Chapter 349 - A Pleasant Bell and an Unfinished Art

Chapter 349: Chapter 349 - A Pleasant Bell and an Unfinished Art

Su Bai checked the binding on the ash pouches before turning his attention to the last sealed case.

It rested apart from the bottles and pearls, with a small warning attached to its lid.

Shen Youran had advised against activating its contents near disciples with weak spiritual sense. He read the warning carefully before opening it and found a dark bronze bell nestled within.

Its surface was plain except for narrow markings running around the rim. A faint discoloration lingered beneath the handle, and the interior looked darker than the surrounding metal should have allowed.

Su Bai lifted it gently, taking care to keep the clapper still. The attached label identified it as the Grievance Bell.

The explanation beneath the name was brief.

When activated with Qi, its ringing disturbed the soul, produced confusion, and made concentration increasingly difficult to maintain.

The effect grew stronger with the amount of power supplied. Shen Youran had added that prolonged exposure could leave a cultivator disoriented even after the ringing stopped.

Su Bai glanced toward the mountain path.

Ji Ruyue had already departed, but Clear Cloud Peak was still part of Radiant Sky Sect. He had caused enough disturbances recently to appreciate the value of containing this one.

After putting the case aside, he arranged several array plates around the courtyard and activated the isolation barrier. He checked its boundary before returning to the table with the bell.

A small thread of Qi entered the bronze.

Su Bai moved his wrist, and a low, wavering note spread beneath the barrier.

The sound carried a strange roughness, as though something deep within the metal were struggling to draw breath.

He felt the power within it touch his awareness almost immediately. Then Reversal took hold, and the unsettling vibration became unexpectedly pleasant.

His thoughts cleared.

The courtyard seemed to settle around him as the lingering distractions in his mind faded. He could feel the movement of his own spiritual sense with greater precision.

Su Bai closed his eyes and listened until the note thinned into silence. When he opened them again, the bell had become considerably more attractive.

"That is a very good sound."

He was about to try it once more when his awareness caught a faint movement within his throat Gateway Dantian.

Su Bai’s hand stopped before the clapper could strike. He directed his attention inward and found the small Root Sprout trembling gently, its leaf moving with the last trace of the bell’s resonance. The reaction was slight, but he recognized it immediately.

The same sprout had responded to the Heavenly Soul Benediction.

Su Bai remembered watching it vibrate beneath the heavenly bell and chanting while he struggled to keep his Nascent Soul stable. He had been given only a short opportunity to study the change before the tribulation moved on.

Since then, the little sprout had remained incomplete, leaving him with a promising response and very little understanding of what would nourish it further. Now its leaf was still quivering.

He rang the Grievance Bell again with the same measured amount of Qi.

The sound passed through his awareness, bringing another gentle wave of clarity. Inside the throat Gateway Dantian, the leaf trembled in rhythm with it.

Su Bai watched closely as the movement continued through the fading note, then waited until the bell became completely quiet.

When the vibration finally settled, he repeated the test.

The response appeared again.

Su Bai’s smile widened as he lowered the bell onto the table.

The sprout had shown no dramatic growth, and he could hardly expect a few light rings to complete a Spirit Root.

Having something it would reliably respond to was already a considerable improvement. For the first time since the tribulation, he had a way to study its preferences without asking the heavens to ring another bell above his head.

A memory of the eight demonic cultivators surfaced as Su Bai looked at the bell.

Their Blood-Resonance Distortion Bells had rung throughout the battle outside the sect, making their spiritual sense slide away whenever they tried to locate them.

He had noticed no response from his Root Sprouts then, although their condition had changed considerably afterward.

Only after receiving nourishment from Immortal Qi had the sprouts become capable of accepting the unusual powers he encountered. Perhaps those bells would produce a different result now.

Su Bai rubbed his chin, recalling the fragment Huo Yan had brought for examination.

The Gossiping Quenching Trough had identified its original function, but the surviving piece was far from a usable artifact. Testing the idea would require an intact bell, or at least something capable of reproducing its resonance.

He made a note to keep an eye out for one during his coming journey.

For now, the Grievance Bell gave him enough to work with. He recorded the amount of Qi he had supplied and the sprout’s response, leaving space beneath the observations for later experiments.

Its vibration had been clear enough to confirm that the treasure was useful, though he would need more time to judge how much it could help the sprout grow. Su Bai closed the notebook with a satisfied expression and returned the bell to its case.

His gaze drifted toward Shen Youran’s note.

The selection inside the ring had become more thoughtful with every item he examined.

She had given him substances to test against his body, pearls that might help nourish his soul, and a bell that had unexpectedly attracted his throat sprout.

Even the Withered Weeds Ash had arrived just when he needed it. Su Bai folded the note carefully and stored it away, feeling that a few polite words of thanks would hardly express his appreciation.

