Mark groaned as he felt the sting all over his body.

He and the colonel had started training slowly. He held back a lot of strength while the colonel was getting used to the changes but he was surprised as he matched the hits.

“Holding back to my strength, I can clearly see why they asked to help train you.” the Colonel said as he helped lift Mark up.

That said, he also had a very clear fear of Mark ‘because’ he held back. Half way through he had asked Mark to just hit with what he could and it sent the elder flying over 50 meters away and sprawling on the ground gasping in pain.

It was a clear demonstration of Mark’s brute strength that can clearly do just as Billy had said, destroy them.

This was even without his actual spiritual power which would further enhance the strength, especially if his weapon was properly coated.

What really hurt Mark though, was how easily these old men could catch and fling him around and in return, after both of them had finally assessed each other’s capacity, they finally started to work through training.

Of course, close combat was both about teaching theory and then putting it in practice and Mark was already 4 hours in and felt his body in extreme pain as the Colonel beat his attempts back one by one. He naturally kept it to the elder’s strength level so that they could properly practice but it was clear that he had a long way to go.

After 5 hours, he finally decided to rest and everyone went to one of the new dormitories which contained altars for everyone and started to train the pain away.

As expected though, even if they only had some level of growth, it still had a big impact on all of them and it still drew from the book that was in the secondary altars.

For Mark, he felt the hit on his skin first as they actually rippled for a short while after he started and further improved the damaged areas where he was hit from the older ghost. When it healed, the training passed through the skin and began to savagely hit his bones which caused his teeth and bones to ripple even heavier than before, likely because of the skin being further tampered.

It felt like the bones would break and instantly get reconstructed at those weak spots. The ripples tore through his body, smashing it and grinding it down while the reconstruction followed behind it to rebuild.

It was an endless cycle of pain and suffering for the next few hours until he stopped.

When he stopped, he went to check on the soldiers and found them on their altars with a bright golden flame of holy power burning their souls and pulling strands of their soul and blending before infusing back. It was constant, over and over, as they trained the wisp segment and he could tell they were advancing rapidly as the density of their soul was getting larger but he knew it would be another big hit on them.

He didn’t know how long they would be out but it was sure to be another few days as a result so he decided to go do his job.

He had avoided it for a few months but he needed to start doing something about Elizabethtown’s situation. Before he left, he made sure the book of ghostly registry was on the altar and then left the round piece fully filled so that it would continue to develop.

He then made sure to call the elders so they could decide who would take care of the domain while he was away and then headed to Elizabethtown where he would aim to clear out the city's fragments first. He was unsure if the soldiers had the soul eye since they advanced with his spiritual power so he planned to do this part himself instead.

The second time they needed 5 days to wake up but in return, their condition improved a lot more as well. Thankfully, Mark worked only in his ghost form to do this job so working for 5 days through the fragments allowed him to get more than a third of Elizabethtown’s fragment population and it had a small help on sucking up the dark force in the air.

He did go to check the entrance to the reborn dead’s lair, it was surprisingly still there after nearly a year, the entire area 5 blocks around it was under quarantine and there were glowing stones and piles making a formation to bottle up most of the expelling energy. Almost weekly Soul Society would send groups of investigators to suck up the build up but it was hundreds of years worth of the stuff.

Thankfully, the investigators were all much stronger after being enhanced with exorcist level spiritual power and were training with the techniques of one from the bottom up to rebuild their souls much stronger and have a much greater effect.

He returned and continued to train and he showed a lot of progress after having time to self train and it also showed off his great mental capacity to review what he had learned.

That said, he had to be a lot more careful with the old spirits because they were clearly regaining a lot of vigor after they came out.

Bang!

Both of the wooden swords clapped hard before the Colonel did a tricky parry and suddenly attacked the inside of Mark’s leg to break his stance but he pulled back just in time but in doing that the sword came and smashed him right in the face.

In moments he took several more hits after one hand went to his face in pain and finally the Colonel kicked his legs from under him.

“It is impressive that you improved so much.” He said and helped Mark up.

“Fuck that hurt.” Mark said rubbing his face but the old man only had him rest a moment to let the pain in his face fade before they continued.

As you would expect, other soldiers were equal and would beat each other black and blue while Mark could get only a few hits here or there on the old ghost while he was beaten purple and black from how much he was beaten on.

