After reading the cultivation method again, Li Yan waved his palm, and the pale red jade slip was taken into his "Earthen Patch." Although he felt he might not ascend within three hundred years, whether it was finding an ascension node or tempering his own cultivation, both would require a lot of time. But this was evidence for the future, so it had to be kept safe.
Afterward, Li Yan formed a hand seal to remove the bloodstains from his body. After a brief wash and changing into a new set of clothes, he sat down cross-legged.
Soon, Li Yan's Divine Sense sank all the way into his Dantian's Purple Mansion. The situation there had changed drastically. The Dantian sea was vast and boundless, and the spiritual energy had all turned pure black, which stunned Li Yan.
"It's all water-attribute magical power. Isn't this the Dantian sea of a 'Saint Spirit Root'!"
Previously, the magical power in Li Yan's Dantian had been of the five elements' colors, but now it had turned into a singular water-attribute spiritual energy. This extremely pure spiritual energy would be faster and more powerful when used to drive water-attribute spells. This was the legendary Dantian sea that only a "Saint Spirit Root" could possess. The only difference from a true "Saint Spirit Root" was that theirs was like this from the Qi Condensation stage and would never change throughout their lives. But Li Yan's Dantian had suddenly changed after his Nascent Soul Formation!
Above the Dantian sea, a small golden person shining with a golden light was floating cross-legged. The small golden person's appearance was identical to Li Yan's. When Li Yan's Divine Sense swept over, he suddenly opened his eyes and also looked towards where Li Yan's Divine Sense was.
The small golden person's eyes were as black as ink, without a single trace of white, like the boundless black spiritual energy sea in the Dantian below, appearing deep and endless. After seeing the illusory figure of Li Yan, the small golden person did not get up, but once again slowly closed his eyes, his body shimmering with a flowing golden light.
Li Yan, however, smiled slightly at the small golden person. He felt a bloodline connection of symbiosis and shared death from the other.
He then noticed the difference in the small golden person's four limbs. Although they were also flowing with golden light, apart from the left arm, each of the other three limbs had a faint, thin line on them, like a meridian attached to the golden body. The thin line on the right arm was azure, the right leg was crimson, and the left leg was yellow. Li Yan then thought of the small golden person's ink-black pupils, and adding the golden left arm, it formed the five colors.
'There should also be a golden thin line on the left arm, but it's the same color as the Nascent Soul's main body, so it can't be seen clearly. Starting from the head and going to the right, it's exactly water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. It corresponds to the cycle of the five elements. Even though the Golden Core and the Lotus Throne have disappeared, the five elements will still appear in a new form.'
Li Yan just looked at the small golden person. After observing for a while, he found that every ten breaths, the small golden person would point one finger to the sky and one finger to the Dantian sea below. The finger pointing to the sky would have golden light surging into the sky, and many golden clouds would accumulate in the sky above; the finger pointing to the Dantian sea below would have streaks of black qi entering the Dantian sea.
At the same time, with each exhalation of Li Yan's physical body outside, an invisible force would emanate from the golden Nascent Soul's pores and spread over its body, but it would condense without scattering. The next moment, with Li Yan's inhalation, it would seep back into the body from the pores all over his body, wrapped in the external spiritual energy, in a continuous cycle.
'Heaven is metal, earth is water. Beginning from heaven, reborn from earth. Metal is the beginning, water is the end. The inner five elements form heaven and earth!'
Li Yan recalled the Dantian's internal view of the Great Ascension of Nascent Soul recorded at the end of the Golden Core stage manual of the "True Scripture of Gui Water." It was exactly this scene.
'This mutually confirms what I had comprehended on the mountaintop back then. After the inner five elements form their own heaven and earth, they will expand their own heaven and earth to the surface of the body, merging with the great five elements' power of the rules of heaven and earth. In one breath and one inhalation, the small and large five elements secretly correspond. You are me, and I am you. The great five elements are continuous, and the inner five elements are endless. The profoundness of a Nascent Soul cultivator's magical power is not just the expansion of the Dantian sea, but more about using magical power to skillfully borrow the power of heaven and earth…'
Li Yan thought to himself. Many Daoist principles and legal principles that he couldn't understand or only half-understood before were now suddenly clear. He continued to observe the Nascent Soul. Only after reorganizing many questions did he move his Divine Sense to the space between his chest and abdomen.
