Volume 1, Chapter 321 – Spirit Infant

After speaking the two words “Tianyan,” Shi Lan seemed to shoulder an immense karmic burden, seizing upon a faint, hazy thread of life from within the immortal path, and fell into enlightenment.

That nameless immortal scripture appeared in the depths of her sea of consciousness, each word engraving itself one by one, wrapped in dazzling golden light that illuminated her soul.

The profound meaning of the immortal scripture followed that golden light and sank straight into the deepest part of her soul.

Under the radiance of the golden light, the impurities within Shi Lan’s soul rapidly melted away, and her soul power swelled dramatically.

Guided by the golden light, Shi Lan’s soul manifested a miracle within her body. A thread of pale white airflow appeared within her meridians and circulated through the heavenly cycle along a specific cultivation route.

In the span of a few breaths, Shi Lan had already become a Qi Refiner.

The spiritual qi of heaven and earth around her roared in like a tide, forming a funnel-shaped vortex that poured in through the crown of her head and flooded her limbs and bones.

At the same time, all kinds of spiritual qi surged out of the void. This was not the spiritual qi of Yunyan Star, but spiritual qi pouring in from mysterious corners of the vast cosmic void.

First layer of Qi Refining…

Third layer of Qi Refining…

Great Perfection of the Qi Refining Realm…

As one heavenly cycle after another passed, that milky-white stream of qi grew thicker and thicker. In the end, it traveled along the Dragon Pass in Shi Lan’s spine and entered her sea of consciousness.

The stream of qi slowly wound around Shi Lan’s soul and, beneath it, built up a flawless Dao Foundation layer by layer. The Dao Foundation rose higher and higher, seeming as though it meant to send Shi Lan soaring into the highest heavens.

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Third layer of Foundation Establishment…

Seventh layer of Foundation Establishment…

Great Perfection of the ninth layer of the Foundation Establishment Realm…

In the end, a flawless nine-tier Dao Foundation, like a mountain of jade, hung above Shi Lan’s sea of consciousness. Then from atop the foundation there gushed streams of jade liquid like springs, flowing down along Shi Lan’s chest and abdomen, condensing the five qi in her chest and reaching all the way to her dantian qi sea.

The jade liquid poured into her qi sea and opened up an upper dantian above it.

The instant the upper dantian opened, the jade liquid flowing from the Dao Foundation turned into a cascading waterfall, pouring into the dantian and forming a lake.

The upper dantian was quickly filled, but the jade liquid did not stop. It continued pouring down like a waterfall, then underwent a qualitative change. The jade liquid began to solidify and compress, until at last it condensed into a brilliant Golden Core.

The Golden Core blazed with ten thousand rays of light, illuminating Shi Lan’s upper dantian. With a slight turn, it poured forth magical power mighty enough to shatter mountains.

…

The spiritual qi roaring in from outside still did not stop. The commotion grew greater and greater, and soon alarmed the experts in several nearby cities.

Streak after streak of escape light tore through the sky and came whistling in, tightly surrounding this unremarkable desolate mountain.

Li Canglan awoke from cultivation. Feeling the undisguised powerful auras all around him, he was slightly startled. A moment later, he calmed the turbulence in his heart and walked outside.

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Shi Lan did not react in the slightest. Clearly, she had reached a critical moment in seclusion and could not be disturbed.

“The Grand Ancestor of our sect is in seclusion. Please withdraw ten li.”

The young man walked out of the barren mountain and came before the gathered experts. He sat cross-legged on the ground, then slowly closed his eyes, his expression indifferent and unmoved by favor or humiliation.

Over these past few days, the reckless pride he once wore had entirely faded. After seeing the starry sky, he seemed to have grown up a great deal. Even though any one of the people standing on the clouds before him could kill him with a single palm, his heart remained calm as still water.

“Grand Ancestor? Boy, which clan are you from?”

“May we ask the honored name of your Grand Ancestor?”

