“Demon Archer?” I asked. “You recognize him?”

  The priest nodded. “From a bounty poster. Liu Fan is a serial killer with one million tael bounty on his head, as the government believed it would take an army to defeat him. He is known for sniping his victims from a distance before verifying that all witnesses are dead and looting the corpses of his victims. He messed up, though, and left someone alive, which got him caught. Two years ago, after that happened, there was a rumor that he started a bandit group, but no one has been able to find him, even searching the mountains. Why is he here, though?”

  “You couldn’t find him because he left the valley. He attacked our caravan and we stunned him, taking him prisoner and turning him into a slave with a servant contract technique. I don’t know why he was able to leave the town though.” I looked at Liu Fan. “Liu Fan, return to the bunk house and go to sleep. That’s an order.” He was still technically my slave, which means that the spell should force him to obey, even if it was the spirit beast version and not the human version.

  The man paused for a minute before twisting his head a bit too much of an angle and looking at me. “So you are this one’s master?” It asked in a voice that seemed distorted and broken, like a badly filtered voice of a boy in puberty.

  “Yes, I am his master. Now do as I say. Obey the spell in your head and return to bed.”

  The person seemed to hesitate, then looked at me again. “He wants me to kill you. That sounds more fun than sleep.” With that he rushed at me. I quickly jumped to the side but felt something slice through the front of my robe. Four thin lines of red leaked out of thin cuts in the fabric.

  “Be careful, he’s level three.” I said, then activated my seal plate.

  “You be careful too.” said the priest. “Evil spirits can often grow claws and infect anyone they cut with them with a spiritual disease which slowly weakens their victim’s spirit. This spirit has adapted to its host too quickly, probably because they are both serial killers, so it should be able to use most of its abilities.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” I said sarcastically. I drew my sword and charged it with metal qi. Metal was technically of the yin attribute, but the amount of qi in the attack should allow me to more easily break his defenses and injure the possessing spirit.

  “Don’t directly use metal on it.” said the priest. “It may be able to absorb it.”

  “Does that include attacks on the body?” I asked. He nodded. “Fine,” I said, removing the qi from the blade and sheathing it. The possessed man smiled upon seeing this, likely assuming I would be at a disadvantage, and ran at me. I jumped out of the way and threw a fire bolt at it, but that just seemed to annoy it.

  “Good, fire is much better, as it is yang.” said the priest, then started performing hand symbols.

  The bandit turned towards the priest. Knowing that he would be open to attack if I let it attack him, I threw a larger fireball at it, intending to light it on fire. The man’s hair ignited and the spirit gathered a large amount of yin around its head, which somehow exhausted the flame. I tried again, but this time the ball exploded without igniting, only causing minimal damage. “Fine then,” I said, a bit of anger in my voice. “Let’s try something stronger.” I pulled out one of my Called Tribulation talismans and focused on him, then activated it. I felt the talisman rapidly drain of energy, then burn up. Nothing else seemed to happen, though. I could see that all of the qi had been pushed several meters away from the possessed man, but the inrush of qi that I had expected didn’t happen. Was the density too low for tribulation to be possible, even with the ghost attracting the yin qi?

  The bandit, of course, didn’t wait to see what would happen and charged at me. Confused that my attack had failed to activate, I didn’t see it in time and the bandit swung at me, slamming into my barrier and throwing me backwards. I used a tiny bit of qi to activate Levitation and land on my feet. The rarity of qi made it much harder to use than normal. Flight would likely work better in the future, as it used my own qi exclusively instead of relying on the ambient qi. That one attack had taken more than twenty percent from my barrier, which had fallen to initial level four in strength. That was likely because it couldn’t replenish its own stored qi as quickly as just being active was draining it.

  “Fine,” I said, “If qi isn’t reliable, then let’s try martial arts.” I pulled a level two stick out of storage. I had gotten it from the woods before One had been attacked by the scorpion, intending to turn it into a staff for Five. While that hadn’t happened, it could still be used as a sword.

  The ghost man ran at me again and I swung at its head. It dodged, and I followed up with a lower swing to its side, switching to a two handed grip. The stick connected and the ghost stumbled sideways, surprised that I could hit it.

