The Forbidden Path to Immortality - Chapter 44

Chapter 9 Hidden Yin

The massive tremors in the Songjing region had an impact ten times greater than Li Xun had anticipated! Just three hours after he left, the first wave of cultivators arrived upon hearing the news.

Then, within a single day, at least ten more waves, nearly five hundred cultivators, arrived. The shock they felt upon facing the ruined capital was no less than that experienced during the 49th

Heavenly Tribulation. Here, they also discovered the unconscious Gu Pin’er. After reviving her, they learned of the deaths of numerous disciples of the Tianxing Jian Sect.

At the same time, the names of the two demons, Xue Sanren and Yin Sanren, were once again etched in the minds of the cultivators.

Regardless of the ambiguous stance of the evil sects, the ten major righteous sects, led by the Tianxing Jian Sect, simultaneously issued a “Heavenly Punishment Order,” forming a temporary alliance to search the world for the two Sanren. The Mingxin Sword Sect even summoned Zhong Yin, promising to eliminate the demons alongside the two Sanren.

The momentum this time was only slightly less than the one used to hunt down the Sky Demon Phoenix, but its quality was no less impressive! The appearance of Zhong Yin, the number one sword master in Tongxuan, immediately elevated the strength of the Demon Slayer Alliance to a new level.

However, perhaps because Zhong Yin’s reputation was too great, within a year after the establishment of the “Demon Alliance”, there was no news of the two scattered people in the world, as if they had evaporated from the world.

As time went by, the shock of hundreds of thousands of deaths gradually faded, and the monks began to use it as an abstract symbol, placing it among the unspeakable crimes of the two scattered people, as an ordinary piece of evidence, and as a topic of their after-dinner chat.

Apart from the Tianxing Jianzong, which tragically lost its outstanding disciple, not many people would waste their energy on this matter.

So they would not know that the most critical survivor in the Songjing tragedy, the person whom Gu Pin’er intentionally or unintentionally ignored, was in an underground yin cave about 700 miles away from Songjing. Under the eyes of many monks, he spent 49 days safely and steadily, and completed the first important stage of the self-cultivation and stabilization of the “Youxuan Puppet”.

As Li Xun emerged from the yin energy-depleted yin body, two cultivators soared thousands of feet above him on flying swords. Li Xun narrowed his eyes, observing the twin sword flashes.

He wondered how, if he used one of his “You Yi Er” abilities, he could quickly and effectively kill these two formidable cultivators.

Of course, he was just imagining this; ultimately, it was simply the irrepressible excitement of gaining new power.

Beside him, Blood Kiss, with its cat-headed, snake-bodied form, shook its head, watching the sword flashes streak across the sky. It licked its lips, then slumped down again, listlessly.

Since that day, no one knew what was going on within this little creature; it had followed Li Xun everywhere he went, its shadow-like ability a true mastery.

Li Xun couldn’t understand what was going on in its mind. Of course, he wouldn’t foolishly assume that this cunning creature was seeking repayment; most likely it had its eye on some treasure he possessed.

However, after spending several days together, with no signs of movement from the little creature, Li Xun couldn’t bear to send it away. As time went on, he began to feel that having a small demon as a companion on his journey was quite pleasant, so he simply let it go.

Blood Kiss was also a gentleman. Even when Li Xun was cultivating, he simply darted around and didn’t take advantage of him.

The man and the demon coexisted in this wonderful atmosphere.

After the two sword flashes passed, Li Xun stood up, brushed off the grass debris, and sank back into the Yin Qi. Drawing on the geomancy techniques he had learned on Lianxia Mountain, combined with his ability to sense the energy of Qi, he quickly located the next gathering point of Yin Qi and thus established his new target.

He waved to Blood Kiss, and the man and demon began to gallop through the forest. This marked the beginning of another journey of cultivation.

The “Phantom Puppet,” one of the Ghostly Shadow Devouring Sect’s supreme techniques, can truly be called the pinnacle of soul-exorcising, soul-refining, and mind-connecting cultivation.

Generally speaking, mastering this technique would take thousands of years, if not thousands of years. Unlike Li Xun, who had barely begun practicing the technique when he struck it rich, obtaining the supreme treasure, the Heavenly Dark Transformation Yin Pearl, allowing him to ascend to the highest level in a single stroke! Among the

Ghostly Shadow Devouring Sect’s past masters, only a few over thirty possessed Phantom Puppetry. Of these puppets, only a handful possessed a “True One” prototype. And to have simultaneously cultivated two “True One” Grandmasters, perhaps only Li Xun, throughout history, has been the only one

to achieve this feat. However, this doesn’t mean that Li Xun can dominate the world with his two puppets.

While Phantom Puppetry doesn’t draw vital energy from its master, activating the techniques that control it requires an extremely high level of cultivation!

