Chapter 55
Chapter 55: The Secrets of Aptitude
Shao Heng stood in the pure-white void and sensed she still had time left.
She didn’t waste it. She pressed the gold-inlaid jade scroll to her forehead, and the true meaning poured into her mind.
Mid-grade immortal art: Great Expansion Spirit-Refining Art.
All connections unmoving; keep a single intent at the center.
Expand the sea of consciousness beyond the Niwan, using it as a millstone to temper a cultivator’s divine sense. There are three levels.
At the first level, intent follows the heart. You can weave threads of divine sense and control all things like puppets.
At the second level, divine sense becomes weapons and kills without form.
At the third level, you shift form and swap shadows, change heaven and earth, and with a single thought, nothing is beyond reach.
“It’s actually a mid-grade immortal art!”
Joy surged through her. The true meaning stored in the scroll faded quickly, yet it wasn’t erased. When only a thin wisp remained, the scroll slid from her fingers and floated back to where it had been.
So that was the trick.
Like chives—cut them and they grew back, as long as you didn’t tear out the roots.
Now Shao Heng finally understood why, after the Mystic Moon Secret Realm had opened hundreds of times and countless geniuses had come through, this immortal art could still be left behind. The remaining wisps of true meaning could be nourished in this space, renewing again and again.
She didn’t rush to leave. Instead, she shoved up her sleeve, yanked out the little White Dragon coiled around her arm, pried open its mouth, and fished out three Shattered Moons.
“Hmph!”
Ao Chuan thrashed, furious at how rough she was being.
Shao Heng was even faster. She lifted its tongue, felt around, and pinched out the fourth crystal it had tried to stash away.
“Still daring to hide one?”
She used a Dust-Cleansing Technique, cleaning all four Shattered Moons and her hands, then slapped the dragon across the snout.
“Count yourself lucky. If you actually swallowed one of my Shattered Moons, I’d peel you alive.”
The little dragon was thick-skinned and shameless. It argued on principle. “If it weren’t for me, how could you have stolen four Shattered Moons right under their noses? I want some too!”
“If it weren’t for me, Yin Liu would’ve cut you down to the roots back then.”
Shao Heng gave it a slanted look. “You’re alive because I spared you. What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is still mine. And don’t forget—these days you’ve been eating my food and drinking my water.”
Ao Chuan’s glare faltered. It turned into a dragon tattoo again and coiled around her right arm.
Only then did she study the four Shattered Moons.
They were silvery-gray crystals of different shapes and sizes. They weren’t clear or transparent, yet they carried an indescribable depth, like tiny comets with stardust swirling inside.
Shao Heng touched one Shattered Moon. Her power flowed from her fingertip like threads, wrapping it tight and drawing the force inside into her body.
A cool, heavy power sank into her flesh. Her Niwan flickered faintly as a portion of moon essence was stripped out—pure beyond belief. Her mind became clearer than ever, and Shao Heng closed her eyes.
Just the refined moon essence in this one Shattered Moon surpassed two months of her nightly cultivation. It would take time to carefully refine it completely.
What remained was starlight power, which looked like violet mist when she examined it within.
At the same time, Shao Heng felt something inside her being rapidly stirred—no, awakened.
Her power cycled through her body with unprecedented speed. Blood roared through her veins, turning hot and red. Ao Chuan automatically slipped off her arm, staring at Shao Heng with wary slit pupils, afraid she might collapse.
That damned Blood Pact Yin Liu had forced on it made it a subordinate servant. If Shao Heng, the one in the master seat, died, the backlash would strike immediately and drag it down with her.
Cracks appeared across Shao Heng’s dragon-blood-tempered body, as if it were about to shatter. Yet each time they formed, a sweep of emerald light passed over them and sealed them whole. The overwhelming vitality from the Azure Emperor kept yanking her back from the brink.
Ao Chuan cursed aloud, voice shaking with panic. “Are you blinking in and out on the Life and Death Register or what?!”
Its own heart pounded hard.
Shao Heng stayed like that for about a quarter hour, then suddenly snapped her eyes open and spread her right palm.
Moonlight, sunlight, starlit mist.
Three completely different forces spun around each other, forming a vortex that kept condensing.
There was no violent collision like there should have been. The three threads intertwined and fused perfectly, until a radiant beam formed, brilliant as crystal.
Ao Chuan stared, shocked. “That’s not right! In my bloodline inheritance, how could Tai Yin, the sun, and the stars ever merge? Even in ancient times there’s no record of this. Only Three Lights Divine Water has a similar change.”
As for Three Lights Divine Water, when split into Sunlight Divine Water, Moonlight Divine Water, and Starlight Divine Water, each part was a peerless poison. Even a Third Realm great expert could be slaughtered by it.
But combined, it became the highest holy medicine, able to neutralize any poison and heal any wound.
Yet what Ao Chuan sensed from the radiant beam in Shao Heng’s palm was an utterly pure force. It had nothing to do with Three Lights Divine Water’s nature.
When Shao Heng aimed it at Ao Chuan, pain stabbed through its whole body. Every scale trembled. It immediately gave in and blurted, “Big Sister Shao Heng, Little Dragon will do whatever you say. Just don’t point that thing at me!”
Shao Heng nodded in satisfaction. A smile tugged at her lips.
This was her power.
Sun, moon, and stars could all be used by her, and inside her body they reached perfect balance. This was her strongest killing move.
She raised her hand and blasted the radiant beam into the pure white space. A massive crater formed in the wall. The wall writhed, clearly trying to heal itself, but the power clung to it and blocked it from recovering.
The next instant, Shao Heng and dragon alike were tossed out.
Caught off guard, Shao Heng crashed face-first. Her backside hurt too, like it had hit something hard. When she reached back, she found Little Dragon had been squashed slightly flat, staring at her in accusation.
“This is your fault. You hurt me.”
Ao Chuan ground its teeth at the shamelessness.
But it also remembered that terrifying radiant beam. Its bloodline instincts had been screaming at it not to touch it. As a noble True Dragon, arguing now was meaningless.
It chose to submit again.
“I was wrong.”
Ao Chuan was both angry and humiliated, and in the end it chose to be humiliated in anger. It slipped back onto her arm and became a dragon tattoo again.
Shao Heng gave a faint snort.
Death qi could torment Ao Chuan, but a pure-blood True Dragon’s lineage really was tough. With her current cultivation, the death qi she could produce still wasn’t enough to truly take its life.
And the Blood Pact had been forcibly imposed by Yin Liu. Ao Chuan had accepted it passively, its heart full of resentment.
Only now, when Shao Heng truly held power that could suppress and kill it, did Ao Chuan’s attitude naturally change.
So what if a heavenly devil was proud and untamed? If she was strong enough, then one day even the entire True Dragon clan would take pride in the words: Shao Heng is Ao Chuan’s master.
“At this stage, I can absorb the starlight power inside Shattered Moon, but in the long run, I have to obtain a method for drawing in starlight as soon as possible.”
Shao Heng stood, eyes bright, staring into the distance.
“In the secret realm I can only draw in moonlight. Sunlight depends on what I accumulated before, and starlight depends on Shattered Moon. I have to use all of it sparingly.”
“But once I fuse the three powers… judging by the might of that test strike, it should be enough to threaten someone like Zhao Qing Tu at First Realm perfection.”
“Then I’ll finally have the capital to openly compete for fortunes in this secret realm!”
Awooo!