The Desolate Era

Book 24, The Starlord of Fogstone, Chapter 22 – Continuing Downwards

Ji Ning began to feel excited.

He had just undergone a transformation on a qualitative level. He had long ago mastered the ‘Heartsword stance’, ensuring that he would be able to withstand a blow or two from even a true World-level expert. If he was able to completely repair Violetjewel, then he might actually be able to give those World-level experts an actual fight.

“Am I going to be one of those legendary monsters who are able to slay World-level experts despite merely being an Elder God?” Ning mumbled to himself, then grinned.

It was too difficult to break through to the World-level.

Every single person who was capable of succeeding in doing so was an absolute genius who had many fortuitous encounters. Thus, an Elder God who could slay a World God had to be an even more brilliant genius who had even better luck and even deeper insights.

“The Dao of the Sword is a Dao meant for combat. I need to do my best to master the second stance of the [Nameless] sword-art. I might not be capable of becoming one of those monsters, but I still need to work as hard as I can to advance through my chosen path.” Ning had a look of desire in his eyes.

A man had to aim for the stars and set high goals for himself on his path to cultivation. That way, even if he didn’t succeed in his goals, he would still be able to travel farther than most cultivators.

Ning once more appeared within the cave inside the pit. With a wave of his hand, he put away his estate-world treasure.

“This mist energy is truly marvelous. Still…I imagine it’ll be used up quite quickly in battle. I need to store up more of it.” Ning waved his hand, causing the Heavengazer Tower of Radiance to appear next to him, then entered it.

Within the Heavengazer Tower.

Ning began to fill the azure flower with his heartforce, divine power, and Immortal energy. The azure flower accepted it all, ravenously devouring the energy and converting it into mist, resulting in the mist grower denser and denser.

After most of his energy was used up, Ning took a break to recover. He could withdraw energy from the primordial chaos to replenish his divine power, but his heartforce could only be recovered through rest.

After recovering…he continued to pour all his energy into the azure flower.

Whoooosh. Finally, once the mist in the region reached a certain level of density, a vortex suddenly formed which drew in all the mist energy, converting it into a single crystalline drop of water.

“A drop of water?”

Ning attuned to it briefly, then immediately understood.

This drop of water was the form the mist took when it reached an extremely high level of density. When battle began, he would be able to draw the mist energy out from the drop of water.

“I have to use up almost all of my divine power, heartforce, and Immortal energy in order to condense a single water drop.” Ning couldn’t help but feel shocked. “Well, time to continue.”

The primordial chaos was truly vast and infinite. There was a limit to how much of its energy a cultivator could draw upon, with the hard limit being how much the cultivator’s body could withstand! Thanks to the Heavengazer Tower, Ning was able to withdraw chaos energy at a rate that was ten times faster than someone in the outside world. He repeatedly went through a cycle of exhausting all his heartforce, divine power, and Immortal energy, then replenishing it through resting. More and more water drops began to appear in the azureflower space. One drop. Two drops. Three drops…

Every single drop was formed through Ning completely exhausting and converting all his energy.

Finally, after a long period of time, a total of thirty-six drops of water were circling within the azureflower space. A strange equilibrium had been reached, and a sense of pressure radiated outwards from the azureflower space, letting Ning know that it had reached its limit for now.

Ning spent a few more days in the cave after this. He needed to get a full picture of what the azure flower could do. As for the other clone of his true body which was within the prisonworld, it had also mastered the Nine Chaos Seals and had gained an azure flower seal of its own, one which was also capable of manifesting those drops of water.

However, for the clone, three drops was the absolute limit.

“It seems as the my true body’s azureflower space is able to hold more power than my backup clone’s?” Ning murmured to himself.

“Is it due to it having a stronger divine body? A stronger Jindan? Or is it due to the soul?” Ning was filled with many questions.

His true body was formed through merging seventeen clones. It had a more powerful divine body, a stronger soul, and a Jindan that was comparable to first-tier Jindans. Its azure flower was more powerful as well.

“No need to dwell on it. For now at least, it seems as though the azureflower energy can only be applied to the divine body,” Ning mused to himself. He had a feeling that the azureflower energy wasn’t that simple, but despite spending quite a bit of time analyzing it he was still unable to discover any other methods of applying it.

“Given Mother Nuwa’s abilities, I’m sure she must’ve been able to merge the Nine Chaos Seals together as well. She also must have an azureflower space of her own, and I’ll wager her insights into it are much greater than mine. She might’ve discovered some of its secrets,” Ning mused. “But…I still have no idea where she’s gone off to. There’s actually no record of her in the Badlands Territory.”

Mother Nuwa had left the Three Realms roughly half a chaos cycle ago. If she had arrived in the Badlands Territory…given her power, her arrival definitely would’ve been recorded down. It must be understood that even the more powerful Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals were known throughout the Badlands Territory. As for the World Gods, all of them would definitely be recorded down. And yet, Ning was unable to find any records of Mother Nuwa at all.