After a cultivator reaches the Nascent Soul stage, the formation of the Nascent Soul is no longer divided into grades. Instead, its true strength is judged by the solidity and size of the Nascent Soul. Generally speaking, the Nascent Soul of an initial-stage Nascent Soul cultivator is about an inch in size. Some Nascent Soul cultivators who have piled up their cultivation with medicinal pills may even have a Nascent Soul less than an inch. And Li Yan's Nascent Soul had reached about 1.7 or 1.8 inches. This was the true display of the power brought by the "Divine Empyrean Saintly Lotus."
Although Li Yan had just formed his Nascent Soul, his Nascent Soul's foundation was not much different from that of a peak initial-stage Nascent Soul. If he used a secret technique, he could contend with a mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator. However, it was not certain that he could kill the other party. How many Nascent Soul cultivators didn't have a life-saving secret technique? Everything depended on the person.
The cultivation methods of the Five Immortal Sects were supreme, but it also meant that they could easily surpass their own realm's strength by relying on the power of the five elements, which was completely inconsistent with their true realm. But even among initial-stage Nascent Soul cultivators, there were strong ones, such as Wei Zhongran, who had many secrets of his own.
Currently, both of them were at the initial-stage Nascent Soul, but they were also the strongest among the initial-stage Nascent Souls. If they really fought, both of them could erupt with super combat power that did not belong to the initial-stage Nascent Soul at all. Who would win and who would lose was really unknown. Only after a real fight could one know!
When Li Yan's Divine Sense moved to his chest and abdomen, he was slightly stunned. The situation in his chest and abdomen was again completely different from what he had imagined. The thirty-one pieces of flesh and meridians that had been invisibly separated in Li Yan's chest and abdomen were now not separated again, but… had disappeared! Or rather, the flesh and blood before his eyes had returned to the state before Li Yan's first painful separation. Li Yan's first reaction was: "The Fragmented Poison Body has disappeared!"
But he immediately knew that his reaction was wrong. With a thought, he could still easily feel the existence of various poisons that he could control as easily as his own limbs.
Li Yan once again carefully scanned his own flesh, blood, and meridians with his Divine Sense. Soon, he discovered that there were thirty-two more thin, pale azure threads in his flesh and blood. At first glance, these pale azure threads were not much different from the surrounding meridians, as if they were just extra meridians that had appeared for no reason. These thirty-two thin, pale azure threads also ultimately connected to a few real main meridians.
But what flowed in these pale azure thin threads was not blood and magical power, but thin liquids of various colors, such as red, black, purple, or green. After these liquids entered the main meridians, they would quickly merge into the crimson blood, but they would not truly integrate into it. They were like thin thread-like worms floating in it, traveling through the meridians. These different colored thin threads would flow throughout the body with the blood. After a full circulation, they would return to the thirty-two pale azure thread tubes.
Under careful observation, Li Yan discovered that each thin thread-like worm would accurately return to the pale azure thread tube it had started from, without any confusion. It made him feel as if these thin thread-like worms had a spiritual nature, like birds returning to their nests. The pale azure thread tubes would continuously produce new thin thread-like worms, always maintaining the existence of these thin thread-like worms in Li Yan's meridians.
"This… this is the Fragmented Poison Body re-splitting into thirty-two thread-like tubes, instead of being divided into large pieces…"
After observing for a while and trying to invoke some poisons, Li Yan found that not only was there no discomfort, but the poisons in his body were even faster and more potent. Wherever his will went, there was poison.
Li Yan's heart was filled with even more joy. Now that his cultivation had improved, the surprises it brought him were endless. After a brief test, he confirmed that the various toxicities of the "Fragmented Poison Body" had increased by more than three times. In this way, even if he just used poison techniques against a Nascent Soul cultivator, he might be able to easily poison the other party to death.
