After the Strange Spiral Shell spun briefly by the pillar, a powerful suction pulled Evan Yang toward it.
Dragged over, Evan Yang examined the pillar, finding it ordinary and unremarkable. "Does it actually have sentience?" he wondered aloud.
Feeling the Strange Spiral Shell's pull, Evan began to ponder what was really happening. Truthfully, he'd always wanted to unravel the shell's true nature.
From the moment he obtained the Strange Spiral Shell, all he knew was that it was a vital artifact of the Shadowhand Guild. He had never used it, nor heard of its true abilities.
"Strange, strange! Can't you react at all?" Evan had just remarked on its sentience, and the shell immediately attached itself to the pillar.
Seeing it still unresponsive, Evan shifted his gaze to the pillar, wondering why the Strange Spiral Shell had come here.
Curious, he reached out and touched the pillar. A sharp pain shot through his finger—Evan's fingertip began to bleed, the culprit being the pillar itself.
When Evan realized this and tried to pull his hand away, it was already too late. His entire blood volume felt like it was being forcibly drawn up into the pillar, which quickly became covered in the color of his blood.
"If this keeps up, I'll die!" Evan exclaimed in shock, then saw that all his blood was ultimately flowing straight into the Strange Spiral Shell.
The Strange Spiral Shell absorbed the blood at the top of the pillar.
"Hey, hey, quit it! How long are you going to keep draining me?" Evan grumbled, seeing the Strange Spiral Shell acting like a bloodsucker. He used all his strength, but even with his Spirit‑Wandering Realm cultivation, he couldn't break free from the pillar.
At this point, Evan truly regretted reaching out. Curiosity really could kill.
Complaining was pointless now. Evan could only watch helplessly as his blood was drained, his whole body growing weaker until hallucinations appeared and he collapsed, finally letting go.
As for what happened next, Evan had no idea.
Inside his body, the Heaven‑Cold Seed activated automatically. With barely any blood left, Evan slowly began to recover. When he finally woke up, he quickly checked himself and was relieved to find his body gradually healing. "Thank goodness I'm okay," he muttered.
He then looked at the strange pillar in front of him, only to find the Strange Spiral Shell had vanished.
"Where did it go?" Evan exclaimed in shock when he saw the Strange Spiral Shell was missing.
Looking around, "Strange, strange... Could it have disappeared?" Evan muttered, searching everywhere but finding no sign of the shell.
"So weird, so weird," Evan grumbled.
After searching for fifteen minutes with no results, Evan had to give up and check himself again. Finding nothing unusual, he exited his internal world. Just as he was about to leave, he sensed something new in his mind.
"?" Evan was startled to find a mark in a corner of his mind. He had no idea when the Strange Spiral Shell ended up inside him.
A thought flashed through his mind, and the Strange Spiral Shell appeared according to Evan's will.
But this time, what appeared in front of Evan wasn't a tiny shell—it was a conch mouth as large as a washbasin.
"Whoa." Evan exclaimed, recalling how that old blue‑browed Daoist once asked if he wanted to see a shell this huge.
Seeing the shell's true form now, Evan was stunned. He began trying to communicate with it.
Little by little, Evan realized he had somehow already refined it.
Now, the shell could change size according to his will, just like the Sky‑Piercing Tower.
Most curious of all, Evan calmed himself and began searching for any space inside the shell.
A thought flashed, and Evan entered the shell's interior.
"Just like the Sky‑Piercing Tower—it has its own space." Evan exclaimed after entering, then began to inspect the Strange Spiral Shell.
Inside this space, Evan Yang saw three tunnel mouths ahead.
Each tunnel mouth radiated a unique glow.
"What are these three tunnels for?" Evan wondered, suspicious.
Determined to uncover the shell's secrets, Evan entered the first tunnel.
After stepping into the first tunnel, Evan was stunned: here, countless treasures left by past Shadowhand Guild masters had accumulated. This place was known as the 'treasure ground' by the sect's leaders.
Evan quickly scanned and sorted through the items, soon discovering a very familiar technique manual.
"So it really was stolen." Evan was shocked when he saw the technique, since he had once obtained the first three forms from the Bai Family, and rumor had it the rest were taken by Shadowhand. Now, without guessing, he saw the complete original here.
"Fivefold attack? Tenfold attack? Twentyfold? Fiftyfold? A hundredfold?" Seeing the later attack multipliers, Evan was completely stunned.
The Bai Family's incomplete technique only allowed triple amplification—the twofold and threefold attacks Evan currently used.
Originally, Evan thought threefold was the limit, but now, seeing the hundredfold, he was dumbfounded. As he slowly recovered from shock, he noticed a note recorded on the back of the manual.