Ise’s flying cloud began circling through the air in a spiral.
He had even managed to escape from a Perfected Core Formation demonic cultivator.
Calling it pride would be a little embarrassing, but he was fairly confident in running away.
‘I just need to deflect one attack.’
The Dream-Saving Cloud drew an elegant curve as it climbed as high as possible.
He intended to enter a strong updraft and evade the attack along an unpredictable flight path.
But the floral light made of pollen pursued him against the wind as though it were alive.
‘It’s following me?’
It wasn’t a technique fired in a straight line.
It was clearly a tracking technique that pursued its target.
In that case, he had no choice but to block it.
It wasn’t an attack infused with primordial qi.
Judging by the power contained within his Divine Sense, it was probably a technique of the illusionary type.
He calculated that he should be able to block it.
Ise immediately cast Metal Hardening Art.
His skin hardened firmly under the effect of the Art, and he raised the Yellow Great Parasol over himself.
In case it was an attack targeting the mind, he gripped the Vajra Pestle in his left hand, the same hand holding the Yellow Great Parasol.
Finally, he wrapped primordial qi around the edge of the Black-Scale Axe and prepared to counter the attack.
Just before the pollen finally touched his body—
The Black-Scale Axe wrapped in primordial qi swung out with a short, powerful stroke.
He had clearly cut at exactly the right moment, yet there was no sensation at all, as though he had simply sliced through empty air.
It was an empty feeling, as if he had swung at nothing.
While Ise flinched, the floral light touched his body.
‘What?’
He had clearly seen it make contact with his body, yet he couldn’t feel anything.
No pain.
No foreign sensation penetrating his state of mind.
Not even the slightest trace of demonic qi.
As though nothing had happened at all.
Then the demon creature’s voice struck his consciousness.
It was a message that pierced directly into his mind like voice transmission.
[Arrogant human.
Someday, you will pay for the crime of interfering with me.]
Only then did Ise understand the nature of the demonic technique the creature had fired.
It was probably some kind of technique for tracking his location, while also allowing it to convey its message.
Ise let out a sigh of relief before speaking.
“Not sure if you can hear me, but the next time we meet, I’ll hunt you properly.
You’re welcome to come looking for me.”
Even if the creature came to the Heavenly Ice Palace, where Core Formation and Nascent Soul great cultivators held the fort, it would only get itself plucked like a flower.
If Ise felt too uneasy, he simply wouldn’t set foot in the Great Heavenly Demon Mountain for a while.
He could just find another hunting ground.
Besides, he had already been planning to attack a city controlled by demonic cultivators at least once.
The sight of those filthy demonic cultivators calling themselves city lords and living in luxury was simply too unpleasant to look at.
In any case, once he found the Two Principles Return-to-Origin Art, he would have no reason to return to this land.
The teleportation formation was to the north.
It was regrettable that he had missed the chance to hunt a Core Formation demon creature, but it had still been a worthwhile attempt.
He had also gained valuable experience from witnessing a Heavenly Tribulation firsthand.
An overwhelming wall that would one day stand in his way.
Yet somehow, it felt more manageable than he had expected.
Satisfied in his own way, Ise leisurely headed north.
Toward reaching the mid-stage Foundation Establishment Realm.
***
After returning to his residence, Ise leisurely prepared immortal cuisine and stored it in the Flesh Storage Vault before entering the Life-Spirit Cave Abode.
First, he gradually consumed the Condensing Qi Pills, familiarizing himself with harmonizing yin and yang before preparing to break through the minor realm.
Unlike the Qi Condensation Realm, which was divided into ten stars, the Foundation Establishment Realm onward was divided into only four stages.
Early, middle, late, and perfected.
The state in which one had completed all preparations and stood on the verge of attempting Core Formation was sometimes distinguished as Great Perfection, but it was more common to simply group it together with the Perfected stage.
Two words penetrated every stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Soul and primordial qi.
If the Core Formation Realm was the stage of making serious preparations to reach the Nascent Soul Realm, then the Foundation Establishment Realm was the stage for laying that foundation. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
In the early stage, one opened the divine sense.
