Chapter 1506: Attaining Spirit Transformation (Part Two)
Li Yan’s successful breakthrough was a result of him slowly integrating the Daoist principles of Yin and Yang from the “Saintly Soul Transformation Art” into his understanding of the Five Elements.
While he was not an expert in concepts like the Three Talents, Four Symbols, Six Harmonies, and Eight Trigrams, he had a rough understanding of their respective paths to immortality.
This allowed him to constantly shift between various lines of thought during his comprehension. In turn, his True Scripture of Gui Water would occasionally change its circulation in response to his thoughts.
The flow of magical power within his body no longer followed the fixed routes of the True Scripture of Gui Water to complete its cycles.
‘Whether it’s the Five Elements or Yin-Yang, regardless of the Daoist principle, the goal is to achieve a self-sustaining balance. My Gui Water can be yin, it can be yang, it can be life, and it can also be death.’
‘For eternal life, yang qi must be endlessly generated; to bring death upon others, yin qi must be heavy enough to sever all life! Why are the Three Huns and Seven Pos divided into yin and yang huns? It is for no other reason than to achieve a kind of balance.’
‘The manual of the Saintly Soul Transformation Art states: ‘As the sun and moon are indestructible, so too is the natal soul. Reincarnation and rebirth are all transformations of the self. The sun can give birth to the moon, and the moon can transform into the sun…’ This is precisely the method of the Five Elements, which are mutually generating and mutually overcoming!’
With this thought, Li Yan’s will moved. Ten ethereal figures instantly flew out from above his Celestial Crown.
The moment these ten figures appeared, they blurred and merged into a single silhouette.
This ethereal figure was entirely black, but at its glabella, Shanzhong acupoint, and Dantian, there were three faintly shimmering red dots.
This was a soul body, a fusion of the Three Huns and Seven Pos. The seven pos formed the limbs and body, while the Heaven, Earth, and Human huns were arranged in sequence, forming the upper, middle, and lower Dantians.
Although the features of this ethereal figure were still not very clear, it was easily recognizable as Li Yan.
The moment the figure appeared, it formed a hand seal. Two streaks of dark light appeared in its hands, which then transformed into a pair of Talisman Soul-Drawing Brushes.
The soul body that Li Yan had manifested floated in the air. Gripping a brush in each hand, it rapidly began to sketch in the void before it.
In just half a breath, a complex “Black Water Talisman” was inscribed.
The instant the talisman formed, the brushes in the soul body’s hands vanished. It raised an arm, balled its hand into a fist, and punched the “Black Water Talisman.”
“Tch!”
With a soft hiss, the talisman immediately dissolved into wisps of black smoke.
The black smoke did not dissipate quickly. It swirled once and formed a massive black hole vortex in the void before Li Yan.
The moment this black hole vortex took shape, gusts of yin wind and faint, mournful cries of ghosts emanated from within.
This caused the entire scene in the Civil and Martial Hall to change. The already dim light suddenly grew darker, and a bone-chilling yin wind, accompanied by the rotation of the black hole vortex in the air, began to seep out from the ground.
In just a few breaths, the grand hall had transformed into a semblance of the underworld, thick with a gloomy, yin atmosphere.
Under the shifting light, the two giant statues in front looked even more like two towering, ferocious ghosts.
Li Yan paid this no mind, carefully observing the black hole vortex.
He saw that as the vortex spun, figures of all shapes and sizes—old and young, male and female—would occasionally struggle within it.
They continuously let out mournful cries, as if trying desperately to escape the black hole vortex and break free.
But often, after a brief struggle, they would be blocked by an invisible barrier within the vortex and sink back down, their places taken by other ghostly figures.
Li Yan’s soul body closed its eyes and released a trace of its soul power to carefully sense all the changes within the black hole vortex.
A short while later, Li Yan’s soul power withdrew from the vortex.
Then, with another flash of dark light, the soul body reappeared holding the two brushes and stabbed forward. The tips of the brushes simultaneously touched the edge and the very center of the black hole vortex.
“Tch!”
With another soft sound, the rotating black hole vortex rapidly shrank.
At the same time, the bone-chilling yin wind in the hall receded at a visible rate, and the cries of ghosts quickly faded into the distance.
Soon, the black hole vortex in the air had shrunk to a black dot and vanished into the void. At that moment, all the strange phenomena in the hall disappeared, and the light returned to its previous brightness.
In the next instant, Li Yan’s soul body retracted the twin brushes, and with a flicker, it entered Li Yan’s Celestial Crown and disappeared.
The cross-legged Li Yan snapped his eyes open again, a strange expression on his face, but his actions did not stop.
Still seated, he raised his hands once more. This time, the pair of Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes reappeared in his grasp.
