Neither Mo Qing nor Wei Zhongran followed the direction of Li Yan's Divine Sense. They only sensed it for a moment before withdrawing their own. If they were to extend their Divine Sense along with Li Yan's, it would be akin to probing the strength of his Divine Sense. Li Yan would likely interrupt his test immediately and would also feel displeased.
In a herb garden of the Malevolent Spirit Sect, the delicate-featured youth stopped the act of bending over to water the plants and nodded slightly. "Just after successfully forming his Nascent Soul, his Divine Sense has already reached five thousand li. After he stabilizes, it's estimated he'll have another two or three hundred li more than an ordinary initial-stage Nascent Soul cultivator. Not bad!"
And in the secret chamber, Li Yan, upon feeling his Divine Sense was about to reach five thousand li, immediately withdrew it.
'That "Martial Uncle Gu" is also within the sect. Although I didn't sense anyone tracking my Divine Sense, I can't be careless.'
Although Li Yan didn't use his full strength, while releasing his Divine Sense just now, he had also been sensing the intensity of its consumption.
'Four thousand nine hundred li, using about sixty percent of my Divine Sense. If I use it at full strength, it should be around seven thousand li. This means my Divine Sense has already reached the level of a mid-stage Nascent Soul, and this is with my Nascent Soul not yet fully stabilized. Once it's stable, it should be able to extend another two or three hundred li!'
Li Yan calculated silently in his heart, a smile slowly appearing on his face. The stronger one's Divine Sense, the more important it could be in a fight, even several times more so than magical power. Not only could one foresee the opponent's attack route in advance, but one could also discover any ambushes before the enemy made a move. Anticipating the enemy was the most important thing.
After judging the strength of his Divine Sense, the illusory figure transformed from Li Yan's Divine Sense once again entered his Sea of Consciousness. In the void, Li Yan's illusory figure directly extended his mental power towards the sea surface below.
The moment it touched the sea surface, a golden light flashed out of thin air on the dark, gleaming seawater, and then a dense patch of text appeared. Li Yan quickly focused his attention on the end of the text. After he saw the characters on it, everything was both within and beyond his expectations.
At the end of the cultivation method chapter, the cultivation manual for the "Nascent Soul Qi Refining Chapter" had indeed appeared. Just like when he had just formed his Golden Core, Li Yan did not rush to memorize the cultivation method. Instead, he turned his mental power to the location of the immortal art manuals.
Soon, he found a place where several large characters were prominently inscribed—"The Five Elements Return to Primordial Genesis."
Li Yan's gaze quickly swept to the end of the cultivation method. There, he also found six or seven more lines of small characters.
Li Yan's gaze quickly swept over these short six or seven lines of small characters. Although the cultivation method manual was not long, the content recorded in it let Li Yan know that this was a completely different cultivation method from before.
Previously, "The Five Elements Return to Primordial Genesis" was mainly about expanding the width of the meridians and enhancing the acceleration of magical power circulation. This time, however, it used three more meridians in the body to gather power. Li Yan discovered that these three meridians were not main meridians at all. With his hundred-plus years of cultivation experience and his understanding of all the meridians in his body, he actually didn't know that these three meridians existed.
'These three meridians are unheard of. Are they hidden meridians? How many hidden meridians are there in the human body! According to the cultivation method, after opening these three meridians, not only can the magical power be unified into the five elements without any delay, but more importantly, it will mainly rely on borrowing the power of the five elements of the outside world. In this way, not only can the damage to the meridians caused by the doubled infusion of magical power be greatly reduced, but at the same time, the attack power will be additionally increased by ten to thirty percent. As for how much power can be increased, it still depends on the concentration of the external world's spiritual energy at that time, and the progress of one's own cultivation!'
Seeing this, Li Yan's heart was filled with a special longing. Indeed, the higher the level of a cultivator, the more methods they could display. Thinking about it now, cultivation before the Nascent Soul was really all about continuously strengthening oneself, making one's magical power and physical body constantly stronger, and then using one's own power to break mountains and overturn seas. And a true expert, on the other hand, used the power of heaven and earth at will to strengthen themselves. No matter how a cultivator cultivated their physical body, their own power could not be strong enough to surpass all the rules of heaven and earth. In the end, it should be mainly about skillfully borrowing various external rules.
