Spirit Realm

“Jiu Liuyu is the Valley Master of Dark Fiend Valley. She is at the middle stage of the Netherpassage Realm, and her status in Seven Fiends Valley is pretty high. Even her apprentice Lu Li was rumored to have reached the middle stage of the Natal Opening Realm. Granny Jiu is usually very picky with her apprentices, so it can be regarded as the Ling Family’s luck that she took a fancy to the Ling sisters.”

Zhuo Qian said while holding a porcelain cup, drinking and speaking in her elegant multi-leveled house at Nebula Pavilion.

Qin Lie, Kang Zhi, Zhu Peng, Han Feng, and the others were all having their meal inside the house, surrounding a table full of dishes. Everyone was present except for Tu Ze, who was still in seclusion.

The day gradually turned dark.

Crystal gems were embedded on the walls and pillars, illuminating the interior of the room with bright lights. Zhuo Qian wore loose silk pajamas, and a large amount of white skin was showing at the collar area, causing everyone else to feel incredibly restless. They had shifty eyes that wanted to get a better glimpse yet were afraid of the repercussions.

Zhuo Qian didn’t mind them. She simply looked towards Qin Lie and consoled, “Granny Jiu has always been a proud person. She treats the cultivation of her apprentices with great care, so the Ling sisters are lucky to be able to enter her tutelage. Qin Lie, you’re still young, and although you may not be able to rank among forces like Seven Fiends Valley or Dark Asura Hall right now, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have a chance in the future.”

Her beautiful face was riddled with seriousness, “To be honest, I don’t know you very well, but I feel that… there’s something special about you. Qin Lie, Seven Fiends Valley isn’t as unattainable as it looks. If you give it your all, then one day you’ll be able to enter that kind of force as well.”

“That’s right Qin Lie, you’re in Nebula Pavilion right now aren’t you? If you go one step higher, then it’ll be Dark Asura Hall already. Dark Asura Hall and Seven Fiends Valleys are friendly with each other and there are always opportunities for them to get together for missions. If you enter Dark Asura Hall, then you will have the chance to reunite with your fiance,” Kang Zhi also consoled.

Zhu Peng, Han Feng, and the rest too took their turns to serve him a drink and console him.

Qin Lie never stopped smiling, and every time he accepted a cup, he would down the entire contents in a single gulp without a drop left behind.

He knew that the reason Zhuo Qian set up a feast here was all for his sake, hoping that she could help untie the knots in his heart and that the incident with the Ling Family would not affect his cultivation on the martial way.

He saw it all with his eyes, and felt warmed inside his heart.

The liquor feast lasted until midnight before they finally dispersed. Qin Lie too said his goodbyes and returned to his little house close to Zhuo Qian’s.

He sat by the window inside the dark room. Not only was his mind not affected by the alcohol, he was growing more and more sober.

He wondered if it was because he drank Li Mu’s strong wine and was gradually affected by it. Today’s fine liquor tasted as bland as water and completely tasteless. It completely failed to intoxicate him at all.

“Lu Li of the middle stage of the Natal Opening Realm, Jiu Liuyu of the middle stage of the Netherpassage Realm, Valley Master of Dark Fiend Valley, Black Iron rank force...”

Gazing at the mottled moonlight beneath a tree outside the window, he whispered while lifting a frown. Then, he settled himself, focused his mind into a state of meditation, and slowly closed his eyes. He began focusing on gathering a whirlpool inside his dantian’s spirit sea.

After an hour, his attempt had failed yet again as his spirit sea clustered and spirit clouds dissipated.

“It’s been over a month. I’ve been trying to gather a whirlpool every night, and yet I could not succeed even a single time. The ascension from the eighth level of Refinement to the ninth level of the Refinement Realm is as expected… far more difficult than it was before. The main problem is that there isn’t a clue or even a ray of hope to be found. Have I made a mistake somewhere?”

He was beginning to suspect that it was indeed the case and sat there pondering, trying to find a new direction to head towards.

“The ninth level of the Refinement Realm, gather a whirlpool in my dantian’s spirit sea. Whirlpool, whirlpool…”

The moment Qin Lie’s heart was disturbed, his mind became jumbled with all kinds of thoughts. He then thought of his spirit diagram inscriptions and started considering if he should set the current matter aside and refocus his energy on inscribing instead.

“The Spirit Gathering diagram, the Amplification diagram, the Spirit Storage diagram, the Strengthening diagram…”

Bits and pieces of the four complex and mysterious spirit diagrams, appeared in his head. He frowned in ponderment, thinking in silence.

“The Spirit Gathering diagram, Spirit Gathering diagram, Spirit Gathering diagram! That’s also a whirlpool, isn’t it?!”

Suddenly, there was a flash of inspiration, and his eyes abruptly turned bright. An uncontrollable thought began to bloom in his mind — what would happen if he tried inscribing a Spirit Gathering diagram in his dantian’s spirit sea?

To this day, out of the four spirit diagrams, the only one that he had mastered completely was the Spirit Gathering diagram.

He had spent an endless amount of energy and broken hundreds of spirit tablets on the Spirit Gathering diagram. His deep understanding of the Spirit Gathering diagram had enabled him to reach the level where he could draw its networks with perfect precision!

From a broad point of view, the Spirit Gathering diagram would vaguely appear to be in the shape of a whirlpool. The spirit lines on the outside formed many circles of their own and they all shrinked towards the inside like a screw or a standing funnel...

Spirit Gathering, Spirit Gathering… Only a vortex shape could more easily gather and attract spirit energy, and if you think about it closely, isn’t the Spirit Gathering diagram in the shape of a whirlpool?

With his spirit energy acting as the lines, his dantian’s spirit sea acting as the spirit tablet, and his mind consciousness acting as the moving pen, could he inscribe a Spirit Gathering diagram out?

