Esteemed Green Bull’s eyes narrowed and he silently pondered. The multi-layered illusion on the ninth floor was the Great Soul Sect’s most powerful spell. Originally, it would be fine to pass it on to Wang Lin, but the first generation ancestor had divinated that it would take Wang Lin 300 years to enter the ninth floor.

While pondering, Esteemed Green Bull suddenly said, “The Soul Scripture Pavilion has a 10th floor!”

Wang Lin remained calm, but his pupils shrank slightly.

“Not even I can enter the 10th floor. Only the first generation ancestor could enter. That is where he passed away while sitting!” After Esteemed Green Bull said this, he became silent once more.

Wang Lin also silently pondered. He couldn’t guess why Esteemed Green Bull was telling him this.

After a long time, about one incense of time later, Esteemed Green Bull looking into the sky in the distance and spoke once more.

“Your merit isn’t enough to obtain the complete multi-layered illusion spell on the ninth floor…”

Wang Lin raised his right hand and a jade appeared in his grasp. He handed it to Esteemed Green Bull.

“Adding this, is it enough?”

Esteemed Green Bull frowned and looked at Wang Lin. He took the jade and his divine sense entered it. His expression immediately changed. He looked up at Wang Lin before focusing on the jade once more.

After seeing everything Wang Lin had done to cut the Celestial Pill, Esteemed Green Bull took a deep breath. He looked at Wang Lin with a mysterious light in his eyes.

With his cultivation level, he could naturally judge that everything that he had seen in the jade was true. With what he managed to divinate and the secret reports he had received, he managed to clearly reconstruct what happened in the Pill Sea in his mind.

Although Wang Lin was 80% to 90% healed, there was still that trace of injury that couldn’t heal quickly. This all added up to make what was recorded in the jade authentic.

“Good, good, good!” Esteemed Green Bull held the jade and began to laugh. He waved his left hand and a powerful surge of energy surged into Wang Lin’s body. Popping sounds echoed and all of Wang Lin’s remaining injuries recovered!

“This time, you have achieved a great merit! In my Great Soul Sect, as long as one achieves merit, they will be rewarded. I can give you the complete multi-layered illusion spell from the ninth floor! But you have to promise me something!” Esteemed Green Bull looked at Wang Lin. The more he looked, the more he admired Wang Lin. The first generation ancestor was really amazing to choose someone with such courage and guts!

Wang Lin didn’t feel any self satisfaction from Esteemed Green Bull’s words. He calmly looked at him and asked, “What condition?” 

“Kill 10 Green Devil Continent early stage Void Tribulant cultivators and three Green Devil Continent mid stage Void Tribulant cultivators. Enter the ninth and 10th floors of the Soul Scripture Pavilion!

“Once you have done these three things, you can leave the Great Soul Sect!”

With this, Wang Lin’s heart trembled and he pondered. He indeed had thoughts of leaving on his way back. He was prepared to help the Great Soul Sect as much as he could before leaving to avoid the war.

After all, his goals were the Dong Lin Sect and the distant Ancient Dao clan, so he couldn’t stay in the Heavenly Bull Continent for long. In addition, he had some speculations about this war, so he wasn’t willing to get too involved.

Esteemed Green Bull obviously thought about this but didn’t force Wang Lin to stay. Instead, he set three conditions, and this reminded Wang Lin about the three gifts.

After pondering for a long time, Wang Lin looked at Esteemed Green Bull and seriously nodded.

No matter what the Great Soul Sect’s goal was, they had indeed helped him, and Wang Lin would repay those who helped him. Now that he had agreed to these three conditions, and although they were difficult, Wang Lin determined that it was possible.

Seeing Wang Lin nod, Esteemed Green Bull smiled and no longer spoke. He waved his sleeve and an ancient jade flew toward Wang Lin.

Wang Lin caught the jade. It contained the extremely powerful spell of the Great Soul Sect. The complete multi-layered illusion spell from the ninth floor.

“To cultivate this spell, you need to refine the Ghostly Sail. Now that the war has begun, I’ll gift you all the materials. However, the Ghostly Sail requires a soul, and if you don’t have a suitable one, you can go find one at the ghost peak.” As Esteemed Green Bull spoke, his hand reached out at the void and a ball of light appeared. The ball of light contained a lot of refining materials, and he handed it to Wang Lin.

Wang Lin waved his sleeve and put the ball of light into his sleeve. He got up, clasped his hands at Esteemed Green Bull, and left.

“You don’t have much time. Seven days from now, I’ll send you with a few other elders to guard one of the seven meridians of the Heavenly Bull!” Esteemed Green Bull’s words echoed, but Wang Lin didn’t turn around as he left the Green Heavenly Peak.

