Chapter 60
Chapter 60: Spirit Sense into Threads
After using an escape art to flee nearly 100 li, Shao Heng crashed into the ground hard enough to rattle her bones.
Heat roared through her body. The stump of her left arm burned as if someone had pressed a red-hot brand to the wound. She grit her teeth, forced her breathing steady, and pulled the severed limb from her storage ring.
A cultivator’s flesh, tempered by spiritual power, carried vitality far beyond that of ordinary people. Ao Chuan had retrieved her arm quickly enough that it could still be reattached.
The problem was the metal-aspect power clinging to it—sharp, violent, and relentless—gnawing at its vitality like a swarm of blades.
Shao Heng drew on what little spiritual power remained in her Yellow Sprout. She extended her right hand and let emerald Azure Emperor Spirit Liquid drip over the stump.
The liquid sank into the torn flesh. A dense, living warmth spread outward, and only after several breaths did that stubborn strand of metal qi finally fade.
Shao Heng pressed the severed arm to the wound. Ao Chuan flicked out, his slender white body winding around her upper arm like a cord, cinching it tight so the flesh wouldn’t slip.
She took out two Rejuvenation Pills, crushed them into powder, and sprinkled it over the ragged seam.
As she circulated her spiritual power, qi and blood surged again. Fresh granulation sprouted along the torn edges, wriggling, knitting, pulling. The gap closed bit by bit until the flesh joined.
Only then did she let out the breath she’d been holding.
She tested the reattached left arm with the slightest movement. It responded—stiff, numb, sluggish—but it responded. It would take time, and regular nourishment with Azure Emperor Spirit Liquid, before it truly returned to normal.
Shao Heng lowered her gaze to the jade ring she’d taken earlier. “Little White Dragon, were you telling the truth? There’s Phoenix essence blood hidden inside this ring?”
A Phoenix was an ancient heavenly demon, able to stand alongside True Dragons. Their bodies were among the most perfect dao bodies in the world. Among the Feather Clan, only other heavenly demons like the Golden Crow and Vermilion Bird could compare.
Ao Chuan loosened from her arm and flicked his tail, sounding more wary than confident. “If I sensed wrong, you won’t hit me, right?”
“I’ll just peel off a layer of your skin.”
Her voice was gentler than ever. Her face was perfectly calm.
Ao Chuan froze, then hurriedly said, “Our True Dragon clan and the Phoenix clan have been old rivals for ages. I can’t be wrong. There should be a sealed drop of Phoenix essence blood in that jade ring. At least half the power in that cultivator’s fire-aspect spells earlier came from the ring boosting him.”
He hesitated, then added quickly, “Don’t you also cultivate fire-aspect immortal arts? Once you refine the ring, it can boost your spells too.”
“A jade ring like this isn’t considered an artifact, but it has strange effects. Your Human Clan calls it a ‘secret treasure.’ It doesn’t have a fixed grade.” Ao Chuan lifted his chin as if making an official proclamation. “Just the Phoenix essence blood inside is worth no less than a Third-Grade artifact.”
Shao Heng’s expression didn’t change, but her mind sharpened.
Essence blood was the concentrated core of a living being’s vitality, qi, and spirit. It was nothing like ordinary blood. Back then, Yun Jiang had charged into the white mist for one thing only: Ao Chuan’s True Dragon essence blood.
After a brief silence, Shao Heng said, “Then if I destroy this jade ring, I can take the Phoenix essence blood and refine it to advance my cultivation.”
Ao Chuan scratched his head with one claw. “No need, right?”
“The strongest heavenly demon art of the Phoenix line is ‘Nirvana Through Fire.’ Phoenix blood is packed with life force.” His tone turned earnest. “Keep the ring for now. If you ever suffer an injury that can’t be healed, that Phoenix essence blood might work wonders.”
Knowledge like that rarely appeared in books. Ao Chuan only knew it because of bloodline inheritance.
Shao Heng weighed it, then put the jade ring away. She glanced at Ao Chuan and smiled. “I’ll count this as merit for you.”
She took out a Thick Earth Ginseng and tossed it over.
Ao Chuan proudly lifted his tail, raised his head, and swallowed it in one gulp, chewing with a smug little shake.
The fury of having her arm severed still sat heavy in Shao Heng’s chest. It hadn’t cooled. If anything, it burned cleaner now—fuel instead of noise.
She didn’t linger. With her body drained and her arm freshly reattached, she found a secluded cave nearby and slipped inside. From her storage ring, she produced a pale violet formation plate engraved with a low-tier Second-Grade Golden Smoke Locking Cloud Formation.
