Chapter 405 - 384: The Wound of a Yuanhui, Knowing the Present to See the Past

Song Ciwan dedicated herself to Cultivation in her Cave Mansion. After her Body Refining reached the Perfection of the Third Layer of Flesh and Blood Slaughter, she began to feel her body was severely unbalanced and uncoordinated, so she switched to practicing Magic.

After a period of practicing Magic, her mind would feel overtaxed and fatigued, so she would then switch to practicing Martial Arts.

In short, she rotated through all her disciplines, keeping herself both energized and always moving forward.

The Second Young Master’s Malice came in many bundles, and each pound of it could be exchanged for a hundred years of cultivation time. Song Ciwan often entered Cultivation for a century at a time. While this seemed like an exhilaratingly long period, it was also incredibly draining.

Cultivating for a hundred years at a stretch required an incredibly strong will and perseverance to endure. If one’s will wasn’t strong enough, it was entirely possible to go mad under such circumstances.

As for advancing one’s Cultivation? That was out of the question.

You’d be lucky not to suffer a qi deviation and fall into the Demon Realm—and you expected to advance?

How many people in this world could cultivate for a century without a single moment of laxity?

On top of that, Song Ciwan had to constantly suppress her own True Qi to keep her Dantian from overflowing, lest she unconsciously break through to Divinity Transformation.

This level of control was exceptionally difficult.

Even though she deliberately ignored the Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting during each Cultivation session and never actively replenished her True Qi, she was in a Celestial Level Cave Mansion. So, even when she poured all her energy into other Techniques, the True Qi in her Dantian would still increase on its own.

Her Dantian Sea had started out about half full. Now, after several of these hundred-year Cultivation cycles, it had unknowingly filled to over ninety percent.

With just a little more, she could fill her Dantian completely and achieve the state of Perfection for the Qi Cultivation Stage!

Pushed to the brink, Song Ciwan wracked her brain and came up with a new plan.

She stopped practicing other Magic. Instead, after trading for Cultivation time, she decided to use all of it for the Refinement of the Sun and Moon Wheel of Formless Life and Death!

Though Song Ciwan had already succeeded in its Refinement, for a treasure of this caliber, there were different degrees of success.

There was a world of difference between a preliminary success, a success where it moved like an extension of your own limbs, and a success where the artifact was integrated with your very soul.

A treasure needed to be nurtured, developed, understood, integrated, and upgraded.

Initially, Song Ciwan would draw the Sun and Moon Wheel of Formless Life and Death into her Dantian. After entering her Cultivation time, within the special Cultivation Space, she could only communicate with the wheel inside her Dantian with her consciousness and cleanse it with her True Qi.

But as for taking it out and wielding the treasure within the Cultivation Space, that was impossible.

This was because, at this stage, the physical form of the Sun and Moon Wheel of Formless Life and Death was more substantial than its spiritual form. Thus, within the special Cultivation Space, the treasure could only exist inside Song Ciwan’s Dantian. Any attempt to remove it would result in rejection by the Cultivation Space.

Afterward, Song Ciwan relentlessly cleansed and tempered it with her True Qi, repeatedly communicating with and nurturing it. After decades, even centuries of this, the Sun and Moon Wheel of Formless Life and Death suddenly shot out from her Dantian, transforming into a strange, clear light that bobbed and floated around her.

The clear light would sometimes rise and sometimes fall, at times transforming into a sun, and at others, a moon.

Sometimes it appeared as a pair of discs, and at other times it turned completely invisible.

All kinds of profound auras lingered in Song Ciwan’s heart, yet the Sun and Moon Wheel of Formless Life and Death itself seemed to have vanished without a trace!

It had truly become formless and shapeless, untethered and untraceable.

It was not an object of Zen or the Dao, yet it seemed to have acquired a Zen-like essence.

Or perhaps it was not Zen at all, but a sigh for the departed. It was a lament that time flows on like a rushing river, unceasing, regardless of the cosmic cycles of formation, stasis, decay, and Void.

During another hundred-year Cultivation session, the Sun and Moon Wheel of Formless Life and Death upgraded.

It had upgraded from a Lower Grade Spiritual Artifact to a Middle Grade Spiritual Artifact!

Throughout this process, Song Ciwan had not added a single precious material. She relied solely on her own True Qi to cleanse and nurture it, and on her own spiritual consciousness to communicate with and understand it.

This method of Refinement was actually the most clumsy and least efficient. But a Spiritual Artifact refined with this incredibly time-consuming, clumsy method was, in fact, the purest and most effective.

Everyone knew this method was superior, but alas, life was short and time was limited. One could afford to waste materials, but not time.

Unlike Song Ciwan. For her, at this moment, the one thing she had in abundance was time!

In a way, Song Ciwan and the Sun and Moon Wheel of Formless Life and Death were a perfect match.

After the Sun and Moon Wheel of Formless Life and Death was upgraded to a Mid Level Spiritual Artifact, Song Ciwan traded in Demon Spirit Malice once more.

Once this trade of Demon Spirit Malice was complete, her Lifespan shot straight up to 130,000 years!

No, it wasn’t quite 130,000 years. It seemed several hundred years had been drawn away by some strange power of the world, leaving Song Ciwan’s actual Lifespan at 129,600 years.

The moment her Lifespan was fulfilled, Song Ciwan, who was sitting cross-legged in her Cultivation Room, suddenly trembled. A mysterious power descended upon her from the ether, making her understand in an instant: 129,600 years was, in fact, one Yuanhui!

A Yuanhui represents a full cycle of heaven and earth. When a person of the Human Race, in a body of flesh and blood, attains a Lifespan equal to that of a cosmic cycle, the very essence of their being naturally undergoes a sublimation.

In that mysterious moment, Song Ciwan felt as if her soul was soaring Beyond the Heavens.

Her spiritual consciousness, nourished by the endless vitality in her body, suddenly crossed an infinite distance, leaping out in an ethereal, indistinct blur.

BOOM!

The vast expanse of heaven and earth unfurled before her.

What did she see?

It was... an infinitely vast, boundless... ovoid sphere, seemingly wrapped in swirling clouds of multi-colored gas!

The sphere was immense. On it were endless high mountains, vast deserts, boundless oceans, and even sprawling Abysses. Countless diverse lifeforms flew, ran, swam through the waters, or galloped across the land.

Everything looked so beautiful and full of life.

Although death occurred on this sphere every moment, so too did birth.

Birth and death were both part of life’s cycle. As long as both existed, life remained in a healthy cycle. Everything was as it should be.

But if there was only death and no birth, the world would gradually wither into desolation, its cycle utterly broken.

And if there were only birth but no death? Such a world might seem wonderful, but in reality, a world without death would be even more horrifying, even more hopeless!

The ascending spirit gazed down upon the world. Seeing the cycle of life and death proceeding in an orderly fashion on the sphere, it couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief.

The next moment, however, the ascending spirit’s Soul Body froze.

’Wait, what am I seeing?’

In a daze, Song Ciwan wondered if she was seeing things. But as she looked closer, she was sure she wasn’t mistaken.

She had flown high enough—so very, very high—that she finally had a sudden realization. The giant sphere below, with its vast oceans and distinct continents... upon closer inspection, its layout was astonishingly similar to the Blue Star from her past life!

Song Ciwan was utterly shaken.