Chapter 1439: Spiritual Consciousness Manifestation

A Buddhist body cultivator's martial technique.

It had almost certainly come out of Pure Sea Sect. Qin Sang recalled what Tan Hao had turned up earlier. The sect had been struck by the flame currents, and before it was destroyed, some of its treasures had been washed clear.

Someone finding a Spiritual Infant Realm martial technique, having no use for it himself and no suitable buyer to be found, would naturally bring it to the Myriad Devil Assembly to trade.

Body cultivators were exceedingly rare in the present age!

That was not only because body cultivation arts were scarce and largely lost. Body cultivation in this era was far harder than art cultivation, and even Golden Core Realm body cultivators were uncommon.

The exception was someone like Qin Sang, who could draw directly on an inexhaustible supply of stellar power to temper his body without fear of stellar malevolence eroding him.

Between Small Cold Domain, where a rare spiritual herb surfaced now and then, and the whole of Beichen Realm besides, Qin Sang had dealt with most of the Spiritual Infant cultivators there and had never once met a pure body cultivator!

There were, of course, those who cultivated the body alongside their main path, and they did so for two reasons.

The first was that essence, qi, and spirit all helped in breaking through bottlenecks, an insight most Spiritual Infant Realm cultivators arrived at eventually, prompting them to try the road.

The second was to strengthen the flesh against some extreme situation. In the end, though, they all discovered the same thing: it consumed enormous effort for little result and was not worth the cost, and the ordinary body cultivation arts available could not meet their needs. So none of them ever reached much of a level in it.

Martial techniques. Qin Sang preferred to call them martial supernatural abilities, and the finest of them were rarer still than body cultivation arts.

He had taken the Heavenly Demon Transformation to its fourth transformation, and his body was now no weaker than that of a Transformation Realm great demon. But the art's own supernatural abilities amounted to two: the Heavenly Demon Transformation itself, which strengthened the body and grew phoenix wings, and the Heavenly Demon Dharma Lakshana, whose true function he still did not understand.

Without astras or Dao Techniques, relying on body cultivation alone, he could not have matched a demon king of the same stage. The reason was simply that Qin Sang knew no martial supernatural abilities. He possessed a formidable body and no way to bring out its real strength.

A demon king could refine the power of his own bloodline and command bloodline supernatural abilities, and those were not something the human race could learn. He had put the question to Jingyu once and had it confirmed. The gap only grew more pronounced the higher one's realm.

Qin Sang had tried to buy such techniques in Beichen Realm and had come away with a few third-rate martial supernatural abilities, none of them useful.

With his current cultivation he could certainly study those and attempt to create one of his own. But his foundation in body cultivation was shallow, built on the shortcut of a demon race art, and there was no telling how much time and effort success would demand. He had far too much else to do. Qin Sang did not lack means of fighting, so he had never given it much attention.

For him, the greatest value of the Heavenly Demon Transformation lay in granting him the technique of Lightning Evasion, and in making his body less fragile so he could handle the occasional dangerous situation.

Crossing the storm belt had shown exactly what a powerful body was worth. At times he had been able to endure a storm head-on, and without that, the consequences would have run well past drained true essence and a buildup of pill impurities.

Setting out the moment he reached the middle stage of the Spiritual Infant Realm had, admittedly, been pushing it.

A Buddhist martial supernatural ability. The thought flickered through his mind.

Since the seller had put it up for trade without any special stipulation, it presumably needed no Buddhist art to support it and could be performed by any body cultivator.

He did not know whether the North Sea held any Spiritual Infant body cultivators, but the competition was unlikely to be fierce unless demon kings joined in, and demon kings cared more for treasures that strengthened bloodline power.

A top-tier martial supernatural ability like this would not come around twice.

Qin Sang's heart stirred.

He looked over the list again but found no trading terms listed for the Seven-Master Buddha Seal, and asked Sage Yinquan about it.

