On the back mountain of Cloudsoaring Mountain…
Sitting quietly on the ground, Wu Ji saw numerous fine spacial rifts appear in the sky as if they were being split open by sharp blades.
The hut that Nie Tian was in practically disappeared into thin air in a flash, together with Nie Tian.
Multi-colored light flashed within the countless spacial rifts, as if they were secret tunnels that led to numerous unknown dimensions.
Wu Ji narrowed his eyes. With a brief movement of his soul, the rich spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth in the vicinity started to converge towards the mountaintop.
The spiritual Qi came in clusters like clouds, completely sealing off the entire area.
Even Jiang Zhisu, who was on the nearby Cloudsoaring Peak, couldn’t detect the abnormal spatial activities in the region.
WHOOSH!
One after another, numerous blurry shadows flew out from the top of Wu Ji’s head, which seemed like manifestations of his soul.
Each one swam into one of the spacial rifts and started exploring.
However, the spacial rifts quickly began to shrink and close up.
Before he could thoroughly explore the secrets within, Wu Ji sensed the unfavorable change and therefore had to command the countless shadows to fly back.
FIZZ! FIZZ!
Before long, the spacial rifts closed up one after another, and the abnormal spatial fluctuations also returned to normal.
“There are space disruptions, but no signs of a gate to another dimension. The secret dimension gate must have only taken Nie Tian in, and transferred him to that mysterious world.” After thinking for a moment, he closed his eyes and started his meditation.
…
In the unknown, mysterious world.
For a second time, Nie Tian appeared on the dilapidated altar, facing the eight dragon skulls. Fear rose in Nie Tian’s heart as he looked into their hollowed eye sockets.
A surge of spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth that was several times richer than spiritual Qi in the Cloudsoaring sect overwhelmed him. Sitting where he was, without practicing the Qi Refining Incantation, he felt like he could cultivate at a high speed.
It seemed that nothing had changed. He was still enveloped by a terrifyingly strong gravitational field.
After bringing him there, the Flame Dragon Armor sat right next to him on the altar, and didn’t fly back into his bracelet of holding.
Flickering with dazzling, fiery light, the Flame Dragon Armor seemed quite excited.
However, only moments later, it returned normal, and become dark and gloomy again.
There were no interactions between the Flame Dragon Armor and Nie Tian. It seemed that its soul had gone back to repairing itself and making the transition.
“God knows how many times faster it would be if I could practice cultivation here,” Nie Tian whispered to himself and attempted to stand up.
Last time he was there, he couldn’t stand on his feet, and could only barely raise his arm.
Now that he had broken into the Lesser Heaven stage and strengthened his body by consuming a large amount of second grade spirit beast meat, the first thing he wanted to do was to see if he could stand up and walk.
He summoned his trength and laboriously rose to his feet.
The mere act of standing up consumed quite a large portion of his spiritual power, as well as some of his flesh power.
This made him realize that it was almost impossible for him to step very far away from the altar and explore this mysterious land.
He was sure that he would use up all his strength just by walking several hundred meters from the altar.
Therefore, he chose not to do that. Instead, he sat back down and looked attentively towards the mountain-like arms that pierced into the distant sky.
Among them, one had its fingers stretched out, in an imposing gesture that seemed as if it was going to grab and pull down the heavens.
Just like last time, he imitated the gesture of the giant hand and grabbed towards the sky, while staring firmly at the distant arm.
Soon after, he vaguely sensed a mountain-consuming, domineering force being born in his arm.
The force, which could only be detected by the soul, gradually grew and spread to every corner of his body.
His spiritual sea moved as the force built up. Even the power that lay within his flesh and bones seemed to resonate with it. He slowly adjusted his mental state to attempt to match the gesture and the force.
He could keenly feel that the strength from his soul and flesh was now flowing within his meridians and blood vessels very rapidly.
The force was constantly on the rise.
He had his eyes fixed on the giant arm, and tried his best to comprehend its essence. At the same time, he constantly adjusted his spiritual sea and his body, in an attempt to completely immerse himself in the process.
A very long time passed.
HUFF! HUFF! HUFF!
