“The situation in the Western Desert has been largely clarified. The monster race and the wild beasts have indeed joined forces. Led by the Ancient Red Sand Scorpion at the head of an army numbered in the hundreds of millions, they are staging a furious counteroffensive against human territory.”
“Has it been determined which wild beast teamed up with them?”
“The Golden-Winged Peng! Formerly the Dharma-protecting spirit beast of the Hanging Temple’s Relic Hall.”
“So it is him! Back then, when the First Seat of the Prajna Hall delivered him into the Buddhist sect, it stirred no small amount of controversy. Later, the beast abused his post to steal thirty-six high monks’ relics before fleeing, severely undermining the Hanging Temple’s vitality. Now he returns, this time colluding with monsters to assault the human race. One wonders what that fellow Daoist from the Hanging Temple thinks of this.”
“That is precisely where the peculiarity lies! A thousand years ago, after the thirty-six relics were stolen, the Hanging Temple sealed its mountain gates for a millennium. By all rights, they should have recovered their vitality long ago. Yet in the face of this monster counteroffensive, they still pay no heed to worldly matters. It is truly bizarre.”
“There is no need to trouble ourselves over their closed gates. This is a golden opportunity for us to extend our reach into the Western Desert. Once our Tianyuan army repels the monster race and conquers the Western Desert, the monks of the Hanging Temple will have nothing to say. Let us speak of the situation in the Northern Sea!”
“Allow me! In the Northern Sea, the situation matches our previous assessment. Almighty Li is tactful and perceptive; he maintains a tacit understanding with us. The only overstep on his part is using the war between humans and monsters as a pretext to swallow mountains and seas to forge a spirit treasure.”
“No matter. Let him be. Whatever he swallows now, he will have to spit back out when the time comes. As long as the Sunken Sea and Night Mara Heaven remain intact, it will cause no real harm. What about the passage?”
“Reporting to the Sect Master, the passage is nearly broken through completely. The natural perils along the way are gradually being cleared by our sect’s capable personnel. Along the road, we also received a party of Northern Sea Nascent Soul cultivators heading to the Central Plains to seek refuge under Heaven and Earth Peak.”
Mo Shouzhuo nodded slowly, a look of gratification appearing in his eyes.
Once the passage between the Central Plains and the Northern Sea was cleared, the Central Plains’ grand army would face no further obstacles in dispatching troops north. Working in concert with the Penglai Immortal Sect, they could recover the human race’s lost ancestral lands in the Northern Sea in the blink of an eye.
From then on, the Northern Sea would possess only one Soul Formation sacred ground: the Tianyuan Dao Sect!
As for the so-called Yuan Demon Sect, no matter how deeply its remnants hid, they would never restore the demonic sect's former glory.
Just as he was pondering this, his brows suddenly twitched.
“Someone has been eliminated.”
Inside the chessboard space, the Tianyuan Perfected Masters froze, and a flurry of discussion broke out.
“So fast?”
“Only eight days have passed, haven't they?”
“Eight days in the Mountain Sea Realm is eight hundred days in the grotto-heaven. That is not short.”
“It is still short after all. The limit for a Golden Core junior is one month, while a Nascent Soul true disciple can remain for an entire year. To be eliminated after merely eight days means they likely came away empty-handed.”
Eight days in the Mountain Sea Realm equated to roughly eight hundred days inside the grotto-heaven.
At most, that was barely over two years.
In such a brief span, whether one could even capture a fourth-rank mirage beast was questionable, to say nothing of cultivating with mirage cores and comprehending the true meaning of cosmic laws.
Curious, someone asked Mo Shouzhuo which family’s true disciple it was.
Mo Shouzhuo smiled faintly. “It is not a true disciple, merely a Dao Protector.”
It was not uncommon for a Dao Protector to be eliminated first.
However, without a Dao Protector to guard them, even if the true disciple remained inside, their subsequent path would be fraught with difficulty, yielding little of significance.