Still, each time he was beaten, the Colonel would explain why he failed and what to do in such a situation.

At the end of the day he was bruised to the point that even his mortal shell formed bruises on it. He dragged himself to the altar and looked at the growing sphere that had increased over the week and just took it and checked it, filled the new pores that had formed and put it on another secondary vent and sat down at the center where he was hit with another strong ripple through his skin but far weaker than the first time.

It still amplified the hit to this bones like a jackhammer beating down on him but during this type of torture, his bones finally reached a resileance that it began to resist, in large part, the ripples through his bones showing that it was improving. It still was only forming the complete body at this point but it would definitely be a strong one.

When he got out, recovered, Billy was there to check on him and he mentioned it.

“So… is it normal that getting your ass kicked and then training right after makes the mortal shell stronger? I ‘finished’ my skin but after getting my ass handed to me by the Colonel, it always ripples hard and when it stops on the skin, it has an amplified effect on the bones.” he said.

Billy chuckled, “Sounds about right. Exorcists are meant to be the strongest fighters so if you get through a tough fight and sit down to train to recover your soul it instantly has an effect to strengthen you to adapt to the stress. Honestly, discovery of the Ghost registry and the domain at the same time came at impeccable timing, with tough ghosts like these military men literally beating weaker trainees to beat their body and souls. We will finally be able to start making elite soldiers. We've only ever had advantage in spiritual techniques but if we can finally beat into existence strong soldiers that will finally give us the edge on the IOE on both physical and technical levels.” He said.

“Right.” Mark said, still feeling some pain as he got up and walked to the back and took out the sphere and began to work on it.

“Oh, it really grew in just a week!” Billy said.

Since the construction of the domains began, Billy has been a big bridge between the society and Mark so he had seen the thing from start to finish.

“Yeah, I just wonder what it is.” Mark said as he started filling the pores until he found no other and put it back and it instantly started to suck up a lot of power.

“That thing sure is getting better at sucking up spiritual power.” Billy said.

“That would be good if it improves the speed of it growing. Now, did you need something?” he asked.

“Just to mention that the Soul Society office and Operator station has been completed and we are preparing some tools that have worked well to allow TV and Internet signals into the domains.” He said.

“Hmm… I’ve been busy over the last week, how are the town constructions?” he asked.

“Pretty good, there are currently 8 towns that are trade centers and they correspond with the eight bar keepers While there are roughly about 40 small farming communities that have formed.” He said.

“That many?!” He said.

“It is because there still aren’t a lot of ghosts, they aren’t being brought in large numbers yet and a lot of the larger domains are soaking up more of them. Honestly, if you wanted to, you could piece up all the fragments you send on to the afterlife for followers.” He said.

“No, those should move on. Those with regrets on the other hand should work them out if possible. Well, if they are just farming communities, it shouldn’t be much of a problem if there are a lot of them. In time, they are sure to gather into small towns like what exists around larger towns.” He said.

“Right, by the way, it is currently September already, time flies for sure but Soul Society is already preparing the remaining 1,600 soldiers for you and they will be sent at new years day whether you are ready or not. That is also when the construction of the central domain should be done as well. These aren’t souls that are like the old men, we are filtering through a huge number of souls to make sure only upstanding people with clean backgrounds can become members of the exorcists. Besides that, we are also sending soul society staff to manage all the major workings of such a territory. You will have work to do among those so be aware.” He explained.

Mark sighed and nodded, “That’s fine. The ghosts will be falling asleep each time they train but by new years they should be officially caught up to Wisp strength. Do you know if ghosts can surpass the owner of the mother book?” He asked.

“As of yet, we only know they can match them, also ‘match’ is subjective because you have your natural mortal shell while the others will be forming new ones.” He explained.

“Right. How do normal mortal shells form anyway?” He asked.

“Poltergeists train extensively until finally their ectoplasma forms a thin film that becomes the start of the mortal shell. They then do as you do and break and forge with spiritual energy. Eventually the shell will fully materialize into a solid body as the mortal shell. It is more than 50 times harder for a normal poltergeist to change ectoplasma into a physical object. It is different for you, you have the skin and bones naturally formed but have to strengthen them to an equal level to those who make the mortal shell for walking corpses before transforming the rest of your ectoplasma into a solid body.” He explained.

