Yin Ershi’s eyes lit up with curiosity.
“Why are you so concerned about her? As of now, you two are still opponents.”
Li Weiyi casually used a phrase that Yin Ershi had once said in front of Yao Yin, “Maybe it’s because she’s pretty!”
“Then I advise you not to let your heart be swayed by her. Otherwise you will have to endure the pain of parting in life and death, harming both yourself and others.”
Yin Ershi sighed, “She possesses the extremely rare body of the Jade-Shattering Ice Soul – something that only appears in Pure Immortal Bodies. Out of ten thousand Pure Immortal Bodies, maybe there is only one.”
“Jade-Shattering Ice Soul…”
Li Weiyi repeated, puzzled. Yin Ershi continued, “In other words, her Pure Immortal Body is so pure that her body is prone to shatter like jade and crack like ice. The reason such a rare physique appears usually comes from her parents – a strange mutation in their bloodline.
Her father…”
At that moment, she abruptly stopped.
“I’ve only heard of Half-Immortal Bodies. I never knew there was even the idea of being excessively pure.”
Li Weiyi thought it necessary to eventually study more about these matters in this world. When he became part of the Divine Hidden sect, he planned to go to the library at the Guan Hai Pavilion to take a closer look. Yin Ershi said, “In this world, everything in excess is as bad as falling short.
Most Pure Immortal Bodies with the Jade-Shattering Ice Soul do not live past the age of eighteen. Otherwise, if you think about it – her status would be extraordinarily noble as the granddaughter of the leader of the Yao Li Tribe and a Pure Immortal Body. Why would she come to the Hidden Sect for trials then?”
“Can the Hidden Sect save her?”
Li Weiyi asked. Yin Ershi shook her head, “Historically, there are records of Pure Immortal Bodies with the Jade-Shattering Ice Soul surviving. In doing so they pushed their cultivation potential to its utmost, achieving exceedingly high feats.
But that was when they discovered the Zhiyang Flower… which even the Hidden Sect does not possess.”
“If she can grasp the battle strategy and intent of the Nine Li God, perhaps she may carve out a path to survival, but that chance is extremely slim.”
Li Weiyi knew that many things in this world were beyond one’s control; everyone must follow their own destiny. One would experience many encounters and farewells in life. Beautiful things often fade away, and after a moment of sighing regret, one’s journey must continue.
“Yin Ershi, you seem to know far too much!”
Li Weiyi said that as he turned and headed back to the Blood Forest Cliff. Yin Ershi paused, then understood. That fellow was testing her by using the secret and unique qualities of Yao Yin’s constitution, to gauge the relationship between her and Yao Yin.
Indeed, she had a special bond with Yao Yin, which explained why she knew so much about her situation. Although Yin Ershi was only sixteen, surviving to the end among many trial participants meant she couldn’t show all her feelings plainly; she naturally possessed a depth of experience beyond her years.
During the Spider Cave trial, Yin Ershi had noticed that Li Weiyi’s strength was exceedingly formidable – he was most likely Yao Yin’s strongest opponent. Yet he showed a clear character flaw by not seizing the opportunity to kill Yao Yin inside the cave.
Based on these two observations, Yin Ershi employed her own strategy to help Yao Yin, targeting Li Weiyi’s weakness.
“Has he seen through it? It’s troublesome – now he has one more point to hold over me.”
Yin Ershi walked over to Yao Yin, deciding to reveal everything to her before she got too deeply involved. With Li Weiyi now essentially a confirmed member of Divine Hidden, he would no longer be Yao Yin’s mortal enemy in competition. …… The practice of the Thought Master realm required constantly absorbing light to nurture and kindle one’s inner flame.
No matter how powerful a meditation technique might be, absorbing light from nature was always a slow process. Lightflame Pills, however, were different. Li Weiyi swallowed the first Lightflame Pill.
Immediately, a warm glow spread through his abdomen. Soon, his entire body was illuminated by the radiant light emanating from his stomach, his flesh glowing red and bright like molten glass. He began to meditate.
Imagining himself as two towering Fusang Divine Trees, he quickly absorbed all the light. All the light points inside his cave-like dwelling transformed into countless specks, streaming like a brook toward the spiritual realm at his forehead’s impression, the Yintang. Inside Yintang, the spiritual light flames rapidly surged.
After one day and one night, the brilliance of the first Lightflame Pill had nearly vanished – thirty percent absorbed, with seventy percent lost.
“The entire Yintang spiritual realm is filled with flames. It’s equivalent to what one would accumulate after three months of arduous training,” Li Weiyi lamented.
To save those three months, he had spent a hundred thousand silver coins in an instant.
