Chapter 0672: Is it really worth escaping
Something’s not right, Ning Cheng thought as he put away the Perpetual Moon. But even when he put away the Perpetual Moon Pills, he could still sense a dense amount of Starry Sky Essence Qi coming out of the Permanent Essence Pill Pond.
After a few breaths, he traced the source of Starry Sky Essence Qi to a spot near the bottom of the pond pill. There definitely was something mysterious inside this Permanent Essence Pill Pond. As Ning Cheng thought it, he raised his hand and grabbed the pill pond.
If he were still in the Heaven’s Mandate Realm, even if Ning Cheng grew more powerful, he would not be able to shake the pill pond. However, at this time, Ning Cheng’s hand managed to shatter the Permanent Essence Pill Pond. Immediately, a huge natural array formation materialised in front of Ning Cheng.
Just below this natural array formation, he felt an even denser Starry Sky Essence Qi that poured into the array formation. This came from a few-feet long Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein.
Ning Cheng knew about Spiritual Veins. When he was in the Graceful Star Mainland, he had obtained a couple of them, though incomplete. Therefore, when he sensed the Essence Qi Vein, Ning Cheng immediately recognised that it might be an actual Starry Sky Spiritual Vein.
Standing at the edge of this Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein, he could tell that it was initially at least a few hundred or maybe even thousands of feet long. However, because of the prolonged use, the Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein had shrunk to the size of a few dozen feet.
Although the Starry Sky Essence Qi within this Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein felt far less pure compared to what one found in Permanent Essence Pills, it still made Ning Cheng happy. His cultivation needed large amounts of high-grade Starry Sky Essence Qi; as for whether it was pure or not, it didn’t matter much to him.
With the purifying and scouring effects of the Mysterious Yellow Origin Aura, Ning Cheng could absorb impure Starry Sky Essence Qi for cultivation. The Mysterious Yellow Origin Aura easily washed away all the impurities.
Ning Cheng raised his hand and carefully grabbed this small Starry Sky Spiritual Vein before sending it into the True Spirit World.
Sure enough, the Starry Sky Essence Qi gathering within the Permanent Essence Pill Pond disappeared after Ning Cheng removed the Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein.
Ning Cheng immediately understood a few things on noticing such a phenomenon. The Permanent Essence Pills in this pool and the Perpetual Moon Pills that he collected previously should have formed because of this Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein. More specifically, the Perpetual Moon Pills took shape from the aura spillover from the Permanent Essence Pills produced by the Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein. Moreover, because of the long period of isolation in this place and under the effects of the natural array formation, it ended up producing a large number of pure pills. This shrunk the Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein to just a few feet of what it was initially.
If he hadn’t come over, this Starry Sky Spiritual Vein would have eventually depleted and fully consumed under the effects of the natural formation.
Now that Ning Cheng removed the Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein, this place would no longer produce any more Starry Sky Essence Qi. Ning Cheng carefully searched around and confirmed that this place only had two pill ponds. Now that he had already taken away all the Essence Qi Pills and even the Essence Qi Vein, it didn’t make any sense for him to stay here.
It’s just that he had used a convenient way to come to this place, but had no idea on how to get out of this place.
Ning Cheng carefully tried tracing his steps back along the original path. In any case, after obtaining the Celestial River Body, as long as he did not encounter a sudden Spacial Dislocation, the Spacial Wind Edges flashing around in this area had no effect on him.
Half a month later, Ning Cheng stopped. At this moment, not to mention tracing the original path he came in, he could not even find the location of the spacial collapse maelstrom through which he had come in.
Ning Cheng gave out a sigh. Even if he did find the location of the spacial collapse maelstrom, so what? Could he go out through it? How much spacial power did that maelstrom contain? Even with his current cultivation, he could not confidently say that he could force himself out of through that violent maelstrom. No, it was almost impossible.
A spacial blade swept past Ning Cheng, but Ning Cheng remained indifferent to it. He had no idea of how to get back to the Grand Culmination Starry Sky. Maybe he could leave this place through one of the spacial dislocations.
During the moment of hesitation, Ning Cheng found a spacial dislocation extending towards him. Ning Cheng immediately entered the Mysterious Yellow Bead and let the Mysterious Yellow Bead fall into this spacial dislocation.
