Secular Immortal of the Nine Realms - Chapter 234
Chapter 234: Ninth Stage Ki Refinement!
Two days later, Fang Chen made preparations to leave this island with Liu Mu.
“Young master Fang, you said that you’d escort me back!” Li Huafeng stared at Fang Chen from a wheelchair.
“I have matters to attend to, so I won’t be able to personally escort you. The others, like you, don’t know the way to Great Xia, so I’ll escort you once I’m done with my business,” Fang Chen said. “No one will use you to test their medicine on this island anymore, so you have nothing to worry about.”
“All right…” Li Huafeng hesitated for a few seconds before nodding.
The old daoist and his disciples were dead, so he wasn’t in any danger anymore.
“Farewell, master.” Heaven One and the other daoists clasped their fists and bowed to send Fang Chen off.
“Senior Li, master has left us with instructions. You’re allowed to move around freely on this island, and we won’t stop you if you decide to leave on your own too,” Heaven One informed Li Huafeng with a smile.
“I’m crippled. How can I leave on my own?” Li Huafeng pondered for a moment before asking, “May I move into that old man’s place?”
He knew that there was a spirit spring there, which the old man and his disciples would drink from every day. That definitely had to be good stuff!
“Master has also said that we should throw you into the sea to feed the fishes if you don’t know your place,” Heaven One said with an unnerving smile.
Li Huafeng’s heart froze over. He dropped his greed and left with his wheelchair.
…
After getting on a boat heading to Infernoblaze, Fang Chen first inspected Liu Mu’s condition and found that the latter’s poison was swiftly building up. It was only a matter of time before the poison erupted.
That would be the day Liu Mu breathed his last.
“Are you afraid of death?” Fang Chen asked with a smile.
Liu Mu shook his head. There was no fear in his eyes. He had already grown numb by now.
“There’ll be hope as long as you’re alive. You can not fear death, but never lose your survival instincts,” Fang Chen advised.
Liu Mu let those words sink in before nodding.
“I’ll bring you to the Moon Monastery when we reach Infernoblaze. Abbess Starchaser is a good person, and she’s a Foundation Establishment cultivator. She might have a way to treat you.”
Liu Mu’s eyes lit up a bit, and he nodded even more vigorously than before.
In the following days, Fang Chen spent most of his time drawing Purple Lightning Talismans. As he depleted his supply of Thunderjolt Wood Talisman Paper and Nine Tribulations Cinnabar, the number of Purple Lightning Talismans in his storage ring grew proportionately.
One day, he suddenly felt an impetus.
A huge amount of spirit ki surged into the cabin and flowed into Fang Chen’s body. His ninth immortal vein was being forged!
He could use his spirit ki to conceal the commotion caused by his talisman drawing, but he couldn’t do the same for his breakthrough.
The hundred cultivators riding on the boat sensed the spirit ki pulsations and looked at Fang Chen’s cabin. Some of them fell into deep thought, whereas some of them revealed envious looks.
“This commotion… It must be an eighth stage Ki Refinement cultivator making a breakthrough.”
“Ey, I have been stuck in eighth stage Ki Refinement for two decades now. I wonder when I can make a breakthrough too.”
“I remember that fellow. I saw him while he was boarding the boat. He looks young. I wonder which sect he is from.”
“There are ways to preserve one’s looks.”
“That’s true.”
Such discussion could be heard, but they didn’t delve deeper. Ordinary people dared to run their mouths, but cultivators were wary when it came to their words. Only those who possessed powerful means or had a formidable background would dare speak whatever they wanted.
Two hours later…
“Hm? Why is the spirit ki still gathering? Has he not formed his immortal vein yet?” a middle-aged woman asked her husband.
This was a family of three. All of them were cultivators. The child was only ten years of age, but he had already reached second stage Ki Refinement.
“The stronger the cultivation method, the sturdier the immortal vein. Naturally, the longer the time required for a breakthrough,” the husband grimly said.
The other cultivators noticed that too.
A ninth stage Ki Refinement cultivator murmured, “It only took me fifteen minutes to forge my immortal vein when I made a breakthrough to ninth stage Ki Refinement.”
Time ticked by. Four hours passed, but spirit ki was still flowing ceaselessly into Fang Chen’s cabin. Even the captain was alarmed this time, and he rushed over with his men.
“Captain, what’s the background of the person inside? Is he from the South Heaven Sect or the Beast Spirit Valley?” someone asked.
The captain shook his head. “I don’t know either. I can’t carelessly probe into such matters.”
The person who asked the question responded with a sheepish smile. It was indeed taboo to probe into other people’s backgrounds.
“Captain, there are many sea beasts in the ocean. They will be drawn to the spirit ki. We might face trouble if he doesn’t end his breakthrough soon,” a cultivator said with a frown.
“But we can’t possibly interrupt his breakthrough, right?” the captain bitterly replied.
The others frowned as well. Disturbing a person’s breakthrough was viewed to be a sin as terrible as killing one’s parents, and the victim would often hunt the culprit to the ends of the world.
“Don’t worry about it. This boat is a twelve daosoul imprints artifact. There shouldn’t be any trouble as long as it isn’t a Foundation Establishment sea beast,” the captain said.
By the corner of the boat, a middle-aged man turned to a 15-year-old girl beside him and said, “Young miss, he isn’t the person after us. They wouldn’t choose to make a breakthrough here. We should be safe once we reach Infernoblaze.”
“Uncle Zhong, will we really be safe at Infernoblaze? It’s only a grade-6 state…” the girl replied worriedly.
“That’s why they wouldn’t fathom that we would head to Infernoblaze,” the middle-aged man replied.
The girl nodded.
Moments later, the spirit ki pulsations finally died down.
A cultivator bucked up his courage, walked up to the cabin door, clasped his fist, and said, “Congratulations to daoist for advancing a step higher!”
Other cultivators quickly did the same too with curiosity gleaming in their eyes.
They wanted to know the background of the person inside. What kind of major sect was he from that he required four hours for a breakthrough as a Ki Refinement cultivator?
Seconds later, the door opened.
Fang Chen looked at the cultivators crowded outside his door and smiled. “Pardon me. I have disturbed all of you.”
How courteous!
The crowd’s smiles grew more amiable. Even the captain stepped forward to have a chat with Fang Chen.
Meanwhile, black silhouettes appeared in the deep blue ocean. These silhouettes had been skirting about the boat when one of them suddenly rammed the boat, causing those present to stagger a few steps.
“A sea beast attack!”
Some of the cultivators felt uneasy.
They were currently in the middle of the ocean. If the sea beasts were to destroy their boat, it was unlikely that they would have enough spirit ki to reach land even if they could fly via an ego artifact.
In other words, all of them would drown in the ocean.
“Don’t worry,” the captain calmly shouted.
He channeled his spirit ki, and a spirit ki barrier resembling a golden light dome enveloped the entire boat.
Seeing that, the dark silhouettes slowly surfaced from the ocean and coldly eyed the crowd with their large eyes.
