Secular Immortal of the Nine Realms - Chapter 190
Chapter 190: Century Scarlet Fruit
Just as the two of them were about to investigate the hill, Li Xiuming suddenly whizzed across the sky with Chaoxianggong Nisheng, with a black shadow chasing after them. It was the same black shadow who had pursued them earlier.
“Those two are capable of sword flight!” Li Daoye was envious.
“Is sword flight difficult?” Fang Chen casually asked.
The Three Thousand Dao Gate’s initiate manual he received from Elder Cloudcrane only contained a cultivation method and the method to create Strength Talisman, Flitting Talisman, Protection Talisman, and Purple Lightning Talisman.
“Of course it’s difficult! You can’t just fly on any random sword. You have to first nurture your own sword embryo,” Li Daoye said. “Nurturing a sword embryo is equivalent to forging a flying sword that’s uniquely yours. Others will struggle to assimilate the flying sword even if the owner dies. That’s why flying swords are also classified as ego artifacts.
“Well, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a sword though. There are cultivators who nurture all kinds of weirdly-shaped artifacts for that purpose too. It boils down to your own preference.”
“Oh?” Fang Chen’s interest was piqued. “How are ego artifacts different from normal artifacts?”
“Normal artifacts already have a fixed form, but ego artifacts are different. They are forged by nourishing artifacts that have daosoul imprints but haven’t taken a fixed form yet. It’s a method known as ego nurturing. Such legacies can’t be found in normal sects. Even in Infernoblaze, there’s no more than a handful of sects that have such a legacy,” Li Daoye said.
“Our Eight Trigrams Sect has disciples venturing out of the sect to explore the world each year, and one of the things we hope to find is an ego nurturing method. It’s fine even if it’s an inferior ego nurturing method—it’ll still be stronger than ordinary artifacts, not to mention we can fly on it.”
Fang Chen’s interest deepened after hearing that. I wonder if there are any ego nurturing methods here. It’d be convenient if I could fly on a sword.
Meanwhile, Li Xiuming and Chaoxianggong Nisheng spent a while fighting with the black shadow in the sky. There was no victor, but the two of them looked to be in a disadvantageous position.
In the end, the two of them found an opening to fly straight into the hill and landed not too far away from Fang Chen and Li Daoye. Even so, they continued to warily eye the black shadow.
“It dares not to step into this hill!” Li Xiuming breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the beast hesitating to advance into the hill.
“Have you seen Xia Yun and the other two?” Fang Chen asked them.
“I last saw them getting chased by the stone fae.” Li Xiuming shook his head.
“Such is life.” Li Daoye sighed. “Let’s not bother about them for now. This must be the powerful cultivator’s abode. Let’s see if he left anything good here! I don’t think the Ji Clan’s martial artists are able to get this far; they probably just collected a bunch of chump change around.”
Fang Chen nodded. “That’s possible.”
The cultivator worshiped by the Ji Clan wasn’t strong, so it would have been hard for him to reach this place, not to mention that Ji Lengyue and the others had implied that the cultivator had been reluctant to step in here out of fear for his life.
The four of them climbed the hill and soon saw a door with a plaque writing: Pilgrimage Gate.
“Pilgrimage Gate? What big words.” Li Xiuming laughed. “Is this a Golden Core cultivator’s abode?”
Chaoxianggong Nisheng and Li Daoye’s eyes lit up upon hearing those words.
Passing through the Pilgrimage Gate, the four of them soon arrived before a tattered palace, which looked to have been wrecked by someone before.
“A cultivator has been here.” Li Xiuming’s face darkened.
“Damn it! Is this a wasted trip? I wasted so many ki stones here!” Li Daoye cried tearfully.
“They might not have taken away everything. Let’s look around,” Li Xiuming said.
“It’s a big place. Let’s spread out,” Fang Chen said.
Li Xiuming glanced at Fang Chen with enigmatic eyes and remarked, “There might be restriction art traps here. It’ll be best for us to travel together, especially since your cultivation isn’t too high. That way, my junior and I can at least look out for you.”
“Young master Fang, Brother Li is right.” Li Daoye nodded. His voice then secretly echoed in Fang Chen’s ears, “He’s afraid that we’ll find something good and hide it, but their cultivation is higher than ours. They might kill us if we refuse to travel with them.”
Li Daoye had never trusted Li Xiuming and Chaoxianggong Nisheng. He knew the world of cultivation was a cruel and selfish place; he wouldn’t trust someone whose sect he didn’t even know about.
Fang Chen nodded with a smile. “That sounds good. We’ll be troubling the two of you.”
“No worries.” Li Xiuming waved his hand.
The four of them ventured into the palace and saw a divine statue—it was none other than the Enlightenment Heaven Supreme. However, half its body was destroyed. It was likely the doing of the person who wrecked this palace.
“I get it now. The cultivator who was cultivating here might have fled in a fluster when an enemy came knocking,” Li Xiuming proposed a theory.
“Wouldn’t his enemy have already taken everything valuable then?” Li Daoye frowned.
Fang Chen stared intently at the divine statue. Is this the point that the Enlightenment Heaven Supreme started gathering faith for his cultivation? Given how huge this place is, it’s possible the Enlightenment Heaven Supreme might have reared mortals here before.
“Young master Fang, why do you keep staring at the divine statue?” Li Daoye asked. “If I’m not mistaken, this divine statue is called Enlightenment something…”
“Enlightenment Heaven Supreme.” Fang Chen corrected. “Quite a few places worship him.”
“Right, right!” Li Daoye nodded. “Even the cultivator here worships him. He’s probably a true immortal.”
“He must be a powerhouse in the immortal realm,” Li Xiuming added with a smile. “Our Everchange Mountain also worships a powerful figure. Our sect elders say that he’s one of the outstanding ones in the immortal realm. If we ever ascend to the immortal realm, we should be able to see these powerhouses.”
Fang Chen was perplexed. Could the Enlightenment Heaven Supreme already ascended to the immortal realm, but he continued maintaining his presence in this realm? That suggests that he is terrifyingly powerful.
“There’s nothing here. Let’s look elsewhere.” Li Xiuming brought the group deeper into the hill.
They passed by a weed-covered herb field, but a scarlet fruit swiftly caught their attention.
“It’s a Scarlet Fruit, and it’s at least a century old!” Li Xiuming’s eyes lit up. “A century old Scarlet Fruit is highly beneficial to cultivators; it’d at least be worth 200 low-grade ki stones!”
Li Daoye’s heart pounded furiously. He could make up for his loss thus far if he could obtain one of those fruits, but he noticed that there were only three Scarlet Fruits on the tree. There was no way to equally split it among themselves…
“I’m at tenth stage Ki Refinement, and my junior sister is at ninth stage. It has been getting harder for us to advance our cultivation, so this fruit is of great importance to us.” Li Xiuming looked at Fang Chen and Li Daoye and smiled. “We’ll hold these three fruits for now. If we stumble upon any other treasures later on, we can split the items equally.”
