For the sake of gathering the five hundred years of lifespan needed to advance to Merging the Yin God, Ren Qing truly exhausted his wits, but in the end managed to succeed.
Altogether it took several months.
But before the Weird Embryo Artifact-Refining Method emerged, the Feng Market's scale could only be maintained at about twenty to thirty stalls, any more was unnecessary.
It was just somewhat sorry for those Restraint Officers being harvested like leeks.
So Ren Qing simply placed Corpse Food at the counter of the Great Dream Pavilion. Its price was not too expensive, and the effect was labeled on it.
Corpse Food could extend lifespan by two hundred days, but only worked the first time it was eaten.
His consciousness entered the Niwan Palace, where the thickest aberration tree was The Blindless Method.
The aberration tree's appearance now had layers of change. Its branches were full of chilling holes, and the eyeball patterns on its leaves grew ever more lifelike.
[Whether to choose to advance to Merging the Yin God, five hundred years of lifespan will be consumed]
Ren Qing took a deep breath.
Although with the information flow, it was equal to having no risk, the thought of the Supernatural Remnant in his body coming alive made him uneasy.
Once he confirmed the expenditure of lifespan, his lifespan dropped back to about twenty years, his whole body as if instantly drained dry.
Bang, bang, bang...
Heartbeats reverberated inside the room, but it was not Ren Qing's heart beating, but that of the revived Lord of Absolute Darkness.
He felt his eyes swelling, tears streaming unconsciously from congestion.
His eye sockets and half of his brain lost sensation, as if the eyeballs were about to leave his body.
The Ghost Market also manifested anomalies. Dark red patterns once again covered the walls, forming terrifying faces grinning hideously.
But the Restraint Officers in the street paid no heed at all. Only the newly joined reserves could not help but panic.
To Restraint Officers, the Ghost Market occasionally producing incidents was long familiar, they seemed utterly unruffled.
Moments later, the dark red patterns faded.
Ren Qing lay limp on the ground, chest heaving up and down.
Outwardly he had little difference, only the Double Pupils in his eyes grew ever more profound, his aura subdued along with his control of the Supernatural Remnant.
After Ren Qing advanced to Merging the Yin God, he could more freely wield the Lord of Absolute Darkness, though he still had to suppress the Supernatural Remnant's instincts.
Only at Releasing the Yin God could it be used without restraint.
He had already figured out the ability of the Lord of Absolute Darkness, the animation of the ghost ship's keel was indeed closely tied to the method.
The Lord of Absolute Darkness could transform a certain range into a lightless night.
Ren Qing could then traverse it, teleporting dozens of li with ease, though the further the distance, the greater the Supernatural Remnant's consumption.
As for the nightmare-demonization of the keel, that was more like a side effect of traversing darkness.
When the ghost ship burst through the sandstorm, Ren Qing had, for self-preservation, forcibly invoked the pitch-black nightmare demon, resulting in the keel being tainted with its aura.
For Ren Qing to refine a similar magical tool from this, he would likely have to wait until Releasing the Yin God.
His consciousness again entered the Niwan Palace. The aberration tree of the Lord of Absolute Darkness grew larger, its roots even covering the ground.
It now had a flavor of a brain-tree.
Ren Qing looked toward the aberration tree of the Butterfly Dream Technique. With just a thought, the roots of the Lord of Absolute Darkness stretched toward it.
Normally, to establish primary and secondary methods required communicating with the Supernatural Remnant in the body, then slowly building contact and deepening it.
But he seemed able to skip that step.
The roots entwined the Butterfly Dream Technique's aberration tree, forcibly pulling it over.
The roots of the Lord of Absolute Darkness pierced into the Butterfly Dream Technique's trunk. The latter tried to resist, but quickly lost all strength.
Ren Qing immediately sensed a connection forming between the two methods.
The connection was with The Blindless Method as the main, showing the primary-secondary relationship had indeed been set.
But Butterfly Dream Technique was after all only at Ghost Envoy stage. Its influence on the pitch-dark nightmare demon was too small, adding little power.
