Fourth layer of the Nascent Soul—the mid stage!
Luo Chen looked at the attribute panel already unfolded before him. It matched his own perceptions almost to the letter.
[Lifespan: 292/1500]
[Spiritual Roots: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth]
[Physique: Fire Spirit Body (Five Spirits Dao Body concealed)]
[Realm: Nascent Soul Layer 4 (1/100), Desolate Ancient Tier 4 (45/100)]
[Laws: Wither-Bloom True Intent · Wood (12/100)]
[Cultivation Methods: Myriad Firmaments Myriad Transformations Sword Scripture (Practiced 110/200), Wither-Bloom Dao Scripture (Proficient 260/300), Myriad Beast Scripture (Grandmaster 510/1000), Soul Splitting Art (Perfection 301/500), Convergence of Myriad Paths (Great Perfection)]
[Spells: Fire Phoenix Prairiefire (Grandmaster 630/1000), Flame Dragon Descent (Grandmaster 511/1000), Polar Ice Seal (Beginner 10/100), Wither-Bloom Dao Finger (Divine Ability)]
[Body Arts: Demonic Lord Seven Scattered Hands (Great Perfection), Wind Moon Thunder Cloud Immortal Tread (Proficient 210/300)]
[Soul Arts: Mirror Flower Water Moon (Great Perfection), Soul Intimidation Art (Great Perfection), Spirit-Befuddling Technique (Great Perfection), Devils and Gods Disperse (Practiced 110/200), Kai Mao Art (Grandmaster 502/1000)]
[Achievement Points: 180]
Looking at the dazzling array of entries that stretched almost endlessly before his eyes, Luo Chen could not help sighing with emotion.
"Another twelve years have slipped by."
At the Nascent Soul realm, barring severe trauma, one enjoyed a lifespan of over a millennium.
Such vast longevity and the sluggish passage of time made it easy to lose track of passing years.
Only because he possessed the attribute panel could he watch his lifespan tick by at any moment, retaining a crystal-clear awareness of how much time had elapsed.
Twelve years had passed in the blink of an eye since he left the Central Plains and returned to the Eastern Desolation.
So many things had unfolded during that time. He had forged bonds with new friends and made new enemies.
Such encounters could never have been attained by simply finding a secluded place and quietly toiling in bitter cultivation.
Yet all of that was external.
Luo Chen rapidly scanned the attribute panel, gaining an instant and comprehensive grasp of his current condition.
The progress in body refinement and qi cultivation went without saying.
The True Intent of the Law had shifted slightly.
It had climbed from an initial 1 to 12.
Luo Chen could guess the reason for that change.
Though he had not experienced any sudden enlightenment, witnessing the rises and falls of the Luotian Sect and growing accustomed to life and death on the battlefield naturally deepened his comprehension of this True Intent.
It was a good thing, yet it also gave Luo Chen a slight headache.
He possessed no concrete method for cultivating True Intent of the Law. How one was actually supposed to practice it remained completely unknown to him, leaving him to rely on pure luck.
Sometimes it sat dormant for years; at other times, it surged abruptly.
He had no idea when he would ever bring this True Intent to great success.
*I can't very well cast the Wither-Bloom Dao Finger endlessly, attempting to comprehend True Intent through a divine ability, can I?*
The thought drifted into Luo Chen's mind unbidden.
He swiftly dismissed it, however. During his private practice with the Wither-Bloom Dao Finger, he had sensed a faint dissonance between himself and the Wither-Bloom True Intent.
Could it be that this True Intent was not truly suited to him?
Because of that, he dared not recklessly grope around for corresponding techniques, preferring to take things one step at a time for now.
His gaze then swept across the cultivation methods column.
The mastery of the sword scripture had increased by a sliver. Unfortunately, having focused entirely on his natal cultivation method over the past five years without refining further Crimson Firmament Sword Qi, progress had stalled where it had been five years ago.
