"That item should have been lost during the battle between the Celestial Clan and the Human Clan, and it is very likely related to the Celestial Clan's ancient artifacts."
"Such a thing is something that ordinary humans and demons cannot even touch, but you outsiders have special abilities and should be able to retrieve that item."
Ancient artifacts?
Su Nan heard about this for the first time, and without guessing, he knew that it must be a powerful object similar to the ancient treasures and divine weapons of the human race.
"Senior Zhou, to be honest with you, before entering this place, I had already tried to approach that coffin. However, I was attacked before I even got close to it. If it weren't for the special nature of my incarnation, I would have died long ago."
Even though Su Nan had a direction to try now, he still didn't directly accept the task.
Judging from his previous deaths, the control over destiny and aura by the female corpse was too strong. Before his Wheel of Destiny Scripture even reacted, he would already be dead.
The gap between the two sides was too significant and couldn't be easily bridged.
To advance the Wheel of Destiny Scripture to the third level, he needed five hundred points of demon power. For other players, this would be an astronomical number, but for Su Nan, it was not a big issue now.
He only lacked about twenty to thirty points of demon power to meet the requirements.
However, he couldn't guarantee that advancing the Wheel of Destiny Scripture would really resist the female corpse's power.
"That female corpse's power is indeed mysterious and hard to defend against. I can fully activate the Heaven-Imprisoning Prison to help you, but you will only have three breaths of time."
Zhou Lingyin wasn't entirely sure if Su Nan could open the coffin, so she approached the task with a trial-and-error attitude.
She had no other options, as besides Su Nan, she couldn't find anyone else in this place.
Moreover, during their previous encounter in the Tianlang Valley, Su Nan had completed an impossible task with only the level of an ordinary person. Now, his performance had far surpassed that initial level, giving her a glimmer of hope.
"Three breaths?" Su Nan pondered.
Three breaths of time, neither too short nor too long. If combined with the Heavenly Shift ability, it might be enough.
The question was, to what extent could Zhou Lingyin suppress the power of the female corpse?
"Senior Zhou, whether I can open that coffin or not, I can only give it a try. Whether I succeed or not will depend on fate."
After a moment of hesitation, Su Nan decided to accept the task.
It was not only to help Zhou Lingyin but also to help himself.
Outside the Great Tomb.
Su Nan's main body looked at his demon power.
He now had 476 points of demon power, only 24 points away from reaching 500.
However, he had already completed all the daily tasks he could do today, so it would be difficult to obtain more demon power unless he could kill one of the four Demon Kings.
But that was obviously not possible.
"Where can I get more demon power?"
His gaze scanned through various tasks, and eventually, it landed on a main quest.
Secrets of the Divine Dao!
The second stage of the Secrets of the Divine Dao task required him to complete the refinement of the divine Dao sacrificial instrument. He had already refined it twice, and he was not far from completing the refinement.
Based on his previous speculation, he only needed to kill the Sacrificial God Demon once or twice more to complete the refinement.
Once the refinement was completed, a Spirit-level four-star quest would be finished.
Thinking of this, he immediately took out the censer.
This time, he didn't ask the Grand Princess for help. Instead, he directly infused his spiritual and vital energy into the censer, entering the spiritual space within.
As soon as the Sacrificial God Demon saw Su Nan, it went into a frenzy.
Unfortunately, since the last time, the Sacrificial God Demon's strength had greatly diminished, now only at the peak of the Profound level. Such strength posed no threat to Su Nan.
Su Nan took action, and just over a minute later, he had already killed the Sacrificial God Demon.
The spiritual space was filled with the Sacrificial God Demon's soul, and Su Nan quickly absorbed its soul power while refining the censer.
A few minutes later, in the blink of an eye, Su Nan felt an intense connection between himself and the spiritual space that the censer had condensed.
"This feeling..."
Su Nan's heart moved, and the next moment, he saw that the originally modeled after the City God's Temple spiritual space suddenly turned gray.
With just a thought, the scenery in this space changed as he pleased!
At the same time, a completion notification for a task popped up:
"Congratulations, you have completed the second stage of the main quest 'Secrets of the Divine Dao.' Would you like to claim your reward now?"
"It really succeeded!"
Seeing the task notification, Su Nan's eyes lit up.
The censer had been successfully refined, which meant that he could now collect incense offerings with it.
Su Nan was now very curious about what the so-called incense offerings could do.
"Claim!"
"Congratulations, you have obtained a Spirit-level Demon Technique."