“Or perhaps she didn’t make it to the Badlands Territory? Did she get lost in the spatial vortex tunnel? Given her power, Mother Nuwa should’ve been able to traverse that tunnel with ease unless her luck was so horrid that she was completely surrounded by spatial rifts, giving her no way out at all. The chances of that happening, however, are quite low.”

“Or did she hide her true identity here in the Badlands Territory?”

“Mm. Well, I’ll worry about that later. Given her power…if she’s still in the Badlands Territory, her reputation will quickly spread throughout the region.” Ning was in quite a good mood right now. His mastery of the azureflower space had been more beneficial to him than anything he could imagine. Even if his true body ended up dying here, his backup clone would eventually be able to rebuild it.

“Thank you, senior Waterwind.” Ning turned to look at the words left behind on the cave walls.

It was thanks to the diagram of the ‘Hundred Streams merging together to form the Dao’ that Ning had been able to gain tremendous insights of his own and thus master the Nine Chaos Seals. This was far more valuable and important to Ning than merely improving his sword-arts a bit.

Ning moved to stand at the edge of the cave. He first stared upwards, then downwards towards the bottomless abyss.

“Should I climb upwards? Or should I go down?” This was what Ning was pondering.

With the azureflower energy supporting him, he would be able to easily climb upwards and escape from the pit. But after leaving the pit, would he be able to escape this place safely? Hard to say.

What would happen if he climbed downwards? Still hard to say.

“It won’t be too hard for me to climb upwards, but…” Ning nodded slowly. “I don’t need to rush out of here. I’ll go down and take a look first. Countless cultivators must’ve been swallowed by the Windsource. Hellsword himself had a pair of Dao weapons on him. The depths of the Windsource Ruins must hold many treasures.”

Although the path downwards might be filled with many dangers, it was also a path that led to great treasures.

It wasn’t impossible that Ning might end up finding four or five Dao weapons there.

“Time to go.” Ning no longer hesitated.

Cultivators were meant to battle against Heaven and Earth. If they wanted to acquire good treasures, they’d have to risk their lives for it!

Ning’s arms stretched out many hundreds of meters. He looked like a giant ape as he swung from crevice to crevice, the azureflower energy filling his body making the process quite simple. In fact, Ning was now able to easily grasp onto jutting pieces of rock without needing to focus on cracks. Previously, Ning wouldn’t be able to maintain his grip, but now he was able to do so with ease.

Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh. He clambered down very agilely with six arms, moving so fast that he looked like a blur.

Ten kilometers. A hundred kilometers. A thousand kilometers.

Ning continued his downwards descent.

Every so often, he would encounter a treasure that was caught within a crack or on a ledge.

“This is way too deep. I must’ve gone down at least thirty thousand kilometers by now.” Ning couldn’t help but secretly sigh in amazement. “The deeper I go, the more powerful the Windsource seems to become as well.”

Right now, the Windsource was at least five or six times more powerful than it had been when he was next to the cave. However, Ning had become so much more powerful that he was still able to proceed in a very relaxed manner.

“Eh?” Ning’s eyes lit up as he saw a warblade that glistened with bloody light that had been caught within a crevice. As the gray wind blew past the warblade, it emitted an ear-piercing screech. The warblade was quite dazzling to behold, and its aura caused even Ning’s heart to clench.

“A Dao weapon!” Ning revealed a look of delight. “After climbing down thirty thousand kilometers, I picked up more than a hundred Chaos weapons. Now, I’ve finally found a Dao weapon.”

Whoosh.

Ning reached out with his arms, stretching them out several hundred meters as he stuck his hands deep into the crevice, then pulled the warblade out. Judging from the ripples emanating from the warblade, it was an ownerless item. Its former owner had most likely died a long time ago.

“I feel as though its aura is even stronger than Violetjewel’s aura is,” Ning murmured to himself. “It must be quite a powerful Dao weapon.”

Ning’s guess was correct.

This warblade was a weapon which an Elder God had acquired from an incredibly deadly place. It was a top-grade Dao weapon! However, after acquiring the weapon, the Elder God had been unable to escape the danger zone he was in. He continued to flee through the area and in the end had been swept into and perished within the Hundred Streams of the Windsource.

“For the sake of this warblade alone, I have to make it out of here alive. It’d be a huge waste if I died.” Ning quickly put the warblade away. One could perish at any moment when trapped within a deadly area such as this…but the rewards one could reap could also be staggering.

“I’ll keep going downwards.”

“I still haven’t seen those two Dao weapons which Hellsword found.” Ning reached out with his six arms, continuing his quick downwards descent into the depths of this bottomless pit.