Chapter 075

Chapter 75: Innate Spirit Bone

Elders Wu Jing and Wu Xin carried the frozen Wu Xu away to find a method to undo the ice. Soon after, Yu Chun also left. Around Miao Lake, only Dou Ming and the other disciples remained with Ye Qian.

The house that had hung over the water had been left cracked and swaying. After Pei Xuan left, it crashed down in a roar and became a pile of ruins.

Dou Ming stood at the shore with Ye Qian on his back. He stared at the ruined pavilion in the lake’s center and the wreckage everywhere. For a long time he said nothing. At last his voice came out dry and rough: “Little…”

He wanted to ask if she had failed her own Core Formation and then framed Ye Wan Wan, but the words would not leave his mouth. [And if it really was her?] [So what.] [Things are already like this.]

Many of them had guessed the answer in their hearts, more or less. They simply had not wanted to believe. And that person had used death to prove the truth. She had not been wrong. They had.

Dou Ming changed the subject and said, steady and low: “I will take you to heal. When master comes out, we will think of a way.” No matter what, he could not abandon Ye Qian again.

But Ye Qian suddenly gripped his shoulder: “Take me to the Archive Pavilion.”

Dou Ming frowned: “In your condition, why go to the Archive Pavilion?”

Her eyes were bloodshot. “Send me there.”

She clutched harder and spoke through her teeth, each word cold and iron: “Take. Me. There.”

Dou Ming’s heart gave a lurch. [This Ye Qian feels like a stranger.]

The Supreme Sect’s Archive Pavilion had five floors. The first and second could be browsed freely by disciples in the Qi Refining Stage and Foundation Establishment Stage. The third required Golden Core cultivation or being a personal disciple. The fourth demanded Late Golden Core Stage. The fifth, only Nascent Soul could enter, and it held the highest-level manuals.

Ye Qian drove Dou Ming away at the door and went in alone. She stepped onto the first floor, but did not head for the second, much less the third where only personal disciples could go. Instead, she walked to the deepest corner of the Archive Pavilion, opened a hidden door, and followed a passage underground.

She moved slowly, staggering. With each step, blood seeped from the wound in her abdomen, yet she did not hesitate. She had to go down.

In the empty cavern, Ye Qian shouted: “Come out!”

“I know you are here!”

Black mist surged and coiled around her.

A raspy laugh floated from the dark: “Heh heh, why so angry all of a sudden?”

Ye Qian snatched at the book hidden in the mist. The book trembled, trying to fly free, but she held on with both hands. Her voice cracked: “A withered spiritual root? You sucked away my spiritual root! Was it you?”

She shouted, throat raw. Her failed Core Formation had been because of this thing. Because of it.

“I pulled you up from the riverbed. You drank the power of my spiritual root and never told me. My failure at Core Formation was not my own fault. It was you!” Her face twisted. “You ruined me!”

Ye Qian hurled the Black Book to the ground and stomped it like a madwoman: “Why would you treat me like this? I helped you break the Self Sealing. I brought you out. I placed you in the Archive Pavilion where the qi is rich so you could nourish your soul. Why do this to me!”

Tears streamed without stopping. She dropped to her knees and broke into sobs. [I am not worse than Ye Wan Wan. I am just unlucky.] She was horribly, painfully unlucky.

Her crying turned to a wail.

Black mist leaked again from the book, and a gloomy voice said: “Little girl, be fair. Without my help, how could you possibly have formed a core at fifteen?”

“But I failed!” Ye Qian screamed.

“You lacked the talent. You forced Core Formation. Of course you failed,” the mist replied.

Ye Qian’s eyes burned with hate: “Pei Xuan said my spiritual root has withered. He does not lie. So it was you!”

The mist swam around her and giggled: “If you want to be a genius, you must pay a price. If you want to be the main character of this world, you must give up something. Do you think you are Ye Wan Wan, born with a Full Spiritual Root and good at everything? You are not.”

The taunting voice pushed Ye Qian over the edge. She clutched the mist and hissed: “Give back my spiritual root. Give back my Golden Core. Give it back, or I will dig up the bones buried here and burn them. I will use an Alchemy furnace and roast you little by little.”

Hate filled her hands as she seized the black mist. She did not slow. Gathering qi to her fingers, she cut the floor with a blade of light. The ground split, revealing half a skull, cold and slick with black miasma, buried deep below.

Ye Qian stared at that thing. It had changed her life. It had also destroyed it. At eight years old, at the foot of the Supreme Sect’s mountain, she had found it. From then on, she walked the road of a “genius,” and at the same time lost her chance to become an immortal.

The black mist’s tone softened: “Girl, you cannot blame me for everything. I told you not to force Core Formation. Wait two years and your odds would be better. But you insisted on breaking Ye Wan Wan’s record. Are genius records so easy to break? Even your master Yan Ding cannot match her talent. Why compete with her?”

“She is not the only person who formed a Golden Core at fifteen!” Ye Qian roared. She would not let this thing praise Ye Wan Wan even once. She would not listen.

She did not know there is a saying called “praise to kill.” The mist was not praising. It was feeding her hatred of Ye Wan Wan.

“Oho, there is another genius like that?” the mist asked, suddenly interested. “Who?”

Ye Qian’s face went cold: “My Golden Core was dug out. My cultivation is collapsing. In less than a month I will drop back to the Qi Refining Stage. You will find a way, or we die together.”

She reached into the air with Aether Grasp, seized the skull, and turned to leave the Archive Pavilion. She would tell Yan Ding and Cheng Wen everything. She would tell them that the Supreme Sect hid such an evil thing.

The mist sighed: “Why are you in such a hurry? I never said there was no way.”

“Speak,” Ye Qian said.

“Then this.”

From the mist, a spiritual root appeared, golden and shining, with a faint coil of black qi around it.

Ye Qian frowned. She could feel the power inside it, but also a prickling sense of doom.

“Do you know what lies above a Heaven Grade Spiritual Root?” the mist asked.

“What?”

“An Immortal Spirit Root.”

Ye Qian blinked: “An immortal spirit root?”

“Yes,” the voice said with a smile she could hear. “It is stronger than Ye Wan Wan’s. If you possess it, in less than half a year you will not only return to the Golden Core realm, you will climb higher.”

Ye Qian’s heart stirred: “Really?”

“Of course. But it has one drawback,” the mist coaxed like a devil. “It is too strong. Your mortal body cannot bear it. If you want to fuse it perfectly, you must find an Innate Spirit Bone.”

“What is that?” Ye Qian asked.

“This Old Heaven plays favorites,” the mist crooned. “Some people are born with special love. One kind is a natural genius like Ye Wan Wan. Another kind is a child born with an Innate Spirit Bone. Such a child has boundless strength from birth. Without any Body Refining, their flesh can rival a High Grade spirit tool. If their spirit bone is fully developed, they can even charge toward the immortal path.” The mist’s whisper grew eager: “That is the body best suited to bear an Immortal Spirit Root.”