Apart from trying this method, he really couldn’t think of any other way out of this place.
Once the spacial dislocation swallowed the Mysterious Yellow Bead, Ning Cheng immediately swept out within his Spiritual Consciousness. However, he quickly recalled it back. Ning Cheng could barely stretch out his Spiritual Consciousness within a spacial collapse. But within this spacial dislocation, even if his Spiritual Consciousness grew twice as powerful, the chaotic space outside immediately ground it to nothingness upon contact.
Once someone entered through a spacial dislocation’s gaping maw, even a Life and Death Expert would find it challenging to survive for more than a few moments.
A few days later, Ning Cheng still couldn’t stretch out his Spiritual Consciousness. Therefore, he decided to give up for now and settled down within the Mysterious Yellow Bead to cultivate.
Cultivating within the Mysterious Yellow Bead anyway provided much better and stronger effects compared to the outside. Moreover, Ning Cheng even had the few-feet long Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein. As such, he did not have to worry about not having any Starry Sky Essence Qi to absorb.
After advancing to the Heaven Seated Realm, Ning Cheng’s cultivation now needed extreme quantities of Starry Sky Essence Qi. Moreover, while cultivating, the scene around him looked like that of a giant whale sucking up huge amounts of water. But the Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein kept spewing out Starry Sky Essence Qi Mist from beneath him, keeping Ning Cheng shrouded within it.
The dense Starry Sky Essence Qi and the Mysterious Yellow Origin Aura merged like two streams combining into a giant whirlpool and kept circulating around Ning Cheng. At the same time Metal, Fire, Water, and Earth Origin Aura also emerged and continually fused into this giant Starry Sky Essence Qi Whirlpool within the Mysterious Yellow Bead.
Ning Cheng’s cultivation rapidly increased, while his meridians continued to expand to accommodate the growing flow of Celestial Essence. Even his Starry Sky Sea of Consciousness issued roars as it stretched outwards, one layer at a time.
With such insane absorption and cultivation speed, if replaced by someone else, no one would be able to sustain this for long before succumbing. However, Ning Cheng had still not reached the point of succumbing to the Devilish Flames, or rather, it seemed like he simply didn’t have such a limit. The only change that one could observe was that the speed of Ning Cheng absorbing the Starry Sky Essence Qi grew faster the higher his cultivation climbed.
At this time, Ning Cheng forgot that he was still inside the Mysterious Yellow Bead that was drifting around in the spacial dislocation. Immersing himself in such carefree cultivation, it truly made him happy to the point of being ecstatic. He couldn’t help but feel that there was nothing more enjoyable than cultivating within the Mysterious Yellow Bead.
“Boom…..” A loud explosion erupted within his Sea of Consciousness, forcing Ning Cheng to sober up immediately. He suddenly opened his eyes and found that he not only advanced to the middle-level of Heaven Seated Realm, but his Sea of Consciousness had also expanded to twice its previous size.
Ning Cheng stood up in joy. He raised his hand and waved it casually, forming a hundred feet long wind blade that flew forward at almost breakneck speed. This wind blade even managed to carve out a huge gully through the yellow mist of the Mysterious Yellow Bead.
My cultivation improved once again. Ning Cheng thought as he took in a deep breath. For Ning Cheng, improving his cultivation was of the utmost importance.
As his Spiritual Consciousness swept out again, he found that the void outside the Mysterious Yellow Bead was no longer chaotic. He only saw a few spacial wind blades that flew past the edge of his Spiritual Consciousness and looked quite ordinary.
Had he already come out of the spacial dislocation? A moment later, Ning Cheng confirmed that he had indeed come out of the spacial dislocation. As for that Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein, which was initially a few feet long, it had almost completely disappeared. From this, Ning Cheng estimated that he might have cultivated for at least half a year.
Ning Cheng quickly rushed out and swept out with his Spiritual Consciousness.
In just a moment, Ning Cheng confirmed that he had not reached the starry skies, he was still inside the void crack. If this place was not the Eternal Night Domain, then it definitely was someplace similar to the Eternal Night Domain.
Bringing out a middle-grade Dao Artefact, Ning Cheng immediately shot forward. At the same time, he pushed his Spiritual Consciousness to its limits while controlling the flight-type weapon. In any case, Ning Cheng first had to find someone to find his current bearings.
