Spirit Realm

A ship slowly approached from a distance while accompanied by wisps of bloody mist. It looked like a bloody meteor heading in their direction.

Li Mu’s normally calm countenance changed slightly, and he softly said, “That’s a little surprising…”

From their position on the island, Qin Lie’s group looked up into the distance.

A huge ship made of white bones, about three hundred meters long and seventy to eighty meters wide, soared through the clouds like a giant beast.

The huge white bone ship was covered in scarlet flags. Bloody lights that shone from the top of the ship were rather obvious as the flags swayed in the wind.

Upon closer inspection, one would realize that those bloody lights were actually blood pools that bubbled with blood and sanguine mist. Multiple malicious fiends floated amidst that mist, howling madly and displaying their never ending insolence in full.

This was Blood Fiend Sect’s unique symbol.

A dozen or so thin, listless elders sat in a circle at the fore of the bone ship.

All of them were old men garbed in blood red robes. Their pupils glittered with bloody light that made them look as if they had just been scooped out of a pool of blood. Their bodies exuded the incredibly pungent stench of iron.

A tiny blood pool sat at the center of their circle. The blood inside of it boiled and dazzling mist rose from it.

The remaining half of Xue Li’s soul was inside of that blood pool, flickering uncertainly like a sanguine ghost fire.

There were seven levels to the bone ship, each of which held numerous martial practitioners stretching their necks and looking left and right. Every single one of them possessed a thick bloody aura.

Qin Lie attempted to examine them with his soul consciousness.

Yet, as soon as his soul tentacles came within ten meters of the bone ship, an invisible bloody aura suddenly erupted forth.

Qin Lie grunted and immediately withdrew his soul consciousness.

Balls of bloody light abruptly exploded in the space around the bone ship.

Song Tingyu, Xie Jingxuan, and Feng Rong also grunted softly as if they had been punched in the chest.

They had attempted to examine the bone ship just like Qin Lie and were naturally rejected by the bloody aura surrounding the ship. Their soul consciousnesses bounced back as if they had run into an elastic ball.

“Booom!”

The bone ship descended to the sea in between Qin Lie’s island and the island that held the ancient elite bodies. The dozen or so elders abruptly transformed into rays of bloody light and flew toward them.

Xue Li’s half soul floated amongst the dozen or so elders. They had him in the middle of them, carefully protecting him.

When the blood lights streaked toward them, everyone except Li Mu felt suffocated, as if they were on the verge of being flooded by a sea of blood.

“Qin Lie!” Xue Li shouted, chuckling strangely.

He immediately flew out of the protective circle of elders and over to Qin Lie, materializing into a ghostly figure.

Qin Lie gave him a cool smile.

“You are… Heavenly Sword Mountain’s Li Mu?” Xue Li in surprise.

“Well met, Senior Xue Li.” Li Mu smiled.

“You flatter me.” Xue Li sighed. “I would call myself your senior if I hadn’t been imprisoned a thousand years ago, but now… I am not your match.”

“Seniority has nothing to do with strength or realm,” Li Mu said sincerely. “You made your name a thousand years ago, so of course you deserve to be called my senior.”

As the two of them spoke, Xue Moyan emerged from the cabin of the bone ship. A hint of sadness tinged her clear eyes.

Qin Lie only needed a single glance at her to guess the source of her worries. He then winked at Xie Jingxuan.

After a moment of hesitation, Xie Jingxuan walked toward Xue Moyan and whispered a few words to her.

“Are you serious?” Xue Moyan cried out abruptly.

Xie Jingxuan nodded slightly. She passed Xue Moyan the bottle that held the droplets of the Spring of Life and said, “I’m not giving this to you for free. You must later trade me something of equal value in return.”

Xue Moyan felt so happy she could cry. She nodded repeatedly, nearly breaking down in tears as she hastily said, “Of course. Of course! I will definitely repay you!”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Mother... mother can finally be saved…”

Xue Li’s half soul suddenly shook intensely. He gave Xie Jingxuan a profound look and said, “I will not forget this favor, Little Xie!”

“Thank Qin Lie instead,” Xie Jingxuan said indifferently. “He’s the one who brought the body of the Wood Race clansman, the one from which the Spring of Life was extracted, out of the Graveyard of Gods. He also broke the seals on it. I just refined the Spring of Life from that body’s energy.”

“I don’t need to thank Qin Lie because I think of him as a disciple... and a son,” Xue Li said seriously.

Qin Lie trembled slightly.

“Big Brother Xue! Now that we have the Spring of Life, we can wake up your wife!” Mo Jun was extremely excited.

“Qin Lie and… Li Mu. We’ll talk later once all of this is over and done with,” Xue Li said in a shaky voice.

“I understand,” Li Mu said with a smile.

