Lei Yun opened his eyes, and a flicker of lightning seemed to flash through them.
He exhaled softly for a moment, then clenched his fists, feeling the power flowing through his mighty roots.
'Foundation Establishment Perfection. I reached this realm faster than I thought, and with a foundation far stronger than I imagined.'
The corners of his lips lifted as he felt the purity and perfection of his Dantian.
His breakthrough could have been much faster, but with his new cultivation techniques and the special properties of the Dew of the Dragon's Lament, he had spent most of the time correcting small inconsistencies in his Dantian that had appeared in his previous advancement.
The techniques he received from the elder opened a new world before him, and errors he hadn't even known existed became clear, as if a film had been removed from his eyes, allowing him to see the truth.
Before, with his Mahayana consciousness, he had believed that the foundation he had established in this new life was already perfect, but now he realized the difference. With the corrections he had made over the past few days, he was certain his cultivation was now beyond perfection.
If Aotian knew what he was thinking, he would probably say: "Not even I say this is perfect, how can a dignified Mahayana like you dare say it's beyond perfect?!"
Unfortunately, Aotian didn't understand just how perfect and terrifying it was to create such a foundation in the eyes of those at the peak of this world. For him, it might be nearly perfect since he could continue synthesizing the techniques, even if it didn't improve his power much.
But for everyone else, it was beyond perfect.
Lei Yun took a deep breath after being mesmerized by his foundation, looked at Mu Luyin nearby, and saw that her cultivation had already reached the 3rd level of Nascent Soul, something astonishing.
Even more terrifying was that her fluctuations indicated she was a hair's breadth away from breaking through to the 4th level, officially stepping into the mid-stage of Nascent Soul.
Of all of them, she was the one who had progressed the fastest, since her realm was the highest and the hardest to advance.
While Lei Yun focused on refining his foundation, the avatars weren't fully concentrating on cultivation, even refining their bodies at the same time.
Mu Luyin, on the other hand, focused on only one thing: advancement.
Of course, in terms of true strength, the avatars could defeat her individually without difficulty.
Another issue was that crossing 3 levels in just a few days was no small feat, and she would probably have to stop and refine her foundation for several years afterward, without further breakthroughs.
After all, she wasn't like Aotian and Lei Yun, who knew the realms and stages ahead and didn't need to stabilize for long. Advancing so quickly carried a price. Of course, that price was lessened by the benefits of the Dew of the Dragon's Lament, but it still had to be paid with long years of stabilization, which was still a profit for her.
Lei Yun sighed at her craving for power, then looked down with his spiritual sense, toward the golden blood lake, and didn't sense the presence of the elders within his perception, which couldn't reach far due to the limitations of his realm.
'Should I follow them? I'm already on the verge of a breakthrough and I'm sure I'll forge a Supreme Core again, even better and more easily than in my past life, even if my divine root hasn't yet returned to its peak. But it would be better to obtain the Golden Core part of the technique… would the elders hand it over so easily?'
His thoughts were complicated. Now that he understood the true potential of his new technique, he no longer believed the elders had tricked him by taking his Nascent-Tier technique and giving him a Foundation-Tier one. On the contrary, he now felt as if he had shamelessly robbed the elders.
Let alone a Nascent-Tier technique — he would have gladly traded even a Mahayana-Tier one. That was how extraordinary the sect's technique was. Its value wasn't just in the realm it could reach, but in how firm a foundation it could establish.
If a building is constructed on weak foundations, it can't rise very high and may even collapse. But if it's built on solid foundations, even if the upper floors aren't well constructed, it can still go much further than any other with a fragile base.
The techniques he received were no longer like establishing a foundation on earth, but rather like establishing a foundation on rock. It was simply a level beyond.
Although Mahayana techniques are precious, one has to reach that terrifying realm to use them, so in a way, these low-level techniques that greatly increase the chances of reaching such a realm were truly more valuable.
Shaking his head, he looked at his spiritual roots, which seemed strange.
Roots exist between the real and unreal, in the body and in the soul, but Lei Yun's overlapped in an unusual way. The roots in his soul and in the unreal were actually of the same level as Rihai's: divine roots, from a Divine Physique.
But the roots in his body, on the real side, were only high-quality roots, which was simply bizarre.
'When I step into the Golden Core, my past life's roots, which accompanied my soul, should better synchronize with those of the body, raising them to perfect quality. If I want to regain my divine-level talent, I'll probably only manage it in the body-soul integration realm… Void Refinement,' he thought with a sigh.
At the moment, his talent was limited by the body's roots, since body and soul needed to work together, and the lower-level one dragged the other down.
'At least I was lucky to be a reincarnation. If it were body appropriation, the repulsion between soul and body wouldn't allow my roots to be restored. In fact, if the repulsion were too strong, I wouldn't even be able to improve my Dantian and advance in cultivation, since the Dantian would reject foreign energy.'
He reflected with a sigh of relief.
When he returned to pondering whether he should pursue the elders, suddenly all his hairs stood on end, and his body froze.
By instinct, he turned his head back and almost screamed in fright. If not for his mental fortitude as a former Mahayana, he probably would have.