All of a sudden, the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth that had filled every corner of the mysterious land seemed to be attracted by some unknown magnetic field, as it gradually converged onto Nie Tian’s location.
The white, misty spiritual energy continued to come together and condense into what seemed like clusters of clouds, which all gathered towards Nie Tian’s upstretched hand.
His hand seemed to have become the center of the magnetic field, as a strong attracting force kept pulling all the spiritual energy clouds towards it.
In the palm of his raised hand, a bright, light ball of pure, condensed spiritual energy was gradually formed.
The misty ball of spiritual energy never stopped absorbing spiritual energy from the surroundings, and little by little, the extremely rich spiritual energy within the ball began to liquefy.
BANG!
Suddenly, the sleeve covering his raised arm exploded and turned into flying fibers as an extremely intense surge of spiritual energy fluctuations rippled out from within the spiritual energy ball.
Meanwhile, he suddenly felt an incomparably heavy weight on his lifted hand, as the half-tangible spiritual energy ball had become as heavy as a mountain.
Subconsciously, he yanked his hand down from the air.
Like a ball of bright light, the spiritual energy ball left the center of his palm and fell heavily onto the stone altar.
BOOM!
A loud crash echoed out as the ball burst. However, the stone altar didn’t show show any sign of cracking.
“What?!” The moment Nie Tian loosened up mentally, the force within him dispersed, and his spiritual sea and flesh and blood returned to normal.
Despite the significant consumption in his strength, he slowly moved to the place where the spiritual energy ball had fallen to, crouched down, and started to examine it.
Upon a closer look, he was certain that the stone altar only had the dust that had covered it blown away, while the revealed stone surface remained intact and seemed even very smooth and glossy, without even the smallest of fissures.
“This isn’t right. The spiritual power within the spiritual energy ball was so pure and strong. Logically, even the toughest rock on Cloudsoaring Mountain would have shattered upon such a powerful collision.
“The only explanation would be that the altar is built with stones whose toughness has surpassed my knowledge.”
Eyes narrowing, Nie Tian pondered for a while before starting to examine himself.
Unlike the rage punch, this technique that he had used to condense a spiritual energy ball didn’t seem to consume a large portion of his spiritual power.
Quite on the contrary, upon a thorough examination of himself, he found that the spiritual power within his spiritual sea had actually increased.
“This technique doesn’t seem to be very useful. It takes a long time to condense a spiritual energy ball. No one will ever give me the time to form it in battle.
“Furthermore, it has a high requirement in the density of the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth. The might of this technique probably won’t be displayed to the fullest if the spiritual energy in the surroundings isn’t rich enough.
“That shouldn’t be all there is.”
After thinking for quite some time, a flash of inspiration hit him.
“When the spiritual energy ball landed on the ground, not only did I not expend any of my own spiritual power, but I actually gained a bit spiritual power. What would happen if I tried to allow the ball of spiritual energy into my spiritual sea?”
With these thoughts, he became enlivened. Once again, he raised his hand to imitate the gesture while fixing his eyes on the mountain-like arm that seemed to desire to rip the heavens from the sky.
A while later, he once again sensed the majestic force from the gigantic arm, something that could conquer mountains and devour rivers.
It seemed his spiritual sea and body had gradually adjusted themselves to collaborate with the changes that were taking place inside of him.
WHOOSH!
Shortly after, spiritual energy once again slowly converged onto the palm of his raised hand.
Moments later, a new spiritual energy ball was formed in his palm. When he found it too heavy to hold up, he immediately operated the Qi Refining Incantation, in an attempt to pull and guide the spiritual energy ball into his spiritual sea.
The fist-sized spiritual energy ball rapidly shrank when he tried to channel it with the Qi Refining Incantation.
Strand after strand of spiritual energy that was as smooth as a clear stream flowed rapidly into his palm, and followed his meridians straight into his dantian’s spiritual sea.
Inside his spiritual sea, the vortex of spiritual power revolved at an astonishing speed, refining and making the spiritual energy increasingly pure and condensed.
The speed of the process was even several times faster than when he used spirit stones to cultivate.
Nie Tian’s eyes suddenly lit up.