"Well? Did I master it?"
"What you learned..." The Immortal Fairy searched her meager vocabulary, finding Lu Yang's question rather difficult to answer.
"It sort of counts as Universe in the Palm, except the size is a bit off."
The Immortal Fairy gestured with her hands. "It's only about the size of a village. This move of yours ought to be called Village in the Palm."
Lu Yang glanced at the miniature space in his palm. It truly wasn't very large.
"Village in the Palm" sounded terrible. He argued his case: "How could it be called a village? The space might be on the small side, but it's still a universe! Look, there are even stars orbiting inside. It should be called Mini Universe in the Palm!"
The Immortal Fairy scoffed at Lu Yang's claim. "Come off it. A swirl of sand pretending to be stars."
She blew a puff of breath at Lu Yang's palm; the stellar grains of sand scattered and vanished.
Seeing that he couldn't fool her, Lu Yang conceded defeat. "Fine, Village in the Palm it is. At least it's still a spatial spell."
Lu Yang quickly tossed the matter of the spell's name to the back of his mind and began exploring how to actually cast Village in the Palm.
"Universe in the Palm can crush down an entire world, leaving opponents powerless to resist. Village in the Palm should be able to do something similar!"
Emulating the Immortal Fairy, Lu Yang pressed his right hand downward.
"Village in the Palm!"
Rumble—!
A colossal hand descended from the sky, as massive as a village. It exuded an overwhelming sense of oppression, shaking the soul even more than reality itself!
Yet before the giant hand could crash down, it began to fade, dissipating into nothingness.
"Haa... haa..."
Lu Yang panted heavily and opened his mouth to devour spiritual energy, like a drowning man dragged ashore desperately gasping for air.
He hadn't dispersed Village in the Palm on purpose just now; his spiritual power simply couldn't sustain its form.
That single strike alone had completely drained him of spiritual power.
"This technique is still too difficult for you as you are now." The Immortal Fairy shook her head. Even an infant version of Universe in the Palm was not something a mid Golden Core stage cultivator could cast.
That said, if this move could be unleashed in full, no one in the Golden Core stage would be able to withstand it!
Even a peerless genius of the Golden Core stage wouldn't stand a chance of blocking it!
Lu Yang quickly hit upon a solution. "Perhaps I could swallow medicinal pills while casting Village in the Palm."
He sat cross-legged, spending half a quarter of an hour to recover his state and compose himself before trying again.
He took out his medicine gourd. Inside were all Great Restoration Pills—he had grown up eating these since childhood, and nothing was more familiar to him.
Lu Yang poured out a Great Restoration Pill from the gourd, held it in his mouth, and cast Village in the Palm once more.
As before, the palm faded and vanished before it could descend, and Lu Yang collapsed onto his backside, exhausted.
"No good. One Great Restoration Pill isn't enough."
Another half a quarter-hour passed. Lu Yang swallowed three Great Restoration Pills and cast Village in the Palm.
The giant hand blurred and vanished in midair.
"Three pills aren't enough either?"
Lu Yang grimaced. Just how many Great Restoration Pills would it take to succeed?
Five pills, six, seven, eight, nine, ten...
In the end, Lu Yang reached a conclusion: he would have to stuff his mouth completely full of Great Restoration Pills.
Which promptly led to another problem: once it was stuffed full, he couldn't swallow them, but swallowing them in batches couldn't restore his power fast enough.
"Right, I can ask the Seventh Elder for help!"
The Seventh Elder was the foremost alchemy master on the Central Continent; he could definitely concoct a pill that rapidly restored spiritual power!
Moreover, because Lu Yang had gifted the Seventh Elder a sentient stalk of Heaven Herding Grass, the elder had offered to refine pills for him three times!
No sooner said than done!
Lu Yang sought out the Seventh Elder. The elder was currently unsealing his furnace to refine pills; a rich pill fragrance wafted over, and one whiff was enough to tell it wasn't toxic.
"Haha! The Realm Breaking Pill I painstakingly refined is finally complete!"
The Seventh Elder laughed heartily. Concocting a pill unprecedented in all of history filled him with an immense sense of accomplishment.
