Within the subterranean abyss.
A small gray cauldron flickered with wisps of black electric arcs, floating quietly in midair.
The surrounding spiritual energy swarmed toward it, only to vanish into nothingness in an uncanny fashion.
Suddenly!
A black arc of lightning shot out, blasting a deep cavity into the solid earth vein.
Watching this scene, Luo Chen showed a look of astonishment.
The Hunyuan Cauldron, lost and reclaimed, had as expected advanced to the level of a True Artifact!
Its numerous formations and restrictions had seamlessly fused with the materials, becoming one with each other and linking with heaven and earth.
The powers it originally possessed were now even more formidable. Even the sentient Wither-Bloom True Fire retreated somewhat warily from the Hunyuan Cauldron—presumably out of dread toward the cauldron's special ability to capture Golden Cores and Nascent Souls.
Yet what astonished Luo Chen most was this new divine ability that could trigger black electric arcs!
He could see clearly that the nature of the black lightning was identical to the shape-shifting thunder beast that had appeared in the final wave of his Nascent Soul heavenly tribulation.
Its might was perhaps slightly weaker, but that depended solely on the magic power he channeled into it and the heaven-and-earth spiritual energy the Hunyuan Cauldron could draw upon.
If unleashed without restraint, the black lightning's power could very well rise even higher!
"The power of tribulation lightning?"
"A curious transformation..."
Despite his puzzlement, Luo Chen was nonetheless delighted.
He normally did not dwell on how vital the Hunyuan Cauldron was, but when he truly could not use it, he had felt inconvenienced at every turn.
Now that he had reclaimed it and it had gained a new transformation, it was undeniably a wonderful thing.
Muttering to himself, Luo Chen recalled the Hunyuan Cauldron and allowed it to nourish within his Purple Mansion.
Afterward, Luo Chen rubbed the space between his eyebrows, a faint trace of weariness showing on his face.
Enduring the exhaustion, Luo Chen gave his hand a flick. A storage pouch and a white belt woven with cloud patterns appeared.
Gazing at these two storage treasures, Luo Chen fell silent.
The former was Han Zhan's relic, one of the inheritances he had left behind.
It was covered with restrictions, making it quite difficult to unseal in short order.
However, Luo Chen did not have much interest in this storage pouch.
That was because Han Zhan's true storage treasure had long been confiscated by Demon Emperor Qingshuang back at Mount Cangwu. This pouch was merely something Luo Chen had gifted him after arriving in the Northern Sea.
By his reckoning, there were likely few treasures inside; the only things Luo Chen cared about were the Seven Fiends Swords and the Ten Thousand Soul Banner he had previously handed to Han Zhan.
Yet Luo Chen was rather intrigued by the white belt.
A relic of Feiyunzi!
During the battle in Mingzhao Heaven, Feiyunzi had abandoned his physical body and fled as a Nascent Soul.
At the time, he only had the chance to take his sword pellet and golden bell, leaving no time to grab the storage belt hanging from his body.
Luo Chen had not handed this item to Han Zhan to crack its restrictions back then, deliberately saving it to open at his leisure after forming his Nascent Soul.
One could easily imagine that a renowned Nascent Soul True Person—not a rogue cultivator, but the ruler of a Nascent Soul upper sect like Feiyun Ravine—would possess substantial wealth.
In the days ahead, besides cultivating diligently to solidify his realm, he would also have to find time to undo the restrictions on this belt.
Luo Chen left the two storage treasures outside his body so he could examine them at any time.
Only then did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Matters outside and inside his body had all been thoroughly organized.
Now, only one final matter remained.
Luo Chen's eyes slowly shut as his consciousness returned to his sea of consciousness.
His primary divine soul drifted weakly in the sea of golden waves. Though it was incomparably stronger than it had been during his Golden Core stage, it was far from the peak state Luo Chen would achieve upon full consolidation.
In that hair-raising battle of souls with Han Zhan, he had indeed relied on the Great Circle Dragon Slaying Art to obliterate Han Zhan, but Han Zhan's death throes had still inflicted severe injuries upon Luo Chen's divine soul!
