Chapter 279: Testing One's Skills

Wu Tie looked toward the main gate of the Great Peacock Ming King Palace.

Mozhang Wang walked in front, he had already approached the gate, and was slowly reaching out to push the door.

Behind him was Huaguang.

Behind Huaguang was Yan Hanlu.

Behind Yan Hanlu was unexpectedly Laobai.

After Laobai came Lu Ji; after Lu Ji came Mu Xu; then came Shi Fei and Shan Dun.

In the Reincarnation Guidance Grand Formation, the higher the aptitude, the faster the escape speed; correspondingly, the higher the aptitude, although the time spent outside is extremely short, the longer the time experienced inside the formation.

Concepts of length, speed, and all other temporal notions have no meaning within the Reincarnation Guidance Grand Formation.

Thus, Laobai and Lu Ji have better aptitude than Mu Xu.

Looking at the short-statured, weak, innately shifty-eyed Laobai, Wu Tie was speechless for a moment.

"Hey, this proud and arrogant woman Mu Xu—once she wakes up, she'll be furious to death, right?" Wu Tie laughed with a bit of schadenfreude.

Thinking back to how Mu Xu fiercely demanded Wu Tie hand over the Three Linked City Heart Transmission Seed, to say he felt no anger would be false; seeing Mu Xu lose a bit of face without harming his dignity made Wu Tie feel quite pleased.

Only, he could no longer see the splendid expression Mu Xu was destined to show.

Those who walked up the steps were all immersed in the illusion created by the formation.

They had no awareness of the outside world.

Only Wu Tie, kicked out of the formation by the first city lord of the Three Linked City, the former Great Peacock Ming King, under the pretext that "external things are illusory, only cultivation is fundamental."

Wu Tie snorted resentfully: "Put bluntly, I'm not allowed to take anything good from this palace."

"This old geezer is kinda stingy... it's just that he took their Heart Transmission Seed, right?" Wu Tie rolled his eyes at Laotie—this wasn't something he did himself.

"Having taken advantage, don't play innocent." Laotie lightly waved his scepter like a rush: "Anyway, with the White Tiger Fissure, what else do you need? Hmm, how do you feel now?"

Laotie looked at Wu Tie seriously, with a hint of tension.

The "Primordial Classic"—this is theoretically the perfect cultivation method—but no one has ever truly practiced it.

At least in Laotie's memory, no one has practiced it.

Laotie was curious what the Life Pool condensed from the Primordial Classic looked like.

Wu Tie nodded, carefully exerting a thread of soul power to observe his body's current state.

As that thread of soul power entered his body, Wu Tie felt a great brightness before his eyes—his body resembled a radiant star river, every cell brimming with power, emitting light, like stars blazing with dazzling radiance.

His body was better than ever, stronger than ever.

As that thread of soul power cautiously returned to the Source of the Law, Wu Tie saw a expanse of golden light and rosy vapor surrounding...

Is this the Life Pool?

Wu Tie recalled seeing in the Great Serpent Cavern how Heihuan Langjun Sunzuo was forced by Duoliya using Prophecy Technique into the Life Pool Realm; the Life Pool Sunzuo condensed was about the size of a sea bowl.

Crude and rough, like a lump of clay haphazardly pinched, ugly to the extreme.

But that too was a Life Pool.

And the Life Pool Wu Tie condensed spans who knows how many hundreds of thousands of li, its whole body wrapped in golden light and rosy vapor, like a huge artifact cast of gold and glass—well, judging by shape, tentatively it's a pool, so Wu Tie counts it as a Life Pool.

It's just that its volume is a bit too large, a bit too heavy and bulky, its surface patterns a bit too ornate, its aura a bit too ancient and massive.

Moreover, with each breath, the amount of heaven-earth primal energy this Life Pool absorbs is a bit too huge.

Heaven-earth primal energy like roaring dragons surged into the vast Life Pool; countless fine light threads swirled and danced within it, as the misty primal energy gradually grew viscous, condensing from mist to liquid, from liquid to mercury-like, and finally from mercury to a semi-solid crystalline state.

Grain by grain, semi-solid crystalline 'mana' fluttered around Wu Tie's soul, seated cross-legged in midair.

Grain by grain, mana crystals occasionally merged with the countless light threads in the Life Pool; whenever a light thread merged into a mana crystal, those crystals eagerly flung themselves toward Wu Tie's soul.

These mana crystals pierced through the soul.

Each time a mana crystal pierced the soul, Wu Tie's soul twitched slightly.

The soul's hue became a bit clearer, as if it had grown a few strands, also becoming a bit more solid; moreover, within the soul, a flickering rune quietly settled.

After the mana crystals had pierced the soul ninety-nine eighty times, they sounded a "ding" and fell to the bottom of the Life Pool, lying still there.

When Wu Tie inwardly inspected, there was already a thin layer of mana crystals piled at the bottom of the Life Pool.

