Divine Brilliance

Each mind stone would take up to half an hour. Little Gold swallowed sixteen mind stones before being unable to swallow anymore.

Its body had swelled up into a big ball once more, but it didn’t look like it was in pain. It jumped onto his palm and squirmed around in a really friendly manner.

Zong Shou laughed, taking out that mine core and drawing two talismans. One was “shake” and the other was “tear”.

A light exploded out in his eyes as he shouted, “Break!”

That mind stone mine core instantly started to shake and numerous tear patterns broke out. In just a short while, it started to break into pieces.

Instantly two silver white lights surged out from within like pythons, one charging out from the left and the other from the right.

When these two pythons charged to forty feet out, there was an invisible barrier there that forcibly rebounded them.

Zong Shou didn’t dare treat them lightly, as he knew that his spiritual formation was too low Grade, and was unable to last for too long. His right hand formed into a seal and he once again shouted out, “Direct!”

A bright light suddenly exploded from the tummy of Little Gold, who was lying in his palm. It seemed like the two spiritual veins were forcibly directed by a power and gathered in front of his body.

Little Gold was a little uneasy at the start and tried to struggle. After a short while it realized that the two balls of silver white light not only didn’t mean any harm towards him, but instead benefited him, and he quieted down, allowing those two pythons to drill into his stomach.

The entire process took six hours, and only then did the two metal element spiritual veins totally merge into that Spiritual Vein Pearl. The entire process seemed to be smooth and without danger.

When Zong Shou completed it, his forehead was filled with dense sweat, his face was also ashen white. Compared to the battle with Li Yaling, he was a little more tired.

The spiritual vein itself didn’t have a mind of its own, which was why it could be controlled. However, it had a natural characteristic of flowing around and dissipating, and was also really sensitive to changes in spiritual energy.

What was most difficult wasn’t to direct it over, but to trap it and restrict it. The full six hours, he was totally focused on his soul and the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth being on the same wavelength.

Even more soul power was needed to prevent this spiritual vein from flowing away or dissipating. He consumed so much strength, no different from fighting a tough opponent, going all out for six complete hours.

-This spiritual vein is expectedly tough to control! No wonder Spiritual Vein Pearls need spirit masters who have reached the Back to Sun Realm to craft. To be able to capture one is already really difficult. To lead it into a Spiritual Vein Pearl needs oceanic amounts of soul power and one needs to be really precise with his spiritual energy control. Every increase of one vein will increase the difficulty tenfold…

-Finding ingredients which are also able to accept five spiritual veins is also really difficult and really rare. External pills like Yiren’s are worth their weight in gold. Today it was because I was lucky to be able to find this mine core, the spiritual vein within it was already really dormant and tamed, so I was able to improve this Spiritual Vein Pill…-

————-

Once the last bit of light was totally swallowed by the Spiritual Vein Pill, Zong Shou sat down cross-legged and entered meditation. Only when the Darkness Blooming Cereus gave out a spiritual energy fluctuation did he awaken.

He hadn’t managed to recover much spiritual energy, his eyes still showing his exhaustion.

His face, on the other hand, was really excited. With a a thought, Little Gold turned into a thin mask and started to spread over his hand, covering his chest like silver armor, wrapping around his whole upper body.

There were also many small needles, which drilled into his muscles and connected to his meridians.

The current Little Gold seemed to be a part of his body. The Spiritual Vein Pearl which had been upgraded to Grade Four used Little Gold’s body as a middleman to inject huge amounts of spiritual energy into his body.

The spiritual power within him started to be replenished, surging rapidly and boiling in agitation. The power in his body seemed to have swelled up several times!

His body’s reaction to the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth, especially metal elemental spiritual energy, seemed to be slowly increasing.

Every time the true qi in his body moved, it was able to attract and gather up a large amount of spiritual energy.

“This is Xiantian…”

A long wished-for feeling had finally filled Zong Shou’s head, and his heart also trembled. Even though he had reached Xiantian Realm only because he was borrowing the strength of the external pill, he still found it tough to keep his emotions in check.

The energy surging within his body was true qi; it was power, actual power that he could control and use!

Breathing out loud, Zong Shou stabbed out with his sword. At the tip of the Lightning Tooth Sword, a sword energy surged out, giving out a loud pu, only dissipating sixty feet away.

Stone shrapnel flew in all directions. He had actually pierced a small and precise hole into the stone wall. The sword was really sharp, but silent and without a sign.

“It isn’t the lightning element that I want the most, or the water element that is best for displaying the Cloud Shocking God Destroying Intent, but I am able to get the sharpness of metal. This sword, nothing below a Spiritual Weapon can block!”

