Innate Immortal Seed

Chapter 295: Chapter 293: Unexpected Gains

Bai Zichen, with his own Three Spiritual Roots Talent, couldn’t hide his admiration for the cultivation speed of those with a Celestial Spiritual Root.

Since Master Ge Cang was the only person he knew with a Celestial Spiritual Root, he subconsciously equated Ge Cang’s cultivation speed with that of all Celestial Spiritual Root cultivators.

’With a Celestial Spiritual Root, wouldn’t it be a terrible waste not to develop in a corresponding direction?’ he thought.

But in the Central Domain—a place where everyone underwent Spirit Testing, where cultivators frequently had offspring, and where the proportion of people with Spiritual Roots far exceeded that of the Four Domains—a Celestial Spiritual Root was rare, but not so exaggeratedly so that only one would appear in a hundred million people over a century.

In the Great Li Country, where the Celestial Principle Sect was located, news would spread every decade or so about some sect getting lucky and recruiting a disciple with a Celestial Spiritual Root.

Most of these Celestial Spiritual Root disciples could reach Core Formation, but not even one in ten would become a Nascent Soul True Monarch.

Therefore, in Yan Rulong’s view, comprehending Thunder Skills to the point where Yin and Yang gained spirituality and became self-sustaining was no worse than having a Celestial Spiritual Root.

From a higher perspective, it was even far rarer than a Celestial Spiritual Root.

To already have a stable path to the Nascent Soul Realm and then increase the difficulty for oneself by pursuing some dual Dao of illusion and reality would be considered absolutely heretical in the Central Domain. It was an unacceptable idea.

”So eager to flee. Well then, you can be the one to stay behind!”

The six Core Formation True Men from the Celestial Principle Sect linked their Escape Lights, and their flight speed was actually comparable to a Tier Four Flying Sword. They vanished in an instant.

Bai Zichen didn’t think he could achieve much by taking on all six of them alone.

He glanced at Fairy Lianyu of the Joyful Union Sect and the robed, hooded cultivator who was hiding their identity. They were fleeing in two different directions. With a turn of his Sword Light, he went after the Holy Lotus Sect cultivator.

He had already killed Daoist Mu at the very beginning, completely severing all ties with the Holy Lotus Sect.

Killing one more or one less made no difference now, and it would leave the Holy Lotus Sect with one less Core Formation True Man.

As for Fairy Lianyu, he figured that after this ordeal, the first thing she would do upon returning would be to withdraw the Joyful Union Sect from Hejian County, never daring to compete with the Qingfeng Sect again.

’If she gets any funny ideas again, it wouldn’t be hard to wipe out the Joyful Union Sect,’ he thought.

With the speed of the Moon Xuan Sword, he quickly caught up to the Holy Lotus Sect’s Core Formation True Man.

With just a few sword strikes, he had the man suppressed and on the defensive.

The Moonlight Sword Threads were icy cold, darting like dragons and giving his opponent no room to breathe.

The man’s hood was knocked off, revealing a Core Formation True Man with a wooden, expressionless face. He summoned several Magical Treasures in succession, but all were shattered by the moonlight created by the Refining Sword into Silk technique.

Soon, he had no Magical Treasures left. He parried left and right, and blossoms of blood bloomed across his body.

Tiny sword wounds pierced straight through him, turning half his body into a bloody mess.

The expressionless Core Formation True Man didn’t make a sound, but his mouth twitched, and a look of grim determination flashed across his face.

A terrifying power surged from his body, climbing at an incredible rate, like a red sun about to explode.

”Golden Core detonation!”

Bai Zichen’s eye twitched. He hadn’t expected this nameless, taciturn cultivator to be so decisive and so ruthless, even to himself.

All who reached the Core Formation Realm had gone through countless hardships and trials.

Detonating one’s Golden Core was easy to say in four words, but the number of Core Formation True Men who could actually do it were as rare as a phoenix feather.

Even an ant clings to life, let alone a Core Formation True Man with a five-hundred-year lifespan.

Even when they knew for certain they were in a dead end with no hope of survival, most Core Formation True Men would still cling to delusion.

They would always think of fighting just a little longer, unwilling to give up hope for life until the very last moment.

When you detonate your Golden Core, the first one to die is always yourself.

Whether you could drag your enemy to the Yellow Springs with you was uncertain, but your own body and Divine Sense would be utterly annihilated.