The others asked which unlucky soul it was.
Mo Shouzhuo pinched his fingers in divination and soon had the answer.
“It is Xiang Qi’s Dao Protector—the Wrathful Vajra. At this moment, he is grievously injured, his golden body shattered, clinging to his last gasps of breath while receiving treatment from our sect’s disciples.”
The moment these words fell, everyone looked at one another in dismay.
An elderly man seated among them uttered, “I will return shortly,” and departed the Lanke Chessboard space with a look of deep concern.
Once he was gone, the others resumed their discussion in earnest.
“The Wrathful Vajra... is he the First Seat of the Western Desert’s Jinshan Temple?”
“It should be him. It is said he comprehended an incomplete method of Three Heads and Six Arms and achieved the Great Vajra Physique in the body-refining realm. He is a rare body-refining prodigy.”
“This shouldn't be! The Mirage Dragon Secret Realm is a grotto-heaven unto itself. Inside, a cultivator’s Nascent Soul domain is heavily suppressed, rendering it ineffective against high-rank mirage beasts and barely impactful on human cultivators. Because of this, high-rank body cultivators have always been the most suitable Dao Protectors to enter.”
A high-rank body cultivator possessed immense personal might that relied solely on themselves, never depending on the majesty of heaven and earth.
Inside the Mirage Dragon Grotto-Heaven, where everyone’s Nascent Soul domain was neutered, the advantages of a high-rank body cultivator became starkly prominent.
This principle was a rule of thumb gradually discovered through each five-hundred-year grand tournament.
However, ever since the ancient war between humans and monsters ended without further major conflicts, the main theme of the cultivation world had shifted toward the pursuit of longevity. The path of body refinement, which pursued fierce and overbearing might, had gradually declined, leaving high-rank body cultivators exceedingly scarce.
For instance, among the thirteen Dao Protectors entering the Mirage Dragon Grotto-Heaven this time, despite the various families scouring high and low, the Wrathful Vajra was the sole pure body cultivator.
Three others were merely dual cultivators of magic and physique.
As the foremost of the thirty-six noble clans, the Xiang family was immensely powerful and well-connected. The Wrathful Vajra they recruited was indisputably the standout among those four Dao Protectors.
One could say that before setting foot into the Mirage Dragon Grotto-Heaven, the Xiang family had already seized the advantage.
Yet no one had expected that the Wrathful Vajra would be the very first to be eliminated.
“Could it be the Shi family’s Dao Protector?”
“Qi Xiongcheng? Impossible. Though he made a name for himself with his body-refinement attainments, he felt longevity was beyond his reach and switched to qi refinement. It was precisely because of this that he managed to reach the Nascent Soul stage at the 'ripe old age' of four hundred and seventy, barely making the cutoff for this tournament. With his half-baked body-refinement skills, he is no match for the Wrathful Vajra.”
“What if Shi Ju joined forces with him?”
Those privy to insider details had to consider this possibility.
Unlike other true disciples, Shi Ju was one of the few among the thirteen who could personally fight.
If he and Qi Xiongcheng joined hands, beating the Wrathful Vajra to near-death was not out of the question.
However, that conjecture was quickly dismissed.
“My son was born noble; how could he demean himself to fight that person? Moreover, it would require Xiang Qi to have the guts to provoke him in the first place.”
It was the Shi family head!
A late Nascent Soul grand cultivator and one of the nineteen elders of Heaven and Earth Peak!
He gave a cold sneer. “Rather than guessing my son made a move, you might as well consider whether the others joined forces to drive the Vajra brat out first.”
The representatives of the various families not participating in this grotto-heaven tournament nodded inwardly, finding merit in his reasoning.
As the head of the thirty-six noble clans, the Xiang family had acted insolently in recent years, carrying themselves with even more ostentation than the twelve great houses and offending many families along the way.
If the major clans had secretly allied to kick Xiang Qi and his Dao Protector out of the game first, it was entirely plausible.
