Chapter 275

Deep within Nine Swords Academy.

An Obelisk with a tip that seemed to be dyed red by fresh blood stood proudly on the horizon.

As Fang Xing continuously approached, he discovered that this Obelisk was terrifyingly large, at least ten thousand meters high, like a huge mountain range.

Furthermore, the closer one got to the pitch-black stele body, the more one could feel an increasingly strong pressure.

Fang Xing glanced at Nangong Xue beside him and found that this doctoral student was worthy of being in the Seventh Realm; no matter how he accelerated, the other party could easily keep up.

"I don't know, Student Nangong, are you a doctoral student admitted through social examination... or a direct-entry doctoral student?"

He didn't know why this woman was interested in him, so he asked tentatively.

"I was originally a graduate student at Nine Swords Academy, and luckily passed the doctoral exam in my final year..."

Nangong Xue answered with a slight smile.

Although her attire looked somewhat rustic, she was actually a heaven's pride in her day.

Like Gu Zhen, she didn't have the confidence to break through to the Jin Gang Realm during her graduate studies.

She could only hone herself in society or the military after graduation, hoping to break through to the Seventh Realm before the age of fifty.

In this way, she would still have the opportunity to participate in the doctoral recruitment of Nine Swords Academy.

In other words, this Nangong Xue's talent was even stronger than Gu Zhen's!

The Federation holds a college entrance exam once a year; geniuses are simply worthless.

The two chatted casually for a few sentences and arrived at the bottom of the Obelisk.

What met their eyes was a blackness that seemed to have no end.

【Beep, permission confirmed, passage granted!】

A dangerous feeling followed, but quickly dissipated.

Fang Xing's heart stirred, and he reached out to touch the somewhat cold body of the Obelisk.

A coarse, rubbing sensation came through.

Cold, slippery... it was like touching the skin of a scaled creature, with an inexplicable life and vitality leaping at his fingertips.

In Fang Xing's perception, this pitch-black, red-topped Obelisk actually seemed to be 'alive'.

'No! Not only that...'

His heart stirred slightly, and he looked at the attribute panel.

He was shocked to find that the rune representing the Gate of Heavens began to tremble slightly!

'The Gate of Heavens is reacting!'

'This Obelisk... can be absorbed by the Gate of Heavens as 'energy'?'

A stormy sea was immediately set off in Fang Xing's heart: 'This... could it be that the Obelisk is related to the 'Gate of Nothingness'?'

His 'Great Sun Tathagata Mantra' would accept anyone as long as they were related to evil deities.

But the 'Gate of Heavens' had always been picky, only being relatively interested in the 'Gate of Nothingness'.

This forced Fang Xing to start associating.

'That's right, that extraterrestrial alien race is said to be related to evil deities; perhaps what they worship is an incarnation or aspect of the Gate of Nothingness...'

'Besides that... it's also possible that the items I came into contact with before were too low-rank to arouse the interest of the 'Gate of Heavens'... Could this 'Obelisk' be related to a special evil deity? One of the other two of the Three Pillars?'

His thoughts turned a thousand times, and a look of shock appeared on his face.

Nangong Xue watched with a smile, seemingly very accustomed to the exclamations of outsiders.

"Let's go... the cultivation room is inside the Obelisk, and the time consumed needs to be exchanged with credits..."

She explained with a smile, and a pitch-black, crystalline card appeared in her hand.

After using the card to lightly swipe across the surface of the Obelisk, a door opened automatically.

"Credits?!"

Fang Xing nodded and directly dialed Han Chunfeng's phone: "Professor Han... I've encountered a little trouble here..."

After more than ten minutes, a golden light flew over; it was Gu Zhen, who had used his Jin Dan Dharma Domain to travel.

He handed a pitch-black card to Fang Xing: "Teacher said he originally planned to bring you to see this place in three days, but I didn't expect you to come first, so let's try cultivating... The cultivation room here can only be entered by Jin Gang Realm martial artists and carries a certain degree of danger... Besides that, one credit can only be used for one day of cultivation. This is a special temporary card with a limit of one thousand credits, limited to use only within the Obelisk..."

"Thank you."

Fang Xing took the black card and thanked him politely.

Gu Zhen breathed a sigh of relief and looked at Nangong Xue beside him: "Senior Sister Nangong..."

"Oh? You know each other?"

Fang Xing smiled.

"After all, we are from the same school."

Gu Zhen was somewhat hesitant to speak.

Don't look at this Nangong Xue as gentle and weak, and a bit rustic; in reality, she was famous for being crazy at Nine Swords Academy.

The other party also followed the 【Sword Saint】 profession, had already passed the Seven Swords Trial, and had even actively replaced her own bloodline with that of an evil deity's offspring while at the Jin Dan stage, almost alienating into an evil object.

And... she had also proposed several experiments on keeping evil deity offspring in captivity; although they were all shot down, she was famous at Nine Swords Academy.

She was particularly keen on research into those ancient evil deities, and her preferences should be about the same; it was said that those she looked favorably upon before were all goods with deep ties to evil deities.

The academy even relied on this to catch hidden evil deity believers!

"Then... I'm leaving."

In front of his senior sister, he was embarrassed to speak and hurriedly said goodbye and left.

"Strange."

Fang Xing watched Gu Zhen leave and walked into the Obelisk.

