Once again, the prints on the bowl started moving.
The blue waters flowed along the bottom of the bowl, creating a living print of the sea. The blue clouds transformed as they moved across the imaginary sky, raining into the sea below.
Before long, a blue liquid started appearing within the bowl.
Zhao Yunxiao could almost hear his heart thumping in excitement.
At the same time, he could not help but notice that the essence energy consumption rate was much lower this time.
He had to burn through spirit stones just to feed the rate of consumption previously. But this time, his energy reserves were more than enough to supply the treasure bowl with the energy required.
It would appear that the consumption of essence energy varied with each instance, likely depending on the entity that was being resummoned.
Just like before, the blue liquid formed a stream that escaped the Heaven's Descent Bowl after filling it to the brim, falling to the ground and taking on the form of a huge blob before starting to transform.
It did not take long before the familiar figure of a monkey monster appeared before his eyes.
This was one of the monkey monsters that he had slain during the demon subduing mission at East Stream Village, for which he had joined Mo Mian's Mystic Cavalry.
More importantly, unlike the avatars of the zodiac spirits, the monkey monster was a hostile entity.
With a flick of his wrists, the Penta-Edge Grimoire Halberd appeared in Zhao Yunxiao's hands as he got into his battle stance. As he did, the Heaven's Descent Bowl floated over to hover above his shoulder.
Whether previously hostile spirits would remain hostile towards him upon resummoning – now was the time to find out!
His weapon at the ready, Zhao Yunxiao carefully watched the blue monkey monster.
As for the blue monkey monster, it simply stood there unmovingly, looking back at him with its hollow blue eyes.
Just like that, a minute passed with both parties staring each other down.
Zhao Yunxiao: "..."
It appeared that the blue monkey monster was not going to make any moves?
Luckily, Gu Qiansi was not here to see this, or she would definitely have laughed at what she would deem an overreaction.
Still, Zhao Yunxiao dared not let down his guard, continuing to maintain his battle stance.
"What can you do?" Zhao Yunxiao asked.
Squeal-!
The blue monkey monster cried out in response.
"I don't understand you! Speak human language!" Zhao Yunxiao tried.
Squeal-!
The blue monkey monster continued to cry out in the same manner.
How irritating.
"Too noisy! Quieten down a little!" Zhao Yunxiao said in frustration.
Squeal...
This time, the blue monkey monster's cries were significantly softer than before. Seeing this, Zhao Yunxiao subconsciously raised an eyebrow in surprise.
It would appear that while he did not understand the resummoned monkey monster, the reverse was not true.
"Go climb a tree and get back down!" Zhao Yunxiao instructed.
Before he knew it, the blue monkey monster was already halfway up the nearest tree. Upon reaching the top, it quickly came back down and stopped in front of him.
Seeing this, Zhao Yunxiao finally relaxed and kept away the Penta-Edge Grimoire Halberd before rubbing his chin in contemplation.
He did not know if this blue monkey monster still bore any hostility towards him. But at the very least, it did not seem to be able to go against his words.
At this point, there was no longer any doubt that the resummoned spirits were capable of more than just transmitting their memories.
Now then, what would be the limit of this?
Go catch a fish for me!
Zhao Yunxiao gave his next instruction, this time through mere thoughts instead of verbalising it.
The blue monkey monster seemed to have received his instruction nevertheless, jumping into the stream without hesitation. Exhibiting nimble movements and ferocious precision, it caught a fish within a matter of seconds and quickly brought it back to Zhao Yunxiao as instructed.
Ignoring the fish that continued to flap about in the palm of the blue monkey monster, Zhao Yunxiao swallowed a mouthful of saliva in excitement.
The capabilities of the monkey monster had not been diminished, at least not significantly so. This was almost akin to recreating a killed target, and as a version that was completely subservient to himself!
But at the same time, he also noticed that this was not entirely without drawbacks.
With each passing moment, the blue monkey monster appeared to be becoming more translucent, as though there was a countdown to its disappearance. The process was slow, but definitely noticeable when he paid close attention. And with each action taken, the rate of disappearance only increased.
Was it because the resummoned spirits required energy to sustain themselves?
Zhao Yunxiao tried to channel more essence energy into the Heaven's Descent Bowl, to no avail. No matter how much essence energy he tried to inject into the treasure bowl, it simply maintained its original rate of expenditure.
It would appear that there was no way to sustain the resummoned spirits for a longer period of time. Or if there was a way to do so, he had yet to figure that out.
Unfortunate.
Now then...
Show me your memories!
Upon receiving his instructions, the blue monkey monster froze as a wave of energy erupted from within, rushing straight into Zhao Yunxiao's mind through their connection to the Heaven's Descent Bowl.
Boom-!
Zhao Yunxiao suddenly found himself leaping down from a treehouse, joining many other monkey monsters as they rushed towards a huge wooden cage.
And within this cage were two human figures that were almost skin and bones – an adult female and a boy no more than ten years old. The woman hugged the boy tightly in her bosom, both of them showing absolutely no reaction even as the group of monkey monsters charged towards them.
It soon became clear why that was the case.
