Chapter 115: The Second Precious Qi

He sat cross-legged on a branch within the canopy, regulating his breathing before continuing to channel the Vision Roaming divine ability.

Under the Vision Roaming divine ability, his perspective soared like a bird breaking free of its shell. It shot into the sky, crossing the canopy, the mountain ridges, and the vast starlit forest, flying toward the deeper reaches of this minor grotto-heaven.

He intended to use the Vision Roaming divine ability within the Absolute Perception Divine Chamber to tap into Lin Suri's perspective and thoroughly map out the movements of the various factions within this minor grotto-heaven.

The perspective flew over the ridge of the second mountain and across a vast plain, finally settling on the banks of a winding, massive river.

Then, he saw Lin Suri once again.

Lin Suri sat cross-legged by himself at the bottom of a river.

The water, clear as jade, flowed over his head but parted on its own three chi away from his body, as if blocked by an invisible barrier.

He sat on the riverbed's pebbles with his eyes shut tight, the fluctuations of spiritual qi around him chaotic and rapid.

'That young general from the Capital and his three-hundred-strong Silver Bone Battle Array must be quite formidable to leave a figure like Lin Suri in such a sorry state.'

Chen Lingxi felt a surge of surprise.

Lin Suri possessed profound reserves. In terms of pure cultivation and killing power alone, he might not match Lu Baizhong, but he carried many treasures that were clearly extraordinary at a glance. If he were to utilize all his trump cards, even Lu Baizhong might not be his match.

'Lin Suri's healing looks like it will take a few more hours.'

Chen Lingxi withdrew the Vision Roaming perspective.

"I'll wait a few hours. There's no need to waste my mental energy in vain," he muttered to himself, closing his eyes once more to continue regulating his breath.

The starlight slowly drifted overhead. Without a sun or moon in this minor grotto-heaven, it was impossible to tell day from night.

Chen Lingxi waited peacefully like this for several hours.

He opened his eyes and once again sank into Vision Roaming.

Then, he saw Lin Suri.

Golden light flickered in Lin Suri's eyes once more as his body drifted freely within a river.

The Six Qi True Method circulated through a grand circulation cycle within his body. Spiritual qi swirled densely around him, resembling a cloud of azure mist bound inside a human frame, casting a cold glow against the river water.

His expression remained perfectly calm, yet waves of a fluctuation quite familiar to Chen Lingxi pulsed from his body.

'Lin Suri is circulating the Method of Qi Observation!' Chen Lingxi thought in surprise. Lin Suri continued to swim along the river.

His body was like a true fish, weaving silently through the currents.

He flowed from a slightly smaller tributary into the great river.

At the river's deepest reaches, the sky's light could no longer penetrate, leaving the surroundings pitch black.

Lin Suri came to a halt at the very bottom.

As he hovered in the water, his spiritual qi slowly circulated, and the layer of pale golden light in his eyes grew increasingly bright and intense.

Then, his gaze fell upon a highly inconspicuous corner of the riverbed.

Stuck there was a broken sword.

The broken sword was about two chi long, its blade snapped in the middle to leave a jagged, uneven break.

The blade was heavily rusted, covered in dark green algae and dark brown silt. It looked like a piece of scrap iron that had been abandoned on the riverbed for untold years, completely unremarkable.

But Chen Lingxi's expression drastically changed.

'On that piece of ordinary iron...' It appeared to be ordinary iron, but through Lin Suri's perspective, this broken sword contained a streak of precious qi.

That precious qi slowly circulated across the blade of the broken sword.

It wrapped tightly around the blade like a thin veil woven from starlight, making the rusted, broken sword look like a freshly forged divine weapon.

Specks of brilliance shone within the precious qi. The light wasn't blinding, but it was incredibly pure, just like a true star in the sky!

'This kind of precious qi... compared to the ordinary qi of all things in heaven and earth, it is profoundly mystical to the absolute extreme.'

Chen Lingxi sighed in admiration.

It was no wonder he felt such astonishment.

Even a disciple of the Greater World's Under-Dao Academy like Lin Suri, who had seen grand sights and was usually stern and unsmiling, showed a rare look of wonder and joy on his face upon seeing this streak of precious qi.

