152: Chapter 152 Cultivation

On the eighth day, he encountered another group of people.

This time there were three, coming from the north, heading directly towards the pillar of light of the Nine-Story Stone Tower.

The three of them walked in a triangular formation, maintaining a distance of about ten zhang, a standard search formation.

The leader was a Middle-aged Cultivator with the cultivation of Qi Refining Stage 7, making no effort to conceal his aura.

He wore an earth-yellow short robe, with a wide-bladed saber hanging at his waist, its scabbard inlaid with several dark red fire-attribute Spirit Stones.

His face was square with high cheekbones, and his lips were pursed into a thin line. He took long strides as he walked, each step causing the gravel to crunch loudly.

Behind him followed two young people at Qi Refining Stage 5—a man and a woman, who looked somewhat similar.

The man walked on the left, carrying a longbow on his back that was a head taller than he was. The bowstring, tanned from the sinew of some Yao Beast, shimmered with a pale green light in the sunlight.

His face was gaunt with deep-set eyes, and his lips were dry and chapped. As he walked, he habitually licked his lips before pulling them back.

The woman walked on the right, clutching a short staff in her hand, with a fist-sized crystal ball inlaid at the head of the staff.

A slowly swirling mass of white mist was sealed inside the crystal ball, swaying gently with her movements.

Her eyes were large, but her eye sockets were bruised, as if she hadn't slept well in days. She kept looking around as she walked, her head turning back and forth, and she gripped the short staff tightly.

Lin Xuan saw them from afar on the hillside and immediately changed his route.

He crouched down and slid down the other side of the hill, his feet leaving a trail of shallow footprints on the soft soil.

Then he made a wide detour to avoid them from the west.

It wasn't that he was afraid of them, but he didn't want any unnecessary contact.

The sound of the three people's footsteps gradually faded away.

The Middle-aged Cultivator's footsteps were the heaviest, each step accompanied by the crunching sound of gravel being crushed.

The two young people's footsteps were lighter, but they didn't deliberately try to conceal them either. Occasionally, he could hear the man speaking in a low voice, but the sound was scattered by the mountain wind, making the content unclear.

He never provoked others, but he was not afraid of being provoked either.

As for a few Cultivators in the Qi Refinement Stage, unless three or four at Qi Refining Stage 8 or 9 attacked together, his current lineup of Spirit Beast and Tier 2 Talisman was enough to handle any situation.

On the evening of the ninth day, Lin Xuan found a suitable place for seclusion on the edge of a Stone Forest.

The stone pillars in the Stone Forest were several zhang high, their surfaces covered with holes formed by wind erosion.

The wind passed between the stone pillars, bouncing back and forth in the holes, emitting a wailing sound, as if countless mouths were whistling at the same time.

A thick layer of gravel accumulated at the base of the stone pillars, the result of years of wind erosion, crunching when stepped upon.

He found a vertical rock wall deep within the Stone Forest.

The rock wall was about ten zhang high, covered in dry, cracked moss, the grayish-brown lichen crumbling at the slightest touch.

At the bottom of the rock wall was a narrow crevice, just wide enough for a person to squeeze in sideways.

The rock surface on both sides of the crevice was rough, with fine traces of water stains, feeling cold and damp to the touch.

Lin Xuan squeezed in sideways.

After squeezing in for about three zhang, the crevice suddenly widened, opening up into a spacious area.

It was a naturally formed rock cave, about a square zhang in size.

A finger-wide gap in the cave ceiling led to the top of the rock wall, letting in a sliver of pale purple daylight that illuminated the interior of the rock cave.

The light fell on the ground, forming a long, thin purple beam, with tiny dust motes floating slowly within it.

The ground was dry and flat, covered with a thick layer of fine sand.

The sand was grayish-white and very fine; it felt soft underfoot, like stepping on sun-dried moss.

Several clusters of fluorescent moss grew on the cave walls, emitting a pale blue glow that barely illuminated the contours of the cave walls.

The Pangolin burrowed around under the rock cave.

It burrowed into the fine sand and only emerged after about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, its body covered in sand.

It shook its scales, causing the sand to fall from the gaps, and then nodded to Lin Xuan—there were no underground nests, no voids, and the rock layer was solid.

Lin Xuan sat cross-legged in the rock cave.

He took a peiyuan pill from his Storage Pouch.

The Medicinal Pill lay in his palm, its surface smooth and its pill patterns clear, emitting a warm, pale golden luster under the faint light of the fluorescent moss.

Then, he closed his eyes and began to circulate the Purple Heaven Divine Thunder Art.

The thunder seed in his Dantian was now nearly the size of a baby's fist, and the rotation speed of the Qi vortex was nearly 40% faster than when he first arrived in the Secret Realm.

With every circulation, the Thunder Spiritual Energy in his Meridians washed against the invisible Bottleneck of the Peak of Qi Refining Level 6.

The Bottleneck had indeed loosened—the thunder patterns on the wall of the Meridians near the Dantian were glowing slightly, like an icy surface that had been cracked.

Those cracks were very fine, thinner than a hair, but their number was increasing, with a few more appearing with every circulation of spiritual energy.

He could feel that the layer of window paper was right at his fingertips.

As long as he pushed a little harder, he could break through it.

But every time the spiritual energy impact reached the final moment, it was always just a breath short.

Lin Xuan was not in a hurry.

He knew that this Breakthrough required not only the accumulation of spiritual energy but also an opportunity.

During his time in the Secret Realm, he had experienced many battles—clashing head-on with the Silver-Backed Bull, being chased into the ground by the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros, and maneuvering against one Yao Beast after another on the grasslands.

His Physical Body had been constantly tempered in battle, his Meridians had been widened time and again during extreme circulation, and the activity of the thunder seed under high-pressure environments far exceeded normal levels.

These things had accumulated to this point, and all that was missing was a critical point.

He let out a long breath of stale air and pressed the last trace of chaotic spiritual energy in his body back into his Dantian.

Then he opened his eyes.

The sliver of purple light leaking in from the crevice in the rock wall had dimmed.

It hadn't disappeared, but had turned into a deeper purple, carrying a hint of dark chill.

It was dark.

Lin Xuan stood up and squeezed out of the rock crevice.

The wind in the Stone Forest had stopped.

The wailing wind had disappeared, replaced by an oppressive silence.

Even the gravel at the base of the stone pillars had stopped rolling; everything seemed to have been pressed with a pause button.

He stood at the edge of the Stone Forest and looked towards the north.

That pale purple pillar of light was particularly striking in the night.