“Next, I need to continuously condense the spiritual flames until they crystallize into a higher-quality Ming Fire.”
Li Weiyi considered himself in deep debt to both Yin Ershi and Director Yang, and he even figured he could later blackmail Yao Yin a little – after all, he had saved her twice. He allowed himself a bit of arrogance. Running low on funds, and with no better option than collecting debts, he quickly swallowed the second Lightflame Pill.
After one day and one night, the brilliance of the second Lightflame Pill faded away. This time it was slightly better – he managed to absorb thirty-five percent. The spiritual flames in his Yintang became much more condensed, their temperatures noticeably higher, and their brilliance more dazzling.
Yet it still seemed far from evolving into the refined “Ming Fire.” Then came the third pill, then the fourth.
By the fifth day, Li Weiyi took out his final Lightflame Pill with a sour mood – a single day’s consumption had cost him the equivalent of an entire residence in Nine Li City, and four consecutive days had passed without breakthrough.
“This pill is such a rip-off! It’s outrageously expensive.”
Deeply suspicious, he thought that perhaps Yin Ershi had given him a fake pill.
“If even this one fails to break through, I’ll hold Yin Ershi accountable. She’s been scheming against me every time. Four million silver coins is still too cheap – I need to make her truly bleed for it.”
He raised the golden spring gushing from his pottery flask and gulped it down in one mighty draft, then swallowed the final Lightflame Pill. Half a day later, after repeated compression and condensation, the spiritual flames in his Yintang suddenly began to tremble violently for nearly half an hour. In one instant, all the flames contracted toward the center.
BOOM!
The Yintang spiritual realm fell silent. All the raging flames coalesced into a single, bright fire no larger than a pea. This flame, as if solidified, remained motionless and unwavering, glowing like distant stars.
“Ha ha, it’s done – the Ming Fire is complete!”
Li Weiyi roared with laughter in his cave-like dwelling. Too pleased to continue meditating to absorb the leftover Lightflame Pills, he quickly pulled out the Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish. Each bright flame particle from his Yintang released itself one by one, surging toward the fish to activate it.
“Swish—” As the two bronze fish spun, a Taiji Diagram Seal appeared at Li Weiyi’s feet.
With the burst of spatial energy, it pulled him toward the microscopic world of the Buddha’s Relic. Within his dwelling, in an instant only the floating Buddha’s Relic suspended in midair remained, supported by a Taiji Diagram Seal.
After experiencing weightlessness, Li Weiyi reappeared on a vast, cracked, bloody clay plain reminiscent of a dried-up ocean, with the space around him suddenly much more open. The blood-mist that had once enclosed and imprisoned the entire space began to retreat into the distance.
“This Blood Mud Space seems to have just expanded. Nothing else has changed,” Li Weiyi sighed.
A voice from his Spiritual Seat medallion sounded, “Use your mental energy to try and make the blood-mist at the spatial edge dissipate.” Li Weiyi quickly gathered his emotions and, in meditation, slowly focused his will to peel away the blood-mist layer by layer in one direction, causing it to gradually thin.
With repeated attempts, his command over his mental energy and the blood-mist grew stronger. When he finally removed the last thin veil from the edge, a breathtaking scene—one he hadn’t seen for months—suddenly unfolded before his eyes. Beyond the dissipated blood-mist lay an expansive, magnificent ocean.
At the horizon, two colossal mulberry trees leaned upon each other, their trunks soaring tens of thousands of meters into the sky. Their thriving, bright branches reached out to the heavens, each leaf radiating light like the sun or moon.
On the ocean’s surface bloomed countless golden flowers, no leaves to be seen – just white roots immersed in the water. This was none other than the Tanggu Sea that the Bronze Ship had sailed through months ago. The Fusang Divine Trees, the Xihe Flowers…
What shocked Li Weiyi to the point of breathlessness was that everything before him wasn’t an illusion. He could smell the unusual fragrance of the Xihe Flowers, hear the sounds of the crashing waves, and feel the radiant energy bursting forth from the Fusang Divine Trees.
“This… Spiritual Seat Master, you mentioned that tempering the Golden Tracery requires forging the golden mark through the brilliance of the Fusang Divine Trees. How can the Shaoyang Star be connected to the Tanggu Sea? And how did you know all this?”
Li Weiyi forced himself to calm down, yet his eyes remained fixed on the Fusang Divine Trees, his face stiff with shock. His Spiritual Seat Senior replied, “The Shaoyang Star is an extraordinarily magnificent spatial treasure. When we once joined the battle, it literally swept us up from every corner of the world.
In other words, it isn’t surprising that it can open spatial barriers to anywhere.”
