Although Bai Hua had lost his primordial yang, he had not lost his wits. What had happened with his senior brother was, to him, a transaction. If his constitution was valuable to their master, it must have been valuable to his senior brother as well. Taking the red fruit in return seemed a fair exchange.
After swallowing the red fruit, Bai Hua felt warmth spread through him. Following several days on the run, this place was at least relatively safe.
He did not know what would happen when he ate the fruit, so he had chosen the safest hiding place he could find.
The warmth quickly turned into searing heat, and the tremendous energy within the fruit surged relentlessly through his body.
His pitifully small dantian expanded and contracted in violent pulses, showing unmistakable signs of a breakthrough.
“Ugh…” Bai Hua could not suppress a cry of pain.
He had never imagined the red fruit would be so powerful.
At the third level of Qi Refining, taking such a fruit was nearly suicidal. Unless something unexpected happened, its energy would soon rupture his dantian and blow his body apart.
Bai Hua’s face twisted. Veins stood out on his forehead, his skin turned hot and scarlet, and the vessels beneath it writhed like tiny snakes.
“Am I… going to die?” Sweat drenched his brow. He half opened his eyes and stared dazedly at the small patch of sky visible beyond the hollow tree.
He could not accept it. Didn’t he possess spiritual roots? Wasn’t he supposed to have a chance to cultivate and attain immortality? Why should he die here?
Heaven was terribly unfair!
He did not want to die. He absolutely did not want to die!
He would pay any price to survive. He wanted to live well and rise above others, not die in a rotten tree hollow and have his corpse devoured by wild beasts.
Just as Bai Hua frantically searched for some chance of survival, the dragon-shaped jade pendant around his neck burst into dazzling light.
The light immediately covered his body, and the sensation that he was about to burst apart began to subside.
Under the pendant’s light, all the spiritual power in his body was forced back into his dantian, forming a cloud of golden mist. The pendant did not completely imprison the mist. Instead, it left a narrow opening through which measured amounts of spiritual energy could escape.
Freed from the flood of incoming spiritual energy, Bai Hua’s dantian finally had a chance to recover. The earlier impact had expanded it somewhat, and the gentler nourishment allowed him to advance smoothly to the fourth level of Qi Refining.
Protected by the jade pendant, the golden mist could release energy only slowly, letting his dantian refine and absorb it. This pure, untainted spiritual power nourished his dantian and helped him continue breaking through.
Fifth level of Qi Refining, then sixth…
While Bai Hua remained unconscious, the red fruit’s power raised his cultivation all the way to Great Perfection of Qi Refining in a single surge.
Even if the pendant stopped functioning now, the remaining half of the spiritual-energy mist could no longer harm him. But any energy he failed to absorb would gradually dissipate from his body and be wasted.
At that moment, Bai Hua let out a brief moan and regained consciousness.
When he woke, he immediately checked his dantian. He had been certain he would die; he had never expected the jade pendant he had acquired by chance to prove so useful.
Noticing that the pendant’s light was fading while half the spiritual energy remained, Bai Hua made a bold decision: he would attempt Foundation Establishment rather than let that precious power disperse into the world.
Perhaps it was his determination, or perhaps some kind of halo at work, but his Foundation Establishment succeeded with almost unbelievable ease.
He stared at his pale, nearly translucent hands, joy beyond words welling up within him.
He took out a mirror. An exceptionally handsome face looked back at him.
Following Foundation Establishment, his appearance had changed dramatically. Whether it was the dragon-shaped jade pendant or the red fruit that caused this, he could not tell.
The last traces of boyishness had vanished. At first glance, he now looked like a refined young man.
His eyes in particular held an unusual charm. Anyone who met his intent gaze might mistakenly feel that they were deeply cherished by him.
Bai Hua was beside himself with delight. He studied his reflection for a long while. Beyond the surprise of his altered appearance, the fact that he had broken through to Foundation Establishment in one leap filled him with excitement.
Ever since witnessing the old master’s brutal life-draining technique in the hidden room, he had lived in fear. The master’s overwhelming strength terrified him. His senior brother had promised to rescue him, but confronting their master with his own cultivation would have been suicide.
Only now did Bai Hua fully realize that he was no longer an ordinary mortal. With his appearance, he might have lived comfortably for a few years in the mortal world, but as a cultivator possessing a constitution others sought to exploit, his future could be miserable.
