Volume 1, Chapter 223 – Swallowing It

In the system’s temporary storage lay a crystalline tea leaf, shining with a soul-stirring radiance, filled with Dao韵 and an incomparably profound mystery.

Shi Lan was somewhat disappointed. This single leaf of Ancient Enlightenment Tea was rather different from what she had imagined when she heard “one portion”; the amount was a bit too small.

Still, something was far better than nothing.

Shi Lan steadied her mind, put away Golden Rainbow, and used true qi to shake the scraps of flesh and blood from her body before preparing to return to Xianwu City.

…

In this great battle, the human race and the demon race had each assembled combat forces numbering in the millions.

In the end, the demon race suffered a minor defeat, but the human race had also paid a terrible price. More than a hundred thousand people were buried on the plains, most of them not even leaving behind intact corpses, while the number of those gravely wounded and nearly crippled was beyond count.

After returning to Xianwu City, Shi Lan received word that the Demon-Suppressing Army would no longer leave the city to launch punitive campaigns, and would instead recuperate and rebuild its strength.

The other scattered divisions outside Xianwu City likewise began withdrawing back into the city, and the women’s camp of the Demon-Suppressing Army was recalled along with them.

…

Dressed in a long purple-patterned skirt and with her black hair hanging loose, Shi Lan sat in the courtyard, holding the crystalline tea leaf in her hand, her expression somewhat conflicted.

It had been three days since she returned to Xianwu City. During those three days, aside from her daily martial practice, she had been hesitating over how exactly to handle this leaf of Ancient Enlightenment Tea.

According to the system, Ancient Enlightenment Tea leaves were unlike ordinary heavenly treasures. The method of consumption could make a difference as vast as heaven and earth in their effect.

Just as fine tea required fine water, if Ancient Enlightenment Tea leaves were brewed with high-grade spiritual liquid, their efficacy would multiply severalfold. But if the spiritual liquid failed to meet the standard, it would instead diminish their effect.

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Shi Lan had asked the system exactly what grade of spiritual liquid counted as high quality.

The system’s reply had left her somewhat discouraged.

The Ancient Enlightenment Tea Tree was a nine-star immortal root, and its leaves were seven-star supreme treasures. The spiritual liquid used to brew them had to be at least six-star in grade.

If it was below six-star, it would instead weaken the leaf’s effectiveness.

At her current level, Shi Lan simply had no way to obtain six-star spiritual liquid.

As Shi Lan gently rubbed the leaf’s veins, the hesitation in her expression gradually faded.

After pondering for a long while, Shi Lan raised her hand and placed the Ancient Enlightenment Tea leaf into her mouth.

Holding the leaf beneath her tongue, Shi Lan slowly closed her eyes.

Swallowing it directly would waste much of its medicinal power, but compared with brewing it in low-quality spiritual liquid, it was still far better.

A sweet, cool breath flowed out from the root of her tongue, like a murmuring stream, spreading through her limbs and bones before rising into her mind.

Shi Lan’s body trembled lightly as a sense of comfort spread from her spine all the way into her mind and through her entire body.

The true qi within her body began surging of its own accord, and Shi Lan rose and went to one side, where she sat down cross-legged.

Shi Lan had never felt so clear-headed. From the first moment she had stepped onto the martial path up to all the cultivation arts and martial techniques she had practiced until now, everything appeared vividly in her mind.

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It was as though she had once again entered that wondrous state she had experienced on that morning, though it was also somehow different—something beyond words.

Move by move, stance by stance, everything gradually broke apart within her thoughts, and she saw a certain essence.

Shi Lan slowly rose to her feet. The aura around her changed completely as the Jade Tempering Art was driven to its limit. Her glazed jade body manifested, and a pillar of blood and qi shot into the sky, making her seem solemn and majestic, like a vajra guardian of Chan Buddhism.

Boom!

Shi Lan threw a punch. The air did not even have time to flee before it exploded with a piercing blast, and faintly, one could hear echoes like Buddhist chants and sacred voices.

This fist art, supremely hard and supremely yang, incomparably fierce and overbearing, flowed from her hand without the slightest discord, almost perfectly complete.