The self-created *Wither-Bloom Dao Scripture*, on the other hand, had advanced substantially, proving that five years of diligent effort had not been in vain.
"*Soul Splitting Art* has reached Perfection!" Luo Chen murmured.
He could feel the fullness of his main soul. That vigorous, overflowing sensation signaled an exceptional opportunity to sever another split soul.
Presently, he already had two split souls, both nurtured to the Nascent Soul tier.
In daily life, those two split souls had rendered him immense aid.
Whether concocting pills, inscribing talismans, practicing formations, or studying puppetry, they saved him a vast amount of energy.
Possessing a third split soul would surely allow Luo Chen to divide his attention among even more mundane affairs.
Yet at this moment, Luo Chen hesitated.
The soul-tempering principle of the *Soul Splitting Art* was simple: compensating for quality with quantity.
For a cultivator's main soul to expand, it normally relied solely on the breakthrough of realms and the natural tempering of the years.
Reaching one's innate limit was already an achievement.
Breaking past a realm bottleneck to possess a soul foundation far exceeding one's stage was arduous beyond measure.
Even with the help of medicinal pills, it was ultimately an unorthodox path.
The *Soul Splitting Art* opened a completely different avenue.
If vertical ascent proved too steep, one could expand horizontally.
By cleaving the main soul and raising split souls to a level comparable to the origin, the main soul could also recover to its peak state with relative ease.
When the time came, merging the split souls back into the main soul allowed one to bypass realm limitations in an instant, wielding a soul foundation far beyond one's ordinary tier.
Take Luo Chen: right now, his main soul's strength roughly matched that of an ordinary fifth-layer Nascent Soul cultivator.
Yet once he merged the two split souls, he could vie against the soul strength of a sixth-layer Nascent Soul expert.
Because the souls shared the same origin, the resultant transformation was far greater than simply adding one plus one.
Luo Chen had originally planned along those lines.
He intended to create a third split soul to master more crafts and further bolster his main soul, while also learning an exceptionally difficult defensive soul art recorded in the *Soul Splitting Art*—
A technique known as *Zhenyu*.
Its cultivation difficulty was monstrously high; even Han Zhan had failed to master it in his time.
Perhaps that was partly because Han Zhan had pursued the sheer quantity of split souls too obsessively, compounded by the short span of time he had lived after forming his Nascent Soul before his demise.
The foundational requirement for practicing it was having three split souls to simulate the Heaven, Earth, and Mortal souls among a living being's three ethereal and seven corporeal souls.
Yet the ambush in the Blade Dominance Domain had shaken Luo Chen's resolve.
*My fame has surged, and some of my formidable methods have gradually entered the public eye.*
*If I run into enemies of a higher realm, I fear no standard battle, but I must beware their soul attacks.*
*Splitting the main soul now would plunge me into a period of weakness. The new split soul would also require time to be nurtured, and that Zhenyu art is exceedingly difficult to learn, impossible to put to use in the short term.*
*In that case, I must abandon long-term growth and prioritize short-term survival.*
With a murmur of regret, Luo Chen shelved his plan to cultivate the *Zhenyu* soul art.
Yet it was only a temporary postponement.
Looking toward the future, Luo Chen already had a tentative plan in mind to implement once he emerged from seclusion.
His gaze drifted downward, passing the familiar entries of spells, body arts, and soul arts, until it settled on his Achievement Points.
At the sight, he could not help smacking his lips.
At his peak, he had amassed more than three hundred Achievement Points.
That had been a colossal hidden fortune.
Alas, in the Land of the Fallen Demon, he had spent a hundred points just to acquire the basics of the fifth-tier divine pill, the *Law Deduction Pill*.
Later, he had consumed another hundred points to cultivate the fifth-tier *Myriad Firmaments Myriad Transformations Sword Scripture*.
Even after continuously replenishing them over the years, he possessed merely a hundred and eighty Achievement Points.
"A bit too few; it doesn't give me peace of mind."
