Unlike other monsters, the mycelial mat wasn't particularly sharp. Only after being gorged for quite a while, when it was swollen to bursting, did it realize something was wrong. Unfortunately, the cloud stole blocking the entrance was of far too fine a quality; it couldn't squeeze past.
It wanted to sever its connection to the ladybugs—better a fellow daoist perish than oneself.
However, it was too late.
A power ten times more surging than before suddenly erupted from He Lingchuan's meridians, coursing through the ladybugs' bodies and flooding instantly into the mycelial mat!
How could the fungal carpet possibly endure it? To bleed off the true force, the mushrooms sprouting across its surface suddenly expanded tenfold.
At the same time, mycelial mats across twenty-four or twenty-five different locations throughout the forest expanded explosively, swiftly overrunning the ground, boulders, and ravines. Ladybugs fled in swarms, while multicolored wild mushrooms on the mats also grew wildly, some even emitting blue and green fluorescence.
They burst and regrew, sprouted and detonated, attempting to consume the surplus true force. For a time, the entire mountain forest was shrouded in bizarre toxic smoke and glowing phosphorescence.
Birds and beasts collapsed at the first whiff, while those remaining fled in panic.
The Three Hearts Plain, which had barely settled into peace after the Emperor's Flowing Dew, was plunged once more into a frenzied turmoil. Many monsters that had ingested the dew and were in the midst of seeking breakthroughs were poisoned outright by the toxic smoke, dropping dead on the spot.
He Lingchuan knew nothing of this.
He only knew that the true force within him had been stampeding like ten thousand horses. Just as it was about to blow him to pieces, several hundred tiny apertures suddenly opened along his meridians, and the true force began pouring outward without stop.
But it wasn't enough, far from enough.
To relieve his mortal peril, this trickle of transfer volume was much too small.
He Lingchuan had no idea what was happening, nor did he have any time to ponder it. He only focused all his strength on driving the true force from his Shanzhong and Qihai acupoints outward.
Only by venting it could he survive.
The mirror witnessed everything before it, struck dumb with shock. Then came a resounding crack—
The fungal carpet burst.
And not just in this cave.
The wildly swollen mycelial mats throughout the entire forest ruptured at the very same instant.
Hyphae, spores, dust, and glowing motes drifted everywhere in vast billows. Even when the Emperor's Flowing Dew descended yesterday, the entire forest had never appeared so bizarre.
Soon, all manner of roars and shrieks echoed from every direction.
It was as though a riot had raised its curtain under cover of night.
Yet none of this chaos reached the cave deep inside the ravine.
Following the mycelial mat's detonation, the excess true force in He Lingchuan's body was largely purged, and his condition finally showed promise of stabilizing.
The Shanzhong acupoint was successfully opened as his second dantian. Although the process had been excessively brutal, the Emperor's Flowing Dew once again exerted its protective qualities, mending each and every bit of damage sustained.
What had been chaos was now a sea of qi. The Yin-Yang true force He Lingchuan cultivated formally entered, circling a few times to acclimate, and seemed thoroughly satisfied with its new home.
With the second dantian established, the excess true force had a place to reside.
Now, from Guanyuan to Shanzhong, the true force could travel without impediment; even the Ren and Du meridians had become expressways.
Not yet satisfied, He Lingchuan struck while the iron was hot, running several major heavenly cycles before slowly completing his cultivation.
The moment he opened his eyes, he sneezed several times in succession—achoo! achoo!
"What's going on?"
It looked as if red snow had fallen inside the stone cave; why were strange filaments strewn everywhere? He Lingchuan noticed he was covered from head to toe in dust and speckles of glowing light.
He shook his clothes—whoa, a massive cloud of dust billowed out!
Several dead white bugs tumbled from his body, each one the size of... a hen's egg.
"Whoa, ladybugs this big?" It was his first time seeing such creatures; fortunately, they were all dead.
"I'm over here!" a weak voice piped up from a corner.
He Lingchuan walked over and pulled the heart-protecting mirror out from beneath a thick layer of hyphae.
"What are you doing here? What happened?"
The eyeball spider crawled out from nowhere and hopped onto him.
"You were almost eaten by a man-eating fungus," the mirror said, not knowing quite how to explain. "No, you were eaten. I watched with my own eyes as that fungus siphoned the true force from your body and swelled up like a balloon. But soon after, the fungal carpet blew up."
He Lingchuan finally understood what coated the ground around him. He had only heard of the man-eating fungus by reputation, never expecting one would creep up on him while he was cultivating. "Where did it come in from?"
"Right from here," the mirror said. "That big patch of dried moss at the back of the cave was it!"
No wonder the defenses he had set up were utterly useless—they were meant to ward off outside enemies, never expecting a foe lurking at his back.
This was truly a blunder turned blessing; otherwise, the one blown to smithereens by the true force would have been him. "So that thing actually helped me?"
"You call that help?" The mirror didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Did you break through?"
"Mm, you could say that."
That works too? The heart-protecting mirror muttered, "You really are a lucky general."
He Lingchuan chuckled dryly. He was thoroughly sick of hearing the words "lucky general."
Why was it so coincidentally convenient again? Just as he couldn't hold out, a scapegoat had popped up immediately to die in his place.
With his growing knowledge and experience, this sort of heaven-defying luck actually made his skin crawl.
Regardless, surviving a great catastrophe truly did bring good fortune afterward.
He stowed away the heart-protecting mirror and the cloud stole, then pinched his nose and exited the cave.
The tiger was right at the entrance, wagging its head and tail the moment it saw him emerge. It had tried to go inside earlier, but the cloud stole sealing the cave had been far too tough; it simply couldn't squeeze its way in...