Even if he escaped that old monster, without the protection of a powerful person he might simply fall into someone else’s hands.
“I won’t die. I will rise above everyone else!” Bai Hua declared, touching his cheek as a strange smile curved his lips.
Just then, he felt a sudden tugging sensation. A transparent vortex appeared beside him, identical in shape and color to the entrance the Xu brothers had entered, except much smaller.
The abrupt change frightened Bai Hua. Before he could react, the vortex sucked him in.
The Azure Spirit Seal and Azure Spirit Guide differed by only one Chinese character, yet they were entirely different objects. Bai Hua’s Azure Spirit Guide was more advanced than an Azure Spirit Seal: it could send him directly into the Azure Spirit Secret Realm without requiring him to find the entrance.
* * *
While the Tianyu Sect elder was reassuring Qixuan and arranging for his own sect’s disciples to enter, Xu Ziyan and Xu Zirong appeared inside a dark cavern.
It was difficult to say whether their luck was good or bad. A fluctuation in the passage had shifted their destination, separating them from every one of their senior brothers and sisters.
The brothers had been among the last of the Flowing Light Sect disciples to enter. After the passage fluctuated, Qixuan delayed the other groups; the Tianyu Sect disciples who followed were sent elsewhere as well. As a result, the dark cavern now contained only the Xu brothers.
“Big Brother?” Xu Zirong looked at him, puzzled. Because he paid attention to Xu Ziyan at every moment, he readily noticed that his brother had worn an unusual expression ever since entering the passage.
“It’s nothing.” Xu Ziyan shook his head and took a Luminous Orb from his storage bag.
The Azure Spirit Secret Realm contained many different kinds of terrain. Finding themselves in an underground cavern was unexpected, but Xu Ziyan had prepared the necessary supplies and was not especially alarmed.
The luminous stone was no larger than a fist, yet it gave off enough light to illuminate their surroundings.
The cavern was dim, with only the orb’s faint white glow to guide them. They stood in the middle of a passage, dark tunnels extending both ahead and behind them. The cramped space felt oppressive. Fortunately there was no rotting smell, and, if they paid attention, they could detect a current of air.
“Let’s go this way.” With only two directions to choose from, Xu Ziyan naturally headed toward the source of the breeze.
Xu Zirong followed close behind. Ever since entering the Azure Spirit Secret Realm, he had felt strangely ill at ease. He could not identify the cause of his agitation; it was simply an instinctive uneasiness.
They continued along the tunnel. The ground was dry, though now and then their feet brushed against soft patches of moss.
As they walked, Xu Ziyan repeatedly examined his own body. He believed the sensation he had felt on entering the passage was real: something must have entered him.
Using his inner sight, he inspected his meridians and dantian again and again, but even after checking every part of himself, he could find nothing amiss.
The Azure Firmament Divine Lightning still darted about happily in his dantian. In truth, with that divine lightning there, it should have been nearly impossible for anything to slip inside unnoticed.
His dantian was fine. His meridians were fine. Everything was fine. Then where was the problem?
Xu Ziyan analyzed the question so intently that his steps gradually slowed without his noticing.
“Big Brother, what exactly is wrong?” Xu Zirong asked with a frown. Xu Ziyan had seemed unlike himself since they entered the realm, but he would not explain. Normally Zirong would ask indirectly, preserving his image as a sweet, obedient younger brother. Such a blunt question did not fit the persona he had carefully cultivated.
But the uneasy feeling within him was growing stronger, and an edge of impatience slipped into his tone before he realized it.
The instant he spoke, Xu Zirong was startled. He had not expected his anxiety to stir the violence buried in his heart. He clamped his mouth shut at once, afraid to say more.
Fortunately, Xu Ziyan was so preoccupied with examining himself that he barely heard what Zirong had said.
“What did you say?”
Relieved, Xu Zirong softened his voice. “Big Brother, you’ve been acting strangely ever since we entered the passage. Did something happen?”
Xu Ziyan thought about it and decided there was no harm in telling him. Zirong was only eleven… no, he was twelve now, but he was astonishingly mature for his age. Without his small stature and still-childish face, Xu Ziyan might often have thought he was talking to an adult.
Xu Ziyan described exactly what he had felt. Xu Zirong also fell into thought.
He trusted that his brother had not imagined it. A cultivator’s sharpened senses rarely made such mistakes. Unless someone deliberately used an illusion formation to deceive them, a simple misperception was nearly impossible.