Including Fu Chaosheng, the nine family representatives exchanged glances, their eyes filled with perplexity.
They had formulated no such plan!
Could the juniors who entered have shared a tacit understanding and made this decision together?
Mo Shouzhuo remained silent, his fingers idling over several go stones, already having a good idea of what had transpired.
A moment later, the Xiang family head hurried back, his face as dark as thunderclouds.
Before anyone could ask out of curiosity, Mo Shouzhuo coughed softly.
“Let us continue our previous intelligence review and speak of the Eastern Desolation! Unlike other places, the Eastern Desolation is the most troublesome. Before we make a move, we must deliberate with absolute clarity, lest a single misstep invite sectarian ruin upon us!”
At these words, everyone’s expressions turned solemn.
***
Time in the outside world drifted by day after day, trickling like a gentle stream.
Inside the Mirage Dragon Grotto-Heaven, years rolled past one after another, surging like a great river never to return.
Twenty years later.
In a secluded, vacant valley.
Green orchids grew faint and serene as swords hummed crisply.
A man clad in white robes, a jade belt cinched at his waist, wielded a blood-colored sword, slowly executing various sword stances within the valley.
Spiritual energy seemed to drift between heaven and earth alongside the movements of the sword tip, yet it was exceedingly thin.
Luo Chen swung Yuan Tu with rapt concentration.
Over the course of twenty years, he had accomplished many things.
For example, after raising Fire Phoenix Conflagration to the grandmaster level of proficiency, he had also practiced Flame Dragon Descent to the grandmaster level. Beyond this point, advancing the two spells grew increasingly arduous. The primary reason was that such spells consumed far too much magic power, and over-frequent practice would impede his cultivation progress.
Another example was the Penglai Octagonal Pavilion. He had completely undone all of its restrictions, refining and taking full control of it. After doing so, Luo Chen’s harvest was bountiful. Within its distinctly partitioned spaces, he actually discovered several varieties of rare, high-grade spiritual herbs seldom seen in the mortal realm. They were likely gathered by the disciples of the Penglai Immortal Sect in Mutianyuan within the Land of the Fallen Demon, only to fall into Luo Chen’s lap now.
The gains from refining the Penglai Octagonal Pavilion did not stop there.
His array attainments had also quietly reached the level of a fourth-rank array master according to the system’s appraisal!
Such advancement had nothing to do with innate talent; it was purely a qualitative leap born of quantitative accumulation.
Finally, there was one more matter!
Luo Chen had taken the time to complete another division of his main soul, acquiring a second divided soul.
No one knew of this change, including Fu Qinglan.
At that time, the cultivation realm Luo Chen had suppressed for so long broke through from the first tier of the Nascent Soul stage to the second tier, leaving his main soul exceptionally swollen and abundant.
Luo Chen had simply seized the impulse to divide his divine soul once more.
This time, the agony was as severe as before, but Luo Chen had come prepared. In particular, his Soul Splitting Art had reached the proficient level, allowing him to sever his soul much faster and shortening the duration of the pain.
The severed soul, just as anticipated, was roughly equivalent to the late Golden Core stage.
At present, it was relatively frail and unsuitable for combat, and there were negative side effects!
Luo Chen found that having three souls coexisting within his sea of consciousness—even sharing a single consciousness—caused stray thoughts to frequently crop up.
This was by no means a good sign!
A frequent proliferation of stray thoughts in the sea of consciousness easily invited mental tribulations and inner demons. If he suffered qi deviation through a single moment of carelessness, the consequences would be dire.
To counter this, he considered many remedies.
In the end, he turned his thoughts to the self-created Micromote Origin Art.
Although this secret art was created after he attained the Golden Core stage, its grade was exceedingly high, reaching the fourth rank! Even after entering the Nascent Soul realm, Luo Chen frequently utilized it.
