Chapter 201: Chapter 201
After finishing off the ancient elder of the Gepo Mountain lineage, Lei Jun made sure there were no other enemies nearby. He quickly cleaned up the scene before leaving the now-chaotic Niu Soul Mountain without delay.
He had no plans to contact the Shushan master-disciple pair. They were merely incidental, and he had no interest in forging relationships. For now, preserving the secrecy of his movements aligned better with his current priorities. Thus, Lei Jun immediately departed from the Rain River area.
On the way, he tried contacting his master, Yuan Mobai, again but was met with silence. Lei Jun frowned slightly, contemplating his next course of action. Based on his omen reading, some trouble was likely to arise at Niu Soul Mountain around sunrise. Since the reading was a "Lower-Moderate Omen" rather than the dire "Lower-Bad Omen," the issue was likely caused by human conflict, perhaps involving an opponent with a Seventh Heaven cultivation.
With his Spirit-Hiding Veil consumed in the earlier confrontation, a Seventh Heaven adversary posed a renewed threat. However, it was not an insurmountable challenge. Under normal circumstances, Yuan Mobai would have been able to handle such an opponent. His current silence, though, hinted at other potential issues. After a moment of thought, Lei Jun decided to set aside concerns about his master for now. If he wanted to overcome future challenges, he would need more tools at his disposal.
Lei Jun activated the Breath-Taking Flag, hiding his presence. The flag’s faint yellow glow radiated into the surrounding earth and stone, blending Lei Jun seamlessly with the Southern Wasteland’s landscape while heavily suppressing the leakage of his spiritual energy.
He then retrieved a shimmering flow of light from his storage—a dreamlike and ethereal object.
“This Reversal Essence seems to neutralize certain witchcraft techniques…” Lei Jun quickly discerned its properties. He recalled Chen Yi’s Suppression Talisman Stone, which had a similar function. It had temporarily concealed Chen Yi’s cultivation aura related to the Blood River Sect and even masked much of his foundational traits.
From the looks of it, Chen Yi was not a loyal disciple of the Blood River Sect. Instead, he operated as a rogue cultivator, independently seeking treasures and opportunities. Chen Yi had set his sights on the Evil Bone of Heaven in Niu Soul Cave, planning to claim it through Rain Cave. However, he had run into unexpected trouble—what Lei Jun likened to “a con artist stumbling upon a bandit.”
The ancient elder of Gepo Mountain, eager to shift responsibility, had promoted Chen Yi to the position of Rain Cave leader, using him as a scapegoat. Unbeknownst to Chen Yi, both the elder and Niu Soul Cave’s Liu Xun were already aligned with the Blood River Sect.
The "Supreme Good Omen" had emphasized the timing around midnight, highlighting this critical juncture.
While the Reversal Essence was a valuable tool for disrupting witchcraft techniques, it fell short of being a Third-Grade Opportunity. Its true significance lay in the phrase "Supreme Treasure Rekindled," which pointed to the Tianshi Seal.
After meditating to reach his peak state, Lei Jun began refining the Reversal Essence. Guiding the ethereal flow of light into his body, he used his mana to integrate it into his soul. As the Reversal Essence entered his spiritual core, it made contact with the Tianshi Seal.
The seal trembled faintly, and its jade surface glowed with purple, gold, and green radiance. Yet, shadows clouded the seal, obscuring its full brilliance. When the Reversal Essence interacted with the shadows, they began to shift, revealing intricate, ancient script.
The text seemed to carry the essence of primordial rituals, evoking images of civilizations long past. It radiated an aura that was wild and unrefined, yet not inherently malicious. The script seemed to represent a complete unification of witchcraft legacies, rather than any singular lineage.
Lei Jun steadied his mind and directed the Reversal Essence to engage the script. As the essence cleansed the text, fragments of it began to disintegrate. The Tianshi Seal trembled again, its light shining brighter as the shadows gradually diminished. However, the Reversal Essence was finite and soon depleted, leaving parts of the script intact.
Without the Reversal Essence, the script showed signs of reverting to shadow. Fortunately, the awakened Tianshi Seal, now glowing with its full spectrum of colors, stabilized the text, preventing further regression.
Understanding the significance of the "Supreme Good Omen," Lei Jun turned his attention to the resources at his disposal. He activated a shadow aligned with the Heavenly Book, guiding it to reinforce the seal. The shadow adhered to the script, halting its reversion to darkness. With the Tianshi Seal’s light shining upon it once more, the script began to dissolve completely.
Lei Jun let out a deep sigh of relief as the script vanished. Recognizing its value, he made an effort to retain some of the insights hidden within the text for future study. He realized that the script’s influence on the Tianshi Seal was the result of a joint effort by the seal’s original owner, Li Cangting, and the text’s inherent properties.
Using the Heavenly Book’s shadow and the Tianshi Seal’s power, Lei Jun successfully purged the script. Although the shadow thinned out, he stored it within the True-One Altar Grotto-Heaven to recuperate alongside the Heavenly Book: Three.
Lei Jun then focused on the Tianshi Seal, which now radiated with brilliance and a renewed connection to his soul. For a brief moment, his soul felt unbearably heavy, as though it were bearing the weight of an entire world. Yet the sensation quickly subsided, replaced by a feeling of lightness and harmony.
With the seal now stabilized, Lei Jun turned his attention to his surroundings. It was time to put his new powers to the test.
The portal to the third layer had opened. Lei Jun steadied his mind, bowed respectfully to the surrounding statues of deities, and ascended into the True-One Altar’s third layer.