After obtaining the follow-up cultivation method for "The Five Elements Return to Primordial Genesis," Li Yan, in his joy, had no intention of cultivating it immediately. Instead, he impatiently swept his gaze to the back of the immortal art chapter. That was the location where the "Wave-Hiding Soul-Slaying Art" technique appeared. His heart was also filled with anticipation.
When he was weak in the past, the cultivation method of the "Gui Water Immortal Sect" was strong, but the various immortal arts in the sect were never abundant. Before the Golden Core, it could be said that apart from the auxiliary cultivation method "The Five Elements Return to Prim-ordial Genesis," there were no offensive or defensive immortal arts at all, which resulted in Li Yan's offensive and defensive methods being very lacking. Even after reaching the Golden Core stage and having a natal magical treasure, this was still Li Yan's shortcoming.
At the end of "Wave-Hiding Soul-Slaying Art," after a sweep of Li Yan's gaze, a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. There, he indeed saw new text.
"Wave-Hiding Soul-Slaying Art, Second Layer—'Soul-Tugging Execution.' The soul is hidden in the Sea of Consciousness, making an ambush difficult… When the physical body dies, the soul emerges, forced out by the rules of heaven and earth…"
Li Yan looked at the general outline in the manual. As he read quickly, the smile on his face grew wider. This "Wave-Hiding Soul-Slaying Art" was originally a sharp offensive immortal art that complemented the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes. But in the first layer, it was mostly used for surprise attacks after luring the enemy. The purpose was to avoid a direct confrontation with the opponent's magical treasure and directly attack their physical body, thereby causing a disturbance in their soul upon contact, resulting in unbearable pain.
This method of attack meant that Li Yan didn't really use the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes very often in battle. In an open confrontation, he mostly had to fight head-on. Therefore, Li Yan usually used ordinary immortal arts, or relied on his powerful physical body and various potent poisons to fight the opponent to the death. Only when a good opportunity arose would he use the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes to suddenly attack, severely wounding the opponent's soul in one fell swoop. This also resulted in the phenomenon that although Li Yan had a natal magical treasure, he used it with extreme caution, otherwise it wouldn't have the effect of a sudden assassination.
And as the main cultivation method of the "Gui Water Immortal Sect," how could "Wave-Hiding Soul-Slaying Art" be so simple? It was just that the subsequent cultivation method required extremely powerful Divine Sense and magical power to support it, which the Golden Core stage Li Yan simply couldn't achieve.
The general outline of the second layer that had now appeared was called "Soul-Tugging Execution." It required Li Yan to refine a pair of Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes into a pair of talismanic soul-tugging brushes. In the void, he would inscribe a complex "Black Water Talisman." The inscription of this talisman was extremely complex, but once successful, there was a high probability of pulling the opponent's soul out of their body out of thin air. It was just like the rules of the Heavenly Dao would inevitably force out a person's soul from their body upon death.
This move was extremely vicious. For any living being, once their soul left their body, no matter how strong their body was, it would just be a lifeless corpse. What's more, a Nascent Soul cultivator's soul had truly transferred into their Nascent Soul, making it extremely difficult to force out. The Nascent Soul also had the instantaneous movement divine ability that was very difficult for any escape light to catch up with. This was the greatest trump card of a Nascent Soul cultivator.
Li Yan had read countless texts. He knew that in the Nascent Soul stage, only a late-stage Great Cultivator had some certainty of killing other Nascent Soul peers. And cultivators in the early and mid-Nascent Soul stages could generally only severely wound their peers, but it was extremely difficult to kill them. The fundamental reason was that the Nascent Soul could teleport instantaneously, making it impossible to capture the trajectory of its escape light.
Of course, all methods were possible. If a certain initial-stage Nascent Soul cultivator cultivated a great divine ability like the Buddhist "Dharma Eye," or cultivated the laws of space, they might be able to break through the instantaneous movement of a peer's Nascent Soul. This was another important reason why a late-stage Nascent Soul Great Cultivator could kill their peers. Only after cultivating to the late-stage Nascent Soul, when one vaguely touched the threshold of Spirit Transformation, could one, through the convergence of all methods, also borrow the power of other rules, sense more invisible abnormal fluctuations between heaven and earth, and thus also break through the instantaneous movement divine ability of the Nascent Soul.