“So that is how it works. I do feel all the structures have already taken shape. By the way, the element crystals left a big mark on my body’s organs when it was restructuring my domain. I have specific elements in specific groups of ectoplasma of organs.” He said.

“Yes, we’ve noticed. This is an effect that only Nature spirits should have and it makes a big difference in ghosts.” He said, serious.

“What does it do?” Mark asked.

“Members who have their domains on vents and are stiff corpse have had to retrain their bodies from wisp to stiff corpse and when they rebuilt their walking corpse, those elements slowly gathered until it reformed their meridians and dantian, objects only Nature spirits and spirit lords had and it is what set them apart from normal ghosts.” He said.

“What does that do to a ghost?” He asked.

“You are capable of cultivating like a mortal again and from what we’ve noticed, it even accelerates the corpse's capacity to generate ‘life’. Stiff Corpse becomes even harder to distinguish from normal people and they have shown to be much stronger. Earthbound spirits, i don’t even need to say, some people have been thinking that this might become a possible shortcut method to accelerating through the earthbound spirit directly into Nature spirit but the nature spirits have naturally denounced this when they brutally beat on an earthbound spirit with this capacity. He did say that it can ‘aid’ in speeding up the process though.” Billy said.

“I’m sure IOE must hate the rapid growth happening.” He said.

“They still don’t know because the armies are still too immature. Those that are exposed are just the same figures they are common with. It will probably be another year or two before there is real change to be seen.” He explained.

“With an altar this big, how long do you think I will take to reach the Walking corpse?” Mark asked.

Billy looked at the surroundings in thought, “I wager next year by the end of the year specifically.” he said.

Mark nodded as he agreed, if his body constantly got beaten up, he indeed would get so much feedback that his ectoplasma will need a lot of time to catch up each time he solidifies one structure of his body.

“And about exorcist work?” He asked.

“They expect the ones you have in your command working jobs after they have fully stabilized as wisps.” he said.

“Right, that makes sense honestly. It should also give time to start tutoring the soldiers in how talismans work. That said, the forger that made my axe, did you ever figure out who it was?” he asked.

“No, we offer an anonymous selling service. Honestly, when you showed me that thing, I almost freaked out. Sadly our sales department doesn’t take names or film the offer chamber or the areas around it to prevent people from identifying and we provide special kinds of cloaks for spirits to be impossible to see through.” He said.

“That’s a shame. I was actually hoping for more of those kinds of weapons. Even just the little bit that the forgers you contracted for making weapons for me provided a great capacity to these wooden swords.” Mark said as he showed it to Billy.

“Yes, you made it easier to understand when you compared it to the domain crystal and that thing’s pores. When the same effect was infused into wood along the groves, the effect is honestly amazing.” He said. “Do you want to change it for a sword? The forgers are learning from your axe’s structure and will soon be able to make a poltergeist strength one.” He said.

Mark shook his head, “I’m used to my axe. When you finally develop a walking corpse sword, I will be open to switching but my axe is already adhered to my soul, breaking that connection for a sword of similar strength is not worth it.” He said.

“Make sense.” He said and looked around, “Well, I’ll be around if you need anything.” Billy said and waved to the young man and headed off.

Mark sighed and looked at the stone in his hand and looked at the smooth round area once more but the pores were already full so he just put it back and decided to go study the several levels of knowledge he was still in the process of working out. He would need to open this up to the librarians but he had to be sure how everything worked before that.

There was even a library building and he walked in and went to a computer and took out his book of exorcism and began to type out the information of an entire segment for hours at a time until he finished and printed.

He used some rubber bands to wrap it and left it for booking and copying.

***

For the next three month's, things got busy as the pandemic was already subsiding as vaccines were properly administered and death rates drastically dropped but there was still a lot of death all over.

For Mark and his first ghosts, they all stabilized after the first month and all those old withered ghosts had all returned even more than just to their 50s. They look to be in their mid 40s with just small strands of gray appearing and were much more well formed than their original mortal state.

Even the librarians built up some bulk through the harsh training. After they could at least protect themselves and everyone was balanced, they started to switch places and the librarians took control and began to teach vital skills as well as learning them as well.

