"My breakthrough in cultivation is imminent, don’t worry, it’s alright," Lin Xin whispered, but he didn’t truly say he was doing it for the breakthrough in Qi Cultivation. Long abandoned by the Sect, he was treated only as a special talent. The making of the Luminous Talisman Sword had also caught the attention of so within the Sect. There are things best kept secret if possible. After all, the Sect can’t really help him advance his cultivation now. As for the necessary texts, he can obtain them either from Senior Brother Huang or from Kong Yuhui—there’s always a way.
"Alright, just be careful," Xiao Lingling said gently.
He straightened his clothing and took up the Red Flower Sword.
Lin Xin left the bedroom, walked out of the inner courtyard, and headed straight to the pill room to take so auxiliary dicinal pills before making his way to the secret chamber.
He instructed the servants not to disturb him, announced he was entering seclusion, and spread the ssage.
Lin Xin then walked into the practice chamber buried deep underground.
In the chamber, the surrounding walls were filled with densely packed runes and symbols, the traces of Lin Xin’s experints with various Formation patterns.
"The path of Formation is such that to step into the Grandmaster level, one must integrate the principles of all Formations and be able to create an entirely new Formation. Unfortunately, I still have so way to go before reaching that realm," Lin Xin said as he sat cross-legged, organizing his thoughts about his situation.
He glanced at his current state.
’Offensive—14, Defense—13, Evasion—1, Physique—1. Free Attributes—0.’
’Minor Return to Origin Decree—Ninth Layer. (Completion 99%) (Offensive 9, Physique 9), Additional effects: Sword Qi, Innate Attachnt.’
"The final ten percent of progress required to slaughter thousands to advance...." He frowned slightly, feeling the five subtly different types of Innate Qi swirling constantly within him.
"Perhaps it’s difficult to find the required attributes of Innate Qi. Most of the essence from those I killed was wasted. Only a small portion could be absorbed by ."
He quietly guessed the reason.
To form a Minor Return to Origin, one needs to combine five different Attributes of Innate Qi. Perhaps the slow progress in the end is due to the need to accumulate various types of Innate Qi.
"Minor Return to Origin is a sign of Qi Cultivation. With all Five Qi complete, what I need to do is guide the Five Qi Towards the Origin."
"The real difficulty lies in gathering the Innate Qi of five attributes. However, I replaced that difficulty with other thods, so the Refinent of Qi should naturally follow...."
According to the thod described in the Minor Return to Origin Decree, the last layer was to form the Return to Origin.
Lin Xin slowly gathered all five types of Innate Qi with his consciousness, starting to rotate it slowly between his abdon and chest.
He placed the Red Flower Sword horizontally on his knees, as the five types of Inner Qi slowly poured into one end of the sword and quickly cycled back into his body from the other end.
Sword and man gradually ford a perfect loop. A considerable amount of impurities within the mass of Inner Qi were constantly removed.
Ti passed slowly.
A faint mist of various colors began to erge around Lin Xin. This mist swirled leisurely, veiling his figure within the fog.
His hands were placed on either end of the sword, with wisps of the Five Qi intertwining around his fingers.
Swish, swish!
Both of his hands suddenly ford two different Hand Seals, weaving the Qi around his fingers into two different shapes, dispersing them like blossoming flowers.
Imdiately after, he began to form a second pair of different Hand Seals.
Then a third pair, and a fourth pair.
Gradually, Lin Xin’s speed of forming Seals beca faster and faster, more and more urgent.
Myriad colorful Palm Imprints floated up, rotating slowly around him.
Dozens, hundreds, thousands!!
When all Hand Seals completely obscured his body from sight,
Pop!!
All of the Hand Seals suddenly exploded, turning into countless colorful mists. A large amount of this colored mist rapidly converged towards Lin Xin at the center, forming a huge funnel of fog.
The narrow end of the funnel was centered on Lin Xin’s mouth and nose.
A torrent of colorful mist dove quickly into his mouth and nostrils.
When the last wisp of mist entered,
Hiss!
He suddenly opened his eyes, and there was a faint glimr of red over half a foot long shining through, emitting a sound like a thin stream of air being expelled.
"I have reached the goal...."
He breathed a sigh of relief.
The Qi Refinent Realm was finally complete. From Innate to Qi Refinent, the greatest difficulty lay in accumulating the five different Attributes of Innate Qi, but Lin Xin had circumvented this hurdle through slaughter and plundering.
He turned his Inner Vision upon his body and already faintly possessed the ability.
He could vaguely see a colorful elliptical vortex in his chest and abdon, slowly rotating. Inside was the Five Qi he had painstakingly gathered.
At the center of the vortex was a small black ball, its surface faintly shimring with wisps of pale red light, like electricity flowing over it.
"From what the Decree says, that black ball should be the Spiritual Core, and the shimring on its surface should indicate Spiritual Energy. But shouldn’t it be white? Why is it..."
He carefully examined the shimr on the surface of the black ball. After confirming several tis, it was indeed pale red.
With a thought, a wisp of that pale red light shot out like an electric arc, its speed much faster than his previous manipulation of Inner Qi.
It was nearly instantaneous with thought.
"As expected of Spiritual Energy...." He channeled that wisp of pale red Spiritual Energy into his right arm and palm.
Hiss....
Suddenly, his right palm turned a faint shade of red.
Gently directing his palm at the ground, he stabbed down.
The mont the tip of his palm touched the floor tile, it emitted a hissing sound like it was corroding. Before he could blink, the floor was easily penetrated by his palm, going straight in up to his wrist.
