The one-eyed being gave an awkward laugh and said,
"This Yazi Eye is newly fitted. Its aura hasn't been fully cleansed, so I lost control for a moment."
With that, he pulled out a jade casket from his robes and opened it.
Inside lay a neatly arranged row of eyeballs, each clearly no ordinary object, each brimming with unfathomable power.
There were the Dragon God's Eye, the Maitreya's Wisdom Eye, the True Demon Eye, and even an intact, living second-rank Eye Fiend.
The one-eyed existence reached into his own socket and plucked out the orb he had been using, dropping it casually back into the casket.
Then he picked up his favorite, the Eye Fiend, and pressed it into place. He blinked a few times; it moved with such vivid life, as if it had always been his own eye.
Snapping the casket shut, he turned to the corn-spirit beside him and said,
"Pick out one of your seeds. I'll send it over as compensation for that boy.
Since he's entered the Void, how can he go fishing without bait?
Let him plant it, harvest some corn, and bait the hook a few times. Soon enough, his fear will vanish, and he'll return to meet me again."
The corn-spirit groaned.
"My lord, you're scheming against me again. One true seed costs me half my life!
You'll have to give me these Yazi corpses in return!"
"Take them, if that's what you want."
At that, the corn-spirit waddled over to a mountain of corpses, seventeen Yazi, all dead, their eyes gouged out.
With a strange incantation, roots sprouted wildly from its feet, wrapping around the bodies.
In moments, the corpses were crushed down into a dense sphere, which clung to the corn-spirit like a lump of earth.
Only then did it feel appeased. From its corn-like head, it plucked a single crystal-clear kernel and handed it to the one-eyed man.
The spirit then asked,
"My lord, how will you send it back? If the disturbance is too great, those mad hounds will chase you again; it'll be nothing but trouble."
The one-eyed man chuckled.
"I'll ask the fisherman for a favor. He still owes me five. For him, this is nothing."
He slashed the air with a hand. A rift split open, revealing a temporal nexus, connecting countless realms.
Reaching in, he rummaged around until he pulled out a fishhook.
He tied the seed to the hook, flicked his finger, and the line reeled back into the rift.
Dusting off his hands, he said,
"That's done. Now then, for the next business whose bait shall we bite?"
The corn-spirit perked up.
"I hear that monastery is ripe. There's bound to be plenty of oil and water there!"
The one-eyed man nodded, scooped up the slender spirit, and leapt into the rift.
He bit down on a lush bodhi vine. At once, the vine reacted, coiling around him tightly and dragging him upward.
In the Buddhist sects, a second-rank powerhouse could attain the title of Tathāgata, masters of binding karma and weaving cause and effect across the void.
But whether this Qingti Tathāgata, now entangled with such wicked guests, could withstand the karmic backlash remained to be seen.
...
In Zhuo Ling Cave-Heaven
By the lake, the old fisherman's face suddenly changed. His rod trembled on its own, rising into the air. He cursed under his breath,
"Pfah! That wretch No-Eyes again!"
When he reeled in the line, the hook was already bare.
He turned to Huang Yan with a crooked smile and said,
"Forgive me, layman. The fish slipped away."
Stowing the rod, he rose slowly from his stool, hunched with age, and said,
"It's about time. Let's begin the next phase."
The two walked to the shore, gazing at the eight spirit fish swimming in the pool.
In the outside world, a year had passed. Within the lake, each of the eight fish had undergone a long and wondrous transformation, all having grown stronger in unison.
The fisherman lifted a withered hand. The entire Longevity Fish Pool erupted into waves.
The once-clear waters turned muddy, the spirit fish vanishing from sight.
Moments later, the divine anomaly of the Dharma Contest began to manifest, spreading across the pool.
...
Before this moment, Jing Qian's spirit-fish form lay quietly at the bottom of the pool, silently healing body and mind.
The strange power of the Revolving Heavenly Son Seal had already settled in his heart, its earlier terror soothed. But the calculations it raised were countless, circling endlessly in his mind.
He calmed himself, carefully probing the abilities of his new Spiritual Construct.
Just then, a pellet of fish food suddenly drifted up before him, floating straight toward his mouth.
With it came the fisherman's secret voice:
"Your master asked me to pass something along. Take it quietly, don't make a fuss, and bring me trouble."
Perplexed, Jing Qian swallowed it in a single gulp.
At once, the fish pellet dissolved into pure mana, activating his Sumeru Heavenly Life Pattern and plunging directly into the Void Realm.
There, his divine sense discovered that the freshly opened Yuan Qi eye had been occupied by a tiny sprout no longer than an inch.
Nine-tenths of the Yin Qi produced by his Primordial Qi was being devoured by this seedling.