For the soldiers, they had to learn how to properly use all the different talismans, charms and more as well as focus and channel spiritual power to use that. At the same time, they needed to learn spiritual techniques like movement techniques like Mark used.

For the foreseeable future, the soldiers would move in groups with the librarians as the purifiers until they can learn to do it or until the new soldiers to come learn sufficiently to cover that portion.

When they had learned the basics of how to handle simple specters and vengeful spirits, Mark and Soul society in general, began to assign them different bounties all throughout the Elizabethtown region within a 17.5 km radius. Each group was given ten or so bounties to deal with in the day and had to head out and all the bounties were in the same region.

Mark himself continued his work clearing the fragmented spirits throughout the rest of the year and finished Elizabethtown before the first month and started on smaller communities and many hospitals within this area.

That said, one thing was noticed, first that after a month of adapting, everyone had incorporated a weaker version of Mark’s Virtuous soul, since the karma infused in the holy power was not their own, but it began to strengthen as they purified specters. That said none of them had the Soul eyes. It was confirmed to be something unique to each soul that possessed it.

With this, it meant that Mark had to continue his own work but it was better that he would do it since it would feed his own soul with his karma which was what fed and grew the Virtuous heart.

As the days approached new years, things lightened up greatly and the biggest reason was the effort of Soul Society with their new restructuring which enhanced their efficiency and the hunt for anything above Dark Spirit until they finally found several of the disaster spirits.

Each encounter was followed by a massive wave of destruction as the war among the spirits and even sometimes with mortals happened.

Many times it wasn’t even in the Americas, there was at least one in each continent and sometimes more depending on the concentration of people.

Reading the reports he looked through the news and was happy to see the death and infection rates drop but the countless ignored diseases had been constantly attacking while the news attributed any death to covid.

While he was focused, he suddenly felt a strange reaction from his domain and it came from his altar.

He thought for a moment and smiled, “Wait, is it the sphere?” He muttered and turned the PC off and headed out.

The central area was very different from before. Instead of a barren land in the middle of a world of blue grass and trees, it was now a structured town which lacked a lot of people. When he got close to the altar, it changed into a wide area with open training areas prepared.

He ignored it and walked into the altar where he found the piece all but complete and it was already having some reaction.

He carefully took it out from the altar and examined it. “The aura isn’t complete.” he said and sat down and looked around until he saw an opening and tried to channel spiritual power in but there was actually a barrier from it so he began to search and found a single pore which he channeled energy into. When he did, he was shocked when a new one actually popped out.

“I see… this is forcing saturation to expand from top to bottom to close that hole.” He muttered and played the game. He filled each exit and sealed them, forcing pressure to break another and another.

He soon frowned when it surpassed more than 500 already and he hadn’t moved far from the start.

“Well… this is going to be a while.” He said and got focused.

When some people came to see him, he dismissed them when he found it wasn’t important and continued for almost an entire 24 hours until he finally reached the last pore before the hole.

As soon as he closed it, the first pore glowed, while he was sweating, and started to convert the spiritual power at long last into material and with it the orb began to expand a tiny bit and one by one the pores solidified and it grew visibly by a few cm but it was like a slowly moving waved that eventually reached the last pore and hit the edge and instantly smashed the hole closed but left cracks in the material.

The barrier there was gone so Mark filled the entire, nearly sealed, crack with remaining spiritual power and slowly, from the bottom, it solidified grain by grain with more and more difficulty to the point that time felt like it was slowing down until at last it reached the top and the orb was fully formed.

BANG!

In an instant the orb vanished from his hand and it appeared high overhead smashing an invisible barrier in the domain.

No one felt it, no one but Mark who gasped and held his heart in extreme pain almost unable to breath as he tried to get out.

In the air, the orb struck this barrier for a moment before it released a faint white glow and the ‘mass’ that had just formed began to melt and gather at the bottom before it gathered into a small liquid mass.

This mass split into two.

One flew up into the peak of the ceiling while the other went into the ground. Both were nearly invisible to anyone but it only made Mark feel even worse.

Finally, a thin ‘skin’ shed from the orb that gathered into a very tiny fragment and it flew down and smashed him in the back and pierced into his soul making him open his eyes and feel like he was dying before he collapsed.

That lasted for only a moment as the orb pushed against space and entered a pitch black space and Mark gasped as he looked around and found himself in this pitch darkness.

