could no longer provide Ning Xiu with the answers he sought.

"Perhaps we could start by working on other shamans," Ning Xiu thought to himself.

Although his purpose in coming to Donghai Prefecture was to find the Demon Buddha, he couldn't ignore the problem he was facing now. He had to investigate the missing child first before taking care of his own business.

"Get up first. Take me to find the other shamans. This matter should not be delayed any longer, otherwise your child may be in danger," Ning Xiu said.

"This way, sir. I'll take you to the shaman in the next village right away," the woman said, quickly getting up.

【101】Witch Doctor Earth Immortal

In Donghai Prefecture, fishing villages dot the coast like stars, each with a dozen or more households, and the people are very simple and honest.

Riding the dragon, I followed the woman to the neighboring village she mentioned. It was a simple village surrounded by fences and wooden planks, offering virtually no defense. Any monsters that came could easily break into the village and wreak havoc.

The fact that these fishing villages have been able to exist peacefully for so many years must be related to the so-called shamans.

Ning Xiu left the dragon waiting outside the village and followed the woman into the village.

The woman's name was Liu Mei. According to her, the village shaman and the deceased pockmarked old woman were longtime friends who often met and talked. Presumably, the shaman in this fishing village would also know what the pockmarked old woman knew.

As soon as Ning Xiu followed Liu Mei into the village, they immediately attracted the attention of many children and elderly people on the road.

Everyone in these places knows each other very well, and if a stranger from out of town appears immediately, it will attract the attention of the local villagers.

Because this village is not far from Liu Mei's village, Liu Mei knows some of the villagers here.

She walked into a house not far away with great familiarity and asked the old woman who was weaving fishing nets inside, "Auntie, where is the shaman?"

"Ah Mei, what brings you here?" The old woman got up and came over, asking with concern, "Are you alright? I've heard that quite a few families have lost their children recently."

Liu Mei's eyes were slightly red: "Auntie, I don't have time to talk about this right now. Please take me to see the shaman in your village. I need his help."

"Okay, okay, then come this way with me." Although the old woman didn't know what had happened, she could tell from the situation that it must be very urgent.

He immediately led Ning Xiu and Liu Mei into the village, saying, "The shaman should be treating patients right now. Recently, there's been a lot of illness in our village, and everyone's asking the shaman for help."

Arriving at the largest wooden house in the village, which is where the shaman usually lives, people often come to visit, so the door of this wooden house is never closed. Outside the door, there is a huge pile of food and grain brought by the villagers.

Before Ning Xiu even got close, he could already smell the herbal scent wafting from inside the house.

Following the old woman into the house, we found four or five villagers who looked pale and very weak.

Three of them sat in chairs groaning weakly, one sat at a table, and a fair-skinned man with a mustache, wearing a white robe, was taking the patient's pulse with his eyes closed.

This person exudes an inexplicable aura of righteousness.

"Witch doctor, am I about to die?" the patient, whose pulse was being taken, couldn't help but ask.

You can see white foam constantly seeping from the corners of this person's mouth, and his eyes are dark and swollen, as if he has been poisoned. If it weren't for the chair having a backrest to support his body, this guy would probably have collapsed to the ground long ago.

"It's not that serious. With me here, the medicine will cure you completely. Don't worry." The man opened his eyes and chuckled softly.

Only then was Ning Xiu able to see the man's eyes clearly. His pupils were vertical, much like those of a wild beast, and the color of his pupils also had a brownish-yellow tinge.

Although Ning Xiu already knew that the shamans in Donghai Prefecture were all strange individuals, seeing the man's eyes now made him understand.

This isn't some strange ability, this is clearly not human!

Immediately using his Qi Observation and Fortune Telling Technique, Ning Xiu decided to see what kind of person this man was.

Instantly, a huge red fox appeared in Ning Xiu's eyes behind the man. It had its forearms dangling over the man's shoulders and was staring at the patient who was lying on the table and looked like he was about to die.

"An evil spirit? Or a demon?" Ning Xiu pondered to himself.

The fox-like figure looked like a spirit, but it didn't have the aura of a spirit. The situation was so strange that Ning Xiu had never seen it before.

The fox leaned forward and placed a paw on the patient's head. The patient's complexion slowly began to improve, and the condition was clearly brought under control.

Ning Xiu couldn't help but take a few more glances at this amazing scene.

Just then, the fox figure seemed to notice Ning Xiu's gaze, and immediately turned its head to stare intently at Ning Xiu. Their eyes met, and they both realized that they had noticed each other.

The fox gave Ning Xiu a meaningful smile and nodded politely as a sign of goodwill and friendliness.

After more than ten breaths, the patient's foaming at the mouth had been brought under control and the condition was no longer serious. The fox then withdrew its hand, whispered in the man's ear, and soon its figure disappeared into the air, and Ning Xiu could no longer see it.

"I understand the situation. You all suddenly developed the same illness, which must be because you ate something you shouldn't have recently," the man said, withdrawing his hand from taking pulses.

At this point, his eyes returned to normal, just like a normal person's, presumably because of the fox.

Thinking of this, an idea instantly popped into Ning Xiu's mind.

Invoke the gods!

Humans can cultivate, and so can evil spirits and monsters. But humans have their own path, and evil spirits and monsters have their own way.

Eating incense is one way to achieve this.

In some remote areas that were not yet under the control of the Shang Dynasty, there were often evil spirits and monsters that disliked the worst things that cooperated with the people. The people offered them incense, and in return, the monsters gave the people strength, and they helped each other.

