The second month of his new training started and now he would also focus on the illusion dao with master Jiu. The morning lesson began with an explanation of how mental illusions are best created. Master Jiu explained it with the following words: "Mental illusions are a type of soul attack that uses the soul's strength to construct illusions. Due to your focus on the soul with Ming the last month, you are now ready to learn two ways to construct mental illusions. The first method is the most stable one as it requires yourself to create and design an illusion realm. You use your illusion realm to trap your opponent's soul. The second method is using your opponent's heart to construct a unique illusion realm that applies to only them. The second type confuses the target the most and is most suitable to be combined with special techniques. Examples would be that the first method is suitable for illusion mazes or illusions to be used against groups of people. The second type is more suitable against individuals and to be combined with heart demons to confuse and attack someone. The first method is also more suited to be combined with attacking the soul directly or torturing the soul through physical pain. The second method is then more suited to use their fears, dreams, desires, and emotions against the target."
Master Jiu then explained the construction of physical illusions: "Physical illusions are distortions of a person's senses achieved through disrupting them using qi, sounds, or other methods. You will learn to create them using qi disruption and sound disruption, while also being able to combine the two. There exist three types of physical illusions. Those are trapping types, attacking types, and misleading ones. Those types can also be combined butt will require greater consumption. The misleading type uses illusions to disguise yourself, attacks, and other objects. The attacking type combines physical attacks and hides them inside of illusions. The trapping type disoriënts opponents to stay in a certain area."
Master Jiu then explained combination type illusions: "Combination type illusions are both the strongest and hardest type. They are mostly used to trap or attack and trap opponents. A combination type of illusion uses a physical illusion to trap the targets inside an area, while mental illusions are either used to incapacitate them or disguise physical attacks together with a physical illusion to create a chaotic situation that makes it easier to hit your opponent. You use the first method of mental illusions to disguise attacksn, while the second method is used to incapacitate opponents. The first method is also used if the primary objective is to trap so that a double layer can be created without the target knowing."
His master Jiu had finished his initial explanation and started the training. Jiang Mang would continue training the qi song for an hour every day under his master's instructions. He would then focus on constructing physical illusions using qi and sound separately for two hours before ending with mental illusions through the first method.
During the afternoon, he was trained by his master Zhu in the charm dao. She taught him three charm methods of her creation on which he would focus for the coming five months. The three methods use the soul-changing method as its base to successfully charm someone. They are called heart corruption, mind corruption, and lust slave. The first requires the user to corrupt a target's heart with their soul and use the corrupted heart to unknowingly fuse intents with their soul. The second requires the user to corrupt their soul directly and take control over them or change their soul to suit your needs. The third uses the desire for lust to replace the soul. This can be achieved by making the desire for lust gain sentience under your control and have it directly imprison the soul in the target's mind. It can also be achieved by having the desire of lust corrupt the soul itself and make it become the dominant side of the soul under your control. You can also start the second way after having achieved the first.
All three methods require the user to use their soul to infiltrate either the heart or soul directly. The three methods are divided into three realms based on the mastery of the soul-changing technique. These three realms are called beast corruption, parasitic corruption, and string corruption.
Jiang Mang had reached the realm of beast corruption and was working towards parasitic corruption. The first realm represented a forceful approach, the second realm a stealthy but detectable approach, and the third realm was incredibly heart to detect even by those many times stronger than the user.
A forceful approach only worked on weak-willed targets, and only starting the second realm was the charm cultivator a threat to others.
Jiang Mang had also been taught basic swordsmanship by his master Jiu, which he practiced at night together with the soul-changing method and formations. He only trained illusions and the qi song in the morning with his master Jiu as they were already advancing at a rapid rate.
The two girls cultivated the charm dao and formations combined with hand to hand techniques. They were progressing slow but steady and showed the potential to reach the King realm in a couple of years if their cultivation base is supplemented with pills as their absorption rate is too slow to rapidly advance.
They have also shown some promise on the formation path because of their hard work. They decided to walk the common path and specialize in formations that used the five elements, the illusion diagram, the charm diagram, the life diagram, and the puppet diagram. They had decided that they would only rely on these nine diagrams to engrave formations of all three main types. They would also study theoretical knowledge as they wanted to understand their formations and even be able to create formations using these diagrams.
Their approach was a combination of the common and extraordinary path. Elder Zhu was also surprised by their direction of advancement on the formation path but deduced that this method would be the most appropriate way for them.
This way allows them to advance without wasting their time and energy. They will also comprehend the essence of their specialized formations, which will allow them to cross the barriers of higher-level formations inside their specialization.