Li Yan felt the space beneath his left foot, which was still on the eighth tier, go empty. He knew the steps below had completely collapsed. His eyes turned crimson. Channeling all his strength into a forward lunge, he threw himself forward. This was an action that was usually extremely simple, requiring only a lean of the body. But under the command of that icy voice, the air around Li Yan's body became as thick as a deep mire, slowing his movements to a crawl. Li Yan was frantic. In a flash of thought, the "To Be Together Forever" poison appeared once more under his right foot, which was on the ninth tier, firmly sticking him to it.
"Get down!" Just as Li Yan's body was slowly leaning forward, the cold voice in the sky, now seemingly filled with supreme wrath, barked out another cold command. It was like rolling heavenly thunder exploding by Li Yan's ear. A pressure dozens of times more intense than before slammed down on his body. Li Yan felt as if he had been struck by a heavy blow. His body sank down again, and a large amount of black qi gushed from his mouth and nose. His aura immediately withered.
"You... are you the Heavenly Dao? But so what?" The veins on Li Yan's neck and forehead bulged like ferocious earthworms. For the first time since he had stepped into this void, he spoke. The two great profound arts in his body, the True Scripture of Gui Water and the Qiongqi Purgatory Art , erupted with their full power. As they erupted, even more black qi spewed from his mouth and nose. With every puff of black qi, his body dissipated by a fraction in this space, actually beginning to show signs of becoming illusory and dissipating.
But Li Yan paid it no mind. As he continued to dissipate, on the verge of failure, his eyes filled with blood. He let out another great roar, and his body shot up. The illusory, almost transparent body was now standing straight on the ninth tier.
From the moment Li Yan subconsciously struck the strange pose of the Qiongqi Purgatory Art on the eighth tier to the moment he finally stood up straight on the ninth tier in one go, it seemed like a long time, but in reality, it all happened within four breaths.
"Before the Throne Foundation Establishment, complete!"
The moment Li Yan stood on the ninth tier, that cold voice sounded once more, but this time, there was no more anger, just the same lack of emotion as before.
The moment Li Yan heard this voice, all the pressure on the entire ninth tier disappeared. His body began to break down into specks of green light, which floated into an illusory step above the ninth tier. This illusory step had formed the instant Li Yan had stepped onto the ninth tier. If one looked closely, it was clearly a black lotus throne. On it was the phantom of a golden elixir, so blurry it was almost invisible. The specks of green light that Li Yan had turned into merged into the foundation stone beneath the black lotus throne.
Pingtu was still staring blankly ahead. On his huge, materialized face, his mouth was wide open, as if it would take up his entire face. In this Secret Room, rich with earth spiritual energy, only his muttering could be heard. "This... this... this is Ninth-Tier Foundation Establishment? How was it so fast? Pei Buchong charged for a full seven hours and ultimately fell. This... this..."
The scene just now had been too shocking for him. The moment the eighth line of light on Li Yan's forehead had just lit up, before he could react, the ninth line of light had already begun to shine. Then it just flashed twice, and blood burst from the pores and seven orifices of Li Yan's physical body, turning him into a blood-soaked figure. Then the ninth line of light on his forehead shone brightly.
All this was completely different from what he had imagined. Li Yan's journey through the previous stages, apart from the first five which were smooth, the rest were all within his expectations. It could be said that every stage he passed was a series of ups and downs, especially the eighth stage, which was a prelude to complete failure. But in just a short three or four breaths, how had he broken through to the ninth tier consecutively? If it were really that easy, why was the process of breaking through the previous stages so torturous, like trying to pull something from a dry gut?
As Pingtu stood there stunned, a muffled, thunder-like sound suddenly came from within Li Yan's blood-covered body. And this sound grew louder and louder, faintly seeming as if it would escape his body.
Pingtu was startled awake. Hearing the increasingly loud thunder in the Secret Room, which also seemed to be accompanied by the sound of howling wind, he quickly waved his large hand. A powerful light shield enveloped Li Yan, and the sound immediately became much quieter.