They were already dead.
Wu-! Ar-!
A larger monkey monster opened the cage, then dragged the two out and casually tossed them onto the ground in front of the cage.
Squeal-! Squeal-!
This threw the group of smaller monkey monsters into a state of frenzy. Next, Zhao Yunxiao watched from the front row seat as the group of monkey monsters devoured the two corpses, tearing them from limb to limb as they savoured every piece of flesh...
Zhao Yunxiao slowly opened his eyes.
This time, the scenes that flashed through his mind had been significantly shorter as compared to those of the avatars of the zodiac spirits.
However, the memories were still extremely impactful, albeit in a different way. Through the monkey monster's memories, he had personally experienced eating a human corpse!
Huu-!
He took deep breaths to calm himself down, trying to suppress the disgust within his heart.
In front of him, the blue monkey monster was rapidly dissipating, turning into blue specks of light that vanished into nothingness.
The Heaven's Descent Bowl also returned to its original state upon the disappearance of the blue monkey monster, silently returning to his spatial pouch.
Zhao Yunxiao took a quick glance at his horse that was still drinking by the stream, then at the fish that was still struggling on the ground.
Once again, it would appear that only a moment had passed in reality.
At the very least, he had confirmed that other resummoned spirits could perform transfer of memories as well. That said, the amount of memories transferred seemed to differ, so this would be something that he had to look into further.
The only question he had left was whether the spirits could be resummoned multiple times.
This had not worked with the avatars of the zodiac spirits, but Zhao Yunxiao suspected that it might be due to their high cultivation levels requiring a longer recovery time.
As for the monkey monsters, it might be difficult to test out since the Heaven's Descent Bowl had absorbed quite a few of them back then. Even if it ended up resummoning the spirit of another monkey monster, it would be beyond him to differentiate between the two.
He needed something new.
Looking around, Zhao Yunxiao's attention immediately fell upon the fish that was still struggling on the ground.
Slash-!
A dagger directly severed the fish's head, ending its suffering once and for all.
As expected, a tiny trace of invisible matter immediately flowed out from the carcass and into the Heaven's Descent Bowl.
Wait a minute. If the Heaven's Descent Bowl could absorb the spirits from within the spatial pouch, did it mean that it could resummon the spirits from within as well?
Zhao Yunxiao did not hesitate to give it a try.
Picturing the fish in his head, he extended his spiritual sense into his spatial pouch and established a spiritual connection with the treasure bowl.
Summon the fish!
Tremble-!
Zhao Yunxiao widened his eyes in surprise as the Heaven's Descent Bowl immediately sprang into action inside his spatial pouch. The blue liquid from within shot out as a stream, directly exiting the spatial pouch and landing on the ground in front of him.
This time, the energy consumption was even lower than that of the monkey monster.
Splash-!
The blue liquid quickly formed into a blue version of the earlier fish. But instead of thrashing about on the ground, it remained motionless while lying beside its headless counterpart.
Show me your memories!
Slash-!
Immense pain assaulted Zhao Yunxiao's mind as he felt a giant dagger severing his head from above. The flash of memory only lasted an instant, but it was enough to cause Zhao Yunxiao's heart to race in trepidation.
Zhao Yunxiao gently massaged his neck while falling into contemplation.
Thankfully, he had already experienced death multiple times in the past through the Benevolent Wave Chessboard, so the psychological impact was still not considered too large. However, he really had to be careful with this memory thing in the future. Otherwise, he might just end up subjecting himself to needless suffering like today.
And as expected, the blue fish quickly dissipated.
Summon the fish!
Zhao Yunxiao's eyes lit up in excitement as the Heaven's Descent Bowl came to life once again, summoning the same fish before him.
It's possible! It could be resummoned again after dissipating!
But he was not satisfied with just that. Instead, he continued to picture the same fish in his mind.
Summon another fish!
Another stream of blue liquid shot out from within his spatial pouch, creating yet another blue fish that lay motionlessly beside the first.
Zhao Yunxiao felt a chill running down his spine as goosebumps appeared all over his arms.
The moment the second blue fish was created, it became clear that the Heaven's Descent Bowl had not been resummoning the souls of the entities absorbed – it would have been impossible to resummon two souls when it had only absorbed one.
Instead, it was likely to have absorbed the information of the dead, using it as a mould of sorts to create a brand-new blue replica. And this replica even inherited the memories of the dead!
Unfortunately, there were obvious downsides to it as well.
Firstly, the energy expenditure varied according to the strength of the replica. The stronger it was, the more energy would be required to create a replica.
Secondly, the replica seemed to gradually lose energy with both the passing of time and the execution of any actions, eventually dissipating when all energy had been depleted.
Thirdly, the showing of memories would cause the replicas to instantly lose all of their energy.
What a pity. If not for these restrictions, it might even be possible to slowly create his own army of replicas.
That said, this was still a useful ability in his eyes. Moving forward, he had to carefully think of the best way to utilise the Heaven's Descent Bowl.
Zhao Yunxiao could not help but let out a smirk at this point.
Perhaps that Cha was not actually as unreliable as it seemed!