And the Yin Runner stage was only the first step of method fusion. For earthshaking changes, it would likely have to wait until the Yang God stage.
Ren Qing's consciousness touched the aberration tree of the Lord of Absolute Darkness, streams of information flowed.
[Whether to choose to advance to Releasing the Yin God, five hundred years of lifespan will be consumed]
The lifespan cost had not increased, which was indeed good news.
Ren Qing could faintly sense that the Ghost Market could at most extend lifespan to about a thousand years, but that should suffice to support his advance to the Yang God stage.
As his cultivation at Merging the Yin God stabilized, the split-soul far away at Qingxu Temple also began to transform.
After using the Heavenly Dao Dream Seed to conceal the split-soul's aura, he did not pay it much more attention, but instead took out a long-sealed book.
[Nightmare Art]
[Imagined by Li Yiyang. Requires ten days without sleep, then finally visualizing a nightmare demon lying down. One must not die to succeed.]
[Once mastered, Nightmare Art causes nightmare demons to be autonomously visualized in dreams. Only the powder ground from long-stone flowers can suppress it.]
[Dream-Reverer: feeds on dreams]
[Dream-Sleeper: half-sleep, half-awake]
[Dream-Awakened: no-dream yellow millet]
Since the Restraint Officers' Hall had placed Nightmare Art for sale in the Great Dream Art Pavilion, naturally it came with detailed information, including each aberration route.
The ability of Dream-Reverers was somewhat similar to Double Pupils' dream-entry, but cruder, using dream-eating to devour souls directly.
Upon advancing to Ghost Envoy stage, called "Nightmare True Person." Though claiming the title of True Person, the body in fact gradually aberrated into a nightmare demon.
At the Ghost Envoy stage realm of "Nightmare True Lord," the aberration was even more complete, half-human, half-nightmare.
Dream-Sleepers were somewhat more restrained, like borrowing the nightmare demon's power, but in all aspects were weaker versions of Dream-Reverers.
Dream-Awakened entirely resisted nightmare demons, slightly incompatible with The Blindless Method.
Ren Qing planned to continue perfecting the core technique centered on The Blindless Method. Just Butterfly Dream Technique was not enough, fortunately he had already exchanged for Nightmare Art.
As for Immortal in the Mirror, it could also serve as a secondary method to The Blindless Method, but he felt it somewhat wasteful.
If Ren Qing could obtain the disaster-dispelling method within the Disaster-Dispelling Forbidden Zone, then two methods both created by *** could form primary and secondary.
Only then would the potential of the methods be realized.
Besides, in such a dangerous world, having a method that erased one's own existence was undoubtedly a very good life-saving technique.
[May consume thirty days of lifespan, exempt the price to master]
Ren Qing felt the blood flowing through his body grow faintly black. Nightmare Art was clearly turning him gradually half-human, half-nightmare.
Before he could respond, the aberration tree of the Lord of Absolute Darkness in the Niwan Palace moved on its own.
Its roots entwined the sapling formed by Nightmare Art, forcibly dragging it near, set to left and right with the Butterfly Dream Technique.
The nightmare-demonization in Ren Qing's body was thus controlled, at least not as severe as recorded in the method, showing the dominance of the Merging the Yin God Supernatural Remnant.
Seeing this, Ren Qing made up his mind.
Originally he had planned to advance as Dream-Sleeper, since Dream-Reverer was too risky.
But now, with the Lord of Absolute Darkness suppressing, plus the information flow, it would not cause large-scale bodily aberration.
After hesitating briefly, Ren Qing confirmed. With powers far beyond what others could imagine, why waver?
[Whether to choose branch Dream-Reverer, one year and six months of lifespan will be consumed]
The blackness in his blood spread into flesh and bone, like rune patterns, extremely close to the lines of the Lord of Absolute Darkness.
The main soul was fine under the protection of multiple methods, but the split-soul underwent violent change.
The split-soul shook painfully, a bulge swelling on its neck, turning into a new head, a nightmare demon head.
