Gunfire, Punk and Necromancer

A culvert bridge has a culvert below and a bridge above. The culvert was once used as an emergency drainage channel for a sewage treatment plant. It has not been used for many years and has been occupied by garbage. Domestic garbage, construction waste and sewage that have been lying here since I don’t know what month and year have always been emitting a stench that has been brewing for a long time. To be honest, the smell is not strong and is completely bearable; to be honest, I'm afraid this smell will always be here.

The road on the bridge is in disrepair, but no vehicles have passed through it for a long time, so it still looks stable. Zhuang Xuteng looked around to make sure no one was following him, then climbed down from the bridge and asked for a relatively clean place among the gravel and bricks. Next, he will try to unlock the blockade left by Dr. Bukele and reactivate the shadow realm channel.

There are eight "locks" in total, and they must all be removed. They are: three cement bricks stacked in a zigzag shape due to the north, clothes painted with green paint on the wall in the northeast, dentures buried in a small hole in the east, A heavy stone tied up with wire...

These things seem to have nothing to do with each other, and have nothing to do with the "lock" that everyone knows in common sense, but Dr. Booker used these things to complete the "local method" magic ritual through calculation. Zhuang Xuteng searched carefully and soon found these things hidden in the garbage pile.

"It's all the same as what Dr. Booker described. It seems that the shadow realm channel he provided may indeed exist." At this time, Zhuang Xuteng could finally let go of his worries. Although he believed in Dr. Booker's hatred for the company, this alone was not evidence that he had access to the Shadow Realm. Even the set of research results that have been praised by Lich Master and Morgana cannot directly prove the existence of the Shadow Realm Passage.

But the discovery of these eight "door locks" can indeed prove half of it: who in the right mind would deliberately search, place and remember eight pieces of garbage in such a corner and inaccessible place?

It took a lot of effort to move these eight pieces of garbage. Judging from their solid connection with the surrounding environment, Dr. Booker also put a lot of thought into arranging them eight. All eight locks are still there, so it will be a lot easier to open the door again next time. Dr. Booker also considered the changes in the environment. One or more of the eight locks would be missing due to various unexpected circumstances, so he also figured out a remedy - blood sacrifice.

Among various magic rituals, blood sacrifice is a very common method and the most convenient method. One less lock requires 200 units of fresh blood. This blood cannot be stored in advance, it has to flow down while performing the ritual, which is definitely uncomfortable.

After removing the lock, Zhuang Xuteng began to arrange the opening ceremony. It's also a blood sacrifice, but fortunately it only requires 100 units. The remaining ritual items include a bit of fingernail, some body hair, some distilled water, a candle-sized flame and a handful of grain of any kind.

A handful of grain is the hardest thing to get. Zhuang Xuteng brought a small bag of rice, which was a trophy obtained from the kitchen of Canghuo Gang elder Miles. If you go to the supermarket to buy, you can only buy finished products or semi-finished food: wheat is ground into flour, and rice is made into pre-made rice. If it weren't for the need of this ceremony, Zhuang Xuteng would not have realized that the grain in its original state was not sold to the public...

Focus on ritual. Zhuang Xuteng either took out the prepared materials, or used a knife to take materials from his body, and soon set up a circular array in the corner under the culvert. Then, following Dr. Bukele's instructions, he placed his left hand in the center of the ritual circle and mobilized the shadow energy to input it.

With the rapid loss of shadow energy, the ceremony started. An inexplicable small whirlwind formed under the culvert, quickly revolved around Zhuang Xuteng, and then concentrated on the magic circle. Zhuang Xuteng slowly took out his hand and made way for Xuanfeng.

The little whirlwind immediately got in, and its top pressed against Zhuang Xuteng's palm, becoming a bridge for transmitting shadow energy; its bottom moved in the magic circle, tracing the runes and lines of the magic circle. When the stroke is completed, the multiple whirlwinds eventually merge into a larger one and form a channel that goes deep into the circle.

Is this the Shadow Realm Passage? Since the company has always focused on information control, ordinary people have only heard of the Shadow Realm Passage and seen its stick figure level diagram, but have never really seen what it looks like. There are no images, no paintings, no accurate and credible descriptions. Everyone's understanding of the Shadow Realm Passage has always been: an oval-shaped portal that exudes a cold atmosphere.

