Chapter 64

Hong Zhi was absent, so Qing Wu received Wei Yuning. The two were old acquaintances; after not seeing each other for days, they exchanged pleasantries. Since Qing Wu was present, having him pass along the message was the same. Thus Wei Yuning spoke of his taking another dao companion.

"Qing Mo, junior martial brother, you…… truly are extraordinary, doing what ordinary people wouldn't, having two dao companions—can your body handle it? Hahaha!" Qing Wu, as a disciple of Hong Zhi, although he secretly admired Senior Martial Sister Qing Ling, according to Wei Yuning's several observations, his fondness was more like a one‑sided spiritual love, not what he claimed—that the timing wasn't right. He and Hong Zhi seem to treat affection as a quality, placing it within their humanity, yet in practice they never act on it; what occupies their minds is only the Great Dao.

"Ah, Senior Martial Brother Qing Wu, don't hide it from me—I also have my difficulties." Wei Yuning did not evade the topic; he directly told how Ye Ying, defying her master's orders, had become his dao companion out of necessity. Of course, this explanation is partly true, partly false—what can be said may be said, what cannot be said naturally cannot be said.

"I'm just worried that the disciple of the Divine Martial Sect, embarrassed and angry, will come to the Cloud Hidden Sect's gate to cause trouble!" Finally, Wei Yuning sighed. This was also him giving himself a preventive shot, so that if something really happened, the sect wouldn't blame him.

Qing Wu, hearing this, couldn't help but laugh despite his poker face: "Junior martial brother, you've got quite the method—actually seizing love by force!"

"Ah, Senior Martial Brother, don't tease me. I'm just soft‑hearted; I can't bear to see the junior martial sister of the Azure Phoenix Sect crying." Wei Yuning said.

"Haha, junior martial brother, don't worry. Although I've never heard of the Divine Martial Sect, what you say is interesting—it's a sect that specializes in cultivating the physical body. Rest assured, no matter how strong the body, it can't surpass magic treasures and weapons. If they really dare to come knocking, I'll call a few friends and let them see which sect is the foremost on Bixi Island!" Qing Wu said heroically.

"Good, good, good. Thank you first, Senior Martial Brother Qing Wu. I have other matters, so I'll head back first." Wei Yuning said.

"It's nothing worth mentioning; go ahead and be busy. I'll tell my master about the dao companion matter." Qing Wu said.

The heavy snow fell all night before stopping; the next day, the entire Nine Clouds Peak was blanketed in silver white.

The weather was cold, so Wei Yuning decided to give himself a day off, abandoning the plan to find helpers to plant floating blossom grass in the Hundred Flowers Garden. Of course, there was another, more important reason: he had entered the final critical moment in constructing the spirit butterfly contemplation object.

Currently, the outward form of the spirit butterfly in Wei Yuning's divine sense has been completely finished; if following past standards, injecting a 'soul' or 'spirituality' into the contemplation object would suffice, but this time he demanded that even the minutest details meet the requirements.

The spirit butterfly phantom provided by the sect's spell only has a lifelike shape, with no details revealed of its deeper interior. Through studying the golden ancient pine, he has learned that the part of the contemplation object that generates self‑consciousness is completely indistinguishable from that of a living being.

From a spiritual standpoint, this contemplation object is naturally perfect, but it has a serious, uncontrollable flaw: being merely an outward form, it cannot obtain the inner essence of a spirit butterfly. Spirit butterflies differ from ancient pines; the latter are visible, tangible, and familiar species, whereas spirit butterflies are entirely fictitious creations of the mind—even including Wei Yuning, entry‑level disciples actually have no idea what a spirit butterfly is.

After all, the initial basic self‑consciousness of a contemplation object comes from the contemplator himself; for the ancient pine, Wei Yuning can achieve that, but for the spirit butterfly he has no idea how to endow it with consciousness. He can only strengthen its bodily details so that, according to its own physical traits, it awakens basic self‑consciousness, and he can only give a rough general principle.

High‑grade spirit butterflies, i. e., the so‑called world butterflies, Wei Yuning lacks their fine internal structure, but he has the monarch butterfly as a reference; although he cannot replicate it exactly, even a semblance would be remarkable. World butterflies are creatures that can traverse the void world—this is what the monarch butterfly maiden told him, and even the monarch butterfly doesn't know more details. In short, world butterflies belong to an indivisible grade of life forms, and compared to divine beasts such as dragons, phoenixes, and qilins, they are also quite mysterious.

The cellular details of each monarch butterfly were copied into the contemplation object; Wei Yuning didn't understand the function of each cell type, so he simply matched foot to foot, head to head, eye to eye, body to body, blood to blood, wing to wing, and transferred the exact composition of each part's details unchanged into the interior of the spirit butterfly's body in his divine sense construction.

This process requires a large amount of spiritual energy, while also taking into account the endurance of the divine sense; for an ordinary disciple, depending on aptitude, it would take at least several months to years of painstaking effort.

But for Wei Yuning, these are no obstacles.

First, he still kept his divine sense in a basically open state, merely adding three rules within it: first, size—half an arm's length; second, the contemplation object must accept the host's control; third, it must possess personal space and the ability to traverse the void. Lastly, this requirement was added arbitrarily, and he didn't know whether it would actually work.

Second, his innate spiritual body naturally absorbs spiritual energy quickly; as long as there is sufficient spiritual energy within a certain range, he need not worry about a shortage. The interior of Medicinal Pill Peak already contains several crystal‑stone veins, so the spiritual‑energy issue is no concern. To be absolutely sure, he deliberately sought out, amidst the rubble pile of the Sun Yang Herb Garden, the present convergence point of heaven‑and‑earth spiritual energy.

At this moment, Wei Yuning sat in a depression, deep snow burying his head, closed his eyes, and began constructing the contemplation object.

With multiple preparations, this time the construction of the contemplation object proceeded especially smoothly.

The new spirit butterfly contemplation object remains primarily based on self‑consciousness and does not require much divine thought for control. Dozens of cell types need only be constructed as independent matrices; the rest can be assimilated and replicated. This process consumes only spiritual power, placing little demand on divine thought.

By noon, a strange sensation arose.

Unlike the previous body foundation establishment, this time Wei Yuning felt his connection with the whole of heaven and earth grow much tighter—a sensation of the divine sense, completely different from the tactile feeling of his physical body and the surrounding world. With a stir of his heart, a golden phantom shaped like a spirit butterfly appeared in the air, emitting a crackling electric sound.

This is a variant of the lightning‑chain attack, and it is the only spell attack Wei Yuning knows. This is the difference between divine‑sense foundation establishment and body foundation establishment: practitioners of divine‑sense foundation establishment can use spells as they wish, freely developing unique spell types according to their ideas—provided, of course, they have enough ideas.

However, it's not that a new spell is necessarily powerful; in fact, many flashy new spells are useless moves, while the various spells left by our predecessors are the result of painstaking refinement—something a newcomer cannot simply tweak and break through.

Under inner vision, Wei Yuning found inside himself a lifelike spirit‑butterfly creature; its gaze was sharp and cold. Merely meeting its eyes in his divine sense made his heart thump‑thump wildly, his mind nearly turned to paste, his head felt foggy, his body grew hot—in an instant he sensed the danger of his body exploding.