Chapter 164: Enlightenment!
Zou Yi from the Ghost sect threw the bracelet of holding to Guan Qiu from the Grayvale sect as he clearly didn’t attach any importance to the items within. “I’m not interested in any of the things inside. You guys take it.”
However, a hint of happiness could be seen on Guan Qiu’s face after he caught the bracelet of holding.
Unlike Zou Yi, he was from a poor and low background and he didn’t have strong backers in the Grayvale sect. As a result, he didn’t have much prepared before entering the Heaven Gate trial.
Even if there were only a few spirit stones and medicinal pills in the bracelet, he would gladly take them.
Down below, Nie Tian clasped his hands towards Zou Yi and said, “Many thanks. If we loot anything in the future, I’ll leave it all to you. I promise.”
Zou Yi nodded and said no more. He took a glance around the battlefield, targeted another man from the other realms, and dashed straight towards him.
The two experts from the Grayvale sect also didn’t bother to argue with Nie Tian seeing that Kan Xingming was already dead. They also chose their next target and rushed to attack another foreign trial taker.
Besieged by the green flames, Li Fan spared Nie Tian glance, and found to his surprise that he was standing there unscathed, while Kan Xingming, on the contrary, was dead in front of him. He blurted, “I can’t believe you survived…”
“The kid isn’t even injured!” Liu Yan was also shocked at the scene while the two of them were trapped in a small space, continuously evading the erosion of the green flames and looking for a way to break away from them.
“I knew that kid wouldn’t die so easily,” Feng Luo muttered.
Among everyone present, he was the only one who had always believed that Nie Tian would survive Kan Xingming’s attack.
That was because Nie Tian and Zheng Bin together had managed to kill Jia Peng, and after that Nie Tian had revealed a strange skill while facing Zhao Mo, causing Zhao Mo to escape in fear.
In his eyes, Nie Tian, who possessed a Spirit Channeling grade treasure and was carrying all kinds of powerful items that Wu Ji had bestowed upon him along with many secret magics at his disposal, could no longer be assessed in conventional ways.
HUFF! HUFF! HUFF!
Unusual energy fluctuations rippled out of the floating city as it quietly shifted its position without following any obvious pattern.
Standing extremely close to the city wall, Nie Tian continued to receive numerous magical symbols through the fifteen scarlet light spots on the back of his hand.
Each and every spot started to grow dazzling and blaze like stars as they adorned the Heaven Gate pattern. Furthermore, it seemed that they were also slowly rotating in a specific pattern.
He glanced through the battlefield and realized that after obtaining Du Huang and Kan Xingming’s light spots, he currently had the most light spots on his hand.
Even the three foreign cultivators, including Miao Chen, didn’t have as many as he did.
He started to have a feeling that since he was the one with the most light spots, the strange energy ripples seemed… to have slightly bent towards him.
In that way, he would also soon become the one to receive the most magical symbols.
“What secrets are behind all this?” he thought to himself.
While he was pondering the matter, that hand of his that was still pressed against Kang Xingming’s spiritual armor and madly absorbing the rich wood power within it.
The spiritual armor that was forged with numerous leaves and vines gradually lost its glow as Nie Tian continued to channel away its wood power.
It wasn’t very long before its fresh, green color completely faded away and was replaced by a dark-brown color.
When he could no longer feel the wood power from within the spiritual armor, his heart that had been thumping strangely and violently also slowly return normal.
A misty, green aura silently flowed out of him. His power and strength had reached a level of satiation that had never been achieved before.
He felt that there was a rich life force contained within his flesh, which seemed to carry secrets that were currently incomprehensible to him.
Eyes narrowed, he glanced around and immediately realized that he could now see and hear even further, and the coverage of his psychic power had also increased by a wide margin.
All these changes made him convinced that the wood power from that spiritual armor was indeed a tremendous help to him.
“Hmm?”
At that moment, he suddenly noticed that some of the wood power that had been absorbed into his body quietly flowed into his spiritual sea.
After entering, the wood power began to swirl around at a low speed inside his spiritual sea, before it soon sped up and took the form of another spiritual vortex.
A fresh green aura surged within the vortex that was brimming with life force.
