Inside the secluded cultivation chamber.
With a thought from Fang Qing, all of the Black Water mana he had possessed upon first entering the seventh level of Qi Refining transformed into [Ji Water] mana.
Gurgle, gurgle!
Clear spring water bubbled; a gentle breeze stirred.
Faint ripples of water shimmered around him, and a flash of pitch-black light passed through his eyes. “The sixth level of Breath Ingestion… As expected, it wasn’t enough to break through the bottleneck to the seventh level…”
Fang Qing was not surprised, because in terms of mana quality, the Contemplation of the Black Mound Scripture was originally superior to the Commentary on the Water Classic.
He transformed it once more and discovered that his Black Water mana had suddenly condensed and refined by quite a bit again.
“Once the realm is there, the mana can be cultivated back up quickly. Having it purified once over is actually a good thing.”
Fang Qing nodded in satisfaction and took out the Five Dragons Alchemy Classic.
After studying it for a while, he felt that this alchemy classic was honestly written rather ordinarily, with omissions in many places.
“With my current ability, when refining first-rank superior-grade pills, I would at most fail two or three times before definitely getting started…”
“What kind of alchemy talent is this? If I were willing to spend the effort, drawing talismans and refining artifacts probably wouldn’t be much of a problem either… No wonder that as long as Foundation Establishment cultivators are willing to put in the work and study, most of them can acquire a second-rank skill to rely on…”
He tossed the Five Dragons Alchemy Classic aside and took out the Contemplation of the Black Mound Book to study.
“I contemplate the Black Mound; there is a spring there, where Ji Water murmurs…”
“This book… contains Dao resonance…”
A long while later, Fang Qing exhaled deeply, swallowed a Fasting Pill, meditated and regulated his breathing for a time, then tried out the Horse-Headed Vajra Dharma-Protector Divine Art again.
This time, as soon as his divine sense stirred, the Horse-Headed Vajra he visualized seemed to come alive. The vajra pestle clutched in that hideous hand suddenly became solid.
“Mm?”
“Using divine sense together with the visualization diagram seems to be able to condense a Demon-Subduing Vajra Pestle and turn it into a secret technique… This is… a divine sense attack technique?”
Fang Qing was delighted. “As expected, there are still many secrets hidden within this cultivation art.”
After comprehending the art for a while longer, he began reading other miscellaneous books. The most important among them was the Plum Blossom Yi.
“Among the hundred arts of immortal cultivation inheritances on Biyu Island, there is nothing related to divination… It seems the Qi Refining path has no inheritance in this regard? There is only astrology and physiognomy, which seem somewhat connected…”
As he studied the Plum Blossom Yi, he gradually gained some insights. “This Plum Blossom Yi really is greatly related to the art of calculation—the innate Eight Trigrams, six-line hexagrams…”
……
Several days later.
At the moment the sun first rose.
Fang Qing faced the morning sun and breathed in that wisp of purple qi.
As the Qi-Gathering Art circulated, the final strand of Great Sun Purple Qi took form and was drawn by him into a jade bottle.
Within the jade bottle, a complete strand of [Great Sun Purple Qi] was clearly present.
“Ninth-rank superior-grade, Dongji Yuqing… It’s done!”
“What a pity… I still haven’t been able to find a Great Sun cultivation art…”
Fang Qing sighed faintly. For the sake of this strand of Great Sun Purple Qi, he had spent several years of painstaking effort.
Although it was only a matter of meditating briefly each day when the morning sun rose in the east, it still required perseverance and patience.
“If this portion of spiritual aptitude were in Ancient Shu… who knows what kind of monstrous waves it would stir up?”
With thoughts stirring in his heart, Fang Qing immediately cast a divination, using the Plum Blossom Yi he had only just begun to learn.
As was only natural, he calculated nothing at all.