Compared to the lower levels, this layer was vast and empty, resembling an endless azure sky. Lei Jun could hear the profound tones of the Dao echoing alongside thunderous roars, creating a symphony that resonated deeply with his soul. He silently focused his mind, channeling the teachings of the Tianshi Mansion. Gradually, his Daoist Seal materialized, resonating with the altar’s third layer.
The thunder and celestial tones softened, merging into the essence of the "great sound is silent." Symbols imbued with the Dao began to emerge in the void, glowing brilliantly as they condensed into statues of the Three Officials, celestial deities, and true monarchs revered in the True-One Altar and the Ten Thousand Methods Altar.
At the heart of the void, a faint purple thundercloud appeared, pulsating with a hidden, arcane symbol.
It was the Thunder Law Talismanic Canon, a long-lost secret art of the Tianshi Mansion, absent for nearly two centuries except among the Li family descendants. Now, it had reemerged.
As Lei Jun gazed at the thundercloud, he felt neither excitement nor euphoria. Instead, a sense of deep calm and stability settled over him. After organizing his thoughts, Lei Jun bowed again to the thundercloud and the celestial statues before exiting the True-One Altar.
Back in the physical world, Lei Jun circulated his internal energy to stabilize his cultivation. Above his head, his Daoist Seal appeared, briefly transforming into the image of the Tianshi Seal before reverting to its normal state. The changes in his mana and mystical power were evident; he had made significant progress.
Lei Jun nodded, pleased with his advancement, but his expression turned pensive. The Tianshi Seal, though awakened, remained fused with his soul and could not yet be fully externalized. This limitation stemmed from his cultivation level—at the Middle Heaven stage, he lacked the ability to refine such a supreme treasure. The situation felt like a “small horse pulling a heavy cart,” an obvious mismatch between power and control.
"So, with this treasure in hand, how much can I truly utilize?" Lei Jun muttered as he pondered. Using the seal’s full power—summoning it to suppress enemies directly—was currently out of the question. Perhaps he needed to approach the problem differently.
"If the mountain won't come to me, then I'll go to the mountain," Lei Jun thought. He focused his mind, connecting with the Tianshi Seal. His body suddenly vanished from the physical world, as though he had ceased to exist.
He reappeared inside the True-One Altar Grotto-Heaven—not as a projection of his spiritual sense, but in his physical form. Both his body and soul were fully present.
“Wait a moment…” Lei Jun glanced around, puzzled. “The Tianshi Seal resides in my soul, so what does this mean?”
He calmed himself, turning his senses inward. The Tianshi Seal still glowed with purple, gold, and green light, nestled securely within his soul. Yet the True-One Altar Grotto-Heaven, where he now stood, was an extension of the seal itself.
At that moment, the boundaries between illusion and reality, time and space, seemed to blur. Lei Jun exhaled slowly, his thoughts steadying. A moment later, he willed himself to leave the grotto-heaven and reappeared in the physical world at the same spot he had vanished. The concealment of the Breath-Taking Flag was still intact.
Lei Jun packed away the flag and conducted several experiments. He discovered that he could open a "door" to the True-One Altar Grotto-Heaven from virtually any location, but upon returning, he would always emerge at the original entry point. There was no limit to how long he could remain in the grotto-heaven—he could theoretically stay for an eternity. However, opening the "door" consumed a significant amount of mana.
Certain questions remained unanswered, such as whether he could bring others into the grotto-heaven or whether cultivators of higher realms could see through the spatial anomaly. These uncertainties would have to wait for future testing. Lei Jun also planned to explore the Tianshi Seal’s other abilities in greater detail. After all, it had already proven its worth when it acted instinctively to shield him during an ambush by Ye Chifeng with the Teng Snake Bone.
For now, Lei Jun refocused on his immediate objective—finding his master. With sunrise approaching, he retraced his steps toward Niu Soul Mountain, stopping at a safe distance to observe.
As dawn broke, sunlight illuminated the desolate and battered landscape of Niu Soul Mountain. However, the light didn’t last. A wave of blood-red energy surged from the horizon, rapidly enveloping the mountain. The oppressive aura felt eerily familiar to Lei Jun—it resembled the energy he had sensed when Tang Xiaotang was in seclusion, accompanied by Tian Linlong and a Blood River Sect elder.
This blood sea, roiling with malice, emanated a wrathful energy. From within the crimson tide emerged a middle-aged man clad in the sect’s distinctive robes, his face dark as if carved from iron. It was Elder Tu Dong, and his fury was palpable.
Tu Dong’s anger stemmed from the deaths of Liu Xun and Gu Ying, the two cave leaders he had painstakingly manipulated. Their deaths disrupted his carefully laid plans to sow discord between Niu Soul Cave, Rain Cave, Wheel Abyss, and Gepo Mountain. With their demise, the opportunity to plant a long-term thorn between the two sacred lands was lost.
Even more frustrating for Tu Dong was the loss of the Evil Bone of Heaven. He had intended for Liu Xun to use the bone, in conjunction with the abyss and the blood sea, to refine resources for his cultivation of the Blood World technique. Now, all his efforts had gone to waste.
Lei Jun observed from afar, his concealment holding firm against the elder’s sweeping spiritual senses. Tu Dong’s frustration mirrored the chaos predicted by the "Lower-Moderate Omen," aligning with the man-made calamities Lei Jun had anticipated. However, Lei Jun knew he could not confront Tu Dong directly in his current state. The elder’s strength, bolstered by the blood sea, presented a danger far beyond what Lei Jun could handle alone.
As the blood sea began to stir once more, Lei Jun quietly retreated, mentally cataloging Tu Dong’s involvement and the larger schemes of the Blood River Sect. For now, discretion was the better part of valor.