When Ning Sihua descended on the back of her Bluescale Eagle, the group gathered at the House of Waveswept Rocks subconsciously glanced at the two severed heads in her hands.
Afterward, Shen Jiusong, Chen Zheng, and the others couldn’t help but suck in a breath of cold air.
Of those two heads, one belonged to the vice palace master of Jixia Academy, Tao Zheng. The other belonged to Vice Palace Master Mo Huaque of Watermoon Academy.
Their statuses might have been inferior to Ning Sihua, but they were both still well-known Grandmasters.?Furthermore, they’d come to Heaven’s Origin Academy as representatives of their respective academies.
Yet now, Ning Sihua had killed them both without the slightest politeness!
Who wouldn’t have been surprised?
“Fellow Daoist, are these heads worthy offerings?” Ning Sihua walked up, glanced at the seated Su Yi, and pressed her lips into a grin.
“They’re not members of the Su Family,” said Su Yi. “They’re not worthy.”
Ning Sihua nodded. “I thought so too.”
As she spoke, flames formed of Astral Force lit on her fingertips, burning both severed heads into cinders. Their ashes scattered to the wind.
The others instantly understood.
It might seem like Ning Sihua had shed all pretenses of cordiality with Jixia and Watermoon Academies, and indeed, she had. However, her true goal was to make her position perfectly clear to Su Yi!
When Pu Yi, Jiang Tanyun, and Lu Zhangfeng realized her intentions, they were increasingly delighted that they’d had the opportunity to ally themselves with Su Yi.
Even the mighty and mysterious Ning Sihua had gone to such lengths to make her position clear. This unquestionably meant that, in her eyes, neither the academies she’d offended nor the Jade Capital’s Su Family mattered anywhere near as much as standing alongside Su Yi!
Shortly after, Ning Sihua learned of their recently-formed alliance. For a moment, she was stunned, but then she understood.
She wasn’t at all surprised.
After everything they’d been through at Bloodthistle Yao Mountain, after witnessing Su Yi slay Hua Liuye and the Deathbringer’s Gate’s holy maiden, who could fail to realize just how terrifying Su Yi’s methods were?
This was the difference between true cultivators and mundane martial artists!
And everyone present knew that, so long as the “Spatial Barrier” hid within the depths of Bloodthistle Yao Mountain, in just three to five years, cultivators from another world would cross over!
When the time came, never mind the Great Zhou; the entire Azure Continent would descend into chaos and bloodshed.
Forming an alliance with Su Yi, someone who saw those otherworld cultivators as prey, and joining forces with him before the invaders arrived was undoubtedly the wisest choice they could make.
It was best to prepare for bad weather before it started raining.
Of course, every choice?had?both advantages and disadvantages. Forming an alliance with Su Yi now meant accepting the risk of offending the Jade Capital’s Su Family.
However, it was obvious that all of them had already made up their mind. With their intelligence and experience, there was no way they’d fail to realize the implications of this decision, either.
I wouldn’t have guessed that even someone as lofty and arrogant as the Mountain-Subduing King would have such wisdom and breadth of spirit. This is truly beyond my expectations…?Ning Sihua’s gaze swept across the courtyard, and she felt rather emotional.
She understood Su Yi better than the others, and she was naturally well aware that their choice to join Su Yi was no different from grasping at a “grand stroke of fortune”!
In other words, Su Yi represented an opportunity. ?By choosing to stand firmly in his camp, they’d effectively boarded the “boat” that would carry them onto the path of the true cultivator!
Mu Xi was the youngest of the Great Zhou’s non-Zhou kings. For him to lower his head to Su Yi of his own free will was rare and difficult indeed.
Before long, Zheng Tianhe came knocking. He was noticeably thinner and more haggard, and his formerly plump figure was a full layer svelter. However, he was in high spirits, and his face was bright with excitement and joy.
The moment he saw Su Yi, he lost control of his emotions and repeatedly expressed his gratitude.
If Su Yi?hadn’t?waved?and cut him off, Zheng Tianhe likely would have gone on much longer.
When she saw her father, Zheng Muyao fully relaxed, and her beautiful face broke into a radiant smile.
Su Yi had never liked noise or crowds, so after chatting for a little while, he rose, then went back to his room to cultivate.
When his allies saw this, they?considerately?bade farewell and left. Before long, the enormous House of Waveswept Rocks regained its usual tranquility.
The second floor of the pavilion.
Su Yi opened the box Mu Xi and the others had brought.
Inside were the items Xia Houlin, Yue Qing, Pei Wenshan, and the various Grandmasters had left behind. There were spiritual weapons, materials, medicines, and various other items related to cultivation. All were precious and extraordinary.
After all, the dead had all been influential experts. Goods sufficient to satisfy their needs couldn’t possibly be lacking.
Take the spiritual?medicines. Even the worst of them was tier three, while the best of the lot were two stalks of tier-five spiritual herbs. They were, respectively, Morning Rain Spirit Ginseng and Five-Color Poria. They were even more precious than the Pure Yang Fire Peaches.
The spiritual materials and weapons included quite a few treasures as well.
In short, this time, his harvest was enormous.
More importantly, it resolved the problem at hand.
