“Shit! Formless Golden Body!” Tang Jie roared. His body briefly flashed with golden light, and then Tang Jie clawed at the tree that was swinging toward him.

There was a massive boom as dust plumed into the air.

When the dust settled, the giant ape stared in shock as it realized that Tang Jie was holding the tree in his hand and coldly staring at the ape.

The ape tried to pull back the tree, but it realized that it couldn’t.

Tang Jie pulled hard on the tree as he angrily said, “We said that we wouldn’t use spell arts, but you used one anyway. As an ape, you’re a close-combat king, but you’re trying to compete against a cultivator in spells? Have you grown tired of living? I’ll show you what happens when you try to play tricks!”

Pulling his right arm back, he seized the tree from the giant ape and swung it around at the ape.

The ape wailed as it raised its arms to block. Meanwhile, Tang Jie began to hammer the giant ape so hard with the tree that it could barely move. The barbed thorns stabbed into its arm, causing it to howl in pain.

But the giant ape clearly had more cards to play. It howled and once more took to the skies, thrusting a palm at a tree next to it. The tree immediately withered, and in return, the injuries on the giant ape’s arm rapidly healed.

“Is this considered ‘eating tree’?” Tang Jie laughed. This giant ape was able to absorb nutrients from a plant to heal itself, which was rather like DOTA.

Who said that cultivating Immortality was all about flying sword energy?

In the lower levels of the world, the multivarious and bizarre nature of spell arts was more evident.

“I’m wondering if that can be interrupted!” Tang Jie roared as he tossed the tree in his hand.

The ape furiously swung a fist, striking the tree. Its immense strength instantly reduced the tree to splinters.

But a moment later, a saber flashed.

The Heartbreak Saber swept across the giant ape’s body, leaving a bloody line.

“Windcleaver!” Tang Jie howled as he swung the saber at the giant ape again. The ape punched right at the blade, sending the Heartbreak Saber flying out of Tang Jie’s hand.

But rather than trying to get his saber, Tang Jie lunged forward, and his right fist, now covered in a golden gauntlet, smashed into the ape’s nose.

Boom!

This thunderous blow almost pulped half of the ape’s face, and the ape threw back its head and howled in pain.

A moment later, rather than countering, it turned and ran off. It finally understood how powerful Tang Jie was and had lost the will to fight.

“You think you can escape?” Tang Jie snorted and then whistled.

There was a flash of lightning in the distance, and then a lightning bolt came soaring through the sky, viciously slamming into the ape’s chest.

Lightning gathered into a giant sphere that exploded, sending the giant ape flying.

It was the little tiger.

This Galethunder Blade had struck the giant ape head-on, and even though the ape was an upper-grade fiend beast, it was unable to take the blow. Its skin was blasted apart as its final chances of escaping were cut off.

The little tiger saw that his attack had struck and excitedly started to howl.

Tang Jie was scared out of his wits and quickly took a chunk of meat from his Mustard Seed Bag, throwing it into the tiger’s mouth. The tiger was unable to roar, and he looked in surprise at his master before running off to the side to eat this unexpected meal.

The giant ape wanted to use this chance to attack the tiger, but Tang Jie caught up to it, grabbed it by the tail, and began to smash the ape against the ground.

With its tail in the hands of its enemy, the giant ape immediately lost the ability to resist, and Tang Jie smashed it over and over like it was a ragdoll.

Even the giant ape’s thick hide and muscles couldn’t resist this torture, and as the smashing continued, it gradually lost consciousness.

Tang Jie finally let go. Looking at the tiger, he pointed at it and said, “Really, can you not use the tiger roar the next time we fight?”

Wooo… The little tiger looked in confusion at Tang Jie.

Looking at his lost expression, Tang Jie felt helpless. Waving his hand, he said, “Forget it. I’ll just try to slowly make it a habit for you.”

He turned to the unconscious ape. As he was thinking about how to deal with it, he had a sudden idea.

