Chapter 12: Witchcraft’s Gate of Death

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The Miaowei Tribe was eastern oriented—the far east of the Guawo Village was a burial ground filled with ancestral coffins. The fact that Zhang Daowu’s coffin was majestically placed here subtly showed the special position he held in the mountain village.

“But I’m afraid the Zhang family’s current generation won’t be able to be buried at the far east of the burial ground.” The funeral had finally ended smoothly after Zhang Daowu’s coffin was buried. Tao Lielin was relieved and subtly figured what the quiet Zhang Lisheng next to him was thinking.

He then frowned and shouted loudly, “Ermu, Tukou, Yangzhi…

“The funeral is over, why haven’t you people asked these tourists to leave Guawo Village’s burial ground ‘politely’?”

“Yes, yes. Uncle Ah Lie is right, why haven’t you guys left yet?”

“This is the land where our ancestors lived, even the later generations are not allowed here anytime they wanted. Since you guys are foreign visitors, we couldn’t say no to you guys earlier, but now you’ll have to leave.”

“Everyone should know that this place is even more sacred to us than the Chinese shrines and churches overseas. This is not a place that you guys should intrude…”

The young men from Guawo Village realized what they should do and began to chase the tourists away. However, they did not take any extreme actions. After all, the tourists who traveled here were ‘gods of fortune’ to the villagers. Nobody would want to chase fortune away no matter how tough their customs were.

Noise filled the burial ground, but without anybody realizing it, the valleys around them turned silent after Zhang Daowu’s coffin was buried, as dark clouds began to gather around the sky that was initially sunny.

Soon, thunder was heard and rain began to pour. Now, they did not have to chase the people away. The tourists and people from Guawo Village covered their heads and ran toward the mountain village following the mountain paths immediately.

After heading back to Guawo Village, Tao Lielin did not return home but went to the Zhang family’s old house instead.

He opened the money box that he locked earlier in the central room, counting the money gifted to him again carefully right in front of Zhang Lisheng and said, “Mountain Worm, you’ve given me exactly 30,000 yuan for the funeral.”

“We spent 1,800 yuan for the 6-day coffin rental; we bought 127 lambs… Total cost would be 69,861.50 yuan.”

“Uncle Ah Lie, then I’ll pay you more…”

“Don’t worry, kid. Listen to me while I count to the end.

“We’ve spent a lot on treating visitors as there were too many tourists who had the feast. It makes sense that they’re called tourists, they can really eat.

“But these foreigners are generous in gifting. Tsk, tsk, each of their gifts is worth at least 200 yuan. After calculations, not only did we not lose anything after the funeral, we’ve even earned 52,800 yuan, and this excludes the hefty foreign currencies.”

Tao Lielin’s account had completely excluded the manpower contributed by the Guawo Villagers, so it was no surprise that Zhang Lisheng was wealthy now.

Zhang Lisheng said thoughtfully, “Uncle Ah Lie, I don’t want the money that’s left. Please help me again. Buy…”

“Kid you’ve got to plan your spending in the future, don’t expect yourself to live comfortably forever with this mere hundred of thousands in your hand.

“I’m telling you, you still have many days ahead of you. This money that could be used for months and years would deplete more and more. Even more so when you leave this mountain.

“I’ve been in the military and I’ve also worked for somebody. I’ve seen it all, you won’t be losing out if you take my advice. Keep the money, I’ll bring you to the bank in town to deposit the money when it’s sunny tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.”

Zhang Lisheng took a moment of silence after listening to him. He nodded and held onto the money box.

Tao Lielin smiled with relief realizing that Zhang Lisheng listened to him and said, “That’s more like it. I’m leaving now, keep the money carefully and don’t lose it. Though I don’t think anybody will dare to enter your house door anyway.” He then walked out of Zhang family’s old house while bracing the rain.

