Spirit Realm

At the edge of the Forbidden Land of Ice.

After cultivating using the soul crystals, Song Tingyu, Xie Jingxuan, Du Xiangyang, Luo Chen, Xue Moyan, and Pan Qianqian were in high spirits.

“Soul crystals truly are amazing things.” Joy filled Pan Qianqian’s face as she gripped a soul crystal. “Even with her status in Illusory Demon Sect, it’s extremely difficult for Sister Xue to obtain soul crystals.”

Xue Moyan nodded slightly.

Unlike spirit stones, soul crystals weren’t supplementary spirit materials that were commonly seen in a powerful force. Xue Moyan and Luo Chen were both illustrious individuals in Illusory Demon Sect and Heavenly Sword Mountain. They were the ringers of their respective sects.

Yet even they struggled to acquire soul crystals to aid in cultivating their True Souls while they were in the Netherpassage Realm, the stage in which condensing one’s True Soul and increasing their soul energy was most important.

Even people with the status of elder within the nine great Silver rank forces could not always temper their souls using soul crystals.

Soul crystals were expensive, and although the nine great Silver rank forces did have some soul crystals stored away, they were usually used to help martial practitioners whose souls were damaged. Soul crystals could help such martial practitioners stabilize their souls and maintain their realms.

If Luo Chen didn’t have the luxury of constantly cultivating with soul crystals, there was no way people like Pan Qianqian or Du Xiangyang could!!

Song Tingyu and Xie Jingxuan came from the Scarlet Tide Continent, and soul crystals were even rarer in Profound Heaven Alliance. It was unlikely that Song Yu or Xie Yaoyang had the opportunity to cultivate using soul crystals, let alone their daughters.

Each person in Qin Lie’s group had acquired a sizeable number of soul crystals from the thunder lagoon. They could clearly sense their souls getting stronger as they continued to temper their souls, empowering them with the energy from the soul crystals.

“From here on out, breaking through each realm will rely on the transformation of one’s soul!” Du Xiangyang exclaimed excitedly. “From the Netherpassage Realm to the Fulfillment Realm… the Nirvana Realm and the Imperishable Realm… the benefit that these soul crystals will have on our cultivations will show itself more prominently in the future!”

Everyone’s eyes were alight with passion.

“I originally thought that we’d never run out of the soul crystals we gathered from the thunder lagoon,” Pan Qianqian said. Then her voice became tinged with regret. “But now that I look at the amount we have now… It may not necessarily be enough.”

“Soul crystals aren’t things that anyone would say that they have enough of,” Du Xiangyang said with a shrug. “Unfortunately, the Pure Soul Springs are even more valuable.”

All six of them subconsciously glanced at Qin Lie.

Qin Lie sat on the ground nearby, frozen in a thick layer of ice. While they talked amongst each other, he appeared to be an unmoving, human-shaped ice sculpture.

After absorbing the Pure Soul Springs and blood essences, a switch in the Soul Suppressing Orb seemed to have been flipped, causing it to extract his blood and his soul energy. This made Qin Lie feel incredibly weak once he awakened from his trance.

Qin Lie was currently in the process of replenishing his soul energy with the soul crystals that Song Tingyu and Xue Moyan gave him.

When everyone looked at him, he opened his eyes and laughed bitterly. Then he said, “The Pure Soul Springs, eh…? I don’t what’ll happen to them in the future.”

“We understand.” Du Xiangyang smiled, thought to himself for a moment, and then said, “You can use the soul crystals to replenish your soul energy, but how will you replenish your depleted blood supply?”

“Qin Lie cultivates the Blood Spirit Art, so every single drop of blood in his body contains a terrifying amount of blood spirit energy. After losing so much blood, it’ll be impossible for him to recover all of it in a short time. Well, unless we capture some powerful spirit beasts and construct a blood pool. He’d be able to use a pool of spirit beast blood to recover.”

As the heir to Blood Fiend Sect, Xue Moyan possessed a deep understanding of the miraculous Blood Spirit Art. She glanced at the white world around her and shook her head. “There probably aren’t any spirit beasts here. Even if we could find a single one, it would most likely be the ice spirit. We also don’t have the means to construct a blood pond.”

“It’s fine, I have a way to replenish the blood in my body.” Qin Lie smiled slightly.

Xue Moyan suddenly shot him a look. “You do?”

“Mn.” Qin Lie took a brief moment to think before saying, “I can use the bloody aura of the Demon Sealing Tombstone. With it, I’ll be able to quickly create more blood!”

“The Demon Sealing Tombstone possesses a blood aura?” Xue Moyan asked in shock.

“It does!” Qin Lie exclaimed.

As he said this, Qin Lie moved his mind consciousness, and rays of bright, icy light flooded the ice encasing him.

“Crack!”

The thick layer of ice around his body instantly shattered.