"Congratulations, you have obtained a Spirit-level Bloodline."
"Congratulations, you have gained 45 points of demon power."
"Congratulations, you have obtained the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit Condensation Technique."
"The third stage of the Secrets of the Divine Dao has been unlocked. Please check the quest panel for details."
"Divine Dao Wishing Spirit Condensation Technique!"
Without thinking, Su Nan immediately took out the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit Condensation Technique to see what his Divine Dao Wishing Spirit was all about.
Upon using the technique, a wealth of information appeared in his mind.
Su Nan carefully read through all the information, and his expression gradually turned serious.
The Divine Dao Wishing Spirit Condensation Technique contained a lot of information, including how to condense the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit, how to nurture it, and some information about incense offerings.
"Incense offerings are the condensed wishes and emotions of believers. For cultivators, they are like highly toxic poisons, and even practitioners of the Incense Fire Divine Dao cannot use them directly."
"The Divine Dao Wishing Spirit is the solution to this problem."
"In essence, the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit is a soul incarnation condensed by cultivators who practice the Incense Fire Divine Dao. This incarnation has significant limitations and can only be used in conjunction with the Divine Dao sacrificial instrument. It is a tool used to refine the power of incense offerings."
"Only incense offering power refined through the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit can be used by cultivators who practice the Incense Fire Divine Dao. However, during this refining process, the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit will gradually be contaminated by negative emotions from the incense offerings."
Su Nan finally understood why cultivators who practiced the Incense Fire Divine Dao could still have a Sacrificial God Demon after their mutation and death.
The Sacrificial God Demon was born from the incense offerings of cultivators who practiced the Incense Fire Divine Dao. Although it was controlled by the cultivator, it was also an independent existence and would not dissipate with the death of the cultivator.
"The Divine Dao Wishing Spirit is a manifestation of the cultivator's own spirituality, the most primitive form of the cultivator."
He found an introduction to the appearance of the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit, and Su Nan's brow furrowed.
"Even though I changed my appearance when I entered this game, the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit shouldn't look like my current form, and it definitely shouldn't be female!"
Without a doubt, there was something wrong with his Divine Dao Wishing Spirit.
Looking at the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit condensed within his soul, Su Nan's expression grew serious.
Thinking about the God of Happiness, he couldn't help but make a guess.
Could this Wishing Spirit belong to the God of Happiness?
With this thought, his heart sank even further. If that was indeed the case, then the God of Happiness had a hidden agenda in condensing the Wishing Spirit for him.
Inside the Heavenbound Prison.
Su Nan, controlling his avatar, looked at Zhou Lingyin and asked, "Senior Zhou, what would happen if a practitioner of the Incense Fire Divine Dao condenses a Wishing Spirit that is not their own?"
Su Nan tried to gather information from Zhou Lingyin.
However, she disappointed him.
Zhou Lingyin didn't expect Su Nan to suddenly ask this question. She raised an eyebrow in slight surprise and shook her head, saying, "I've heard of the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit, but I don't know much about the Incense Fire Divine Dao."
She seemed to have guessed something and asked, "Is your Divine Dao Wishing Spirit not yourself?"
Su Nan nodded and recounted the incident with the God of Happiness.
Upon hearing this, Zhou Lingyin furrowed her brows slightly, clearly hearing about this for the first time.
After a moment of contemplation, Zhou Lingyin said, "If it's as you suspect, then that God of Happiness might have ulterior motives!"
"The Celestial Clan and the God Clan appeared in this world during the mid-ancient era. The Heavenly Dynasty and the Divine Nation have been gone for tens of thousands of years."
"In this Divine Ruins place, there are certain rules that allow the powers of those ancient Celestial Clan and God Clan practitioners to manifest in the Divine Temples. However, it's more like a fixed, thoughtless program rather than active assistance."
"In such a situation, theoretically speaking, that God of Happiness shouldn't even be able to help you complete the ritual, let alone provide you with assistance or enhance your Divine Seal or condense a Wishing Spirit for you."
Zhou Lingyin revealed the secrets of the Divine Ruins.
After listening, Su Nan's heart sank even further. He quickly asked, "Is there a solution? What would happen if I were to destroy my current Divine Dao Wishing Spirit?"
Although the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit was only a tool for refining the power of incense offerings for practitioners of the Incense Fire Divine Dao and could eventually become contaminated by negative emotions, Su Nan couldn't tolerate such an unstable factor within himself.
If there was a chance, even if he lost the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit and couldn't refine incense offerings anymore, he would remove this unstable factor.
