Merin returns to his room and now, almost ninety per cent, believes this is a dream world.
Xiao Yun's situation mirrors Xiao Yan from *Battle Through the Heavens*, making Merin suspect he is inside someone's dream, with Xiao Yun as the main character.
But that doesn't matter—he doesn't need to fawn over Xiao Yun, nor gain benefits from him.
After calming his mind, Merin takes out four runes and pastes one on each of his palms and upper arms.
He activates them, and his hands turn into lightning hands.
He grits his teeth, enduring the pain, and when the lightning fades, his skin peels, bloodied and burned.
Channelling vitality into his hands, he feels a cold breeze sweep over them, the pain slowly fading away.
The next day, he leaves with Lin Mi for the school where Xiao Yun's sister, Xiao Yixian, studies.
His hands are mostly healed now; only faint marks remain, which will vanish in a few hours.
After admitting Lin Mi into the school and leaving her there, he walks outside and comes across Xiao Yun escorting Xiao Yixian.
They simply nod at each other as they pass.
In that moment, Xiao Yun hears a voice in his mind: "That boy is dangerous."
Xiao Yun trembles, startled, because in his age group, no one in the city should be his match.
While walking back, Xiao Yun asks in his mind, "Are you sure?"
The voice replies, "Brat Xiao Yun, are you questioning me?"
Xiao Yun shakes his head quickly, "No, never, Grandma Yao. But… how?"
Grandma Yao answers, "I sense lightning energy in his body. He must be constructing the Heavenly Lightning Spiritual Body."
Xiao Yun asks, "How does it compare with my Spirit Fire Spiritual Body?"
Grandma Yao says, "Spirit Fire is an evolution-type technique. Its strength depends on you, while the Heavenly Lightning Spiritual Body itself is inherently destructive."
Meanwhile, Merin does not return home but goes to the Four Gate and asks Li Mei for tasks.
He is three hundred merits short of the five hundred he needs, and he wants to earn them within a month.
Searching the task board, he finds one inside the city worth twenty merits.
He cannot leave the city since he must later bring Lin Mi back home, so he accepts it.
The task is to cleanse the body of a girl who has fallen unconscious due to evil energy.
When Merin examines her, he frowns—inside her body is not evil energy but a fragment of an evil ghost's soul.
Such a thing cannot happen naturally; someone must be behind this, most likely an Evil Celestial Master.
A Purifying Rune will not work properly on her, since it can only erase evil energy, not a soul fragment.
Still, he uses the Purifying Rune, and the girl regains consciousness, though the fragment remains hidden.
She will fall unconscious again, but Merin leaves it untouched to avoid alerting the one behind it.
After receiving his monetary reward and task-completion badge, he returns to the Four Gates.
There, he finds commotion at the counter—several people are quarrelling with Li Mei.
After some time, they leave.
Standing at the counter, he asks, "What happened?"
Li Mei says, "Zou Yan, a celestial master, had a similar task as yours two days ago to cleanse a girl's body. He did, but today the girl fell unconscious again."
She then looks at Merin and asks, "Lin Yu, did you check the victim before leaving?"
Merin shares what he discovered.
Li Mei says, "Let's tell the head."
Merin shakes his head, "You can tell him. I have to pick up my sister from her school."
He pockets two green chips and leaves to bring Lin Mi home.
That evening, during dinner, he informs Lin Zhu that he will personally escort and pick up Lin Mi from school the next day.
Returning to his room, he continues forging his hands with lightning.
The following day, he accepts a task to hunt an inferior demon boar outside the city, worth fifty merits.
After hunting, he returns at night, just before the city gate closes.
The next morning, at the Four Gate building, he asks Li Mei, "What's going on with the soul fragments?"
Li Mei says, "They were all destroyed, and the head rewarded you fifty merits for the information."
In two days, Merin earns one hundred and twenty merits, leaving only one hundred and eighty more to go.
"I can finish in two weeks," he thinks.
But he does not need to wait that long—within a week, he gathers the full five hundred merits.
He goes to the back of the Four Gate building to receive his intermediate cultivation method and mentions it to the elder.
The elder says, "The first three stages are to refine your spirit. Then the next three stages are to form a spiritual body."
Merin asks, "What is a spiritual body?"
The elder replies, "It is like a silent guardian inside your sea of consciousness. It grants you the ability to channel some spells without relying on runes."
She continues, "There are many types of spiritual bodies."
She looks at him with pursed lips and says, "I recall you exchanged for the Lightning Palm rune. Are you able to perform it?"
Merin asks, "Why?"
She says, "Every spiritual body has its own merit. None is stronger than the other. But the Heavenly Lightning Spiritual Body is known as the most effective against evil creatures."
Merin takes out a Lightning Palm rune from his bag, pastes it on his palm, and a crackling ball of lightning forms.
The elder shouts, "Quickly throw it, or you'll get injured!"
Merin doesn't want to reveal his forged hands, so he throws the lightning ball at the wall.
The elder nods, then takes fifty green chips from him and hands him two books.
She says, "One is about spiritual runes, and the other explains the Heavenly Lightning Spiritual Body."
With the books in hand, he walks out of the building.
On the way home, he decides to buy food from a restaurant to celebrate with Lin Zhu and Lin Mi.
Living with them, Merin has started to see them as his real brother and sister. They remind him of his siblings from the dragon world, and even of his sister from the origin world.
This world may be someone's dream, but his feelings are real.
When he arrives home with food, he frowns.
"By now, Lin Zhu and Lin Mi should be back."
He waits ten minutes, then leaves home and heads for Lin Mi's school.
Merin finds the school in a flurry of activity, with guards stationed all around.
He asks, "What happened?"
A guard says, "Two girls are missing."
Merin's heart tightens with dread. "Who?"
The guard shakes his head. "Do not know."
Merin asks, "Can I enter?"
The guard says, "No."
Merin pulls the token from his waist and says, "I am from the Four Gates. My sister studies here, and she hasn't returned home."
The guard looks uneasy, then says, "Wait for me, I will call my captain."
Merin nods and waits.
Moments later, the guard returns with Captain Zhang.
She asks, "Lin Yu, is your sister named Lin Mi?"
Merin's heart grips with fear. "Yes."
Captain Zhang lowers her voice. "I am sorry. She is one of the girls missing."
Merin demands, "How can they be missing inside the school?"
Captain Zhang says, "I think an evil celestial master is involved."
Merin's eyes widen. "What?" His urgency sharpens. "Can you let me check the school?"
Captain Zhang nods. "I was going to ask you this."
She leads him inside, into the playground.
She points. "She and Yixian went missing here."
Merin nods and activates Dreamsization. Instantly, he catches the lingering aura of an evil celestial master.
He says, "Got it."
Without waiting, he runs, following the trail beyond the school and out of the city.
Captain Zhang rides after him with her team, leading an extra horse.
"Lin Yu, climb on it!" she shouts.
Merin jumps onto the moving horse and continues chasing the aura.
Inside a dark cavern, Lin Mi holds Xiao Yixian's hand tightly.
"Yixian, don't worry, my brother will come to rescue us. He works at the Four Gate," Lin Mi says with trembling determination.
Xiao Yixian nods. "My brother will also come."
The two girls sit huddled together in a cold iron cage. Around them, the sound of sniffing and quiet sobbing drifts from the other cages hidden in the shadows.
Lin Mi whispers, "There are other girls like us."
Xiao Yixian's lips quiver. "Why do you think they took us?"
Before Lin Mi can answer, a voice echoes from outside.
A beautiful woman steps into view, her age close to that of their elder brothers. Her smile is serene, but her eyes glint with cruelty.
"You all will be sacrificed."