In his perception, more and more cold energy gathered within his body, but once inside, it vanished without a trace, as if sinking into the sea.

  This made Fang Xiu curious—where did the eerie energy go after entering his body?

  Could it be his mind?

  He immersed his consciousness, letting it follow the flow of the cold energy toward an unknown place, like a small boat drifting down a river and eventually merging into the vast sea.

  Here, Fang Xiu sensed a grayish, dust-covered heart beating slowly. All the cold energy was being absorbed into it.

  Was the mind the heart?

  No, that couldn’t be. The mind couldn’t be the heart.

  The mind had no fixed form. The reason it appeared as a heart was merely a subconscious manifestation.

  This was *his* mind—he should be able to control its shape.

  With this thought, the gray heart gradually transformed into a sword, then a blade, and even into Fang Xiu himself.

  Clearly, his guess was correct.

  But the shape of the mind was irrelevant. What mattered was igniting spirituality.

  So, the mind returned to the form of a heart.

  As more and more cold energy seeped in, the heart beat more violently, faint light pulsing beneath the layer of dust covering it.

  Fang Xiu waited patiently until, finally, a change occurred.

  There was no dramatic breakthrough like in fantasy novels—just a natural progression.

  A small patch of dust on the heart suddenly vanished, as if wiped away, revealing a glimmer of black light, dark as a black hole.

  This was the true color of Fang Xiu’s mind.

  The next moment, all the eerie energy surged toward that exposed corner, condensing into a crimson, blood-like glow that invaded the black light.

  The black and red lights intertwined, the red seemingly trying to corrupt the black, but no matter how it tried, the black remained unmoved.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  In the end, the red light fully merged into the black, and everything fell silent.

  At that very moment, Fang Xiu felt an earth-shattering transformation within himself!

  It was as if his entire being had been cleansed by the black light. His senses—vision, hearing, smell, touch, taste—all sharpened dramatically.

  If before, the world had seemed veiled, now that veil was gone, revealing reality in its purest form.

  Beyond sensory enhancement, his thinking speed and reflexes had also improved.

  His physical strength hadn’t increased much, but his control over his body had grown exponentially. If an ordinary person could only mobilize about 40% of their muscles, Fang Xiu could now control over 80%.

  Muscle movement was governed by the brain, and the brain was guided by the mind. Normally, people could only fully mobilize their muscles under extreme stress or life-threatening situations—though this varied from person to person. Many would never achieve it, even in death.

  An example was the Han Dynasty general Li Guang, who once mistook a rock in the grass for a crouching tiger. In his panic, he drew his bow with all his strength and shot an arrow so powerfully it embedded itself three inches into the stone. Yet afterward, no matter how hard he tried, he could never replicate the feat.

  Now, Fang Xiu could unleash such power at will. His body remained the same, but his control over it had reached an entirely new level. And as his physical strength grew in the future, so too would his potential power.

  Gradually, Fang Xiu opened his eyes, a trace of black light flickering in his dark pupils.

  *Is this spirituality?*

  Now, he had a deeper understanding of spirituality.

  Spirituality was the product of the mind’s innate power being twisted by eerie energy.

  The mind itself possessed immense strength, but this power could not affect the real world—it existed only in the illusory realm. Just as every person was a god in their own mental world, capable of imagining omnipotence, none of it could manifest in reality.

  Eerie energy was the tool that bridged the illusory and the real.

  A mind fused with eerie energy could influence the physical world.

  Of course, this didn’t mean that after igniting spirituality, one’s omnipotence in the mental world would translate to reality.

  First, only a fraction of his spirituality had been ignited—about 1% of his mind’s total capacity.

  Second, even if spirituality reached 100%, it still wouldn’t grant the boundless power of imagination. The mind was not pure fantasy; it was a composite of imagination, emotions, memories, mentality, and more.

  The power of the mind was the power of the heart!

  The stronger one’s heart, the stronger their spiritual power—provided they had enough eerie energy to fuse with it. Otherwise, it couldn’t affect reality.

  All power had its own form of expression, and the mind was no exception. Its manifestation was tied to a person’s innermost desires—what they cared about most, yearned for most, needed most—shaped by personality, imagination, environment, and other factors.

  This was why every Spirit Master possessed different abilities.

  A Spirit Master’s ability was the expression of their mental power—their *mental reflection ability*.

  So… what was *his* ability?

  Fang Xiu couldn’t help but wonder.

  Or rather, what did his heart desire most?

  With this question in mind, Fang Xiu began to channel his pitch-black spirituality.

  The next moment, he perceived a surge of information—and froze.

  Because his ability was… *pain*.

  *So my heart is filled with pain?*

  Fang Xiu was surprised. He focused further, gaining a clearer understanding of his ability.

  *Attack others and inflict pain upon them.*

  ???

  Fang Xiu felt like he was reading a useless description.

  *This counts as an ability?*

  *Without this ability, if I punched someone, they’d still feel pain.*

  But when he actually activated his ability, he was shocked to discover that within the black spirituality, he could *see* visions of his own deaths.

  And a familiar sense of pain surged through him—the agony of every death he had experienced, not just physical suffering but the torment of his emotions.

  All the negative emotions and pain he had endured seemed to be stored within this black spirituality.

  Only then did Fang Xiu fully grasp the nature of his ability.

  It allowed him to inflict his own suffering onto his enemies—to make them feel everything he had endured.

  “Ha… hahaha…” Fang Xiu suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter, startling Zhao Hao beside him.

  “Brother Xiu… did you succeed?”

  Fang Xiu didn’t answer. He just kept laughing.

  *Perfect. This ability is absolutely perfect.*

  He roared inwardly, exhilarated beyond measure.

  No ability—not even control over time or space—could satisfy him as much as this one.

  Because this was what his heart truly desired.

  Since arriving in this world, he had been killed by the eerie too many times. Now, all that pain had transformed into power—power he could return to the eerie.

  To make them feel everything he had suffered—was there anything more beautiful in this world?