"If I could top it back up to two hundred, it would be much safer. I wouldn't have to dread facing a sudden crisis where Achievement Points fell short."
Luo Chen sighed.
Yet it was merely a sigh. Accumulating Achievement Points nowadays could only be done as opportunities naturally arose; he could never afford to squander vast energy forcibly grinding low-tier arts that held no practical use for him.
Earning achievements purely for the sake of points was entirely meaningless.
Luo Chen casually flipped to the hidden profession section behind the panel.
Unlike before, two new professions had appeared.
The first was Talisman Master, at the third rank.
The second was Puppet Master, at the second rank.
These were the fruits of Luo Chen's years of studying talismans and puppetry.
For a Nascent Soul expert, they hardly counted as grand achievements.
Luo Chen merely offered a faint smile upon seeing them.
As for his previous professions...
Under Alchemy Master, several high-tier pills had been added, such as the Jiuli Pill and the Hidden Wind Pill.
The Formation Master entry remained at the fourth rank, unchanged from before.
The Physician entry showed no alterations either.
Yet under Weapon Artisan, Luo Chen unexpectedly caught sight of a floating notification.
[Heart-Interrogation Mirror forging diagram detected. Initiate entry?]
Luo Chen blinked in surprise. Had the split soul left behind before seclusion truly deciphered the forging diagram for the Heart-Interrogation Mirror?
With a thought, two figures stepped into the cultivation chamber from the cave dwelling outside.
They were the Red Dog and Black Ape split-soul puppets.
Two streaks of light shot out, returning like swallows to their nest as they plunged into Luo Chen's sea of consciousness.
The moment the main soul merged with them, aside from feeling a profound surge of strength, the memories quarantined over these years flooded into the true body's main soul.
Luo Chen felt a swelling pressure in his mind as the research process regarding the Heart-Interrogation Mirror played out before him like moving images.
After a long while, Luo Chen slowly opened his eyes.
"So that is the wonder of the Phantasm Core."
After the Red Dog puppet dismantled numerous Phantasm Core magic treasures, it had finally understood how to utilize the object.
Formations were secondary; the crucial requirement was the sap of an ancient wondrous tree known as True-Returning Liquid.
That ancient wondrous tree generated massive illusions, causing anyone nearby to lose themselves within.
Only by consuming its sap could one break free of the illusions.
Refining and processing this sap yielded True-Returning Liquid.
The Tianyuan Dao Sect had exploited this very material to stimulate the illusory properties of the Phantasm Core in a controlled manner, crafting various weapons and magic treasures with distinct functions.
Once the Red Dog puppet comprehended this principle, the remaining smithing details presented no obstacle.
"In that case, as long as I forge a Heart-Interrogation Mirror of higher rank, not only can it help me temper my soul, but Canglong's predicament will also have a solution."
Luo Chen beamed with delight.
And the good news did not end there.
The Black Ape puppet had also completed several tasks assigned before seclusion.
With a beckoning wave of his hand, a flying shuttle flew from the Black Ape puppet's storage bag into his palm.
The soul imprint left upon it by Demon Sovereign Frost Eagle had been entirely erased.
Luo Chen first imprinted his own soul mark upon it, then channeled his magic power inside.
The shuttle began to expand slowly...
Once it reached just over a zhang in length, Luo Chen ceased injecting magic power.
Examining the object, Luo Chen nodded in satisfaction.
Not only did this treasure possess dharma-breaking properties, but it was uniquely gifted in concealment and spatial traversal.
Small wonder Demon Sovereign Frost Eagle had sought to flee carrying this True Artifact when his Nascent Soul made its escape.
Moreover, Luo Chen had uncovered another of its functions.
"Grow! Grow! Grow!"
Luo Chen channeled magic power once more, and the shuttle swelled further.
One zhang, two zhang...
Regrettably, the cultivation chamber was too cramped; at three zhang, Luo Chen had to abandon the idea of viewing its full expanse.