Zhang Lisheng was left alone in the old house again after closing the wooden door. He then placed the money box containing tens of thousands of yuan on the offering table in the central room without too much care. As he watched the pouring rain in front of the central room’s door in the courtyard, there was a ‘pst shh…’ sound coming out of his mouth.

A shallow channel appeared on the soil ground in the courtyard. Soon, a giant centipede with a green face and fangs revealed its head from beneath the soil.

Zhang Lisheng was glad when he saw that his wizard worm was doing alright and seemed like it had grown even bigger than before. At that moment, the sky seemed to be triggered by the wizard worm’s Yin energy. A bunch of dark clouds was seen rumbling in the sky as a bolt of lightning shot down from the sky, striking the top of the Zhang family’s old house.

Among the rumble of lightings, Qing Hong became stiff out of nowhere before a thick, black mist came off its body afterward.

The black mist slowly floated into the old house’s central room and passed through it. A long, black thread seemed to extend in midair, and to Zhang Lisheng’s surprise, it went into Zhang Daowu’s bedroom that he used to live in. It then went into the wooden box containing the variegated racerunner, hooked snake, mountain spider, Qinyuan, Xuanfeng, and various strange insect sculptures.

Zhang Lisheng was stunned as he had no idea what was happening. He dubiously walked into his father’s bedroom following the black thread that was hanging in midair.

Just as he entered the bedroom, he heard a blurred sound of a chirping worm coming out faintly from the wooden box containing the strange insect sculptures. After a moment of hesitation, he climbed onto the wooden bed and opened the wooden box.

The chirping sound abruptly stopped after the box was opened. There was nothing odd apart from the cloud of faint black mist surrounding the strange insect sculptures in the ancient book records placed in the wooden box.

Zhang Lisheng frowned. Just when he was going to pick up a sculpture to have a closer look, all of the strange insect sculptures in the wooden box suddenly melted into waves of green smoke as if they were corroded by the black mist. The waves of smoke then entered his seven orifices—his nostrils, ears, eyes, and mouth.

Zhang Lisheng felt a moment of absentmindedness when the green smoke entered his body. Before his eyes, the witchcraft cultivation methods that he was forced to memorize turned into countless runes and spells spread out in his mind and flew all over the place.

After a moment of messy flying, the runes and spells began to regroup. Eventually, ten completed systems flowed in a stream while cultivation methods appeared one after the other in his mind in ascending order from easier ones to difficult ones.

When the witchcraft methods were forming, the waves of green smoke left from Zhang Lisheng’s seven holes slowly. The coincidence was that there was lightning striking the top of the Zhang family’s old house over and over again.

Among the lightning storm, one of the lightning bolts consolidated into a bright, white sphere and landed in the old house courtyard and made its way into Zhang Daowu’s bedroom following the house door that was wide opened.

While Zhang Lisheng was shocked. The sphere-shaped lightning exploded out of nowhere and transformed into countless electric currents that filled the room.

The dozens of waves of green smoke that were leaving Zhang Lisheng’s seven orifices and were on their way to transform back into the insect sculptures returned after being shocked by the electric current. The witchcraft methods were formed after this event, and the inherited treasure of witchcraft would no longer be able to escape.

Although the sphere-shaped lighting was rare, it was not a supernatural phenomenon but a purely physical phenomenon instead. It was already taught in China’s junior high second-grade during physics class.

Zhang Lisheng had no idea what kind of opportunity this excellently-timed astronomical phenomenon would bring to him. At that very moment, he was only stunned that he managed to personally experience a sphere-shaped lighting in the house. He was even more stunned at that compared to the Ten Witchcraft Cultivation Methods that appeared in his head out of nowhere.

To become a wizard, apart from putting effort into cultivation, the rest depended more on gifted talent without any set of rules. The Ten Witchcraft Cultivation Methods that appeared in Zhang Lisheng’s head were the cultivation methods to bring one from a Rank 1 Wizard to a Rank 7 Wizard.

