Chapter 559 - 341: Transformation
Chapter 559: Chapter 341: Transformation
Xu Yang did not immediately attempt to break through to the Perfection Realm. His consciousness withdrew from his Heart Spirit, and he began to rest and recuperate. Only when his mental state was restored to its absolute peak did he hold his breath and concentrate, pushing toward the supreme realm of Severing Illusion and True Self-Realization within the Blood Prison Heart Blade Scripture.
Once he broke through, his Sword Intent would reach a Profound Mysterious Realm capable of severing both the physical body and the spirit.
At this moment, within his Heart Spirit, the Blood Saber in that Blood Prison had transformed into a massive blade over a hundred feet long. It began hacking and slashing furiously at the entire Blood Prison.
"One strike!
"Two strikes!
"..."
Countless waves of blood were cloven apart. The entire Blood Prison trembled with a RUMBLE, showing signs of imminent destruction.
Xu Yang’s entire Heart Spirit was attached to the Blood Saber. He effectively became the blade itself, slashing frantically to cleave open the cage that had imprisoned it all this time.
As the slashing grew increasingly intense, the Sword Intent that had scattered into every corner of the Blood Prison over the past few years began to manifest, converging toward the Blood Saber. Gradually, the weapon became more solid, and its Sword Intent grew sharper, causing the entire space within the Blood Prison to distort. Transformed into the blade itself, Xu Yang forgot everything else. Before his eyes, there was only this Blood Prison that confined him.
He did not know how much time had passed, nor how many times he had struck. Finally, he heard a heaven-shattering roar.
"RUMBLE..."
This deafening sound snapped Xu Yang back to his senses. The Blood Prison had been torn open by a massive rift and was beginning to collapse. The space, which he had spent three years meticulously constructing bit by bit with his Heart Spirit, now transformed into the most precious nourishment, surging madly into the Blood Saber.
"Sever!"
Xu Yang unleashed an explosive roar in his heart. The Blood Saber expanded rapidly, slashing its way out of the Blood Prison world. The entire Blood Prison collapsed rapidly, everything absorbed by the Blood Saber like a whale swallowing the sea.
In an instant, Xu Yang felt a profound sense of exhilaration, as if he had shattered a cage and perceived his true self. Like layers of shackles being broken, his Heart Spirit began to grow boundlessly. At the center of his brow, a seemingly tangible Blood Saber manifested, emitting a sharp Sword Intent reeking of death.
"SLASH!"
Three feet in front of him, the table split apart silently. It was as if it had been sliced by a razor-sharp blade, leaving a perfectly smooth cut.
This was exactly the Supreme Realm of the Saber Dao: Severing Illusion and True Self-Realization. Now, his Sword Intent was no longer an ethereal existence, but had materialized into a tangible object visible to the naked eye. Xu Yang hurriedly withdrew his Sword Intent. If he let it erupt recklessly, the entire room would be torn apart.
At the same time, changes were occurring within his body. Gang Yuan was inherently a condensation of his own Essence, Qi, and Spirit mixed with Spiritual Qi. Now that his Sword Intent had sublimated, undergoing a qualitative change, it began to drive his Gang Yuan to sublimate as well.
"Li Fire Technique!"
Without any hesitation, Xu Yang activated the Li Fire Technique to accelerate the sublimation of his Gang Yuan.
Soon, a piercing pain flared in his body, as if he were being scraped by thousands of blades. He knew this was because his brand-new Gang Yuan was far too condensed and overbearing, carrying the sharpness of his Sword Intent. He just needed time to adapt, waiting until his physical strength was tempered to match it.
[Blood Prison Heart Blade Scripture: Perfection]
After more than three years of cultivation, he had finally stepped into the Perfection Realm today. Xu Yang could not suppress the joy in his heart, feeling as if his entire being had undergone an earth-shattering transformation.
It was a sensation on the spiritual level, and a transformation of the Spirit as well. He couldn’t articulate the specifics; his only distinct feeling was that his five senses had sharpened significantly, and his Heart Spirit could cover a much greater distance. Even more simply and intuitively, it manifested as absolute confidence in his strength. He felt that if he had to kill his past self now, it would take no more than ten moves.
He did not immediately end his seclusion. Instead, he continued circulating the Li Fire Technique to transform his Gang Yuan, while simultaneously running the perfected Blood Prison Heart Blade Scripture to temper his Heart Spirit.
"My Gang Yuan has decreased," he thought.