Faintly, hairline fissures could still be seen across the primary divine soul.
They were not large, but they penetrated deeply from outside to inside.
To heal such wounds would take at least a century of effort!
"Han Zhan..."
He had addressed him as Senior for several decades, yet their mutual address as Daoist friends had lasted for only a single exchange—and that had been the moment they turned against each other.
Sighing softly, Luo Chen dwelled no longer on the past.
Instead, he turned his full attention to the soul fragments he had absorbed from Han Zhan.
On these fragments, Han Zhan's will had already dispersed with his demise; they were undoubtedly relatively pure soul energy.
If he could safely assimilate them, they might replenish Luo Chen's currently weakened divine soul.
Yet what drew his attention the most were the fragments of memory contained within them.
The Soul Splitting Art!
The Luoyun Sect possessed Three Arts and Two Techniques:
the Two Instruments Crimson Cloud Art, the Puppet Classic, the Soul Splitting Art, Locking the Beaded Curtain, and the Origin Core Art.
It was by relying on these five systematic cultivation methods and secret arts that the Luoyun Sect had stood firm in the Eastern Desolation's Jade Cauldron Domain,
and had even fostered Han Zhan, a Nascent Soul True Person who reshaped the landscape of the Jade Cauldron Domain.
Among these five methods and secret arts, the Soul Splitting Art was undoubtedly the most mysterious, the most powerful, and the most core cultivation technique!
In earlier years, Han Zhan had been willing to impart the Origin Core Art and even minor tricks of puppet crafting to Luo Chen, but whenever it concerned the Soul Splitting Art, his lips had remained tightly sealed.
He had once claimed that unless Luo Chen was willing to enter his tutelage and become a disciple of the Luoyun Sect, there would not be the slightest chance of being taught this method.
Such guarded secrecy was naturally due to the technique's extraordinary nature.
The Soul Splitting Art possessed the effect of refining the spirit!
Han Zhan's nine split souls at his peak had also been differentiated through this very technique.
Luo Chen had coveted it for a long time, never imagining he would acquire it through such means.
He carefully absorbed Han Zhan's memory fragments, discarding extraneous recollections while meticulously combing through everything related to the Soul Splitting Art.
Only after a long while did he gather seventy to eighty percent of it.
Inside the immortal's cave.
Luo Chen studied the bamboo slips he had copied out by hand, reading them with meticulous care. Expressions of confusion and sudden enlightenment alternated on his face.
The Soul Splitting Art indeed possessed a spirit-refining effect.
However, this effect was not overwhelmingly prominent; it could not fundamentally transform one's soul. It could not allow one to achieve the consummate stage of converting a yin soul into a yang spirit during the Nascent Soul realm.
Its primary effect lay in altering the quantity of divine souls!
By splitting the divine soul, one could temper and strengthen the separated soul bit by bit until it recovered to a level comparable to the original soul.
In this way, at the same cultivation realm, a practitioner of this art could possess a divine soul foundation several times greater than their peers!
Exactly how many times greater depended on how many split souls one could condense.
Han Zhan had been an unparalleled genius of the Luoyun Sect, particularly gifted in the dao of soul refinement. That was why he had been able to practice the Soul Splitting Art to the minor achievement stage at a "young age," which yielded nine split souls!
In other words, Han Zhan's divine soul foundation was unquestionably nine times that of an ordinary first-layer Nascent Soul cultivator!
"No wonder Han Zhan feared neither Demon Emperor Ao Xiao nor Haijiao Tianmu, even overwhelming the latter. He was even able to briefly pilot the late-Nascent Soul White Tiger puppet while only in the early Nascent Soul realm."
"With such a foundation of divine soul, he was undeniably at the pinnacle of early-stage cultivators!"
Luo Chen muttered to himself.
Yet soon, an expression of distress surfaced on his face.
The Soul Splitting Art transcribed from those memory fragments was incomplete!
