The Portal of Wonderland

Shi Mu watched as Yan Luo slowly disappeared into the Darkwater Lake and chuckled self-deprecatingly.

He knew nothing of the Dead Spirit World, nor did he have any idea how to return to the world where he came from. The silver lining was that he at least had the Fallen Angel Desk with him as well Yan Luo’s legion of undead standing guard. In terms of safety, at least, he was covered.

He shook his head and spied a clearing. Sitting down with his legs crossed, he closed his eyes.

A few minutes passed and his eyes fluttered open. He looked around, his expression helpless. Just as Shi Mu had expected, he could not feel a single puff of spiritual energy from the surroundings in the Dead Spirit World. It was impossible to rely on breathing to recover his energy or for cultivation while being here.

He lapsed into silent thought for a while before producing two mid-rank spirit stones from his storage ring. As he held them in his hands, tiny wisps of red light emanated from the stones before gathering into his body.

Half a month passed.

Sitting by the edge of Darkwater Lake, Shi Mu opened his eyes and tossed aside two completely faded-white spirit stones. He then inspected his body through his spirit sense and breathed a sigh of relief.

He had fully recovered from his injuries, and his Real Qi had finally been replenished.

Shi Mu stood up from the spot to flex and stretch his limbs for a while before sitting down again. He waved, and the Fallen Angel Desk slowly glided down while emitting its black light.

Throughout his recovery, Shi Mu had also been trying to control the newest addition to his arsenal. With hard work and a lot of poking around, he managed to gain a bit of insight into its control, although he was far from knowing everything about it.

Shi Mu looked at the black brick hovering before him and closed his eyes as he muttered:

“Within the cosmos when beings become whole

The Celestial gifts all with a soul

Return to the void when the soul expires

To eternal rest the body retires

Life and death, the cycle recedes

Yet each one reaps only their own seeds

A myriad worlds, on qi do they thrive

Rousing legions of spirits alive…”

As Shi Mu chanted, the fine runes carved on the surface of the Fallen Angel Desk glowed in response, then rose from the surface and hovered in the air as they circled around the black brick.

The incantation Shi Mu was chanting came accidentally to him a few days ago. After seeing the Fallen Angel Desk suddenly vibrating violently on its own, Shi Mu extended his spirit sense into it, which allowed him to discover this fragment of an incantation named the “Fallen Angel Canon”.

The incantation was esoteric and elusive, but more importantly, Shi Mu only managed to remember the first few verses of it before the whole Fallen Angel Canon suddenly vanished like it was never there.

After that, it didn’t matter how hard Shi Mu tried, the Fallen Angel Canon simply never reappeared again.

Despite that, he was very pleased with what he had. Every time he recited this incantation, a few capabilities of the Fallen Angel Desk became unlocked. Shi Mu used this as a way to reinforce his connection with the object.

As time passed and Shi Mu finished the spell, the Fallen Angel Desk shone brightly with spiritual light as the runes blazed more and more blindingly.

Shi Mu pointed with his finger, and the Fallen Angel Desk instantly moved in the direction he pointed. He retracted his finger, and the Fallen Angel Desk returned to him.

A look of satisfaction crossed Shi Mu’s face.

He contemplated his next action for a while before suddenly launching into a flurry of hand signs. Black lights darted out from his fingers before merging into the Fallen Angel Desk.

It shuddered a little and hovered above Shi Mu’s head before slowly spinning.

Shi Mu’s eyebrows creased as he felt the deathly miasma all around him pouring into the Fallen Angel Desk like an unbridled deluge before they formed a pale-grey vortex. Even though the Fallen Angel Desk was still emitting its protective black light, he could feel a chill crawling all over his body.

Shi Mu’s heart raced uneasily, and he tried to stop whatever the Fallen Angel Desk had set out to do. However, his body froze and a surge of cold unyielding power suddenly poured all over him from above.

His heart was shocked by the sudden jolt as the power seeped into the crown of his head before it coursed through every single meridian channel and organ in his body and amassed in his dantian.

He felt rejuvenated by a pervasive sense of euphoria.

Shi Mu could clearly feel his own powers increasing exponentially. A bloodthirsty hunger slowly kicked in his mind, baying for blood. His eyes starting to cloud with grey lights.

He was excited at the change—until suddenly, he was terrified.

The image of Liu An’s grotesque descent into a zombie flashed in his mind’s eyes abruptly. He bit his tongue, using the stinging pang to jolt himself out of the mesmerizing trance. Fortunately, some clarity returned to his mind, and with that, Shi Mu severed the connection between himself and the Fallen Angel Desk by sheer willpower.

The glow from the runes was snuffed out in an instant after one last dazzle, as the object returned to its normal slow spin.

By this point, Shi Mu’s back was already drenched in cold sweat.

Using the Fallen Angel Desk’s power to absorb deathly miasma into the dantian for improving one’s combative power was like quenching thirst with saltwater; one may temporarily heal themselves quickly while amplifying their own powers, but it came at the cost of one’s sanity as their body would slowly zombify until they become an undead.

Liu An was the only cautionary tale Shi Mu would ever need; he knew exactly how dangerous that single technique was, so he made it a point not to ever draw energy that way.

Nevertheless, it might come in handy when it was a matter of life and death when there is no other option.

