After a moment of silence to accept this setting, Little Black said:
"Hmm, let me see how difficult this skill is. I'll determine the number of souls to collect based on the difficulty."
Subsequently, Little Black took the skill book to the ground and hid in a corner to read through it.
"No problem."
Jiang Lin nodded in agreement.
To be honest, Jiang Lin found it a bit strange. As an evil god, why would the other party be interested in the souls of such ordinary creatures and even be willing to bestow power upon the sacrificer?
Logically speaking, if the other party was so powerful and wanted the souls of certain creatures, it could simply take them itself. Why go through someone else?
He then voiced the doubt in his heart.
However, Little Black didn't even look up:
"Go play somewhere else, kid. Knowing this won't do you any good."
Jiang Lin fell silent and then closed his eyes to practice his breathing technique.
However, in less than a minute, Little Black flipped to the last page of the book in its claws.
"Alright, I'll teach you how to practice. You need to sacrifice the souls of ten rank-0 adventurers to me."
Jiang Lin nodded and agreed without even thinking about it.
In any case, he hadn't said when he would pay it back. As long as the opportunity remained unsuitable, the other party couldn't do anything to him. And if he really had to settle the debt, at worst, he could join the Temple's knight order and go out to crusade against members of evil secret cults to use as sacrifices. It would be considered getting rid of a public nuisance anyway.
Seeing Jiang Lin agree so readily, Little Black felt vaguely uneasy. So, it quickly drafted a spirit contract IOU that was only visible to the two of them and had Jiang Lin sign it.
A piece of slightly yellowed parchment appeared in Jiang Lin's mind, with the relevant contract terms written in black ink.
The general content of the contract was: Little Black would teach Jiang Lin the skill, and Jiang Lin would need to sacrifice the souls of ten rank-0 adventurers to Little Black when the conditions were appropriate.
Seeing how rigorous the other party was, Jiang Lin could only sigh. He carefully checked the spirit contract once, and after confirming there were no errors, just as he was about to sign, he asked with some concern:
"You didn't pull any tricks on the contract, did you?"
Little Black's disdainful voice came through:
"I wouldn't bother playing mind games with a little brat like you."
"Then teach me how to sign it; I'll draft the spirit contract myself."
"Ugh, why be so troublesome? Hurry up. Once it's signed, I can teach you the skill."
"No, I don't trust the contract you drafted."
Little Black fell silent. Unable to win the argument, it taught Jiang Lin the method for drafting such a spirit contract.
This was a use of mental power, equivalent to setting up a binding spell and formula within the soul. If the established formula was violated, the soul would be detonated by the formula, leading to sudden death.
Of course, the specific punishment depended on the severity of the contract.
Little Black put away its own contract, while inwardly cursing this kid for being so cautious.
Looking at him talking big earlier, one wouldn't have guessed its mind was so meticulous.
In fact, the spirit contract IOU it had given Jiang Lin earlier was a double-sided contract.
To use an analogy, on the surface it looked like an IOU, but if you tore the surface IOU away, there was actually another contract inside.
If Jiang Lin had signed that IOU just now, the contract underneath would have also taken effect.
As an evil god, Little Black was naturally no innocent or naive soul.
It had originally added several predatory terms to the contract underneath...
...
On the other side, Jiang Lin was clumsily trying to condense a spirit contract IOU.
With the mental power boost given by the system, Jiang Lin was still capable of condensing a spirit contract of this level.
Over ten minutes later, he finally succeeded in his attempt.
"Alright, let's sign. I've refined the bindings of the contract a bit."
Little Black glanced at Jiang Lin's contract and was instantly shocked.
It saw that the IOU, which originally had only a few dozen words, had now been expanded by Jiang Lin to several thousand words.
However, after reading it through, the general meaning hadn't changed; it was still one person responsible for teaching and one person responsible for sacrificing.
But Jiang Lin had filled it with clauses such as: 'Party B shall not make any harmful changes to the original skill; if there are improvements, Party A must be informed of the specific changes', 'Party B shall not intentionally omit key teaching parts', 'When Party A provides souls to Party B at a suitable time, Party A's safety in all aspects must be guaranteed', and a series of other explanations.
There was even a sentence at the very end: 'The right of final interpretation for all the above terms belongs to Party A'...
"Alright, I've signed it. You sign it too."
Little Black was momentarily speechless.
Jiang Lin, however, felt that what he was doing was only natural.
After all, the other party was an evil god. One should be a bit cautious when making deals with an evil god.
Just as Little Black was about to sign, it seemed to discover something and suddenly paused.
Then, with a face full of dark lines, Little Black asked sullenly:
"Explain this to me. What is this?"
As it spoke, it magnified the spirit contract Jiang Lin had given it.
In an inconspicuous corner, a sentence was written in a very small line of text:
'In the future, Party B shall be responsible for teaching all of Party A's skill learning.'
Well then! You look so upright and honest, but who knew you had so many tricks up your sleeve?!
Originally, Little Black wanted to use the contract to pit Jiang Lin, but it didn't expect to almost be pitted by this kid instead!
Seeing his little trick exposed, Jiang Lin laughed it off:
"Ah? What's going on? I don't know either. It looks like some dust fell on it..."
As he spoke, he wiped away that line of text in the corner.
In fact, from the very beginning, Jiang Lin knew how to draft spirit contracts himself.
Drafting spirit contracts was within the teaching scope of the junior magic academy.
The reason he asked Little Black to teach him was to make the other party think he was a novice, thereby lowering its guard so he could sign a predatory treaty with it.
...
Little Black was exasperated and then carefully inspected the contract Jiang Lin had given it again.
It was now certain that the guy in front of it was definitely not some simple-minded or kind-hearted person!
This guy's heart was probably even blacker than those of some cultists!
No wonder his talent as a paladin was so poor!!
It was a miracle this guy could even cultivate to level 3.
And there was one more thing: the other party was only fifteen years old and had no social experience.
To be this black-hearted based purely on his own talent—if he had switched to a profession like a fallen knight, he probably would have become a gifted genius.
However, Jiang Lin had absolutely no clear self-awareness regarding this point.
Soon, Little Black's face darkened once more, and it brought out Jiang Lin's spirit contract:
"Explain this to me. What is this thing?"
As it spoke, Little Black pointed to an area on the parchment of the spirit contract that had originally been empty.
It looked blank now, but Little Black actively changed the color of the parchment from its original brownish-yellow to white.
In that originally empty area, text written in brownish-yellow ink actually appeared!!
Jiang Lin had hidden another predatory clause within the spirit contract by using ink the exact same color as the background parchment!!!
Rate on N.U.