“Why don’t you see if you can fuse with the Blood Progenitor’s body?” Qin Lie asked, summoning the Blood Progenitor’s body with just a thought.

The dozen or so listless old men immediately turned their scarlet gazes to the Blood Progenitor’s body.

Their eyes looked as translucent as bloody diamonds. It seemed as if they could see into a person’s heart.

“Something happened to it along the way,” Qin Lie said, attempting to explain himself. “It… now shares a vague connection with me.”

“It’s fine, I’ve already heard about this from Moyan.” Xue Li cut him off. Then he pondered for a moment and said, “Qin Lie, you may use the Blood Progenitor’s body. When you possess it with your soul, you can vastly increase your strength for a short period of time. You can use it like a powerful spirit artifact. I believe you should keep it for yourself instead.”

“My realm is weak, and I cannot unleash the Blood Progenitor’s true power. Besides, I have my own body and a long time to grow ahead of me.” Qin Lie shook his head.

Xue Li, on the other hand, was still intent on persuading him.

All of a sudden, Li Mu interrupted the conversation. “The body of the Blood Progenitor has a seven-level Soul Altar inside of it.”

The moment he said this, every Blood Fiend Sect elder, including Xue Li himself, trembled.

For a time, every martial practitioner was silent. Only the sounds of heavy breathing could be heard.

Their gazes focused on the Blood Progenitor’s body like bloody beams of light.

Li Mu then said, “The value the Blood Progenitor’s body alone matches that of all the bodies of ancient elites here.”

After a pause, Li Mu shook his head and sighed. “A seven-level Soul Altar and a body in perfect condition. I have to admit… even I am nearly tempted by this.”

Meanwhile, Qin Lie and the others looked confused by this revelation. They obviously didn’t understand what a seven-level Soul Altar was.

“A seven-level soul pagoda sits at the center of the sea of blood in the Blood Progenitor’s mind. Is that the Soul Altar?” Qin Lie asked in surprise. “What’s a Soul Altar? What does it mean for a Soul Altar to have seven levels?”

Li Mu glanced at Xue Li.

Xue Li’s soul still continued to tremble intensely. Even now, he couldn’t calm down, muttering to himself over and over as if he were in a dream.

“A seven-level Soul Altar…” he whispered to himself. “Seven…”

Mo Jun stepped forward, inhaling deeply and explaining to all of the junior martial practitioners present.

“According to my knowledge, there are ten levels in the path of cultivation,” he said. “The Refinement Realm, the Natal Opening Realm, the Manifestation Realm, the Netherpassage Realm, the Fulfillment Realm, the Fragmentation Realm, the Nirvana Realm, the Imperishable Realm, the Void Realm, and the Genesis Realm. Only those who reach the Imperishable Realm are able to construct a Soul Altar. A Soul Altar… is the ultimate dream of a martial practitioner, the unique signature of a true peak expert! I don’t know what secrets lay within a Soul Altar or how one is made, but I do know that Soul Altars are unfathomably profound and contain an unimaginable amount of wonders.

“A martial practitioner in the early stage of the Imperishable Realm possesses a single level Soul Altar,” Mo Jun continued. “Every time their realm advances a stage, a new level is added to the Soul Altar. Every additional level enhances a martial practitioner’s body, soul, spirit energy, and mental strength. It’s as if they are reborn with each level!

“At the late stage of the Imperishable Realm, a martial practitioner would possess a three-level Soul Altar. At the late stage of the Void Realm, their soul altar would have six levels. A seven-level Soul Altar means… that the martial practitioner is at the early stage of the Genesis Realm!”

Shock erupted within Qin Lie’s mind.

A seven-level Soul Altar… the early stage of the Genesis Realm!

Even the strongest martial practitioner in all of the Land of Chaos was only at the peak of the Imperishable Realm. At best, they only possessed a three-level Soul Altar!

What did a seven-level Soul Altar mean?

Everyone fell silent.

“It takes an unimaginable amount of wealth to construct a Soul Altar,” Li Mu said calmly, looking at the crowd around him. “The first level of a Soul Altar alone takes an astronomical amount of spirit materials. Take the nearby Blue Moon Valley for example. They’re the third strongest Copper rank force under Illusory Demon Sect, and they’ve taken several hundreds of years to develop themselves and Emerald Island. They have numerous mines, big and small, and enjoy an impressive annual accumulation of wealth. However, with their current level of strength, they would still need three hundred years of gathering spirit materials at that rate to have a chance at preparing the spirit materials needed to help a Nirvana Realm expert construct a Soul Altar and ascend to the Imperishable Realm.”

Li Mu paused, then said, “Beyond that, the amount of spirit materials needed to build each new level of a Soul Altar increases exponentially, by tenfold or even more!”