The cultivation methods were the Gates of Death of the Three Gates of Witchcraft—the Gate of Death, Gate of Sacrifice, and Gate of Life. The cultivator would have to begin the journey with a wizard worm, and it was not a self-exploratory kind of cultivation which could be done on a whim. Even if that was the case, it was extremely fortunate for Zhang Lisheng that he had a set of methods that he could refer to.

Wizards would go through a transformation every six levels. One would experience two transformations when one became a Rank 7 Wizard. By then, his life would be completely detached from the ordinary human norms. At the very least, ridiculous accidents like Zhao Daowu crossing the rails and getting hit to death by the speeding taxi was impossible to occur. Zhang Lisheng might not be able to ever make it if he was to explore the realm of cultivation on his own.

Moreover, he had the plan of becoming a wizard by using the wizard worm cultivation method since the beginning. The method of solidifying his Rank 1 Wizard was the Giant Worm Mastery Method which coincidentally fit the cultivation track of the early phase of witchcraft’s Gate of Death.

After a moment of rejoicing, Zhang Lisheng snapped out of his blurred thoughts and looked at the empty wooden box before sighing lightly. Although he was happy for his massive reward, he was a little bummed that he would never have the chance to properly look into the strange insect sculptures that were neither wood nor gold.

After sighing, Zhang Lisheng immediately put on his shoes and ran out of his father’s bedroom to check on his wizard worm at the central room’s entrance.

In the courtyard, Qing Hong was crawling on the soil. Its outer shell that was initially glowing and glossy became dimmed and faded. Zhang Lisheng could faintly see the cracked pattern, but its condition was not too bad judging from the antennas on its head that was still slightly shaking.

The most convenient and fastest way to heal an injured wizard worm was by feeding it with its master’s blood. Zhang Lisheng thought for a while and figured that it would be too risky if Qing Hong did not go along with him should he head into the jungle to look for another wizard worm.

The only thing that he could do was to chant an incantation and helplessly spit out a mouthful of black blood.

The bloody mist was not affected by the pouring rain and covered Qing Hong entirely. As the bloody mist faded away, the wizard worm’s cracked body had recovered to how it initially looked like, however, it seemed to lack agility while crawling.

Noticing that, Zhang Lisheng could only spit another mouthful of black blood so that his previous effort was not wasted.

Qing Hong finally recovered to its optimum form after its master fed it with his blood twice. However, Zhang Lisheng’s head was hurting terribly from losing too much blood.

Since he had decided to go for the witchcraft Gate of Death’s cultivation, he no longer had any more restraints. As he chanted an incantation to drive Qing Hong to drill into the shallow soil, he staggered his way to the offering table in the central room and clumsily ate all of the offerings.

After he was full from eating and drinking, Zhang Lisheng wiped his mouth and returned to his bedroom at the side of the house and fell into deep sleep as soon as he got into his bed.

The next day, he only woke up in the afternoon. Zhang Lisheng took off the full Miaowei costume that he was wearing for exactly five days and put on a school uniform that had Damu High School written on it. He only realized that it was still raining in the courtyard when he walked to the central room.

It was not suitable to hunt for wizard worms in the jungle with such a weather. One had to know that apart from beasts and venomous worms, what was so fearsome about the dense jungle was also the flash floods, mud avalanches, and various other natural disasters. It was a sure death if he were to encounter accidents like that.

With nothing to do, he decided to stay home to chant incantations and cultivate at ease.

Witchcraft incantation could be converted into wizard power when the wizard was not casting any spells. Casting a spell, on the other hand, would consume wizard power.

To Zhang Lisheng who was still Rank 1 Wizard, as long as he did not drive his wizard worm to move using his consciousness, he could increase his wizard power slowly by chanting the Worm-Driving Spell which was the only spell that he could use.

The increase in power with such methods was painfully slow. It was his first official cultivation, and he sat there for the entire day without anybody disturbing him. Zhang Lisheng’s mouth and tongue were dry as he chanted incessantly until night. However, the growth of the wizard power in his blood was insignificant.