“A dying beast with lingering blood energy and still holding life essence… Doesn’t this match the conditions for that spell art?”

As he carefully pondered, his eyes suddenly lit up. “The Ghost Control spell!”

He hastily took out an item from the Mustard Seed Bag: the Ghost Classic. However, to hide it from others, Tang Jie had replaced its cover with that of the “Treatise on Human Order”.

He flipped through the book and then carefully opened a slightly sticky page. This page contained none other than the method for the Ghost Control spell.

“An inextinguishable will that dominates life and death, sealing the heavens and earth, shackling the infinite… It really is like this—seizing the moment when vitality has not extinguished to turn life into death and create a Ghost Guard!” Tang Jie excitedly said.

The Ghost Control spell was a spell that the Ghost Raising Sect of High Antiquity had used to turn living souls into ghosts, which could then be used for cultivation, battle, or other uses. As the ghosts could be used for many things and were also loyal and cheap, the spell had been extremely popular once.

And if the Ghost Raising Sect had only refined the dead into Ghost Guards, perhaps things would have been fine.

But for the sake of getting stronger Ghost Guards, the Ghost Raising Sect had thrown itself into research and discovered that when the host still had vitality and will, more of the power it had in life could be preserved in death.

Many of the cultivation methods the Ghost Raising Sect had used hadn’t initially been meant to harm others, but because these shortcuts existed, there would always be people who were willing to take them.

Some Ghost Raising Sect disciples determined to succeed began to slaughter innocents in order to get stronger, and the harm they dealt to the people ultimately drew the anger of the masses and caused the annihilation of the sect.

This was normally how things went. Anything that was connected to one’s personal interest but also wasn’t properly monitored would gradually go out of control, and it would either get stronger or perish.

Fortunately, the Rosecloud Domain was a world that emphasized justice and order. Thus, this sect had been annihilated before it could truly gain dominion.

And Tang Jie now had such an opportunity before him.

To be honest, refining a giant ape into a Ghost Guard didn’t go against the ethics of the present. In the heyday of the Ghost Raising Sect, it had also primarily used fiend beasts. But as it developed, the process gradually changed, and those anxious for quick results began to reach out their demonic claws toward humans.

Thus, refining the giant ape was not unethical.

But just as Tang Jie had said to Xu Miaoran, the ghost-raising spells had all been forbidden. Once something was banned, it didn’t matter the motive and methods by which one obtained them. Simply getting involved with them was a crime!

It was for this reason that Tang Jie was somewhat hesitant.

Should he take this chance and refine the giant ape?

It had to be understood that refining something into a Ghost Guard primarily preserved its physical strength. Spell art power was very difficult to preserve. Thus, this powerful giant ape was an ideal target for refinement.

Moreover, fiend beasts had violent natures and would often fight to the death, so capturing them alive was difficult. Now that he had managed to catch one alive and it was also a perfect refinement target to become a Ghost Guard, giving it up would truly be a pity.

But on the other hand, the domain-wide ban deeply concerned him.

He keenly understood the consequences of revealing the Ghost Guard in front of others.

After thinking it over and weighing the pros and cons, he finally gritted his teeth and said, “I became a cultivator because I wanted to do as my heart desired. Doing this does not go against my Origin Heart and will be a huge boon to my combat strength. Since the opportunity is before me, how could I miss out on it? At most, I can’t use it in front of others and can only take it out in times of peril. If it can save my life when I’m in danger, what does it matter that it’s exposed?”

He had finally decided to refine a Ghost Guard.

While there were idiots who wouldn’t take advantage of the opportunities presented to them, he was the kind of person who probably wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he let such an excellent chance pass him by.

As for those words just now, that was merely another application of the supreme self-consoling art, and there was no need to take it seriously. If he really hadn’t wanted it, he probably would have said to himself, “I’m a cultivator, so there are things I can do and things I can’t do. Although this matter doesn’t go against my Origin Heart, with the tide of the times against me, I must give something up. I can’t destroy my future prospects for the sake of a small advantage…” or something of the sort.