The vortex in front of me grew larger and larger, and the speed continued to increase, but the wind stopped. It no longer exerts any influence on the outside world, and the surrounding garbage and dust fall back to the ground. The vortex has expanded to a diameter of two meters, and its middle part is black-gray, with some fuzzy dark yellow light groups flickering in and out. The channel itself emits a strong shadow energy reaction, which shook quite violently at first, but has now stabilized.

"Dr. Booker is really amazing. He actually managed to get him into a private shadow world passage." Seeing that the passage had stabilized, he took a deep breath and stepped in.

Zhuang Xuteng's understanding of teleportation is completely based on the stone pillar space of Master Lich's knowledge. That kind of teleportation is completed instantly. It feels like closing your eyes and opening them again, and the person is there without any discomfort. But the Lich Master is a "master", and Dr. Booker uses local methods, and his level is not at the same level at all. Zhuang Xuteng stepped in and immediately felt himself being sucked into the whirlpool, his body twisting and spinning involuntarily. He was about to scream in surprise, but before he could concentrate enough to hold it back, he found that the surroundings seemed to become a vacuum, all the air in his lungs was sucked out, and he could not make a sound at all.

The cold feeling stung his skin, as if he had been thrown into a washing machine full of needles, spinning and stirring. Fortunately, this process is not long and is over in less than ten seconds. Zhuang Xuteng stood on the ground covered in sweat, his muscles trembling continuously, and his entire chest was filled with the feeling of shortness of breath. He hammered twice with his fists to restart his lungs.

Slowly standing up, Zhuang Xuteng found that the surroundings were dim. The sky here is shrouded in yellow haze, and the visible distance is only about twenty meters. Looking up, there is no significant change in light and dark above the haze, making it impossible to analyze the position of the sun, or even determine whether it exists. But the bottom of the haze, that is, the layer where Zhuang Xuteng looked directly above him and slightly above him, was always emitting bright yellow light. Because the light sources from all directions come from this level, it definitely cannot be the sun. Zhuang Xuteng felt as if he was standing on the streets of Peicheng shrouded in thick fog, watching the fog illuminated by street lights and neon lights, but he didn't know where he was deep inside.

Underfoot is a piece of hard yellow land, as flat as a mirror, with few ups and downs, and penetrates under the haze from all directions. Zhuang Xuteng didn't know whether they would extend forever, let alone find it again without landmarks. Behind him, the shadow channel is very unstable. Dr. Booker said that it will take some time before it can be used again, no more than ten minutes at most.

"If I leave here, I may not be able to find him back." Zhuang Xuteng frowned and turned around in a full circle. Without using the Shadow Realm Passage as a reference, it would be difficult to determine "a full circle". "No, in this state, we definitely can't go far rashly. We must first establish a signal beacon..."

【】

While he was thinking about exploring, he felt the center of his back getting hotter and hotter. Suddenly, a strong desire to vomit came over him, and Zhuang Xuteng vomited it out before he could restrain himself.

Although it was vomiting, it didn't feel like something was in the stomach. What he spit out were some bones, stones and irregular metal pieces. Zhuang Xuteng was sure that he had never eaten such things.

It wasn't from his stomach, but it came out of his body. He immediately guessed what was going on. "Master Lich, do you want to come out? Or do you need me to go to the Stone Pillar Hall to invite you first?"

He heard no answer, but the vomit that began to pulse was one. Those stones, bones and metal pieces gathered together like rabbits hopping in the middle, and then began to extract the sand and gravel on the ground. Only then did Zhuang Xuteng notice that the hard ground was not made of stones, but of salt that had condensed together into lumps.

"Salt Lake? Is this a salt lake?" Zhuang Xuteng read this concept in a picture book when he was a child, and he felt that it was very similar. With the help of salt rolled up from the ground, with vomit as the core, a human figure gradually emerges. It first took on the appearance of a tall adult man, and then the part that imitated flesh shrank rapidly, eventually degenerating into a skeleton. After a long time of fussing, it’s still the Lich Master...

"I'm out, I'm back." Master Lich's voice is still that low and hoarse, with the texture of coarse salt particles rubbing against each other. It raised its hand and pointed at Zhuang Xuteng and said, "You are so slow. It took so many years to finally enter the shadow world."

Zhuang Xuteng smiled and said: "Let's... let's get straight to the point! I didn't expect that you would be able to come out as soon as you entered the Shadow Realm. It seems that collecting and preparing your body and other information are misleading. Master Lich, you Are you planning to burn bridges and kill me?"