Given Li Xun’s strength, even if he risked his life, he wouldn’t be able to control even a single finger of the puppet. He relied entirely on the precious Tianming Huayin Pearl to exert his control.

Given the pearl’s current state, if Li Xun were to truly encounter a master and engage in a protracted battle with the puppet, it wouldn’t take long; in just thirty breaths, the Tianming Huayin Pearl would be reduced to Tianming Huayin powder!

Furthermore, due to its reliance on external forces, the connection between the Youxuan puppet and Li Xun was already fragile. A single powerful attack could sever this fragile bond. This was a major issue Li Xun had to understand and confront!

Therefore, he sought a place to cultivate in seclusion, solidifying his connection with the puppet.

After forty-nine days of practice, this step was largely complete. Next, he faced the most crucial task: the “Youxuan Shadow Body.”

This was one of the few profound techniques in the texts of the Ghostly Shadow Devouring Sect that existed only in theory but had never been put into practice.

Its principle is to establish a connection with the Qi of the Youxuan Puppet through the “Xuanyin”‘s own control and induction method, and to combine it with the method of the external incarnation of one’s own cultivation.

With the indestructible Youxuan Puppet as the external body, the Qi and Qi blend together, merge into one, and gather the power of both parties to achieve the purpose of promoting the improvement of cultivation.

However, although the idea of this method is good, it is not very realistic.

It is not that its theory is unrealistic, but that those who can possess the Youxuan Puppet are all masters with profound skills. They have been developing the Youxuan Puppet for hundreds or thousands of years. In fact, they want to achieve a further induction of the Qi of heaven and earth in this long development process, and improve their own knowledge and cultivation.

As for the result of the Youxuan Puppet, it is not the most important. With their strength, there is no need to use external forces to add icing on the cake.

So The previous master who deduced this formula was merely completing a research project in his spare time. He never imagined that, countless years later, someone so clueless, relying solely on magic weapons to subdue puppets and, through sheer luck, succeeding, would practice this completely imaginary technique.

Li Xun had other plans in mind.

He was not the frivolous type to aspire to overnight success, nor did he believe he could dominate the world with just two Youxuan puppets.

The habits he cultivated since childhood, coupled with the subtle influence of the Mingxin Sword Sect’s cultivation traditions, made him place great emphasis on fundamental skills and a preference for down-to-earth practice.

However, due to the limitations of the Youxuan puppets, rapidly improving his cultivation and freeing himself from his reliance on the Tianming Huayin Pearl became his top priority!

Li Xun was cautious about the consequences of his rapid cultivation, but also slightly pessimistic about the dangers of the Nether Mysterious Puppet at this stage.

Between two evils, Li Xun had no choice but to choose the lesser of two.

He now needed to find a natural place where a hundred Yin elements converged. Using this natural environment as a support, he could establish his techniques and complete the initial foundation-building work.

The immediate challenge facing him was this: finding a place with a hundred Yin elements in the mortal realm was incredibly difficult! Unless he forcibly twisted the earth veins like the two wanderers and created one…

well, forget it!

The days of searching and cultivation passed so quickly that Li Xun had even forgotten the exact time, relying solely on the changing seasons to estimate the dates.

And this life of living by the weather ended half a month ago, thanks to a new skill he had mastered—the Nine Netherworlds Stone-Piercing Escape Technique!

It had an impressive name, but it was essentially just an ordinary earth escape technique!

This little trick greatly accelerated Li Xun’s exploration of the earth veins, often requiring three to five days of continuous underground exploration, never emerging until exhausted. This caused the soaring Blood Kiss to lose him several times, expressing his displeasure repeatedly.

Eventually, Li Xun simply fashioned a bag, placed Blood Kiss inside, leaving only his head exposed, and carried it with him as they burrowed underground.

This time, the darkness was even more disorienting, and he couldn’t tell where he was going. However, he relished the experience, feeling that his cultivation was improving significantly as he continued to cast spells.

This day marked Li Xun’s seventh consecutive day of underground exploration.

He was in a good mood. The Yin energy he could sense was steadily increasing at an extremely high rate. Where it gathered, even the grass, trees, earth, and rocks exuded a hint of coldness.

He tried several hand seals, each with positive results. Clearly, even if this wasn’t a land of a hundred Yin, its Yin energy was far more intense than any of the other Yin sites he had encountered before.

“What a wonderful place!” Li Xun paused, scanning the surroundings with his spiritual sense.

Where the vital energies of heaven and earth converge, both yin and yang, strange creatures often spawn, many of them aggressive.

Li Xun traveled to seven or eight locations over the past two months, four of which were infested with strange beasts. Although these creatures ultimately became a delicious meal for him and Blood Kiss, Li Xun remained vigilant.

Blood Kiss retracted its cat head. After spending so much time together, it and Li Xun had developed a subtle rapport, naturally understanding his intentions.