Sensing the disturbance, Shi Tianlu followed the sound and came over. The moment he saw the scene in the courtyard, he recognized Shi Lan’s current state at a glance and knew she could not be disturbed, so he immediately cleared everyone from within a hundred zhang of the courtyard.

When one full set of the Vajra Divine Fist ended, a flash of light passed, and Golden Rainbow was already in Shi Lan’s hand. Her aura grew even more surging, as if a war god had descended into the world.

The Heaven-Scorching Three Halberds was executed through the sword, yet it still carried the same grand, sweeping force, crossing and dominating all before it. The pillar of blood and qi grew even thicker.

Suddenly, the halberd art transformed into sword moves, and Shi Lan herself seemed to become a divine sword drawn from its sheath, unstoppable in its sharpness. The true essence of the sword Dao began to emerge.

Shi Tianlu watched in silence, the shock in his eyes growing heavier and heavier. Before, he had only heard that Shi Lan had once fought a Heavenly Astral Realm demon beast; he had never seen it with his own eyes, and so he inevitably lacked a direct impression.

But what he now saw told him one thing after another: his daughter had already completely surpassed him. She had a broader back than his, broad enough to bear the weight of all that was to come.

The sword moves evolved faster and faster, dazzling the eye and impossible to take in all at once.

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Then suddenly, the sword shadows vanished in an instant, and the long sword in Shi Lan’s hand also disappeared without a trace.

After standing motionless for a long while, Shi Lan slowly raised both hands, drawing a full moon before her chest as though turning a millstone, and formed a hand seal which she held before her bosom.

The spiritual qi in the surroundings came surging in, drawn into the seal within Shi Lan’s hands.

The Heaven Extremity Seal was a supreme killing secret art created by a peerless expert above the Emperor level. Its power was terrifying in the extreme, and correspondingly, it was also incomparably difficult to cultivate.

For Shi Lan to comprehend it with only Earth Fiend Realm cultivation was even more so.

Now, with the aid of the Ancient Enlightenment Tea leaf, Shi Lan had finally grasped a trace of the knack and comprehended part of the crucial principles of the Heaven Extremity Seal.

Shi Lan’s aura swelled ever more powerfully, and the spiritual qi devoured by the hand seal before her chest had already reached a critical point.

Outside the courtyard, Shi Tianlu’s expression changed slightly. He did not have the slightest confidence that he could block this move, yet if Shi Lan were allowed to unleash that palm seal, casualties would certainly result.

A little while later, Shi Lan tipped her head back slightly. The hand seal before her chest slowly pushed forward and struck toward the sky. Violent spiritual qi waves swept in all directions, instantly blasting the courtyard walls apart.

The hand seal expanded in midair to several hundred zhang in size and shot toward the heavens, scattering layers of clouds across ten thousand li before vanishing into the sky.

A long while after the palm seal disappeared, Shi Lan slowly opened her eyes. After looking at the wreckage all around her, she chewed up the leaf in her mouth and swallowed it, then looked toward Shi Tianlu in the distance and said apologetically,

“Sorry, Father. I’ve caused you trouble.”

“What trouble could there be in one’s own home?” Shi Tianlu shook his head, unable to help feeling a little wistful for a moment.

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This feeling of being surpassed by one’s child inevitably gave him a sense of advancing age, even though he still had a long lifespan ahead of him.

Shi Lan was just about to speak when the ground beneath her feet suddenly shook. A barrier slowly rose from all directions, like an inverted jade bowl, covering the entire sky.

Countless spirit patterns flowed across the barrier, while layer upon layer of intricate formations overlapped within it. With a single glance, Shi Lan detected at least dozens of completely different array patterns.

“This is…”

Shi Tianlu was slightly startled, and his heart sank with a foreboding feeling.

“Shriek—”

A gigantic seven-colored bird swept across the skies above Xianwu City, its wings stretching over dozens of li, blotting out the sun.

“Xianwu City has a flight-restricting formation, and its suppression of the demon race is even stronger. For that giant bird to still fly here, it is at least in the Myriad Phenomena Realm, perhaps even a great demon of the Nascent Soul Realm.”

Shi Tianlu said gravely.

Shi Lan stared at the barrier, slightly dazed.

Just as father and daughter were standing there in alarm and uncertainty, both of their Demon-Suppressing Tokens suddenly grew hot at the same time.