To pick up the ring from the ground, Thiago transformed back into his human form, making for a hilarious scene as he stood naked in this dark and gloomy place.
"Man, my new clothes are already ruined, what a bummer," Thiago cursed as he lamented the fact that his new robe was already torn. However, since no one else was around at the moment, he did not bother with that and looked carefully at the ring in his hand that he had just picked up from the ground.
The ring was crafted from the finest silver, shining with a polished gleam that reflected the world around it. It was a simple band, adorned with an intricate etching that spiralled around the entirety of the ring. At its centre was a small, circular disk of dark blue, and the surface of the disk was etched with delicate, glowing patterns that seemed to shift and move with every glance.
As Thiago examined the ring more closely, he noticed that there was a series of characters etched or carved into the band. The characters read "Dàojiào shèng dāo", which meant "Taoist Sacred Blade". They were etched with a precision and skill that spoke of a master artisan, and they seemed to glow with a faint, otherworldly light.
Although Thiago should have no idea how to read these characters, he somehow understood them, as if he had learned the language and characters used on Red Star by instinct.
"A beautiful ring indeed," Thiago muttered before using his almost forgotten soul sense to enter the ring's inner space.
Arriving there, he was immediately shocked by the vastness of the ring's storage space, as it was a thousand times larger than the inner storage space of his spatial necklace, as well as the various things stored there in an orderly fashion. "Holy sh*t, this place is so big, at least as big as three football fields," Thiago marvelled as he looked around.
He saw rows and rows of shelves filled with various things such as books and other miscellaneous items.
He also noticed large piles of unknown materials, as well as mounds of what appeared to be some sort of round rocks in various colours.
Just as he was about to turn his gaze elsewhere, he noticed an object moving from the rows of shelves towards his Soul Sense, and on closer inspection it appeared to be a jade slip. Thiago didn't know why this happened, but he had a rough guess, so he decided to pick up the jade slip with his soul sense and transport it to the outside world for further inspection.
As soon as his soul sense touched the jade slip, his soul sense was flooded with all kinds of information, and they were transferred to his mind...
But it wasn't as if his head ached, because although the information was numerous, it wasn't extremely profound, like martial techniques or skills, so Thiago was still fine.
A few seconds later, after the information had stopped pouring into his head and it seemed as if that was all the content, Thiago hastily digested everything in his head. "It seems that this was a mechanism that the old man left in this ring for whoever gets his inheritance," Thiago thought as he quickly skimmed through the information and discovered its purpose.
The main content of this information was basically just a plan of where to find certain things in this large inner space of the spatial ring, so basically an inventory list.
Thiago was amazed at the variety of things listed there, but he was not in the mood to check out the whole inheritance at the moment, since he would do that later, as he was mainly interested in the information about this independent space he was currently in, since it was of vital importance that he found it before the seal around the dark apparition loosened again, otherwise it would be almost impossible for him to devour the dark apparition, since its strength was miles above his at the moment.
Thiago quickly figured out where the information was and moved his Soul Sense to a certain shelf filled with various jade tablets that looked the same as all the others, selected the twelfth from the right on the fifth shelf from the top, and then injected his Soul Sense into it while inwardly thanking the old man for having written everything down in such detail, otherwise he would never in his life have found this particular jade tablet among all the others on the hundred different shelves that all contained the same looking jade tablets.
Since his soul sense had been injected into the jade tablet, it did not take long for Thiago to digest all the information it contained, and then he wore a thoughtful expression on his face.
In order to have a better understanding of his expression, we must first have an idea of what was in that particular jade tablet.
The information skipped over the battle between the old man and the dark apparition, or how he had ended up here, and only explained in detail how this independent space was structured and how to control it, which was perfect for Thiago, who was short on time at the moment.
He had decided to look through the old man's personal information, if he had left any, to broaden his horizons when he had time later.
The independent space was based on several intricate and extremely hidden formations in the outside world, which maintained the stability of the space and the sealing of the dark apparition at all times, due to their ability to absorb the surrounding mana in the vicinity, which meant that they'd never run out of mana and could therefore stay like that forever if no accidents happened.
Well, that was only if the Dark Apparition did not regain its strength inside the space, otherwise it would be able to completely tear the independent space apart, and the formations outside would be useless to stop it.
Of course, the explanation was much more complex and complicated than that. But that was Thiago's quick summary, which summed it up pretty well. He also picked up the way on how to control the whole formation, and what surprised him was that it was relatively simple compared to how complex the whole formation was.
All he had to do was go to the centre of the whole space, where there was also a marked area that he had previously completely overlooked or ignored because of the battle, and let his mana flow in a certain pattern, which was a kind of key to the authority over the formation.