This clever monster was well aware of its strengths and weaknesses. It could soar freely in the sky, but in this thick earth, it struggled to move. If any trouble arose, it would be best to let Li Xun handle it!

However, Li Xun’s caution proved overdone. He cautiously walked for over half an hour, but not a single monster, not even a single earthworm, was visible in the soil! The yin energy ahead grew thicker, becoming as solid as liquid, flowing slowly through the soil.

“There’s such a place in the human world?” Li Xun was astonished. The concentration of Yin Qi he witnessed now was several times stronger than all the Earth’s Yin Qi combined!

Furthermore, its flow was orderly and well-organized, clearly a large-scale, self-contained place of extreme Yin, centered around the orifice where Yin Qi originates, with all the meridians flowing back into it.

Li Xun was already 70% to 80% certain that the place ahead was a place of a hundred Yin! After a few breaths, he returned to the surface and confirmed his suspicions.

He was in a stone cave enclosed on all sides, only a few feet in diameter, almost airtight, making it difficult to breathe.

In the very center of the cave, on the uneven ground, a honeycomb-like opening appeared within a radius of one foot. A faint mist was emanating from these small holes.

Beneath the mist, a faint green light flickered and shimmered. At its peak, it rose only half an inch above the ground. Countless such green lights merged together, interconnected and intertwined, rising and falling. At first glance, it looked like a ball of bluish-white flame, burning fiercely.

Li Xun stared in amazement. This was the most natural Yin fire born from the transformation of water and fire, the Yin Qi so dense and

dense that it was extremely dense! He was certain that beneath these small holes, there must be a Yin Spring, where Yin Qi had gathered and solidified. Only the fusion of water and fire could produce such a strange phenomenon.

This was more than a place of a hundred Yins. He would believe it was a place of a thousand or ten thousand Yins!

It took millions of years of Yin Qi accumulating, uninterrupted, to form such a treasured place.

Looking at this sealed cave, it was likely the product of years of corrosion and the evaporation of Yin Qi. At this rate, in hundreds or even thousands of years, when the cave was completely corroded, the influx of external Yuan Qi would collide with the incredibly dense Yin Qi, igniting a cascade of Yin and Yang that would likely cause the earth to collapse and the sky to break apart.

“Eliminating the sharp edge of this Yin Fire is also a merit!”

He smiled faintly, a smile tinged with self-mockery. Faced with such a powerful Yin Fire, he dared not neglect it. After observing the surroundings, he began carving runes on the cave walls.

His initial concept was to use pure Yin Qi as the driving force, the Tianming Yin Pearl as the hub for transformation, and Youyi and Youer as buffers. Finally, he would inject the further purified Yuan Qi into the body, creating a flow from the outside in.

Next, he must initially refine this newly generated vital energy and feed it back into Youyi and Youer. Through this pure vital energy, he can achieve a wider range of Qi resonance. Finally, he must seal this energy within the Tianming Yin Pearl to repair its wounds.

This nearly limitless Yin Qi provides Li Xun with a vast energy source, allowing him to harness it to further connect with the Qi of the two Youxuan puppets without excessively absorbing external Qi, which would complicate his own true Qi.

The Tianming Yin Pearl, serving as both the hub and the destination, can both function and be adequately “nourished.” This achieves multiple goals at once, establishing an endless cycle between Li Xun, the Youxuan puppets, and the Tianming Yin Pearl.

Simple in theory, but truly executing it is far from easy. Li Xun had been mulling over this plan for nearly three months, but the actual implementation presented a host of challenges.

The pressure of peak Yin Qi was unpredictable, the settings for Qi transformation still had flaws, and the circulation of his own True Qi needed to be regulated… This also involved revising and organizing the carved runes, as well as numerous and increasingly complex deductions.

It was undoubtedly a massive undertaking, but as Li Xun embarked on it, despite the inevitable fatigue, his entire being was filled with throbbing energy and exhilaration.

Every breakthrough in the process brought him an indescribable excitement, pouring into every fiber of his being and completely suppressing any fatigue.

At this moment, he felt no pressure of life and death, no deep-seated hatred, and gradually, even the question of why he was doing this faded.

He immersed himself completely in the task, allowing every rune here to be imbued with his heart and soul, connected to his abundant vital energy, and fused with his entire body’s Qi. Eventually, every breath he exhaled resonated throughout the entire cave. This

place had become his “domain.”

The preliminary work lasted a full twenty days. As Li Xun watched You Yi and You Er sitting across from each other across the Yin Fire, the Tianming Yin Pearl hovering directly above the Yin Fire amidst a humming sound, he smiled faintly and added the final touches to the runes filling the room. A low rumbling hum echoed beneath the honeycomb-like holes, and the thick Yin energy, which had been stagnant for millions of years, was slowly stirred.