Only the glow from the orb above him gave him the sufficient light to see his own form.

“Where… is this? This feeling is familiar.” He said and knew he had felt this feeling before. “This… is this the void?” He said.

A chuckle almost scared him out of his skin as he looked around, unable to see anything in this pitch black.

“You are a funny one.” the voice that chuckled said.

“Who is it?!” he shouted.

“Don’t worry child, I’m not an enemy, however your soul is incapable of witnessing my form without being destroyed. Let me see if there isn’t something in your mind.” He said.

Mark felt a moment of buzzing before a sigh came from all around, “It seems not. Nevermind then.” It said.

“Wh-what are you?!” Mark said, extremely scared.

“My kind call ourselves Sin eaters. There are a lot of different types of our kind, when I searched your memory, there was one you used in the spell for Purge of Evil. That is a particularly brutal member but I am quite peaceful. I am the one who taught the first Spirit Lords how to properly purge souls into the void, where you find your astral projection, at this moment.” it said.

“So… this is the void… and I do remember Sin eaters…” He said.

“If you wish for the most technical terms for my kind, we are the personification of death and the energies you call Sin and Karma. Sin that we eat produces a byproduct we eject called Karma which you mortals and souls seem to desire. It is a very good trade between our kinds.” it said.

“S-so why am I here?” Mark asked.

“Oh, do you not know?” It asked.

“Why would I ask if I knew?” Mark replied

“Indeed. In that case, let us start there. When you obtained this orb as a thin filament, you used the Purge of Evil for the first time. The reason was because your soul fit into special criteria that we Sin Eaters judge all those you mortals refer to as Exorcists. This orb is known as a Void Key, it is an object which bonds with the realm of a dead soul such as yourself and partially draws your domain into the void.” it said.

Almost as if the darkness itself moved, a veil of darkness revealed Mark’s own domain like an illusion in the darkness.

“W-wait so… my domain is now in the Void?” He said, pale at the thought.

“Not exactly.” the sin eater said. “It is only partially in it. This is because you do not possess all the conditions required for it to fully achieve this feat.” it said.

“WHY WOULD I WANT MY DOMAIN IN THE AFTERLIFE!” Mark shouted.

“Oh, there are plenty of reasons. The first one being that it would mean that you have officially ascended as a Lord of Death and your domain has evolved into an official underworld where souls in your world would go, though only some of them.” the sin eater said.

“Huh?” He muttered. “Y-you mean that those who are regarded as kings of the underworld have domains ‘inside’ the void?” he said.

“Of course, do you expect the underworld, a place which is meant to extract sin, will remain in the mortal realm? Heaven is no different, it is outside of the mortal realm. Of course, it is impossible to live separately, your void key is the key to anchor your domain and grow as well as draw power to properly be able to do your job as a Lord of Death.” it said. “Let me show you what your possible future holds.” he said.

He felt something grab him and move at speeds he could not comprehend before the darkness slowly pulled from in front of him and what appeared before him were dozens if not hundreds of domains surrounded by domes and seemed to float in the void but when looked at properly, they are clearly a round globe if everything was pushed together.

“Each of these is just one of many underworlds connected to this world. If you look under it, you will notice clouds.” He said.

The light of each underworld allowed him to notice the ocean of deep disgusting blackness while at this moment, countless specks of light floated out.

“What is that?” He asked.

“This is the arrangement of a world with a fully developed system of underworlds. Expelled from each underworld is pure, refined and delicious sin while the lights are souls that these underworlds are finally releasing for reincarnation after they were tortured for their crimes. Souls of good remain and live a happy life within these underworlds, evil pays their dues after death and in doing so, their sins are burned and cruelly ripped from their souls until they are clean.”

“W-wouldn’t doing that contaminate the underworld with dark force?” He asked.

“Sure, there are some who are pathetic enough to let that happen but the best and largest would never let that happen because each of them are like you, people obsessed with properly making souls pass on who possess a soul so blessed by karma that if you continue on your path, you are likely to form the soul of a divinity. This is why you were picked, even as a weak ghost, you have already gathered so much Karma while others just think with their greed filled hearts.” the sin eater said and pulled him back and revealed his own domain.

“O-okay, but this is so sudden. I also don’t know how I’m even going to do even half of anything like that. Also, wouldn’t establishing, basically hell, make me the enemy of every ghost and spirit in the world?” He asked.

