"Then how should we deal with the evil spirit in the wooden fish?" Ai Jiangtu frowned and asked.

“The demon spirit is attached to an artifact. To deal with it, we must first destroy the artifact. Otherwise, even the most powerful magician will find it difficult to deal with this invisible demon spirit…” Nan Jue pondered for a moment and answered slowly.

"Nan Rongni said that in order to wake Zhao Manyan up, we must get rid of the Nara Yuankong demon spirit you mentioned. If the Nara Yuankong demon spirit disappears, Zhao Manyan may never wake up."

“What the hell is going on? First you said that we have to destroy the artifact to get rid of the demon, and then you said that once the demon disappears, Zhao Manyan won’t wake up. This makes me a little confused.” Mo Fan scratched his head, looking confused.

“Please listen to me first. There is actually another method. Although it is a bit risky, it is the most effective way to deal with this kind of vessel spirits.” Nan Jue continued in a calm tone.

The four of them concentrated intently, waiting for her answer.

“Perhaps you haven’t thought about it much, but as far as I know, some powerful soul-level artifacts actually have an independent world inside them. You can imagine that the artifact has its own space…” Nan Jue paused here, fearing that they would not understand.

“To deal with this vessel spirit, the key is to enter that independent space. Inside the vessel, the spirit will become a visible and attackable entity.” Nan Jue continued to explain in a firm tone.

“How could a few of us, living people, actually enter an artifact?” Jiang Shaoxu’s eyes were filled with surprise and disbelief. She looked at Nan Jue with confusion.

The size of this wooden fish is even smaller than her head. How could all five of them fit inside it?
“That’s true, but it’s not our bodies, it’s our consciousness… To put it simply, your soul enters that space, just like your consciousness wandering in the spiritual world during meditation, experiencing a spiritual journey.” Nan Jue explained patiently, trying to make this concept easier to understand.

“Wait a minute… what do you mean by soul? Are you trying to say that you won’t go in with us?” Mo Fan’s eyes were filled with confusion and surprise.

“The restriction on the wooden fish still exists. If you don’t remove it, you won’t be able to enter the vessel. This restriction is very complicated and difficult to remove directly, but I can guide your consciousness into it…” Nan Jue explained patiently.

“Okay, then it looks like only the four of us can go in.” Mo Fan sighed and turned his gaze to the other three.

“I… I’d rather not go in.” Jiang Shaoxu hurriedly shook her head. She didn’t dare to try something this unknown easily, especially as Nan Jue said, it was similar to the soul leaving the shell and entering the vessel. If the soul couldn’t come back, wouldn’t she become a vegetable like Zhao Manyan?

"The three of us will go in, and you two will stay outside to escort us." Xu Mu suggested.

"Then I will be responsible for protecting you outside. To be honest, this is the first time I've heard of a soul entering a vessel." Jiang Shaoxu said.

Nanjue had slowly placed her hand on the wooden fish vessel. She could see that the yellow lightning threads were jumping again. Nanjue frowned slightly, as if she was enduring some kind of pain.

“After you go in, you must deal with the demon as quickly as possible. The time I can hold out is limited.” Nan Jue warned.

"What should we do now? Should we explore directly with our consciousness?" Xu Mu asked.

"No, if you use your consciousness to explore directly, it will immediately trigger the backlash of the restriction. The backlash of spiritual power will hurt your soul. I will let Jiang Shaoxu hypnotize you first, and then guide your soul into the vessel... Inside the vessel, your experience will be similar to a dream."

“But you need to pay special attention to this: if you get hurt in there, your soul will also get hurt; if you die in there, your soul will die as well.” Nan Jue explained to them in detail.

"I see." Xu Mu nodded to show his understanding.

“You don’t have to worry too much. As high-level mages, your soul strength has also reached a high level. The world in the vessel is maintained by energy. It is quite difficult to create an illusion powerful enough to kill you, even if this is a totem vessel.” Nan Jue further explained.