It meant sacrificing even that faint, ethereal hope of reincarnation after death. Not every cultivator was capable of that.

The moment this man saw that victory was impossible and that his tunneling speed could never outrun a Tier Four Flying Sword, he immediately chose to detonate his Golden Core.

This decisiveness stunned even Bai Zichen. He had never seen a Core Formation True Man like this.

”Hmph!”

He channeled the Origin Power of the Moon Xuan Sword. Several strands of moonlight, as fine as hairs, shot into the man’s body, riddling his Dantian Qi Sea like a hornet’s nest.

Like a leaking ball, his True Essence rapidly drained away. The Golden Core, which was already becoming unstable, expanding and cracking, was now deprived of any further infusion of True Essence.

After swelling and contracting one last time, it directly blasted the Core Formation True Man to pieces.

A circle of Sword Light blocked the spray of bloody gore.

When the dust settled, a crater several meters deep had appeared where the Holy Lotus Sect’s Core Formation True Man had been standing.

Fortunately, the Golden Core detonation hadn’t completed. It had probably unleashed only one percent of its potential power and didn’t cause much damage.

’Looks like I’d better find a Magical Treasure that can immobilize and trap people,’ Bai Zichen mused. ’Otherwise, having them try to detonate their Golden Cores at the drop of a hat is just too dangerous...’

Bai Zichen thought of the Purple Gourd in the Sect Secret Hall. The Earth God Sand inside it had the effect of shaking the Earth Veins and preventing a Golden Core detonation.

However, the Earth God Sand was not easy to refine, and every grain used was one less in existence. It would be best to have a Magical Treasure with a similar effect.

It wouldn’t matter with an ordinary sect, but he would be facing the Holy Lotus Sect in the future, and they had a considerable number of Core Formation True Men.

If there were even two more expressionless Core Formation True Men like the one today—fearless of death and ruthlessly decisive—even he would be in grave danger.

’Thankfully, the storage bags weren’t damaged. What a relief...’

After Daoist Mu died, his belongings had also been collected by this expressionless Core Formation True Man. Now, two lotus-shaped storage bags were plucked from the air by his Sword Light.

There were also damaged Magical Treasures scattered about. Bai Zichen didn’t miss a single one, gathering them all.

’I may not have a use for them, but they can be melted down to reforge new Magical Treasures, practice my Artifact Refining Art, or be gifted to the younger generation.’

Without time to carefully inspect his spoils, Bai Zichen flew back to Xiaoluo Mountain.

”Brother Ge, are you injured?”

His Sword Light descended, and Bai Zichen saw Master Ge Cang sitting cross-legged on the ground, his face pale. Next to him was a small mountain of white bones.

There wasn’t another living person on all of Xiaoluo Mountain. The remaining Ghost Spirit Sect cultivators all had wooden nails protruding from their foreheads, piercing straight through to the back of their skulls.

”Don’t worry. My Divine Wood state can only be maintained for ten breaths at the moment, but combined with the Five Crystal Glaze Body, it’s impossible for any Core Formation True Man to injure me in that time unless they use a Tier Four item...”

Master Ge Cang’s aura was weak, having dropped to a level barely at the Early-Stage Core Formation.

Clearly, his earlier display of divine might had not come without a price.

He smiled and tossed over a Bone Long Sword. ”Aside from your Moon Xuan Sword, you don’t even have a single Tier Three Flying Sword. I just happened to confiscate this from White Bone True Man. See if it suits you... Although it’s a Demon Path Flying Sword, I can see it was made with orthodox refining techniques, not one of those abominations created through human blood sacrifices.”

”It’s the White Bone Cold Light Sword, refined from the spine of a Tier Four Great Demon. A shred of that demon beast’s resentment is sealed within it, which can be used to bewilder the minds of others... However, it’s only effective against Late-Stage Core Formation cultivators at most. It’s not much use against truly powerful experts.”

The Bone Long Sword landed in his hand. With a single glance, Bai Zichen could tell it was the very same White Bone Cold Light Sword that could be refined using the Tier Three Sword Refining Secret Technique he had bought at the Pill King Conference.

”Thank you, Brother Ge. This sword is exactly what I need.”

’I never would have thought that my first Tier Three Flying Sword wouldn’t be the Thunder Sound Sword or the Cyan Dragon Flipping Sea Sword, but this White Bone Cold Light Sword that I never even planned on successfully refining.’

