Spirit Realm

Under the three scorching suns of Boluo Realm, many dark red mountain peaks floated close to one another to form an unbreakable link.

This mountain range seemed to exist between the sky and the earth.

Deep within the mountain peaks that looked like giant swords piercing into the depths of the sky, there was a gigantic rock floating deeper and deeper into the mountain range.

A human youth sat on top of the floating rock while surrounded by many translucent spirit stones.

These spirit stones were surrounded by many sparkling spirit boards that were manipulating the energy they stored.

A whirlwind of pure spirit energy circulated around the young man like a mist while entering into his dantian’s spirit sea through every pore of his body.

Naturally, this youth was none other than Qin Lie.

Right now, his three great natal palaces were exploding and condensing bit by bit inside his dantian’s spirit sea.

Originally, the three natal palaces made up of thunder lightning spirit energy, frost spirit energy and earth spirit energy looked like three glowing light balls.

But now, the three light balls were experiencing a series of continuous implosion and refinement by immense amount of spirit energy. They seemed to have transformed into strange crystalline objects.

The process looked like spirit veins that contained immense amount of world spirit energy condensing bit by bit into spirit stones over time.

The three natal palaces in his spirit sea were fragmenting, exploding, contracting, refining, reuniting, and finally crystallizing into crystals.

The natal palaces that looked like giant disks shrank bit by bit as they turned more and more translucent and clear.

Meanwhile, the spirit stones piled next to him were exploding continuously as the energy they contained was completely drained.

Every time a spirit stone exploded, a small pile of shattered rock would appear beside him. This meant that the energy inside the spirit stones had been fully drained.

In just four hours time, the spirit stones that were fully drained totalled about fifty thousand.

The world spirit energy of Boluo Realm surging in from every direction was also absorbed into the three great natal palaces after they were converted by his nerves, tempered, and injected into his spirit sea.

Gradually, the three natal palaces that were originally as big as stone disks shrank to nearly one tenth of their original size!

In the end, the three natal palaces shrank to the size of watermelons. They had become pure and translucent crystals.

The natal palaces ultimately turned into three sparkling crystalline balls.

A dazzling blue crystalline ball, a dark yellow crystalline ball, and a silver white crystalline ball.

The spirit energy cores inside his spirit sea seemed to have contracted from a gaseous form into a solid, crystalline state after a series of refinement and conversion.

They now looked just like the crystalline beast cores of high rank spirit beasts.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Dull explosive noises resounded from the meridians around his chest. The vast earth spirit energy gathered around his meridians was opening up his blocked meridians like a miner digging holes in the body of a mountain.

“One, two, three… nine…”

He counted in his mind.

Thirty-five meridians were unlocked by this refined earth spirit energy in a row.

Only then the process came to a stop.

The earth spirit energy he collected from that dark abyss while he was tortured by Teng Yuan was completely used up as well.

He probed around with his mind.

He quickly discovered that—including the three acupoints that had been unlocked when he cultivated the Thunder Emperor Mark—a total of thirty eight meridians had been blasted open in his body.

Each one of these meridians was only as wide as a walnut, and they all seemed capable of storing a liquefied essence of power such as the water of a thunder pool.

“Thirty-eight meridians…” He was secretly surprised by this outcome.

He remembered that he was able to refine only thirty-eight lifeblood essences at once when he first tried.

Before he made a breakthrough, and before his body had undergone a transformation, thirty-eight lifeblood essences were his limit.

It was like a limit that stood in the way of a human’s potential.

Today, as he was ascending to the Fragmentation Realm, he also unlocked thirty-eight meridians with the aid of the earth spirit energy stored inside his body.

Again, the number was thirty-eight. No more, no less.

This revelation enlightened him a little.

The thirty-five newly-excavated meridians were all around his chest area. These meridians were completely empty.

The three meridians he excavated earlier using the Thunder Emperor Mark were the only meridians that contained something. There were ten or so lightning pool droplets inside them, and they could aid him in unleashing great destructive power upon his enemies.

He realized that his combat strength would increase massively if he could fill up all thirty-eight meridians with some sort of mysterious liquefied energy.

Unfortunately, there was no thunder lightning power in Boluo Realm, so he had no choice but to give up on this idea for now.

Inside his spirit sea, the three natal palaces slowly moved in a triangular pattern after they had transformed into crystals.

A rich pillar of energy was rising from the center of the three crystalline balls. The energy pillar connected both the sky and the earth of his spirit sea, and it seemed to be connected to all of his meridians as well.

When he focused his attention, he noticed that the energy pillar at the center of the three crystalline balls was capable of manipulating the world spirit energy that was absorbed into his physical body.

This world spirit energy had gathered together from every part of his body and poured down from the part of the energy pillar that was connected to the sky.

The worldly spirit energy moved through the energy pillar and descended near the three crystalline balls. They were then absorbed by the crystalline balls and transformed into thunder, frost, and earth energies respectively.

A portion of the world spirit energy passed by the three crystalline balls and flowed down to the bottommost part of his spirit sea.

He gathered his thoughts and tried to follow this particular portion of world spirit energy. He wanted to know where it flowed into. However, he discovered that the energy pillar kept going downwards as if his spirit sea was bottomless. He had no idea which unknown corner of his spirit sea the spirit energy would flow to.

When he realized that he wouldn’t be able to figure out the final destination of this world spirit energy in a short time, he stopped trying to pursue it.

Instead, he went back to his dantian’s spirit sea and observed it carefully and silently.

Right now, he was in a state of cultivation. He was gathering world spirit energy in his body.

The part of the energy pillar that was connected to the sky was connected to every meridian in his body. It allowed him to direct the world spirit energy he absorbed through the energy pillar and into his spirit sea.