In the middle stage, one contemplated the soul.
In the late stage, one sensed primordial qi.
Upon reaching perfection, one finally filled the deficiency within the soul and went through the process of separating the soul from the body.
After that, once the body became accustomed to the phenomenon of conflicting energies, in which two or more attributes repelled and devoured one another, one would finally be ready to attempt Core Formation.
It was precisely the process that had caused Ise’s body to explode.
Those who had gleefully raised their realms as Five-Element Spiritual Root cultivators would encounter their wall of despair here, because creating primordial qi required at least two attributes to combine.
Ise worked to contemplate his soul while maintaining harmony between yin and yang.
The cultivation formula for breaking through to the mid-stage Foundation Establishment Realm was:
If you peer into the soul, the soul will also look upon you.
The sensation of feeling the soul was different from that of spiritual qi.
Spiritual qi felt like manipulating a part of the body that did not literally exist, whereas the soul was more like manipulating divine senses.
Considering that opening divine sense was the process of taking humanity one step closer to the soul, delving deeper into the sensation of manipulating divine sense seemed to be the correct direction.
There are times in life when one experiences something like this.
After wondering whether this life one is living is merely a dream, an illusion, or an imagined existence, there comes a moment when one suddenly becomes aware of truly being alive, only for life itself to feel strangely unfamiliar.
A strange daze in which the overwhelming sense of reality causes thoughts to disappear, leaving the mind faint and hazy.
Some said that such a moment was evidence that one had glimpsed a fragment of the soul.
Ise erased every thought and sank into a state of selflessness.
Strangely, the more he tried to reach a state of perfect selflessness, the more thoughts kept intruding into his consciousness, as though deliberately trying to interfere.
The cultivation circulation was the exact opposite of a state in which all thoughts disappeared.
‘My beloved disciple.’
Among all the thoughts that surfaced, this was the one he least wanted to recall.
It was too precious, and therefore too painful.
His master had been smiling.
Even at the very end.
Master must have recognized the difference in their cultivation realms even before fighting Bi hyeongrang, the sect leader of the Cheoryang Thunder Gate.
Even knowing she was going to die, she had continued joking until the very end so that her disciple would not worry.
Then the faces of the people he had formed bonds with in Gwisu Temple began appearing one after another.
The moment the Dokkaebi Cultivators collapsed.
The anger and helplessness he had felt at that time returned once more.
‘An inner demon.’
Ise recognized it immediately.
He created flames and burned away the inner demon through the pain.
He would never forget.
He would remember, but he would not allow himself to be consumed.
He would simply keep his eyes on his goal and continue moving forward.
Ise rose to his feet.
He opened the door of the Life-Spirit Cave Abode, stepped outside, and headed toward the central hall.
The communication letters Ryu Seonghan had left were neatly piled on the table.
Checking their contents, Ise found that Ryu Seonghan had been sending them once a year as progress reports.
He was working hard in his own way as well.
– I completed my first mission safely.
– I have reached Great Completion.
– I will devote myself to preparing for the Foundation Establishment breakthrough.
– I caught the eye of Ancestor Song Sobaek, a Core Formation cultivator, and was accepted into his faction.
I will serve him well and do my best to earn his assistance should I need it in the future.
– I heard that promising young disciples from various Daoist sects, all under fifty years old, will soon gather for a martial competition.
A cultivator named Cheongun from the Tyrant Sword Sect is said to be coming.
Would you like to go watch?
The last piece of news was particularly interesting.
Cheongun.
He was a cultivator who had left an especially strong impression on Ise among the fleeting connections he had made.
Since he had come all the way to the Northern Continent, Ise thought he might as well go see how he was doing.
He immediately sent a reply to Ryu Seonghan.
– Tell me the time and location.
Ise slowly adapted to his divine sense, whose range had expanded by roughly fifty percent compared to before.
And there was one more thing.
Somewhere deep inside his body, he could distinctly feel something faint, like a thin mist, taking shape.