It recorded only how to cultivate split souls and deepen the connection between the primary soul and the split souls, but lacked the two most fundamental aspects: severing the primary soul, and rapidly strengthening the split souls.
The former was the inception of everything, while the latter was paramount for helping a cultivator swiftly pass through the period of weakness after cleaving their primary soul.
Luo Chen was definitely going to practice this Soul Splitting Art.
Without a doubt, with no hesitation whatsoever!
He had reaped the benefits of a sufficiently powerful soul foundation far too many times.
Whether concocting pills, refining artifacts, regular cultivation, or manipulating treasures in battle, the stronger the divine soul, the greater the results.
As for the drawbacks of an insufficient soul foundation, he had also experienced them in the Land of the Fallen Demon.
A mere wisp of Shark Emperor Liu Jun's enchanting voice had nearly caused him to sink into oblivion...
Thinking of the Land of the Fallen Demon, Luo Chen suddenly seemed to recall something.
In the Hundred Crows Ghost Forest that guarded Mutianyuan, Han Zhan had once taught him an exceptionally practical soul art known as the Kai Mao Art!
This technique was exceedingly difficult to practice.
Yet with the Origin Core Art and Locking the Beaded Curtain as a foundation, it was remarkably simple.
Hard-pressed for time back then, Luo Chen had used system achievement points to force an entry into the art, and so had never delved deeply into it.
However, he remembered the preparatory steps for executing the Kai Mao Art with crystalline clarity.
First, one used the secret art of Locking the Beaded Curtain to divide one's divine sense, then forcefully severed a portion to place upon the second primal core.
In doing so, Luo Chen possessed his original divine soul within his body alongside a tiny split soul anchored upon his second primal core.
If an enemy ever bewitched him with soul illusions, even if his primary soul succumbed, he could use the split soul prepared upon the primal core to stimulate the primary soul, clearing away the mental blockage and waking him in an instant!
Later, when venturing deep into Mutianyuan within the pit of the Demon-Devil Concentric Tree, Luo Chen had fallen into confusion under the demonic echoes, and it was by relying on the Kai Mao Art that he had broken free of their sway on his own.
Reflecting upon it carefully now, wasn't the Kai Mao Art combined with Locking the Beaded Curtain an ingenious method for splitting the divine soul?
Or perhaps the two were originally part of the Soul Splitting Art itself!
Swallowing his saliva, Luo Chen cautiously transcribed both secret techniques onto his handwritten manuscript.
Then, with a thought, he summoned his status panel.
[Incomplete cultivation technique detected: Soul Splitting Art, Rank Seven.]
[Deduce and complete?]
In that single instant, Luo Chen was stunned.
That the technique was incomplete came as no surprise; after all, he had only filled in the method for splitting the primary soul according to his own deduction. But what was with this rank?
If mapped to cultivation realms, a Rank Seven technique corresponded to existences above the Void Refining stage. What realm would that even be?
Body Integration?
Mahayana?
The Luoyun Sect was merely a Golden Core sect that had barely attained the level of a Nascent Soul upper sect after Han Zhan's rise.
How could its core cultivation art be of such a staggering rank...?
"Wait, no!"
Luo Chen drew a deep breath.
He recalled the rumors from back in the Jade Cauldron Domain. The Luoyun Sect was not founded by an outcast from a sacred land or a powerhouse from a great sect, but rather by an itinerant cultivator who had stumbled upon the legacy of an ancient cultivator and founded the sect upon it.
Even the Three Arts and Two Techniques had not been self-created, but obtained by fortunate chance.
In other words, the Soul Splitting Art had never been an original creation of the Luoyun Sect.
Han Zhan had even mentioned in passing during a conversation that he was only able to cultivate the Soul Splitting Art to minor achievement because he lacked a certain key supplementary treasure.
This further proved that the Soul Splitting Art was not native to the Luoyun Sect, but hailed from an even mightier entity.
At this thought, Luo Chen made up his mind.
Completing it was naturally out of the question.
A Rank Seven cultivation art—even if he spent all the achievement points on his body, he could never complete it.
