Chapter 197: Chapter 139: Divine Level Soul Dominator

Explosively growing Spirituality.

Once you experience this wonderful feeling, you can never stop.

Anyone who has experienced the growth of their Spirituality will likely spend their entire life chasing that feeling.

「Talent Acquired—Death Soul Control >> Divine Level Soul Dominator」

Death Soul Control.

It’s one of the Talents you can possibly obtain after awakening as a Death Priest.

An Ordinary Level Talent, it gives a Death Priest a chance to obtain a faint soul from creatures that died recently but were not killed by the Priest themselves.

And the effect of 「Divine Level Soul Dominator」.

「Master any soul not of one’s own body and make it your own.」

The effect was extremely simple.

「Death Priest Mastery Acquired: Soul Master (Exclusive): When performing large-scale Soul Sacrifices, the degree of attenuation is greatly reduced.」

「Death Priest Mastery Acquired: Return Sacrifice (Exclusive): All sacrificial Rituals using souls will yield much richer rewards.」

Reduced attenuation.

Increased rewards.

This was quite consistent with his performance during the promotion.

It was a known fact that the kind of Professional Mastery abilities you gained depended on your performance during the promotion.

’Increasing the efficiency of soul usage is pretty much the same as collecting more souls, I suppose.’

’In the future, if one soul is worth ten, then it’s like one ant being worth ten.’

「Death Priest Specialty Learned: Soul Fusion」

「Death Ritual Learned: Corpse Soul Revival」

This promotion, however, didn’t come with any naturally learned Death Spells.

’A bit of a shame.’

The specialty, Soul Fusion, had the effect of creating a soul with higher Spirituality—albeit a foul and twisted one—by fusing a large number of souls.

An ordinary Death Priest would probably need this Soul Fusion specialty when their souls lacked sufficient Spirituality.

But for Lu Cang, it was unnecessary.

Aside from that, he had also naturally learned a Ritual: Corpse Soul Revival.

This Ritual allowed one to infuse a soul into a slain creature, letting it retain a portion of its abilities from when it was alive.

It was a bit like the ability of that 「Face Worm」.

As for how many abilities were restored, that depended on the strength and number of souls sacrificed for the Ritual.

’This could probably be classified as a type of Summoning Ritual.’

Summoning took many forms.

Using Magic to call forth Summoned Creatures was just one of them.

A powerful Summoner could master many different summoning methods, coordinating multiple Summoned Creatures to execute complex attacks.

The enhancements from becoming a Level 2 Death Priest, not to mention the Divine Talent, were significant.

But the most important part was the increase in his Spirituality.

Opening his eyes again, Lu Cang seemed to see not snowflakes drifting through the sky, but pure white Ice Element Crystals.

The vast expanse of snow seemed to faintly contain a subtle, high-level power.

The Demon tide was now completely and clearly visible to the naked eye.

If the world before was one of ultimate color, the world in Lu Cang’s eyes now was like a layered cookie. He could see countless overlapping spaces, with the world manifesting differently in each one.

Lu Cang could even see the faint, undulating spiritual fluctuations between each person.

Their very Spirit had materialized, as if visible to the naked eye.

’If I trained a bit, could I really read people’s thoughts through these spiritual undulations?’

Even now, without any training, Lu Cang felt he could clearly see how a person’s emotions fluctuated. Even if they were expressionless and concealed their feelings, the Spirit within would still ripple.

He could see it with his eyes, capture it with his Perception.

At the same time, many of the frustrating knots in his thoughts about the opposing Root Sources unraveled with the increase in his Spirituality.

The elemental layer of the world, the spiritual layer, the Demon tide layer, the layer of Moon’s influence, the physical layer, the Qi and Blood layer...

Individual layers, both visible and invisible, overlapped to form this world.

Lu Cang felt as if his spirit had ascended to a higher dimension, from which he was looking down upon the world.

’Spirituality... it elevates one’s Perception to a higher dimension.’

’That’s why I can see more clearly and think more lucidly.’

He felt as if he was no longer the same kind of life form as a mortal; on the spiritual dimension, they weren’t even the same species anymore.

’Is the way I see mortals the same way mortals see Demons?’

’After all, the biggest difference between them is the level of their Spirituality.’

This euphoric, light-headed feeling lasted for a moment.

But soon, Lu Cang was jolted back to his senses.

He reined in such thoughts.

’I was getting too carried away. That feeling is terrifying, as if I was really looking down on the entire world.’

"I’m done."

Lu Cang reined in his mind and calmed his state of heart after the promotion.

He closed his eyes, sitting upright in the snow and meditating for a while, calming himself in the vast whiteness.

The faint chill washed over his heart.

’Maintain humility and caution towards everything. Don’t forget your principles.’

Lu Cang opened his eyes again.

The arrogance and condescension in his eyes had completely vanished, replaced by a humble, calm, and tranquil gaze.

"Thank you, Sister Kumironi. I’m all right now."

Chi Cheng came up and clapped a hand on Lu Cang’s shoulder. "Haha, that was some look in your eyes just now!"

"Brother Chi Cheng, don’t make fun of me... I just felt a little light-headed after the promotion."

Chi Cheng replied, "I get it. I totally get that feeling. When I first got promoted to a Level 4 Warrior, I also felt like I was invincible."

"When Iz was promoted to a Level 5 Mage, she also thought she was hot shit."