Lu Jun walked out of the laboratory looking refreshed, while Lu Weixi was drenched in sweat, gasping for breath inside.
If someone didn't know better, they might think something intense had just happened. In reality, the two helped each other greatly—Lu Jun gained substantial benefits, and Lu Weixi's feedback was equally strong.
Within three days, they had repeatedly exhausted the light elemental mana more than ten times. Each time felt like a river washing away a large amount of silt deposited on the riverbed.
A vast amount of the bright origin contained inside Lu Weixi's body was taken away, albeit only a tiny fraction.
Even so, he felt an unprecedented lightness throughout his body, and his previously frail appearance improved somewhat.
This made Lu Weixi even more eager than Lu Jun to purify his essence.
The white-haired youth had tried to drain other people's mana before but got no effect at all.
Unfortunately, the ancient king's armor grew stronger as its seals leaked more origin power; Lu Weixi's light element had to keep pace with these upgrades.
Meanwhile, Lu Jun planned to find Ding Yumin for some closeness.
The residual death energy on his body had mostly cleared, but the negative mental energies remained.
Though Tang Yue had mostly healed him, as a precaution, Lu Jun wanted Ding Yumin to check him thoroughly.
Following the faint psychic connection, Lu Jun sensed Ding Yumin's location.
As soon as he thought of her, she seemed to sense it too her position flickered constantly, trying to evade his tracking.
Ding Yumin still didn't want to see him.
But Lu Jun didn't stop; he summoned the Night Thunder Dream Beast, the Black-and-White Twin Fiends, alternating the Shadow, Wind, and Earth elements in combination. Finally, he caught little Ding in a small forest on the back mountain.
"What do you want?!"
Under the trees, a serene beauty in a white dress emerged from the shadows, her expression helpless yet resentful as she stared into the distance.
The black-robed death god stood close like a shadow, his cloak fluttering, revealing Lu Jun's figure. He said gently, "Long time no see."
Ding Yumin was about to speak, but suddenly her expression and aura shifted dramatically. Crimson flames spread over the white dress, turning into a fiery lotus.
The Revenge Soul Mark erupted, cursing loudly, "Shameless! I thought you were someone I could trust with my life, yet you treat me like this."
Obviously, once Ding Yumin's main soul mark returned, all her auxiliary soul marks understood what had happened.
All the soul marks were essentially the same person like witnessing it firsthand, experiencing the humiliation deeply.
Right now, the Revenge Soul Mark was in rebellion it was the one who had controlled the body to give Lu Jun a kiss before he left for the ancient capital, now reduced to a clown.
Hearing this, Lu Jun responded seriously and solemnly, "I have no other intentions, only to ask for your help with my cultivation, to alleviate the spiritual pollution. If you refuse, I will leave."
Upon hearing this, the Revenge Soul Mark had to withdraw her clenched fist, nearly hurting herself from holding it back.
She wasn't afraid of Lu Jun's persistence, but this official and businesslike tone made her seem unreasonable her punch landed on cotton.
"You!" The Revenge Soul Mark fumed, about to accuse him of wrongdoing, but in the next moment, Ding Yumin switched back to her main soul mark.
Shaking her head, ignoring the screams from other voices in her mind claiming "He's playing hard to get," she adopted a serious attitude and said calmly, "Seems like I was deluded. This matter is negotiable we are allies."
Seeing this, Lu Jun secretly relaxed; he had finally stabilized Ding Yumin's mood.
They switched to a different dynamic for now and would deal with the rest later.
After a moment, they sat facing each other. Ding Yumin controlled the constellations and cast the high-level spell Soul Seize and Mind Control, releasing a delicate, translucent white figure from the crown of her head that entered Lu Jun's forehead.
Instantly, their bodies trembled. Their souls touched, and the wonderful sensation of spiritual fusion burst forth.
Ding Yumin's complexion flushed red; her delicate body trembled uncontrollably. After many months without inhabiting Lu Jun's body, she seemed more sensitive.
Many months of accumulated resentment and grievances seemed to melt away considerably.
Soon, within Lu Jun's spiritual realm, the transparent white radiance swept through, and the dim shadows in the corners receded. His entire mind became neat, bright, and repeatedly healthy.
Just as Ding Yumin fought discomfort and prepared to leave,
Lu Jun suddenly transmitted a mental message: "Yumian, I've reached the Advanced Level in the Psychic Element. I can now cast [Soul Control: Mind Prison]. Could you teach me some techniques for progressing further in the Psychic path?"