Zhou Lingyin shook her head. "I don't know much about the Divine Dao, so you'll have to try it yourself."
Su Nan's eyes narrowed, and he had made up his mind.
After this matter was resolved, he would find a way to destroy his current Divine Dao Wishing Spirit and attempt to condense a new one.
He then turned his attention back to the main quest.
[Main Quest: Secrets of the Divine Dao]
[Third Stage: Condensing the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit]
[Quest Difficulty: Four Stars]
[Quest Rewards: Spirit-level Bloodline, Spirit-level Demon Technique, 45 points of demon power, Incense Fire Praying Technique]
As expected, the third stage of the quest was another four-star mission.
Su Nan now understood that as long as it didn't involve demons, quests wouldn't reach a five-star difficulty.
"Incense Fire Praying Technique?"
"It seems to be a Divine Dao secret technique, a technique that uses the power of incense offerings."
Looking at the rewards for the mission, Su Nan guessed some information about this so-called Incense Fire Praying Technique from the literal meaning.
This stage of the quest required him to condense a Wishing Spirit. His current Divine Dao Wishing Spirit had already been preliminarily condensed, but it hadn't met the completion requirement of the quest. This meant that to complete this quest, the condensed Wishing Spirit must be strong enough.
"According to the instructions for condensing the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit, after the initial condensation, I need to find a place with abundant incense offerings and gather incense offerings. I can then use the power of incense offerings to help the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit grow."
"Similar to the Divine Seal, the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit is divided into nine levels. The higher the level, the more incense offerings it can refine and the faster it can do so."
"After the initial condensation, the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit no longer requires incense offerings but relies on spiritual power. However, to further develop the Divine Dao Wishing Spirit, it requires the refinement of a large amount of incense offerings."
Currently, eight of the nine provinces in the Eastern Chariot Realm had fallen, and the human race had retreated to the Central Heaven Province. Even though there were many places where incense offerings were abundant in the nine provinces before, now, with the retreat of the human race, they had disappeared.
He could only wait until he reached the Central Heaven Province to figure something out.
"To have abundant incense offerings, there needs to be a large number of people worshiping. The human population in this world is extremely scarce, hundreds or even thousands of times less compared to the real world's population. Even if there are incense offerings, they won't be too many."
"If I exchange the Divine Dao Ritual Implement to the real world, can I use it to collect incense offerings for cultivation?"
Suddenly, a bold idea flashed through Su Nan's mind.
In the real world, the human population was vast, and there were countless ancient temples and shrines, with believers scattered everywhere. Some famous ancient temples had a large number of worshippers visiting daily.
If he could collect incense offerings at those places, he couldn't imagine how fast his Incense Fire Divine Dao cultivation would progress.
Thinking about this, Su Nan's eyes shone with excitement.
If this plan was feasible, he might be able to soar to new heights with the Incense Fire Divine Dao.
After all, he was the only one practicing the Incense Fire Divine Dao.
"To have an entire world's worth of incense offering power all to myself?"
Just the thought of it made Su Nan's breath quicken.
Other players could only use the game's power in the real world once they had achieved a complete bloodline, but Su Nan, with the Wheel of Destiny Scripture, had no such limitation.
In the real world, he could use all his abilities except those that required the game panel. Similarly, the strength he cultivated in the real world could also be used in the game.
Without further hesitation, Su Nan stored the Divine Dao Ritual Implement censer in his personal space.
A number appeared below the censer in his personal space.
300.
"Three hundred demon power to exchange the censer to the real world. Three hundred demon power is not much for me; it seems like I can really give it a try."
The more Su Nan thought about it, the more he found this plan feasible
. If it weren't for the fact that he had more important things to do right now, he would have exchanged the censer to the real world immediately.
After a while, he suppressed his restless thoughts and turned his attention to demon power.
For now, the most important thing was to upgrade the Wheel of Destiny Scripture.
With 45 demon power added, his available demon power reached 521 points.
Upgrading the Wheel of Destiny Scripture was now possible.
Su Nan's eyes fell on the Wheel of Destiny Scripture, and a thought crossed his mind. Immediately, a game prompt appeared:
[Would you like to spend 500 demon power to upgrade the Wheel of Destiny Scripture to the third level?]
"Yes!"
Without hesitation, Su Nan agreed.
As 500 demon power was consumed on the panel, the Wheel of Destiny Scripture within him began to operate at an incredibly fast speed.
(End of this chapter)