Chapter 82: Sect Tournament: Asking the Dao with a Sugar Heart

###**I. Pill Room Secret: Nine Revolutions Trace**

Deep within the Medicine King Valley pill room, Lin Jin's fingertips brushed against the charred pill furnace wall. When the Chaos Qi touched a certain crack, the furnace wall suddenly flipped, revealing a sugar box frozen in a hidden compartment—inside lay a half-melted Nine Revolutions Golden Pill, the pill patterns originating from the same source as the sword technique Ling Yue carved on the sugar stele before she died!

"Jin'er, this pill must be refined using Chaos as fire and emotional soul as a guide..." Ling Yue's residual consciousness awakened from the Golden Pill, and the interlayer of the sugar box suddenly popped open, dropping out a palm-sized sugar figure. The sugar figure's eyes were lively; it was himself at three years old, clamoring to eat sugar gourds, with small regular script carved on the base:

**"At the peak of Nine Yi Mountain, Primordial takes form. Breaking the realm is not about the pill, asking the Dao is only about the heart."**

The pill furnace suddenly trembled, black syrup seeping from the bottom, congealing into blood-colored annotations on the Xuantian Sect battle challenge:

**"First round of the tournament: Retrieve Nine Nether Profound Iron from Burial Sword Cliff. Note: Xuantian Sect contestant, Ao Li."**

###**II. Burial Sword Cliff Calamity: Old Friends on Different Paths**

At the bottom of Burial Sword Cliff, vengeful spirits roared in the Sword Grave. Lin Jin traveled through the fog on a sugar boat congealed from Chaos Qi, suddenly seeing a familiar figure standing on a Xuantian Sect spirit boat ahead—Ao Li was wearing a high sect bun, the Nirvana pattern behind her ear covered by a talisman, holding not a life-bound lamp in her palm, but a Soul-Seizing Bell engraved with Burial Coffin patterns!

"Fellow Daoist, please stay your steps." She shook the bronze bell lightly with her fingertips, and nine layers of sword barriers rose from the bottom of the cliff, "This path is blocked."

Lin Jin's sugar boat suddenly disintegrated, the Chaos Qi turning into three hundred sugar butterflies that rushed toward the sword barriers. The instant the butterfly wings touched the baleful qi, Ao Li suddenly groaned, golden blood seeping from the Nirvana pattern beneath the talisman—the blood droplets generated sugar maple seedlings upon hitting the ground, the very scenery of the old Medicine King Valley!

###**III. Sugar Maple Reflecting Shadows: Bell Shattered, Soul Startled**

The sugar maple grew in the wind, becoming a forest in the blink of an eye. Lin Jin plucked a leaf to use as a sword, the leaf veins flowing with the "Nine Revolutions Heart-Questioning Art" sealed by Ling Yue! The instant the sword light swept across the Soul-Seizing Bell, the bell body suddenly exploded, flying out half a blood-stained sugar figure fragment—the very one Ao Li had carved for his birthday three hundred years ago!

"This is... mine?" Ao Li suddenly clutched her head and knelt on the ground, the talisman behind her ear shattering inch by inch. Nirvana Fire erupted from her spine, piecing together fragmented memories in the void:

- The Xuantian Sect Leader implanted the sugar figure fragment into her consciousness sea;

- In the Nine Nether Dungeon, Lin Xuan's bronze face flashed by;

- Deep within Burial Sword Cliff, the entrance to the Nine Yi Secret Realm glowed with Primordial Pure Light!

###**IV. Asking the Dao in the Sword Grave: First Trial of Anti-Void**

Lin Jin's Chaos Qi suddenly went berserk, ten thousand swords in the Burial Sword Cliff ringing in unison. A stone stele descended at the entrance to the Nine Yi Secret Realm, the inscription faintly visible where it was covered by syrup:

**"Anti-Void Realm First Trial: Slay the seven emotions, sever..."**

"Sever what, sever!" Lin Jin's sugar sword split the stone stele, the sword qi stirring the Chaos Sea. Nine sword spirits flew out from the shattered stele, actually being the residual chapters of the "Primordial Nine Questions" sealed by Ling Yue back then!

Ao Li suddenly grasped the sword hilt, Nirvana Fire burning along the sword patterns: "Fellow Daoist Lin, I seem to... remember the osmanthus sugar from Sugar Heart Valley..."

###**V. Secret Realm Opening: Heavenly Workshop Appears**

Where their sword qi intersected, the secret realm entrance burst open. What poured out from the gate was not spiritual qi, but tens of thousands of Heavenly Workshop puppet parts! The parts pieced themselves together in the air into a thousand-handed giant puppet, holding Lin Xuan's bronze heart in its palm:

"Good grandson, Nine Yi Mountain is merely a scrap yard for the Heavenly Workshop." The heart suddenly exploded, and from the splashing bronze liquid emerged a horrifying scene—the true Nine Revolutions Golden Pill was pulsing in the giant puppet's chest, the pill patterns outlined by the souls of one hundred thousand cultivators!

Ao Li's Nirvana Fire suddenly went out of control, and from within the fire came the Xuantian Sect Leader's savage laughter:

**"Many thanks to Fellow Daoist Lin for helping my sect's disciple retrieve the secret realm key!"**

###**Final Act: Sugar Heart Does Not Extinguish**

Lin Jin's Chaos Qi congealed into sugar armor, the guardian array of Medicine King Valley appearing on the armor's surface. He thrust his bare hand into the giant puppet's chest, but what he crushed was not the Golden Pill, but a sugar-coated transmission jade slip:

**"Nine Yi Mountain is actually a Heavenly Workshop furnace, destroy the array eye quickly! Coordinates: Sugar Maple Forest, three thousand li to the east."**

Deep in the Sugar Maple Forest, the true body of the reincarnated Ao Li was carving a stele. Where the inscription was unfinished, the syrup suddenly flowed backward into blood:

**"Fellow Daoist Lin, I am waiting for you."** ===== CHAPTER 83 =====