"Wind and thunder rise at the ninth tier. It's just as the legends say. I had only heard that back then, Dong Fuyi and Fairy Ningke of the Yi Wood Immortal Sect also achieved Ninth-Tier Foundation Establishment, and wind and thunder also rose within their bodies. But I never saw it with my own eyes." Pingtu was startled when he first heard the sound of wind and thunder from Li Yan, but he immediately understood.
In Pingtu's memory, there had been quite a few Ninth-Tier Foundation Establishments in the Five Immortal Sects since ancient times. But in their second generation, most were seventh or eighth-tier. Only Dong Fuyi and Fairy Ningke of the Yi Wood Immortal Sect were ninth-tier. Normally, when breaking through a realm, it was only when forming a Golden Core or advancing to a higher realm that celestial phenomena would be triggered. At Foundation Establishment, there was at most a rumbling within the body. But at Ninth-Tier Foundation Establishment, this was already close to violating the greatest limits of the rules of heaven and earth. This was because a cultivator's lifespan at this point was not two hundred years, but four hundred, enough to trigger the suppression of heaven and earth, which suppressed all unreasonable existences.
So when Li Yan finally stepped onto the Ninth-Tier Foundation Establishment, the rumbling within his body had already begun to expand. When it expanded to the outside world, it would trigger a resonance in the Secret Realm, leading to a minor Foundation Establishment tribulation. But all this was stopped by Pingtu. This minor tribulation would be of very little benefit to the current Li Yan's tempering; it was purely a calamity caused by the rules. And he didn't want the old monsters in the Secret Realm, who were comparable to the Spirit Transformation stage, to discover his existence. He believed that with his current protective shield, plus the formation outside the Secret Room, even a Spirit Transformation stage old monster would not be able to detect the strange movement here.
Not long after, Li Yan's eyelids trembled. The moment his eyes opened, two dark glints of light from his gaze seemed to cut through the dense spiritual energy before him, directly splitting the spiritual energy in front of him into upper and lower halves.
Looking at the smiling Pingtu before him, the dark glints in Li Yan's eyes slowly faded, and a smile also appeared on his face. He quickly stood up and bowed deeply to that huge face. Although this person before him was not a real human, he had helped him greatly on his path of cultivation. Li Yan had long since regarded him as an elder, an elder with flesh and blood. If it weren't for this person, even if he could have established his foundation, it would probably have taken several more years. And without this dense, liquefiable spiritual energy and the help of someone with a sharp eye, he might have only achieved a fifth or sixth-tier Foundation Establishment. Pingtu looked at Li Yan with a smile and did not speak, but his eyes were full of admiration. Ninth-Tier Foundation Establishment. The future was promising. The Five Immortal Sects would have another expert.
After bowing, Li Yan did not say any words of thanks. Some things did not need to be said. He sat down cross-legged on the spot again. He still didn't know the condition of his physical body, and his Fragmented Poison Body had suddenly undergone a strange split. After sitting down cross-legged, his Divine Sense immediately entered his body.
Li Yan's Divine Sense first went directly to the area of the Fragmented Poison Body. That area was originally above the Dantian, in the lower abdomen. But when Li Yan's Divine Sense saw it again, that area was completely different.
Before Li Yan's eyes, the area that had originally only had twelve pieces of separated meridians, bones, and flesh in his lower abdomen that were different from other places, had now spread upward to his chest. The entire area clearly had eighteen more pieces of separated meridians, bones, and flesh.
"Not twenty-four pieces? There was a similar record of this in the classics. How did it become thirty pieces?" Li Yan carefully recalled the few records he had read about the three great poison bodies and finally confirmed that he had not misremembered.
"Perhaps it was because the Qiongqi Porgatory Art rushed through in a mess and actually broke through five more pieces? But how long will it take to test to find out their use?" Li Yan looked at the eighteen extra separated poison pieces before him. Amidst his pleasant surprise, a trace of helplessness arose in his heart. Although the Fragmented Poison Body had appeared in the sect before, the final separated poisons were different for everyone. Before, just with the twelve separated poisons, it had taken him more than a year to basically figure out the specific use, characteristics, and even the onset time of each poison. All this required him to experiment again and again. Afterward, it took another two years to match them with Immortal Arts for flexible use. Now, with another eighteen poisons at once, it would be impossible for him to figure them all out without one or two years. The thought of this gave him a headache.