He knew this was because the Gang Yuan had been further condensed and compressed, but in terms of quality, it had risen to a whole new level. Under Introspection, his Gang Yuan appeared to be composed of billions upon billions of tiny blades, radiating a terrifying sharpness.
[Li Fire Technique - First Layer (9,054/10,000)]
Glancing at the panel, he noticed that the progress of his Li Fire Technique, which had originally been nearing Perfection, was now just over nine thousand. Xu Yang did not mind. His strength hadn’t weakened; in fact, he was stronger than ever. The drop in progress was merely a result of his Gang Yuan being compressed, meaning he just had to re-cultivate it. By re-cultivating, his Li Fire Technique would soon recover its previous progress. This kind of regression was actually a good thing—nothing was more important than building a solid foundation in the Martial Dao.
That evening.
Sun Tao and the others returned and called him to dinner. He declined, using his seclusion as an excuse, because the transformation of his Gang Yuan was not yet complete, and his explosively grown Heart Spirit still needed stabilizing.
[Blood Prison Heart Blade Scripture reaches Perfection, Longevity Points +200]
[Extreme Prison Heaven-Slaying Technique breaks through to the Fifth Layer, Longevity Points +100]
[Martial Arts Longevity Points: 1,889]
The next day.
The reward for reaching Perfection in the Blood Prison Heart Blade Scripture appeared. Accompanying it was the reward for the Extreme Prison Heaven-Slaying Technique reaching the Fifth Layer.
With the Blood Prison Heart Blade Scripture at Perfection, his Sword Intent transformed, reaching the Supreme Realm of Severing Illusion and True Self-Realization, which in turn drove his Extreme Prison Heaven-Slaying Technique to break through to the Fifth Layer as well.
"Both cultivate Sword Intent, just with different focuses," he thought. "A breakthrough in one naturally brings about a breakthrough in the other. Of course, the main reason is that the Extreme Prison Heaven-Slaying Technique wasn’t far from breaking through to the Fifth Layer anyway."
Xu Yang understood this clearly in his heart. If he hadn’t spent day and night comprehending the Extreme Prison Heaven-Slaying Technique, it wouldn’t have broken through alongside the other. Furthermore, he possessed Perfect Comprehension.
As the saying goes, one can comprehend by analogy and draw inferences from a single instance. Similar concepts naturally complement and merge with each other. For someone without this level of Comprehension, such a phenomenon would likely never occur. Of course, someone without this level of Comprehension could never cultivate a Cultivation Technique like the Blood Prison Heart Blade Scripture—which had an outrageously high requirement for Comprehension—to the Perfection Realm in the first place.
"That should be enough!" he thought.
Xu Yang casually closed the panel and stood up tall. The sharp Sword Intent radiating from his body completely withdrew. He now resembled an unsheathed Treasure Saber, his sharp edge entirely concealed within. Despite not sleeping all night, he didn’t feel the slightest bit fatigued. On the contrary, he felt a hundred times more energetic, brimming with inexhaustible Spirit.
"I should be entering the Celestial Strategy Academy soon," he thought. "I’ll first go melt down Jiang Wang’s Spiritual Soldier and bring it back, then take it with me into the Academy. While I’m at it, I can buy some gifts and ask the Peak Master to bring them back for Xu Qing."
At this moment, there was no one around the station. Everyone had gone to the Celestial Strategy Academy to watch the final trial, which had not yet concluded.
After disguising himself, Xu Yang quietly slipped out of the Purple Sun Sect’s station and hurried toward the location where he had buried Jiang Wang’s Spiritual Soldier.
"Hmm?"
Not long after leaving the Purple Sun Sect’s station, he noticed a concealed consciousness tailing him. Had his Blood Prison Heart Blade Scripture not reached Perfection, resulting in a massive leap in his transformed Heart Spirit, he might have failed to detect this consciousness hovering around him.
"Fang Xinghai?" he thought.
Silently radiating his Heart Spirit outward, Xu Yang soon discovered that the owner of this spiritual energy was actually Fang Xinghai, the Northern Steward who had been fired from the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion.
"Very well," he thought. "I didn’t go looking for you, but you came to ambush me first."
Xu Yang narrowed his eyes slightly and continued heading out of the city according to his original plan. He had already been looking for an opportunity to slaughter Fang Xinghai; it was even better that the man had delivered himself right to his doorstep.
"I can’t believe I actually waited long enough to get an opportunity," Fang Xinghai thought, feeling a surge of secret delight as he watched Xu Yang head out of the city.