Yet even if it could not be completed, that did not mean it could not be practiced.
Han Zhan had begun practicing this technique during the Golden Core stage—no, perhaps even during Foundation Establishment—which proved that even a severely truncated version possessed considerable merit.
Furthermore, his current condition was remarkably well suited for cultivating this technique.
Even after absorbing Han Zhan's remnant soul power, Luo Chen's primary soul had not fully healed and still bore many fractured areas.
Those had been caused by Han Zhan using a soul art known as the Spirit Snatching Needle.
It concentrated one's divine sense into invisible needles to strike an enemy's soul.
In ordinary combat, impeded by the barriers of the physical body and the sea of consciousness, it would merely cause momentary disorientation and daze one's intellect for an instant.
Yet because their two divine souls had clashed head-on without any barrier, the Spirit Snatching Needle had displayed its full potency, injuring Luo Chen so grievously.
Right now, however, the fissures caused by those wounds provided Luo Chen with ideal innate conditions to cultivate the Soul Splitting Art.
"Slowly repairing these fissures would take far too long."
"Better to seize the opportunity, split the primary soul along these fissures, and practice the Soul Splitting Art."
"There may be a temporary period of weakness, but once it matures, the benefits will be immense!"
Luo Chen was never one to vacillate.
Even if he hesitated at times, that was only before reaching a decision.
Once he resolved to do something, he would never look back with second thoughts, charging straight ahead!
During the Qi Refining stage, he had wished to maintain good ties with the Duan family of Mount Xiaohuan, but after the Duan family's ancestor harmed his interests, he had leveled their mountain and exterminated their clan without hesitation.
During the Golden Core stage, he had wavered over whether to enter the Land of the Fallen Demon. Yet once he truly decided to go, he laid countless plans and made every preparation. Even amid the perils of the Land of the Fallen Demon, he had been decisive in choosing what to seize and what to abandon, never shrinking back.
Now that he had a core cultivation technique to bolster his soul foundation, even if incomplete, there was no way he would let this opportunity slip by.
Having confirmed that the slightly supplemented Soul Splitting Art could be practiced, Luo Chen took three days of rest and plunged directly into cultivation.
And the very first step was to sever the primary soul and differentiate a split soul!
With utmost caution and using an unorthodox method, Luo Chen combined Locking the Beaded Curtain with the Kai Mao Art, carving into his primary soul bit by bit along its fissures.
Rather than cutting, it was more like tearing!
Such agony was something Luo Chen had never experienced in all his life.
Not even through all his past body refinement or his physical nirvana had he endured pain of this magnitude.
It felt as if a blunt knife were hacking away at flesh—and by his own hand, no less!
Even with Luo Chen's immensely powerful and unyielding willpower, a cry of agony escaped his lips during his very first attempt.
With no sound-insulating formations to contain it, that sound carried outward, striking the ears of others with sheer horror.
It sounded like the howl of some wounded beast!
These cries of agony persisted for over half a year!
During that time, Tianxuan and Black King tried more than once to enter the abyss, only to be met with a single word: "Scram!"
The savagery and agony in that voice chilled one to the bone at mere hearing.
...
Time slipped slowly away.
Without realizing it, ten years had passed since Luo Chen had entered secluded cultivation to consolidate his realm.
Longyuan Island, once left in ruins, had regained its vitality, bearing no trace of its former scars.
Indeed, the spiritual energy across the island far surpassed what it had been before Luo Chen's tribulation.
Every corner held a spiritual energy concentration at the third-rank level, and several blessed spots were even brimming with fourth-rank spiritual energy.
Countless exotic flowers and wondrous plants had sprouted from the earth, transforming Longyuan Island into a gorgeously scenic isle in the span of a mere decade.
Such extraordinary changes were truly astounding.
Because of this, even Black King had abandoned his carefree life in the sea to cultivate on the island.
On this day,
Tianxuan stood by the edge of an azure pond, watching with curiosity as the middle-aged man Sang Jinghe worked briskly without pause.