"This... is not Return to Origin Spiritual Energy..." Lin Xin’s mind turned alert, knowing that sothing abnormal had occurred.
The spiritual energy properties of the Pine Forest Sword Sect, as well as the other Four Sects, couldn’t possibly possess this kind of intense toxicity and corrosive nature. They are all fundantally stable and peaceful, with considerable lethality, but they wouldn’t appear so abnormal.
"Normal spiritual energy should be white, able to enhance the recovery speed of my body and also possess the sharpness of sword qi, rather than being corrosive..." Lin Xin felt sowhat heavy-hearted. He had already guessed that it must be the thod of his breakthrough that caused the properties of the spiritual energy to change.
However, he was only able to enter inner cultivation through the thod of the Blood Pill, with limited talent. If he didn’t do so, perhaps he would never have had the chance to practice Qi Cultivation.
"Once I enter Qi Cultivation, I can find new formations, the power of formations driven by spiritual energy will surpass those of the Innate, and the range of options will greatly expand. There will be much more room for to play with."
He pondered in his heart.
"Besides, I absolutely cannot let others learn about my spiritual energy, or there will be endless troubles...." As a disciple of the orthodox sect, possessing such strange and corrosive spiritual energy is a characteristic of the Demon Path. If the sect were to discover this, nobody would believe he’s a disciple of the righteous path.
Snap.
Suddenly, he heard a faint popping sound behind him.
"Who’s there!"
He turned abruptly, and the secret chamber was utterly silent. The candles on the walls flickered slightly, showing no signs of anything suspicious.
Lin Xin observed intently, and it took him a while before he slowly turned his head back.
"!!!"
Right in front of him was a bloody human face.
Pale, the face of a woman with her head split in two.
The face was right in front of him, close enough to touch his cheek, he could even clearly see the tiny maggots still wriggling in the brains inside her split head....
Hiss!
Sword light flashed, Lin Xin stood up breathing heavily, holding the Red Flower Sword tightly as he stared at the space before him.
That face from just now was too close, nearly touching his cheek, and he was able to see the minute details...
"I....." It took him a long ti to recover his breathing, as he looked at the empty emptiness in front of him, he quickly took out a high-level Resentnt Talisman, channeled his Inner Qi into it, yet there was no reaction whatsoever.
"It’s... an illusion..."
He lowered his head, feeling a dull pain in his eyes.
Having read countless books over the years, he naturally had so understanding. Combining this with the knowledge from his previous life on Earth, he already had an answer in his heart.
"Too much pressure then?.... The more people I kill, the heavier the burden of sin... The sense of guilt on a moral level, the fear of being hunted down and found out, the more I kill, the more I need a stronger ntal fortitude to support myself and resist the pressure that arises from the guilt and fear, to oppose the pressure that cos from needing to conceal myself and not being able to confide and vent to others."
He had seen many cases where a lot of criminals had insufficient ntal fortitude, committing cris and living in constant trepidation. The guilt and fear of being pursued accumulate more and more over ti, and when they grow too weary, they eventually either turn themselves in or break down.
"So, if I don’t want to collapse under pressure and have a ntal breakdown, I must fight against this pressure, and there are generally two ways to do that."
Lin Xin slowly sheathed his sword.
"One, is to find a new strength to support myself against the pressure. This kind of strength should be support from within."
"Two, is to find a way to reduce the pressure."
Lin Xin stood in the secret chamber, his eyes flickering, his expression unsettled.
"I am not the kind of person who has a powerful inner will."
He extended his hand to look at his pale red palm.
"I’m just an ordinary person... I should have lived an ordinary life of birth, aging, sickness, and death."
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath.
"I don’t have grand ideals, nor do I have firm determinations....."
After a mont of silence, he walked toward the door of the secret chamber, opened the door, and stepped out.
Thus, the only path left for him was clear.
********************
Night.
In a dark and gloomy estate.
Lin Xin stood quietly in front of the carriage, about to board, but then his eyes swept across and caught sight of a faint white palm imprint left on the side of the carriage.
The palm imprint was slightly indented into the carriage body, unmistakably clear.
His pupils constricted, and he reached out to gently touch the palm imprint.
Crack!
A streak of white lightning flashed briefly over the palm imprint, with a tiny talisman formation appearing at its center.
His hand felt a stabbing pain, and he quickly withdrew it.
The mont he saw the talisman formation, his expression changed, and his gaze beca exceptionally sharp.
"A tracking talisman formation!"
He felt a chill go down his spine, recalling the whirlpool that had appeared out of nowhere at the entrance to his Cave Mansion the last ti.
If he hadn’t noticed the palm imprint just now and thought it was only a normal trace, then the next ti it appeared, it might very well be the whirlpool’s owner coming after him.
"Truly formidable... I wonder if it’s Foundation Establishnt or Golden Core, such a thod, embedding a talisman formation in a move, to land a strike with one palm, one formation... Such a technique is truly unheard of."
"It’s not safe to go now, I need to deal with matters at hand first."
He dropped his original intention of hunting again.
"I have to find Senior Brother Huangshan first, I’m not sure if he has returned from his mission yet, I need to ask for his help to buy Sect talisman formations for Qi Cultivators."
After Qi Cultivation, I should first strengthen my own power with the art of formations. (To be continued. If you like this work, welco to Qi Dian (qidian) to cast your recomndation votes, monthly votes; your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please go to m.qidian to read.)
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