At such a pace of witchcraft cultivation, he would perhaps need at least two to three years to strive in breaking through to Rank 2.

The Miaowei Tribe was eastern oriented where the far east of the Guawo Village was a burial ground filled with ancestral coffins. The fact that Zhang Daowu’s coffin was majestically placed here majestically subtly showed the special position he held in the mountain village.

“But I’m afraid the Zhang family’s current generation won’t be able to be buried at the far east of the burial ground.” The funeral had finally ended smoothly after Zhang Daowu’s coffin was buried. Tao Lielin was relieved and subtly figured what the quiet Zhang Lisheng next to him was thinking.

He then frowned and shouted loudly, “Ermu, Tukou, Yangzhi…

“The funeral is over, why haven’t you people asked these tourists to leave Guawo Village’s burial ground ‘politely’?”

“Yes, yes. Uncle Ah Lie is right, why haven’t you guys left yet?”

“This is the land where our ancestors lived, even the later generations are not allowed here anytime they wanted. Since you guys are foreign visitors, we couldn’t say no to you guys earlier but now you’ll have to leave.”

“Everyone should know that this place is even more sacred to us than the Chinese shrines and churches overseas. This is not a place that you guys should intrude…”

The young men from Guawo Village realized what they should do and began to chase the tourists away. However, they did not take any extreme actions. After all, the tourists who traveled here were ‘gods of fortune’ to the villagers. Nobody would want to chase fortune away no matter how tough their customs were.

Noise filled the burial ground, but without anybody realizing it, the valleys around them turned silent after Zhang Daowu’s coffin was buried, as dark clouds began to gather around the sky that was initially sunny.

Soon, thunder was heard and rain began to pour. Now, they did not have to chase the people away. The tourists and people from Guawo Village covered their heads and ran towards the mountain village following the mountain paths immediately.

After headed back to Guawo Village, Tao Lielin did not return home but went to the Zhang family’s old house instead.

He opened the money box that he locked earlier in the central room, counting the money gifted to him again carefully right in front of Zhang Lisheng and said, “Shan Chongzi, you’ve given me exactly 30,000 yuan for the funeral.”

“We spent 1,800 yuan for the 6-day coffin rental; We bought 127 lambs… Total cost would be 69,861.50 yuan.”

“Uncle Ah Lie, then I’ll pay you more…”

“Don’t worry, kid. Listen to me while I count to the end.”

“We’ve spent a lot on treating visitors as there were too many tourists who had the feast. It makes sense that they’re called tourists, they can really eat.”

“But these foreigners are generous in gifting. Tsk tsk, their gifts are worth at least 200 yuan. After calculations, not only did we not lose anything after the funeral, we’ve earned 52,800 yuan, and this excludes the hefty foreign currencies.”

Lielin’s account had completely excluded the manpower contributed by the Guawo Villagers. It was no surprise that Zhang Lisheng was wealthy now, he then said thoughtfully, “Uncle Ah Lie, I don’t want the money that’s left. Please help me again. Buy…”

“Kid you’ve got to plan your spending in the future, don’t expect yourself to live comfortably forever with this mere hundred of thousands in your hand.”

“I’m telling you, you still have many days ahead of you. This money that could be used for months and years would deplete more and more. Even more so when you leave this mountain.”

“I’ve been in the military and I’ve also worked for somebody. I’ve seen it all, you won’t be losing out if you take my advice. Keep the money, I’ll bring you to the bank in town to deposit the money when it’s sunny tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.”

Zhang Lisheng took a moment of silence after listening to him. He nodded and held onto the money box.

Tao Lielin smiled with relief realizing that Zhang Lisheng listened to him and said, “That’s more like it. I’m leaving now, keep the money carefully and don’t lose it. Though I don’t think anybody will dare to enter your house door anyway.” He then walked out of Zhang family’s old house bracing the rain.

Zhang Lisheng was left alone in the old house again after closing the wooden door. He then placed the money box containing tens of thousands of yuan on the offering table in the central room without too much care. As he watched the pouring rain in front of the central room’s door in the courtyard, there was a ‘pst shh…’ sound coming out of his mouth.