Shao Heng sat down and crossed her legs. Spirit stones dropped around her one by one as she ran the Origin-Nourishing Qi-Raising Art, drawing in their qi and cycling it through her meridians.
At the same time, she turned her attention inward—to the Niwan Palace.
Before reaching the Third Realm’s Purple Palace, the Niwan Palace remained sealed. A cultivator still relied on spirit sense.
The Great Expansion Spirit-Refining Art was meant to temper divine sense, but it could temper spirit sense as well. When she reached the Third Realm and her spirit sense transformed, the foundation she laid now would repay her many times over.
This mind-tempering method was exquisitely subtle. Outside the sealed Niwan Palace, it opened a sea of consciousness—like a furnace and a millstone—where each strand of spirit sense was hammered, ground, refined. That was its first principle.
The second principle was control.
Shao Heng had been born with unusually strong spirit sense. Yet compared to the precision recorded in an immortal art, she finally understood how crude her previous use had been—reckless, rough, wasteful.
The first layer of this Mid-Grade immortal art required her to split her spirit sense into threads, like puppet strings, able to carry out whatever she willed.
She had already formed the sea of consciousness. Her spiritual power cycle had stabilized. She drew out a sliver of focus and began.
She forced a single strand of spirit sense to split into two.
It scattered instantly, as if it might shatter.
A dull ache pulsed behind her eyes. Shao Heng silently recited the art formula. Brilliant characters surfaced in her sea of consciousness and settled onto the two threads like seals.
The spirit sense—pale and nearly transparent—turned gold.
Moonlight essence seeped from her Niwan Palace and flowed into it. The scattered haze condensed into something real, something that could endure.
She steadied her breathing, eyes half-lidded. “Just splitting once already feels like my skull is cracking. To truly master the first layer, I’ll need eight consecutive splits—256 spirit-sense threads.”
“And my spirit sense has to be dense and tough enough to survive each split. If it collapses, the backlash will be severe.”
She didn’t allow herself to flinch at the danger. She refined the two threads according to the method, slowly, carefully, until they stabilized.
By the time she finished, more than 90 percent of her spiritual power had recovered.
Shao Heng rose and rolled her shoulders. The charred skin left by the Blazing Flame Talisman was peeling away. Her reattached left arm still needed regular nourishment with Azure Emperor Spirit Liquid.
Ao Chuan coiled around her right arm again, settling into the shape of a dragon tattoo.
“That cultivator shouldn’t be doing well either,” Shao Heng said softly.
Ao Chuan snorted in satisfaction. “That arrow of mine grazed his qi sea and dantian. The wound won’t heal. Every time he cultivates and spiritual power pours into his qi sea, it’ll leak out. It’ll hold him back.”
His tone turned smug. “Hmph. Does he really think I’m easy to bully?”
Shao Heng put away the formation plate and stepped out of the cave.
The moment she lifted her eyes, she paused.
When she first entered the secret realm, a full moon had hung in the sky. Now it had waned to a thin crescent.
“I thought the moon in this secret realm was shaped by the realm’s rules,” she murmured, gaze fixed upward. “But it’s changing phases like a real moon. Could it be the true Tai Yin Star?”
A secret realm was a small world. By the records she’d read, it shouldn’t behave this way.
The thought pricked at her, sharp and unsettling, but she pressed it down. Some mysteries weren’t solved by staring at the sky.
She released her spirit sense—now tempered by an immortal art—and compared the richness of qi she sensed to the markings on her silk map. Factoring in the earlier forest’s position, she chose a direction.
East.
Time was precious. She could rest, but Shattered Moon and rare herbs wouldn’t wait for her to gather herself.
Before long, Shao Heng reached a lake.
Under the moonlight, dark green lotus leaves blanketed the surface. White lotuses bloomed among them, their petals faintly luminous. A breeze slipped across the water, and ripples spread in overlapping rings.
Shao Heng stood at the shore and studied the leaves and flowers. They carried a trace of qi, but they weren’t precious herbs.
Then she noticed figures constantly breaking the surface—some leaping out, others diving in. The dense qi she sensed wasn’t coming from the lotus leaves at all.
It was coming from the lakebed.
“You’re also a disciple of the One Yuan Sect? What’s your name?”
Shao Heng turned toward the voice.
A girl stood nearby, eyes fixed on her, clearly addressing her. She looked 17 or 18, dressed in robes tinted like watercolor. When she moved, she floated like a pink lotus unfolding.
Her face was round and pale as silver, her eyes bright as stars. Her beauty was poised, refined.
In looks alone, she was one of the few who could stand alongside Li Chao Ge.
More striking still was the spiritual power she didn’t bother to conceal—peak First Realm, well over 900 furnaces of power.