Beside him, the raccoon-cat grew frantic, scratching at its paws. After just a few days of surplus comfort, their Yuan Qi was being leeched away!
Extending his Worldly Insight toward the sprout, Jing Qian was stunned by what he sensed:
Spiritual Construct: Fine Corn (Seedling Stage)
Type: external moon
Rank: Second-Grade · Void Mother Tree
Suppression Requirement: "Do not suppress me or I'll be watching you!"
Lifespan Burden: Nine months per day
The flaws were endless. He didn't even know where to start complaining.
Not allowed to suppress it, yet it still dares to siphon my Yuan Qi?!
Anger surged in Jing Qian's chest. He pulled his divine sense back from the Void Realm at once, refusing to look at the sprout again.
For now, he had no time to deal with the corn seedling, because a tide of overwhelming power swept over him.
The long-awaited Dharma Contest had finally begun!
A hundred years of true cultivation and endless rare Yuan Qi, this was the priceless fortune offered by Zhuo Ling Cave-Heaven to the Spiritual Construct Disciples.
In this world of cultivation, the strong only grow stronger, and the winners seize everything. From the first step on the path, this law was absolute.
Among one's peers, earning a place in Zhuo Ling Cave-Heaven opened a gulf no one else could cross.
It was no wonder that in the past twenty thousand years, more than half of all new cultivators above the fourth rank had once entered Zhuo Ling Cave-Heaven and received the fisherman's boon.
The gains were simply too vast.
As for Jing Qian, no matter what others reaped, this trip was unforgettable. For many years to come, his path would continue to benefit from it.
Now, as the Dharma Contest began, Jing Qian felt his divine sense tear away from his body, rising without limit, until it descended upon a realm of endless radiance.
Beyond the light, he materialized upon the peak of a towering mountain.
The body he felt within this illusion was utterly real; his mana and divine arts flowed like water, flawless and unobstructed.
With his cultivation, he could sense no difference between this illusion and the real world.
Looking around, he saw nothing but silence and emptiness: a perfect battlefield.
A stream of law resonated directly into his soul, revealing the rules with clarity.
The eight Spiritual Construct Disciples would face each other in pairs, seven rounds in total, each contestant fighting every other once. Rankings would be determined by the seven results, and from that, the Zhuo Ling Immortal Qi would be divided.
At the start of each round, everyone's state would reset to their peak, their avatars perfectly restored.
Understanding this, Jing Qian's heart steadied.
Every battle could be fought to the death, every ultimate technique unleashed, every cooldown refreshed.
In the art of true death-duels, none of the others could match him.
He stood suspended in the air, his anticipation burning. At last, the first match began.
Before him appeared the figure of a palace-robed beauty.
His first opponent: Luo Yi, the foremost disciple of Compassionate Cihang Monastery, wielder of the Cloud Bamboo Seedling Spiritual Construct.
Without hesitation, Jing Qian erupted in full force.
A strand of sword-light, terrifying in its sharpness, slashed toward her.
The sword-silk transformed into light, moving at a speed impossible to dodge.
In the blink of an eye, it passed across Luo Yi's head, severing it in half.
Then came twenty-one shadows of sword energy, trailing the first, crashing down upon her like a storm, chopping her body to pieces like a watermelon.
Yet Jing Qian's expression remained cold. There was no joy in victory.
Because her counterattack had only just begun.
This Luo Yi was no ordinary opponent. She was the Spiritual Construct Disciple of Compassionate Cihang Monastery, once renowned for suppressing all of Haizhou.
In the hundred years within the time-stream, the wounds her Cloud Bamboo had suffered at the Ying heir's hands had fully healed, and her cultivation had soared.
But without the Star-Seizer power to shield her, she knew she held no advantage in this contest.
Thus, she had already prepared her battle strategy.
At the instant she descended onto the battlefield, she invoked a secret art of her sect.
A flame of purification erupted from her sea of consciousness, burning through her flesh, draining her mana, consuming her Dharma Manifestation and Life Patterns.
Her entire accumulation was thrown into the fire without hesitation, transformed into one ultimate conflagration aimed straight at the Cloud Bamboo itself.
Even her fifth-rank Spiritual Construct was reduced to ash.
This technique, Burning Body Pure Fire, was a Compassionate Cihang secret art used only for mutual destruction, a last-resort method to drag the enemy down with her.
The Pure Fire burned on. Whether it could truly defeat her foe was uncertain, but one thing was clear: Luo Yi herself was beyond saving.
She had cast aside everything: even decapitation meant nothing to her; even her Cloud Bamboo Seedling was thrown into the flames. All her accumulation became fuel for one final blaze.
That blaze broke past its limits, reaching the Star-Seizer realm!
Now, upon the battlefield, only the Pure Fire remained. It swept across everything, surging toward Jing Qian like the end of the world itself.