  With my improvised practice sword I was able to barely keep up with it. It was either having trouble using its host’s martial arts skills, or he didn’t know how to fight without a weapon of some sort. Around ten seconds after I started using a weapon, I manage to force the possessed man to back into a fence. Rather than stumble over it, however, it grabbed one of the small trees used as fencing and pulled, breaking it in half and receiving a decent club in return. Now that it had a club in its hand it started to fight back, causing me to back up. Apparently he really didn’t know how to fight without a weapon.

  I knew that I would need to use some sort of qi attack if I wanted to defeat him, but couldn’t use fire with a wooden weapon. The fire would simply ignite the wood, and at the rate level two spirit wood burned it would be better classified as a fuse. At least it wasn’t level three, which was more like a low explosive, and would likely need to be treated with a flame retardant if I made something from it. I was pretty sure that level three sawdust could double as gunpowder for a musket, though now wasn’t the time to figure out how to bring firearms to this world, and not just because it was illegal to do so.

  Maybe I needed help? I asked Xiao to help me and he left the beast bag, only to immediately start complaining. The ambient qi level was so low that he was getting a headache. ‘Sorry, but this place doesn’t have much qi. I’ll give you something with qi in it to eat later, though.’ I thought. Xiao chirped in agreement and took his larger size, jumping on the ghost’s back. He dug his claws in and started pecking at the back of the man’s head, intent on giving him just as large of a headache.

  The Ghost roared in anger and tried to grab him, but due to being stuck in a human body, there were places on its body it couldn’t reach. Realizing this, the ghost dislocated its shoulder with a loud pop and grabbed at where Xiao was. The action startled Xiao, though, and he jumped off of the back just before he was grabbed. As soon as he realized what was happening, though, he released a lightning bolt at the man. This seemed to hurt the ghost as much as it hurt the host, as the ghost roared and attacked the bird with even more ferocity.

  As soon as it turned its back on me, I hurled a level three stun bolt at its back. This startled it, but didn’t seem to do much to it. I tried again with an actual lightning attack and it was seriously burnt, roaring in pain. When it turned to attack me, Xiao hit it in the back with another bolt. This managed to keep its attention for a few seconds before the ghost man roared and stomped his foot, causing a large stone to rise from the ground in front of him. That’s when I remembered that the bandit leader had an Earth root. The ghost must have adapted enough to be able to use simple attacks. I needed to hurry and end this before it could use proper techniques.

  I ran to the side to try and get around the attack, but it moved its hand and several large rocks flew from the ground at me, forcing me to dodge. It sent a few at Xiao as well, forcing him to retreat. I was starting to run out of ideas. I could probably use brute force to get a lightning bolt through that much rock, but it would use most of my qi in an environment where I couldn’t even call a tribulation onto myself to recharge.

  Thankfully, I had managed to buy the priest enough time. “Superior Exorcism.” he said and thrust his hand towards the possessed man. The ghost waved his hand, throwing up a barrier of Earth qi, but the barrier rippled as something invisible impacted it and the man doubled over in pain. Some sort of transparent thing started coming out of his back. The priest, however, looked like he was getting quickly exhausted. “Attack.” he grunted, and I did so.

  Xiao and I started hurling lightning attacks at the possessed man, and the human shaped transparent object started leaving him again. The body was getting more and more damaged, but that could be healed, hopefully. The important part was that the ghost was having to split its attention to protect the host, which was letting the priest win their contest.

  Just as the ghost’s face was leaving the back of the bandit’s body, the priest collapsed. Blood ran down his face, likely from an aneurysm due to the mental strain. I ran over as Xiao continued his bombardment on the ghost that was rapidly retaking the body. The priest’s eyes had rolled back in his head and he was experiencing minor seizures. He had likely had a stroke from pushing himself too far. I had heard of this happening with cultivators that overcharge their brains, usually during some sort of contest or while studying, but he had somehow managed it through sheer willpower.

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  I pulled out level one nerve and blood pills and forced him to take them. While I wasn’t sure how they would effect one of the mortals in this society, he was at level one, so they shouldn’t have any serious negative effects.

  The possessed man roared and I turned around just it time to see a rock flying at me. I held up my hand to create a metal barrier, unsure if my seal plate would be strong enough to counteract the full force of the attack, when a stone cymbal sounded. Most of the force left the rock and, while it did break through my improvised shield, it bounced harmlessly off of my barrier.

