The Great Worm Lich

After leaving behind the burdens, Zhang Lisheng, who walked alone on the straight highway for about two to three hours, felt that his luck had started to become bad again. Without coming across any good-hearted person who would hitchhike him, he finally set foot on the streets of Johannesburg again.

Right now, the sky had already turned bright and the bus full of commuting workers had begun to drive around the streets.

The teenager flagged a taxi down. After entering the back seat, he purposely changed his accent to a New York accent and pleaded at the black driver whose skin was so dark it was practically shining, “Mr. Driver, please go to the Antelope’s Nest on the Eighth Street. I can give you additional tips of 10 USD, but I must first enter my apartment to get my money. Is that okay with you?”

“Of course! You must have been so drunk your wallet is stolen right, young man? Do you want to make a report to the police?” The driver started the car and asked kindly.

“Nah, it’s alright! It’s less than 100 USD, so it’s not worth it to go all the way to a police station to make a report.” Zhang Lisheng chuckled.

Upon hearing the teenager’s words, the driver smiled noncommittally and drove the taxi through the spacious streets of Johannesburg. Not long after, he saw that the teenager did not say anything, so he proceeded to turn on the radio inadvertently.

“It’s reported that Western Cape Town has already been completely destroyed and the number of casualties has reached more than 500,000. The authorities have confirmed that the people who attacked the army are invaders from a supernatural realm and is now formally inviting for global military powers to intervene…”

“Invaders from a supernatural realm has killed 500,000 people in Cape Town? The government is actually begging for foreign countries to intervene too? I didn’t know today is April Fools day.” The taxi driver was dumbfounded for a moment before scratching his head and commenting.

Zhang Lisheng who was sitting in the back seat, on the other hand, muttered to himself, “Cape Town has suffered heavy losses already, but it seems that those people from the supernatural realm don’t have an army strong enough to engage. Thus, they have not captured Cape Town yet. The South African government has confirmed that they are invaders from a supernatural realm and even requested the intervention of the global military powers. Now, the course of the situation is already really complicated by the looks of it…”

As the teenager was lost in his thoughts, the taxi finally stopped in front of the ‘Antelope’s Nest’ apartment after more than ten minutes.

Zhang Lisheng got off the taxi and ran into the apartment building. Bypassing the front desk, he knocked on the manager’s room. “Rummandi, I’ve lost my room card so can you please help me open my room door?”

“Of course, Mr. Skinny, but please don’t forget to pay me ten USD for the card replacement fee.” The black apartment manager smiled and opened the drawer to look for Zhang Lisheng’s room card in a pile of cards before handing it to him.

“Sure!” After the young man took the card, he went to the room to take some cash and paid the taxi fee. Then, he casually ate a hearty breakfast in the nearby breakfast shop and called Charlie’s mobile phone by borrowing the store’s phone.

“Hello, I’m…”

“It’s me, Charlie!”

“I suspected it may be you when I saw the South African number, boss! Is there any order?”

“Yes! I’ll send some legal documents to you in a few days to grant 0.5% of LS Group’s share to you and Edward…”

“Oh my god! You’re too generous, boss! This is really…”

“Alright, Charlie! Let’s stop being emotional now! I still have other matters to tell you. First, leave behind 51% of the share for myself and then sell the remaining 49% of LS share at the right price in the US private equity market.”

“The sale of shares is maintaining a high-speed continuous expansion. You should have done this earlier, boss! Don’t worry though! I’ll get a good price for you! I can roughly get an estimation of the price with a rough mental calculation. Calculating based on our current reputation, assets, and profits after monopolizing the New York market, you can at least get… Well, more than 4 billion USD in cash. Heck! I’ve never even thought about this before! To think that I’m actually managing a huge enterprise that has a net worth close to 10 billion USD! The speed of you making money is even faster than those famous dot-com bubble companies…” Charlie exclaimed beside himself with joy.

“I don’t care how much I get. I only care about how many people can I tie onto the big ship of LS!”

“Okay, I understand, boss! I understand!”

“It’s good that you understand. I’ll see you again, Charlie!” Zhang Lisheng hung up the phone and returned to the apartment. After giving a ten-dollar bill to the manager, he got another card and walked into his own room. As he sat on the bed, he took out the True Book of Witchcraft Method he obtained from Old Man Xu and the bone book he obtained from Consultant Zheng.

He first infused his wizard power into the True Book of Witchcraft Method and revealed the words and pictures on it. The teenager realized he could only understand two-thirds of the text. These two-thirds of the text had already fully recorded the refining method of a corpse puppet.

A witchcraft method and spell could be said to be something different from an incantation. The spell and incantation were both the foundation of the growth of a wizard. When one became a wizard or when one made a breakthrough before reaching the Rank-6 Wizard, one would obtain this spell or incantation from the universe naturally in each breakthrough. One would be proficient in it right away without learning. The spell or incantation they obtained would vary according to the person who used it.

Witchcraft methods, on the other hand, were a sorcery technique that could be learned and be cast using wizard power. Powerhouses usually created it, from ancient witchcraft who had already undergone the ‘Shed and Restore’ stage, who used their own spells and incantations as a basis.

The witchcraft method might sound as though it was much weaker than spell or incantation, but in truth, it was not so.

After all, even to an ancient powerhouse, it was extremely difficult for a person to modify his own spell or incantation and create a witchcraft method everybody could learn.

Naturally, the spell and incantation they picked would be powerful and practical. Even though its effect would be slightly weakened, it was still much more powerful than those spells small wizards obtained by luck.

On the other hand, the Corpse Puppet Refining Method Zhang Lisheng obtained was different from other witchcraft methods. It was not simplified from a spell but was actually a weakened version of the Living Corpse Refining Technique a great wizard who cultivated the Witchcraft’s Gate of Death obtained after making a breakthrough to the Rank-12 Wizard level Resurrection.