This is the practice of the Life Pool Realm.

Breaking the Heaven Lock Chonglou is like gathering raw materials, taking all the heavenly-earthly mysteries sealed within the Heaven Lock Chonglou, turning them from a restrained state to a free state, and transforming them into the Life Pool.

The soul breaking free of the heavenly-earthly shackles gains freedom and ease.

Thereafter one can use the Life Pool to store jade liquid and nurture the embryonic core; as one's insights into heavenly-earthly mysteries continually merge into the soul, and as the Life Pool refines heavenly-earthly primal energy to continually nourish the soul, the soul becomes ever stronger and more miraculous.

In the Chonglou Realm, Wu Tie needed incantations, hand seals, or other external conditions to deploy his secret arts.

After reaching the Life Pool Realm, as heavenly-earthly mysteries continually merge with the soul, various secret arts respond at will, triggered by thought— a single thought summons thunder and fire, and the secret arts erupt like instinct; how could an ordinary Chonglou Realm cultivator withstand that?

Moreover, after condensing the Life Pool, mana becomes more pure and refined through condensation; the same thread of mana exerts greater power, and the Life Pool can store far more mana than the Chonglou Realm's Source of the Law—whether instantaneous burst or sustained output, it vastly surpasses the Chonglou Realm.

A tougher body, greater mana, purer mana—casting secret arts is faster, and their power is stronger.

The soul can simultaneously bear more secret arts.

Chonglou Realm cultivators can sometimes activate only one or two secret arts at once, while Life Pool Realm cultivators can simultaneously bear several, even over ten secret arts.

Moreover, as the soul is continually nourished and strengthened, ever more attuned to heaven and earth, its power gradually transmutes, its fluctuations turn from illusory to real—even the soul's power alone can erupt with terrifying lethal force.

"State is excellent… so good it's indescribable…" Wu Tie murmured: "The state of the Life Pool is hard to describe, after all it's just a tiny mustard-seed space opened up inside the body… but if I must say, my Life Pool's diameter exceeds ninety thousand li—what is that?"

Thud—

Laotie's scepter fell to the ground, heavily striking his toe.

Laotie's eyes bulged as he stared at Wu Tie; after a long while he bent over, picked up his scepter, silently retracted it, withdrew the Rebirth Tower projection, and shifted back into Hu Wolf form.

He let his tail droop and slowly walked toward the exit of the Three Linked Realm.

"Come on, let's find someone to test our skills on." Laotie said without turning his head: "You know… Yang Jian and Niu Yingxiong and those guys—how big are the Life Pools they've condensed?"

Wu Tie recalled the awe-inspiring, almost divine aura of Yang Jian in the Ancient Divine Army Camp.

"There must be, several ten thousand li, right? Their cultivation methods, perhaps not as good as the Primordial Classic, but there must be several ten thousand li, right?" Wu Tie didn't even spare a glance at the Great Peacock Ming King Palace, closely following behind Old Tie.

"Yang Jian, eight thousand one hundred li…… Ox Hero is a bit weaker, seven thousand two hundred li." Old Tie muttered: "Even so, they have already become that time, our mainstay."

"The Life Pool exceeds ninety thousand li…… heh, exceeds ninety thousand li……" Old Tie's voice was half-laughing, half-crying; on his fox-like face, one couldn't make out his expression: "A ninety-thousand-li Life Pool, the Primordial Classic completed—too late, too late, too late…… By then, it was already too late to cultivate an heir who practices the Primordial Classic."

"Little Tie…… Old Man……" Old Tie suddenly opened his mouth, 'click-click' grinding his teeth twice.

"Old Man now wants to crush something, wants to gnaw on a few leg bones……" Old Tie suddenly let out a few long howls toward the sky, turning into a black light that shot straight for the exit.

Behind Wu Tie's Eagle God armor, two huge metal wings unfolded.

Upon entering the Life Pool Realm, Wu Tie's soul underwent a fundamental change.

In the Chonglou Realm, Wu Tie could clearly feel that his soul power and the external myriad natural things were separated by a thick barrier; although soul power could be projected outward, it always felt as if blocked by a layer of frosted glass, often making its operation sluggish.

Breaking through the Chonglou Realm and condensing the Life Pool, Wu Tie only felt his soul power sharpened to the extreme.

He could clearly sense the trajectory of each natural energy particle flowing within the metal wings, and he could easily determine the changes caused when the metal wings flapped the air.

The metal wings flapped lightly dozens of times; Wu Tie turned into an afterimage, his flight path unpredictable, like a swimming spirit snake—with a 'rumble', he surged ahead of Old Tie from behind and plunged headfirst into the bronze gate of the Three Linked Realm.

With a 'whoosh' of wind, Wu Tie burst out from the lowest hall of the bronze pyramid, his form flickering uncertainly in the pyramid's long corridor; in the snap of a finger he shot out of the bronze pyramid and instantly arrived at the prison holding the Taotie Diagram.

