Time slipped by, and in the blink of an eye another two years passed...
During those two years, Lu Qingshan's life went on as usual. Apart from his villa on Wind Thunder Island and his disciple Ling Yu's manor, he shuttled back and forth between only those two places. He never went to the public areas to enjoy himself, nor did he exchange a word with the other instructors.
Ling Yu had no trouble at all with the second level of the Wind Thunder Sword, Wind Thunder Thrust, and could easily fold her understanding of the Time Origin Law into it.
Her cultivation of the third level of Thunderlight Flash had reached thirty-six illusion bodies—progress that could only be called astonishing.
Of course, the core of her cultivation over these two years had still been the soul secret methods. The Eye of the Void had already taken shape within her soul, and she had used her authority to apply for some treasures that strengthened and nurtured the soul. Her soul power was rising at a breakneck pace!
"Teacher, I feel like you've changed a great deal in the past two years!"
Her cultivation finished, Ling Yu's gaze settled on Lu Qingshan.
Cultivating the Eye of the Void had sharpened her soul perception considerably. She could sense that her teacher, compared with two years ago, seemed far more steady now—or perhaps it was better to say he carried the air of someone who had weathered every storm.
"It's nothing. I only ran into a small problem in my cultivation. Easily solved..."
Lu Qingshan spoke as though it did not matter.
If even Ling Yu could sense it, then of course something was going on with Lu Qingshan.
Ever since he had obtained that secret manual, Analysis of the Soul, two years ago, he had been lost in Thousand Threads Soul Tempering day and night.
Samsara might be an illusion, yet a thousand lifetimes of it had still tempered Lu Qingshan's will to a tremendous degree.
And as his cultivation of Thousand Threads Soul Tempering deepened, the illusory realms he faced now were no longer the crude illusions that could be seen through so easily at the start. One careless moment, and even Lu Qingshan could sink into them for good...
Anyone else who got hold of this manual and trained with such mad abandon would long since have drowned in the samsara space and been left a soulless shell. Lu Qingshan was different.
He had discovered one thing: whenever the yearly deadline for his rebate arrived, a reminder from his cheat always reached his consciousness. Which meant that no matter which illusory realm he was in, even if he had sunk in for a time, the moment the System's notification arrived he could wake at once.
He had three such chances a year.
Naturally, Lu Qingshan had not yet used that benefit of his own accord.
Real as the illusory realms were, he could always find the flaw in them, and in the end he walked back out of the falsehood.
"My soul transformation has reached the critical moment. Perhaps I can break through to the World Master realm very soon."
The Dragon Soul Jade combined with the effects of Thousand Threads Soul Tempering had made the speed of Lu Qingshan's soul transformation simply astonishing, and the changes brought on by that transformation had come so fast that not even Lu Qingshan had time to conceal them.
"Hm?"
As if he had sensed something, Lu Qingshan let out a faint sound of surprise, then said to Ling Yu, "Be very careful when you cultivate the soul secret methods. I have a few things to attend to for the time being, so I'll be away for a while."
With that, Lu Qingshan flew back to his villa.
In the cultivation chamber.
Lu Qingshan entered the World Ring.
Beside the pond of Luoke God Water, a giant white egg sat quietly on the bank. Dense cracks had already spread across the shell.
"The One-Horned Ghost King avatar is about to be born!"
Lu Qingshan's heart pounded with excitement.
This was an avatar!
In the world of Swallowing the Starry Sky, there was no need to say much about what an avatar was worth. It could be called one of the most heaven-defying abilities in existence.
All his many questions about the One-Horned Ghost King could be answered in full once this avatar was completely gestated.
Lu Qingshan sat down in front of the giant egg that held the gestating One-Horned Ghost King and waited quietly, as the minutes and seconds trickled away.
Half a day later.
Kacha, kacha.
A hair-raising sound came from inside the shell.