Now that he had absorbed the entire contents of the jade tablet, which of course described the pattern in detail, this particular pattern was also imprinted in his memory, and would therefore be quite easy for him to perform.
"Alright, that should do for now," Thiago murmured, withdrawing his soul-sense from the ring's interior to his soul-space.
"I wonder what's in all those other jade tablets," Thiago muttered as he ran towards the centre of the place to take control of the formation as soon as possible.
If the old man had been aware of what Thiago was about to do, he would have been extremely shocked, for it would have been beyond his comprehension. In the first place, the old man would never have dared to think that someone as weak as Thiago would have the means to actually kill the dark apparition, when even he, at the height of his powers, had no method of killing it and could only resort to sealing it at the cost of his own life, not to mention devouring it, which seemed absolutely unreasonable and unthinkable. Well, Thiago was simply an unreasonable and inexplicable existence in certain aspects, incomparable to normal cultivators. Enough of that boasting...
When Thiago reached the central part, he quickly noticed the marked area, which was also a circle, like the marked areas on the altars; perhaps the creator of this formation had a preference for circles, or it was simply the best structure for this kind of operation, who knows, well, Thiago certainly knew, since he now knew all about the formation after absorbing the contents of the jade tablet, but we certainly did not know.
Anyway, having dispelled these useless thoughts, Thiago crouched down on his knees and placed his hand in the centre of the circle, where he began to release his mana once again, as he had done at the altars before.
Well, with a slight difference, this time he injected his mana in a certain rhythm and frequency, as well as in different places within the circle, which was exactly the certain pattern mentioned before, which acted as the key to accessing the formation.
As he did so for at least fifteen seconds, he noticed various runes around the circle lighting up and he felt the ground vibrate slightly beneath his feet, reassuring him that it was working, not that he had any doubts, but it never hurt to get some extra reassurance.
Once all the runes were lit, Thiago began the next and final step, injecting his soul sense into the runes inside the circle, which would allow him to control the formation.
As his soul-sense sank into the runes, he felt strange for a moment before he could somehow see and perceive everything in that independent space as if it were an extension of his own body.
He was also able to assess every altar and independent function of the formation, allowing him to see exactly where the dark apparition was being held underground and to transport it back to the ground.
At the same time, he could roughly sense how long the seal would last, which was about half an hour without additional mana support.
That was why the old man had wanted him to leave the place as soon as possible, because once the dark apparition was free of the seal, it would vent its rage on everything in sight and kill, which in this case would be Thiago.
Not that Thiago would risk his life so easily if he wasn't sure that this would work. And now that he knew he had at least half an hour to go, he was pretty confident.
"Very good! This is much easier than I expected. Now let's move on to the main course," muttered Thiago, already imagining how he would devour the dark apparition that was making him tremble with excitement.
Coming to his senses, Thiago immediately controlled the formation to bring the dark apparition back to the ground, making it easier and more convenient for Thiago to devour it.
Meanwhile, deep inside the seal, the dark apparition suddenly opened his previously closed eyes and frowned as he felt himself being moved upwards, wondering 'What's going on, has that old geezer done something, but what is he trying to achieve?'
He was still sealed, but that didn't mean he wasn't aware of what was going on around him, which was why he had just noticed himself moving upwards.
Since the distance he'd been underground hadn't been that great, he quickly reappeared above ground, and what he saw before him surprised even him as an extremely old and weathered dark apparition, for it was Thiago he saw before him.
"Surprised to see me again, eh?" asked Thiago mockingly as he saw the Dark Apparition appear before him from the underground, but this time it was sealed behind various chains, making Thiago much bolder than before when he had to face the Dark Apparition head on and lost miserably.
"For what purpose have you brought me back to the surface, it can't be to unseal me, can it?" the dark apparition spoke instead of getting angry at Thiago's words, which seemed beneath its dignity, not that most dark apparitions had any of that.
"Heh, you'll see what I'm going to do soon enough," Thiago replied jeeringly as he approached the dark apparition, not fearing it in the slightest, since he had access and full control over the formation at this point, knowing full well that the dark apparition could not muster any of its power right now due to the seal.
Thiago's way of speaking gave the dark apparition a somewhat ominous feeling in its mind, which it immediately tried to dispel by thinking that if even the old Daoist Sacred Blade had never been able to really hurt it, then this lowly beast, currently in human form, would have no way of doing so.
Without hesitation, Thiago saw a small opening between two chains binding the dark apparition, he placed his tail there, which he usually hid in his human form but now had a use for, and then activated his Black Hole skill, making the dark apparition feel an unprecedented sense of crisis and death looming over it, something it had never felt even when he had faced the old Daoist, Sacred Blade, in battle and even been sealed afterwards...
...