He controlled that Black Wave Sword to fly out, not holding it in his hand. Injecting true qi from a distance into that sword, another wave of sword energy surged out to seventy feet.

This sword had been nourished by that Broken Bade Sword for close to two hundred years, and bore some of its metal sword intent. The current Zong Shou injecting large amounts of metal element spiritual energy instantly caused a reaction.

“My sword energy can reach sixty feet out, which means that the strength of my body can reach thirty thousand kilograms! Fifteen thousand kilograms lets one exude hidden energy out of the body. Every further increase of five kilograms of strength increases it by ten feet. If I go all out, I can rival those Xiantian experts with Spiritual Vein Pearls. Unfortunately I still am not at the Xiantian Realm. I can use it, but not for long periods of time!”

The was the reason why Earth Chakra experts exceeded Body Chakra experts in all areas. Apart from directing the spiritual energy from Heaven and Earth to cleanse the body and borrowing external strength to train all the meridians, the greatest difference would be merging with spiritual veins.

When one cultivated in one chakra meridian, one could select a spiritual vein to merge into their body to combine with the meridian.

At the Mythic Master Realm, other people could only use the strength of their body to borrow a little bit of the strength of Heaven and Earth. On the other hand, Xiantian Masters had threads of spiritual veins which were self-sufficient and which wouldn’t dry up in their bodies. How could those Body Chakra Realm cultivators fight with them? How could their bodily strength not be stronger?

The reason why this stage of martial cultivation was called the Earth Chakra was also because of that. Spiritual veins had grades: small-sized spiritual veins, as they were born from energy from the Earth, that was why they were known as Earth veins.

Borrowing the strength of the external pill, although he was able to obtain the ability to go against Xiantian Masters for a short time, the problem was that his body was still at the Bodily Chakra level, his veins and meridians were too weak and unable to support it.

As his stamina wasn’t much to begin with, once he fought with others, be it life or death, if he went all-out he would at most last for twice the amount of time needed to brew tea, so it wasn’t something he had to worry about.

What was unfortunate was that the amount of energy he could borrow from a Grade Four Spiritual Vein Pill wasn’t much to begin with. Going through Little Gold’s body, it became even less.

Zong Shou shook his head helplessly, Little Gold’s body also started to contract. It gathered back around his left arm like an arm guard, tightly wrapping around it.

“With this external pill, I will be able to make do until I break through to Xiantian. Even against those ancestor experts, I would be able to retreat with my life. However, what I’m curious about is whether my Dual Meridian Body is able to merge with parallel spiritual veins? Hei! At the Earth Chakra Realm, to merge with eighteen spiritual veins, is that possible?”

Zong Shou was in deep thought as he recalled those books which spoke about Dual Meridian Body cultivation. There weren’t any successful examples and they didn’t specifically mention it, so probably no one had managed to do so.

However, this was a first and there probably wasn’t anyone with a spiral meridian like him! No one else was able to create the World Shocking Spiritual Art, which included three elements.

Within his hand, a ball of energy suddenly popped up. The blue and red were attracted to one another, while also repelling one another. Zong Shou smiled, closing his fist and extinguishing the energy.

Such a possibility was really worth looking forward to. It was too early to think about this matter, he would have to wait until he opened up his Bodily Chakra Realm before he planned for it.

——

Taking a step, Zong Shou floated over near to the side of the hole, looking coldly at that Darkness Blooming Cereus.

This plant’s spiritual energy fluctuations were at their most intense moment, and it was really unstable, like it was on the brink of exploding.

Shaking to the extreme, it once again stabilized, and then its petals started to bloom outwards at a visible rate.

Zong Shou held his breath, the pure black color of the petals was close to pinnacle beauty in his eyes.

“What flower is this, it is so beautiful!” Chuxue, who had long completed absorbing the mind stone, walked to the side of the hole, her face filled with awe. She instinctively stretched out her hand to touch it, but Zong Shou grabbed it.

After that flower had bloomed completely, Zong Shou retreated instead of going forwards, bringing Chuxue and backing off a hundred feet away.

In the next moment, a pale black fog spilled out. It spread to hundreds of feet, silently corroding a large part of the surrounding dirt and soul.

When Chuxue saw that, her smile totally disappeared. Such a beautiful flower could also develop this fatal poison. If they had retreated a little too slowly, or if her hand had touched that flower, her body would probably have liquified.

Zong Shou wasn’t fazed, directly using a spell to summon a gust of wind and blow the black mist away. Only when none of it remained did he once again move towards the side of the stone pit.

Just as he looked down at the Cereus withering after it bloomed, the entire hole started to shake as the dirt collapsed around it.

Zong Shou couldn’t help but frown as he looked into the distance.

There were some human voices and they weren’t small in number, walking in this direction!