“This… isn’t because my cultivation is too shallow, but because the heavenly secrets are wrong… So-called divination and deduction are all essentially ‘asking the heavenly secrets.’ Heaven knows and earth knows, but what I’m calculating is the ‘heaven’ of another world. To the heavenly secrets of this world, it is equivalent to something that does not exist, so naturally there is no hexagram at all…”
“However, even in Ancient Shu, I probably wouldn’t be able to calculate such a great karmic matter. My realm is too low…”
Fang Qing thought for a moment, put away the jade bottle containing the Great Sun Purple Qi, and then calculated his own fortune.
“Minor misfortune?… I’m going to have a bit of bad luck next?”
Looking at the hexagram, Fang Qing frowned. “Inside the sect, what bad luck could there be? This Plum Blossom Yi is also rather ordinary. It only gives a hexagram, and I still need to interpret it myself… What I can interpret is very vague.”
Now that he had only just begun learning the Plum Blossom Yi, not only were many matters involving profound karma difficult to divine, but even when he could obtain results, they were few—only a handful of hexagrams such as great misfortune, minor misfortune, neutral, minor auspiciousness, and great auspiciousness.
His heart stirred, and he went to Wanbao Island.
“Mm?”
The moment he entered the Hall of General Affairs, Fang Qing noticed something was wrong.
Teams of law-enforcement cultivators guarded every place, their expressions extremely solemn, completely unlike their usual lazy manner.
“Junior brother, what happened?”
He casually grabbed a disciple at the fourth or fifth level of Qi Refining and asked.
That disciple originally looked impatient, but after sensing Fang Qing’s concealed aura at the sixth level of Qi Refining, he immediately did not dare be negligent. “Reporting to senior brother… It’s the Zhong clan of Taibai Island. They’ve gone to war with our Bihai Sect! It’s said they’ve already begun attacking ships in various sea regions. Those disciples of our sect who went out to sea… suffered heavy casualties!”
“Mm?”
When Fang Qing heard this, his heart jolted.
The Taibai Zhong clan! They were one of the three great Core Formation forces of the Xiaohuan Sea cultivation world! They stood alongside the Bihai Sect and the Tianxin Chain Islands, and were famed for their ice-attribute cultivation arts.
‘No wonder my fortune is poor. After all, an individual’s luck is bound to be influenced by the greater situation… With two great sects at war, it’ll be good enough if I’m not conscripted.’
Fang Qing sighed inwardly.
Rumble!
Just then, a sensation of the earth shaking and the mountains swaying came over.
He hurriedly walked out of the Hall of General Affairs, rose into the air on his Green Leaf Boat, and saw a rippling azure light radiating from the seven islands in the lake, linking into a continuous curtain of light. Like a giant bowl turned upside down, it protected the entire Bihai Sect within.
“It’s the sect’s protective grand formation—the Seven Profound Azure Wave Formation. Its full power has been activated?”
Beside him, a disciple from Array Island exclaimed in astonishment.
“Disciples of the Bihai Sect, heed the order! The Hall of General Affairs will temporarily cease issuing missions. All disciples are to return to their cave abodes and await deployment orders…”
Above Wanbao Island, several streaks of light flew out. The one in the lead was precisely that Elder Wanbao, his voice solemn.
“Elder… my elder brother still hasn’t returned.”
“Reporting to Elder, my family is still outside…”
Many disciples fell into chaos.
“Enough! The sect has already opened the harbor and can receive disciples outside the grand formation. However, they must still undergo inspection!”
Several members of the law-enforcement team flew out and explained.
Hearing this, a large number of streaks of light immediately flew toward the passage in the grand formation.
Fang Qing arrived at the docks and saw flying boats descending from the sky one after another as if fleeing disaster, coming to berth at the harbor.
However, at this moment, the docks were still separated from the interior of the sect by a curtain of light. Law-enforcement disciples stood there with cold expressions, holding magical artifacts as they inspected disciples’ tokens, afraid that spies might slip in.
The later the flying boats arrived, the more damaged their surfaces appeared. They had clearly experienced a great battle.
Some of the Bihai Sect disciples who disembarked breathed sighs of relief, some had grave expressions, and some simply had tear tracks at the corners of their eyes, their faces filled with the look of those who had survived a calamity…
“This… They’re really going to fight?”