By his estimate, once fully deployed, this Frost Eagle Flying Shuttle spanned several hundred zhang, entirely suitable for use as a massive flying vessel.
Beyond its sheer flying speed, its concealment capabilities were formidable.
Divine sense below the Nascent Soul realm had no hope of detecting it.
Even Nascent Soul cultivators, caught unprepared, would be hard-pressed to notice its presence.
The thought of concealment reminded Luo Chen of another object—
The corpse of the Wuguang beast!
That beast excelled at manifesting darkness, shrouding an entire area in total silence, a trait rare beneath the heavens.
Even Luo Chen had been momentarily trapped by it when caught off guard.
If the hide of the Wuguang beast were wrapped around the Frost Eagle Flying Shuttle, would the shuttle's concealment not be elevated to an even greater level?
Innumerable thoughts arose one after another.
For a moment, Luo Chen felt an itch to act.
"It is time to leave seclusion."
Luo Chen stowed the shuttle, preparing to exit.
Yet before doing so, there was one more matter to attend to.
His fingers twitched, magic power circulating.
Luo Chen tapped incantation seals onto his own body one after another.
His magic power fluctuations began to retract slowly.
The realm aura he displayed to the outside world gradually receded from the blazing peak of the fourth layer down to the third layer of the Nascent Soul, making it appear virtually unchanged from before.
This was the *Wither-Bloom Divine Restriction* he had created in his earlier years.
Not only did it reduce the dissipation of magic power and assist in realm cultivation, but it also concealed his true strength.
"Everyone is bogged down by the war, their cultivation advancing at a crawl. If I advance too quickly, it will easily invite suspicion and gossip."
"Furthermore, suppressing my realm might deliver a grand surprise to anyone hoping to target me at a critical juncture."
His final murmur carried a trace of chill.
Luo Chen recalled that fist that had smashed through the formation during the battle of the Blade Dominance Domain.
Had his physical body not been exceptionally cultivated, that unexpected strike would have gravely wounded him.
In his eyes, True Person Shenhuo letting a demon sovereign attack him across the grand formation had been anything but an accident.
***
A short man clad in grey robes strolled along the bustling streets of Lingtian Pass.
He looked around, appearing thoroughly intrigued by the lively surroundings.
Reaching out, he pulled aside a Qi Refinement cultivator. As the man turned with an irritated frown, a mid-grade spirit stone was slipped into his palm.
The cultivator broke into an instant smile.
"Does Senior have instructions for me?"
The grey-robed man pointed at the bustling scene on the thoroughfare and asked with curiosity, "I heard Lingtian Pass was heavily guarded before. Why has it become so bustling? If I didn't know the three demon commanders were still eyeing us greedily, I would have thought we were in peacetime."
The Qi Refinement cultivator came to an understanding and explained at once, "Senior might not know, but during the Spirit-Depleted Battle back then, our Lingtian Pass won a sweeping victory, vastly boosting human morale. Over these years, the sixteen domains in the rear have continually sent people to join Lingtian Pass, so it naturally grew lively."
"The Spirit-Depleted Battle?"
"That was the battle of the Blade Dominance Domain! Surely Senior has heard of it?"
The grey-robed man rubbed his chin, understanding in an instant.
Sure enough, the Qi Refinement cultivator's explanation matched his own recollections.
In that raid he had personally participated in, mountains had collapsed and rivers had been rerouted across the Blade Dominance Domain.
Earth veins shattered, and earthen qi dispersed.
The numerous spiritual veins originally blanketing the domain had been ripped to shreds.
Compounded by the pollution of foul demon blood saturating the battlefield, the once energy-rich Blade Dominance Domain had now been reduced to a barren, spirit-depleted land.
Even the demon armies chose not to garrison there.
Hence, that engagement was also referred to as the Spirit-Depleted Battle.
Yet the far-reaching influence of that battle was something a lowly Qi Refinement cultivator could never fully articulate.