At the same time, because these potent poisons were connected to his main meridians and circulated throughout his body at all times, he could instantly activate any poison, truly achieving the state of being controlled by a single thought.
When Li Yan formed his Golden Core, the "Fragmented Poison Body" had separated into thirty-one pieces. Now that he saw thirty-two pale azure threads, it meant that after advancing to the Nascent Soul stage, it had only separated into one type of poison. This was far less than what had been separated when he had formed his Golden Core.
'All things must follow the rules of the Heavenly Dao. The Fragmented Poison Body cannot endlessly separate into thousands of poisons. This may be the suppression of the rules in the unseen world. Perhaps next time, at the Spirit Transformation stage, only the toxins in the body will multiply, but they will no longer separate!' Li Yan thought to himself, but he was not too disappointed.
His "Fragmented Poison Body" was already very powerful, especially when attacked by an enemy's poison. Its defense was almost impregnable. Although he only had thirty-one potent poisons before, he had rarely encountered any threats when his opponents wanted to attack him with poison.
However, Li Yan still had some headaches about the "Fragmented Poison Body." Every time a new "poison" property was separated, he had to test it for a long time to understand it one by one. Otherwise, he wouldn't know what the new "poison" was used for. He needed to constantly test its toxicity, the best time to use it, the methods, and so on, before he could possibly use it.
But as one of Li Yan's trump cards, Li Yan could only say that he was happy and in pain. On one hand, he hoped that his "Fragmented Poison Body" would become stronger and stronger. On the other hand, he was tortured by the agony of exploring each potent poison.
After exploring the "Fragmented Poison Body," Li Yan also put it aside for the time being. He quickly moved his Divine Sense to his Sea of Consciousness.
At this moment, in the Sea of Consciousness, the blue sky and white clouds were exceptionally bright. The originally several-thousand-zhang-large lake had expanded to ten thousand zhang, already becoming like a vast sea. The black water rippled, looking endless. A wind blew across the sea's surface, stirring up waves of seawater. Those were all Li Yan's vast Divine Sense.
Seeing this scene, Li Yan's thoughts stirred. He had been busy returning to the courtyard before, and although he had sensed that he was more sensitive to the heaven and earth, he had not carefully explored it. Immediately, his Divine Sense extended infinitely in one direction towards the outside world. In an instant, his Divine Sense flew out of Little Bamboo Peak and into the distance…
The core area of the Malevolent Spirit Sect was tens of thousands of li in size, so Li Yan was not worried that his Divine Sense would hit the sect-protecting restriction.
Mountains and rivers appeared clearly in his Divine Sense. Li Yan's Divine Sense swept past the mountains one by one. Although it was just a sweep, he could clearly see every blade of grass and every tree on each mountain, and even the veins on every plant. The weeds and silt at the bottom of the rivers… were also all taken in by his Divine Sense. This was something he couldn't have done so clearly in the Golden Core stage before.
Li Yan's Divine Sense was flying, continuously extending. He had a feeling of a vast sea for the fish to leap, and a high sky for the birds to fly. It was an infinite freedom.
Cultivators and demonic beasts were all taken in by his eyes, and they were completely unaware of it.
Somewhere on the summit of Never-Parting Peak, Wei Zhongran, who was using a technique to restore the mountain peak that had been shattered by the Heavenly Tribulation, would occasionally look at a nearby Cave Residence. Li Yuyin's aura there was still weak, but under the continuous recovery of the "Tribulation Essence Qi," her aura was no longer declining, which made him slowly relax.
Suddenly, Wei Zhongran raised his head and looked in one direction, a sharp glint quickly flashing in his eyes.
"This boy is testing the power of his Divine Sense. The scanning speed is so fast…"
At the same time, Mo Qing, who had just returned to his Cave Residence not long ago, also looked up at the sky.
"Hehehe… the feeling of the limit of Divine Sense breaking through when one has just formed a Nascent Soul is incomparably exhilarating!"