Stealing Immortal

[Nanming Red Emperor’s Celestial Burning and Sea Boiling Daoist Truth: (15,394/120,000)]

[Available Immortal Seedlings: 691]

The progress on this technique had grown considerably, all thanks to his encounter with Master Miaoyou. However, the recent turn of events left Chen Qingyang with a lingering fear, especially for someone who was always so cautious.

The methods of the Masters were still beyond his expectations. After all, he wasn’t one of them. In his past dealings with Essence Condensation Cultivators, he had never encountered such problems. But after provoking a Foundation Establishment Master, his vulnerabilities were becoming more and more exposed.

In his judgment, Master Miaoyou would definitely find out that the Earth Deity had been stolen. As for who would fall under suspicion, that was hard to say. In any case, Chen Qingyang had to warn himself not to return to this place for at least three to five years.

If his opponent laid a trap, he would have no way to escape. It was safer on Cyan Bamboo Peak.

…

At this moment, he had no idea where he was.

Before him lay an endless darkness. He couldn’t sense any aura, making it even more terrifying than the Five Elements Cave Mansion.

He wanted to find a way out, but despite trying to move up, down, left, and right, he had no success. As time went on, if not for the fact that his real body was still outside, he would have begun to suspect, ‘Am I already dead?!’

A sense of loneliness welled up within him. It felt as if he were the only thing left in the entire universe.

There was no change in time or space. It felt as though moving forward was a dead end, so the Conscious Fish stopped moving.

Meanwhile, back in the valley, Chen Qingyang was lost in deep thought.

He felt as if his Conscious Fish was trapped, never to escape. Back when he was caught in Xu Lingfeng’s Copper Mirror, he at least had some power he could use and knew how to retreat.

Now, however, he was powerless.

The wind howled above his head. On the mountain’s Golden Summit, Star Power was gathering once more. It turned out that the gate to the Sumeru Secret Realm had opened, and countless cultivators were emerging. The Essence Splitting assembly, it seemed, was over.

His Conscious Fish could no longer blend in with the crowd and use them as cover to escape.

Just as this thought crossed his mind, a tiny change occurred within that black expanse.

It was a gust of wind blowing toward him. It was incredibly faint, but he felt it with perfect clarity.

Then, a speck of white light, as faint as a firefly, appeared before his eyes.

Then, the wind stirred, and the speck of light froze in place.

Then, nothing.

The Conscious Fish extended its Dragon Beard to probe it, but discovered the light was intangible; it couldn’t feel its presence at all.

‘What is going on? There was a change, but now there’s no change. And where am I?’

If this place were related to the Circulation of Stars Demon Suppression Array, he should have been able to sense a corresponding Qi Mechanism. But right now… there was still nothing.

Then, another halo of light appeared in the darkness. This one was black, yet somehow, he could bizarrely make out its color clearly. It was slowly, deliberately, moving toward the white speck.

It was the only thing he could perceive in relative motion, and it captured his full attention. He could almost feel an unstoppable, monumental force in its movement, and he began to wonder with great anticipation what would happen when they collided.

But right at that moment, they stopped moving again.

He was thoroughly perplexed.

‘Forget it. I should focus on getting out of here first.’

He expended some mental energy and continued searching for a way out. But when he looked back at the two points of light, they were moving. He kept watching, but then they stopped again.

‘This…’

After thinking for a moment, he suddenly understood.

Whether these two points of light moved or remained still depended entirely on him. He had to expend his own Power of the Divine Soul to witness the change. If his Power of the Divine Soul was insufficient, they would remain forever motionless.

Regardless of what this would ultimately become, he gathered his Power of the Divine Soul and stared intently, his gaze burning.

The more power he consumed, the faster the two points of light moved. That monumental force became increasingly apparent, as if two great mountains, two continents, two worlds were about to collide.

There was no sound, only an explosion of the most brilliant colors before his eyes, instantly illuminating the darkness.

The five colors of fire, metal, black, cyan, and yellow were the most prominent, transforming into all sorts of magnificent tapestries. They seemed to be revealing the very origin of the world. Chen Qingyang watched with intense focus, his thoughts becoming preternaturally clear.

It was as if he was coming to understand things he never had before. His comprehension of the universe and everything within it ascended to a new level.

From the Tai Xu Energy-Introducing Technique to the Danxia Nourishing Truth Sword Manual, and even the Nanming Red Emperor’s technique, the Array True Understanding, and various Pill Formulas… everything became crystal clear in that instant.

‘This is… Enlightenment.’

‘This must be the Tai Hao Qingxu Palace.’

‘The black and white points… weren’t they the Yin Yang Eight Trigrams? White is Yang, black is Yin. Their collision was the union of Yin and Yang.’

‘And the dazzling, brilliant colors that followed—wasn’t that the principle of the Five Elements Transforming into Yin and Yang, which in turn give birth to all things in creation?’

Master Miaoyou had unwittingly given him a tremendous opportunity by forcing him into this state.

He discovered that for every bit of power his Divine Soul exerted, the evolution would speed up. And through this evolution, a practitioner’s understanding and realm would be elevated.

It was just as that person had said: the Tai Hao Qingxu Palace could enhance one’s comprehension. But there was a prerequisite—you had to possess a sufficiently powerful Divine Soul. Otherwise, you would comprehend very little, if anything at all.

Fortunately, that had always been Chen Qingyang’s strong suit.

Time passed, drop by drop. The Five Elements were still undergoing incredibly complex transformations, still a long way from giving birth to all of creation. But simply by observing this process, Chen Qingyang’s mastery and understanding of the Power of the Five Elements ascended to a whole new level. This would be of immense benefit to his cultivation of the Inner Nourishing Five Elements Sword.