“Not really, establishing the underworld is not so easy. First off are the drawbacks. Because of your domain being partially pulled here, you are disconnected from the vent your domain survived off of. It is only connected to the elevator as an exit at this moment. It is not a real underworld anyway so that isn’t important. Secondly is that you will need to set up new anchor points. Your domain no longer survives off ambient spiritual energy, it now feeds off ambient spiritual energy and dark force. Your anchor points must be in the middle of mortal settlements and from there, it will suck in the negative energy of mortal society and process that power through your Virtuous heart and will release pure spiritual energy into the domain while expelling sin into the void which will feed us Sin eaters. This is the trade.” it explained.

“There has to be a catch.” Mark said.

“Yes, you cannot place anchor points outside of the physical representation of your home world. So basically, basing off the position your elevator is, you can place the anchor anywhere within that space and the heart of your domain will be there. After that, you need to repeat the process to all settlements within the range of your domain. When you do that, you will get so much more energy for your domain than you know what to do. Oh! But a warning, your body must be able to handle the pressure. In other words, you need to grow stronger and stronger to support the pressure of the energy coming in. That said, in return, your domain will undergo phases of evolution beyond just the growth through your strength.” it explained.

“Like?” he asked.

“Natural underworld life will appear as you draw in dead animals, it will form some void energies as well that you personally can control. The most important thing you must know is called Nether fire. It is a flame which can burn souls and split their sin from their souls. It is very similar to your holy power taking the form of fire when your soldiers trained.” He said.

“Okay, I get there are some certain benefits. I still don’t know how to run an underworld, I don’t know what to do to even make it into one!” He exclaimed.

A chuckle came from the darkness as the void key came and very slowly, a very thin piece slowly came off the top. When the last bit came off, it sounded like ripping of paper and the end looked the part as well.

The key then entered his projection leaving just the piece.

“Never show it to anyone but always develop it when you have the chance.” the Sin Eater said.

“This is what will eventually become the tool you envision as necessary to make your domain into the underworld. It can be anything, a source of unlimited power to energize the realm, a symbol of power…”

“A Book of Life and Death.” Mark said.

The Sin eater froze and he could feel it looking before it started to chuckle and finally burst into laughter, “Yes, so that is your vision. That means the choice was quite correct. Just a warning, you are to never taint this fragment with mortal materials. Paper, hide or anything. If you retain the vision of your Book, this fragment will form into the pages you desire and will eventually become the book. But not as a single book, not initially.” it said.

“You mean it will split?” Mark asked.

“What do you see this book doing?” the Sin eater asked.

“It is a book which tells everything about a soul’s life and even death. From date of birth to death and to every sin and merit. Without something like this, it is impossible for an underworld to properly reward and punish people.” Mark replied.

“Good, well then, the fragment will then form a single page before it splits this function. One side will form first the pages of life and the pages of death, each of which will contain the function of either telling about their lives merit, or virtue, which produce Karma, and the other will tell about their death and sins. They will eventually form separate books and once these books have reached their apex of development under your hand, much like the Void Key, they will merge into the final form, The Book of Life and Death. Containing both functions enhanced beyond your comprehension. That said, revealing its existence without strength to protect it will make you the target of everything in the world.” it said.

Mark frowned and nodded slowly.

The fragment in front of him then entered the astral projection leaving him to slowly fade into the dark but not return as he floated in front of his domain.

“Just a warning but once the first Void Key is properly activated, anything that was, at one point, something of similar origins will activate and fate will make them appear and they may fall into the hands of good or evil. Remember this, not only are ghosts able to form an underworld but any race including mortals and even magical creatures. As the one to properly activate it, you have our backing and so I will also teach you how to fix that formation to properly and safely process the energy of the Void and not explode with Nether fire when it finally starts to draw from it. I will also do the courtesy of preparing the formation coins that will not do visible changes to the domain or the formations but these are 100% required for your domain not to wither or be filled with sin instead of releasing it into the void.” the Sin eater said.

The next moment, an amazing amount of knowledge filled his mind that it felt like his head would explode but everything he felt entered his mind he felt like it was made to enter in slow motion as if time was extended and he was taught everything from the first bit to the very last.

