Imperial Cultivation

Chapter 1645: Chapter 1641: Came Looking

After reading these two Divine Clan Martial Arts manuals, he was rather disappointed.

The swordsmanship was inferior to the Spring Breeze Brushing Willow Sword Technique, the hand skills were inferior to Cloud Dragon Fist.

He tried them out, then shook his head. ”They really are quite boring.”

Chu Miaomiao instantly grew excited and laughed. ”Pretty boring, right? I thought it was just that my comprehension was bad.”

Chu Zhiyuan said, ”They should be mid and low rank Divine Clan Martial Arts. Not worth practicing.”

He already understood that the Divine Clan Martial Arts also had good and bad; not all of them were top-tier and exquisite.

Obviously, the Divine Race was just like the Various Martial Arts Sects, with top-level ones and bottom-level ones.

These two Divine Clan Martial Arts belonged to the low rank. If there were no Spring Breeze Brushing Willow Sword Technique and Cloud Dragon Fist, they would naturally count as formidable Secret Manuals.

But with those two techniques in hand, looking at these two again, they were utterly bland and uninteresting.

Chu Miaomiao said, ”I suspect Divine Clan Martial Arts aren’t suitable for us to practice.”

Chu Zhiyuan smiled and didn’t refute her.

If he hadn’t cultivated Divine Essence, that would probably be true.

The nature of Divine Essence and Spiritual Essence was different; using Spiritual Essence to drive Divine Clan Martial Arts did feel awkward and clumsy.

Chu Miaomiao said, ”Are you going to stay here and keep digging up the mountain?”

Chu Zhiyuan nodded.

Chu Miaomiao looked at him and didn’t press him on why.

There had to be a reason; she herself didn’t want to dig earth and stone, ending up dusty and filthy—too troublesome.

So she took her leave and departed.

While continuing to absorb the Dragon Mountain’s mud, stone, and vegetation, Chu Zhiyuan took out the Breaking Spirit Seal.

As for this Breaking Spirit Seal, he felt it was endlessly profound and worth a thorough study.

Even though his spiritual power was overwhelmingly strong, far surpassing ordinary people, he still couldn’t directly erase another’s spiritual brand from their Spiritual Artifact.

Yet this Breaking Spirit Seal could.

If he could figure out the principle behind the Breaking Spirit Seal and manage to do it without relying on the seal itself...

Many people whose Spirit Venerable Realm wasn’t high could rely on Spiritual Artifacts to unleash power beyond their own Realm.

If he mastered this art, he would no longer fear these Spirit Venerables and could crush them purely with Realm.

He could even directly seize their Spiritual Artifacts—that would be true power.

The Elephant Beast suddenly appeared on his left shoulder, sizing up the golden seal in his hand.

Chu Zhiyuan passed the Breaking Spirit Seal to it. ”Is there an Array inscribed inside?”

Super Sense and Divine Eye both failed to gain Insight; everything was shrouded in Golden Light and couldn’t be seen.

It was like a tiny sun, dazzling to the eye.

The Elephant Beast’s eyes narrowed into golden lines; after a moment, it shook its head.

Chu Zhiyuan was surprised. ”No Array?”

”No Array,” the Elephant Beast said. ”It should be some kind of special material.”

Chu Zhiyuan’s eyes grew clear and bright.

A moment later they returned to normal.

After once again activating the Divine Eye, he discerned a few things and murmured, ”This is a naturally born special material, refined into such a Spiritual Artifact.”

It was originally a naturally formed Strange Stone, sitting atop a mountain peak.

Even the Divine Eye couldn’t see clearly when it had appeared; it was too ancient.

Later, it was discovered by an expert of the Divine Race and forged into such a Spiritual Artifact.

The Divine Eye only saw that Divine Race expert refining it again and again, without seeing the expert do anything else.

The Elephant Beast asked curiously, ”A Spiritual Artifact created purely through refinement?”

Chu Zhiyuan slowly nodded.

The Elephant Beast frowned. ”Then it’ll be very hard to figure out what methods were used. It’s definitely some special Secret Technique; outsiders can’t possibly understand it... If it were an Array, I could see through it, but this kind of Secret Technique I can’t.”

Chu Zhiyuan nodded.

He began to refine this Spiritual Artifact, planning to see whether, after completely refining it, he could glimpse any subtleties within.

With that in mind, he tossed it into his Inner Universe.

With the discovery of that thin booklet, his understanding of Heaven and Earth had deepened, and his Inner Universe had also changed.

The Inner Universe was now closer to true Heaven and Earth, and its power was naturally greater as well.

When it came to analyzing and gaining Insight into this Breaking Spirit Seal, it was more effective than Super Sense.

