Subduing

"Mystic Item! Capture monsters! You mean this world has monsters—monsters from myths and legends that can transform into human form!"

Liu Daimei was genuinely dumbfounded. Although she looked like a mixed-race woman in the real world, she had actually been born on Ao Island and was a true Chinese native. It was just that she had completed most of her education overseas. Even so, when it came to the ancient myths and legends of China, she knew even more than Gu Sheng did.

"That’s right, monsters that can transform into humans! Isn’t this world called Wu Xin: The Monster Killer? If there are Sorcerers, then of course there are demons and monsters. What’s so strange about that?"

Gu Sheng spoke naturally. In Wu Xin: The Monster Killer, three monsters capable of transforming into human form appeared: a snake, a weasel, and a fox—the three kinds of creatures worshiped as household guardian spirits in Northeast China. However, it was still more than twenty years before that time. Wu Xin’s fox-demon wife, Big White, and another weasel gentleman had yet to appear.

The nearly thousand-year-old snake demon Yu Xiaozhu from Hot Springs Villa had seemingly been unable to save his lover, Chu Chu. However, Yu Xiaozhu refused to give up. He used the evil arts he had learned to absorb the essence of living people and transfer it into Chu Chu, barely keeping her from leaving him.

"What you’re saying is true? How could a wild beast become human? That isn’t scientific!"

Liu Daimei still couldn’t believe it. Martial arts and things like vampires and Werewolves were still understandable. One involved refining the body’s energy and converting it for personal use, while the other was even simpler—it was just some unusual virus. But what the hell were monsters? Could science explain such a thing?

"You traveled to another world and even changed identities. Is possessing someone else’s soul scientific?"

Gu Sheng countered. Unlike Liu Daimei, who believed in science, he was an old web-novel addict who had lived through the explosion of online fiction. His ability to accept such things was absolutely beyond that of ordinary people.

"You’re just making excuses. In any case, I won’t believe it until I see the truth!"

The Lord God Space had only been open for a short time. The worldviews of most xianxia settings were extremely vast, and worlds with magic never had a rank lower than B-grade. The Reincarnators had also grown smarter by now. They knew to level up gradually and challenge missions in worlds above B-grade. Anyone who challenged them was either a big shot or a reckless idiot.

Most of the reckless idiots died the moment they encountered trouble. The big shots generally had their own plans, and the threshold for xianxia magic was never low. Thus, even after more than a month, the Lord God Space still had no decent mages, sorcerers, priests, Onmyoji, or similar figures. Instead, science-fiction creations and martial artists from the jianghu had become the mainstream.

"You want the truth? Fine. I’ll take you to see a monster when we get back—a nearly thousand-year-old snake demon, the kind from The Legend of the White Snake!"

Since Liu Daimei was being so stubborn and refused to believe her husband, Gu Sheng was willing to satisfy her and let her run into a wall. Wasn’t she afraid of snakes? Perhaps she would be even more frightened after meeting a huge one. In any case, he had Jade Azure Serpent Qing Ling in hand. A nine-hundred-year-old snake demon was nothing to him.

"You’re joking!"

The corner of Liu Daimei’s mouth twitched repeatedly. She always had a strange sense of foreboding.

"Guess for yourself!"

Gu Sheng couldn’t be bothered to deal with this woman who dared challenge the authority of the head of the household. He would leave her hanging for a while and deal with her properly that night. For now, he needed to focus on the mirror.

Gu Sheng thought to himself. He turned his head away from Liu Daimei and held the Octagonal Bronze Mirror in his left hand. With the fingernail of his right thumb, he cut across his index finger, opening a shallow wound.

"Drip~"

He pressed his bleeding index finger against the mirror. The blood infused with Inner Force seeped into the Bronze Mirror, along with Gu Sheng’s tremendous and surging Inner Force.

"Bzzz~ Bzzzz~"

A series of buzzing sounds rang out in the room. The bloodstained mirror rippled, and after a dazzling white light flashed, Liu Daimei turned back again. Gu Sheng had already vanished from the sofa. The only thing left behind was a Bronze Mirror.

"Gu Sheng! Gu Sheng! Gu Sheng, don’t scare me!"

Liu Daimei panicked and looked around frantically, trying to find Gu Sheng’s whereabouts. Even now, she still thought this was one of Gu Sheng’s tricks, something like a magic act. After all, how could a person simply vanish into thin air?

"Whoosh~"

In a certain space that seemed at times illusory and at times real, a streak of light suddenly flashed. Gu Sheng’s body appeared there.

"Ding-ling~ Host, you are currently inside a spatial Mystic Item’s…"

The system, which had been frozen in Gu Sheng’s mind for a long time, popped up again. It urged Gu Sheng to sell the small Bronze Mirror’s space to the system after subduing it. It seemed that spatial Mystic Items like this were very useful to the system.

Unfortunately, Gu Sheng had no intention of selling it. How expensive was an attached space that could hold people and monsters, as well as build houses and decorations?

Although it was a half-illusory, half-real fragment of space, it was still an excellent treasure! As long as he put more obedient monsters and other things inside, he would practically be carrying an army of cannon fodder with him!

"System, how can I make the mirror acknowledge me as its master?"

Gu Sheng asked the system directly in his mind. In the original story, Su Tao had succeeded with the help of Wu Xin and Bai Liuli, the previous owner. He did not have her good fortune. The Lord God would not actively help a Reincarnator, so the only thing he could rely on was the system.

"Ding-ling, consuming 3,000 Fortune Points…"

Gu Sheng’s heart bled. Three thousand Fortune Points had vanished in an instant. Was he so unlucky that even drinking water made him choke?

"Rumble~"

Just as Gu Sheng stood stiffly while communicating with the system, the treasure mirror’s trial arrived. Endless thunderbolts rained down on the small courtyard where he stood, their momentum immense and thunder booming.

"Boom~"

Gu Sheng hurriedly flashed away and circulated his movement technique, running circles around the small courtyard. This little space wasn’t large, consisting of only the courtyard and its immediate surroundings. After going out for a short while, he would circle back around, so he might as well remain where he was.

"Crash~"

After the thunder passed, accompanied by the sound of rushing water, countless torrents of muddy water surged in from all directions. The small courtyard lay in a depression, and it was soon more than half submerged. After standing on a table and observing for a while, Gu Sheng leaped several times and ran out of the area.

Not long after Gu Sheng had steadied himself, an earthquake struck, followed by raging flames and endless violent winds… Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—the changes of the four seasons and four manifestations arrived one after another. Gu Sheng continuously countered each move as it came, gathering data and entering it into the database while waiting for the system’s internal calculations to finish so he could launch his counterattack.

"There!"

Gu Sheng, who had been shifting and leaping about, suddenly stopped. His eagle-like gaze shot directly at the sun overhead. His muscles tensed, and his legs pushed off with all their strength. After ascending for an unknown length of time, he clenched his right fist and punched the sky with all his might.

"Boom~"

A fiery-red fist projection shot out and struck the sun overhead head-on. After a series of inexplicable tremors, everything here began to change. Countless rays of light contracted and flowed into Gu Sheng’s body.

The method Gu Sheng used differed from Wu Xin’s method of searching for a weak point. He had found the key to this place. With overwhelming force, he defeated every trick and directly blasted through the entire trial, forcibly making the mirror acknowledge him as its master. This treasure mirror that had originated from Bai Liuli had finally welcomed its new master. He had subdued it.