Cheng Hao pondered. He occasionally frowned or gritted his teeth as he recalled the possessed Xu Ling’s words. Finally, he sighed with feeling and lifted his head.

His gaze landed upon the girl, whose body had currently been taken over by Cheng Hao’s… ‘Senior’. Whether this person truly was who he claimed to be, Cheng Hao couldn’t bring himself to stop doubting such a fact, even though the words the other had spoken had rang out true in his ears.

Despite not trusting the other party fully, he still compromised with himself he’d believe about 60 to 70% of the information he’d be fed. After all, everything would simply make that much more sense if what this Senior had said was the truth.

However, things still didn’t fall into place as they should. Cheng Hao had no doubt that the old dude was keeping something from him. For starters, who was the young girl – although in his world it would be boy - that he had fought for so long? And why woud such a vicious conflict take place to begin with?

He cannot be fully trusted. He is not only aware that this world is but an illusion, even if that were not the case, judging by his current state, he would die soon too! He is doing this on a whim and could change his mind at any time! Who knows whether he’d feed me false pieces on information simply because he will be leaving this world soon? Essentially, he is a time bomb: I have no way to know whether or when he would suddenly stab me in the back.

I… I have to stay calm!

Cheng Hao inhaled sharply, and then breathed out slowly to calm himself down. Xu Ling said nothing as he stared at the youth in front of him amiably, not interrupting the red-skinned boy in the least as he went through with his breathing method.

His mind devoid of any ripples and his five senses sharper than ever, Cheng Hao finally asked:

“You say that you are the oldest amongst the Spirits of the Mountain, correct? If so, does this mean that the knowledge about your role was imparted to you by this so-called… ‘Mountain’, itself?”

Hearing those words, the girl’s pupils shrunk, albeit unnoticeably. Then, an expression of pleasant surprise appeared on her face as she nodded:

“Sharp. Sharp Indeed. That Was A Brilliant Guess And It Just Barely Missed The Target. However I Must Answer That No, My Role As One Of The Mountain’s Souls Was Imparted Upon Me By Another Spirit… More Accurately, This Other Spirit Had Been The Previous Generation’s Survivor...”

Cheng Hao nodded as he connected a few dots: apparently, there had been other batches of Spirits of the Mountain before the current generation… and it had been a ‘survivor’ who had transferred their knowledge upon the next generation.

Cheng Hao frowned:

“How did that happen? And why did the older generation suddenly give up their statuses? Was it an order from somebody else?”

The girl shook her head and sighed:

“This Will Take A While To Explain So Make Yourself Comfortable, Kid.” Having said that, she stood up, grabbed a chair and sat on it. She lifted her gaze and noticed Cheng Hao had not moved from the spot he was sitting on:

“What? Are You Actually Deaf, Kid?”

Cheng Hao’s eyelids twitched at the ‘kid’ remark but he nonetheless stood up, leaned against the wall, and then slid down into a cross-legged position. He nodded his head, hinting that the girl could resume.

Her expression growing solemn, the girl waved her hands and a blank, flat, golden screen appeared floating in front of her. It was quite peculiar, like a golden canvas, except it was see-through and glowing slightly.

Then, the girl spoke again. Except, her voice had changed considerably: while before it had sounded ancient, almost as if the speaker were foreign to the spoken tongue to the point each word had to be spelled out, now on the contrary it was as smooth as oil, albeit still retaining some of its ancientness and mystery.

It was as if she had been faking her accent sound intellectual and omniscient, only to end up getting tired of it and thus dropping the act. Or maybe, it was just an act of laziness because it is tiring to change all the lower cases into upper cases.

“There is a limit to how much one can harness the strength of the Mountain...”

The girl drew a stick figure on the screen with her index finger. On top of the circle that was the figure’s head, she wrote the character for Líng, 靈 and then drew an arrow pointing to the second figure and drew the character again within the person’s head. This time however, it was slightly bigger.

“However, as the power is cumulative, such limit becomes weaker and weaker with each new Spirit. When passed on, there might be a chance to awaken it into somebody who has higher potential and thus would power it up even more. Even if that weren’t the case, simply having the power awakened makes one’s potential higher than his predecessors. What do you think would happen if this process were to go on indefinitely?”

Cheng Hao frowned: what would happen? After all, there had to be a limit to how weak such a restriction could get. However, if that limit was to be broken, then…

“You said we harness the strength of the mountain but have something limiting us to block us from achieving our full potential. I assume that means that we are theoretically capable of harnessing all of it. If so…”

Cheng Hao pondered out aloud as his mind worked at high speeds:

“If so, once the limit is lifted, wouldn’t we become as powerful as the lender of such power?”

“Ahahah, very good, very good…” The possessed Xu Ling chuckled. She nodded and gave Cheng Hao a wide grin before drawing another stick figure and then erasing it, the symbol for Soul becoming bigger and bigger with each time she erased the depicted Spirit of the Mountain and replaced it with another one.

She repeated the process over and over again, until the symbol had become so big it didn’t fit into the head anymore. When this happened, the girl looked up and smiled.

“Technically speaking, this would happen…”

As she spoke, the young girl had wiped away the stick figure and left behind only the symbol.

“One day, when the limiter is lifted, the Spirit will become as strong as the Mountain itself!”

Cheng Hao stared with wide eyes.

Becoming as powerful as the Mountain? He had no idea what those words truly meant, but what was behind them he vaguely understood: the Mountain was most likely a being beyond his comprehension.

In fact, if he had to describe it after gathering up all the information he had gathered, it was something akin to the consciousness of the universe itself! A God!

To become so powerful as one that could be referred to as a God, what strength would one wield then? At that time, he would be on par with the universe itself! When that happened, who would possibly be powerful enough to rival him in strength?