However, as the major merchants later made explicit prohibitions against such things, such cooperation became increasingly rare, and eventually disappeared completely.

Judging from the situation of the man in front of me, that's exactly what happened. The red fox that appeared behind him was the god he had summoned.

In this way, Ning Xiu instantly understood the secret of the shaman, and it seems that such cases are not uncommon throughout the entire East Sea Prefecture.

“Witch doctor, I really don’t know whether I should say this or not. A few days ago, a few of us found a big fish washed ashore on the beach. The fish looked plump, but we had never seen it before. We were also hungry, so we processed the fish and grilled it on the spot. And now it’s turned into this.” The patient said weakly.

The man's expression immediately changed, and he said sternly, "Nonsense! How can you eat unfamiliar things? Besides, haven't I already said that the ocean is not clean, and fish that come ashore alone should never be eaten?"

“We misjudged the shaman. We didn’t think much of it at the time. Who would have thought we’d run into such a big problem now?”

The man began writing a prescription on the table: "You are being haunted by vengeful spirits. If you don't exorcise them soon, you will die at their hands sooner or later. Take this prescription and buy some exorcising materials. Wash your body with this medicine every day for seven or eight days."

"A vengeful spirit?!" The patient's eyes widened instantly. "Witch doctor, how could I be haunted by a vengeful spirit just from eating a fish?"

"The ocean embraces everything, including corpses. Some fish eat corpses, and if the corpse died unjustly, it will become a vengeful spirit and attach itself to the fish. If someone accidentally eats this fish, they will naturally be possessed by that vengeful spirit, and it will torment them until they die," the man explained.

Upon hearing the man's words, all the patients in the room were terrified, their eyes darting around in panic. None of them had ever imagined that eating a fish could lead to such a thing.

Fortunately, there was a shaman to help, otherwise they would have died without even knowing how.

Ning Xiu suddenly spoke up, saying, "Why go through all this trouble?"

As he unleashed his Qi and Blood Furnace Divine Power, his entire body instantly turned crimson, and the entire room became unbearably hot, as if a great sun was radiating yang energy in the place.

The patients were immediately enveloped in black smoke, their bodies crumbling and disintegrating. One after another, humanoid vengeful spirits vanished from their bodies. In the blink of an eye, their complexions returned to normal, and the vengeful spirits within them were completely expelled.

"this!"

"Thank you so much, thank you so much." The patients stood up, feeling their bodies return to normal, and came over to thank Ning Xiu.

Throughout the entire process, the man remained remarkably calm, seemingly unsurprised by Ning Xiu's display of strength.

It was obvious that when the red fox spirit left, it whispered something to this guy in advance, telling him that Ning Xiu was not a simple person.

"You may leave now. I have something to say to this gentleman," the man said.

As the village's shaman, his word was law. The patients, not even bothering to thank Ning Xiu, nodded their goodbyes and quickly ran out of the wooden house.

"Please sit down," the man said, gesturing for Ning Xiu to sit.

Ning Xiu didn't stand on ceremony at all. He sat down opposite the man and asked directly, "Are you acquainted with Granny Ma?"

"Yes, that's right. We both became disciples of Hu Shan. In terms of seniority, Granny Ma can be considered my senior sister. Is there something you need from Granny Ma?"

Ning Xiu said, "She's dead, just now."

"How...how could this be!" The man was stunned, looking at Ning Xiu in disbelief.

He was well aware of Granny Ma's strength, as they were from the same school. She would not die so easily. Now that this had happened, the situation was probably beyond his imagination.

Ning Xiu then had Liu Mei tell the other party the whole story.

After listening to Liu Mei's words, the man couldn't help but sigh deeply: "I've heard about the children going missing in several nearby villages recently, but I never imagined that the things behind it were so complicated, that even Granny Ma suffered because of it."

“I was there at the time. Granny Ma seemed to know something about the mastermind behind the Black Hand, but unfortunately I couldn’t save her. She’s already dead. You knew her, so I came to ask you if you know anything about the Black Hand,” Ning Xiu said.

The man frowned: "In the area near the East Sea in Donghai Prefecture, there are many shamans who worship the local immortals in the nearby mountains. There are many factions and caves among them. It is not an easy task to confirm the situation of the mastermind. What Granny Ma knows, I may not know."

The "earth immortals" this person refers to are the spirits and monsters in the mountains. To become a shaman, one must find an earth immortal to become their apprentice. Only then can the immortal be invoked by you, possess your spirit, and have their power provided to you.

"I need your cooperation to find out who the mastermind is. Since the children's disappearance is related to it, we can't let this guy exist any longer, otherwise more people will suffer in the future."

After learning from Liu Mei that Ning Xiu was the Demon-Subduing Commander, the man dared not refuse Ning Xiu's offer. In the Great Shang Dynasty, the Demon-Subduing Commander was the one person you absolutely could not afford to offend.

Furthermore, before the earth immortal left him, he told him that he must obey Ning Xiu's orders and not refuse.

"My name is Chang Fenghai. I will cooperate fully with all your actions, sir. Please feel free to give me any instructions," the man said, cupping his hands in greeting.

“Now take me to see a shaman of sufficient standing, for I am going into the mountains today.”

……

In the Donghai Prefecture, there are three most famous factions of spirits and monsters. Apart from these three factions, all other spirits and monsters live in small caves and are not a significant force.

Mangzong Cave, Dimu Temple, and Pantian Peak.