"It means we need to bring our entire fortunes when we attend!" Yinquan said. "So long as you carry enough treasures, there's no worry about lacking a chance to trade. The trade fair on the final day begins at dawn and runs without a time limit, precisely so attendees have ample opportunity to weigh gains against losses and make their exchanges. Completing a single transaction may take several rounds of trading hands, or more than a dozen. Every exchange has to go through the Myriad Devil Assembly, of course, so they take their cut."

The organizers came away from a single trade fair with their coffers overflowing.

For something so orderly, the name Myriad Devil Assembly always felt somewhat incongruous. Anyone who did not know better might assume a righteous power stood behind it. Whichever senior had founded it had possessed considerable foresight.

Qin Sang moved his gaze to the other treasures on the list. He had not yet decided whether to attend, and would settle that after he returned and refined the Hidden Fragrance Pill.

There were also three Star Feathers of a Star-Controlling Bird, Heavenly Meteor Iron, and the Cold Bone Devil Hand, a sacred relic of the ancient devilish sect known as the Cold Bone Dao.

One supreme treasure after another, each nearly impossible to find in the present age, until the eye could hardly take them in. The Myriad Devil Assembly deserved its reputation as the greatest event in Boundless Sea.

Qin Sang decided to head back at once and refine the Hidden Fragrance Pill, and asked where he should go if he wished to call on Sage Yinquan before the assembly.

Sage Yinquan gave him a Pill Cauldron Token. "Go to Pearl Island and activate this, and someone will come to receive you."

Qin Sang called the location of Pearl Island to mind, gave a fist-and-palm salute, and took his leave.

He flew clear of Blue Star Island and returned to the cave dwelling without stopping, opening the barrier and stepping inside just in time to find Tan Hao making offerings to Tan Jie. When they left Pure Sea Sect, Tan Hao had brought his brother's coffin out with him, so that no part of him would be left behind.

Qin Sang set Tan Hao to investigate the two great matters, Huang Longshi's residence and the Myriad Devil Assembly, then entered the cave dwelling, sealed the barrier, and told him that nothing whatsoever was to disturb him.

He sat cross-legged and meditated.

Black flames drifted out from between Qin Sang's brows, and the fire lotus seed took shape. Gradually the fluctuations across its surface grew extraordinarily steady, and it floated quietly before his chest.

After an unknown amount of time, Qin Sang let out a long breath, having tuned his condition to its peak, and drew the fire lotus seed back into his body.

Pop! The jade vial beside him opened of its own accord, and the Hidden Fragrance Pill flew up before his face, its fragrance spilling out on all sides. Qin Sang gazed at it for a moment, then opened his mouth and swallowed it whole!

The pill dissolved the instant it reached his stomach, turning into a cool current of medicinal energy that merged into his body. His spiritual platform cleared, and a sensation came over him of floating free, on the verge of transcendence.

***

Four months later.

Creak! The door of the quiet chamber swung open and Qin Sang stepped out. He glanced around him, and for an instant something flashed in his eyes, a sharpness beyond anything he had shown before, then drew inward and vanished.

Finding Tan Hao gone, Qin Sang considered briefly, then flew straight out of the cave dwelling, recalled the location of a stretch of empty sea, and tore through the air toward it.

Before long, his figure surfaced soundlessly above the open water.

His behavior was somewhat strange. He half closed his eyes as though sensing something out, and then the corners of his mouth curved up. "Nearly double the range I had before. So this is what comes from spiritual consciousness manifestation."

The words were barely out when Qin Sang shifted a thought and released his spiritual consciousness. A powerful presence surged out of his body.

Boom! Wind and cloud changed color above the sea, and astral winds turned nearly solid, resolving into currents of air visible to the naked eye.

Having confirmed there was no one nearby, Qin Sang set aside all restraint and released his spiritual consciousness completely, letting it sweep across the whole expanse and calling forth phenomenon after phenomenon.

Rumble...

Qin Sang watched the celestial phenomena calmly, using them to gauge exactly how much the manifestation of his spiritual consciousness had gained and changed for him.