A wave of his right hand, and the various seals on the Taotie Diagram shattered one after another; the Taotie Diagram let out a startled cry, and suddenly a ferocious smile appeared on its face.

"Wu Tie, what do you mean? My Taotie clan's people haven't even arrived yet, have they?" The Taotie Diagram narrowed its eyes, sizing up Wu Tie up and down.

"Huh? You, you, you've condensed the Life Pool?" The Taotie Diagram snapped its eyes open, staring at Wu Tie in shock.

Wu Tie unscrupulously scanned the Taotie Diagram with his soul power.

Only cultivators who have entered the Life Pool Realm can discern the difference in soul fluctuations between the Chonglou Realm and the Life Pool Realm.

Cultivators of the Chonglou Realm bear the shackles of heaven and earth on both soul and body, so their soul fluctuations are extremely sluggish; no matter how strong the soul, there is always a feeling of pressing forward under a load, like a snail crawling.

Upon reaching the Life Pool Realm, no matter how weak the soul power, that ease and agility emanating from the depths of the soul, that feeling of being in tune with and merging with the natural world, akin to water and milk blending, is something Chonglou Realm cultivators simply cannot possess.

Wu Tie actually condensed the Life Pool.

The Taotie Diagram grinned, having been an old hand in the jianghu for many years; he saw through Wu Tie's thoughts at a glance: "You want to find me, this defeated underling, to practice your skills? But you must understand, the reason I was captured alive by you lot wasn't because you were so strong, but because the defensive formations of the Three Linked City were too powerful!"

Wu Tie smiled at the Taotie Diagram and crooked his finger at him.

The Taotie Diagram let out a long howl, his body lunging forward a step, suddenly tearing through the void and appearing directly before Wu Tie.

A heavy punch from below slammed hard into Wu Tie's chin.

With a tremendous bang, Wu Tie was struck straight upward into the sky.

He crashed headfirst into the prison holding the Taotie Diagram, howling as he shot up hundreds of thousands of meters high, barely avoiding slamming into the False Sun above his head.

A flash of golden light beside him, Wu Tie used a divine ability to steady his form; the next instant, he transformed into a golden light rainbow, howling as he charged toward the Taotie Diagram.

After breaking through the final nine-layer heavenly lock of the Chonglou Realm, Wu Tie naturally mastered countless divine ability secrets.

What he is employing now is the 'Vertical Earth Golden Light' divine ability from the Heavenly Gang Transformation, a technique said to have no speed limit—the greater the mana and the deeper the understanding of spacetime, the faster it is.

Even if he deploys it now, Wu Tie is already so fast that one cannot make out his figure.

The Taotie Diagram stared wide-eyed in astonishment, he exclaimed: "Vertical Earth Golden Light? Your mastery of this divine ability—is it due to your extraordinary bloodline, or is your cultivation legacy exceptional? I hope it is the power of your bloodline."

The Taotie Diagram gazed greedily at Wu Tie.

He hoped Wu Tie's mastery of Vertical Earth Golden Light was not because of his cultivation method, but preferably because his bloodline inherently possessed the corresponding divine ability.

That way, devouring Wu Tie would bring him great benefit.

His body swayed, and as Wu Tie was about to reach him, the Taotie Diagram likewise transformed into a golden light and shot up into the sky.

Likewise, the Taotie Diagram had once devoured a young cultivator whose bloodline carried the Vertical Earth Golden Light divine ability, obtaining this technique from that young cultivator's bloodline.

Ordinarily, the Taotie Diagram rarely employs this evasion technique.

Today, seeing Wu Tie transform into a golden light rainbow, the Taotie Diagram's interest was also piqued.

He confidently transformed into golden light and swiftly went to meet Wu Tie: "Wu Tie, both of us wield Vertical Earth Golden Light, but depending on our mana—or rather, our cultivation depth—our speeds are worlds apart……"

He threw another punch at Wu Tie's chin.

That previous punch, the Taotie Diagram had held back.

He feared that the Demon Chapter King still controlled the defensive formations of the Three Linked City; if one punch seriously injured Wu Tie, the Demon Chapter King might activate the city's grand defensive array to attack him, which would be nothing but self-inflicted suffering.

This punch, the Taotie Diagram added a bit more force.

He calculated that knocking Wu Tie unconscious with a single blow would be best, so he could seize him as a hostage to coerce the Demon Chapter King into releasing the Taotie Crow and his four subordinates.

The Taotie Diagram smiled triumphantly.

The golden light rainbow that Wu Tie had become surged forward rudely, slamming headfirst into the Taotie Diagram without regard for reason.

With a tremendous bang, Wu Tie and the Taotie Diagram collided head-on, and a clear sound of bone fracturing came from within the Taotie Diagram's body.