But for the moment, he still couldn’t penetrate it completely and could only analyze it slowly.

While doing this, he continued absorbing Dragon Mountain’s mud, stone, and vegetation, until his sight suddenly opened up.

He lifted his head and looked around: this Dragon Mountain had already been turned into a basin.

The surging great river not far away looked as if it could flood over at any time, turning this place into a lake.

In the end, the mountain range would become a lake.

Feeling the subtle changes in his Inner Universe, Chu Zhiyuan drifted to another Dragon Mountain and continued transferring material.

This time, unlike the last, he no longer held back and wasn’t walking on thin ice.

His intuition, having issued no warning, clearly told him that on this Dragon Mountain, almost nothing could threaten him.

The Elephant Beast still stood vigilantly on his left shoulder, its eyes vertical golden lines as it scanned the surroundings, extremely cautious.

Chu Zhiyuan kept moving material while glancing around, also very careful.

Anything can go wrong; what if there really was a well-hidden Strange Beast inside Dragon Mountain, one that posed great danger?

He suddenly seemed to think of something and turned to glance at the distant sky.

Three middle-aged men were flying toward him in the sky.

All three wore Mystic Robes, gliding like eagles as they drifted down in front of Chu Zhiyuan.

Flying so openly in the sky within the Divine Domain was extremely dangerous.

No one knew whether this would attract attacks from flying Strange Beasts in the Divine Domain.

For them to act like this, they clearly had something to rely on—they were all Seventh Transition Spirit Venerables.

Chu Zhiyuan cast them a glance, his eyes clear and bright, then quickly returned to normal.

His expression grew solemn.

Once someone reached the Seventh Transition Spirit Venerable, appearance could no longer be used to judge age.

They looked middle-aged, but in fact they were all long-lived old monsters.

Even the youngest among them already had a thousand years of Lifespan.

Living a thousand years made Chu Zhiyuan quietly sigh.

What does it feel like to live to a thousand years—numbness, or carefree joy?

After the three middle-aged men in Mystic Robes landed, they spread out in a line, sizing up Chu Zhiyuan.

Chu Zhiyuan cupped his fists. ”What business do the three seniors have with me?”

”It’s him, right?” The chubby middle-aged man looked at the scar-faced man in the middle.

Light flashed in Chu Zhiyuan’s clear eyes; he had already roughly probed their backgrounds.

The chubby middle-aged man was the oldest, over two thousand years; the thin, gaunt middle-aged man on the other side was the youngest, a bit over a thousand; the scar-faced middle-aged man in the center was in between, also a bit over a thousand.

To reach the Seventh Transition in just over a thousand years was already a peerless talent, a prodigy among Spirit Venerables.

Among the three, they did not honor the chubby middle-aged man with the highest cultivation, but instead deferred to the scar-faced middle-aged man.

He looked quite average, with a finger-long knife scar on the left side of his face, the red flesh turned out and raised in a long strip, looking rather vicious and leaving a deep impression.

The truly fearsome thing about this scar-faced middle-aged man was his ability to deduce the Heavenly Mechanism.

After so many years, aside from institutions like the Court’s Observatory and Fengtian Palace, this was the first time he had seen someone who could deduce the Heavenly Mechanism purely as an individual.

”It’s him.” The scar-faced middle-aged man slowly nodded.

Chu Zhiyuan said, ”Me what? We seem to be strangers to each other, don’t we?”

The chubby middle-aged man sized Chu Zhiyuan up and down, then turned to the scar-faced middle-aged man. ”It’s really him? That’s impossible, isn’t it?”

Chu Zhiyuan didn’t even have the aura of a Spirit Venerable, which made them doubt the scar-faced man’s deduction.

The scar-faced middle-aged man, however, stared at Chu Zhiyuan with a grave expression, his eyes blazing, as if he wanted to see through him.

Chu Zhiyuan smiled as he looked at this scar-faced middle-aged man.

If it had been a few days earlier and he encountered such a formidable figure, he would have simply shifted away.

This scar-faced middle-aged man was far more formidable than Song Wantao.

The gaunt middle-aged man said in a deep voice, ”That Jade Pendant is yours, isn’t it?”

Chu Zhiyuan said, ”You tracked me through the Jade Pendant?”

The gaunt middle-aged man said, ”So it is you!”

The chubby middle-aged man frowned as he examined Chu Zhiyuan, still half-doubting. ”It’s really you? You know what we’re talking about, right?”

Chu Zhiyuan said, ”The Jade Bodyguard I gave some friends—you discovered it?”

Back then, the power infused into the Jade Pendants hadn’t yet reached the Eighth Transition.

So that was why they felt safe enough to come looking.