However, the occasions he used it were no longer for condensing a Golden Core or tempering magic power, but for severing stray thoughts.
The reason was that when the Micromote Origin Art was originally created, it had incorporated a Core Formation secret art called Calming the Tempest.
Calming the Tempest had come from his late friend, Miao Wen.
Traced to its source, it stemmed from the Jade Cauldron Sword Sect’s Wisdom Sword Technique.
Consequently, Calming the Tempest shared a similar marvelous function to the Wisdom Sword Technique in severing thoughts and slaying inner demons.
Back then, Luo Chen had not delved deeply into Calming the Tempest, merely taking the elements beneficial for Core Formation and merging them into the Micromote Origin Art.
Now, however, he planned to dig deeper into the art.
Firstly, to resolve the awkward dilemma of three coexisting souls breeding stray thoughts.
Secondly, to use it to practice swordsmanship.
This was truly killing two birds with one stone!
Although he had unraveled two seals on Yuan Tu and could control it freely, Luo Chen was not versed in profound sword-kinesis techniques; he could only exploit Yuan Tu’s inherently sharp attributes.
If he took it out to face enemies like this, win or lose, it would ultimately be a waste of such a peerless sword.
Therefore, if he could master some methods related to the sword dao, the might he could unleash through Yuan Tu would be far greater.
Along his journey, Luo Chen’s immense wealth also included quite a few scriptures related to the sword dao.
Such as Feiyunzi’s method for forging sword pills, or Han Zhan’s sword array methods.
Yet when all was said and done, those required the aid of specialized magic treasures like sword pills.
Yuan Tu was an authentic flying sword possessing different traits from sword pills, making those methods unsuitable.
Though Calming the Tempest was low in grade, it at least shared common ground between flying swords and sword pills.
All these factors drove Luo Chen to study Calming the Tempest thoroughly, practicing it from the inside out.
“If only I had a more ingenious sword-kinesis art, that would be ideal,” Luo Chen mused aloud as he brandished the sword.
A faint fragrance drifted into the empty valley.
It was not the scent of orchids, but of a woman.
Fu Qinglan walked out from a stone door, found a bluestone of her own accord, smoothed her skirts, and sat down unreservedly.
She quietly watched Luo Chen practice his swordplay, not disturbing him.
Over the years, the two had unconsciously forged such a tacit understanding.
Perhaps having sat in bitter cultivation for too long, she felt uncomfortable sitting upright on the bluestone. Leaning slightly, she rested her hand against the rock and propped up her chin, continuing to watch him swing his blade.
In her heart, she harbored a bit of curiosity toward this enigmatic man.
At first, she had taken him for an ordinary rogue cultivator, yet his effortless defeat of Qi Xiongcheng outside the Peach Garden had made her view him in a new light.
Later, she discovered he was proficient in magic spells, but in the battle against the Wrathful Vajra, she found he also possessed an exceptionally formidable body-refinement realm.
If that were all, it would still be fine; at least Luo Chen still had shortcomings.
Namely, that he lacked a handy True Artifact!
The black armor worn close to his body was a decent True Artifact, but it was limited to defense.
That small grey cauldron looked extraordinary, yet it was also confined to the path of suppression and confinement, showing little prowess in frontal assaults.
Even when besieged by two powerful combatants back then, Luo Chen had never mobilized any terrifying offensive magic treasure or True Artifact.
Fu Qinglan had assumed that as a rogue cultivator, possessing two remarkable True Artifacts after advancing to the Nascent Soul realm was already a stroke of luck.
Yet now, the blood-colored sword he brandished in his hand was clearly an ultimate lethal weapon at a single glance!
