Chapter 1662: The Projection and the Blade Segment
As soon as the azure flames came into contact with the devilish ape, the colorful light around its body was suddenly ignited, thereby plunging the dried corpse into a ball of scorching flames.
At this moment, Han Li's Nascent Soul also sat down in mid-air in a cross-legged manner, and it closed its eyes as it made a strange hand seal.
As for Han Li's physical body, it remained completely still as if it had entered a deep meditative state.
The azure flames burned for three days and three nights at the Nascent Soul's behest. Even with Han Li's current cultivation base, he was still beginning to struggle on the final day, and the stream of azure flames became a little thinner.
Thankfully, the secret technique was finally completed at the conclusion of the third day.
An explosion rang out from within the azure flames, following which a plume of black smoke dispersed through the air. The devilish ape's corpse, which had remained completely unchanged for three days prior to this, suddenly exploded into nothingness. In its place was a shimmering fist-sized ball that was hovering inside the azure flames.
The Nascent Soul opened its eyes and cast its gaze toward the shimmering object as a smile appeared on its face. At the same time, the stream of nascent flames erupting from its mouth ceased, following which the Nascent Soul vanished amid a flash of golden and azure light.
In the next instant, Han Li's physical body also opened its eyes before sweeping a sleeve through the air.
A swath of azure light swept forth, snuffing out all of the remaining nascent flames and revealing the object inside.
This was a crystalline object that was shimmering with crimson light. Han Li narrowed his eyes as he flicked a finger, and a concentrated blast of wind erupted forth before striking the crimson crystal.
The crystal shattered with a crisp crack, and a stream of extremely viscous dark red liquid flowed out from within.
As soon as the liquid was exposed to the air, it materialized into a miniature dark red monkey that was around half a foot tall.
The monkey let loose a loud cry, and a primordial aura that was quite startling even to Han Li erupted from its body. Immediately thereafter, dark red light flashed, and the miniature monkey disappeared into the distance.
However, a dull thump then immediately rang out from one of the walls of the secret chamber as the ball of red light crashed directly into it, only to be repelled by the power of the restriction.
The red light reverted back into its monkey form before immediately flying toward another direction like a headless fly.
However, Han Li was prepared this time, and he flipped a hand over to produce a thin jade vial amid a flash of white light.
He tossed the vial up into the air, and the opening of the vial aimed itself toward a certain direction with white light shimmering faintly within it.
A plume of white threads then shot forth out of the opening, ensnaring the miniature monkey in the air before drawing it back into the jade vial with ease.
Han Li then raised an arm and made a grabbing motion, drawing the jade vial into his grasp from afar.
He injected his spiritual sense into the vial, and an excited look flashed through his eyes moments later.
"Brilliant! As expected, this really is the true spirit blood of the Giant Mountain Ape. To think that it's of such a high degree of purity as well! If I were to refine it, the resulting transformation will be even more powerful than my Kun Peng transformation," Han Li murmured to himself in an elated manner. He then made a grabbing motion again, and two talismans, one golden and one silver, appeared in his grasp before being plastered onto the jade vial.
After that, he carefully stowed the jade vial away. Even though he'd extracted the true spirit blood, he naturally couldn't refine it right away.
After blasting nascent flames at the devilish ape's corpse for the past three days, he'd expended a lot of magic power, so he had to rest and recover first.
After consuming some pills, he pulled out a pair of spirit stones from his storage bracelet before entering a meditative state.
A day later, he concluded his meditation, and his magic power had already fully recovered.
After basking in the renewed abundance of magic power in his body, he smiled as he flipped his hand over to summon a shimmering golden blade segment that was around half a foot in length.
This was naturally none other than the damaged Profound Heavenly Treasure he'd obtained from the devilish ape.
Back when he'd first obtained the treasure, he didn't get a chance to conduct an in-depth inspection, and he certainly wasn't going to bring out this treasure on the way back to Cloud City with Xian Xian by his side.
Thus, Han Li began to stroke the slightly bumpy patterns and runes on the surface of the blade segment, and a contemplative look appeared on his face.
He tried to inject his spiritual sense into it on several occasions, only to have his spiritual sense completely repelled by a mysterious force, just as what had happened when he'd tried the same thing on the Profound Heavenly Fruit. At present, the treasure had no spiritual Qi within it whatsoever, and it looked like a piece of scrap metal.
However, it was none other than this nondescript blade segment that had unleashed devastating power. If it weren't for the fact that the Profound Heavenly Fruit had been stimulated to become the Profound Heavenly Sword again, he most likely would've perished to this blade segment.
Thinking back to the astonishingly powerful attack it had unleashed, Han Li began to carefully inspect it using his Brightsight Spirit Eyes.
As expected, he was able to see directly into the blade segment using his spirit eye ability, but he wasn't able to find anything aside from countless tiny golden runes.