Lin Suri began circulating the qi-gathering technique of the Six Qi True Method.

He raised his right hand, spreading his five fingers slightly, and aimed his palm at the broken sword. A bizarre power reached out from it.

Drawn by this suction, the precious qi on the broken sword peeled away from the blade thread by thread.

The moment the precious qi left the sword, the already rusted blade seemed to lose its final pillar of support. It silently crumbled into a cloud of rust, washed away without a trace by the river current. Meanwhile, that streak of precious qi was successfully gathered by Lin Suri.

After leaving the sword, the precious qi acted like a startled fish, struggling within Lin Suri's palm.

It darted left and right, trying to break free from the invisible suction, but the Six Qi True Method's qi-gathering technique was incredibly exquisite. Like an unseen net, it firmly trapped the precious qi within his grasp.

The precious qi struggled for a moment before gradually quieting down. Like a tamed wild stallion, it docilely and slowly circulated within his palm.

Then, Lin Suri circulated the Six Qi True Method, drawing the precious qi in and refining it into his own six qis.

The Six Qi True Method! To cultivate by gathering the precious qi of heaven and earth!

The instant the precious qi entered Lin Suri's body, the world suddenly fell silent.

In that split second, an unimaginably sharp aura erupted from Lin Suri's body!

The sharpness was formless and intangible, yet it was so piercing that it made one's scalp go numb!

The river water around him violently rolled backward under the impact of this sharp aura, as if cleaved in half by an invisible sword, forming a vacuum roughly a zhang in radius around him.

As this sharpness swept over the riverbed's pebbles, they silently turned into fine powder.

The faintly glowing aquatic plants were severed at their roots, their fragments swirling wildly in the water. At this moment, Lin Suri resembled an unsheathed divine weapon, incomparably sharp.

Two clusters of blinding light now ignited within his originally calm eyes.

The light was far too bright, shining like two stars embedded in his eye sockets, exuding a chilling, piercing gleam.

Bolstered by this precious qi, the spiritual qi around his body surged madly. The river water within a radius of several zhang boiled from the shock of the spiritual qi fluctuations, whipping up massive, overlapping waves on the surface that surged fiercely in all directions.

Chen Lingxi took a deep breath.

'Just a single wisp of precious qi, and Lin Suri actually underwent such a transformation,' he marveled inwardly. 'The value of this precious qi is unimaginable, and Lin Suri's fortune is equally unfathomable.'

As he marveled, he couldn't help but think of Lin Suri's fortuitous encounters.

This person always seemed to be accompanied by serendipity.

He had traded a Time Candle for Spirit Amber.

He had obtained Purple True Precious Qi from Cuojin Mountain.

Even more extraordinary were the bright lantern that could breathe spiritual light, the Tiger General Token that enhanced one's aura, and the two-chi Jade Sword that could manifest the phantom of a crane!

'The Time Candle, the spiritual qi lantern, the Jade Sword, the Tiger General Token... even in that Qi-Depleted Grotto-Heaven, Lin Suri was able to find so many extraordinary treasures,' Chen Lingxi thought to himself. 'And now, having only just entered the Ancestral Mountain, he actually found such a precious qi. This person always seems to be accompanied by fortune.'

Chen Lingxi couldn't help but marvel, and soon, a joy identical to Lin Suri's bloomed in his heart.

'I've already memorized the location of this precious qi! Once I return to reality, I should be able to seize it a step ahead of Lin Suri.'

This streak of precious qi was so rare and deeply mystical.

If he could find this place in the real world, his killing power would undoubtedly reach a whole new level!

Lin Suri continued to cultivate by gathering qi in this manner, the aura around him growing ever sharper.

Sitting cross-legged on the riverbed among the rubble ravaged by his sharp aura, he closed his eyes in concentration. He circulated the Six Qi True Method, completely fusing that streak of precious qi with his own six qis.

Chen Lingxi withdrew Vision Roaming and opened his eyes.

The canopy remained dead silent. Starlight leaked through the gaps in the branches, casting mottled shadows across his robes.