The mysterious life force seemed to be nourishing his spiritual sea and accelerating the speed of refinement and rotation of the vortex of spiritual power and vortex of flame power within.
It was at that moment that a feeling occurred to him, that he was about to break through from the early Lesser Heaven stage into the middle Lesser Heaven stage.
He felt that his state of mind, his understanding of the Flame Spirit Incantation, as well as his mastery of spiritual power had already reached the critical point of breaking through.
It appeared as though he did not need to make any effort or cultivate through meditating; he would automatically step into the middle Lesser Heaven stage.
Everything seemed so natural that he experienced not even the slightest discomfort. It was like how a canal formed by itself when water flowed.
WHOOSH!
The strange energy fluctuations once again gradually retreated towards the city.
Meanwhile, the scarlet light spots on the back of Nie Tian’s hand that had absorbed a large amount of magical symbols also cooled down.
By this point, the number of complicated patterns and symbols on the wall of the dilapidated city had grown fewer and fewer.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
The beams of rainbow-coloured light also abruptly shrunk back into the city. At this very moment, an extremely strong attractive force suddenly came from the city.
The floating city suddenly stopped swaying and became as steady as a mountain.
Loud creaking sounds came through from the four walls of the square city while four heavy, thick stone gates slowly cracked open in the city walls, where originally no gates could be seen.
As soon as the gates opened up, multi-colored light flowed out from within, forming four glorious passages leading into the city.
Everyone who was in the midst of battling simultaneously noticed the strange changes to the city and subconsciously stopped fighting momentarily as all of their attention was seized by the city.
Each and every one of them sensed a strong attractive force from within the city.
The city seemed to be summoning all those who had Heaven Gate patterns on their hands, and the more light spots a person had on their Heaven Gate pattern, the stronger summoning and suction force they could feel.
Nie Tian stared blankly at the widely opened stone gate that was the closest to him and immediately realized that he was completely unable to resist the suction force that came from within. Step by step, he headed towards that stone gate.
As for the others, they had long since harbored avaricious thoughts towards whatever was in the city. Therefore, when they felt the attractive force, they didn’t even try to fight it.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
They all bolted forward like flashing lightning as every single one of them wanted to be the first to enter.
Compared to Nie Tian, who was moving towards the city step by step, their speed was faster by god knew how many times.
BOOM!
When Zou Yi from the Ghost sect, who had long since given up attacking the foreign cultivator, stepped into the gate tunnel, he felt a strong shock to his body and a wisp of blood escaped from the corner of his mouth.
He was forced to a stop.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
All the others were also bombarded and pushed back by a strong force when they entered the gate tunnel.
Those who were the most anxious to enter were all stopped at the gate and repelled by that force, unable to step through.
From the look of it, the more light spots a person had on the back of their hand, the weaker the pushing force they would have to fight against. Therefore, Miao Chen and the other foreign cultivators had less resistance as they plodded forward.
On the other hand, since Li Fan, Liu Yan, Feng Luo hadn’t killed any disciples from the other six sects, none of them had the chance to gain more scarlet light spots.
As a result, when they attempted to step through the city gate, every step forward was extremely difficult and energy-consuming.
Meanwhile, even though Nie Tian’s cultivation base was the lowest, he actually walked past Zou Yi and continued forward, due to the fact that he possessed the most scarlet light spots.
Various expressions flashed across Zou Yi’s face as he watched Nie Tian surpass him.
Killing intent could be seen in his eyes.
“Don’t you dare do anything to him!” Li Fan shouted out loudly and dashed to Zou Yi’s side together with Liu Yan, one flanking Zou Yi from each side, fearing that he could not restrain himself from attacking Nie Tian.
Even Feng Luo said, standing not far from Zou Yi, “It’s the kid’s fortune that he obtained the most light spots. If you want to forcibly take his fortune away, I’m afraid it will give rise to fights among the seven sects. You’d better think it over before you do anything!”
Li Fan and Liu Yan were staring coldly at Zou Yi, as if they were telling him to resist the temptation, however strong it was.
He looked at Nie Tian who was moving forward one step at a time, and turned to look at Li Fan, Liu Yan, and Feng Luo, who were glaring at him from all sides, like tigers eyeing their prey. He finally chose to give up. “Fine, fine. Little punk! Remember, you owe me one!”