"No. I will never do that if it is not necessary - you should know that when I say the words forever, they are heavier than the ordinary literal meaning." The Lich Master said: "You are my student , has also been my host for a long time, and you have inherited part of my intelligence, knowledge and wisdom. In this sense, you are my only descendant."

"Well, I will only call you master, and I will not call you ancestor." Zhuang Xuteng knew that fratricide would not happen, so he joked in a relaxed tone.

"I don't have any unworthy descendants like you. Well...I have lived a long time. In the first few generations, I was closer to them and willing to take care of them. Later, there were too many people, and I no longer treated people with scarcity. Expensive. In addition, if I invest my emotions in them, they will feel uncomfortable when they die, so my feelings for my descendants gradually fade. In the end, even if they come to me, I will treat them as passers-by."

Zhuang Xuteng thought for a while and nodded. "Eternal life is painful."

"No, it's not pain, it's laziness. People can endure pain, but they can't change the nature of laziness. When you become a lich, what you need to fight is never not feeling, but getting lazier and eventually becoming a skeleton. I... …Why should I tell you this? You won’t turn into a lich.” The Lich Master returned to the Shadow Realm, obviously a little excited, and talked a lot more than usual. "Besides, asking you to collect body fragments is not false information. I still need those things. This body made of salt is too weak, and it will probably fall into pieces when it flies."

Zhuang Xuteng scratched his head and asked, "Where is the Shadow Realm here?"

"The Red Salt Lake is a famous scenic spot in the north. This is a basin, and there is this kind of haze for about one-third of the year. In fact, when the sky clears, it is very spectacular. The widest part of the entire salt lake is 70 kilometers. If you dig deeper, Thirty meters away, it’s still this tight salt sand. The salt here is very bitter and may be poisonous, so don’t eat it.”

Zhuang Xuteng waved his hand and said, "I brought food. I won't eat salt, and I won't lick you, don't worry!"

"You are very excited today and you are making wisecracks one after another. What's wrong?"

"You are finally able to come out. I am happy for you." Zhuang Xuteng applauded symbolically and said, "It must be very boring to stay in the Stone Pillar Hall all the time. You can come out and see your hometown..."

"I don't have the feeling of boredom." Master Lich immediately interrupted Zhuang Xuteng and said, "Boredom is the prelude to laziness. It is extremely dangerous for me and I must always be vigilant. It... is probably equivalent to you suddenly finding that there is no air around you, although You can hold your breath for a while, but you must get out of that state as soon as possible. Do you understand?"

"Don't get excited, I understand. However, if you can watch more things, you won't be bored. This is good, right?"

"That's true. Salt Lake... I haven't been here for hundreds of years, and it's still the same here." Master Lich leaned down and rubbed his hand bones made of salt and sand on the ground. "The body structure is different, the feeling is also different, novel - this really makes me happy. Zhuang Xuteng, as a token of my gratitude, I will give you something. Summon your ghost."

Zhuang Xuteng nodded and immediately summoned the ghost, but the sick lady disintegrated before the construction was completed. Zhuang Xuteng immediately understood what happened. He scratched his head and said, "The magic rules on the two sides are different. Please give me some time to analyze it slowly."

Master Lich nodded slowly and said: "Very good, I like your attitude. I'll go for a walk around, and you can just think here for a while. Don't worry, I can find you no matter whether you move or not. Locate this shadow realm passage. When you successfully summon it, shout my name loudly, I will be nearby."

Although Master Lich made a guarantee, Zhuang Xuteng would definitely not leave the Shadow Realm Passage. Master Lich walked into the haze and couldn't see his figure clearly. At this time, the shadow channel also stabilized. Zhuang Xuteng used the method taught by Dr. Bukele to sprinkle blood on this end, and used another indigenous blood sacrifice ritual to hide and close it. Later, Zhuang Xuteng began to toss in the ghost summoning technique, converting the part that used shadow magic back into necromancy, and reorganized the spell-casting movements. About an hour later, Zhuang Xuteng summoned Miss Sick again, and then called Master Lich.

With a short flash of light, Master Lich came to Zhuang Xuteng's side instantly - teleportation, such a powerful way of movement. Zhuang Xuteng sighed, admired and envied her in his heart for a moment, then pointed at the sick lady and said to Master Lich: "I think she has become bigger and clearer. Is this an illusion?"

"No, there is so-called shadow energy everywhere here. Of course she will be more physical." Master Lich said: "Order her not to move. I have sorted out the contents of the 73 stone pillars and will engrave them on her body."