The soul.
Now, at last, he could perceive it through his own senses.
He had reached the mid-stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm.
It had been about five years since the day he crossed into the Northern Continent.
To adapt to his expanded Spiritual Sense, Ise headed to the spiritual herb shop in a nearby city to sell the first Full-Moon Hundred-Year Grass he had harvested.
It was the very first plant he had seeded and cultivated intensively—the first harvest of the Life-Spirit Cave Abode.
Since it had already accumulated roughly thirty years of age when he planted it, it had matured faster than expected.
Ise slowly entered the shop and took out the spiritual herb.
The owner of the spiritual herb shop picked up the herb and put it down again before pausing in surprise.
“This is a Full-Moon Grass.
It’s rare for one to reach a hundred years old….”
Naturally.
The Northern Continent had an environment of bitter cold, and the only places suitable for cultivating Full-Moon Grass were cultivators’ gardens.
Unless it was cultivated artificially, there was no one crazy enough to grow a Full-Moon Grass for a full hundred years.
“How about 1,000 spirit stones?”
“Is there much demand for it?”
“There is quite a lot.
It can replace Cold-Ice Jade Grass.
Cold-Ice Jade Grass costs 2,000 spirit stones, so alchemists in a hurry sometimes purchase it for 1,500.”
It was a reasonable price.
Almost twice what it was worth on the Eastern Continent.
More importantly, Ise liked the shopkeeper’s honesty in telling him the resale price without hiding anything.
“Good.”
“Thank you.”
There were now fifty Ten-Year Grass plants growing in the grotto.
In a few years, that meant he would have 50,000 spirit stones.
It was practically a walking Silver Dragon Mine.
‘I need to raise my attainment in Life-Promoting Art quickly.’
His current attainment in Life-Promoting Art was at the 5th Star, and he was devoting himself to cultivating it as much as possible.
Once all fifty Ten-Year Grass plants he had planted became Hundred-Year Grass, he would no longer have to worry about a lack of spirit stones becoming an obstacle.
‘It would be great if I could buy more time.’
Twelve shichen (24 hours) in a day were not enough.
If there were a medicinal pill or magical artifact that could double the length of a day, he felt he would pay a fortune for it.
After repeatedly earning and spending, he currently had around 20,000 spirit stones in hand.
That was enough that he no longer needed to go bounty hunting just to earn spirit stones.
Finding Jang Yeonggeol had consumed far too much time, and Ise never wanted to go through something like that again.
Ise sold all the Qi Condensation talismans he was carrying and replaced them with Foundation Establishment talismans.
Until now, he had been reluctant to spend spirit stones on consumables.
But now, he intended to invest more in his equipment.
He sold the Yellow Great Parasol as well.
Qi Condensation cultivators could not break through his Metal Hardening Art, while against Foundation Establishment cultivators, the Yellow Great Parasol was mostly useless.
It was time to let it go.
‘A self-activating defensive magical artifact would be better than a shield.’
Even one worn around his wrist occasionally interfered with combat.
It would probably be better to simply use defensive Arts with his bare hands.
Ise finished looking around the city and was about to return to his residence when something strange caught his eye as he passed the entrance to the Heavenly Ice Palace’s main mountain.
A woman in the mid-stage of the Qi Condensation Realm was completely prostrated on the ground, repeatedly banging her head against it.
Her hair was disheveled, and her Daoist robes were completely covered in black dirt.
The cultivators passing by occasionally glanced toward her.
The woman paid no attention to their gazes and merely remained prostrated like an ancient tree that had taken root in the earth.
She must have a story behind her, Ise thought, intending to simply pass by.
Then two cultivators walked out from the entrance to the main mountain.
The woman raised her head and screamed.
Her voice was hoarse, nearly a shriek.
The desperation in her state of mind was unmistakable.
“Please!
You have to listen to me!
Cultivators!
The Essence-Draining Ghost-Demon Valley is betraying the Heavenly Ice Palace right now!”
Ise stopped in his tracks.
Those were words he could not simply ignore.