Chapter 12: Spiritual Light Like a Sea

“Instructor, we leave tomorrow—why aren’t you resting yet?”

Pei Ruyi left the banquet and walked to the corridor, when suddenly he saw Cao Jingsong seated at a stone table in the courtyard, having left earlier.

At that moment, shards of broken porcelain surrounded him.

From the faint patterns on the shards, it was clear this had been County Magistrate Fang’s prized vase.

Meanwhile, Instructor Cao was refining spiritual energy at his fingertip, condensing it into a grain-sized point, muttering incantations over a single intact vase on the stone table.

From the sweat on his brow, it was evident he had been trying for a long time.

“I’m attempting to channel spiritual energy into the vase and leave it there. Channeling is easy, but retaining it is incredibly difficult—only one or two out of ten attempts succeed.”

After hearing this, Pei Ruyi was puzzled: “Is this some new technique?”

Cao Jingsong’s hands trembled as he cautiously approached the vase: “Ruyi, have you ever wondered how Ji You managed to nurture a little girl until her spiritual radiance pierced the heavens?”

“This…”

“Spiritual energy is the primordial source of heaven and earth, concealing the power of the Dao. The five Hall Masters of the Inner Court achieved this—refining spiritual energy until it responded like an extension of their limbs. If Ji You didn’t succeed by sheer luck, I doubt even the Linxian Realm would be beyond him, let alone the Upper Five Realms.”

As he spoke, the vase before Cao Jingsong suddenly cracked open from its belly, shattering into fragments scattered across the ground, leaving only the Instructor’s grim expression.

He had long entered the Upper Five Realms; though he had remained stagnant at the initial Tongxuan Realm, he was still one realm higher than Ji You.

Moreover, the Lower Three Realms are the Self Realms, while the Upper Five Realms are the Methods Realms—their control over spiritual energy should be worlds apart, yet the outcome was astonishing.

Either Ji You is a prodigy beyond reason, or I am utterly foolish.

Cao Jingsong refused to admit he was foolish—so the only explanation was that his newly recruited student still held untapped potential.

“A fortune beyond measure…”

“Ruyi, this boy will enter the Inner Court effortlessly—he might even become a direct disciple of one of the Five Hall Masters.”

Upon hearing this, Pei Ruyi let out a dry laugh.

A Lower Three Realms full cultivation at under twenty was indeed extraordinary, but she thought Instructor Cao was exaggerating.

After all, on the Immortal Path, dazzling talents abound—this year alone, the Seven Immortal Sects found ten youths under twenty with full Lower Three Realms, and the Tian Shu Academy alone claimed two.

Yet even so, including Ji You’s trio, they still seemed ordinary among the younger generation.

Consider the young master of Spirit Sword Mountain—he attained full cultivation at age ten; the direct disciple of Wenda Sect entered the Upper Five Realms at twelve; direct disciples from other sects were all prodigies.

Ji You is still a year away from twenty—he barely scraped into full cultivation, merely reaching the threshold to even meet them.

As she pondered, she saw Cao Jingsong in the courtyard suddenly frown, then rise abruptly, gazing south toward Yuyang County.

“Instructor, what’s happened?”

“Ruyi, have you noticed the spiritual energy here is surging fiercely southward—even beyond my control?”

“?”

Pei Ruyi froze for a moment, then crossed the corridor, left the Yuyang County government office, and headed straight for the southern grain yard where Ji You was.

Beneath the night sky, all of Yuyang County was shrouded in darkness, save the grain yard, where thousands of lanterns glowed crimson, illuminating the surroundings like a wealthy landlord’s wedding.

Around the yard, crowds of commoners stood watching, their silhouettes shifting in the distance.

In the shadows beneath the lanterns, their faces were indistinct, but their thin frames and tattered clothes were clear.

Amidst the brilliant light, seventy-two children knelt in the yard, calling out in clear, childish voices, “Father!” before bowing their foreheads to the ground.

Full Lower Three Realms was no lofty realm—merely the first step on the Immortal Path, with limited capabilities.

But the Tian Shu Academy’s reputation still held weight, for it was the Holy Sect of Great Xia.

And Great Xia’s laws recognized adoptive kin as true kin, entitled to protection—he didn’t know if this would help, but it was better than nothing.

If he somehow found a way to repair the spiritual spring and entered the Upper Five Realms, his influence might grow even greater.

Ji You sat silently for a long while, watching the children, then suddenly laughed.

He may never have saved the children with leukemia, but at least he could still try to save another group.

As he thought this, for no reason, the night sky above him brightened slightly.

Then, countless beams of spiritual light appeared above the grain yard—pure as white stars, drifting like fireflies, slowly converging toward him.

Moments later, the entire yard shimmered like a sea of stars, leaving Ji You stunned.

“Where did this come from?”

“Huh…”

“I didn’t eat any mushrooms… did I?”

Ji You looked up, and after a few breaths, he froze, bewildered.

He realized these lights weren’t appearing out of nowhere, nor descending from the heavens—they seemed to originate from the seventy-two children before him.

Each child’s third eye emitted a beam of spiritual light, which shot skyward in that instant, then a single speck of light fell back down.

Before Ji You could react, the specks began rushing toward him, sinking into his body.

He frowned, instinctively trying to dodge—but found he couldn’t avoid them at all.

After much struggle, the spiritual lights in the sky vanished entirely. Only then did Ji You turn his spiritual sense inward and saw a chaotic, mist-like mass of light forming above his shattered spiritual spring, swirling in fine threads.

At that moment, an uncontrollable aura of immortality surged through him, boiling upward toward heaven, churning endlessly beneath the vast starry sky.

And at that very instant, the blood-red scar across the heavens grew even more grotesque.

Pei Ruyi, arriving from the county office, stood nearby, staring at him in silence.

She saw none of the starry sea above, nor the churning aura—but still, she furrowed her brow, sensing Ji You’s energy had changed utterly.

As the top student of the Outer Court, she had encountered many disciples of immortal sects.

Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that Ji You now seemed strangely… off.

Was it… immortality aura?

Pei Ruyi’s brow deeply creased.

She didn’t know why that thought had surfaced in her mind, and she was momentarily stunned.

Mortals always called cultivators “immortals,” and even cultivators referred to themselves as such, as if they weren’t of the same species as mortals.

But in truth, unless one laughed aloud and ascended to the Immortal Realm, one was no true immortal.

Pei Ruyi had never met a senior who had ascended, so she couldn’t know what true immortality aura felt like—but as she gazed at Ji You’s elusive, drifting energy, the thought arose unbidden.

No, she must be imagining things…

Without laughing and ascending to the Immortal Realm, how could a mortal be suffused with immortality aura?

“Ruyi, this boy is truly extraordinary.”

“Perhaps he might even become a direct disciple of one of the Five Hall Masters.”

“…”

(End of Chapter)