Seduction.
Long Chen had a hard time grasping it. After studying it for two days, he realized it needed mastery of one’s Qi. The information that had been passed to him had taught him that there were countless meridians in the eyeball, which were extremely tiny and more complicated than the rest of the meridians in the body. If he could control the flow of Qi perfectly through these meridians, he would be able to unleash unfathomable power.
This was the core concept of an eye technique.
The Soul Swallowing Gaze was undeniably a top-tier technique, so it required mastery of Qi on a level beyond the average eye technique. Long Chen could understand its texts, but he needed to cultivate it over and over again. Five days passed, and he had made more than a hundred mistakes. Every time he did something wrong, he was met with fatal pain, and his eyes even bled a few times. Thankfully, he had Recovery, which could heal such small and delicate wounds. Plus, he carried responsibilities on his shoulders, so he gritted his teeth and continued to cultivate.
On the sixth day, he completed Seduction for the first time. His progress was smooth after that, and he quickly learned how to use the late stage. However, his eyes had bled more than two hundred times in the process, and he endured the grueling pain each time.
When Long Chen opened his eyes, an ink-green light was flowing in them. An ancient and complex image appeared in his pupils, though without close inspection, it was hard to tell what it was. But he knew that it was the ancient form of the “confusion” character. Although it was a long-lost, ancient character that Long Chen didn’t recognize, he learned it from the information he had received in his brain.
Soul Snatching.
Soul Snatching, which formed the second layer, wasn’t as difficult as he envisioned. It was perhaps because he had experience cultivating the first layer, and he had made huge progress in his ability to control his Qi through minute spaces. Soul Snatching required the ability to generate a huge force with his Qi.
Long Chen took seven days to complete the cultivation of Soul Snatching. He had spent twelve days cultivating the Soul Swallowing Gaze so far, but Li Xuanji was not awake yet.
He couldn’t cultivate any deeper, and Li Xuanji had said that he could only reach the second layer at his current cultivation level. If he cultivated the third layer, he would suffer greatly. However, he needed to spend more effort deepening his cultivation of Seduction and Soul Snatching.
After gaining a deeper understanding, the ancient character for “snatch” appeared in his pupils when he used Soul Snatching.
Although Yang Lingqing’s safety was still on his mind, he had matured greatly after the Star Devil Prison incident and knew that no matter how worried he was, he had to stabilize his emotions. Li Xuanji was greatly concerned about recovering her strength, so he would definitely be killed if he disturbed her. Therefore, once he finished cultivating the Soul Swallowing Gaze, he turned to cultivating the Azure Dragon Combat Technique.
The techniques he had to learn were Split Yellow River, Shattered Skies, and Starsweep Dragon, but he could only use one of them.
Therefore, he took out the Azure Dragon Halberd and started practicing Shattered Skies and Starsweep Dragon. Shattered Skies was a continuation of Split Yellow River, and using both consecutively would unleash an even stronger power. However, those were the Azure Dragon Halberd’s foundation techniques, while Starsweep Dragon was just the simplest technique in the Azure Dragon Combat Technique.
Time slipped by. Long Chen’s trump card was slowly strengthening. During this time, he truly felt what it meant to be alone, because the cultivating Li Xuanji was like a rock, losing all signs of life. Ling Xi was still in her unconscious state, and he didn’t know how to wake her up.
The sense of emptiness in his heart was filled with fervent cultivation.
He cultivated like a madman without regard to night and day. Afraid that he might disturb Li Xuanji, he ran to a spot on the coffin that was farther away from her. There was only darkness around him, and other than the expanse of soil, he could only see five stars in the sky.
Long Chen cultivated vigorously, dragging deep gutters in the soil with his halberd, which led to net-like cracks.
In the blink of an eye, twenty-seven days had passed since Li Xuanji started cultivating. On this day, he successfully mastered Starsweep Dragon. No one in the history of Yuanling County had ever, as a mid Earthly Core Realm cultivator, jumped six levels ahead to cultivate an Earth-tier technique.
“Beitang Mo! If I get back and notice that you touched even one hair on Xiao Qing’er’s head, I’ll use the Azure Dragon Halberd to chop you to pieces!” Long Chen roared.
“Xiao Qing’er? Is she a girl you like?” a cold voice said from behind him. He turned around and saw Li Xuanji. She had finally ended her cultivation, which also meant that they could finally leave.
She initially thought he liked the strange sword spirit, but now that he had mentioned another name, she was disgusted.
“She’s my younger cousin.” He put the Azure Dragon Halberd away and said, “I have successfully cultivated the first two levels. As long as we leave this place, I’ll help you collect the souls. However, I have a request. I’d like to confirm my cousin’s safety before leaving. She’s up there, not far away. It won’t cause any delays.”
