Chapter 1358: Chapter 682: Evil Spirits at Work (Part 2)

Under the dim light, he struggled to make out the details on it.

After a thorough examination, he discovered that these two objects indeed had orientations marked on them, quite similar to the official compasses used by the Daoist family.

He noticed that the compass on the left showed the Zhen position, while the one on the right displayed the Gen position.

Just as he was engrossed in the study of these two compasses, a shocking discovery made his heart skip a beat—the two compasses were tightly locked together by Feng Shui directives!

At this moment, Lin Beichen realized that this secret chamber was no longer a simple space; due to the presence of these two compasses, it formed a complex Feng Shui formation.

Moreover, this Feng Shui formation was a death trap that anyone with a smattering of Feng Shui knowledge would fear and avoid!

Thinking of this, Lin Beichen couldn’t help but smile wryly. His heart was full of doubts, how did this Feng Shui death trap come to be? If it existed before he entered the chamber, did that mean the cult used this death trap to absorb Yin Qi?

And if the death trap only formed after he entered, did it mean the monstrous host intended from the beginning to trap him here with a death wish?

However, even amidst the Feng Shui death trap, Lin Beichen did not feel despair. He firmly believed that as long as he didn’t want to die, no one could easily take his life. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, and began to think of ways to respond.

In a flash, he suddenly realized that this cult might be a branch of Daoism.

From their actions, this seemed increasingly evident.

Moreover, the monstrous host did not possess such profound cultivation merely because of a special identity; he was evidently proficient in some Daoist skills and knew how to utilize the Feng Shui layout to alter the earth’s energy to enhance his own cultivation.

Lin Beichen’s gaze fell once again on those two compasses. The more he looked, the more familiar they seemed. It was as if he had seen this type of compass somewhere before but couldn’t recall exactly where. However, he was certain that these two compasses were not orthodox Daoist items.

Just then, images of those children boiled into broth suddenly flashed in his mind. He recalled the murals on either side of the steps behind the hidden door, and an unthought-of name suddenly surfaced in his mind—"Ghost Refining Technique"!

The Ghost Refining Technique is an ancient passed down evil technique, it is based on Daoist dharma gates but goes to an extreme of evil.

In today’s orthodox Daoism, which has long lost such knowledge, Lin Beichen never thought this evil technique could be preserved so intact, let alone practiced and followed.

As the name implies, the Ghost Refining Technique involves using certain evil techniques to refine ghosts. Generally, cultivators of the Ghost Refining Technique can only control ghosts to do tasks within their capabilities.

However, more powerful Ghost Refining cultivators have devised a set of even more vicious cultivation methods.

They believe that ghosts also contain energy. If they can refine ghosts and devour them, they might convert the ghost’s energy into their own cultivation, thus coming closer to the Heavenly Dao.

However, these thoughts are fundamentally erroneous. The Ghost Refining Technique itself violates the Heavenly Dao.

Both the living and dead are part of the Heavenly Dao. If you cause living beings to die unjustly, or prevent the dead from passing on, both are violations of the Heavenly Dao. Therefore, they can never get closer to the Heavenly Dao, much less ascend to immortality.

Lin Beichen turned to look at the monstrous host who was neither human nor ghost, feeling no compassion at all. Dying at his hand, the monstrous host deserved his fate.

However, he thought, perhaps after death, the monstrous host would be tormented by those ghosts who died unjustly by his hand. This is the consequence of evildoing.

However, knowing that the monstrous host cultivated the Ghost Refining Technique didn’t help Lin Beichen much. Cultivators of the Ghost Refining Technique were inevitably difficult to deal with. But he still had critical tasks to complete and absolutely couldn’t die here.

For him, the most urgent task was to quickly change the Feng Shui layout of the chamber and turn the death trap into a life-affirming configuration. Only then could he have a chance to escape.

So he began to study the two compasses carefully. After deep contemplation, Lin Beichen believed the key to changing the chamber’s Feng Shui layout lay in those two compasses.

Since the Zhen and Gen positions were turning the chamber’s Feng Shui layout into a death trap, he needed to calculate and find the positions that could change the burial within the chamber. He calculated with his fingers, then adjusted the left compass from displaying the Zhen position to the Tian position, and the right compass from the Gen position to the He position.

At that moment, a gentle breeze suddenly rose within the chamber. One must know, this chamber was underground, where wind shouldn’t naturally occur. As this breeze brushed against his cheek, Lin Beichen was delighted. He knew that the original Feng Shui death trap had been altered by him.

Where there’s wind, there’s a way out, and an exit means life. "It worked!" Lin Beichen exclaimed joyfully. He only adjusted the positions on the compasses with a trial mindset, unexpectedly reversing the Feng Shui death trap into a life-affirming configuration.

As the breeze gradually dissipated, Lin Beichen also noticed the impact the Feng Shui configuration change had on the chamber. Those black flesh insects that were previously wriggling towards the monstrous host point had become chaotic. After a moment of panic, they seemed to sense the danger and began rapidly squirming towards the Copper Cauldron as if returning there could ensure their survival.

Witnessing this scene, Lin Beichen was even more convinced that the Feng Shui death trap wasn’t set for him but was an extremely Yin and cold site needed for the Ghost Refining Technique. This chamber in the underground saw no daylight year-round, naturally colder and moister than the ground surface. Combined with the Feng Shui death trap to absorb Yin Qi, it became the cult’s cultivation treasure.

Now that the Feng Shui death trap had turned into a life-affirming configuration, the Yin Qi had instantaneously dissipated. These black flesh insects, born in a region of extreme Yin, naturally felt terror. However, their disorder was beneficial to Lin Beichen, as it provided him more time to scrutinize this underground chamber.

He carefully observed the chamber and suddenly discovered that beneath the stone platform there was another hidden area. From his position towards the center of the stone platform, he could distinctly see a massive pit. He leaned over to look down, but couldn’t determine how deep the pit truly was.

To ascertain the pit’s depth, Lin Beichen went to a nearby stone wall to grab a torch, then tossed it into the pit.

The torch arced through the air before falling into the pit; however, even when it burned out, Lin Beichen never saw it touch the bottom.

This discovery surprised Lin Beichen. He realized that the cult didn’t exist for just a day or two.

At the very least, constructing a pit this deep wasn’t a task that could be achieved in a short timeframe.

His gaze moved again to the Eight-Chain Copper Cauldron suspended above the pit. The Copper Cauldron was securely fixed in mid-air by eight iron chains, and from his angle, he could vaguely see a Lotus Platform.

The Lotus Platform seemed carved from stone, but unlike the ones beneath the Buddha in temples, it gave a mysterious, unfathomable feeling.

Recalling the inhumane cultivation methods of the Ghost Refining Technique, Lin Beichen surmised that this Lotus Platform wasn’t a symbol of good fortune as in Buddhism or Daoism, but perhaps an altar for conducting evil rituals.

Ghost Refining Technique, a forbidden technique that should not be known to the world, once practiced, would bring endless disaster and suffering.

Lin Beichen knew this reality well. Thus, upon unexpectedly discovering the altar used for Ghost Refining Technique rituals, a thought quietly emerged in his mind—why not take this chance to utterly destroy the source of such evil?