This was a silent, dim valley, where sunlight rarely reached the surface year-round.

The residents here saw only a thin, gray mist drifting through the valley, obscuring its features. Even those who had lived here for years couldn’t quite fathom its entire dimensions!

They couldn’t be blamed. It wasn’t just the fog that obscured the view; the ever-shifting, obscure energy within it could transform into a deadly noose, slamming down on your neck!

Bi Ruhui was wary of the gray mist, but his focus was clearly not on it right now.

At this moment, he was trailing behind Senior Sister Ying Cai’er, his gaze fixed on her alluring curves, wondering if his current methods would be enough to conquer this prized disciple, so admired by Madam Yan.

If so, perhaps he could win Madam Yan’s favor, rise to prominence, and instantly become one of the sect’s core disciples.

Even if there were no hope, just satisfying a desire to be with a brother was a good thing!

As he pondered this, Ying Cai’er suddenly stopped in her tracks. Bi Ruhui was startled, then overjoyed. He pretended not to know, and with a cry of “Ouch!”, he bumped into her.

“Bang!”

Yin Fire steamed from Ying Cai’er’s body, suddenly exploding into strands of Yin Qi, which crisscrossed and transformed in the air before solidifying into a resilient wall of Qi. Unfortunately, Bi Ruhui crashed into her, and the Yin Fire immediately reverberated, sweeping him aside.

Bi Ruhui was knocked unconscious and, caught off guard, swept by the Yin Fire. Although not seriously injured, he screamed in pain and was about to curse in anger.

At this moment, he heard Ying Caier’s soul-shaking whisper: “Who is it?”

This cry was already using the soul-shaking demonic sound!

Bi Ruhui’s reaction was quick. He quickly climbed to his feet and took a deep breath, while scanning the surroundings.

Sure enough, ten steps away, behind the light mist, a vague figure was approaching. Bi Ruhui quickly saw the other person’s face.

It was a man, dressed in Taoist clothes, young, handsome, and unfamiliar!

Without hesitation, Bi Ruhui screamed, and the sound of Ying Caier’s scream coincided with each other, and at once, he activated the nearest restriction.

“Who, clueless, dares to trespass into the Ghostly Shadow Devouring Sect’s secret mountain gate?”

With this shout, a look of surprise crossed the face of the man opposite. “This is the Ghostly Shadow Devouring Sect?”

“Stop pretending to be stupid! Pretending won’t save you!”

As he spoke, a stream of gray mist swirled past him. Bi Ruhui’s eyes twitched, a triumphant expression forming. Just as his expression shifted, the mist rustled, as if transformed into a living being. With a flick of its tail, it pounced upon the man’s face.

The man reacted with remarkable speed. Though startled, he flicked his finger, and with a thud, the mist dispersed. Bi Ruhui couldn’t help but smile.

The man’s reckless attack, while powerful, had at least deflected seventeen of his hidden yet stable Qi energies. With that, the surrounding restrictions would be hard to resist!

Ying Cai’er turned her head and glanced at him, a hint of approval in her bright eyes. Bi Ruhui was delighted, but then, a cold shower of water poured down upon him—nothing! Affected by the deflection of the Qi, the potential energy that was about to burst out around them suddenly subsided.

The reason was that the man simply gathered the void, like a hand waving a pipa, and in an instant, the seventeen Qi energies returned to their positions. Even the remaining Qi energies in the chain reaction recovered in a wave of shock.

Bi Ruhui was stunned.

This… this wasn’t the sect’s “Three Methods of Pulse Leveling” technique, which was specifically used to dissolve restrictions. It was mysterious and subtle, and could be used not only on many restrictions within the sect, but also on those of other sects… This technique was extremely difficult, and even he hadn’t mastered it yet!

Ying Cai’er, standing beside him, was not much better. She opened her eyes wide in surprise and stared at the man for a long time before she spoke: “Which elder’s disciple are you? Why have I never seen you before?”

The man was also stunned when he heard this, but he soon smiled. This smile was quite strange. Normally, the man’s demeanor was calm and composed, quite mature, but with that smile, he took on a touch of youthfulness and shyness, making one feel that his actual age must be quite young.

“So you’re a senior disciple of the Ghost Devouring Shadow Sect. My apologies!” The man, his long sleeves fluttering, bowed with a sincere gesture. “I really just stumbled into this place by mistake. I’m not lying in any way! In fact, I have some kind of connection with you two…”

Seeing the slightly confused expressions on Ying Cai’er and the other’s guarded faces, the man smiled again and said, “My Dharma name is Bai Gui, and I’m just a casual cultivator!”

Just as he was introducing himself, more than ten thin sounds of breaking through the air came one after another from behind the mist, surrounding the area. When

the sounds faded, a gentle and graceful female voice rang out: “Master Bai Gui? Do you still remember me?”