Lu Qingshan saw the cyan secret runes of the Time Origin Law on the surface of the shell slowly fading, as though melting into the thing within...
The world power stirred, and even the Star-Eating Grass cautiously poked itself out of the pond, its long blades swaying as it took up a defensive posture, apparently deeply wary of the creature before it.
Until the avatar was fully gestated, the Star-Eating Grass would not recognize it as its master.
"Kacha!"
The shell split open along a huge crack.
A monster smeared all over with slime crawled out of the egg.
The first thing to emerge was a cyan horn gleaming with light, followed by a white head covered in hair, its enormous eyes glinting with an eerie green glow.
Then came a powerful arm, paired with a skeletal hand, its nails as long as the sharpest daggers.
Only when the One-Horned Ghost King had climbed completely out of the shell did Lu Qingshan see its full form.
"So this is the whole of the One-Horned Ghost King? He is a bit ugly, I suppose..." At the auction there had been only a written description, so Lu Qingshan's guesses about the One-Horned Ghost King had stayed on the page. Now that he was seeing it with his own eyes, he found that this fellow really was rather ugly.
Still, ugly didn't matter. As long as he was useful!
From the moment the Ghost King was born, his strength was that of a Domain Master Ninth Stage, on par with Lu Qingshan's own at this moment.
Yet Lu Qingshan did not know how to classify him.
Because this One-Horned Ghost King had not been gestated by Lu Qingshan from a Primal Core. He had simply appeared out of nowhere, as though bestowed by the Primal Universe itself.
But the utterly identical soul aura meant that this truly and unquestionably was Lu Qingshan's avatar, and that Lu Qingshan could control this body perfectly with nothing more than his will.
Lu Qingshan shifted his perspective onto the Ghost King and felt the pitch-black, perfect Life Core within him, with its 10,081 facets!
He had a feeling that if this One-Horned Ghost King were killed, he could still gestate it again with the help of treasures, though it would cost him dearly. And if his main body were to die, he could likewise revive through the One-Horned Ghost King's Primal Core.
This was a bit heaven-defying!
It amounted to this: Lu Qingshan's main body and the Ghost King were each other's main body—or put another way, both of them were part of Lu Qingshan's main body, and Lu Qingshan himself was whole only when the two were joined as one!
Lu Qingshan drew a deep breath. With this ability, so long as he did not court death, his ability to preserve his life would multiply beyond measure.
What was more, this One-Horned Ghost King possessed a genetic level fifty times his own—its strength far surpassing that of his main body.
"First, let's take a look at what this One-Horned Ghost King can do..."
The instant the Ghost King was born, countless streams of inherited information appeared in his mind, and Lu Qingshan began to go through them.
The Inherited Memory was endless. It touched on many hidden secret realms, included a vast, boundless map of the Prison Race's territory, and even contained scenes of Undying Deities locked in battle.
"Could the inheritance of my One-Horned Ghost King avatar have come from the horn in Ling Yu's possession?"
Lu Qingshan was guessing as much.
Among Peak Races and special lifeforms, inheritances were generally passed down generation after generation. Apart from the basic core secret methods, which remained unchanged, the other memories did not necessarily match. Lu Qingshan's inheritance seemed to be on a far larger scale.
This, too, was information drawn from the Inherited Memory.
2,301 Ordinary Secret Methods; 211 Core Secret Methods.
Innate Secret Method: Time Acceleration. Time could be accelerated within a given region of space, including for the user himself...
Innate Instinct: Disguise. The One-Horned Ghost King possessed a formidable ability to disguise itself, and could take the form of any lifeform.
Ultimate Killing Move: Time Samsara. It could instantly unleash an acceleration effect of ten million times. Against those below the Undying, it stripped away a vast amount of the target's lifespan in an instant, draining their life until they died; against those above the Undying, the power of Time Samsara corroded the undying god body, steadily wearing it down, its health draining away without end.
Chapter 66