  That’s when I noticed a man standing there in a brown kasaya. The ghost seemed to have trouble focusing and, just as it started to recover, the monk struck the cymbal again. He then held up a hand and started chanting. Every syllable was said individually, and every time the monk opened his mouth the ghost seemed to shutter. I called Xiao over and tried to recover what I could. Most of what I lost, however, was qi, and I could barely gather any in this environment. I drew in everything I could from the environment, and only felt a slight breeze from the qi rushing back into the exhausted area around me.

  Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to refill myself from the air any time soon, I reached underground with my senses. There was a bit of quartz under me, but it was only at the density of qi in the air, so I knew that it wouldn’t hold enough to completely recharge me unless it was a very large deposit. Instead I pulled out another of my Called Tribulation talismans and started draining the qi from it. I would need to recharge it after I left the valley, but this would work as an improvised spirit stone for the time being.

  Draining it wasn’t fast, of course. While it had about as much qi as I had when I first broke through to level three, it was designed to channel that qi into the effect, not to give it to the user. The qi itself was also in tune with the creature the skin had come from, not me, so absorbing it was similar to absorbing qi from food.

  While I did that I walked over to the monk. By this time the ghost was almost entirely out of the man and desperately trying to hold onto him. With every syllable the monk spoke the ghost tensed up, looking like it was being slapped. Thirty seconds later it lost its grip on the host and flew several meters backwards, landing on the ground. There was even a bit of dust thrown up as it impacted, showing that it was a lot more solid than I would expect. The ghost stood up and tried to jump back into the man that was now collapsed on the ground, but the monk flicked his wrist and several objects hit the ground between the two.

  Several glowing vines flew up from where the objects landed and grabbed onto the ghost. It tried to pull away, and even become intangible, but no matter what it did it couldn’t free itself. “Return to the cycle, and be at peace.” said the monk. He held out his hand and golden sparks, like tiny fireflies, flew out of his hand and into the ghost. As it absorbed the sparks its evil aura seemed to go away and the yin qi around it became far less dense. By the time the aura had completely disappeared the yin was no more dense than near a living woman, and the ghost seemed to relax. A smile crossed its face as it started to fade. Strangely, I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman in life, though I suppose that didn’t really matter.

  Once it faded away the vines lost their glow and shrank back into the ground. I ran over to the bandit and checked his pulse, but he was already dead. I looked for any electrical activity that might still be in his nervous system, but it seemed that he had died several minutes ago at least. My guess was that either I or Xiao had hit him hard enough to stop his heart or severely damage his brain, and that the ghost had been the only thing keeping his body moving.

  “Thank you.” I said, standing up. “My name is Li Kev.” I held out my hand.

  “No, it isn’t.” said the monk. “Though I’m sure you have a good reason to lie. You don’t seem to be doing so maliciously, so I can ignore that. Greetings Li Kev. I am Mongu. I assume you are a caravan guard?” I nodded. “I also assume Liu Fan’s presence has something to do with you being here?”

  I nodded again. “Yes.” I said. “We were attacked by a group of over two hundred bandits on our way to this valley. They were lead by Liu Fan, though I didn’t know who he was at the time. I lead the attack against them and we captured many of the bandits. I used a servant contract meant for spirit beasts on them so they couldn’t disobey us and escape. It had problems, though, so I had to spread them out among the others that fought the bandits. Liu Fan was technically my slave, but for some reason he wasn’t obeying me during the fight. I assume the ghost was able to mostly ignore the rules about not attacking the master and obeying their commands.”

  “Or, the fact that it wasn’t meant for humans caused a problem in the spell.” said the priest, walking over. He looked like he was still exhausted, but at least he was conscious.

  The monk nodded. “Indeed. The technique also likely had a flaw that the spirit exploited to possess him. Do you have his belongings? Perhaps there is a hint in them which will let us solve this mystery.”

  I nodded. “Maybe. Not sure if we can get to them, though. They are in the caravan. I do have his bow, but I doubt it’s going to help.” I pulled out the bow and arrows and let them examine the items, but they didn’t reveal anything. “Well, we can go back to the inn. I doubt the caravan master is actually asleep, and he won’t be meditating with such low qi levels. My guess is that he’s still in the lobby drinking, though he might have found a woman or be passed out, as he did rent a room for himself.” I stored the corpse of the bandit so I could turn it in for the reward later, and we left for the town.