Feeling the torrent rushing at him, Jing Qian sensed a crushing, immeasurable pressure.
The decisive moment had come.
With a sharp crack, the Qingping Sword Casket in his sea of consciousness flung open.
The fundamental sword qi he had nurtured for over a century erupted in a single strike.
But before it could launch, the twenty-one great ghosts clinging to his body went mad. They revealed their true forms, ravenously devouring his flesh.
In an instant, his body was torn apart.
Even the Spiritual Constructs and Heavenly Life Patterns in his sea of consciousness were torn into pieces, feasted upon by the ghosts.
And then, as if that were not enough, the ghosts turned upon each other, tearing and devouring until only one grotesque fiend remained.
That twisted ghost gathered all of its power, exhaling a breath of gray smoke onto Jing Qian's fundamental sword qi.
Everyone had their suicidal secret arts.
For Jing Qian, dying was as casual as eating or drinking refreshing, unmatched.
This secret technique of the Yanfu Path, the Ghost-Devouring Art, sacrificed everything he possessed to empower his sword qi, boosting its might by a full twenty percent.
Do not underestimate that increase. For a blade already so fierce, this step forward was monumental.
The blazing sword qi clashed against the burning divine fire. Two Spiritual Construct Disciples collided with no tricks, no evasions, only raw force.
At the point of impact, the battlefield split in two: half a world of dazzling sword light, half a world of raging flame.
The two devoured each other, canceled each other, birthing a zone of chaos in between neither light nor dark, only pure power surging without end.
Jing Qian's soul floated in that chaos. His body was gone, devoured to nothing by the twenty-one ghosts. Yet his will blazed like an eternal lamp, fierce and unyielding.
Luo Yi's Pure Fire also burned with final glory, carrying all her years of cultivation and faith, sworn to turn everything before it into ash.
But in the end, when sword qi and flame were fully intertwined, the sword triumphed.
True gold does not fear fire.
Jing Qian's fundamental sword qi, tempered in that absolute blaze, was reborn, washed of impurities, and refined into a slender strand of pure azure sword light.
The raging fire was cut down by that reborn light, unable to endure.
The Pure Fire's essence of incineration was consumed as nourishment by Jing Qian's blade.
And so Luo Yi's end was bitter; her last defiance turned into her enemy's strength.
With the final force of his soul, Jing Qian guided the reborn sword light through the skies, cutting apart every trace of the Pure Fire, leaving no chance for reversal.
Though his cultivation was not yet sufficient to weave his fundamental qi into sword-silk or sustain it as true sword-light, the purification of his foe had sharpened his control beyond expectation.
For a fleeting moment, he tasted an unparalleled clarity of mastery.
At last, under the backlash of the Ghost-Devouring Art, his soul collapsed, and he perished as well.
But the first round was his victory.
With that single win, he had earned a place in the division of spoils.
...
The battlefield illusion dissolved, reshaping itself.
The techniques unleashed, the sword qi expended, the shattered Spiritual Constructs and Life Patterns all slowly restored.
Jing Qian himself reformed, renewed as if reborn.
Even his refined fundamental sword qi reverted, cleansed of every trace of Pure Fire's tempering.
Still, he had gained a new insight, a path for further sharpening his blade.
Suspended in the air once more, he awaited the next duel, replaying and dissecting every detail of the battle.
In all his path of cultivation, Jing Qian had killed countless, staining his hands with rivers of blood.
But to face an opponent of his own level, a fellow Spiritual Construct Disciple in a true fight to the death? That was a first.
Luo Yi's composure, her depth of foundation, and her will to fight all left him impressed. She was a worthy rival.
His eventual victory, of course, thrilled him even more. His Dao-heart grew clear, his confidence soared.
And so the second round began.
Before him appeared his next opponent: the Spiritual Construct Disciple of the Mirror-Cloud Shrine, whose foundation lay in the ancient fox-spirit Tamamo-no-Mae.
An effeminate man with a fox's grace, yet Jing Qian's gaze was full of killing intent.
The Mirror-Cloud Shrine was no stranger to him. In fact, he bore deep enmity against them.
His entire bloodline family had once been slaughtered by their vassals.
At his weakest, the Blue Lantern had nearly taken his life, one of the greatest threats he had ever faced.
Though he had later lured and destroyed both Blue Lantern and the Tsushima Island they commanded, the sight of this fox-man brought all grudges, old and new, surging back.
His mana surged. The second duel began.
This time, he instantly drove his escape light to the maximum, streaking a brilliant line of azure through the sky.
A razor-thin strand of sword-silk tore the heavens, cutting straight at the fox.
Jing Qian had once pried half of the Hundred Demons Night Parade Fate Ledger from Blue Lantern's soul. He knew the Mirror-Cloud Shrine's arts well, and he had prepared his countermeasures.