Han Li raised an eyebrow upon seeing this. He didn't know whether its interior had always been like this or if it had only become like this after he'd injected the power of his projection into it.
However, he merely gave a nonchalant smile a moment later.
It didn't really matter to him what the blade segment had looked like in the past as long as he could use it as one of his trump cards.
Even though he'd used the power of his true devil projection to fuel the Profound Heavenly Fruit during his battle against that devilish ape, thereby allowing him to unleash an attack without losing a vast amount of blood essence, the fact that close to half of his projection's power had been absorbed by the sword was still quite a dire consequence that would take a long time to recover from.
Besides, the Profound Heavenly Fruit had sealed itself into his arm again, and he was still unable to summon it at will, so who knew if it would appear again the next time he found himself in a dire situation?
He didn't want to depend on such an unreliable trump card to save his life.
This trump card was indeed unfathomably powerful and had even saved his life on two occasions, but it was simply too much of a gamble to continue counting on it.
In comparison, this blade segment was significantly less powerful than the Profound Heavenly Sword, but it was exactly because of this that using it would expend much less energy, and it would most likely be something that he could use at will.
With that in mind, blue light swirled within Han Li's eyes, and he was planning to give this a try.
He tossed the golden blade segment into the air, then made a hand seal, and brilliant golden light radiated from his body as golden scales surfaced over his skin.
Immediately thereafter, a shimmering golden projection with three heads and six arms appeared behind him.
At first glance, it appeared that the projection seemed to have returned to its original size, but upon closer inspection, one would discover that its body was a lot more indistinct compared to in the past, and the golden light that it was emanating was also rather faint.
As soon as the Provenance True Devil Projection appeared, one of the arms reached out to grab onto the golden blade segment.
Han Li took a deep breath, and the projection up above began to glow with scintillating golden light at his behest. At the same time, countless specks of golden light appeared in mid-air nearby, instantly filling the entire secret chamber.
Han Li let loose a low cry upon seeing this, and the projection overhead instantly swung the golden blade segment gently through the air.
A piercing screeching rang out as all of the golden light around the projection's body surged toward the blade segment in a frenzy. At the same time, the specks of golden light in the air tremored before forming a series of golden runes of different sizes.
These runes then also surged toward the blade segment as if they'd been summoned, then disappeared into it without a trace.
Thus, the entire blade segment was inundated by dazzling golden light, and the piercing screech also drew to an abrupt halt.
At this point, the projection had shrunk slightly in size.
In the next instant, the golden light around the blade segment, vanished, and the missing upper half of the blade returned, thereby temporarily repairing the weapon. Furthermore, three faint golden runes had also appeared over its surface.
Han Li looked up at the golden blade in the air, and he could sense the astonishing spiritual pressure emanating from it, as well as his magic power rapidly pouring out of his body, but a hint of elation appeared on his face.
As expected, he really could use his projection to control this treasure. Even though some of his spiritual power and the power of his projection had still been absorbed, the amount absorbed was within an acceptable range to Han Li.
All of a sudden, his eyes narrowed as he cast his gaze toward the three golden runes on the blade.
It was quite clear that these three runes were of the same type as the runes on the Profound Heavenly Sword.
"This is golden seal text. As expected, this really is a Profound Heavenly Treasure," Han Li murmured to himself, but he wasn't overly surprised by this discovery.
However, he then suddenly seemed to have sensed something, and he abruptly turned his attention to his golden protection.
There, he discovered that even though the golden light emanating from the projection wasn't surging toward the blade as rapidly as it had in the past, there were still traces of it slowly injecting itself into the golden blade.
It appeared that once this damaged Profound Heavenly Treasure adopted its original form, it would constantly absorb the essential power of his projection.
Han Li was rather taken aback upon seeing this, and his brows furrowed as he immediately pointed a finger up at the projection.
The projection immediately released the golden blade from its grasp at his behest, following which its two sets of clear faces opened their mouths in unison, blasting forth gusts of golden winds that swept up the golden blade in a flash.
A resounding boom rang out as the upper half of the blade was swept away by the winds, disintegrating into specks of golden light, which flew back toward the projection.
After absorbing those specks of golden light, the projection swelled slightly and returned to its original size.
Meanwhile, the golden blade had reverted back to its incomplete form, and it fell straight down from above.
Han Li waved a hand toward it, and golden light flashed as the blade segment vanished into thin air.
This damaged Profound Heavenly Treasure was definitely powerful enough to be considered as a new trump card, so he naturally had to stow it away carefully.
Thus, Han Li had obtained two extremely precious treasures in a row, and he was naturally very pleased.
However, that wasn't the extent of the fruits that he'd reaped from the Golden Devil Mountain Ranges.
After a brief pause, Han Li rustled a sleeve, and two more objects flew out from within before settling right in front of him.