"In truth, the recent liveliness isn't just because of the population influx," the cultivator continued chattily, his tone full of admiration. "It is also because, after the Nascent Soul elder from the Dongyang Sect arrived at Lingtian Pass, he spearheaded the pass's very first trade fair. The aim is to let cultivators within the city trade what they have for what they need, exchanging resources to bolster their strength as much as possible for the war ahead."
The grey-robed cultivator smiled. "It seems you reaped considerable gains at this trade fair?"
The man cast a wary glance at the grey-robed figure. But remembering that inside the city, even a Foundation Establishment True Cultivator could not harm him, he admitted openly:
"I wouldn't call them considerable gains, but I did sell off some things I had no use for. In return, I traded for quite a few resources helpful for reaching Foundation Establishment. My prospects for the breakthrough look promising now."
At this point, he could not resist bragging, "Among them is a portion of spiritual liquid said to have originated from the Luotian Treasure Pavilion. It will be of immense use for my Foundation Establishment."
"Oh?"
A strange glint flickered in the grey-robed cultivator's eyes. "Could you let me see it?"
The Qi Refinement cultivator hesitated for a moment before producing a jade vial.
The grey-robed cultivator swept his divine sense over it and chuckled softly.
Diluted Emperor Flowing Liquid—most likely from Qi Yi's hands.
Allowing the man to take it back, the grey-robed cultivator asked a few more casual questions, offered his thanks, and drifted away.
After he departed, the Qi Refinement cultivator stood frozen in place, a look of bewilderment washing over his eyes.
He was normally cautious to a fault. Why on earth had he so readily displayed the Foundation Establishment resources he had painstakingly purchased to a complete stranger?
Yet upon seeing the mid-grade spirit stone in his palm, his heart settled.
*Perhaps that person looked so harmless that he caused me to lower my guard!* he thought.
***
Following the directions given by the Qi Refinement cultivator, the harmless-looking short man in grey wound his way through Lingtian Pass, turning through alleys before ducking into a secluded lane.
He did not head toward the city's grand trade fair, making his way instead into a black market.
Inside the narrow alley, cramped buildings were packed tightly together, each featuring a service window.
Pausing briefly, the grey-robed cultivator stepped directly into a dim room that gave off an odd, complex aroma.
"Guest, what are you looking for?"
The grey-robed cultivator swept his eyes across the medicinal herbs on the shelves, looking intrigued.
"Herbal resources in Lingtian Pass are tight these days. How do you come by so many here?"
A hunched old man emerged from the depths of the room and remarked casually, "Be a little bolder. When patrolling outside the city, sweep through the areas held by the demon race, and you'll always harvest something."
"Take this stalk of Azure Blood Grass, for instance. Because it was soaked in the blood of a Demon King, it gained a few extraordinary properties."
"Can you guess where it came from?"
The grey-robed man shook his head.
The old man smiled smugly. "From the spirit-depleted battlefield! This is rare Azure Blood Grass; even the large shops in the city seldom carry it."
The grey-robed man feigned sudden comprehension, then asked, "I imagine the selling price must be extraordinarily high?"
"You have sharp eyes, lad!" the old man praised, then added, "If that Nascent Soul elder from the Dongyang Sect hadn't lifted restrictions, good stuff like this could only be traded secretly in the shadows, and the price would be even steeper. As it stands now, you only need to produce three thousand spirit stones to take it!"
"Three thousand!"
The grey-robed man frowned.
Hearing the shock in his voice, the old man frowned displeasedly. "You are a Foundation Establishment True Cultivator. Can you truly not scrape together a mere three thousand spirit stones?"
The grey-robed man gritted his teeth. "Three thousand is indeed steep. I have a cultivation method here; I wonder if it could offset a portion of the price?"
Barter?
The old man was somewhat reluctant, but he still told the grey-robed man to produce it for inspection.
A tattered hide booklet landed in the old man's hands.
With just a single glance, the old man's eyes lit up.
"*Soul Absorbing Essence Extracting Art*! Lad, where did you get this technique?"
Chapter 822