He tossed diced chunks of demon beast flesh and blood into the pond.
From time to time, he dripped a few drops of green liquid into it.
Combining these ingredients turned the liquid in the pool an eerie, deep azure.
"Will this really work?" Tianxuan could not help asking.
While casting spirit stones into the water, Sang Jinghe replied, "It should work. This is merely a conjecture of mine inspired by the True Person's use of a blood pool. That Demon-Devil Concentric Tree is truly bizarre; neither varied spirit soils nor the ripening elixirs of my Tusang Sect have the slightest effect on it. So, I changed my approach..."
Here, he turned his head and smiled. "The True Person regards me with such favor, even bestowing upon me a Liquid Condensation Pill for forming a Golden Core. I must repay him by any means. He no longer needs the Purple Monkey Flower; the Divine Iris was destroyed under the thunder tribulation; and the Dragon Saliva Grass grows naturally without needing much care. If I can devise a cultivation method for the Demon-Devil Concentric Tree, the True Person is bound to be delighted upon exiting seclusion."
He certainly will be!
Tianxuan thought to herself.
Her master valued that little tree immensely. Before reaching the Nascent Soul realm, he had brought it out several times for Sang Jinghe to study. If it could truly be made to blossom and bear fruit, he would undoubtedly be overjoyed.
Just as the two were conversing, a dragon's roar suddenly rang out.
It was Black King!
"What's wrong with him?"
Tianxuan turned her head in confusion, looking toward a mountain ravine that had formed barely a decade ago.
In the next moment, Black King came soaring out of the ravine, swaying his head and thrashing his tail in full, majestic splendor.
He coiled in the air, seeming to wait for something.
Tianxuan was filled with curiosity.
Until a surging, vigorous aura billowed outward from the depths of the subterranean abyss.
Sensing this aura, Tianxuan covered her mouth, her face awash with disbelief.
This fast?
In only ten years, Master had thoroughly consolidated his Nascent Soul realm?
Amid her shock, that surging presence grew steadily vaster. The wind stirred, the clouds gathered, and even the mild sunlight seemed to converge toward it.
Amid a dazzling expanse of golden light, spiritual mist swirled as a massive phantom stretched out in the sky above Longyuan Island.
The phantom gradually coalesced, turning into a fair, tender infant frolicking merrily atop the head of a white-robed Daoist.
Perhaps having had its fill of play, it soon sank into the crown of his skull and vanished from sight.
Witnessing this, Black King, who had already touched down upon the earth, cried out in boundless joy, "Congratulations, Master! Your Nascent Soul is consolidated, and your immortal dao is accomplished!"
Sang Jinghe was already prostrated on the ground, calling out at the top of his lungs, "Congratulations, True Person! Joyful tidings, True Person!"
Tianxuan curtsied gracefully and dropped to one knee. "Congratulations to Master on accomplishing the immortal dao; longevity is within reach!"
Up in the sky, Luo Chen slowly opened his eyes, feeling that his cultivation realm was exceptionally solid.
With a casual wave of his hand, a wisp of heaven-and-earth spiritual energy was drawn to his grasp.
With a single thought, the power of his Nascent Soul shone from his Purple Mansion to reflect upon the world. Instantly, an invisible pressure enveloped Longyuan Island.
Under this pressure, man and demon alike trembled, vegetation prostrated, and even the wind and clouds seemed to freeze in the air.
In this moment, Luo Chen's thoughts were completely unobstructed. He threw back his head and let out a long cry, expelling every last trace of stagnant breath from within.
Indeed:
First came the quest to gather qi and sup the golden dew,
Then walking the road toward the heavens, plunging through murky depths.
Seizing the lotus terrace to secure the life's true root,
Sun's soul rests to the east, moon's radiance to the west.
Sleeping away the decades deep within the dragon's abyss,
Drinking dry thousands of cups filled with flowing rosy mist.
Within this core is wrought the cure that stays the hand of death;
Partaking of this medicine, one stands equal with heaven and earth.
Chapter 714