Step, step!

The low sound of footsteps echoed back and forth in the wide passageway.

The interior of the Obelisk was very empty, and even the space carried a sense of confusion and disorder. He felt that if he took a step, he might cross a distance of a thousand meters, or he might land a step behind himself.

At the same time, a strange power descended, carrying the flavor of sealing and suppression.

"Suppression... evil deity pollution?!"

Fang Xing was somewhat surprised.

He turned around and saw pitch-black scales appearing on Nangong Xue's body, her eyes turning into vertical pupils, and her whole person looking like a legendary snake woman.

But the next moment, everything returned to normal.

'Sure enough... many of the professionals at Nine Swords Academy are not normal, especially those in the 'Sword Saint' lineage...'

Fang Xing muttered to himself, but a look of solemnity appeared on his face: "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, it's just that the evil deity bloodline in my body was triggered somewhat passively..."

Nangong Xue adjusted her glasses and revealed a big smile: "Every time I come here, I feel much more relaxed..."

The 【Sword Saint】 lineage of professions focuses on refining evil deities into the body, to thoroughly accommodate and digest them with one's own self...

It can be said that they are constantly fighting against evil deity pollution.

Whether it is on the level of spiritual will or physical bloodline, this is the case!

In this Obelisk that can suppress evil deity pollution, one can indeed obtain some peace.

It can even allow some professionals who are about to go half-crazy to temporarily maintain their sanity.

But in Fang Xing's sea of consciousness, the Great Sun Tathagata Mantra operated slowly, and a scarlet sun rose up.

He touched the Great Sun Relic between his eyebrows and felt that everything was normal.

'Either this Obelisk is not normal, or I am not normal... then it must be that the Obelisk has gone wrong.'

Fang Xing muttered to himself and followed Nangong Xue into an elevator.

"This is just the interior of the Obelisk; we haven't reached the cultivation room yet..."

Nangong Xue introduced it to Fang Xing: "There are nine levels of cultivation rooms here, divided into nine floors... Generally speaking, for outside Jin Gang Realm martial artists, my suggestion is that it is best to start from the first floor..."

"Mm, I do want to experience that."

Fang Xing walked out of the elevator and saw an empty corridor.

Every few thousand meters, there was a huge door.

This door was also carved from black stone, emitting an ancient and mysterious flavor.

The light in the passageway was dim, but every line on the door was so clear and perfect.

'The feeling of evil deity architecture...'

Fang Xing took out his temporary black card and swiped it lightly on the door.

Clatter!

The door opened with a bang, revealing a cultivation room behind it.

This cultivation room was very small, only about ten square meters, completely inconsistent with the towering door seen from the outside, giving a sense of mismatch.

'Spatial chaos again...'

Fang Xing turned around and saw Nangong Xue waiting outside, not entering.

Immediately, the pitch-black door slowly closed.

In an instant, the cultivation room fell into darkness.

Endless darkness swept over, giving Fang Xing the feeling that it was like the darkness that could swallow everything when the Moon God attacked!

'No...'

'It's not an illusion; this damn thing is it!'

'It's just that the intensity is controlled, and the danger is greatly reduced... Could the Moon God's corpse be under the Obelisk?'

In Fang Xing's Dantian, a point of golden light appeared, turning into a golden sun that rose from behind him.

Then, like a blazing sun in the darkness, it illuminated everything!

In the void, countless darkness was ignited, yet it surged forth endlessly.

The 'darkness' here seemed to have life, surging like a tide, wanting to drown this point of golden light.

'If it were an ordinary Martial Way Jin Dan, it would probably be unable to hold on at this time...'

'No matter how strong the Jin Dan is, facing this weakened version of evil deity pollution, it's about the same as a candle in the wind...'

Fang Xing sat cross-legged, his expression unmoved.

Countless darkness was ignited and worn away by the golden radiance... it couldn't get within three zhang at all.

His heart stirred, and he retracted his Jin Dan Dharma Domain.

Crack! Crack!

The darkness fell upon him, emitting a terrifying sound of gnawing.

It was as if countless hellish ghosts were gnawing at his limbs and bones!

Fang Xing's whole body was covered in golden light, like a Jin Gang Arhat; even if he fell into hell, he remained towering and unmoved.

"Sure enough..."

A moment later, a look of realization appeared on his face: "The principle of the Obelisk assisting in body refinement... is destruction! By controlling the intensity of pollution, it erodes the Martial Way Golden Body..."

"Those low-rank Golden Bodies would be constantly worn away under this kind of darkness... like a process of constantly polishing unpolished jade, blowing away the yellow sand to finally reach the gold?"

"However, for me, the pollution here is too weak... at least eighth-level pollution would be needed to feel something."

"If I want good results, I should still go to the ninth floor to hone the Great Jin Gang physique..."

"This Nine Swords Academy really has researched evil deity pollution very thoroughly."

Fang Xing sighed with emotion.

For him, this was a good place for cultivation.

But for ordinary Jin Gang Realm martial artists, if they were not careful, they might end up like Pan Xiong and Wei Shentong!

'No, Wei Shentong is in the Great Jin Gang Realm; he should be fine on the ninth floor...'

'On the contrary, Teacher Pan Xiong probably wouldn't survive the eighth floor...'

(End of chapter)