Some of them spoke up to question him, but Li Canglan remained unmoved. His eyelids lowered slightly as he silently recited the introductory chapter of the immortal scripture and entered meditative trance.

All the experts around him narrowed their eyes. Some of them wished to teach him a lesson, but the bearing Li Canglan displayed was truly extraordinary, making them somewhat uncertain.

At some unknown moment, a dark cloud gathered and covered the desolate mountain. Lightning flashed faintly above the clouds, and the rumbling thunder was deafening.

“Lightning tribulation?!”

“Is this person about to break into the King Realm?!”

On Yunyan Star, Heaven-Men were kings, and only when one broke into the Heaven-Man Realm would one draw down the heavenly lightning tribulation.

For a moment, the surrounding crowd was shocked, and then those blinded by greed revealed covetous looks.

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The lightning tribulation of the kingly path was by no means easy to pass. If the person before them failed to complete it and died there, then an ultimate expert beneath the kingly path would surely leave behind a rich Dao legacy.

…

The moment those experts arrived, Shi Lan had already awakened from enlightenment. She paid them no mind at all, her attention still focused on her upper dantian.

The Golden Core in her upper dantian had already expanded several times in size, and nine spirit patterns were branded upon it. At this moment, the Golden Core was covered in cracks, as though something were about to break out of it. She could feel that a spirit embryo was being nurtured within.

Shi Lan’s awareness returned to her fleshly body. She raised her head to the sky and looked at the tribulation cloud above with a thoughtful expression.

Apart from the world-ending tribulation martial artists would draw down upon reaching the Emperor level, they would also attract a heavenly lightning tribulation when breaking through to the Heaven-Man Realm.

For martial artists of Lingyang Realm, the lightning tribulation at the Heaven-Man breakthrough was not particularly dangerous. With a bit of care, one could cross it safely.

But within the Heaven-Man Realm, every time one’s cultivation rose by one level, it would draw down a lightning tribulation.

As cultivation increased, the power of those tribulations would rise geometrically, until at last, at the final step of reaching the Emperor level, the power of the lightning tribulation would be enough to destroy the world.

It was called the world-ending tribulation because it was enough to shatter every Heaven-Man’s small world!

The tribulation cloud above Shi Lan’s head at this moment did not possess that kind of terrifying aura, however. At the very least, she did not sense any danger.

Rumble!

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With a thunderous crash, a brilliant bolt of lightning descended, like a blade forged from thunder itself, and cut into Shi Lan’s body.

The overbearing lightning ran rampant through her body. In the upper dantian, the already-cracked Golden Core split open with yet another crack, and the spirit embryo nurtured within was on the verge of emerging.

This lightning did not harm Shi Lan in any way. It only left her feeling a faint numbness in her flesh, and she recovered after a few breaths.

Boom, boom, boom!

Five bolts of lightning flashed into existence and struck down one after another. The violent electric light made Shi Lan’s body convulse.

Crack!

As the five bolts entered her body, the Golden Core in her upper dantian shattered completely, and a spirit infant appeared, identical in appearance to Shi Lan herself. It looked no more than four or five years old, its eyes clear as crystal and utterly free of impurities.

The moment the spirit infant was born, it left the upper dantian at once. Along the Dragon Pass in her spine, as if climbing a stairway to heaven, it leapt into Shi Lan’s mind. After struggling up the nine-tier Dao Foundation, it shoved Shi Lan’s soul aside, sat down where her soul had originally been, and closed its eyes.

In the sky, the lightning and glow within the tribulation cloud dimmed, as though it were about to disperse.

Shi Lan, seated on the ground, suddenly opened her eyes, rose in an instant, and stepped into the sky. The Black Domain spread out in all directions like a vast abyssal maw and swallowed the tribulation cloud whole in one bite.

Blinding lightning exploded within the Black Domain, then vanished without a trace after the time it took to drink a cup of tea.

The experts all around stood dumbstruck, as if nailed in place by a body-freezing spell, seemingly having lost all sensation.