Rise of The Demon General

Amon whirled in alarm and jumped away from the source of the voice at the same time, Swan dagger in his right hand and a throwing knife in his left. How can someone sneak behind him like this? He had the thought as he jumped.

The person in his sight was a scholarly dressed young man. No, not a man. After a better look, this man looked intangible.

'A spirit?' Amon thought.

"I am indeed a spirit. I am a spirit created to oversee this place until a suitable candidate comes," the spirit said.

"You can read my mind?" Amon asked.

"This place is enchanted. Those that enter this place will have their minds open to the overseer. In this case, me."

"What is this place?"

"It's a legacy place left behind by my creator. He placed the treasure here to help future young cultivators, such as you."

"I see… Considering this place is still intact, I figure I am the first one to arrive here?"

"You are correct."

"What do you store here?"

"Knowledge."

Amon frowned at the spirit's answer. 'A bit vague, aren't you?'

The spirit smiled. "How about you go inside and see?"

"Are there any more tests inside I should be aware of?"

"No. No more tests. Only rewards now."

"After you," Amon said.

Although the spirit looked harmless, it was still better to stay cautious.

The spirit understood Amon's thought. He shook his head and then floated and disappeared into the door that was the structure's entrance.

Amon came to the closed door and opened it. When he walked in, he saw rows and rows of bookshelves. What he saw from up there as a series of wooden walls were in fact bookshelves. Amon looked at the one nearest to him.

Encyclopedia of inferior spirit beasts.

Geography of Tyraa Province.

Catalog of inferior spirit herbs.

There were all kinds of books. It would take him months to read through them. So this was what the spirit meant by knowledge?

After sifting the bookshelves for a while, Amon asked, "no cultivation books?"

"Of course there are! Come with me," the spirit said. He led Amon to another section.

In this section, Amon found lots of books related to cultivation. Martial arts, Arcane Arts, and even Cultivation Arts. The number is staggering. It would take him a long time to sift through them and determine which ones to learn. There was no way he could learn them all.

The spirit explained, "Here you will find all the arts my creator had collected which is useful up until the Lord stage of the Martial Realm."

"Lord stage?" Lord stage was currently the best cultivator stage he had heard to be talked about in this world. Even the Lin clan master and the sect master of the White Cloud Sect were only at the Spirit stage of Martial Realm. The ones he heard that had reached the Lord stage were the direct families of the king in the kingdom they resided in. However, he knew there was a higher realm above it, the Demigod realm.

"Are you disappointed? Unfortunately, the arts for the Demigod realm are too valuable even to my creator. He could only impart those arts to his direct descendants."

"So, I am allowed to take all this?" Amon asked.

"Be my guest," the spirit said.

'Good,' Amon thought. If he was prohibited, he would look for a way to rob this place.

"You are a violent person. I honestly don't think leaving all this knowledge to you is a good idea," the spirit said after hearing Amon's thought. "But since I am just a spirit overseer, there's nothing I can do even if I want to stop you."

"Good," Amon said it out loud this time.

He didn't just go and plunder this place at once. He walked around to take a look at other things. He came out to the back garden that he had seen from above. The garden was neat. It was as if someone had tended them. There were rows of spirit herbs that Amon had no idea of. But from the aura they exuded, they were high-quality spirit herbs. A small stream of clear water ran beside this garden.

One tree was in the garden. Amon could see lots of spirit fruits hanging from its branches. The aura he felt from these fruits was even denser than the ones he had taken and eaten from the land above. This place was indeed a treasure trove.

"How do they survive here?" Amon asked the spirit.

"They have water, they have sunlight, they have good soil, why won't they survive?" The spirit asked.

"Sunlight?" Amon looked above to the artificial light source hanging on the ceiling.

"That was a miniature sun created by my creator. Not as hot as the real sun, of course, but its light is enough to help these plants and trees grow."

"They couldn't have lived all this time since your creator planted them, could they?"

"Of course not. But my creator had placed an enchantment that allow them to reborn. After they wilted out of old age, they will be reborn as new buds and then repeat their cycle. As long as there is enough sunlight and water to sustain them, they will repeat their lives again and again."

"I will take them also. Do you have a problem with that?" Amon asked.

The spirit shrugged.

After that, Amon returned inside and started studying through the bookshelves. After looking at them for a while, Amon found that whoever put these books here had arranged them neatly. Everything was put in the same category. There was no need for him to arrange them anymore. All he needed to do was label the bookshelves so that he could easily find a topic if he needed to.

He started to store them in his black space ring one bookshelf at a time. During the process, he also took a look at some of the books. He didn't have the time to read them all, but he read some that he thought might be useful for the immediate future.

He read some books about the spirit beasts. In the books, he found out about the spider creature that had trapped him when he first arrived in this dimension. It was called Mind Demon. As had been expected by Amon, this Mind Demon was usually a lower superior spirit beast. Their battle capability was nothing compared to a normal superior beast, but their forte was the ability to create hallucinations and unrattled their target's minds.

Their modus operandi was by weakening their targets' minds until they lost consciousness before locking their minds inside the hallucinations they created. Once their targets were happy inside the hallucinations, the Mind Demon would suck their life forces. They prefer strong cultivators as these targets provided more life forces for them.

The book also provided the Mind Demon's weaknesses. They were susceptible to loud high-pitched noise. If one had sound-based art, it could disrupt them and create an opening.

'This is good,' Amon thought. If he could learn the weaknesses of the spirit beasts, he could better deal with them in the future. On that thought, he went to the cultivation books section. After looking for a while, he found several books containing martial arts that did sound attacks. He would need to choose one of these to learn later.

Amon continued to store the books and did selected readings from time to time. He spent days inside this place. Before he knew it, almost a week passed. He stored all the books in his space ring, he would just sort through them later after leaving this dimension.

He, however, found one art book that he was very eager to learn. It was called Concealed Ghost Body. It was not an assault art. It was instead a transformation art that conceal one's presence. With this art, he could prevent those that had reached the Martial realm from detecting him or his cultivation. As long as the cultivators were not two stages above him, he should be able to mask his presence. From the art's description, if he reached master level, he could even turn invisible.

This art would be the first one he focused on once he was out of this dimension.

After finishing storing all the books, he now turned to the garden. Too bad that he couldn't store living things inside the space ring, it was a waste to pluck these spirit herbs but if that was the best, then so be it.

But before that, he remembered he had a dead carcass of the invisible python in his space ring. He had also learned about this python from the books about spirit beasts here. This Python was called Ethereal Bronze-skinned Snake. It was classified as a higher inferior beast. It said that this snake usually stayed in a group, but sometimes one could wander slightly away from the lair.

The one that had attacked him must be one that wandered. It was a good thing that he didn't decide to explore the woods deeper. If he stumbled into these snakes' lair. He wouldn't be able to survive fighting a group of these invisible snakes.