So, from this, one could see how terrifying the second layer of "Wave-Hiding Soul-Slaying Art" would be once successfully cultivated.
'This is the most terrifying thing about the "Five Immortal Sects." Just after entering the Nascent Soul realm, one already possesses the cultivation method for the power of rules that everyone wants to obtain. If I'm not mistaken, this probably belongs to the laws of life. No wonder it's said that the Five Immortal Sects are coveted by all the sects in the Immortal Spirit Realm. This is too terrifying.'
After reading the cultivation method for "Soul-Tugging Execution," Li Yan's heart was no longer just surprised, but inexplicably shocked.
There were many cultivation methods for Nascent Soul cultivators, but those that truly possessed the power of rules were all priceless and rare in the world. The vast majority of Nascent Soul cultivators could only continuously try to explore and get closer to the true power of the rules of heaven and earth through some ambiguous rule-power cultivation methods, which could be said to be extremely difficult.
It was extremely difficult to advance each level in the Nascent Soul realm. There were many cultivators who were stuck in the initial-stage Nascent Soul for over a thousand years, and even passed away in depression in the end. The fundamental reason was that their comprehension of the rules of heaven and earth had been stagnant. Even with bitter cultivation, they could not reach the point of breakthrough.
After seeing the subsequent cultivation method for "Wave-Hiding Soul-Slaying Art," Li Yan's mood was unavoidably agitated and excited. After calming down a little, his gaze then continued to move backwards. Because behind the "Wave-Hiding Soul-Slaying Art" cultivation method, there were still small golden characters flashing.
The several large characters "Nine Cauldrons Gui Water" first caught Li Yan's eye.
"The cycle of the five elements is the lifeblood of the Five Immortal Sects. It is often said: extreme rigidity and yang give birth to softness, extreme yin and softness give birth to rigidity. The two poles of yin and yang complement and generate each other… A lake is gentle and compliant, a river is light and smooth, a great river is vast, a sea is heavy with waves. The Gui Water is a boundless black raging wave…"
Li Yan read the cultivation method all the way through. This text was also only about a thousand characters long. "Nine Cauldrons Gui Water" was primarily an offensive immortal art, and also a cultivation method that assisted the "True Scripture of Gui Water."
Cultivating this method would continuously condense and compress the pitch-black Gui Water magical power in his body, which would make Li Yan's magical power more and more pure, similar to the cleansing effect of the Giant Wood Clan's "Wood Essence Radiance." In the later stages, one drop of Li Yan's magical power could be comparable to ten to a hundred drops at this moment. The specifics would still depend on the realm he reached in cultivating "Nine Cauldrons Gui Water."
In this way, Li Yan's Dantian sea could accommodate more and more pure magical power, and his combat power would reach an incredible level. "Nine Cauldrons Gui Water" was divided into nine layers. When cultivated to the final layer, one drop of magical power could be comparable to a hundred drops of a peer cultivator's. In that case, how many peer cultivators could withstand a light strike from Li Yan using his magical power?
If "Nine Cauldrons Gui Water" was used as an offensive immortal art, Li Yan could transform the magical power in his body into a drop of a Gui Water pearl. The weight contained in this one drop of a Gui Water pearl could be greater than the total weight of the seawater in a boundless sea. With one strike, the enemy could be instantly crushed into a pile of dust and blood foam.
But it also had a big drawback. At Li Yan's current realm, even if he had some small success in his cultivation, when dealing with a peer cultivator, one strike would consume at least sixty to seventy percent of his magical power in an instant. If he wasn't sure of success, then his own situation would be extremely dangerous after his magical power was greatly depleted.
'Unfortunately, there are only a few drops of "Rongsun" left now. And after reaching the Nascent Soul stage, using one drop can no longer replenish all my magical power. I need to consume more. Otherwise, if this kind of attack is combined with the "Qiongqi Purgatory Art," and I attack five or ten times in a row… I estimate that very few peer cultivators could withstand it.'
Li Yan thought to himself. This cultivation method's attack was quite domineering, and it happened to merge with his already formidable physical body's strength to form an even stronger offensive means, but in reality, it couldn't be used casually.
In the cultivation chamber, Li Yan slowly opened his eyes. This time, after advancing to the Nascent Soul, the benefits he had obtained were also unexpected.