After that, the three crystalline balls formerly known as his three great natal palaces would refine that world spirit energy again, convert it into pure spirit energy of their respective attributes and absorb it..

A portion of the gathered world spirit energy continued to flow downwards towards who knows where.

He suddenly changed his mind.

Instead of cultivating and absorbing world spirit energy into his body, he tried to manipulate and gather the power stored inside his spirit sea.

The energy pillar that connected the sky and the earth of his spirit sea suddenly glowed with brilliant light. Thunder and lightning were immediately discharged from the thunder lightning crystalline ball.

These thunderous wisps of spirit energy transformed into light streams that went up the energy pillar and into every meridian in his body.

At the same time, he executed the rest of his spirit arts and saw the frost crystalline ball and the earth crystalline ball discharging pure spirit energy that looked like light streams.

These energy streams flowed up the the energy pillar like many reverse-flowing waterfalls. They filled up his body with power instantly.

As he continued to observe the activities happening inside his spirit sea, he slowly understood that this energy pillar was like a river that could draw world spirit energy into his body, and summon power from the crystalline balls inside his body as well. It allowed him to execute all kinds of powerful spirit arts.

It was an energy ribbon that was connected to the crystalline balls.

“Crack!”

The shattering noise a spirit stone awakened him from his thoughts. He opened his eyes naturally.

He didn’t know how long he was in cultivation. He only knew that he had probably finished his ascension to the Fragmentation Realm.

He withdrew his consciousness and checked out his Soul Lake and True Soul. He noticed that his Soul Lake had expanded almost five times its original size before he realized!

The fact that his Soul Lake was five times bigger meant that his soul energy reserves were also five times vaster. His spirit, body and mind had also improved by leaps and bounds.

The True Soul submerged inside his Soul Lake had become clearer and more solid. It looked like it could walk right out of his body and traverse the world as a ghost at any moment.

Still, Qin Lie understood that the True Soul of a Fragmentation Realm martial practitioner still wasn’t strong enough to leave the body. His soul would run into all kinds of danger if it were to depart its body for reckless reasons.

“The Soul Lake is the key to constructing a Soul Altar in the future. The wider my Soul Lake is, the tougher the Soul Altar I construct will become.”

While thinking, he slowly stood up and summoned his earth power. A ball of gray yellow magnetic vortex appeared inside the energy pillar.

The moment the magnetic vortex was formed, the gravity around him immediately distorted and caused him to float into the sky.

Once a martial practitioner had reached the Fragmentation Realm and created an energy pillar inside his spirit sea, he only needed to cultivate one type of flying spirit art to be able to create similar magnetic vortexes with any type of energy.

This magnetic vortex enabled a martial practitioner to transform the gravity around them. This way, they could use spirit energy to detach themselves from the attraction of gravity and fly in the air.

Since Qin Lie already cultivated the Records of Geocentric Magnetism, he didn’t need to cultivate another flying spirit art.

Once he had completed his breakthrough and created the energy pillar in his body, he could directly fly in the sky.

“Eh? W-why are you here?” Suddenly, he saw Teng Yuan.

Teng Yuan appeared like a ghost and stared at him with gleaming eyes. He chuckled and nodded again and again, saying, “Not bad, not bad. You’re very talented when it comes to cultivating the Records of Geocentric Magnetism.”

It was only now Qin Lie noticed that he was no longer at his original location.

“You just realized?” Teng Yuan rolled his eyes at him. “If I haven’t moved you here, do you really think you could’ve ascended to the Fragmentation Realm without any troubles? Just now, the five great human forces and experts of all kind of ancient races had gathered at where you originally were. Everyone is trying to find out why Sun Palace was suddenly destroyed. I’m willing to wager my head that you’d have been found out had you continued to stay there.”

Qin Lie’s paled slightly when he heard this. “The timing of my breakthrough was a little bad. I had no time to prepare, so I was forced to take a risk.”

Teng Yuan stared at him deeply and pondered for a moment. Then, he asked, “How in the world did you destroy Sun Palace?”

“How did you know it was me?” Qin Lie frowned.

“Who else could it be!?” Teng Yuan snorted. “I saw you entering Sun Palace, looking all suspicious!”

“You were spying on me?” Qin Lie’s expression turned ugly.

“I was just passing by.” Teng Yuan denied the accusation. Just as Qin Lie was about to question him further, he suddenly asked, “Boy, can you destroy Lunar Temple with the same method?”

A pause later, Teng Yuan pointed at a direction with gleaming eyes and said, “Lunar Temple is right there. They’re… very close to where we are right now.”

“You moved me next to Lunar Temple? This place isn’t any safer than Sun Palace! If Lunar Temple or the Serene Moon Race finds me, I probably won’t fare much better than if I had fallen into Sun Palace’s hands!” Qin Lie exclaimed.

“Don’t worry, they won’t find you.” Teng Yuan shook his head and turned serious. “I’m serious. Can you destroy Lunar Temple’s secret realm entrance with the same method?”

“Why do you want to destroy Lunar Temple’s secret realm entrance?” Qin Lie asked a question to his question.

“That’s none of your business. Just tell me; can you do it again?” Teng Yuan let out an odd chuckle. “If Lunar Temple’s secret realm entrance is destroyed as well, there will only be one secret realm entrance left in the entire Boluo Realm.”

“And although that secret realm entrance in inside the Ancient Beast Race’s territory, you are the controller of that portal… am I right? Boy, I guarantee that every human force in this realm will beg on their knees for you to help them if Lunar Temple’s secret realm entrance is destroyed as well. You can even get You Yun to kneel before you and admit her mistakes.”