He sat on the branch in silence for a moment, repeatedly sorting through the wealth of information he had just gained from Vision Roaming.

Lin Suri was currently cultivating by gathering qi and likely wouldn't leave the riverbed for some time.

Lu Baizhong was still healing in the cliffside cave. The various figures in this minor grotto-heaven were lying low for now, making no major moves.

'The Mother Qi's whereabouts are still unknown,' he calculated in his mind. 'Many people are lying in wait.'

'Since that's the case... I'll go explore this so-called Ancestral Mountain.'

He stood up, adjusted his robes, and leaped silently from the canopy.

Glancing at the three towering mountains in the distance, and then at the churning wall of fog to the east of this minor grotto-heaven, he made up his mind.

He quietly crossed over several peaks, heading straight for the westernmost edge of the Ancestral Mountain.

'Could I use this Ancestral Mountain as a springboard to reach other grotto-heavens, secret realms, or even enter the Great World...'

This thought had lingered in his mind for quite some time.

Ever since seeing the cultivators of the Dongchu Immortal Clan in the Absolute Perception Divine Chamber, he had been considering it.

Since this Ancestral Mountain connected to other locations, didn't that mean he could escape this grotto-heaven—which was about to be refined by True Monarch Xi—without needing to cultivate to the Heaven-Facing Three Floors, or even relying on the reception of the Pool of Reincarnation?

Harboring this thought, Chen Lingxi pressed forward.

He traversed several great mountains and leaped across numerous mountain streams, eventually reaching the boundary of this minor grotto-heaven. Layers of fog materialized before his eyes once more.

The fog was identical to the mist outside the Ancestral Mountain—pale gray, thick, and rolling like ocean waves. It stood like a boundless, towering wall reaching straight from the ground into the heavens, tightly obscuring everything ahead.

Faint and incredibly subtle spiritual fluctuations drifted within the fog, identical to the ones he had sensed upon stepping into the Ancestral Mountain.

'Could another vast world lie just beyond this fog?'

Chen Lingxi took a deep breath and stepped into the fog.

The fog parted on its own three chi away from him, leaving a clear circle of empty space.

He walked straight ahead. The ground beneath his feet was solid earth, no different from the soil within the Ancestral Mountain.

After walking for about an incense stick of time, the surrounding fog suddenly surged, as if an invisible hand was violently stirring the sea of mist.

Chen Lingxi halted and looked back. The path he had taken had vanished into the churning fog without a trace.

Frowning, he continued moving forward.

After walking for about another incense stick of time, the fog ahead suddenly dissipated.

Seeing the scene before him, Chen Lingxi frowned sharply. 'This is... still the Ancestral Mountain!'

To his shock, he had returned to the interior of the Ancestral Mountain.

Behind him was the churning wall of fog, and before him was the vast starlit forest.

'Did I lose my sense of direction in the fog?'

Unwilling to accept this, he stepped back into the mist.

This time, he walked much more carefully, attempting to keep every step in a perfectly straight line.

Yet no matter how he adjusted his direction or channeled his spiritual qi to sense the lay of the surrounding ley lines, the final result was exactly the same.

The fog churned and directions inverted. When he once again stepped out of the mist, he was greeted by the same familiar starlight and the same towering mountain.

Once, twice, three times.

After several attempts, he stood in the starlit forest, gazing at the mountain he had just walked out of for the fifth time, and finally confirmed a single truth.

'It seems... my idea of using the Ancestral Mountain to reach other grotto-heavens, secret realms, or even the Great World... simply won't work.'

Chen Lingxi felt a tinge of disappointment. He fell silent for a moment before forcing himself to rally.

"Being in the Absolute Perception Divine Chamber today, my original intent was merely to investigate," he murmured. He sounded as if he were speaking to himself, or perhaps to heaven and earth.

He raised his head and gazed at the three towering mountains in the distance, starlight spilling over their peaks.

'If that's the case, I will simply do my utmost to seize more resources and ascend to the Heaven-Facing Three Floors.'

'And then I'll use the Pool of Reincarnation to leave the Qi-Depleted Grotto-Heaven.'