The moment this thought was born, he could not suppress it any longer!

Qin Lie closed his eyes again and fell into a meditative state inside the dark room. His mind consciousness dove into his dantian’s spirit sea, and once again, he was met with the sight of the vast spirit sea...

Amidst the vast sea and clouds, his spirit energy was the clouds, and they filled every corner in his dantian and flowed in accordance with his thoughts.

His wisp of consciousness was like a drawing pen and a rope. Brimming with spirit energy, it began sketching an outline in midair and directed the flow of spirit energy in this vast land into clear spirit lines...

He began drawing the Spirit Gathering diagram he was most familiar with inside his dantian’s spirit sea and became completely fixated on the task.

At this moment, if there was someone who could enter his dantian’s spirit sea, they would be astonished to discover that the normally scattered and disorderly spirit energy was now seemingly tied into twisting lines.

These lines flowed about like a snake, leaving clear lines in the vast world of his dantian. The tracks grew more and more numerous, sometimes crisscrossing each other, sometimes connecting between the head and tail, and sometimes sliding in parallel...

Vaguely, a stereoscopic Spirit Gathering diagram was gradually formed inside his dantian!

Throughout the process he made no mistakes, and every spirit thread was aligned with maximum precision!

Finally, the gathered spirit energy and clumped out clouds no longer showed any signs of dissipation!

He had done it in one go!

“Boom!”

The moment the Spirit Gathering diagram was formed, the strange sounds of spirit energy expanding began to come from inside Qin Lie’s dantian’s spirit sea. In the next moment, the Spirit Gathering diagram began to spin faster and faster like a real vortex.

Qin Lie’s mind consciousness was immediately swept out, and he could no longer detect the situation inside his dantian’s spirit sea.

However, he could feel that a storm had begun inside his dantian’s spirit sea, and it was undergoing an amazing transformation that he could not predict the outcome of!

He could not see it with his mind, but he could feel it with his body. He vaguely felt that the Spirit Gathering diagram he had drawn inside his dantian’s spirit sea was automatically corrected by a small degree by his dantian’s spirit sea to the optimum state, the state that was most suitable for his dantian’s spirit sea!

His dantian became more and more painful, but his eyes grew brighter and brighter!

On the outside, the mottled moonlight beneath the tree had turned into daylight. The night had passed away quietly, and a new day had long since arrived.

He was not bothered by the passage of time at all, and he continued to concentrate and slowly experience even the slightest changes inside his dantian’s spirit sea...

When the sun hung high in the sky, his mind consciousness that had been swept away was finally allowed to enter his dantian’s spirit sea once more.

He could finally see what had happened inside.

There was a hurricane-like whirlpool that was situated inside the spirit clouds within his dantian’s spirit sea. The vortex’s structure appeared similar to the Spirit Gathering diagram, yet it had a few differences of its own. It was as if it was corrected by the natural guidance of his dantian’s spirit sea so that it would turn into a state most suitable for it...

The vortex sat in the center of his dantian’s spirit sea. The moment he gathered his strength, the vortex would spin and suck in the clusters of spirit clouds.

Through continuous spinning and continuous tempering, the vortex caused the spirit energy to turn impossibly refined and even more condensed than before!

Qin Lie’s eyes were incomparably bright, and his body was also slightly shuddering; a look of ecstasy appeared on his face.

He suddenly remembered his grandfather’s words many years ago.

“A spirit diagram is the core of artifacts, but do you know where spirit diagrams come from? It is rumored that the very first spirit diagram was the result of a strong expert perceiving the laws of the world, capturing nature’s network, polishing, and inscribing upon his own experiences. After billions of attempts, it slowly evolved to what it is right now.

“The strongest and most mysterious spirit diagrams were not created out of thin air. They were cultivated from the hands of heaven by following the laws of nature and observing the world’s supreme principles.

“Everything in the world, from the famous mountains and great rivers, to the vast and endless galaxy, are actually all filled with spirit diagrams. The celestial bodies in the sky are spirit diagrams, and their orbits are the flow of the spirit lines. When you look at this world from the sky, you will realize that the rivers are spirit lines, the mountain ranges are also spirit lines, and the earth itself is a spirit diagram.

“The meridians in a martial practitioner’s body is also a spirit diagram, and the nerves in our brains is the most complex and mysterious spirit diagram of them all. If you look carefully, then you will see that spirit diagrams exist everywhere in the world!

“If someone could completely grasp the world’s natural laws and its changes, then Artificers would be able to create a completely new spirit diagram that contains the supreme principles themselves! Now that is the truth zenith of spirit diagrams! The ancient sages of the past, the very first Artificers, the most complex and wondrous spirit diagrams, they all exist because of this!

“True spirit diagrams, are the supreme principles and the laws of the world. This was simply the same with the cultivation of the martial way!”

Back in those days, Qin Shan would often talk about some ridiculously convoluted topics while he was cultivating until he was completely confused, and no matter how hard he tried, he just could not make heads or tails of it.

A few years had passed, and when he recalled Qin Shan’s words once more, they had finally played their due role!

At this moment, Qin Lie finally realized why Qin Shan would often soliloquize and say all those things that sounded completely alien to him when he was cultivating.

Qin Shan was forcefully implanting the essence of his deepest experiences right into his head!

And it was only on this day, this very moment, that he finally realized it!

“All things are diagrams, and the supreme principles are interconnected!”

Qin Lie exclaimed in a low tone, and his face radiated with a kind of new found glory. It was as if he had suddenly understood a deep truth.

“It’s not that Grandpa didn’t teach me anything; it’s just that he had already told me the most important things since a long time ago. How laughable I am to not have understood this until now.”