  Five minutes later we went into the lobby of the inn. Ji Bo was sitting at one of the tables, drinking, with a woman on each side of him. While they looked to be having a good time, I had to disturb him. I walked over and bowed. “Oh, hello Li Kev. Do you need something? I’m kind of busy here.” His speech was somewhat slurred, but I knew that if he needed to he could recover from the intoxication in a matter of minutes.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but I was just attacked by one of the bandits.” I said, and he stood up in shock.

  “What?” He looked confused, then closed his eyes for a few seconds to purge the alcohol from his system. “There are bandits attacking?”

  “No sir. The leader of the bandits we captured was possessed by a human spirit and attacked me and Sin Bai.” I pointed to the Daoist priest. “Apparently he was a wanted criminal by the name of Liu Fan.” I told him the story of how we were attacked, which seemed to interest the women. “We want to examine his belongings to see if we can figure out how he became possessed. If it is something in the town, we’ll need to stop it from happening again.”

  He nodded and looked at the women. “Room three.” he said. “I’ll be back in a little while.” He threw one of them a key, and they nodded and left. “I’ll take you to the caravan and get his things. If there is a threat, we need to stop it before any of my people are hurt.”

  A minute later he opened up the alarm formation and let the three of us enter. After searching through the loot from the bandits for another minute he returned with a storage bag. “Here, this is his storage bag and everything he had on him except his armor and clothes.” He handed me the bag and I removed everything before placing it on the ground. The area wasn’t the best lit, so I pulled out lantern talismans for everyone to use.

  Mongu and Sin Bai searched through the things for a few minutes before Sin Bai pulled out a scrap of parchment. “Found something.” he said. I walked over to look at it. There were some markings which looked like writing, maybe sanskrit, but I couldn’t read them. After saying so Sin Bai spoke up. “That’s because it’s in an ancient language, the precursor to the dialects of this region and three nearby ones. It is a fragment of an ancient cultivation method for exchanging qi with a spirit to strengthen yourself. It seems that it works best with male cultivators.”

  “So, a form of dual cultivation?” asked Ji Bo.

  “Similar, but dual cultivation doesn’t naturally improve your physique. This one takes advantage of the fact that spirits can alter their form to rapidly alter the body of the living one.” said Sin Bai. “I think I have a theory of how he became possessed now, as well as how he reached level three in only two years. He likely either made a deal with a spirit to aid him, or one tried to possess him and he managed to prevent it from taking control of him. He then would have used this technique to exchange qi with the spirit, strengthening them both. A human can filter the more harmful to spirits yang qi from the air and cultivate faster than a spirit, letting the spirit cultivate faster, but he can control how much qi he is giving to it, letting him remain stronger than it and therefore in control of his body. Once he gathered a group and left the valley for the outside world he was able to gather qi far faster, and rapidly advance while attacking travelers. You said that there were mortals among the bandits, correct?” I nodded. “Then he likely recruited people from here. Most of the people who turn to banditry have spirit roots, as it allows them to rapidly get strong enough to bully others without needing to train as much. The remaining mortals were likely those that lacked them or hadn’t managed to cultivate yet.”

  “Then your used a technique to bind his mind.” added Mongu. “Without knowing the specifics of the technique I can’t tell you the exact reason, but it forces your will onto another. That likely allowed the spirit inside of him to force its will on him as well, thus taking control of the body.”

  After discussing the matter some more I returned everything to the bag and we left the formation. I negotiated with Ji Bo to keep all of the books from the bandit loot, including the scrap of parchment. The priest and monk agreed that the text would be less dangerous outside the valley, so they didn’t complain about me taking it either.

  Ji Bo returned to the Inn, and I thanked Mongu for his assistance. “That isn’t a problem.” he said. “While I don’t work at night like Sin Bai, I was awakened by an evil spirit being nearby and was happy to help.” He said goodbye and returned home.

  Sin Bai and I took a break, during which we taught each other our respective versions of the mental rest technique. Sin Bai combined the two to more quickly recover from his earlier exertion, and I used his method. It seemed to recover mental strength faster, but not deal with as many side effects, likely because it was used more like a qi gathering technique in his case. When gathering qi one refilled their reserves before dealing with the effects of qi depletion or the stress on the meridians, and this did the same with the mind.