After a flurry of activity, using Fantasy Materialization to heal the injuries on the old mystic scholar, Xue Ding asked, "What exactly happened?"

Only then did Xue Ding see the two creatures he had dispatched with a single spell. Yet merely a few seconds had passed, and they seemed to have been drained empty. The bodies of Hornheim and Wendigo were entirely hollowed out, leaving only the outer wooden structures rooted in the ground.

If Xue Ding did nothing, they might very well transform into a twisted, intertwined tree.

"I'm not entirely sure, but I've gathered quite a bit of intelligence." The old mystic scholar approached Hornheim's corpse, shaking his head at the twisted, growing wooden structure.

Xue Ding hadn't obtained much information on this trip. The Special Service Bureau had scarce internal information, and regarding Salem Town, it was only noted that the highest level of experiments and research were being conducted there. The rest of the documents might not be at this branch, or perhaps they didn't have much to begin with.

However, over here, we seemed to have gathered quite a lot of intelligence.

"If I'm not mistaken, the majority of the mystics have probably allied with Blington, the guy who killed me. They've gained support from high levels and have secretly developed many results. Just now, he summoned the famous American evil spirit, Wendigo, by sacrificing two infants." The old mystic scholar immediately relayed his information.

"Infant sacrifice? Evil spirit?" Xue Ding frowned in disgust, pondering over the term. He suddenly wondered if he had acted too hastily just now, making them die too quickly.

Moreover, this world always seemed so quiet and unaffected, making Xue Ding feel puzzled.

Before coming to this world, he had prepared for the world's destruction and was ready to face Qijela and the masterminds behind the scenes alone on the wasteland.

But now, apart from the wide spread of the desolate fungus originating from Qijela, there was nothing unusual about the world.

Even apart from Doctor Xue, no other doctors or medical research institutions had noticed that many bodies were already infected with a strange ancient fungus.

He arrived at the corpse, now rooted in the ground and beginning to grow. Indeed, he found one of the corpses with a head like a terrifying, rotten moose's skull, and a pair of hefty antlers.

It seems that this is the Wendigo.

"By the way, sir, quickly save Hornheim's backpack. There might be other intelligence in there besides the infants." Austin immediately said.

Xue Ding hurriedly cut through the continuously growing branches, then pulled out the backpack that was about to fuse with the stump. Inside, he found something that seemed to be a blend of amniotic fluid and human blood, as if it had been placed in the bag right after birth.

Xue Ding frowned deeply; Austin hadn't exaggerated, perhaps even understated the situation a bit.

Indeed, mysticism encompasses many rituals involving "sacrifice", most of which replicate certain famous historical events to conduct the rituals. For example, using someone's expansive imagination as a sacrificial offering, combined with the ritual setup, could ensure a bullet hits an ill-fated person in a convertible perfectly.

But this kind of direct use of infants as sacrificial material was completely intolerable to Xue Ding, and he had to strike a heavy blow.

"There seems to be a manuscript inside, but it's heavily damaged." Xue Ding flipped open another compartment of the backpack and saw a large number of mysticism manuscripts in his hands.

There was even a lot of intertwined knowledge and content related to biology.

"This is it." The old mystic scholar also arrived here, and the two started to study the enemy's manuscript together, which contained a lot of research on Qijela cells, research on the "desolate fungus", human experimentation data, and finally...

"Using the 'materialization' of 'fear' to mimic the historical 'evil spirits' that instilled fear, as a pretense for the 'Divine Favorer''s virtual soul, becoming a sharp blade in their hands?" Austin interpreted the final contents of the manuscript, his brows knit tightly.

The principle was largely understood; on Qijela's foundation of the "Divine Wood Rebirth" revitalizing the undead, an "Evil Spirit" could be inserted. Thus, the evil spirit could successfully manipulate Qijela's resurrected undead, unleashing unimaginable power.

In essence, it was like giving an unmanned drone and a robotic dog on the battlefield an artificial intelligence.

For the artificial intelligence's material, they chose the locally famous "Wendigo" as the soul in America.

"It bears some resemblance to my Fantasy Materialization..." blurted Xue Ding, understanding that the principle of this technique was somewhat similar to his own Fantasy Materialization.