Qin Lie struggled out of the ice and summoned the Demon Sealing Tombstone from his spatial ring, causing it to land in the snow in front of him.

He reached out and touched its surface with his finger, softly circulating the Blood Spirit Art.

Seven rainbow lights shone from the Demon Sealing Tombstone, its ethereal chains twisting restlessly within. Wisps of thick blood aura gushed out of the tombstone like a breached dam and mingled with the godly light.

Everyone had been watching closely, eyes glued to the Demon Sealing Tombstone, so all of them reacted the moment its thick blood aura gushed out.

Song Tingyu, Xie Jingxuan, and Du Xiangyang wore expressions of envy.

Luo Chen’s complexion, on the other hand, became a gloomy pale.

When he previously had the Demon Sealing Tombstone in his possession, he tried to touch it. However, before his fingers could ever make contact with its stony surface, he was always sent flying by a terrifying force.

He tried again and again, but he was just repulsed over and over. In the end, although extremely reluctant to do so, he admitted defeat.

The Demon Sealing Tombstone ultimately never acknowledged Luo Chen.

The Demon Sealing Tombstone currently stood before Qin Lie and he could use it to cultivate, extracting its blood aura and using it to replenish his lost blood.

A complicated mix of feelings washed over Luo Chen.

“What a pure blood aura! Qin Lie… c-can I give it a try?” Xue Moyan bit her bottom lip, expectation welling in her eyes.

Since Xue Moyan cultivated the Blood Spirit Art as well, she could sense the surging blood energy within the blood aura of the Demon Sealing Tombstone. If she could find a way to use that energy while she cultivated, she would be able to raise the blood spirit energy in her blood to new heights with the Blood Spirit Art.

“Go on ahead,” Qin Lie said generously.

Xue Moyan walked over, her face filled with joy, then reached out her tender, pale hand and slowly approached the Demon Sealing Tombstone.

The instant the middle finger of her hand was three inches away from the tombstone’s surface, a ray of bloody light erupted from it. The light forced Xue Moyan’s delicate body backward, pain appearing on her face.

After stabilizing herself, Xue Moyan let out a soft sigh and shook her head helplessly. “It’s rejecting my aura.”

“You were better off than I was. Back when the Demon Sealing Tombstone was in my possession, it blasted me away more than tens times in a row,” Luo Chen said bitterly. “It wasn’t until I was severely injured that I decided to give up. Now that I think back, I still don’t know why…”

It was obvious that Luo Chen still hadn’t completely accepted that outcome.

“It appears as though the Demon Sealing Tombstone only allows its master to use it.” Du Xiangyang rubbed his chin, then suddenly asked, “How did you get the Demon Sealing Tombstone to acknowledge you as its master, Qin Lie?”

“Maybe I got it to acknowledge me when I got hurt and accidentally spat a mouthful of blood on it.” Qin Lie himself wasn’t sure. “Who knows?”

“It was that easy?”

“Mn.”

“You’re ridiculously lucky.”

“Hehe.”

After this simple back and forth, everyone in the group was either envious of regretful. Yet they were no longer curious about the Demon Sealing Tombstone.

In the meantime, Qin Lie continued to replenish his blood using the Demon Sealing Tombstone’s blood aura. It took him six hours before he finally managed to refine some blood.

“Shall we attempt to enter the Forbidden Land of Ice?” Du Xiangyang suggested.

Nobody rejected the idea.

For the next few days, Qin Lie’s group summoned their respective shields of light and ventured deeper into the Forbidden Land of Ice, enduring bone-chilling winds.

The deeper they went, the colder it became.

Their speed gradually slowed because they constantly had to stop and replenish their spirit energy, which they were always using to keep their shields of light up continuously.

Qin Lie, on the other hand, completely exposed himself to the elements. His body could still endure the intense cold of the Forbidden Land of Ice on its own. The frost natal palaces inside of him had been filled to brim with refined frost energy a long time ago, and even now, it continued to gradually take in more.

Every time the group stopped to recover spirit energy, he was either using the blood energy of the Demon Sealing Tombstone to refine more blood for himself or replenishing his soul energy using the soul crystals.

A few days later, just when he replenished half of the blood he lost and restored around sixty to seventy percent of his soul energy, the powerful suction force of the Soul Suppressing Orb started up again.

Like a giant beast that only devoured soul energy and blood, the Soul Suppressing Orb opened its bloody maw once more. Just like before, Qin Lie’s soul energy and blood flowed into the Soul Suppressing Orb.

Once the process began, Qin Lie immediately dropped to the icy ground with a pained look on his face. Helplessness flashed through his eyes as he passively endured his soul energy and his blood draining out of him.

This time, the Soul Suppressing Orb’s merciless absorption lasted for an hour.

However, the blood that Qin Lie had refined and the soul energy he had used the soul crystals to replenish… had been completely absorbed.

This latest bout of draining had thrown him back to where he started a few days ago, exhausted of both soul energy and blood.

……