Actually, in his heart, Gong Jiu was extremely unwilling to use the Heaven's Secret Mirror as it was one of his trump cards. Central Plains' Artifact Refiners could only refine it.
Gong Jiu had put in a lot of effort in order to obtain this Heaven's Secret Mirror.
He had schemed against more than 10 people consecutively before finally snatching the Heaven's Secret Mirror.
It only had one function, divining heaven's secrets. As long as it didn't divine people and objects above the Soul Altar realm, the Heaven's Secret Mirror could directly reflect it.
For example, one could directly rely on the Heaven's Secret Mirror to divine people, spirit herbs, spirit ores, and so on.
Although this didn't sound very useful, this kind of special spiritual artifact could play a big role as long as it was used at the right time.
Gong Jiu wasted such a special spiritual artifact so decisively was largely because the battle over the Sect Leader position had already reached the climax.
Now, his competitors seized this sore spot and scolded him for being narrow-minded and not allowing the sect's geniuses to develop.
This caused his reputation to drop a lot overnight.
If it were any other time, Gong Jiu wouldn't care about any reputation at all.
However, such a thing happened during the selection of the next Sect Leader.
If he didn't calm down quickly, he might really lose the Sect Leader position in the end because of this matter.
'Moreover, Zhou Feng must have a secret. He climbed to this level in just half a year after all!
'Even if he doesn't have a secret, he still has the inheritance of Pill Master Yuan on him. He can be considered to have recovered some of his losses!'
Gong Jiu frowned and bit his middle finger, using the Heaven's Secret Mirror to calculate where Zhou Feng was now.
It had to be said that Gong Jiu was a ruthless person. He had actually made a decision in such a short time. Even if the price was a rare spiritual artifact, he still had to kill Zhou Feng and prevent any danger from appearing.
He looked at the Heaven's Secret Mirror. It looked a little simple, and its surface was extremely blurry, but it began to change.
Strands of strange power began to twist, and invisible lines of karma connected together.
Then, the blurry mirror began to become clear.
Zhou Feng's figure began to appear.
"Take the Heaven's Secret Mirror! Kill this person!"
Gong Jiu didn't plan to do it himself. Many people were watching his every move, so others would misinterpret any movement he made as something else.
Thus, he had his own Dao Protector kill Zhou Feng.
A genius like Gong Jiu naturally had a few loyal Dao Protectors.
"Yes, sir!"
Gong Wen lowered his head and held the Heaven's Secret Mirror with both hands.
Gong Wen was a Grade-1 Soul Altar cultivator and one of Gong Jiu's two Dao Protectors. He had used some evil techniques when he broke through, so he would never break through to the Purple Mansion realm.
Even so, Gong Wen did not need to spend much time to finish off Zhou Feng.
Gong Wen was a true veteran Soul Altar expert. There was only one soul artifact stored in the Soul Altar realm.
This soul artifact had been stored for a full 50 years, and Gong Wen had never used it before. He did not expect to have the opportunity to show off today finally.
Apart from that, Gong Wen also had decades of combat experience. Facing a fledgling like Zhou Feng, who had just broken through to the Soul Altar realm not long ago, was nothing.
He didn't know how much more experienced and shrewd he was, but Zhou Feng's advancement speed was simply too fast.
He simply didn't have that much time to immerse himself in the same realm and slowly explore and polish it.
Once he encountered an experienced and shrewd opponent, Zhou Feng would definitely suffer a great loss.
In a cave…
Zhou Feng had already completed his breakthrough and forged his Grade-1 Soul Altar!
A nascent soul was already sitting in the middle of the Soul Altar, and even the Purple Jade Bell had completed its metamorphosis.
When he broke through, he vaguely felt the laws between heaven and earth.
It was an extremely mysterious feeling. In that instant, Zhou Feng felt as if he had experienced what it felt like to be an immortal.
It was a pity that he couldn't sense the power contained in his own bloodline.
Normally, the nascent soul would appear after breaking through to Grade-1 of the Soul Altar realm.
By relying on the initial appearance of the soul, one would be able to sense the power contained within one's own bloodline and thus be able to understand the divine ability one would awaken in the future.
As mentioned in the past, the most important thing for breaking through to the Purple Mansion realm was to awaken one's divine ability.
However, Zhou Feng discovered that there was almost no power within his own bloodline.
In layman's terms, his aptitude was the lowest.
The Grade-1 Soul Altar was already his limit. If he took another step forward now, he would have to rely on other fortuitous encounters.
Regarding this, Zhou Feng was still able to accept it.
In any case, he had long known that his aptitude for cultivation was not very good and was able to reach this level.
He relied on passive skills that were as high as double digits to reach this level.
'Has the Purple Jade Bell already transformed into a spiritual artifact?'
Compared to his own aptitude, Zhou Feng was more concerned about whether the Purple Jade Bell had transformed into a spiritual weapon.
Previously, the Purple Jade Bell had been accompanied by several breakthroughs. All of them had the vague intention of transforming, but this step from a soul weapon to a spiritual weapon was challenging.
Therefore, the Purple Jade Bell had always been in the process of transforming.
Now, the Purple Jade Bell had completely restrained the treasure light that leaked out.
The first time Zhou Feng looked at the Purple Jade Bell, he knew that it was a treasure.
That crystal clear purple jade material, coupled with the faintly emitting treasure light, was really too dazzling.
But now, the Purple Jade Bell was like an ordinary small bell.
Ordinary and simple.
Zhou Feng tried to inject a trace of Demonic Qi into the Purple Jade Bell, and instantly, purple light filled the sky.
Seeing this, he immediately stopped. Now, he was sure that the Purple Jade Bell had already transformed into a true spiritual artifact.
This kind of terrifying aura was simply several times more terrifying than before.
His cultivation had broken through to Grade-1 of the Soul Altar realm, and the Purple Jade Bell had also transformed into a spiritual artifact.
Zhou Feng's strength soared once again.
'Then next, I still have to draw passive skills!'
Since his cultivation had broken through once again, Zhou Feng took a look at the skill panel.
As expected, just like the previous times, the progress bar on the skill panel was automatically filled up.
This meant that he would automatically have an additional passive skill every time he broke through in the future.
This more or less had the meaning of a guarantee. As long as he broke through to a new realm, he would be able to draw new passive skills.
Zhou Feng felt he would have countless passive skills in the future.
"Draw!"
"Drawing…"
What followed was the familiar drawing process.
Not long after, a new passive skill appeared in front of him.
Reinforced Iron Bones: Your muscles and bones are like steel being poured over them. Your Defense will permanently increase by 10%.
'Another passive defensive skill? How many passive defensive skills is this already?'
And if he remembered correctly, the first few passive skills that were drawn seemed to favor defense and life preservation.
And now another one?
'Reinforced Iron Bones? Wait… Why are my bones—'
Zhou Feng suddenly felt all the bones in his body become painful and itchy, as if thousands of ants were constantly gnawing at his bones.