“As for why, upon peeling away the blood-mist, you arrived beneath the Fusang Divine Trees—I don’t know either. I recall that when you first entered the Shaoyang Star, and first uncovered the blood-mist, the Fusang Divine Trees and this ocean briefly appeared. That led me to suspect that after your mental energy grew stronger, you might be able to connect to this sea.”
“Or perhaps… it has something to do with that absurd Grass Meditation Method of yours!” the Spiritual Seat Master added with a chuckle.
“When you meditate imagining yourself as a Fusang Divine Tree, perhaps, in a way, the Shaoyang Star senses that you wish to be here. So when you peel away the blood-mist, you arrive at this place.”
Li Weiyi found it hard to believe and murmured to himself, “Then if I imagine returning to Earth, wouldn’t that open a spatial barrier leading back to Earth?”
“You can try,” his Spiritual Seat Master replied.
Excited, Li Weiyi quickly conjured an image of himself back at Shouqiu, at that ancient temple where he once cultivated with his master. Then, he directed his mental energy, peeling away the blood-mist layer by layer in another direction. But behind that blood-mist lay nothing but an endless, barren expanse of blood-mud—a landscape characteristic of the Shaoyang Star.
“Perhaps I wasn’t focused enough.”
He tried several more times until his spirit began to wane, and finally, he gave up. His Spiritual Seat Master advised, “Maybe your mental energy isn’t strong enough yet. The stronger your mental energy, the better you can control the Shaoyang Star.”
“Maybe it’s just that my heart wasn’t fully set on returning; it was a mere caprice,” Li Weiyi laughed bitterly.
He then massaged his temples, stood up again, and strode toward the vast ocean under the Fusang Divine Trees. Tempering the Golden Tracery was now the top priority. But as soon as he reached the edge of the Blood Mud Space, an invisible spatial barrier blocked him, preventing him from truly reaching the ocean.
“This isn’t a real spatial passage?”
Li Weiyi wondered.
“Not at all—it’s simply that your mental energy isn’t strong enough. Once you become a Grand Thought Master, you might be able to break through this spatial barrier,” his Spiritual Seat Master replied.
From the moment he broke through from the Fingertip Flames to the Fingertip Ming Fire, it had cost him five Lightflame Pills – effectively the price of five residences. As for breaking through from Fingertip Ming Fire to the Grand Realm of Foot Printing Earth Fire, Li Weiyi couldn’t even imagine how much more it would cost.
He decided to proceed step by step, continuing to absorb light and nurture his inner flame.
“Although there is a spatial barrier, the light of the Fusang Divine Trees is very real. There is probably nowhere in the entire world more suitable for tempering the Golden Tracery than here in this place.”
All his astonishment was soon replaced by excitement. As he drank from the Golden Spring, he simultaneously practiced the Fusang Divine Tree Meditation Method and applied the Cang Wang Tempering Technique to continuously absorb the brilliant light emanating from the Fusang Divine Trees, infusing it into his Silver Tracery.
Instead of merging all ninety-six tracery channels at once as before, he focused the integration on just one of them. Time passed swiftly.
“Swish!”
On the other side of the spatial barrier, the sea roiled. Countless divine flames burned at the bottom of the ocean, and soon a Golden Crow burst out from the sea surface. In the very instant that the Golden Crow emerged, the light transmitted through the spatial barrier amplified many times over.
Using the Cang Wang Tempering Technique, Li Weiyi felt as if all the light particles were going out of control, gushing in like a waterfall, storming into his body like a fierce wind, and merging into his tracery.
The silver tracery that connected to his right palm first shimmered with a layer of golden light, then grew ever brighter, releasing scorching and vigorous energy. It surged like a Dragon Vein, exploding out of his arm, extending into his organs and back, and then straight upward to his head.
In just one day, the first Golden Tracery was successfully tempered. Li Weiyi looked at his right arm, then suddenly sprang up from the ground, gazing at the Golden Crow soaring into the distance.
“The Fusang Divine Trees and the Golden Crow complement each other. And during my meditation… I was like the Fusang Divine Tree.”
“Spiritual Seat Master, I feel that the key to tempering the Golden Tracery using the Cang Wang Tempering Technique is that one must simultaneously cultivate both the Fusang Divine Tree Meditation Method and martial arts. The combination of the two, plus having this treasure land at the Tanggu Sea… well, maybe that’s too much to say! In short, I feel that before long, I will be able to temper all my Silver Tracery into Golden Tracery.”
“Master Guan, didn’t you say before that you had already tempered several Golden Tracery channels?” ……
(End of Chapter) May you send monthly tickets!