After confirming that the Fragmented Poison Body had successfully advanced by a fluke under the Qiongqi Porgatory Art, Li Yan then sank his Divine Sense into his Dantian. Although he had seen the spiritual energy tanks that had turned into round cauldrons during the seventh-tier "Cauldron-Arraying Foundation Establishment," seeing them again with his Divine Sense now made his heart stir even more.
Before Li Yan was a huge Dantian lake. In the lake were five four-legged round cauldrons. At this moment, the five great cauldrons were no longer floating on the surface of the Dantian lake, but were floating above it in an orderly height. To say they were floating was actually to give Li Yan the feeling that they were deeply rooted in the soil, so stable. The entire bodies of the five cauldrons had turned a deep, dark black and were emitting bursts of dark light. The runes on them, reflected in the water, exuded a chilling intent that spread outward continuously. From time to time, a dark glint would flash across a rune, giving a very mysterious feeling. Between the two cauldrons, thick streams of spiritual energy were flying out from one cauldron and quickly falling into the next, and finally into the Dantian lake. Amidst the boiling of the Dantian lake, several more tides of spiritual energy surged out and shot into the first dark cauldron, in an endless cycle.
Li Yan estimated that his Dantian lake was at least fifty times larger than before. 'No wonder fighting between Foundation Establishment and Qi Condensation is like a strong man playing with a child. A while ago, I thought I could easily kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator. I was really getting ahead of myself. Although Fifth Senior Brother reminded me, it's only today that I know the gap is like a chasm. Now, a single drop of spiritual energy water in this Dantian lake is several times stronger than ten percent of my previous spiritual energy. And the vast Dantian lake seems to contain endless spiritual energy.' As Li Yan thought this, a thought stirred in his mind, and he simultaneously thought of his Sea of Consciousness.
With a thought, Li Yan's illusory figure appeared in his Sea of Consciousness. Li Yan didn't come here often, only when he obtained the next layer of cultivation method. The expansion of his Sea of Consciousness after each promotion always amazed him.
But when Li Yan came to the Sea of Consciousness this time, although he was mentally prepared, he was still shocked beyond words. When he was at the tenth layer of Qi Condensation, his Sea of Consciousness seemed to be four thousand zhang. Now the sky was higher, the ground was deeper, and the distance was vaster and more expansive, with no end in sight.
The sky was no longer black, but had turned into a blue sky with white clouds. Looking at the now seemingly boundless Sea of Consciousness, and then at the black lake below, which had also grown from a small black lake to a thousand-zhang lake, with black water rippling on its surface, and a gentle breeze blowing through the air, causing the lake to wrinkle slightly, it was as if this was a paradise. As far as the eye could see, although there was no green, under the blue sky and white clouds, besides this several-thousand-zhang lake, there were also three faint mountain peaks in the distance. Li Yan glanced at the distance, and his figure flashed, directly flying toward the distance.
About half an incense stick's time later, Li Yan returned to the sky above the black lake.
"The Sea of Consciousness is probably ten thousand zhang in size now. And in some places, small blades of grass have actually started to grow. Although there are very few, they are there. This also shows that the Sea of Consciousness has really advanced to a new realm. At four thousand-odd zhang, my Divine Sense could cover a radius of seventy li. Now, a range of one hundred and seventy li should be no problem. I can test it for real when I get back to Little Bamboo Peak. For now..." Thinking of this, the levitating Li Yan couldn't help but lower his head and look at the huge lake surface, a look of excitement in his eyes.
There, was the early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivation method of the True Scripture of Gui Water, as well as the long-awaited Immortal Arts of the Five Immortal Sects. Thinking of this, Li Yan's heart stirred with excitement, and his Divine Sense focused and probed toward the lake surface.