For instance, when Xue Ding wanted to materialize a person, like materializing Da Gu for example.

The energy of Fantasy Materialization would instantly print out an identical Da Gu member. However, this Da Gu member was a soulless corpse - unable to transform, lacking the rigorously trained flight skills, and fundamentally no different from a corpse.

What he could do is insert a whole person's "spirit body", the sum of soul and all energy, into Da Gu's body. That way, the spirit body could control that body to fight but still couldn't transform.

The opposing principle seemed quite similar to Xue Ding's; they could create powerful monsters, but the monsters had no spirit bodies. So, their approach was to use ritual to materialize an "Evil Spirit" for their control, making it the driver of the twisted monster, allowing it to unleash its true power.

Even the materialized evil spirit, after enough time, could gradually assimilate with the original body and even possess the abilities imagined, becoming the "evil spirit" descending upon the earth.

This was the complete formation of the technique called "Evil Spirit Rebirth", a technique combining mysticism and Qijela's traits.

"Actually, it's somewhat similar to Haiti's undead witchcraft, just that they control 'evil spirits' instead," Austin casually remarked, quickly losing interest in this technique.

In this situation, it hardly counts as "Magic".

Just like Haiti's undead witchcraft, its essence lies in hypnosis and drug control to turn a person into an unthinking undead, then controlling the victim through specific sounds or colors.

"No, this technique might have unexpected uses." Xue Ding said while studying the technique in his hand, "Let's try to refine it a bit, as I've recently been studying techniques around the 'Summoning of Heroic Spirits' and the 'Rebirth of the Filth' and find these quite fascinating."

Xue Ding spoke no lies; upon seeing the technique, he was reminded of his half-completed studies on Heroic Spirit Summoning and Rebirth of the Filth.

The Evil Spirit Rebirth technique was very close to the outcome he aimed to achieve. Perhaps with further research and the assistance of Fantasy Materialization, Xue Ding could truly perfect the original technique.

He immediately shared the halfway-researched techniques of Heroic Spirit Summoning and Rebirth of the Filth, with the old mystic scholar Austin.

He had successfully used Heroic Spirit Summoning once, but it was through extremely complex and stringent conditions, and because it was magic applied onto Xue Ding himself, it was only achieved that once.

And Rebirth of the Filth was still in theoretical research, never experimented with.

"Wow, you mages surely want to research the most fantastic things..." Austin said, looking at the technique in his hands, staying busy nonetheless, as both started researching using the Wendigo's corpse nearby.

After all, with a ready successful case and the substantial assistance of Xue Ding's Fantasy Materialization for the research, it could significantly shorten the time needed for experiments and verify hypothesis feasibility promptly, just by checking if the materialized item was correct.

…

Meanwhile, at Boston University.

"Aunt, you mean to say Xue, he is actually the reincarnation of the hero 'Xediles'?" You Xiaoniao listened in disbelief after her aunt recounted the story.

It wasn't that she didn't want to believe it. If it were before, she might have thought it was just a tale, but when the door to the extraordinary world opened before her, and gave all demonstrations to convince her, she readily believed, also guessing her boyfriend was among the extraordinary.

Just like the desolate fungus, utterly defying basic biological laws, explained well if it were about extraordinary things.

Also like the easily infective and contaminating bacteriophage against the desolate fungus, handed to her by Xue Ding, also explained well.

"Little Xue certainly has a connection to Xediles, but I don't know if it's reincarnation." Circe, now or using the name Xue Sesi, said, covering the bacteriophage's petri dish with fake curse blood.

"But it doesn't matter to me anymore; I've waited over three thousand years, initially thinking I'd spend a lifetime searching like finding a needle in the ocean." She seemingly agitatedly scratched her hair, at that moment more like a grown-up parent than like that mythical witch,

"But then I found him, watching him grow from a tiny thing, through middle school, through high school, even up to university, and then growing taller than me, I completely lost my old mindset…" She seemed about to light a cigarette but refrained, pulling a lollipop from somewhere to put into her mouth.

"Family love, is the greatest form of affection. Once this familial love is buried deep inside, all other emotions eventually transform into familial love." She seemed to sigh, biting on the lollipop with the air of someone who "vaguely recalls tears that have yet to dry from years ago."

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