According to the method recorded on the True Book, the Rank-1 Wizards who cultivated the Witchcraft’s Gate of Death and the Rank-6 Wizards who cultivated either the Witchcraft’s Gate of Sacrifice or Gate of Life could manage to refine a corpse puppet.

The refinery of a living corpse also relied on the opportunity obtained when a wizard reached his sixth level, just like the transformation process. It might sound as though it was worth refining a living corpse at such an early stage, but in truth, it was not actually the case. The dragon’s egg and the chicken’s egg were both eggs, but how could he compare the animals that hatched from them to each other?

Moreover, it was not easy to refine a living corpse. One could say that this Corpse Puppet Refining Method would be useful for a ruthless wizard who did not have that many opportunities to continue making more breakthroughs and was willing to take a great risk in elevating his own strength. However, it was of little value to Zhang Lisheng who could rely on his witchcraft spells as well as the great capacity of blood and flesh to nurture ancient strange insects.

For this reason, the teenager did not care much about the force of the corpse puppet. Instead, he focused more on the enlightenment effect contained in the Corpse Puppet Refining Method on him when he made a breakthrough to Rank-12 Wizard in the future.

However, so far, it was apparent that it would not come to effect in just a day. Adding on the vivid pictures of real cutting up of corpses in the book, Zhang Lisheng finished reading through the Corpse Puppet Refining Method with great gusto before looking forward to look at the remaining one-third of the exquisitely skewed calligraphed words that seemed to be written with dry blood.

“I have the Eternal Comprehension Spell, so I’ll eventually understand the meaning of these words. I just hope I won’t be disappointed by that time…” As Zhang Lisheng muttered to himself, he put down the True Book and picked up the bone book.

This bone book Consultant Zheng made on the spot using his living corpse had a content that was actually the opposite of the True Book. It had no sort of imaginary enlightenment and it simply helped Zhang Lisheng understand various mysteries of his body after the transformation.

Even if he did not read about these mysteries, they existed naturally, so he would eventually come to learn about them one after another. However, it’s just that he did not know how long it would take for him to do so.

In the next few months, Zhang Lisheng began to hide in his apartment and kill his time studying these two witchcraft True Books.

During this period of time, due to the exposure of the news of the supernatural realm’s invasion, the entire world was taken in by a shocked uproar. After South Africa underwent three major stages of war—a stalemate in the early stage of the war, a rapid deterioration of the situation in the middle stage, and the intervention of global military powers at the final stage—it finally regained Cape Town and temporary peace.

On the other side of the distant ocean, the election day of the world’s most powerful country, the United States of America, came at the appointed time. As their own people generally felt that the current ruling party did not handle the invasion of the supernatural realm well, causing the US international prestige to fall, the Democratic candidate, Hillary, unexpectedly suffered a defeat, causing the US to lose her best chance in having her become the first female president in the history of the country.

On the second day of the announcement of the US election’s result, Zhang Lisheng received a message—with just the two letters, “OK”—from his chief legal officer, Edward, in the Antelope’s Nest apartment in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Upon seeing the “OK” on his phone’s screen, the teenager lost himself in his daze for a while before heaving out a long sigh of relief. Without even packing his luggage, he walked straight out of the room.

When the girl on duty at the front desk of the apartment building saw Zhang Lisheng, who had been staying here for more than six months and was already very familiar with each other, pushing the door open to leave the apartment, she asked joyously, “Are you going out?”

“That’s right! I’m going back to the US. Bye!” The teenager turned his head around and waved with a smile, before leaving in the midst of the girls’ dumbstruck gaze.

After the South African war situation regained equilibrium, the trend of escaping in Johannesburg gradually cooled down. Even though the regular flights were still full of people, it had returned to the situation in which tickets to some of the first-class seats on the flight could already be bought on the same day.

After being lucky enough to buy a first-class ticket back to New York directly at a flight at two o’clock in the afternoon in the Johannesburg International Airport, Zhang Lisheng left South Africa, where he had lived for eight months. After enduring a long flight, he finally reached the long-parted John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Getting off the plane and breathing in the warm and humid August air of the US, the teenager hurriedly walked into the airport bus and dialed Tina’s phone.

“Who is this?” The call was picked up right away and soon followed by Tina’s cold voice.

“It’s me.”

“Who are you? I can’t tell who you are from your voice.”

“Oh, Tina. I really had no other choice but to stop contacting you for such a long time.”

“But you’ve contacted Edward and Charlie! Heck, even my dad too! Only I received a few short texts…”

“It’s not only you. I also just sent some short texts to my mom when I contacted her. It’s because I felt that you two can retain and reread the texts again and again if I sent a text instead of a call, just like what I did…”

Tina became silent for a while on the other side of the call. “Zhang Lisheng, if you’re lying, I’ll drive your car into the Atlantic Ocean when you come back!”

“I’m back to the US already, Tina.”

“Oh my god! Are y-you at the JFK International Airport?” The girl exclaimed from the other side of the phone.

“Yes.”

After a long moment of silence, Tina suddenly asked, “Then are you willing to take on my punishment today?’

“Punishment? Why?” Zhang Lisheng was stunned.

“Of course I have to punish you! No matter what your reason is, you left me for eight freaking months and you didn’t even tell me your address so I could go look for you…”

“Okay, stop worrying anymore. I’m willing to accept the punishment.”

“That’s good! alright then! I’ll pick you up at the airport, baby. Don’t resist and struggle later! You’re mine! I’ve waited for eight months, so you’re completely mine today!” Tina suddenly replied breathlessly, before hanging up the phone right away.