*To think that with the backing of my clan and the nurturing of my sect, after forming my Nascent Soul, I have only managed to nurture a single Sky-Veiling Leaf on my own. My other True Artifact was gathered for me by Grandfather and is hardly well-suited to my hands.*
*He is a mere rogue cultivator, yet he possesses three True Artifacts covering attack, defense, and suppression. Did he chance upon some epochal opportunity, or did he painstakingly forge them himself?*
*Harboring such a weapon, he didn’t even use it during that great battle. Was he truly that confident in himself?*
*It’s just a pity that his sword stances are far too crude, lagging far behind some of the senior martial brothers in my sect who dedicate themselves to the sword dao.*
*Possessing a treasure in vain without matching sword stances... Huh?*
Before her eyes, the longsword in Luo Chen’s hand suddenly trembled. A sword awn an inch long flickered from the tip of the blade, piercing a finger-thick hole into the ground that ran bottomlessly deep.
It was a sword awn!
In the path of the sword, cultivators distinguished between sword qi, sword awn, sword heart, and sword intent, corresponding respectively to Qi Refinement, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, and Nascent Soul.
However, this established system of cultivation was generally applied to orthodox sword cultivators—those who wielded sword pills.
Yet before Fu Qinglan’s eyes, he had actually generated a sword awn using an ordinary flying sword!
Fu Qinglan’s lips parted slightly. “Could it be that he is adept in the sword dao as well?”
In the empty valley.
Luo Chen stared blankly at that sword awn. That was by no means the sword light emitted by Yuan Tu itself, but a sword awn produced by his own magic power.
*Could I actually possess talent in the sword dao?*
Puzzled, Luo Chen cast his gaze toward the panel invisible to others.
The entry for the Great Perfection of the Micromote Origin Art was shining brightly.
A realization dawned upon him.
It was not that he had talent in the sword dao, but that through running this art countless times, he had long mastered Calming the Tempest through and through.
Though he had not cultivated the sword dao, he possessed a sword heart.
This was an attainment of the third realm of swordsmanship. For it to now translate downward and produce a sword awn was merely a natural course of events.
It was just a Foundation Establishment level technique that provided no major boost to his strength, serving as a minor supplement at best.
Luo Chen smiled faintly, sheathed Yuan Tu, and walked toward Fu Qinglan.
“Finished your cultivation?”
“Mm.”
“Failed again?”
“Yes...”
The woman stood up, looking somewhat embarrassed.
Luo Chen waved his hand dismissively. “Spiritual essence is thin here, and source energy is hard to find. It is no fault of yours. In the end, there are simply too few mirage cores.”
Fu Qinglan lowered her head bashfully. The mirage cores Luo Chen had gathered for her were by no means few.
Although they had lived without a fixed abode after leaving that place, making their acquisition of mirage cores erratic, over the course of twenty years, they had accumulated at least thirty.
Thirty mirage cores had still failed to yield the wood-attribute source energy. While Luo Chen had grown accustomed to this, she was beginning to doubt her own aptitude.
Furthermore, if this continued, who knew when she would ever help him escape.
Just as she was doubting herself, staring silently at the blade of grass pushing through the earth before her toes, Luo Chen suddenly spoke:
“Your situation is actually not without a solution.”
Hearing this, Fu Qinglan jerked her head up.
“If there were a massive amount of spiritual essence available for your continuous cultivation, it would surely buy you enough time to locate the power of the source!”
A massive amount of spiritual essence!
Could it be that...?
However...
“Rest well for two days, then set out with me. If we succeed this time, it might allow you to accomplish it in one fell swoop!”
Leaving those words behind, Luo Chen turned and walked away.
He left Fu Qinglan standing in the empty valley, her expression shifting between a tinge of disappointed relief and overwhelming curiosity.
He had indeed not given her that Heavenly Mechanism Pill. That was only natural and came as no surprise.
Yet she was exceedingly curious: what means did he possess to find such a vast quantity of spiritual essence?
Did he intend to hunt several mirage beasts in a single go?
She did not doubt Luo Chen’s capabilities, but she strongly doubted whether there was still a place in the Mirage Dragon Grotto-Heaven that harbored a large concentration of high-rank mirage beasts at the same time.
Chapter 758