Following Nan Jue's instructions, Jiang Shaoxu hypnotized Xu Mu, Mo Fan, and Ai Jiangtu. Nan Jue used some unknown method to guide the three people's soul consciousness into the vessel.

In fact, the wooden fish itself contains curse magic. The power of this curse is to suck the soul of a person directly into the vessel, like an inescapable cage, imprisoning the soul of a person inside. This is what the islanders living here call the "soul-catching" phenomenon.

"Soul-catching"... In curse magic, whether it is the Evil Spider Trap or the Ghost Punishment, they are all attacks directly targeting the soul of life. The Ghost Punishment can even directly grab the soul and torture it cruelly!

The wooden fish vessel possesses a curse magic circle, which was also expected by everyone.

Their eyelids gradually became heavy, and when the three of them closed their eyes and opened them again, they were surprised to find that Nan Jue and Jiang Shaoxu had disappeared.

It was still the dilapidated ancient temple, but what had disappeared were not only the two women, but also the mysterious totem vessel.

“Where are the two of them? How come they suddenly disappeared? Even the wooden fish is gone.” Mo Fan shouted in surprise.

"No matter what, let's go look for them first." Ai Jiangtu suggested.

"No need to look for them, they are not here. This is the world in the vessel." When Xu Mu woke up, he noticed that the thunder elements around him were a little strange, and he immediately realized that this was a special environment.

"Vessel world? This place looks almost the same as the real world." Ai Jiangtu looked around and after careful observation, he found that there were indeed subtle differences between this place and the real world.

Although there are weeds here, they are obviously not as dense as in the real world; there is not so much dust in the dilapidated temple, and the temple itself is not as dilapidated as in reality.

“It’s still different. It seems that my sense of smell and taste have disappeared here.” Mo Fan said while holding a piece of grass in his mouth.

"We still feel the pain," Xu Mu reminded.

“This environment is too realistic, so realistic that we are already trapped in an illusion without even realizing it.” Mo Fan exclaimed.

"If curse magic is combined with mind magic, it can create an extremely realistic nightmare, causing the person cursed by the mind to be tortured directly in the dream until death." Ai Jiangtu explained.

Ai Jiangtu specialized in curses, so facing the current illusion, he remained relatively calm.

“Since we are now in an illusion and a dream, can we act without any scruples?” Mo Fan raised a question.

Ai Jiangtu immediately rejected this idea. He shook his head and said, "It's better not to think like that. This illusion is extremely realistic. I guess if we kill someone here, the people from the Magic Association will still show up and execute us. In that case, our souls will be dead here and will never be able to wake up again." "Forget it, I can't make sense of this complicated world for a while. Let's find that abominable demon as soon as possible." Mo Fan said.

"Let's go to the temple and take a look. Since this is an illusion created by Nara Hara Sora, we will definitely find relevant clues in the temple." Xu Mu suggested.

"There are really no other clues at the moment, so let's go to the temple as you said." Ai Jiangtu nodded in agreement.

The three of them walked back along the same path they came from and soon discovered a place that was different from the real world.

I remember that when they came, the path was almost covered by weeds and vines, and the surrounding stone lanterns were hidden in the dense grass.

In this illusion, the entire road became unusually empty and clean. There was not even a speck of dust on the marble steps. It was so clean that one could even see the reflections of the three people...

They walked along the fresh and clean path and returned to the temple, but unexpectedly found that the temple was much more lively than they had imagined...

In the temple's back kitchen, seven or eight monks were busy moving vegetables. The fresh ingredients were piled up like a small mountain. There was also a fat monk directing them, which was particularly eye-catching.

"Hey, you three... Oh, three donors, how can you go to the back mountain without permission? It is not open to pilgrims." The fat monk in charge of cooking saw Xu Mu and the other two and said with some dissatisfaction in his tone.

