Chapter 375: Recasting the Broken Jade

The cave dwelling was terrifyingly quiet, broken only by one or two faint insect chirps coming from somewhere unknown.

Su Ming slowly raised his left hand and looked at the unremarkable Xuantian ring on his index finger.

After a long moment, he took the ring off, wiped it on his palm, then solemnly slid it back on.

His movements were slow and meticulous.

"Master."

Su Ming lifted his head. The trace of hesitation and fear in his eyes was crushed at this moment by a kind of resolve. "If I really can't hold on, if my consciousness collapses... don't bother saving me. Use the formation's power to push the ring out. It should be able to get out."

Lin Yu was stunned for a second.

Then he raised his hand, intending to give the brat a hard smack on the forehead, but his palm passed through Su Ming's brow, stirring only a cool breeze.

"Nonsense."

He floated higher, looking down at Su Ming with supreme arrogance, the pride of a modern soul and the confidence of a reclusive master.

"You survived that old woman's soul-search in the Heart-Questioning Formation, and you crawled out of a pile of corpses at Iron Wall Pass. Foundation Establishment is just a formality!"

"Keep your heart in your belly."

Lin Yu pointed to the flickering runes around them. "I revised this formation. I set this procedure. If this fails, how am I supposed to keep my rep in the ring world?"

Watching his master's 'I'm-number-one' swagger, the tightness at the corner of Su Ming's mouth finally loosened a fraction.

"Yes."

Su Ming drew a deep breath, formed the hand seals, and adjusted the rhythm of his breathing.

"Time's up."

Lin Yu glanced at the skylight.

It was late at night; the Zi hour was approaching.

Yin and yang within heaven and earth were interchanging, a moment when the earth veins' spiritual energy was most active and also most easily guided.

Su Ming said no more.

He took out the Cold Jade Box he had exchanged for at the Administration Hall.

The moment the box was lifted, the surrounding temperature dropped several degrees. Seven golden talismans pasted on the box's surface shimmered with a faint golden halo under the starlight.

Su Ming set the box on the meditation cushion before him.

He closed his eyes and ran through in his mind, one last time, the three hundred and sixty variations of spiritual energy guiding from The True Meaning of Basic Rune Deconstruction.

Then he opened his eyes.

All distractions were gone, replaced by a dead calm as deep as a bottomless pool.

He raised his hand; a faint bluish water spiritual energy surfaced at his fingertip.

His fingertip touched the first talisman on the Cold Jade Box.

It was a spirit-sealing talisman, used to lock away the vast vitality of the Earth Vein Spirit Milk.

"Shh—"

A faint tearing sound sounded especially sharp in the silent cave.

As the first talisman peeled away, a visible white cold mist burst from the talisman's seam.

The mist did not disperse randomly. Like a small intelligent snake, it twined once in the air and then suddenly expanded outward.

Su Ming felt an incredibly pure, yet domineering, pressure of spiritual energy hit his face; his skin stung from the gust.

"Steady."

Lin Yu's voice echoed in the Consciousness Sea, calm as a machine. "This is the first wave of pressure release. Don't panic. Keep going, there are six talismans in total."

Su Ming's fingers did not tremble at all.

He stared at the roiling white mist like one stares at an explosive hazard.

Second talisman.

Third talisman.

As talismans came off one by one, the cave's air pressure dropped, and the air seemed to thicken into tangible mercury.

Crack.

The first glowstone couldn't withstand the pressure and burst into powder.

Then the second, then the third.

Darkness began to spread through the cave, swallowing what little light remained.

When the fifth talisman was removed, the last glowstone finally went out.

The whole cave fell into absolute darkness.

Only the seven skylights above remained open.

Columns of starlight pierced the dark, accurately bathing Su Ming in their beams.

That light was not warm; it carried a chill and loneliness.

Su Ming sat cross-legged in the center of the light pillar. His shadow stretched long beneath him, cast upon the uneven rock walls like a solitary silhouette, or like a sword about to be drawn.

He looked at the Cold Jade Box now holding only two talismans, his expression terrifyingly calm.

This was more than a box.

This was his future bought with his life.

"Master." Su Ming mouthed in his heart, "I will begin now."

"Do it."

Lin Yu replied.

Su Ming's finger pressed down on the sixth talisman.

The moment the sixth talisman floated free, the cave's air pressure grew crushing, as if a thousand-weight boulder sat on his chest. What had been wispy white mist became viscous and dense; each breath required every muscle in his body to tear inward just to draw the sluggish spiritual energy into his lungs.

Su Ming's finger rested on the last talisman—the Lock-Origin talisman that sealed the core spiritual resonance.

Beneath his fingertip, the talisman paper was warm. The pressure it suppressed was like a wild primordia beast about to awaken, transmitting its terrifying pulse through the thin paper into his fingertip, up his arm, and straight into his Consciousness Sea.

"Open."

Su Ming let out a short syllable and snapped his fingers upward.

The golden talisman fell in response.

There was no imagined cataclysmic roar, nor a blinding eruption. The ocher light ball suspended inside the Cold Jade Box only trembled slightly, then—like mercury freed from constraints—flowed out silently. It did not scatter; under the weight of interlaced starlight, it was forcibly compressed into an amber bead the size of a longan, nearly solid.

"Devour."

Lin Yu's voice detonated inside the Consciousness Sea, short and icy.

Su Ming did not hesitate. He opened his mouth and inhaled. The heavy amber bead became a yellow thread and instantly slipped into his mouth.

At the instant it entered, there was no sweet scent like an elixir—only a heavy smell of earth and metallic rust. Then, instead of sliding down his esophagus, the force felt like swallowing a hot branding iron: scalding heat and unbearable weight smashed through his throat and brutally struck his Dantian.

"Hmph!"

Su Ming let out a muffled grunt, his whole body jerking forward as if bowing; the bones along his spine popped in a rapid, brittle series.

Pain.

Not a sharp stab, but the inflating, splitting sensation of a mountain forced into his abdomen. His internal organs moaned under the crushing force, veins bulged crazily beneath his skin like writhing earthworms.

Internal visualization showed the spiritual energy vortex that had been on the verge of collapse under the extreme compression of the Like Water Art was violently struck by this Earth Vein Spirit Milk and instantly destabilized.

Crack.

A crisp sound only Su Ming could hear.

Spiritual energy erupted in a torrential spill.