"Oh, I'm so, so sorry, Lady Uka! Tsuruha truly doesn't know why her transformed appearance is like this. I've always wanted to change it, but with little success..." Tsuruha, now a veritable beauty, said with a blush. It was clear she was very uncomfortable with her transformed state.
"Well... Tsuruha, your transformed appearance is quite good. In any case, please come and sit down for now. This ritual requires two people to begin." Even though she was now in a female body, Miketsu felt a slight surge of excitement looking at Tsuruha, but thankfully, it was very faint.
If it were before, she might have even gotten a nosebleed...
Nodding, Tsuruha slowly came and sat in front of Miketsu. As her extremely ample chest swayed close to Miketsu's eyes, Miketsu's thoughts couldn't help but wander.
It's really too big... Although her own, among those of similar build, was somewhat well-endowed, compared to Tsuruha's, it was like a small witch meeting a great one. Is it true that all foxes have this kind of talent?
Shaking her head, Miketsu composed her thoughts, casting aside all useless distractions, and calmly prepared for the divination.
After explaining the method to Tsuruha, the two officially began the Planchette ritual. Miketsu and Tsuruha raised their hands, fingers intertwined over a single pen, which stood vertically on the paper where Miketsu had just drawn a charm. Once everything was ready, Miketsu began to recite the spirit-summoning incantation.
"Come quickly, go quickly, where is the immortal's trace? I respectfully invite the Planchette spirit to appear, to divine with divine power..."
After reciting the incantation, Miketsu suddenly felt an indescribable, profound sensation emanating from the pen between herself and Tsuruha. She could feel that this pen seemed to have formed a channel, similar to those that appear when inviting a god, inviting her will to attach to it.
But unlike inviting a god, this invitation was not solely directed at her. Miketsu could feel that the moment she finished reciting the incantation, countless gazes turned towards her.
This was completely like a public loudspeaker shouting loudly, and it even came with a link.
Because it was somewhat different from the usual god-inviting rituals she encountered, Miketsu couldn't adapt to the Planchette's spirit-summoning mode for a moment, and thus didn't respond immediately. Just as she was still figuring out how to respond, Miketsu suddenly discovered that some unclean thing had followed the link provided by the public loudspeaker and attached itself to the pen she and Tsuruha were holding together.
And then... a large amount of black mist billowed from the pen.
"Owaaaah!" Accompanied by a shrill scream, a painful skull emerged from the black mist steaming from the pen, then quickly dissipated into the air. The pen returned to its normal state, no longer able to respond to the summoning.
Seeing this scene, Miketsu paused for two seconds, then quickly understood what had happened. Because she hadn't responded to the summoning in time, some resentful spirit or evil spirit from who-know-where had seized the opportunity. It followed the summoning ritual and attached itself to the pen, then was immediately burned to ashes by her demon-slaying divine power.
"Lady Uka, it's best to respond to the summoning quickly, otherwise, it's easy for such riff-raff to sneak in," Tsuruha said, seeing the scene before them, which made Miketsu a little embarrassed.
"Tsuruha, isn't this a Secret Realm within the divine realm? How can these things get in?" Miketsu asked curiously. Not a single ghost could be seen in this Secret Realm.
"Indeed, beings from the demon realm cannot invade this Secret Realm created by Lady Uka's divine power. But you, Lady Uka, were the one who conducted the summoning ritual just now. This is equivalent to you personally inviting those things, so the Secret Realm's barrier naturally wouldn't stop them," Tsuruha patiently explained to Miketsu. Miketsu nodded understandingly after knowing the full story, and at the same time, silently mourned for the unlucky resentful spirit from earlier.
As a resentful spirit wandering the world, it inadvertently sensed that some ignorant and fearless humans, driven by curiosity, were playing Planchette. It was gleefully responding to the summoning, ready to cause some mischief, but it never expected the other party to be a legitimate deity.
That resentful spirit probably never understood how it inexplicably ceased to exist in the end. Who would have thought a god would idly play with something like Planchette?
Even slightly capable experts wouldn't use Planchette for divination, would they? As a god, don't you feel undignified using such a thing?
Ignoring the previous events, Miketsu and Tsuruha continued to attempt the Planchette ritual. However, because she had never responded to a summoning before, Miketsu's speed was still a bit slow. Another resentful spirit, who knows where it came from, was burned to death on the pen. Hearing another scream, Miketsu grinned awkwardly, then tried again.
Just like that, after burning and sacrificing seven or eight "Planchette spirits," Miketsu finally managed to respond to her own summoning ahead of time, attaching her will to the pen and becoming the "Planchette spirit."
At that moment, Miketsu's senses suddenly became clear. She felt her consciousness expand immensely. Before her eyes, countless dense lines appeared, traversing and connecting various objects. These fine lines extended from the horizon to her immediate vicinity, omnipresent, sometimes real, sometimes illusory, ever-changing.
Miketsu knew that these lines were the concretization of karma in her eyes. In the Yu-step state, she could also see these lines.
According to the information obtained from the divination texts today, Miketsu learned that how much one can divine depends on the rank of their spiritual body. The lower the rank, the lower one is in the world, the less karma one can access and see, and thus one can only divine trivial matters. Conversely, the higher the rank, the more karma one can see, the more matters one can divine, and the accuracy will also increase.
For humans, their rank is their cultivation level. Whether cultivating Buddhism, Taoism, or Onmyodo, the higher the realm, the higher the rank. Sages can even concretize vague karma into lines, divining the fate of a nation and major world events.
At the same time, there is an important rule in divination: if your divination involves other practitioners, gods, demons, or monsters, their rank must be lower than yours. If they are of the same or higher rank, the divination will directly fail.
Miketsu looked at the dense lines of karma extending to the infinite distance before her and roughly understood why a basic Yu-step, such a fundamental divination technique, became so powerful when she used it. It was because her rank as a deity was very high, allowing her to see enough karma. During battle, all aspects of details could be fully fed back. If an ordinary Onmyoji used Yu-step, they naturally wouldn't achieve the same effect as her.
Looking at the lines of karma before her, Miketsu began to ask herself the first question.
"Planchette spirit, Planchette spirit, please tell me, did the Onmyoryo's Subjugation Bureau file away the unfinished missions yesterday?"
This question was carefully designed by Miketsu. According to the texts, divination questions must be clear, concise, and unambiguous. They should not be vague, roundabout, or equivocal, and ideally, they should have some karmic connection to oneself.
After Miketsu finished speaking, she saw a slight disturbance in the dense lines of karma before her. Several lines, driven by some force, spontaneously wrapped around the pen in her hand, then slowly began to pull the pen, moving it to draw a circle around the word "Yes."
Rate on N.U.