The split-soul had not devoured any Supernatural Remnant, but thus advanced to the Weird-Feeding stage.
Strictly speaking, it was not the Weird-Feeding stage of the Water Marsh Method, but the Nightmare-Feeding stage of the Immortal Marsh Method.
By coincidence, the Immortal Marsh Method had already gone onto an unknown path, even Ren Qing as its creator could not quite understand it.
Ren Qing glanced at his little remaining lifespan, enough to advance to Ghost Envoy stage.
[Whether to choose branch Nightmare True Person, fifteen years of lifespan will be consumed]
His blood began to flow back, the nightmare aura within seeping into his organs, then spreading outward toward the skin.
But Ren Qing's case was special. Many of his organs already housed Supernatural Remnants. Erosion and aberration were unrealistic.
The Scapegoat Skin directly blocked the nightmare aura, then the spine, brain, vertebrae, and organs each had the stomach to guard them.
The Nightmare True Person found bitterly that Ren Qing's body housed six or seven kinds of Supernatural Remnants, all without exception above Ghost Envoy stage.
Ren Qing opened his eyes with a sigh of relief, faint nightmare aura emerging from his palm.
With Nightmare Art, the Lord of Absolute Darkness system was much improved. He believed using the pitch-dark ability again would be utterly different.
[Ren Qing]
[Lifespan: six years, thirty-five days]
Methods:
[The Blindless Method (Pitch-Dark Nightmare Demon)]
[Butterfly Dream Technique (An Inch of Time)
Nightmare Art (Nightmare True Person)]
[Aberrations: Dream Seed, Soul Garment, Dream Device, Butterfly Molt, Butterfly Love, Messenger]
[The Taotie Method (Prison Within the Abdomen)]
[Aberrations: Jailer, Boundless, Residual Moon]
[Shadow Ghost Technique (Yin Ghost Demon Shadow)]
[Aberrations: Ghost Substitute, No Shadow, Night Roaming]
[Wind and Sand Method (Boundless Sand)]
[Aberration: Sandification]
[Human Skin Book (Scapegoat Skin)
Bone Armor Technique (Bone-Clad Spinal Apparatus)]
[Immortal in the Mirror (Mirrored Entity Emergence)]
[Food-Consuming Immortal Technique (King of the Inner Furnace Kindling)]
[Nether Sea Breathing Art (Yellow Spring Immortal Bone)]
[Kunpeng Method (Shedding the Mortal Twin Life)]
[Divine Leg Sutra (Marching Calamity Wolf)]
....
Ren Qing had not expected that once the primary-secondary methods were linked, the information flow would categorize the aberration branches of all three methods together.
Clearly at Yang God stage, methods would inevitably merge.
He grew even more determined to lay solid foundations, preparing for the advance to Heavenly Abomination stage.
If the Heavenly Abomination stage of the Restraint Officer methods was the terminus, then as the one blazing the trail, naturally he must be unprecedented and unmatched.
Ren Qing ended his seclusion. From here the Ghost Market could be left to gather lifespan.
He planned to keep accumulating lifespan until he had two hundred years to advance the Shadow Ghost Technique.
Then would come the Nether Sea Breathing Art. With a Heavenly Dao method for lifespan extension, his strength would surge again, even The Blindless Method could quickly reach Releasing the Yin God.
Ren Qing shook his head to suppress distracting thoughts. The split-soul seemed to have completed its transformation.
That nightmare head was utterly unlike a human's, skin covered in red-black lines, faint nightmare aura flowing from its eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
Ren Qing had the split-soul burrow out the Heavenly Dao Worm larva, and did not notice anything unusual about the nightmare head.
The Weird-Feeding stage of the Water Marsh Method was to devour three Supernatural Remnants, cut off three corpses, and grow three heads.
From the split-soul's case, did this mean one of the three corpses had already been severed?
He immediately tried using the ability of the nightmare head. The neck gave a strange sound, the positions of the two heads actually swapped.
Red-black lines spread, the nightmare-demonization was worsening.