For almost half a month, Ning Cheng did not meet a single cultivator. With such results, Ning Cheng decided to bring out the Starry Sky Wheel to move around, a middle-grade flight-type Dao Artefact was just too slow.
Bringing out the Starry Sky Wheel, he had not yet pushed it to its full speed, when Ning Cheng’s Spiritual Consciousness detected a flight-type weapon’s shadow pass by the edge of its range. A moment later, another flight-type weapon brushed past at speed no slower than the previous flight-type weapon.
Were there cultivators here? Ning Cheng did not hesitate to catch up to them with the Starry Sky Wheel. With his cultivation at the middle-level of Heaven Seated Realm, even if he encountered cultivator in the Eternal Realm, he would be able to escape easily.
The Starry Sky Wheel was so fast that even though the two flight-type weapons had pushed their speeds to their peak, Ning Cheng still managed to pass the flight-type weapon in the lead and stop in front of it.
The speeding weapon on seeing Ning Cheng’s Starry Sky Wheel stop in front of it had no choice but to stop unless it wanted to crash into it.
Ning Cheng stood at the front of the Starry Sky Wheel and found the flight-type weapon he stopped to be somewhat familiar. Soon he realised why it looked familiar. The man who came out of the weapon, which had just come to a stop, was Song Chengbo, the person who he had saved before.
Seeing Song Chengbo, Ning Cheng questioned himself once again if he had returned to the void around the Eternal Night Domain. Despite the disappointment of not reaching the Grand Culmination Starry Sky, Ning Cheng felt slightly relieved that he had at least returned to the Eternal Night Domain’s void.
“This friend, why did you stop ….” Song Chengbo had just come out and had spoken only half a sentence when he immediately recognised the person who stopped him. He exclaimed in amazement, “Brother Ning, is that you?”
Just when he said those words, the other flight-type weapon caught up to them.
Ning Cheng vaguely understood that someone wanted to chase down Song Chengbo.
“Brother Ning, something huge had happened in the Temple of Fallen Stars, and I thought that you could not manage to come out. I truly didn’t expect to find you here.” After Song Chengbo recognised Ning Cheng, his eyes flashed with genuine surprise and delight.
“Brother Song, who’s hunting you?” Ning Cheng’s gaze slipped past Song Chengbo and looked at the other flight-type weapon that had just arrived.
Song Chengbo’s expression grew sour, “Who else? I truly had gone blind to partner up with such an ungrateful bastard.”
Without Song Chengbo needing to explain, Ning Cheng already saw the cultivator chasing him. This cultivator had dark skin and was one of Song Chengbo’s teammates he met before entering the Temple of Fallen Stars, Bian Shiyan. Moreover, this Bain Shiyan quite vocally denied Ning Cheng teaming up with them when they stood in front of the two pillars, implying that he would hold the back.
But Ning Cheng quickly understood why Song Chengbo decided to flee. When Ning Cheng met Bian Shiyan back then, this fellow was only at the full-circle of the Heaven Seated Realm. But this person had already advanced to the Life and Death Realm at this moment. Since Song Chengbo was still only at the late-stage of Heaven Seated Realm, he naturally would have to flee on meeting him.
Ning Cheng knew that Song Chengbo had left the Temple of Fallen Stars to settle accounts with Bian Shiyan. But from the looks of it, Song Cheng did not know about Bian Shiyan’s advancement to the Life and Death Realm, which forced him to flee after finding Bian Shiyan.
“Haha, this little ant is still here. Huh, this flight-type weapon looks quite good …” As Bian Shiyan spoke, he raised his hand and put away his own flight-type weapon before walking towards them in the void.
“Brother Ning, escape quickly. I’ll help you stop this bastard.” Song Chengbo, on seeing Bian Shiyan walking over, anxiously cried out.
Although Bian Shiyan couldn’t see Ning Cheng’s cultivation that did not mean Ning Cheng couldn’t see his cultivation.
Ning Cheng showed a sneer. He no longer needed to escape such a situation using the Starry Sky Wheel. Instead, he put away the Starry Sky Wheel with a wave of his hand while with another wave, he stretched out his other hand and grabbed a high-grade spear-type Dao Artefact.
Escape? Why would I willingly escape from a cultivator who has just advanced to the Life and Death Realm?