Hearing this, Ding Yumian had no choice but to stop in her tracks. She glanced around the vast cosmos, and to her surprise, saw four mighty star rivers flowing majestically—one of which shimmered with a translucent hue.
She had originally just wanted to finish her task and leave quickly, avoiding too much contact with this man, so she had only taken a brief look and hadn't noticed that Lu Jun had already reached the Advanced Level in the Psychic Element.
She pondered for a moment and said, "With Fifth Realm peak-tier spiritual force and Advanced cultivation, you barely qualify to learn that technique… yes, the one you hypothesized."
Then, Ding Yumian, with a trace of shyness, opened up her mental consciousness. The two merged together once more, intimately and inseparably connected.
That feeling of having her sealed-off soul violently torn open and laid bare was the perfect opportunity for a bastard to exploit.
And Lu Jun just happened to be that kind of person—continuously transmitting emotions and memories into her.
Ding Yumian was forced to recall the moments they had spent together in the past. This guy had always been expressionless while feeding her mental "yellow trash"—how could a pure girl handle that? Bit by bit, she began to fall into it.
What made it worse was that Ding Yumian was controlling Lu Jun's body to undergo "epiphany absorption," quickly imprinting the instincts into his memory. She couldn't afford to be distracted, and could only grit her teeth and resist Lu Jun's constant harassment.
It was like a chaste housewife appearing proper and composed while dealing with her husband on the surface, yet under the table, Old Wang was laughing wickedly as he got to work.
After a moment, Lu Jun fully grasped the technique of 'Astral Projection' and finally released Ding Yumian's soul with satisfaction.
How could a sheltered girl possibly match a man with real-world experience? The simulation of the five senses was so vivid, so immersive, that she fled in total disarray.
Back in the real world, Ding Yumian's soul returned to her body, which then collapsed weakly onto the ground. Her delicate face flushed bright red as she gritted her teeth and shouted, "Lu Jun, you bastard!"
Lu Jun's lips curved into a smile, fully immersed in the massive insights he had just gained from [Astral Projection].
From the basic-level Psychic Sword, to the intermediate-level Mind Palace, and now to the advanced-level Astral Projection—each of them was a top-tier self-created spell that could be used all the way to the Super Level.
He had only put forth a hypothesis, but all the details and framework had been filled out by Ding Yumian's astonishing psychic "Calamity Affinity" talent. You could say he was a full-fledged freeloading master.
After all, coming up with an idea was easy—the hard part was executing it.
Among them, Astral Projection was used in conjunction with the Advanced Spell [Soul Control: Mind Prison], drastically enhancing its effective tier.
Ordinary mages, when casting the latter spell alone, could control others, but only in a limited fashion—commands like kill, protect, block, and so on. It couldn't achieve the level of seamless control like a puppet on a string.
But with Astral Projection, where the caster personally possesses and controls the target, the power increased exponentially.
Of course, the downside was that it required the caster's full attention. Any lapse would leave the original body unprotected and extremely vulnerable.
Still, Astral Projection had enormous potential. In the future, it could even allow the caster's soul and willpower to carry a portion of their abilities and descend into someone else's body from afar.
The most compatible users would be those who practiced mental-type elements—like Lu Jun's Curse Element, Psychic Element, Space Element, and Summoning Element—all of which could be carried along via Astral Projection.
If he were to possess Lu Mei, for instance, that elder sister would essentially become a triple-element High Tier mage in Wind, Earth, and Fire—plus Curse, Psychic, Space, and Summoning—all fused together. A true dual-core powerhouse with unrivaled combat strength.
It resembled the Daoist legends or Northeast China's "Shaman Possession." The difference was that the former could summon deities ranging from the Three Pure Ones to Guan Yu the Great Emperor to fight in one's stead, while the latter called upon lesser spirits like ox demons and snake ghosts.
Lu Jun's thoughts then drifted even further. One of the future Three Great Summits, the South Pole Sovereign, had once affixed a fragment of his will to the Forbidden Curse Ice Empress of the Mu Clan and used it to manipulate her body—remotely trading a blow with Hua Zhanhong.
For additional chapters
Versatile mage {40 chapters}
Douluo Dalu:This Soul Master is to Weird {30 Chapters}
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