A shallow channel appeared on the soil ground in the courtyard. Soon, a giant centipede with a green face and fangs revealed its head from beneath the soil.

Zhang Lisheng was glad when he saw that his wizard worm was doing alright and seemed like it had grown even bigger than before. At that moment, the sky seemed to be triggered by the wizard warm’s Yin energy. A bunch of dark clouds was then seen rumbling in the sky as a bolt of lightning shot down from the sky, striking the top of the Zhang family’s old house.

Among the rumble of lightings, Qing Hong became stiff out of nowhere before a thick, black mist came off its body afterward.

The black mist floated into the old house’s central room slowly and passed through the central room. A long, black thread seemed to extend in midair and to his surprise, it went into Zhang Daowu’s bedroom that he used to live in. It then went into the wooden box containing the variegated racerunner, hooked snake, mountain spider, Qinyuan, Xuanfeng and various strange insect sculptures.

Zhang Lisheng was stunned as he had no idea what was happening. He walked into his father’s bedroom in doubt following the black thread that as hung midair.

Just as he entered the bedroom, he heard a blurred sound of a chirping worm coming out faintly from the wooden box containing the strange insect sculptures. After a moment of hesitation, he climbed onto the wooden bed and opened the wooden box.

The chirping sound stopped suddenly after the box was opened. There was nothing odd apart from the cloud of faint black mist surrounding the strange insect sculptures in the ancient book records placed in the wooden box.

Zhang Lisheng frowned. Just when he was going to pick up a sculpture to have a closer look, all of the strange insect sculptures in the wooden box suddenly melted into waves of green smoke like they corroded by the black mist. The waves of smoke then dashed into the seven holes on his body which were his nostrils, ears, eyes, and mouth.

Zhang Lisheng felt a moment of absentmindedness when the green smoke entered his body. The witchcraft cultivation methods that he was forced to memorize in his head turned into countless runes and spells spread out in his memory and flew all of over the place before his eyes.

After a moment of messy flying, the runes and spells began to regroup. Eventually, ten completed systems flowed in a stream while cultivation methods appeared one after the other in his mind in ascending order from easier ones to difficult ones.

When the witchcraft methods were forming, the waves of green smoke left from Zhang Lisheng’s seven holes slowly. The coincidence was that there were lighting striking the top of the Zhang family’s old house over and over again.

Among of lightning storm, one of the lightning bolts consolidated into a bright, white sphere and landed in the old house courtyard and made its way into Zhang Daowu’s bedroom following the house door that was wide opened.

While Zhang Lisheng was in shock, the sphere-shaped lightning exploded out of nowhere and transformed into countless electric currents that filled the room.

The dozens of waves of green smoke that were leaving Zhang Lisheng’s seven holes and on their way to transforming back into the insect sculptures returned into his seven holes after being shocked by the electric current. The witchcraft methods were formed after this event, and the inherited treasure of witchcraft would no longer be able to escape any longer.

Although the sphere-shaped lighting was rare, it was not a supernatural phenomenon but a purely physical phenomenon instead. It was already taught in China’s junior high second-grade during physics class.

Zhang Lisheng had no idea what kind of opportunity that this excellently timed astronomical phenomenon would bring to him. At that very moment, he was only stunned that he managed to personally experience a sphere-shaped lighting in the house. He was even more stunned at that compared to the Ten Witchcraft Cultivation Methods that appeared in his head out of nowhere.

To become a wizard, apart from putting effort into cultivation, the rest was depended more on gifted talent without any set of rules. The Ten Witchcraft Cultivation Methods that appeared in Zhang Lisheng’s head were the cultivation methods to bring one from Wizard II to Wizard XII.

