Chapter 1034: Unexpected Encounter
Right after entering the Constellation Well, the protective origin power around Qianye’s body began to disperse rapidly. At the same time, a gravitational force began dragging him into the depths of the void.
Qianye had already watched Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan forming their origin crystals, so he had a good idea of what to expect. He was also clear that the longer he stayed in the well, the greater the drain on his origin power would be. Hence, he didn’t resist the force and accelerated downward along its trajectory.
Qianye had fallen hundreds of meters in the blink of an eye, and the deeper he went, the greater the dragging force. At the same time, several forces landed on his body, attempting to tear his flesh apart. Those spatial shearing forces might cause injury if the person didn’t channel origin power for protection.
It wasn’t so bad yet at this point. The shearing forces weren’t all that powerful yet, and even ordinary experts could deal with them. But the deeper he went, the stronger the stress would become, and there was no known limit to it.
Li Kuanglan had already told him that even a divine champion would find it hard to bear the shearing forces at five hundred meters, and that no one really knew how bad it was beyond a thousand.
Qianye possessed the powerful constitution of an ancient vampire and could only be superior to an ordinary divine champion. According to Li Kuanglan, he should be able to reach five hundred meters without a problem. But Qianye’s origin power cultivation was much weaker than a divine champion’s. His body might not be torn asunder at five hundred meters, but he would have to return before long or risk having insufficient energy to get back.
Li Kuanglan had Qianye to save her, but there was no one who could save Qianye.
To play it safe, Qianye descended to two-hundred meters, where Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan were at before, before lowering his speed. He descended an additional fifty meters and stopped to condense his origin crystal.
Qianye clutched the Storm Pearl in his palm and observed it carefully. The misty clouds in the pearl were rolling about constantly, almost as though they had come alive inside the Constellation Well.
Qianye was already quite knowledgeable at this point, but even then, he couldn’t help but admire the Li family. The Jingtan Li Clan’s Storm Pearl was beyond a fine craft, and that wasn’t the only thing their family produced. Their Stillwater Rebirth wasn’t inferior to the pearl at all.
If they hadn’t lost so much strength during the divination factional conflicts, the Jingtan Li Clan’s fame wouldn’t be limited to where it was today.
Qianye’s perception permeated the Storm Pearl immediately after sensing it. Qianye felt that his consciousness had merged with the pearl—the pearl was him; he was the pearl. As his perception was amplified through the Storm Pearl, the stars he could only vaguely sense a while ago became much clearer. It almost felt as though they were within arm’s reach.
Qianye’s eyes fell upon a dark red star. Although this star was inferior to the Seven Radiants, it gave Qianye a sense of familiarity and great clarity. The moment his gaze came into contact with the star, it felt as though an invisible hand had grabbed onto his consciousness.
This star was hot, vast, and heavy, with a power akin to slow-flowing lava. In terms of attribute, its energy was closer to the peak of daybreak and not so far off from the origin of chaos, either.
Origin power in this position couldn’t be considered very pure, but it could easily produce some special abilities. Although Qianye felt that the star power from this star was variegated and impure, that was only relative to Venus Dawn. To ordinary experts, an origin power of such purity was already enough for them to cultivate right up to the threshold of the divine champion realm. They could even try crossing it, but the chances of success would be quite low.
It came as a pleasant surprise that he could sense this big star. Its power would most likely congeal into an origin crystal with a pretty good ability. As for the upgrade to one’s cultivation and physical attributes, that would depend on how much star power he could absorb. Because the power each star could contribute was fairly limited, the amount absorbed would be decided by how many stars he could sense.
At this moment, he had been in the Constellation Well for a fair length of time. Qianye felt that he could hold out fairly long, but he didn’t want to end up with unexpected problems and lose the chance to draw upon this big star. As such, he simply locked onto the red star and waited as a cloud of red starlight gathered toward the Storm Pearl.
Since he had managed to draw upon the star’s power, Qianye followed the usual method by activating a bit of his Venus Dawn and slowly injected it into the Storm Pearl. Using this as a guide, he tried establishing communication with the nearby stars.
The moment Venus Dawn entered the Storm Pearl, Qianye’s perception erupted all of a sudden. It swept over countless stars like a tempest and attracted the attention of countless celestial bodies. This feeling was like dropping food into a calm pond, suddenly drawing out a swarm of fish.
In the blink of an eye, Qianye was overwhelmed and didn’t quite know how to deal with everything. Neither Ji Tianqing nor Li Kuanglan had warned him of such a situation when they were teaching him their techniques.