When she heard that she was his cousin, Li Xuanji’s expression relaxed. She wasn’t in that much of a hurry, so she said, “Alright. Seeing as you care for her, I’ll allow it.”
She waved her hand, and a powerful force rushed towards him, as if going to envelop him. Startled, he readied to fight back but realized that it was gentle. When it entered his body, he realized that the energy was extremely pure, and its gentle fluidity resembled the medicinal power that entered him when he ate the Ascension Fruit.
Li Xuanji’s voice rang faintly in his ear. “Refine this power and turn it into your own Qi.”
He hurriedly started refining it, turning the non-elemental power into his own Dragon Soul Qi. The power she had provided was stable and plentiful, so his Qi grew quickly. Half a day later, he found himself at the late Earthly Core Realm, the same level as Dongfang Tianyu!
But he continued to grow stronger!
Li Xuanji continued to send power into his body, and he felt like he was about to explode. All he could do was refine it continuously. Time flowed, and in the blink of an eye, one day and one night had passed. The power in his body surged until it reached a boundary. Boom! His Earthly Core shattered and surged angrily along with the blood-red Qi inside him.
The Qi aggregated and finally condensed into a Heavenly Core, which was the size of a little finger. While absorbing the Qi of heaven and earth, he continuously compressed his core. As he progressed from the Human Core to the Heavenly Core Realm, it had shrunk several times. However, the Qi it contained, and its explosive energy, were more than a hundred times greater than when he was at the Human Core Realm.
“Have I really reached the Heavenly Core Realm?” Long Chen momentarily couldn’t comprehend that this was reality. In the inner family, the Heavenly Core Realm was considered the level of an ultimate prodigy, only two levels away from Mo Xiaolang. He was already on Dongfang Tianxuan’s level. Out of all the youths in the Lingwu family, only Mo Xiaolang and four others were ahead of him.
Most importantly, he had completely mastered the Azure Dragon Halberd and learned the Earth-tier Starsweep Dragon, as well as the Nine Dragon Flashes and Recovery. With the Inherited Blood Essence’s Dragon Soul Transformation and the Blood Devouring Domain, as well as Li Xuanji’s Soul Swallowing Gaze, his overall strength had soared to a lofty level.
Just taking Dongfang Tianchen into consideration, he’s at the mid Heavenly Core Realm and his Qi is similar to mine when I use the Dragon Soul Transformation. Although he has practiced the Azure Dragon Combat Technique, he’s definitely not as strong as me with the Azure Dragon Halberd!
He grew emotional. If he could defeat Dongfang Tianchen, that meant he could kill Beitang Mo if Beitang Mo pushed him too hard.
“Lingqing, wait for me.” Determination filled his eyes. At the same time, he was grateful towards Li Xuanji. The Ling Xi Sword had broken the ancient coffin, but that was just a coincidence. Not only had Li Xuanji not killed him, she had given him the Soul Swallowing Gaze and let him level up twice.
Entering the Heavenly Core Realm meant that he had truly become one of the ultimate prodigies of Yuanling County, even approaching the masters of the older generation, like the late Heavenly Core Realm Dongfang Xuanyu, who was one of the less talented ones.
“Let’s go.” Li Xuanji’s power wrapped him, and he ascended in a straight line, his clothes flapping loudly.
The fact that Li Xuanji could fly was no longer an astonishing thing to him. She was already a magical and mysterious person, so flying him out of the Star Devil Prison didn’t seem like a difficult task for her.
Now that he was fully conscious, he realized that he had fallen very deep, basically like falling from the sky to the ground. Now he was flying from the ground back to the sky.
She flew extremely quickly, but it still took them half a day to finally arrive at the Transit Hall. Standing at the Transit Hall, he turned to look at the infinite abyss. He thought about how he had survived under such circumstances, even though he found it hard to believe.
“Next, I’ll go see Lingqing …” Long Chen didn’t know what was next, but he was now most worried about Yang Lingqing. However, he had a sneaky thought. As long as Li Xuanji was with him, no one in the Cangyang Kingdom could kill him. Not even the four Patriarchs.
That was the reason why Long Chen wanted to see Yang Lingqing before collecting the souls.
After focusing himself, he left via the black hole. When he arrived at the Heavenly Martial Realm, he first saw the armored guards, though there were only three of them. The missing guard was the Beitang guard who wore the Black Tortoise armor.
“Long Chen!” Yang Honghai and the others were so shocked that they yelled when they saw him appear abruptly.
Long Chen was dead—that was a fact. He had fallen into the Star Devil Prison, and no one was naïve enough to think he would return alive.
Yet he was here, alive.
And not only had he become stronger, there was also a fierce-looking girl behind him.