The cultivation methods were the Gates of Death of the Three Gates of Witchcraft — the Gate of Death, Gate of Sacrifice and Gate of Life. The cultivator would have to begin the journey with wizard worm, and it was not a self-exploratory kind of cultivation which could be done on a whim. Even if that was the case, it was extremely fortunate for Zhang Lisheng that he had a set of methods that he could refer to.

Wizards would go through a transformation every six levels. One would experience two transformations when one got to Wizard XII. By then, his life would be completely detached from the ordinary human norms. At least there would not be ridiculous accidents like Zhao Daowu crossing the rails and getting hit to death by the speeding taxi. Zhang Lisheng might not be able to ever make it if he was to explore the realm of cultivation on his own.

Moreover, he had the plan of becoming a wizard by using the wizard worm cultivation method since the beginning. The method of mastering Wizard I was the Giant Worm Mastery Method which coincidentally fit the cultivation track of the witchcraft’s Gate of Death’s early phase.

After a moment of rejoicing, Zhang Lisheng snapped out of his blurred thoughts and looked at the empty wooden box before sighing lightly. Although he was happy for his massive reward, he was a little bummed that he would never have the chance to properly look into the strange insect sculptures that were neither wood nor gold.

After sighing, Zhang Lisheng put on his shoes immediately and ran out of his father’s bedroom to check on his wizard worm at the central room’s entrance.

In the courtyard, Qing Hong was crawling on the soil. Its outer shell that was initially glowing and glossy became dimmed and faded. He could faintly see the cracked pattern but its condition was not too bad judging by the antennas on its head that was still slightly shaking.

The most convenient and fastest way to heal an injured wizard worm was by feeding it with its master’s blood. Zhang Lisheng thought for a while and figured that it would be too risky if Qing Hong did not go along with him should he head into the jungle to look for another wizard worm.

The only thing that he could do was to chant an incantation and spit out a mouthful of black blood helplessly.

The bloody mist was not affected by the pouring rain and covered Qing Hong which was in the courtyard entirely. As the bloody mist faded away, the wizard worm’s cracked body had recovered to how it initially looked like. However, it seemed lack agility when it was crawling.

Noticing that, Zhang Lisheng could only spit another mouthful of black blood helplessly so that his previous effort was not wasted.

After that, Qing Hong finally recovered to its optimum form after its master fed it with his blood twice. However, Zhang Lisheng’s head was hurting terribly from losing too much blood.

Since he had decided to go for the witchcraft Gate of Death’s cultivation, he no longer had any more restraints. As he chanted an incantation to drive Qing Hong to drill into the shallow soil, he staggered his way to the offering table in the central room and ate all of the offerings clumsily.

After he was full from eating and drinking, Zhang Lisheng wiped his mouth and returned to his bedroom at the side of the house and fell into deep sleep as he got into his bed.

He woke up late on the next day, only waking up in the afternoon. Zhang Lisheng took off the full Miaowei costume that he was wearing for exactly five days and put on a school uniform that had Damu High School written on it. He only realized that it was still raining in the courtyard when he walked to the central room.

It was not suitable to hunt for wizard worms in the jungle with such a weather. One had to know that apart from beasts and venomous worms, what was so fearsome about the dense jungle was also the flash floods, mud avalanches, and various other natural disasters. It was a sure death if he was to encounter accidents like that.

With nothing to do, he decided to stay home to chant incantations and cultivate at ease.

Witchcraft incantation could be converted into wizard power when the wizard was not casting any spells. Casting a spell, on the other hand, would consume wizard power.

To Zhang Lisheng who was still Wizard I, as long as he did not drive his wizard worm to move using his consciousness, he could increase his wizard power slowly by chanting the Worm-Driving Spell which was the only spell that he could use.

The increase in power with such methods was painfully slow. It was his first official cultivation, and he sat there for the entire day without anybody disturbing him. Zhang Lisheng’s mouth and tongue were dry as he chanted incessantly until night. However, the growth of the wizard power in his blood was insignificant.

At such pace of witchcraft cultivation, he would perhaps need at least two to three years to strive in breaking through to Wizard II.

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