For behind him, without releasing any aura, stood an old man in golden robes, with white hair and beard. But more than the shock of someone being right behind him, the worst part was what the old man was doing.
The old man was simply crouching, biting his tongue, focused, with his hand slowly reaching for the pouch full of storage rings at his waist, his wide eyes fixed on it.
Sensing the boy's gaze, the old man lifted his eyes and stared at him in silence.
"... Ehh?!" A strange sound slipped from the old man's mouth.
Quickly, the old man stood up, placed his hands behind his back with imposing air, and nodded in satisfaction at Lei Yun, as if approving him.
"Ahem!" He cleared his throat. "This old man was only testing your instincts, and you passed. Don't worry, I wouldn't really take your pouch full of rings with expensive and valuable items, which are probably worth a fortune and would certainly be safer in my hands. Don't worry," he spoke seriously, without blinking.
Lei Yun's mouth twitched at those words.
'Can you take your eyes off my pouch while saying that?' he wanted to say, but didn't dare — his instincts told him the old man was very powerful.
"Senior, may I ask who you are?" He stood up, clasped his fists, and greeted politely, though without bowing, watching the strange man cautiously.
Lei Yun could be polite, but he wouldn't bow to anyone just because of their power. At the very least, they would have to earn his respect.
That was his pride as a Mahayana.
Mu Luyin also awoke from cultivation and stood alert upon hearing the conversation, rushing to the boy's side to protect him.
The old man stroked his beard and rolled his eyes in thought before they lit up.
"I am the owner of this cave, and I came to collect the rent. For every hour spent here, you must pay 10… no, no, too little…" he spoke confidently, then stopped, muttering, blinking in silent calculation, before deciding: "... Ahem! It's 100 low-grade spirit stones per hour!" He nodded in satisfaction, rubbing his hands and smiling, before extending a palm toward them.
The couple stared at him, dumbfounded.
'You're obviously robbing us… but why is it so cheap?!' they both thought at the same time, eyes wide.
Ignoring the couple's shock, he waved his hand, annoyed, as if their lack of response displeased him.
"Never mind. You can pay on your way out. I'm in a bit of a hurry, and time is money. Farewell!" said the man — obviously Bao Wuji — before shooting off and vanishing from the stunned couple's sight.
…
Bao Wuji quickly crossed through the cave, spreading his spiritual sense with focus and seriousness.
He had just arrived and only stopped to quickly tease a former Mahayana and his little girlfriend. He couldn't waste much time with them, since every minute lost was an herb he could have harvested.
That was why he released a small fragment of aura, letting Lei Yun detect him, so he wouldn't waste time on jokes.
Although he could cross the sun-diameter mountain in just over twenty minutes going in a straight line, if he wanted to explore every corner and crevice to collect more than 20,000 Nascent-Tier herbs or higher, 1 day and 10 hours were far from enough.
Aotian had no way of knowing where the herb that would help him improve his talent was, nor even if it existed on the mountain, so he had to rush and try to collect as much as possible.
And the first target was the dragons' cave, where the avatars were. By dealing with it, he could free up the workforce of the 10 elders, accelerating the process of gathering herbs throughout the mountain.
Shooting forward, Bao Wuji soon arrived at the ten avatars, who were silently gazing into the darkness, even without being able to see anything.
All because danger lay in that direction, and there was no point letting them risk going further ahead.
And to Aotian's confusion, even with Bao Wuji's arrival, the mission's danger level didn't become safe as he expected.
[Mission: Delve North of the Dragon Cemetery
…
Participant: Bao Wuji
Danger Level: Slightly Dangerous]
'How is it that something slightly dangerous to Bao Wuji is only very dangerous — instead of fatal — to the elders?' he wondered doubtfully.
Shaking his head to drive those thoughts away, he took a deep breath.
Bao Wuji turned to the other avatars with seriousness.
"You stay here. I'll go alone," he murmured, receiving nods, and advanced forward cautiously in flight.
In his perception, the skeletons in that area grew larger and larger, which indicated that their strength, when alive, must have been elite among all those dragons.
The flight continued in deadly, chilling silence. Slowly, something appeared within his spiritual perception that made his hairs stand on end.
As the image became clear in his mind, he saw a massive dragon skeleton, much larger than all the others. It remained with its jaws open, neck raised and full of majesty, as if refusing, even in death, to bow its head.
And unlike all the others, this one had something unique… horns.
Aotian didn't know if that dragon had limbs, since its body was submerged in blood and in the Dew of the Dragon's Lament, but of one thing he was certain.
"A Flood Dragon… who would have thought one had fallen here," Bao Wuji murmured, as his eyes rose to the beast's skull, the true source of its horror.
Proudly, there, a sickly sinister purple orchid spread roots of the same color through the dragon's bones, as if parasitizing the corpse and creating new veins.
Even without ever having seen the plant before, the name was clear in the memories he had read.
Bao Wuji's eyes grew serious, and he whispered in a heavy tone.
"Silent Cadaver Orchid…"
[Images generated as reference, I couldn't make anything better, sorry!]