Fang Qing exhaled deeply and suddenly thought of Zha Zhu and the others who had gone out to sea.
‘If it were me, even without my golden finger, I’d definitely run straight toward the deep sea, casually find an island to hole up on for a year or so, and first see how the winds blow…’
As he was pondering his own countermeasures, he saw a three-pronged sea ship descend from the sky.
This kind of sea ship was mainly built to counter demonic creatures in the sea. Its flying function was extremely useless and also consumed a large number of spirit stones, so it basically would not be activated under ordinary circumstances.
Now that it had been activated, it was naturally for the sake of fleeing for their lives.
The deck was mottled with bloodstains. It had clearly just gone through a fierce battle.
After the large three-pronged ship berthed properly, several cultivators immediately flew down.
Fang Qing looked closely and saw only a scant few disciples, such as Hua Lian and Li Yusu.
Huo Tianhuo, Ming Lingzhen, and even Zha Zhu… were nowhere to be seen.
‘No way?’
His heart stirred, and he cast a divination for Zha Zhu.
‘Great misfortune, the master has departed… This is… dead?’
Fang Qing could not help falling silent. It was as if he had returned to many years ago, seeing that little girl in a red cotton-padded jacket, holding a large blue-and-white porcelain bowl.
“This immortal cultivation… is truly lonely.”
His expression dimmed. After waiting a moment, he saw Li Yusu.
Li Yusu was covered in mottled bloodstains and had lost her right hand. When she saw Fang Qing, her expression was miserable.
“Where is Zha Zhu? And Senior Brother Ming and the others—what happened to them?”
Although he already knew the answer, Fang Qing still asked.
“Dead… They’re all dead.”
Li Yusu’s voice was hoarse. “The Taibai Zhong clan! It was the people of the Taibai Zhong clan who did it! Wuwuwu… Senior Sister Zha…”
Fang Qing bit his lip, then saw Hua Lian nearby, who had just finished the inspection.
Hua Lian’s face was pale. From the look of it, he had overdrawn his mana too severely and affected the foundation of his mana.
When he saw Fang Qing, he gave a bleak smile. “It’s over… It’s all over.”
Fang Qing swept a glance over him and asked, “What about Junior Sister Yu Taohua?”
“She was covering me and was struck by an enemy’s Ice Cone Technique. She perished on the spot…”
Hua Lian’s voice was low.
“My condolences…”
Fang Qing offered a few words of comfort, then directly took his leave.
Now that he knew the outcome of Hua Lian and the others, he ought to go find Xu Wusu and the others of the Five Dragons Association to discuss their next plan.
Only, after taking his leave and departing, it felt as if a great stone were pressing down on his heart, impossible to dispel.
“Hua Lian, this person… and Li Yusu as well?”
Fang Qing was someone who did not keep matters bottled up in his heart. He directly cast separate divinations for the two of them.
“Hua Lian is great misfortune to me?”
“Li Yusu… neutral?”
“Why would this be?”
Fang Qing instantly sank into deep thought, and secretly felt hatred. “The Plum Blossom Yi is too low in grade, and I have only just started learning it. I can barely divine hexagrams, but it’s difficult for it to reveal more clues… But from the looks of it, Zha Zhu and the others’ deaths this time can’t be unrelated to Hua Lian. Could it be that this person was building up his credibility all along before this?”
Thinking of how Hua Lian’s fleet had always gained quite a lot, suffered very few casualties, and possessed a great reputation, Fang Qing suddenly felt that this person harbored the peril of mountains and rivers within his chest.
‘Only… he was struck by my divination from a higher dimension.’
‘Should I report him to the sect?’
‘But this person has Feiyu Island backing him. I’m afraid that if I have no evidence, mere words will only bring trouble upon myself instead.’
Fang Qing’s expression turned distant. ‘Wait… This time, the Taibai Zhong clan suddenly made trouble. Could Feiyu Island have cooperated from within? Has this Foundation Establishment force that originally belonged to the Bihai Sect defected to the enemy?’