The fox-man, Tamamo-no-Mae, was no novice either. The moment the battle commenced, he transformed into a white fox, his body wrapped in a luminous jade aura that fortified him from every angle.
However fierce his defense, Jing Qian's sword-silk was inescapable.
The first strike of sword-silk split the white fox's skull open, revealing a gaping scar.
The twenty-one trailing sword-shadows followed instantly, no slower than the first, each one locking onto the fox's head and hacking mercilessly at the wound.
Tamamo-no-Mae's cultivation was but seventh grade, barely propped up to the fifth-rank Earth Fiend level by his Spiritual Construct. Against Jing Qian's sword-silk, he could do nothing but endure.
Yet though grievously wounded, the fox showed no panic. He even spoke:
"Your sword-light is sharp indeed, worthy of a disciple of Pure Yang Ruins. I cannot match you!
But tell me, when did your sect gain a disciple like you?
I recall the last ten Academy Festivals. Pure Yang only admitted two Chi Yun and Chi Ling.
Chi Yun fell in Xiangzhou, Chi Ling perished in Hunzhou. Everyone knows this.
So where did you come from? A Spiritual Construct Disciple suddenly appearing has old Shangxi broken the Academy's laws and secretly trained a rogue?"
"Without Academy sanction, your identity is illegitimate. The Divine Dynasty itself will reject you. How dare you compete with us?"
Even as sword-silk shredded him, Tamamo-no-Mae kept talking, voice booming.
Jing Qian's blades did not pause, cutting the fox's body into ragged chunks.
Yet still the fox crowed:
"What fine swordsmanship! But whatever you do, don't stop! If you stop, then it will be my turn to strike!"
His body was ruined, but his aura only grew stronger, his mana surging higher with every passing breath.
The Mirror-Cloud Shrine and Pure Yang Ruins were ancient enemies. They knew all too well how to deal with sword cultivators.
Faced with Jing Qian's relentless assault, Tamamo-no-Mae embraced a war of attrition.
Sword-light poured like a storm, carving his body with a thousand wounds.
But the fox seemed almost addicted to the pain. The more he was cut, the more exhilarated he became.
Only when the final strand of sword-light severed his head, scattering his protective aura, did he at last die.
Jing Qian sheathed his blade and hovered in the air, calmly restoring his mana. He watched silently as the fox's body reformed before him.
One tail vanished, leaving eight.
Not only had Tamamo-no-Mae resurrected, but his aura was stronger than before.
Jing Qian immediately struck again, unleashing another storm of sword-silk.
The battle was destined to drag on.
For Tamamo-no-Mae, 's nine tails meant nine lives. Unless he was killed nine times in succession, he would never truly perish. If given the chance to recover, his tails could even regrow.
And with each death, he absorbed the pain and injury of the last, strengthening his next incarnation.
This was the fox's true strategy: to transform the duel into a drawn-out war of attrition, Pure Yang sword cultivators' greatest weakness.
He knew well that Jing Qian carried a lethal sword-qi within his casket. But if he could endure the early rounds and stack his power, he would stand invincible.
Either Jing Qian would exhaust his mana, or Tamamo-no-Mae would climb high enough, his ninth life reaching the Star-Seizer realm, at which point he could crush the swordsman outright.
"Come now, strike harder!" the fox jeered.
"Your sword-light is sticky and weak like soggy rice paper!"
He even found time for mockery.
But these were his delusions.
Jing Qian was no ordinary sword cultivator. With mana reserves and recovery speed far beyond his peers, there was no chance of him being exhausted.
And watching the fox grow stronger with each resurrection, Jing Qian almost felt a thrill of anticipation.
Let him build it up. If he has something real to show, I'll see it with my own eyes.
Man and fox clashed endlessly, their battle dragging on for three days, hundreds of times longer than Jing Qian's duel with Luo Yi.
At last, after spending vast amounts of mana, Jing Qian severed Tamamo-no-Mae's first eight lives.
The fox revealed his final form: a true Star-Seizer Fox, forged from nine reincarnations and infinite agony.
Starlight life essence surged across his white-furred body. Overcome with ecstasy, he howled at the heavens, his voice shaking the world.
But a heartbeat later, a single fundamental sword-qi condensed, absolute, like dragon and thunder fell from the sky.
The Star-Seizer Fox was beheaded in one stroke, slain on the spot.
Jing Qian's own body was once again devoured to nothing by his twenty-one ghosts. But his long-suppressed eruption had ended the fight easily.
As his soul scattered, he left behind only a sneer:
"That's it?"
"Trash."
Thus, Jing Qian stripped bamboo and slew the fox, earning his second victory.
Two points secured.
And with no pause, the third round began.
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