Shen Youran devoted much of her attention to the sect. He had watched her manage the disciples, maintain the suppression formation, and remain alert to the intentions of their visitors even while recovering her own cultivation.

Helping Radiant Sky Sect would undoubtedly please her. As he considered what he could reasonably accomplish before leaving, an old, unfinished matter returned to his thoughts.

Su Bai gathered the array plates and allowed the isolation barrier to fade. Sunlight had moved farther across the courtyard, although there was still plenty of the day remaining.

His departure would likely be tomorrow, provided Lu Canghai finished handling the visitors as expected. He carried his notebook to his favorite flat stone and retrieved a pitch-black jade slip from storage.

The Jade Slip of the Shattered Sea rested quietly in his palm.

He had obtained it through his first sign-in at the Inner Sect’s Main Peak.

Reading the technique had left him with something difficult to forget. The memories preserved inside it had shown him what Radiant Sky Sect disciples once endured during the Great Fissure.

The Nine-Fold Collapsing Sea Art had allowed those disciples to compress their Qi Seas to an extraordinary density.

At its highest level, the technique could increase effective Qi storage by nearly a hundredfold, giving them reserves far beyond what their realms would ordinarily permit.

They had used that strength to hold their positions through battles that should have exhausted them long before. Many had survived because they could continue fighting.

Their Dantians had borne the strain afterward.

Tiny fractures accumulated each time the compressed Qi pressed against the surrounding foundation. The damage could remain hidden while a disciple celebrated surviving the battle, then worsen until the foundation eventually collapsed.

Su Bai remembered how his excitement over the technique had faded when he understood that delayed price.

The sect had sealed away an art that could save its disciples in battle while ruining the lives they returned to afterward.

He turned the jade slip slowly between his fingers.

His own Dantian gave him little reason to pursue greater storage capacity, but he had never forgotten what a safe version could mean for everyone else.

Even several times the usual Qi reserves would help a disciple maintain a defensive technique longer or escape after an exhausting fight. The original hundredfold increase could wait until there was a way to survive using it.

Fallen-Star Sanctuary had already provided a possible foundation for that work.

Among the knowledge inherited from the remnant souls was the Ancient Dantian Reinforcement Method, developed to help cultivators withstand sustained internal pressure.

Su Bai had recognized its potential when he first examined it. He had intended to compare it thoroughly with the Nine-Fold Art once he found enough time to concentrate.

Several disasters had intervened since then.

Su Bai opened his notebook and found the older observations he had written about the technique.

Some possibilities already looked less promising than they had when he first considered them, while others became clearer beneath his present understanding.

He had learned a great deal about circulation, foundations, and the relationship between different forces since obtaining the jade slip. The problem deserved another attempt with everything he now knew.

His experience with the Cloudshift Dressing Art remained particularly fresh. He had spent hours believing he had finished a reliable technique, only for Ji Ruyue’s first attempt to expose an assumption his own body had concealed.

The Myriad-Path Meridian Web could compensate for mistakes that ordinary meridians could never accommodate. His Infinite Dantian would be an even less useful standard for judging a method whose greatest danger came from pressure against its boundaries.

Su Bai placed the jade slip beside him and began reconstructing an ordinary Dantian’s response in his thoughts.

He followed the Nine-Fold Art’s compression carefully, tracing how the growing density placed strain on the surrounding foundation. Then he recalled the reinforcement method and examined how its circulation strengthened the areas bearing that pressure.

His brush moved across the page as he compared where the support arrived with where it was needed.

The first difficulty soon became apparent.

A stronger Dantian might endure greater compression while still suffering damage too small to notice immediately.

If the reinforcement merely delayed the same fractures, a disciple could practice for longer before discovering that the flaw remained.

Su Bai paused over the page, considering how easily such an apparent success could deceive both the practitioner and the person who taught him.

He would have to account for the strain throughout the process, including the changes that followed repeated use.

His attention returned to the circulation patterns.

The methods had been created in different eras for different purposes, and several of their routes competed for the same flow of Qi.

Strengthening the foundation could become difficult precisely when compression demanded the most control.

Su Bai marked those junctions and examined how each method changed the pressure around them.

Gradually, the broad idea that had interested him inside Fallen-Star Sanctuary became a series of problems he could actually investigate.

The Dao-Shattering Jade stirred within his consciousness.

Familiar clarity settled over his thoughts, bringing the inherited principles into sharper focus.

Su Bai straightened on the stone and drew the two circulation patterns again, this time following their interaction from the moment the Qi Sea began to condense.

The morning breeze passed through the courtyard while his brush continued moving.

He had finally returned to the unfinished work, and this time he intended to give it the attention it deserved.