Wang Lin flew back to his own mountain. The fire inside seemed to have extinguished after he left, but it was still red. However, when Wang Lin landed on the mountain, it began to burn once more, and a faint rumble could he heard.

Fan Shanmeng, who had her eyes closed, immediately opened her eyes and panicked a bit. She bit her lower lip and, seeing Wang Lin not calling her after a while, she felt uneasy.

At this moment, Wang Lin had no time to bother with Fan Shanmeng. He arrived in his cave and sat down. A ball of light flew out from his sleeve, and after breaking open the ball of light, materials for refining the Ghostly Sail appeared in the cave.

These materials were all different, but they were all extremely precious. After all, Esteemed Green Bull had gifted them to him, so they were all of excellent quality.

After looking at these materials, he took out the ancient jade containing the multi-layered illusion spell. His divine sense entered and he memorized all of its contents, including the method to refine the Ghostly Sail.

According to the jade, the name of the Ghostly Sail was the Ghost Sail. It was divided into beginning, middle, upper, extreme, and absolute-grade. Each grade correspond to two layers of illusions.

In the Great Soul Sect, most disciples only had beginning-grade, and only elders could achieve middle-grade. Some core disciples that were favored by their  teacher might be given a middle-grade Ghostly Sail to protect themselves.

The Ghostly Sail Fan Shanmeng had was middle-grade, and it was something Yan Lu had gifted her.

Normally, a middle-grade Ghostly Sail was already extremely powerful. If used properly, it could ignore cultivation! This was already proven in Fan Shanmeng’s hands!

If one could obtain an upper or extreme-grade Ghost Sail to use along with the multi-layered illusion then it would become terrifying! As for absolute grade it was too difficult to refine. In the entire Great Soul Sect there was only one!

This Ghost Sail was the sect protection formation around the Great Soul Sect! From Wang Lin’s view, this formation wasn’t even fully activated, and only a small part of its power was being used.

He was able to clearly deduce this in his mind based on the information recorded in the jade and from his own speculations.

“The Ghostly Sail requires a soul to complete the refining process, but this soul… doesn’t need to be that of a cultivator, nor is one with a higher cultivation better… It needs a dead soul…” 

Wang Lin frowned, this was the first time he had heard of the term “dead soul.”

The jade defined a dead soul as when a person or a beast died, but the right amount of obsession, unwillingness, or resentment remained to form an otherworldly existence that others couldn’t see or feel.

A bit more and it would become a useless resentful soul, but not enough meant that nothing can form. Therefore, one of these was very difficult to obtain. The Great Soul Sect had countless people studying dead souls, and they slowly found a method to refine them from a people or beasts right before their deaths.

However, the dead souls refined from this method lacked the test of time, and no matter what cultivation level the person or beast was, the dead soul could only be used to refine beginning-grade Ghost Sails, or at most middle-grade.

These dead souls could only withstand three or four layers of illusions. Any more and they would be unable to withstand it and collapse.

“This dead soul can be considered a will… Only a dead soul with a powerful will, one that has been refined by time to become even stronger can withstand more than four layers of illusions...

“The principle of the multi-layered illusion is obviously this will. This will is the nourishment to produce illusions to make people lose themselves. The stronger the will, the stronger the illusion!”

 Wang Lin pondered as he slowly understood the structure of the multi-layered illusion.

His eyes were filled with admiration. The tricks and intricacies of the spell were very difficult to figure out without seeing the complete spell.

“The person who created this spell must be an amazing genius!” 

Wang Lin looked at the jade in his hand and let out a sigh.

In truth, this technique was very easy to understand. Wang Lin remembered that when he was a child, before he became a cultivator, he would hear from adults in the village about which family’s house was haunted.

Often times, the family would go to the nearby city to invite someone to dispel the ghost to calm themselves.

He remembered that something like this had happened in his family too. He had originally forgotten, but learning the principle of the multi-layered illusion spell had brought that memory back.

“The so-called being haunted is mostly an illusion that allows someone to see some strange images and be immersed in it. As a result, the whole haunted situation occurs.

“This is to make one feel uneasy or irritated psychologically.”

 Wang Lin’s eyes lit up and he looked at the jade in his hand.

Only when he became a cultivator and looked back did he realize that the so-called haunting was just a natural sense of resentment that caught some people’s hearts. This made them feel uneasy and disturbed, so they thought it was ghosts.

This was the core of the multi-layered illusion! And the origin of illusions!

“The multi-layered illusion is so simple once seen through… What kind of illusion is this? This is clearly to turn a ghost into a person! It sounds easy, but to think of this method and turn it into a spell, even a dao spell, deserves my respect!” 

Wang Lin’s eyes revealed enlightenment.