His heart was still beating quickly after the close encounter. He took several deep breaths, trying to calm himself. That was too close for Shi Mu’s liking. If it wasn’t for his indomitable will, combined with the petrifying experience of seeing Liu An devolve into a zombie, Shi Mu himself might have just lost himself and become a ghoul forever.

He eyed the Fallen Angel Desk hovering above him and closed his eyes. He decided to forge that new surge of ill-gotten Real Qi in his dantian for the time being.

Yan Luo still hadn’t gotten up from the lake for the next couple of days. Wu Ye too was still sitting by the side of the lake, absorbing the pale red smog water emitted.

Meanwhile, Shi Mu continued to study the Fallen Angel Canon, experimenting with the Fallen Angel Desk a few times before slowly discovering some new secretive powers stored within it.

One of these secret powers was how it allowed a mortal to enter the Dead Spirit World with their corporeal body, which would be protected from being corrupted by the deathly miasma in the atmosphere.

This was something Shi Mu had taken for granted since the very beginning, but the implication of this ability is what intrigued him: the Fallen Angel Desk could reverse this power, creating a space channel that could transport him back to his original world.

However, to unlock the power, Shi Mu would have to learn how to refine this tool.

Not only that, if one wanted to return to the world of the dead, they would need to build an altar here as a sort of receiving station. Without it, they would risk being lost in the chaotic streams of time and space as they tried to travel between worlds, and possibly be forever displaced outside time and space.

For the time being, Shi Mu had not yet learned how to control this thing.

The material to build such an altar was completely lost to him as well—an inevitable result of his complete ignorance of the Dead Spirit World. He could only wait for Yan Luo to resurface from Darkwater Lake before making any kind of decision.

Other than that, Shi Mu also discovered that there seemed to be a mini world resting within the Fallen Angel Desk—a world that was very similar to the Dead Spirit World where no spiritual energy nor primordial Qi from nature existed, but only thick inescapable deathly miasma.

A few days later, on a small crest close to the Darkwater Lake, Shi Mu stood with his hands by his sides as the Fallen Angel Desk hovering above his head spun slowly, generating its signature black light. Standing close to him was a small troop of skeletons.

Perhaps it was the effect of Yan Luo’s command—these skeleton warriors never seemed to recognize or notice Shi Mu as they strode within a specific area aimlessly.

Shi Mu watched them for a while before mumbling an incantation, his hand raised.

The runes inscribed on the surface of the Fallen Angel Desk glowed, and with a shimmer, they flew into the air above the troop.

Chiiiiingggg!

A thick gust of black light shot out from the Fallen Angel Desk and engulfed five of the skeleton soldiers below it. Within the black light, the skeletons buckled their knees, their Soul Flames flickering as if they were struck by fear.

Shi Mu’s hand assumed a sign and the runes glowed on the Fallen Angel Desk once more. The black light rushed back into the object along with the few soldiers caught in its net. The skeletons disappeared out of sight.

Shi Mu waved and summoned the Fallen Angel Desk back to the air above him and closed his eyes, extending his consciousness into the object.

He found the five skeletons inside the space walking around aimlessly.

Shi Mu assumed a few handsigns as taught by Young Master Ju to perform the Soul-snaring Spell, where he used his spirit sense to inflict the seal of his soul onto them.

As none of these skeletons were more than Hou Tian power, they did not even offer any retaliation before turning into his Subjugated Spirits.

“I knew it!” Shi Mu was profoundly pleased.

He pointed at the Fallen Angel Desk and it reacted by projecting a thick stream of black light onto the hill not far away. When the black light was withdrawn, the skeleton soldiers reappeared again.

Just as described in the Fallen Angel Canon, the Fallen Angel Desk could also be used to subjugate undead creatures, as well as store them into its space so that they could be carried anywhere.

If Shi Mu managed to subjugate a slew of undead creatures and store them within the Fallen Angel Desk, that would mean he was carrying a single legion of undead in his pocket—which would come in handy during a fight with another person.

Shi Mu was pretty excited at that prospect. He couldn’t wait to start keeping in as many of these undead as possible so that he could improve his combative power.

For the rest of the day, Shi Mu remained close by Darkwater Lake.

A few days later, he left the altar and flew out to the open. Recalling what Yan Luo had told him, he stayed close to the same path he had walked when he came.

He remembered a valley close by where a smaller Darkwater Lake was located. There, a gigantic Skeletal Mammoth dwelled which apparently looked like it was early Earth-rank. Back then when he first encountered the creature on his journey, he had watched it battle a pack of Xian Tian level wolf-like skeletons.

The wolf-like skeletons seemed to have their eyes on the same Darkwater Lake, and so they had attacked in order to claim it. However, the Skeletal Mammoth had proven itself to be far more formidable than them, and in the span of a few minutes, it had completely annihilated all of the intruders.

Shi Mu had only passed by their brawl back then, but the Skeletal Mammoth managed to leave a lasting impression on him.

After a few days of trial and error, Shi Mu discovered the limitation to subjugating spirits—one could not capture any undead that possessed power that exceeded oneself. Hence, with Shi Mu’s current power status, the best spirit for him to catch would-be spirits who occupy the same level as he—spirits that were in their early Earth-rank.

He flew for about a day before reaching the valley surrounded by several tenebrous mountains.

Shi Mu scanned the surroundings carefully before producing his green cloak to lay it over himself and mask his presence. Willing the Fallen Angel Desk to hover before him, he started walking into the valley by following the mountain wall.