He was even taught about every common underworld aspect that would appear, every kind of evolution of the domain and what he could do to improve it. He was then taught how to control the fragment, the void key and even the domain. Once he moved the central anchor, he would be able to fully detach from the elevator but it was important to keep it as a cover.

Beyond that, he was shockingly taught how to make countless spiritual instruments, the most basic for torturing and properly assuming order was the Netherlight Lanter, a lantern which was lit by adding a soul into it after smashing it and using a special control of the domain to gather it. It was the most basic but among the most painful because it was a slow torture.

Finally, he learned how to tell how much Karma he had. It was a technique the Sin eaters developed so that mortal souls would be able to grow to specific requirements.

Once the last bit of information infused into his mind, he felt everything relax.

“Good, you learned everything quite fast. Even if time here runs differently and you’ve spent 50 years here, it's not even been a few seconds in your world. Hmm… it seems your astral projection is affecting your soul’s maturity. It would seem now your soul is rapidly aging but it is going to require a lot of feedback, use the event with the void key and lie about anything once you’ve finally got your anchor back. You are likely to rapidly grow and will have a lot of catching up to do but your soul is at least 50 years old now. At the very least you should rapidly condense into what you call a walking corpse if not get to a stiff corpse soon after. You are quite definitely going to be a large member of your little society.” He said and laughed.

Mark was barely conscious but his mind could still project a question that the Sin eater, who was still connected to his mind sensed.

“How will all this affect your Book of Ghostly Registry? Hmm, that little tool is indeed ingenious, something that appears in many forms in countless worlds. Some of them even developed by heaven itself for the underworlds they accept as truly important for worldly order. Let me see its construction.” it said.

It mumbled in silence after that as he read through the construction in his mind.

“It is quite incomplete but that is expected since it is not a heavenly gift. It cannot produce unique growing weapons or soul chains like many others who have that. I will need to include the forging methods of this and you will have to forge the primary weapon and then each child book will have to be provided the materials and it will be able to create basic versions that can slowly evolve with their development. The material is also subpar but it isn’t extensively important.

It returned to infusing forging manuels into his mind with many materials that he didn’t even know but were things that appeared in the underworlds. The last part was how to improve the book’s formations.

When it was finally done, he was finally unable to maintain consciousness and the Sin Eater could not sense it as well so it finally sent him back to his body and it slammed into the ground like a sack of bricks while the Void key and the fragment appeared and infused into his body.

The altars were still active because it now channeled the internal energy in the domain.

Outside, the sin eater lightly channeled a thin strand of the void’s energy to supplement for the time Mark would need to sleep until he could place the anchor.

Eventually someone found him and the elders from the bars came to check him but they were saying that his soul was undergoing big changes.

“Hey, the orb is gone.” Billy said.

When he said that, they looked around and noticed it was indeed gone.

“It must be the cause, that thing was totally unknown but since the domain isn’t changing or damaged it doesn’t mean he is breaking down. From what I can sense, it is almost like his soul is aging as if he was stuck in a loop of time. I think he might have encountered some kind of time artifact and it was now making him age exponentially, when he wakes up, he is likely to rapidly evolve up the ranks at least reaching a walking corpse maybe if he ages that much.” Elder Conway said.

“Wait but something to affect time would require exponential power, he is barely 2 years old as a ghost while a stiff corpse is nearly a century old spirit. Even if exorcists are faster, he would still need at least 10 to 15 years to reach the stiff corpse rank, if not 20 like most others.” one of the elders said.

“It depends how his soul takes this rapid aging. He might even end up like the ghosts he recruited.” Elder Conway said, serious.

“For the time being, we should put him on his altar where he will receive steady energy.” one of the elders said.

With a nod, they put him over and he just laid floating while his body did start absorbing energy.

The Sin eater noticed and matched the absorption and extra energy so that nothing would feel wrong. The first underworld tended to be the most important for the safe establishment of the rest of the world. They usually were the most upright among the ‘Lords of Death’ so it wanted to prevent him from dying early on.

Like that, Mark was dropped there while his soul was rapidly aging and receiving spiritual energy from the altar that matched his own.

The result was that his mortal shell aged naturally and solidified one segment at a time like normal over the next week until he woke up at midnight when his entire body solidified and he was officially a walking corpse from skin to the center of his body.