Since he had made up his mind, Tang Jie had the tiger guard the area while he began to follow the instructions in the book to refine the giant ape.

As he chanted, a black beam of energy emerged from his fingertip and flew toward the giant ape.

As the black energy spread, the giant ape’s body began to rapidly decay.

The immense pain woke the giant ape up, and it roared and tried to fight back.

“Shit!” Tang Jie cursed. Only now did he realize that he hadn’t knocked the giant ape completely out.

This was his first time using the Ghost Control spell, and he hadn’t even tried to familiarize himself with the process, so he didn’t know anything about the spell that wasn’t written down. This was like a doctor-in-training only reading his texts before heading into surgery, and only when he sliced open the patient’s chest did he realize that he had forgotten to apply anesthetic.

But there was no time to learn the spell now. Tang Jie simply thrust his hand at the giant ape and said, “Just consider yourself unlucky.”

He swung, punching the giant ape back into unconsciousness.

He continued to use the Ghost Control Spell, and it slowly began to eat away at the ape’s flesh. In the process, the giant ape woke up from the pain multiple times, but Tang Jie would always knock it out again, like some unfortunate patient was having coronary bypass surgery performed on them without anesthetic.

By the end, when the giant ape’s flesh had almost completely rotted away, the giant ape finally couldn’t resist any longer and died.

The decay of flesh continued. Through the power of the spell, all of the life essence and that last shred of imperishable will entered the bones. In the end, all that was left was a giant ape skeleton, a ghostly flame burning within the skull and the entire skeleton radiating a frightening ghost energy.

Tang Jie let out a long breath, knowing that the Ghost Control spell had finally succeeded.

Unlike true ghosts, which were undying souls that attached themselves to living beings, Ghost Guards had physical form and used the skeleton to carry their will. Ordinary ghosts, who existed as souls, were more ethereal existences, and while they could attach themselves to human bodies, they lacked combat power.

The type of Ghost Guard Tang Jie had refined was none other than the Hearteater Ghost that Daoist Fuyu had used before. But Daoist Fuyu’s strength had been limited, and after all his effort, he had only been able to refine a lower-grade fiend monkey. Meanwhile, Tang Jie had used an upper-grade giant ape, and so though it was also a Hearteater Ghost, its strength was on an entirely different level.

Tang Jie looked at the ape Hearteater Ghost. Wanting to test its strength, he pointed at it and said, “Attack me.”

The Hearteater Ghost shot over like a bolt of lightning and scratched at Tang Jie’s chest. Tang Jie raised an arm to block, and the blow sent him flying and sent pain traveling through his arm. He hurriedly shouted, “Stop!”

The Hearteater Ghost stopped. Tang Jie looked down and saw five holes in his arm. Its attacks were even more vicious than they had been in life, which made Tang Jie gasp.

After becoming a Ghost Guard, the giant ape had lost its spell arts, but its essence and blood energy had become more concentrated. Thus, its attacks were fiercer, but its defenses had fallen in equal measure, making it still not as powerful as it was in life. However, when fighting together with a cultivator, its terrifying attacks were certain to cause headaches.

It was no wonder the Ghost Raising Sect had killed so many people to get good Ghost Guards. Their strength was truly impressive.

But while making them was easy, controlling them wasn’t. It required the use of a secret art, and without sufficient strength, it was difficult to control many Ghost Guards. This was why Daoist Fuyu had only had that single Hearteater Ghost.

Of course, Tang Jie didn’t care. For him, the Hearteater Ghost was an extraneous existence, and he really didn’t need any more than that.

After putting away the Ghost Guard using the secret art, Tang Jie planned to leave, but then he heard Yiyi’s voice.

“What’s wrong, Yiyi?”

“Everyone is going to the Floral Forest together!” Yiyi shouted.