He forced himself to calm down as he responded to them one by one. With each response, a star would flicker and send forth specks of starlight. In the blink of an eye, Qianye had responded to dozens of stars; there were dozens of starlight waves surging into the Storm Pearl. The number of stars he was communicating with was several times that of the two girls, but there were at least hundreds more he hadn’t responded to. As the number of responses increased, some of the faraway stars also began to flicker.
Qianye hesitated for a while, but he ultimately resisted the urge to continue. He only maintained his connection to the red star and the several dozen others, constantly pouring origin power into the Storm Pearl to integrate with the incoming star power.
Every wisp of Venus Dawn origin power could combine with several wisps of star power, and once combined, they would gradually condense into crystalline granules.
At this point, Qianye became somewhat doubtful. He had seen Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan combine origin power and star power at a two to one ratio. At that rate, for the same amount of origin power, the amount of crystallization they could produce was not even half of Qianye.
The more star power he could condense, logically, the better it should be. Qianye thus pushed his misgivings to the bottom of his heart and continued focusing on forming an origin crystal.
After an unknown length of time, Qianye suddenly opened his eyes. Floating in the void before him was a light red origin crystal. The crystal was the size of a fist, so much larger than the thumb-sized ones Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan had produced.
Qianye grabbed the origin crystal and flew upward without careful examination.
The moment he started flying, Qianye sensed hundreds of small consciousnesses calling out to him, asking him to stay. Each of them released a wisp of origin power that latched onto his body. They were extremely weak and almost negligible—even hundreds of them added together couldn’t slow down his movements—but that drew Qinaye’s attention.
These minuscule consciousnesses came from the weaker stars Qianye had communicated with. The stars Qianye had responded to would release some power to drag him back, stopping him from leaving. A couple dozen was fine, but if thousands or tens of thousands of them were to be involved, it would no longer be a string but a net instead. That was enough to make Qianye quite miserable.
Qianye’s body trembled as scarlet gold flames erupted around him, catapulting him toward the entrance like a rocket. The Constellation Well could disperse origin power, but Venus Dawn was one of the three peak origin power types, so the dissipation was quite slow.
Qianye flew faster and faster, rushing out of the well in the blink of an eye. Having lost all restraints abruptly, he shot dozens of meters into the air before coming to a stop and descending to the ground.
At this moment, Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan were seated side by side, discussing something intimately.
Seeing Qianye appear, they got up to welcome him. A shifty-eyed Ji Tianqing said mischievously, “What, are you disappointed because there’s no big meal?”
Li Kuanglan’s face went red. Qianye was also startled for a bit before coming back to his senses.
Ji Tianqing pursed her lips. “Boring. Come on, show us what good stuff you produced.”
Qianye passed the light red origin crystal over. Ji Tianqing gasped upon seeing the crystal. “So big! This must be a high-grade origin crystal!”
Li Kuanglan was the one who grabbed the crystal first. She broke into an immediate frown before tossing it to Ji Tianqing. That short moment of contact had left a small charred patch on her palm. There was an extremely powerful reaction between this crystal and her icy origin power.
Ji Tianqing channeled a layer of origin power to protect her skin as she received the item. A plume of light-red origin flames erupted as she tried injecting origin power into the crystal. Their surroundings became akin to a scorching summer day as soon as the flame appeared, proving just how powerful the blaze was.
“What a strong flame!” Ji Tianqing was stunned as she retracted her origin power and flipped the crystal about in her hand. “This is a fairly good one among high-grade origin crystals. Unfortunately, the purity of the flame and the amount of star power isn’t sufficient to be classified as top-grade.”
She regretfully shook her head and only came to after seeing Li Kuanglan’s odd expression. How rare was a top-grade origin crystal? How could it be so easy to obtain? The two of them had to go all out just to produce a medium-grade origin crystal.
At first, Ji Tianqing was thinking that they would’ve made a tidy profit if one of the seven remaining pearls would produce a high-grade origin crystal. That was because they had Qianye on their team. If it were just the two of them, all they could do was hope for medium-grade.
She studied the crystal for a good while before putting it into her spatial storage reluctantly. She then patted Qianye’s shoulder, saying, “With this origin crystal, the problem of Kuanglan’s icy sword would be half-solved. Take a good rest and try harder tomorrow, make some more high-grade origin crystals and we’ll be rich!”
Qianye didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. High-grade origin crystals weren’t rocks they could just pick up everywhere.
It was already late at night, and Qianye was also somewhat tired. He naturally wouldn’t object to taking a rest.
The three sorted out their items, and just as they were about to find a place to spend the night, a voice came from the forest, “This is the Constellation Well. Rest assured, those people from the Empire shouldn’t be here yet. How can they be as fast as we are? You can take your time condensing an origin crystal here. Tonight will be peaceful at the very least.”
Anwen walked out of the woods while talking, and was completely stunned to find Qianye’s group.