Volume 1, Chapter 325 – Spiritual Roots

“Do you ever get that feeling of standing high above and looking down on the mortal world?”

Seeing Shi Lan’s calm expression, Li Canglan asked the question almost unconsciously.

The feeling Shi Lan gave him was very strange. Her strength was terrifyingly great, yet she did not have that overbearing pride so many powerful people carried, the kind that made others uncomfortable. There was only a faint sense of distance about her, as though she would never become too close to anyone.

Shi Lan shook her head.

“Why not?”

“I never look downward.”

Shi Lan lifted her head slightly, and a rare flicker of fire stirred in her eyes. All she wanted was to chase the true summit of the path of cultivation. At times, the things one saw by lowering one’s head could blind one’s eyes.

“Lift your head. Don’t look downward…”

Li Canglan looked at the rolling mortal world below his feet. His gaze gradually sharpened, and the confusion in him vanished.

…

Shi Lan did not remain long in the small world. After bringing Li Canglan and the others to a secret realm where spiritual qi still remained, she handed over most of the immortal scripture to him, then opened a space-time passage and returned to Lingyang Realm.

The laws of that world were incomplete. Staying there too long would do more harm than good to her cultivation.

For some reason, after seeing the graves of Qin Yinhua and Ning Kangping, she suddenly wanted very badly to go home. The longing hit her like an arrow. She wanted to go back and see her parents.

But now was clearly not the time. At the very least, she had to wait until the Tianyan Sect was fully established before she could free herself and leave.

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With nothing pressing to do, Shi Lan searched through her Qiankun Bracelet. After a moment, she took out several thick fragments.

These were pieces of the giant cocoon that had formed after she absorbed the Divine Phoenix blood. Quite a few fragments of fire law still remained on them, enough to let Shi Lan advance further in her comprehension of the fire laws.

The flame mark at Shi Lan’s brow shone with blazing light. Like drawing silk from a cocoon, she extracted thread after thread of fire law fragments from the pieces and merged them into her own understanding.

Tianbai lay not far away, slowly digesting the Demon King essence blood hidden within his body. His cultivation had almost climbed to the peak of the Heavenly Astral Realm. He was already not far from the realm of a Demon King.

…

A few days later, the cocoon fragments all crumbled into dust. The flame mark at Shi Lan’s brow grew ever more brilliant, and within it a thread of pale golden source fire had already begun to form. Her cultivation advanced yet again.

Over these past few days, Shi Lan had tried touching the mass of Demon Emperor blood wrapped within the Black Domain.

Unfortunately, the Demon Emperor blood did not react in the slightest. It remained utterly still, as lifeless as ever, giving Shi Lan no response at all. Clearly, her current strength was still far from enough to entertain any thoughts of Emperor blood.

Tap—

The dust from the cocoon fragments hit the ground and made a crisp sound that was distinctly abnormal.

Shi Lan’s gaze sharpened slightly. She flicked her sleeve over the ground, scattering the dust, and revealed a cherry-red phoenix jade pendant.

She reached out and picked up the pendant. It felt warm and smooth in her hand, slightly heated but not enough to feel hot, like a fine piece of warm jade.

Shi Lan rubbed the pendant and closed her eyes. A moment later, she opened them again, surprise rising in her heart.

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This jade pendant was rather mysterious. Her fingers could touch it, her eyes could see it, yet her divine sense could not detect it at all. To her divine sense, it was as though the pendant did not exist.

After staring at it for quite a while, Shi Lan found it looking more and more familiar. In a daze, a face of breathtaking beauty, almost too perfect for the mortal world, flashed through her mind.

That Feather Emperor named Feng Yichuan seemed to have had a phoenix-shaped clasp of about the same size in his hand, hanging from his folding fan.

That one brief meeting had left an extremely deep impression on Shi Lan. After all, there was still a pot of Ancient Enlightenment Tea sitting in her Qiankun Bracelet.

Shi Lan carefully put the jade pendant away. Since it had originally been in the Divine Phoenix blood pool, it must have something special about it.

…

For nearly another month, Shi Lan remained in seclusion. With the help of the Ancient Enlightenment Tea, she comprehended the laws of heaven and earth, and her cultivation rose steadily, pressing toward the late Myriad Phenomena Realm.

During this time, who knew how many people had gathered around the barren mountain, to the point that it was truly a sea of people.

Unlike the clamor outside, the interior of the barren mountain was utterly silent. After taking a sip of Ancient Enlightenment Tea, Tianbai had fallen directly into slumber, leaving Shi Lan alone.

On Yunyan Star, the Qin, Zhao, Hou, and Li families were the four greatest human powers, all with Heaven-Men presiding over them. At this moment, all four great families had arrived, each occupying a mountain peak on one side of the barren mountain, with four family banners rising straight into the heavens.

Around them, many subordinate families had also gathered together, ready to answer a single call.

With so many powerful figures arriving, there were naturally people who tried to probe the truth by force, only to be crippled by Shi Lan’s merciless counterattacks.

After killing the chicken to warn the monkeys, all the petty schemers hiding ulterior motives immediately fell silent.

…

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In the blink of an eye, the month-long deadline arrived.

Shi Lan slowly rose to her feet, her gaze tranquil, and directly opened a space-time passage and stepped into the small world.

One month in Lingyang meant another fifteen years had passed in that world.

Shi Lan did not linger outside. She went straight for the secret realm from before.

A faint anticipation stirred in her heart. She wanted to know how far Li Canglan and the others had grown in fifteen years.

The moment she stepped into the secret realm, Shi Lan sensed more than twenty auras that were by no means weak. All of them had already formed Golden Cores and possessed the tremendous strength to shatter mountains with a raised hand.

Among them, two auras were especially powerful. The fluctuations of their souls were extremely distinct. They had already shattered their Golden Cores and formed Spirit Infants, entering the Spirit Infant Realm.

What surprised Shi Lan most was that the number of people in this secret realm had grown enormously. There were no fewer than a thousand of them.

Whoosh, whoosh!

Two figures appeared before Shi Lan. One of them was Li Canglan. The other was a sturdy middle-aged man nearing forty. Both wore similar long robes, with the image of a single line piercing the clouds embroidered on the hem.

Fifteen years had passed since they last met, and Li Canglan had grown much more steady. The impatience and volatility he once had had been washed away completely.

“Sect Master.”

Li Canglan bowed with great respect, not overstepping in the slightest. The middle-aged man beside him bent forward as well.

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“Where did all these people come from?”

Shi Lan pointed toward the people in the secret realm and asked.

“From the outside world. They’re all disciples I’ve taken in over these years.”

Li Canglan straightened and went on to explain,

“As disciples of the Tianyan Sect, I felt it necessary to spread our teachings and expand our ground.”

Shi Lan closed her eyes slightly, letting her awareness merge with the world core, and “saw” the entire world.

She saw quite a few interesting scenes. For instance, the disputes between the Tianyan Sect and the Wuji Sect. For instance, the Tianyan Sect was selecting disciples with “spiritual roots.”

“What are spiritual roots?”

Shi Lan opened her eyes and asked.

“There are no spiritual roots. I made them up.”

Li Canglan shook his head. He merely selected those with good character, taught them patiently, put them through certain trials, and only then brought them into the sect.

After all, without someone carefully teaching them and using true qi to awaken their sense of qi, an ordinary person could sit in meditation for ten years and still fail to draw qi into the body. Their speed of cultivation would be so slow as to be horrifying.

Put simply, whoever he said had spiritual roots, had spiritual roots.