Twin Golden Cores

Within the clear lake waters, a graceful silhouette swam with light, supple motions, parting the surface with both hands like a fish leaping from the water—a picture of exquisite beauty. She floated lazily on the lake, drifting with the ripples and savoring this fleeting, leisurely moment. On the shore, Lu Yang had a helpless look on his face. "Fairy, could you please not swim in here?" "You even want to police my swimming? Take that!" Pouting, the Immortal Fairy brought her hands together and squirted a jet of water through her fingers straight at Lu Yang, who dodged it with ease. "Of course I can't tell you how to swim, but please don't swim inside my spiritual space. It makes me look like I've got water in my head," Lu Yang said helplessly. He didn't know what had gotten into her, but ever since she returned, she had developed a sudden obsession with playing in the water and had even conjured an entire lake right in his spiritual space. "Shoo, shoo! Go do your training and leave me alone." The Immortal Fairy booted Lu Yang out of his own spiritual space, acting for all the world as if she were the master of the place. In truth, Lu Yang was indeed in the middle of training. Right now, he was surrounded by three Golden Core stage wild boars, while Meng Jingzhou and the Five Heroes of Eagle Mountain stood up in the trees enjoying the show. The wild boars rampaged about with terrifying brute strength. Lu Yang tried to evade their direct momentum and strike from the flanks, but the three beasts coordinated with seamless precision, offering him no opening at all. *Boom—* One of the boars slammed squarely into Lu Yang, sending him flying backward through the air amid billows of swirling dust. "Go, wild boars, go! Gore him to death!" Meng Jingzhou yelled from the sidelines, gloating over his misfortune. "Is Young Hero Lu alright? From what I can tell, one of those boars is at the middle Golden Core stage, and the other two are at the peak of early Golden Core!" The Five Heroes of Eagle Mountain were far more conscientious, showing genuine concern for Lu Yang's safety. "He's fine, totally fine. If he can't even handle this, how can he call himself the number one of our batch? He might as well hand the title over to me!" Meng Jingzhou waved a dismissive hand. Last time, Lu Yang had kicked him out of the tree to fight; it was only fair to turn the tables now. The three wild boars charged forward to press their advantage, but as the dust cleared, where was Lu Yang's figure? Suddenly, one of the boars sensed danger and tried to dodge, but it was already too late. A glint of cold light burst from the ground below as the three-foot Green Blade Sword pierced straight through the beast's belly. The boar struggled to thrash in defiance, but with a flick of his wrist, Lu Yang shifted his sword form and let out a soft shout: "Sever!" The blade cleaved the boar clean in two down the middle. With a single strike, a middle Golden Core demon beast lay dead. After several days of experiential training in the dense forest, Lu Yang had already clashed with over a dozen Golden Core demon beasts of varying species. His greatest takeaway was that fighting out here was completely different from sparring with his senior martial brothers and sisters back in the Dao Seeking Sect—the Golden Core cultivators out in the wider world were so easy to beat! If he ever needed a confidence boost in the future, he definitely shouldn't look for it in the Dao Seeking Sect. He had to come outside. "See, I told you! You've got what it takes to fight above your grade! It's just that the opponents you ran into before were too monstrous!" The Immortal Fairy cried out in righteous grievance from within the spiritual space. Right after she had resurrected, she had wanted to borrow Lu Yang's body to show off her skills and let him see what fighting above one's grade truly meant. Who could have guessed that every last fellow in the Dao Seeking Sect would be more absurd than the last? Even in the ancient era when geniuses were born in droves, they would have ranked among the very finest. She hadn't stood a chance against them. Fortunately, relying on her peerless intellect later on, she had used Lu Yang's body to fight above his grade and defeat a Soul Formation stage cultivator, successfully restoring her reputation. Seeing their leader slain, the remaining two wild boars fled in panic. "After them! Don't let them escape!" Lu Yang called out to Meng Jingzhou. "I know, you don't need to tell me!" Meng Jingzhou leaped down from the tree, splitting the work with Lu Yang as each chased down one of the boars. These three wild boars had roamed everywhere, ambushing human cultivators. There was no telling how many humans had perished