By now, broad daylight flooded the world.
Since sunlight could reach even the bottom of the ravine, He Lingchuan deduced it was likely noon. "Did I really spend an entire night?"
"An entire night? Bah!" the heart-protecting mirror scoffed. "You stayed inside that wretched cave for three whole nights!"
He Lingchuan drew in a soft breath through his teeth. His breathing meditation had actually consumed two days and three nights?
He raised the mirror to look at himself—sigh, disheveled hair and a dirt-streaked face.
Leaping out of the ravine, he walked outward. The air was thick with drifting powdered ash, and visibility was exceedingly poor.
Then he discovered dead animals strewn everywhere.
The heart-protecting mirror explained, "This dust is toxic. Even after being baked under the daytime sun, ordinary beasts still can't withstand it."
Only then did He Lingchuan realize he had made another trip to the gates of hell.
At that moment, a horse-like whinny sounded ahead as a bighorn rock sheep burst from the depths of the pine woods, followed closely by a giant bear.
Evidently, the bear had wanted to eat the sheep, but the ambush had failed.
Seeing He Lingchuan, it shifted its target; two-legged beasts were slow runners and made for an easier meal.
The brute was stout and heavily built, barreling forward like a small hill.
Having just spent all that time cultivating, He Lingchuan's true force was still churning within him. His heart surged with an itch to test his strength—how could he fear it?
He pushed off lightly on his toes, drawing his blade with a reverse grip.
Under normal circumstances, he would have dodged the bear monster's initial strike and circled to its flank to attack with his saber.
That was the proven, safe routine.
Yet this time, with merely a featherlight tap of his foot like a dragonfly skimming water, a shallow crater appeared in the dirt.
With a sharp whoosh, He Lingchuan streaked through the air as a blur of afterimages, arriving directly in front of the bear's snout, nearly nose to nose with it.
Holy shit, that was fast! It gave even him a fright.
One step. With just a single step, he had crossed a distance of thirty feet!
Fortunately, the combat instincts forged through daily drill took over. A faint flash of blade light followed, and before the giant bear could raise its paw to counter, half of its foreleg was severed.
The bear monster howled in agony, only to see a fierce tiger leap abruptly from the dense forest, charging aggressively toward it.
Crippled on three legs, how could it match this human-and-tiger pair? The giant bear's emotion instantly flipped from rage to terror.
It fled; he pursued; it had nowhere left to run.
Only when the bear's corpse hit the ground did He Lingchuan let out a long breath.
Effortless.
This power, this speed, this feeling of moving like a fish in water...
This was an authentic breakthrough, a total transformation!
Sheathing his saber and turning around, he noticed the bighorn rock sheep hadn't fled far. Instead, it stood a short distance behind him, twitching its little tail and gazing at him with an uneasy expression.
The sheep had light-brown fleece marked with long black patches along its belly, and it bore a saddle on its back—clearly someone's mount.
In truth, it resembled a deer more than a sheep.
However, the saddle was stained with blood and claw marks; he guessed its original master had likely met with misfortune.
Examining the bear's corpse, he found numerous other wounds as well. Some seemed left by beastly claws and fangs, while others were inflicted by sharp weapons; its left canine tooth was snapped off too.
It had clearly fought its share of battles with other monsters and humans. In fact, two bloody holes on its hind leg were likely gouged by the bighorn rock sheep, as He Lingchuan spotted traces of blood on the sheep's horns.
This sheep seemed to have quite a fiery temper too.
Evidently, forest life over the past two days hadn't been easy on anyone.
When he took two steps forward, the rock sheep quickly backed away.
He Lingchuan signaled the tiger to retreat into the woods before strolling over to gently pat the sheep's neck. He cooed some sweet words and unwrapped a corn candy to feed it.
The creature showed an uncharacteristic docility—likely intimidated by how cleanly He Lingchuan had felled the bear with a single slash.
Of course, one candy wasn't enough; it took at least three.
"You came at just the right time. Carry me back."
He Lingchuan found a stream to wash his hands and face, then swung onto the sheep's back and galloped toward the forest's edge.
Along the way, he was actually attacked twice, both times by monsters. But his newly acquired mount was blazingly fast, leaping over ten feet high with effortless ease and sparing him plenty of trouble.
The entire forest was steeped in violence and frenzy.
He also came across several human corpses whose wounds indicated they had perished in the jaws of beasts.
As expected, widespread chaos erupted after the Emperor's Flowing Dew. Fortunately, he was already near the forest outskirts.
As the primary culprit behind the mountain forest's upheaval, he felt not the slightest guilt, departing the woods with absolute composure.
As for the tiger, he recalled the evil spirit possessing it and spared its life.
Through the heart-protecting mirror's bond, he knew very well that the tiger harbored no malice toward him.
"Let bygones be bygones; let us forge a good karmic tie." Saber in hand, he gifted the tiger a jade bottle containing five freshly refined Hundred Virtues Pills to thank it for guarding him during his cultivation.
Practitioners valued karma. With no remaining grievances between them, why fight to the death?
Once the tiger regained its senses, it didn't attack him either. It merely gave him a couple of glances, took the bottle, leaped into the brush, and bounded away.
Along the return route, the villages and towns He Lingchuan passed were no longer as peaceful as they had been days before. Local defense militias patrolled back and forth, and townsfolk were clearing corpses from the woods or repairing damaged houses.
Pedestrians and merchants on the roads had visibly thinned.
Without further delay, he traveled through the night straight back to Fufeng City.
Compared to the orderly scene from a few days ago, Fufeng City was now looking a bit different as well.
Chapter 382