The three of them looked at each other, not knowing how to answer for a moment. In fact, they couldn't understand what the monk was saying at all because he was speaking the language of the island country.

In the entire academy training team, only Jiang Shaoxu could speak the island language. However, looking at the monk's appearance and tone, Xu Mu and others could guess that the other party was asking them to leave.

Without staying too long, under the dissatisfied gaze and tone of the fat monk, the three of them left the kitchen and headed towards the temple hall.

However, they were surprised to find that there was a continuous stream of pilgrims visiting the temple. At a glance, they could even see a steady stream of people arriving at the stone gate.

The popularity here is far greater than the deserted temples in the real world. There is a world of difference.

The three of them walked around the entire mountain temple, but there were so many people here, whether they were visitors from Benxi Bear City or other places, it was almost an impossible task to find the real demon spirit among so many people.

Since there was no gain in the mountain temple, they decided to look for clues in the city. The whole city was prosperous and bustling with people, but for some reason, people always felt that something was missing.

"Everything here is in a cycle. Although it is a self-contained space, everyone here will repeat their previous actions every once in a while, just like the characters in the game following preset programs." Xu Mu suddenly said.

"I'm afraid all of this is constructed based on the memories of the wooden fish spirit, so most of the scenes are looping in the time fragments in their memories. Did you notice that the area is in chaos? This shows that they have never set foot there and have no memory of it."

Ai Jiangtu himself is a space mage, so he quickly discovered that there were many loopholes in this fictional space!
"If this is a world constructed based on their memories, then Nara Hara Sora should be playing his original role here..." Xu Mu said.

"Let's go back to the temple!" Xu Mu made the decision immediately.

Just as the three were preparing to return to the temple, suddenly, the entire space seemed to spin, followed by an endless feeling of fatigue.

“What’s going on? Is this space going to collapse?” Mo Fan shouted anxiously.

"I'm not sure, but it seems that something happened in the outside world that affected the space inside this vessel." Xu Mu guessed.

“It should be Nanjue who is trying to pull us out of this space.” Ai Jiangtu said.

……

When the three opened their eyes again, they were surprised to find that many members of the national government training were gathered in the temple on the back mountain, including Jiang Yu and others who were previously sent by Ai Jiangtu to collect intelligence.

“What on earth happened? Why did they suddenly pull us out of that space…” Ai Jiangtu turned his gaze to Nan Jue and asked.

Before Ai Jiangtu finished speaking, his gaze fell on the back of Nan Jue. A tall mountain came into view, about one or two streets away.

On top of the mountains, a blood-red light was flooding. The light was extremely gorgeous, yet so eerie and creepy, as if the sun was shining on a lake of blood, and the reflected blood-red light was chilling!

"Okay, I think I know why you are in a hurry to pull us out of that space." Ai Jiangtu said solemnly.

……

……

There is almost no grass growing on Manying Mountain. At the foot of the mountain is an old neighborhood that is about to be demolished. The construction team's work makes the place dusty. On the mountain are piles of dilapidated stones, and even weeds are rarely seen.

When everyone arrived at Manying Mountain, they were surprised to find that dozens of blood-colored stones on the top of the mountain were floating in the air. They formed a strange and evil curse pattern, covering the top of the mountain.

On the ground, some grooves were flowing with bright red blood for some reason, and a fishy smell quickly spread.

The blood flowed along the grooves, echoing with the blood-colored stones floating in the air, together drawing a cursed blood picture. Looking down from a high place, this picture actually formed a three-dimensional skull!
When the blood map on the ground was completed under the guidance of the bloodstones, the bloodstones began to gather and eventually piled up in the center of the entire mountain, forming a standing stone tablet!

There were words engraved on one side of the stone tablet. The originally chaotic strokes had turned into a neat eulogy. The dried blood was dazzling red, as if someone had just written on it with blood.

On one of the stone tablets, there is a picture of a tortured monk, his right ear torn off alive, and his right eye cruelly pierced. (End of this chapter)