”Before White Bone died, I used a Soul Searching Technique on his Sea of Consciousness and got some useful information... He had perfected his White Bone True Demon Body and felt he had the power to contend with me. He was originally planning to contact the Demon Path Five Sects and achieve a status similar to that of Blood God True Man back in the day.”

Master Ge Cang had witnessed his junior brother’s swordsmanship and knew that with Bai Zichen’s abilities, dealing with an Early-Stage Core Formation cultivator was even easier for him than it was for Ge Cang himself. This was due to their different combat styles and cultivation paths.

He didn’t even need to ask; the lone Holy Lotus Sect Core Formation True Man was definitely dead.

”But before he could act, he was invited to Qii Mountain by True Monarch Jiulian, where he met that group of mysterious cultivators... Just as I suspected, those six people are from the Celestial Principle Sect in the Central Domain’s Great Li Country.”

”The Celestial Principle Sect?”

Bai Zichen muttered. He hadn’t expected it to be this particular Sect; he had quite a few connections with them.

The Nine Yang Divine Fire Mirror resting in his Dantian Qi Sea, and the Taibai Sword Sect’s True Understanding of Sword Dao, were both related to cultivators from the Celestial Principle Sect.

”The Celestial Principle Sect is a Confucian Daoist sect. I heard it mentioned when I was traveling the world before. In Great Li, it’s considered a second-rate sect... I didn’t expect them to have old ties with the Holy Lotus Sect, and to have their eyes on our Sect’s Black Mountain Range.”

Master Ge Cang assumed Bai Zichen had never heard of this Sect, so he added an explanation.

”Something must have happened to the Celestial Principle Sect in the Central Domain, otherwise why would they be interested in Black Mountain... True Monarch Jiulian’s intentions are clear. He wants to use the Celestial Principle Sect to get rid of us and eliminate a future threat to the Holy Lotus Sect.”

Master Ge Cang sighed. Back then, True Monarch Jiulian had greatly admired him and had sincerely invited him to switch to the Holy Lotus Sect, promising to provide everything he needed to reach the Nascent Soul realm.

He never thought that decades later, the two sides would become enemies.

”This time, the Celestial Principle Sect returned empty-handed, White Bone True Man is dead, and the Holy Lotus Sect lost two of their own Core Formation True Men... Will True Monarch Jiulian’s next step be to personally intervene and use thunderous methods against our Sect?”

Bai Zichen had only one worry: a direct confrontation with a Nascent Soul True Monarch.

Otherwise, no matter how powerful the Holy Lotus Sect was, they couldn’t possibly gain an advantage over the Qingfeng Sect at the Core Formation layer.

”It’s unlikely in the short term. In order to break through to the Early-Stage Nascent Soul realm, True Monarch Jiulian refined himself together with a Tier Four Top-Grade Snow Lotus from the Qii Mountain Peak... He wanted to use the pure Innate Spiritual Power of the Ten Thousand Years Snow Lotus to rejuvenate his physical body and break through his bottleneck.”

Master Ge Cang’s brow smoothed out. He was serious, but not panicked.

”But he failed. As a result, his lifespan now drains away every time he leaves the Snow Lotus, which is why he has left Qii Mountain only a handful of times in several centuries... With the Valley of Ten Thousand Poisons watching like a hungry tiger, True Monarch Jiulian doesn’t dare act so recklessly. He will likely continue to make instigating the Celestial Principle Sect his first choice. Only when he reaches the very end of his life, if our sect has still not been eradicated, will he use his last moments to kill us all and eliminate the threat for good.”

”That’s a little better, but the Celestial Principle Sect is also a Major Sect with a Nascent Soul True Monarch overseeing it... I don’t know what their attitude toward Black Mountain truly is. If they absolutely must have it, we’ll still have a lot of trouble ahead.”

Bai Zichen breathed a small sigh of relief. As long as he didn’t have to face a Nascent Soul True Monarch right away, there was always room to maneuver.

The two martial brothers sat on the ground, discussing future strategies back and forth. The corpses of the Ghost Spirit Sect cultivators on Xiaoluo Mountain had already attracted flocks of crows.

They circled overhead, cawing raucously.

As the sun began to set, Wei Dao, having received the news, finally appeared with disciples from the Qingfeng Sect. A large number of cultivators disembarked from three Wind Shuttles.

The disciples cleaned up the battlefield on Xiaoluo Mountain, collecting the belongings from the bodies of the Ghost Spirit Sect disciples, while a few Stewards followed behind, recording everything.