at their tusks; Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou would never let them get away. The Five Heroes of Eagle Mountain waited where they were. Before even a few minutes had passed, sounds of battle drifted from not far off. The clashes came swiftly and ended just as quickly. By the time the five men collected their senses, Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou had already returned, each dragging a dead wild boar behind him. "That takes care of tonight's dinner." *** Night fell, and Three-Flavor True Fire flared to life, casting a rosy glow over the seven faces gathered around it. One of the boars was propped over the fire, slowly roasting until it sizzled with grease. Droplets of fat dripped into the True Fire, sending plumes of bright flames leaping high into the air. "To think that we'd live to eat food roasted over True Fire—it's all thanks to Young Hero Lu," the Five Heroes marveled, impressed that Lu Yang had already mastered a type of True Fire at such a young age. While Lu Yang tended to the roast, the Five Heroes set about butchering the other two wild boars. Core, hide, tusks, and even the bones were valuable materials that would fetch a handsome price at Demon Quelling Pass. The beast core served as a primary ingredient for pill refinement, the hide could be forged into magical treasures, the tusks could be worn as symbols of status, and the bones made for a hearty broth. "Look, everyone! This demon boar had twin Golden Cores!" one of the Five Heroes suddenly cried out in shock. "What? How could that be?" Hearing this, the hook-nosed eldest brother immediately walked over to inspect it. Intrigued, Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou both put down what they were doing. They had only ever seen twin Golden Cores within the Dao Seeking Sect; they had never heard of an outsider possessing the talent to form two Golden Cores. Lying on the ground were two cores: one radiant gold, the other pitch-black, as though representing two polar extremes—light and dark—carrying a distinct resonance of the Dao. The more Lu Yang studied them, the more extraordinary the two cores seemed, full of endless profundity. *A fine treasure indeed.* "To think that the day would come when I could defeat a demon beast with twin Golden Cores," Lu Yang mused, marveling at his own growth. Meng Jingzhou found it just as wondrous; he had never heard of anyone possessing a black Golden Core. Golden Cores were divided into nine grades. The first grade was the brightest, gleaming like radiant gold, while the ninth grade was the poorest, dull and lusterless, yet still golden nonetheless. This boar was utterly unremarkable in appearance; how could it possibly have formed a black Golden Core? Did it carry an ancient bloodline, or had it encountered some miraculous opportunity? "This boar is a descendant of the ancient Mountain-Carrying Boar, said to be capable of hoisting two great mountains on its shoulders. From what I know, the Mountain-Carrying Boar is all gall—it has plenty of guts, but no brains, so its status among the demon race has never been very high," the hook-nosed leader pondered aloud. Having lived in the dense forest for years, he possessed an intimate knowledge of demon beasts. "Then it must have had some miraculous encounter?" Meng Jingzhou speculated, "I've heard that there's a rare heavenly treasure in this forest called the Twin Conjoined Lotus. Its lotus seeds come in light and dark, and consuming them can invert yin and yang to alter one's physical constitution." "Could this boar have accidentally stumbled across a Twin Conjoined Lotus while it was alive, consumed it, and consequently formed this pair of black and white twin Golden Cores?" The hook-nosed leader nodded, agreeing with Meng Jingzhou's guess. "If so, this boar truly had absurd luck! How many people venture into this forest specifically searching for the Twin Conjoined Lotus only to leave empty-handed, yet this boar ended up eating one!" Everyone's hearts burned with excitement. Were there any remaining Twin Conjoined Lotuses? Could they uncover some clue from this boar demon to track down the source and find the lotus? "Fairy, what do you think? Can you tell where these twin Golden Cores came from?" Lu Yang secretly asked the Immortal Fairy. "Twin Golden Cores? Isn't that black one just a gallstone?" The Immortal Fairy was utterly bewildered. Wasn't it simply because this Mountain-Carrying Boar was all gall, continuously secreting bile until it stagnated and congealed into a gallstone? She had seen plenty of that sort of thing back in the ancient era. What in the world had these people been babbling about for so long? Where on earth had they gotten the idea of twin Golden Cores? Lu Yang: "..."