There was nothing for it; during the two days he had spent cultivating deep within the chasm at Bloodthistle Yao Mountain, he had used up all his accumulated medicines in the process of tempering all of his true essence into Dao Astral Force and becoming a Grandmaster.
And while forging the Abstruse God Wood Sword back at the Greenplate Army camp, Su Yi had also used up almost all of the spiritual materials he had on him.
It was no exaggeration to say that, by the time he had returned to the Imperatorial Provincial Capital, Su Yi had practically no resources left.
He was now a first-level Grandmaster. Furthermore, since his foundations far surpassed others of the same level, he required vast amounts of resources.
Strictly speaking, at his current cultivation, only spiritual medicines and spirit stones tier three and up could satisfy the expenditures of his daily cultivation.
“With all these resources, I won’t have to worry about cultivation resources for a while. That said, if I want to rise to higher realms, these won’t be nearly enough.” Su Yi rubbed his forehead.
He finally understood why people like Ning Sihua and Mu Xi all ran around the Eight Great Yao Mountains in search of fortune.
Their reasoning was simple: the higher your cultivation, the harder it was to find resources that could satisfy your needs. It was only by exploring and seeking out lucky breaks that you could find enough resources to continue your cultivation.
In addition to various cultivation resources and weapons, there were also a number of miscellaneous objects. Most were unworthy of notice, but one drew Su Yi’s gaze.
It was a palm-sized Buddhist statue. The figure was seated in the lotus position, his hands on his stomach and his fingers knit together, forming a lotus-like dharma seal.
The statue’s features were indistinct; the years had taken an obvious toll. However, from the statue’s outline, it was obvious that the Buddhist was young, and his expression was solemn, upright, and imposing.
A dragon rested its head on the young man’s shoulders, its body coiled around his back.
The dragon was indistinct too. One look at its state, and it was obvious that its scales, whickers, horns, and other details were no longer intact.
A true dragon coiled around his body, hands forming a dharma lotus, and a righteous, majestic air lingering around him.?Isn’t this the legendary Taming Dragon Arhat….??As Su Yi pondered, he picked the statue up, only for his hand to fall. To his shock, he couldn’t lift it!
Despite himself, he was stunned. He circulated his cultivation base, and only then did he manage to lift the statue.
No wonder it’s so heavy! No wonder it’s the size of a palm, yet weighs three thousand catties! This statue was actually forged from the bones of a True Spirit!?Su Yi’s eyes flashed with a strange light.
True Spirits were divine birds and beasts, born of heaven and nourished by the earth. Examples included the Pixiu, Bi’an, Qiongqi, Bifang, Vermillion Bird, and Xuanwu.
Existences of this level were also referred to as “True Spirit Divine Beasts.”
Even in the Nine Provinces of the Wilds, all of them were extremely rare and terrifying existences, so much so that they practically only existed in legends.
In his past life, Su Yi had searched the entire world, but he had only found one True Spirit, a young Xuanwu. He had raised it in his scenic paradise to bring fortune to his estate and keep watch over the door.
Later, when the Xuanwu True Spirit underwent metamorphosis and took on human form, Su Yi accepted it as his seventh disciple, giving it the title “Xuan Ning.”
Su Yi wouldn’t have guessed that now, in this mundane realm, he’d see a statue carved from the bones of a True Spirit!
This was simply too rare!
Su Yi analyzed it in detail, then tried using his soul to sense it.
Boom!
Suddenly, the image of a true dragon appeared in his mental sea. It soared through the vast clouds and starry skies, in and out of view. It was so massive that the countless stars seemed dim and insignificant by comparison. A vast, dense aura surged around it, and it was surrounded in rolling fog, making it difficult to see.
Su Yi could also dimly discern a figure seated cross-legged atop the dragon’s back, a man in Buddhist robes.
When Su Yi’s gaze landed on him, he seemed to sense it. He turned his head and gazed upon Su Yi from afar.
Boom!
Before Su Yi could react, that magnificent, mysterious, and vast scene burst apart and shattered without a trace.
Su Yi couldn’t help but furrow his brow.?A monk soaring through the stars on the back of a true dragon? 𝚘𝚟𝚕．ｔ
Who was this guy? Why is it that, in my past life, I never once heard of any long-established Buddhist expert capable of taming a true dragon and soaring through the stars?
Could he be the legendary Taming Dragon Arhat described in Buddhism’s ancient texts?
Soaring through the stars? That’s something not even Imperial Realm experts dare attempt lightly!
Countless doubts flooded Su Yi’s mind.
He glanced down at the statue in his hands. The man sat cross-legged, hands forming a dharma lotus seal, a dragon wrapped around his upper body, his aura righteous and imposing.
Is this the guy I just saw riding a dragon through the starry skies??Su Yi pondered, and a little while later, he attempted to sense the statue with his soul once more.
To his disappointment, the statue’s spirituality seemed to have disappeared completely. He could no longer sense that unbelievable scene he’d just witnessed.
I wonder who left this statue behind. When I next see the Mountain-Subduing King, I’ll have to ask him,?Su Yi thought to himself.
The Azure Continent was a mundane realm. Discovering a statue carved of True Spirit Bone and catching a glimpse of that white-robed monk soaring through the stars on the back of a true dragon was obviously and unquestionably unusual.
If he could learn the statue’s origins, he might get one step closer to understanding its secrets!