It is well known that the so-called promotion rituals of major Magic Sect are the result of consistent summarization based on the characteristics and requirements of Technique cultivation over thousands of years, akin to special big data models and empirical formulas.
Continuous improvement also means continuously abandoning old rituals.
There is another type of special ritual, which gradually fell into desuetude after the Ancestral Hall was established to reorganize the Magic Sect thousands of years ago, and now has vanished from the lineage, with no one cultivating it anymore.
This type of ritual mainly serves as auxiliary techniques and rites for various Applied Techniques, and bears distinct features of ancient sorcery.
Many sorcerers from the Ancient Era were also wizards.
The means that He Kao just employed is an important branch within ancient sympathetic magicโfootprint sorcery. So-called sympathetic magic uses a part of the human body or an object they have come into contact with as a medium to perform techniques.
Footprint sorcery, of course, uses footprints as the medium for casting, and the witchcraft used by He Kao is called "Love Inducing Gu," passed down by ancient sorcerers from the Xingshen Sect and used in conjunction with the "Love Stealing Skill."
Tier Four Cultivation in the Spirit Awakening Skill can perceive people's emotions, jokingly referred to as "Flower Child."
Tier Five Cultivation in the Spirit Awakening Skill can, under certain conditions and to a certain extent, manipulate people's cognition by influencing their emotions. This unique divine technique is also known as "Duo Qing," and the title "Heart Stealer" comes from this.
The casting medium for Love Inducing Gu usually comes in two varieties: soil from the sole of a shoe and footprint water.
For example, there's a kind of witchcraft where you take soil from a man's shoe sole, mix it with wine for a woman to drink, and it reportedly makes her fall in love with the man. The shoe sole soil must be aged dust soaked into old-style cloth-bottomed shoes, which is now rare.
Footprint water is much easier to collect, best obtained from a barefoot step in a wet mud puddle. He Kao previously used some trickery to create conditions for collecting footprint water.
He utilized a dual-way sympathetic footprint sorcery, first having Gao Xue'e step barefoot into a puddle, then stepping himself in the same spot, followed by collecting the footprint water.
After treating this footprint water, mixing it into wine or food, it is said to make both parties fall in love once consumed.
The dual-way sympathetic magic's characteristic is invisibility because He Kao not only casts on Gao Xue'e but also effectively casts on himself, making the emotional and cognitive shift appear natural, even experts at Technique cannot easily detect it.
Thus, it is evident this person acts cautiously, planning carefully before taking action, leaving barely any tracesโฆ but when he prepared to collect footprint water, He Kao unexpectedly discovered it!
Students often using Gu know that many so-called witchcraft methods, when used by ordinary people, only have a suggestive effect on the caster, without achieving the claimed results.
They are merely rituals; effectiveness relies on the Technique Cultivation of the caster themselves.
The reason that these were abandoned by Magic Sect centuries ago lies partly here, because those genuinely cultivated and skilled in various Applied Techniques do not need such methods.
More importantly, these rituals carry sinister traits of ancient sorcery, generally with malevolent intents, easily leading people astray, and are almost always forbidden practices.
He Kao initially received a more complete Ancient Technique lineage, without the promotion rituals of today, but it included Applied Techniques from ancient times and corresponding auxiliary rituals, so he recognized it immediately.
And the source of the Xiao Alliance stems from the internal divisions and splintering in the Magic Sect centuries ago, inheriting Ancient Techniques from that era.
Although the Xiao Alliance has infiltrated the Magic Sect over the centuries, probing for the latest advancements in Technique, many areas still retain Ancient Techniques, especially the Xingshen lineage He Kao belongs to.
Aside from the once-extinct Hidden Moth Sect, two branches of the Magic Sect are hardest to infiltrate; firstly, Lingxi Sect, which is nearly impenetrable, and secondly, the Xingshen Sect, where spies are easily discovered.
Thus, it is unsurprising that He Kao possesses the bizarre rituals of ancient sorcery.
These sorcery rituals, while often historical remnants, are not entirely useless, their greatest use lies in providing auxiliary effects.
They can make the application of relevant Techniques more stable, easier to master, more efficient, or more secretly unpredictable.
The principle is not entirely unexplainable; even laypersons may utilize it, such as the famous bridge effect, linking specific physiological responses to a particular object.
By leveraging environmental factors, leading to a series of complex reactions such as nervousness, excitement, pupil dilation, increased heart rate, raised body temperature, changes in internal secretions, and forming conditioned reflexes with specific objects in the environment, thus generating the illusion of affection.
The so-called hero saving the beauty scenario also exploits this effect.
Regular practitioners of the hero-saving-beauty approach should note that if the intention as a hero is to make others develop an affection, its core lies not in the outcome but in achieving two critical points during the process.
First, induce the target's physiological and psychological response, establishing the foundation of an affection illusion. Second, have the target project such responses onto a specific object within the scene, meaning yourself.
If you cannot achieve both points simultaneously, any cleverly designed hero-saving-the-beauty scenario is pointless.
Two years ago, He Kao rescued Gao Xue'e in a deserted amusement park, perfectly matching the above requirements, yet his intention was not so, merely unintended.