"Congratulations, Seventh Elder!" Seeing this, Lu Yang raised his hands in congratulation. He had been waiting nearby without disturbing the Seventh Elder's pill refinement, only stepping forward once it was finished.
"Ah, Lu Yang. A pity you're in the Golden Core stage and can't try the Realm Breaking Pill I just made. This is a pill that has never existed before!"
Lu Yang felt a bit puzzled. From what the Seventh Elder said, taking this pill would allow one to advance to the Golden Core stage. But as far as he knew, pills like that had existed since long ago.
The Seventh Elder waved his hand dismissively. "How could the pills refined by those vulgar meddlers compare to mine? The Realm Breaking Pills out there are crude, slapdash rubbish devoid of aesthetic value!"
Lu Yang asked cautiously, "Then the pill you refined..."
"The Realm Breaking Pills refined in the outside world merely allow Foundation Establishment cultivators who consume them to advance to the Golden Core stage. The effect is far too ordinary!"
"These Realm Breaking Pills of mine not only allow Foundation Establishment cultivators to advance to the Golden Core stage, but also force Nascent Soul cultivators down to the Golden Core stage!"
Lu Yang: "..."
He felt there was good reason why the Seventh Elder had such an awful reputation in the outside world.
Although pills and poisons were inseparable, and alchemists were more or less well-versed in the pharmacology of poisons...
...few developed pills and poisons so evenly balanced as the Seventh Elder.
Lu Yang still remembered the first time he came to Pill Cauldron Peak, when he was poisoned unconscious by a mere pill fragrance. Under the Seventh Elder's guidance, every senior brother and sister on Pill Cauldron Peak was a master of poison pharmacology, their skill with poisons no lesser than their alchemy.
Naturally, even when they refined medicinal pills, there was no guarantee they were poison-free—they thoroughly lived up to the principle that pills and poisons were inseparable.
"Meeting here is fate; take one." With a flick of his middle finger, a pill etched with azure patterns landed in Lu Yang's hands.
"What brings you to see me?"
"It's like this: I just learned a spell that consumes an immense amount of magic power. Halfway through casting, my power runs dry and forces it to abort. I tried taking Great Restoration Pills while casting, but the rate at which they restore magic power still can't keep up with the speed at which I consume it. I would like to trouble you to refine a pill that can rapidly restore my magic power."
"Mm, there are precedents for your situation, and refining one isn't particularly difficult. Come, let me check your meridians."
The Seventh Elder gripped Lu Yang's wrist and showed slight surprise. "When I was at your stage, I certainly didn't possess such vast reserves of spiritual power. This shouldn't be happening—with your reserves, no spell you cast should be able to drain you dry."
"Oh, it doesn't matter if you'd rather not say what spell it is. It's completely normal for cultivators to have secrets. For instance, Ninth Brother has an ancient ferocious beast sealed within him, and Fourth Brother used to keep a pile of erotic art under his bed when he was little."
Lu Yang felt these kinds of secrets probably weren't limited to cultivators.
"It's not that I'm unwilling to say, but rather that it's a bit complicated to explain. Let me demonstrate it for you once."
Lu Yang wasn't worried about exposing the Immortal Fairy's existence; everyone would just assume Eldest Senior Sister had taught him anyway.
Lu Yang walked over to an open clearing and brought his palm down. A colossal hand descended from the sky, blotting out the sun and blanketing the mountaintop. The ferocious wind from the palm swept across the ground, flattening the green grass.
The giant hand vanished in midair.
Witnessing this, the Seventh Elder's pupils constricted slightly, deeply moved. He had never seen such a move before. Judging purely by the sheer momentum just now, this technique was simply not something anyone in the Golden Core stage should be able to cast. For Lu Yang to execute even this much already defied all common sense.
"What a formidable spell! What is the name of this technique?!"
Lu Yang said with utter seriousness, "An ancient supreme art, an immortal heritage, an unsurpassed great divine ability—Village in the Palm."
The Seventh Elder turned his head to stare at Lu Yang in bewilderment. Why did it feel like the spell's name was completely unworthy of its grandiose prefix?
Chapter 391