Ever since he discovered two days ago that Xu Yang hadn’t gone to the Celestial Strategy Academy, he realized there might be a chance to kill him. Thus, he had been staking out the Purple Sun Sect’s station for the past two days.
Because Xu Yang had killed Li Yunzhou, not only did Fang Xinghai lose two Spiritual Essence Pills for nothing, but he was also fired by the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion. He had struggled for half his life just to climb to the position of a branch Steward at the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion, and now it had all turned to dust. Naturally, he was deeply resentful. Of course, the main reason he was so desperate to kill Xu Yang was because the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion, eager to sever all ties, had completely disregarded his life and exposed him as the one who instigated Li Yunzhou to attack Xu Yang.
Given their past grievances, coupled with the fact that he had paid Li Yunzhou to cripple the young man, it was impossible for Xu Yang not to seek revenge, no matter how magnanimous he was. Now that Xu Yang had displayed such astonishing talent, Fang Xinghai would be unable to eat or sleep in peace as long as the boy remained alive. If Xu Yang truly entered the Celestial Strategy Academy, it would be Fang Xinghai who ended up dead.
"I need to finish this quickly. A one-hit kill would be ideal, but it’s best not to cause too much of a commotion," Fang Xinghai pondered.
There were many people outside the city right now. If someone saw him kill Xu Yang, the Purple Sun Sect would definitely fight him to the death. Now that he was no longer a Steward for the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion, he truly wouldn’t be able to withstand the Purple Sun Sect’s retaliation. Fortunately, he possessed the strength of a Celestial Essence Second Layer Martial Artist. Even though Xu Yang was a prodigy on the Lingyun List, Fang Xinghai was confident he could kill him quickly.
"Heaven is truly helping me," he thought.
He had assumed Xu Yang was leaving the city to head to the Celestial Strategy Academy, but unexpectedly, after exiting the gates, Xu Yang put on a mask and went in a completely different direction. While secretly rejoicing, Fang Xinghai held off on attacking immediately, choosing instead to trail him from the shadows. Soon, he noticed Xu Yang deploying a Body Technique to sprint wildly ahead, so he continued to follow quietly from behind. Before long, the two of them, one leading and one following, were twenty to thirty miles away from Yunzhou City.
"Come out!"
Upon arriving in a mountainous ridge, the wildly sprinting Xu Yang suddenly came to a halt and turned around.
"He spotted me?" Fang Xinghai thought. "Impossible. He must be trying to bluff me."
Fang Xinghai shook his head. He frequently played this sort of trick himself—casually tossing a few words over his shoulder whether someone was there or not, just to test the waters first.
"But this is a good place to make a move," he thought.
With this thought in mind, Fang Xinghai stopped hiding himself, his figure slowly materializing in Xu Yang’s line of sight.
"You didn’t expect someone to actually be here, did you?" Fang Xinghai wore a look of mockery as he walked over, clearing dozens of feet with every step.
"He thinks I was bluffing?" Xu Yang realized. From Fang Xinghai’s perspective, it was impossible for someone with a Cultivation at the Celestial Essence First Layer to detect a Celestial Essence Second Layer expert following behind them.
"I didn’t!" Xu Yang laughed.
"Take off the mask. I’ve been following you all the way from Dragon Ascending Street, so I know you’re Xu Yang. You never expected that even after donning a human-skin mask to disguise your identity, someone would still tail you, did you?"
Fang Xinghai tried to find panic in Xu Yang’s eyes. However, he found nothing but amusement; there was no trace of fear whatsoever.
"Feigning composure! Of all the mistakes you could make, your greatest sin was possessing such talent." His tone was brimming with murderous intent, yet it also carried a sense of relief. "How do you want to die today?!"
"BANG!"
The dirt exploded outward as Xu Yang’s figure abruptly vanished from where he stood, transforming into a dark blur as he charged forward rapidly.
Fang Xinghai had not expected Xu Yang to be the first to strike, depriving him of the chance to spit out all the words he had been bottling up over the past few days. These past few days had been truly agonizing for him—torn between the constant dread of Xu Yang’s future retaliation and the bitterness of being kicked out of the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion.
"In such a hurry to throw your life away? Don’t you know I’m a Celestial Essence Second Layer Martial Artist?!" Murderous intent erupted in Fang Xinghai’s eyes, and his figure also abruptly vanished from its spot.