Chapter 59: The Dangerous Castle

“These are all I could recover.”

Looking at these robed people, the Black Market shop Boss uneasily took out a box. Although the funds to recover these items were provided by them, it did not calm the unease in his heart.

After all, they had a legitimate identity… people from the Sanctuary Church!

Their presence here was like having police officers inside. Not just him, but anyone else who recognized their identity would feel unsettled. Who here had a clean background?

“Hmm, your part is done.” The leader looked at the Black Market shop Boss for a moment. The Boss’s clear eyes gradually grew vacant. By the time these people had completely left, he finally snapped back to his senses.

“…What was I doing this whole time?” He looked at his hands in confusion, feeling like he had lost a chunk of his memory, but couldn’t pinpoint what exactly. This strange feeling made him irritable, yet he had nowhere to vent.

“Come, come, look at what I brought back for you.” Placing three jars in the Castle, the items immediately caught the attention of several lively Ghostly Little Maids.

After getting a nod from Zheng Yichen, one of them opened a jar. Seeing the dark liquid inside, she couldn’t help but look at Zheng Yichen, her eyes full of confusion. What was this? Dirty water?

“How could it be dirty water? It’s a drink.” Zheng Yichen coughed lightly, carefully picked up a spoon, and personally tasted this Otherworld version of ‘cola’. However, the amount was far too little for him to really taste anything. He lost interest and tossed the spoon aside.

Ten pounds was nowhere near enough! A hundred pounds at the very least!

Unlike Zheng Yichen’s lack of interest, the Ghostly Little Maids’ eyes lit up slightly after tasting it. They eagerly opened the remaining two jars. Looking at the differently colored drinks inside, they leaned in and sniffed gently. Apart from the third jar’s liquid having a faint, strange milky scent, the first two had odd smells they had never encountered before!

It would be weird if you had encountered them!

Zheng Yichen watched the Ghost Maids’ reactions, resting his head on his crossed front paws. These Ghost Maids were all homebodies. Except for the added daily routine of hunting since he arrived, they spent all their other time in a stay-at-home state… That’s right, he only just figured it out now. Those Ghost Maids didn’t exist in some special place; they were all inside this Castle!

The reason he saw so few each day was simply because the Castle’s interior space had been expanded by Loris, making it far larger than it appeared from the outside. The Ghost Maids were usually scattered throughout the Castle’s interior, responsible for maintaining those areas.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t really explored this Castle yet…”

He called over a Ghost Maid and expressed his idea. She immediately shook her head.

Seeing her meaning, Zheng Yichen couldn’t help but wryly twist his mouth. A strange quirk of long-lived people? This Ghost Maid did not support Zheng Yichen exploring the Castle deeply, especially when Loris was not around. The Castle’s interior was vast, not in terms of the hall here, but elsewhere. There were many dangerous places where a slight lapse in attention could cost one’s life!

It wasn’t just Zheng Yichen; even an Adult Dragon straying into some areas would meet its end. As for why these Ghost Maids hadn’t told Zheng Yichen this before, it was purely because Loris kept things under control. As long as she was there, if Zheng Yichen ran around and got into trouble, she could immediately pull him out.

Now that Loris was gone, if Zheng Yichen ran around and got into trouble, these Ghost Maids couldn’t pull him out. Trying to help might even trap themselves. Therefore, the best course of action was to keep an eye on this clearly restless ‘Young Dragon’, preventing him from giving in to his impulses, running off, and trapping himself.

Unable to explore the Castle, and idle once more, Zheng Yichen simply turned his attention back to the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. Being idle was idle; he might as well continue updating the equipment in it during this time. As for Reaching the Tier, Zheng Yichen had no clear ideas for now. He would take it one step at a time.

He always had a feeling that once his Spiritual Power was sufficient, he could achieve the effect of Reaching the Tier. As for bottlenecks, from the beginning until now, he had never experienced the ‘bottlenecks’ described by Loris or Petty.

For example, during cultivation, there might be periods where one felt their Mana growth was particularly slow, or their Mental Energy increase nearly stalled, and so on. There were many reasons, the most common being that one’s power had accumulated to a limit. The accumulated power was changing one’s body, and one had to wait for the body to adapt before further improvement was possible.

This waiting method was the least efficient. At this point, it depended on the individual’s mastery and understanding of their own power. The higher the degree of mastery and understanding, the more one could independently speed up the adjustment process and shorten this bottleneck period.

After breaking through the plateau, it naturally meant a transformation of one’s power.

Yet he had encountered no bottlenecks at all. Even when he previously tried to fine-tune or modify a Magic Rune Array, it was only because his Mental Energy was insufficient to suppress the rejection generated by the Magic Rune Array during the adjustment process, not because adjustments were impossible…

While Zheng Yichen settled down to add new Magic Arms to the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, the Magic Weapon Summoners who had signed Contracts with the book gradually became aware of a serious problem. As they profited by using the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, the strength of the summoned Magic Arms was also decreasing!

Those who abused it found that not only were the Low-level Magic Weapons they summoned greatly affected, but even the Basic Magic Weapons that had reached the level for Advanced Summoning had dropped back to the level of regular summoning!

Regular summoning and Advanced Summoning differed by one tier. The power the weapon could unleash was completely different. If the former’s power limit was five, the latter’s limit was ten or more, completely incomparable.

After this negative information became public, the fervor around the sale of Magic Weapon Summoning Book Contracts instantly cooled down. They all noticed that Magic Weapon Summoners who sold fewer Contracts were less affected. Therefore, this situation was definitely related to profiteering!

This forced those Magic Weapon Summoners to rein themselves in. None dared to be sure: if they continued selling Magic Weapon Summoning Book Contracts at full capacity, might they one day completely lose their Magic Weapon Contract? Since this was happening now, if they truly lost the Magic Weapon Contract, whether they could sign a new one was also a question!

The current and future conveniences brought by the Magic Weapon Summoning Book made them return to a cautious attitude regarding Contracts.