They once again transformed into the Talisman Soul-Drawing Brushes, and just like before, Li Yan began to inscribe the “Black Water Talisman.” The talisman then formed in the void.
Next, he shattered the talisman with a punch. The black hole vortex that had just disappeared reformed amidst the black smoke, and the cries of ghosts once again echoed from within.
The same strange phenomena reappeared in the hall. Afterwards, Li Yan once again sent out his soul power to investigate.
Finally, just as before, the tips of the twin brushes touched the black hole vortex, and all the strange phenomena vanished.
Watching the phenomena disappear, a sharp glint flashed in Li Yan’s eyes. He had just used the same set of techniques twice, both times employing the “Soul-Tugging Execution.”
After Li Yan advanced to a Spirit Transformation cultivator, the third layer of this art had not appeared.
He had already guessed this would be the case when his cultivation reached the peak of the late-stage Nascent Soul Realm.
Even when he had reached the absolute limit of the Nascent Soul Realm, his “Soul-Tugging Execution” art could only draw out the “Life Soul” from the Three Huns; it could not affect the Heaven and Earth Huns.
“Life Soul” was the term used in the Gui Water Immortal Sect, which was what the soul cultivator lineage referred to as the “Human Soul.”
Since he could only affect the Human Soul at the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm, Li Yan guessed that the true mastery of this art would likely only be possible at the Spirit Transformation Realm, or perhaps even the Void Refining Realm.
The two times Li Yan had just performed the art, the first was by using his soul cultivation method to activate the Gui Water immortal art. He had even gone so far as to use his purest soul body to activate it.
But since there was no specific enemy to target, the art, once cast, had drawn out many unknown souls. Of course, Li Yan had no intention of releasing them, nor would he kill them without reason.
The second time, he had used the cultivation method of his own Gui Water sect. As expected, the effects of the two performances were different, which was within Li Yan’s expectations.
But the results still surprised him greatly. When he used his soul body to perform the art, he found that he could draw out each of the Three Huns separately. He could even draw out the Heaven Soul, which was the most difficult to affect.
But when he performed it with his physical body, the black hole vortex was only seventy percent of its previous size. When he probed inside, he found only the “Human Soul” and the “Earth Soul,” but not a single one of the most powerful “Heaven Soul.”
After his breakthrough, his comprehension of the law of life had also deepened. But if speaking strictly from the perspective of the Gui Water Immortal Sect, this art of his had only improved by a small realm, allowing him to draw out an enemy’s “Earth Soul.”
If he were to use his soul body to activate it, the moment he grasped the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes, Li Yan felt a sensation of being able to control the life of any living being in the world.
It was a deeper application of the law of life.
‘This means that the normal progression of this art is that at the initial-stage Spirit Transformation, one can draw out the ‘Earth Soul.’ At the mid-stage Spirit Transformation, one might be able to draw out the ‘Heaven Soul.’’
‘And at the late-stage Spirit Transformation, or perhaps the Void Refining Realm, it might be possible to reach the highest level, condensing the Three Huns into one and pulling them out all at once.’
‘Therefore, if there is a subsequent cultivation manual for this art, it should only appear after the Void Refining Realm.’
‘At the Spirit Transformation Realm, if I want to exert the maximum power of this art, I need to use my soul body to perform it.’
‘Then perhaps at the mid-stage Spirit Transformation, when performing the art with my soul body, I could unleash its ultimate power and pull out all Three Huns as one…’
Li Yan pondered this in his heart, but these were just his thoughts.
He wouldn’t dare to casually manifest his soul body outside his physical form. Although he could unleash the current maximum power of the “Soul-Tugging Execution,” his own Three Huns and Seven Pos would also be exposed. For any cultivator, that was an extremely dangerous situation.
He would never use his soul body to activate an art unless he had absolutely no other choice.
As for this art, with the aid of his soul cultivation method, Li Yan’s comprehension of the law of life had taken a great leap forward. This brought him more than just an increase in combat power.
His comprehension of the law of life meant that in the future, even when he used wood or water spirit power to heal others, he would be able to more subtly sense the changes in their ailments and the root cause of their life force depletion.
This made Li Yan even more formidable in the art of healing.
After sorting through his various insights into the paths of immortality, Li Yan’s divine sense once again arrived at his Dantian’s Purple Mansion.
There, an ocean of Gui Water spirit power lay deep and tranquil. As expected, it had expanded once again, now twice the size it had been in the Nascent Soul Realm.
Although there was a difference in magical power between the late-stage Nascent Soul and initial-stage Spirit Transformation, it was no longer the heaven-and-earth disparity of previous realms, where it would expand to a breathtaking degree.
The step to Spirit Transformation was about truly coming into contact with the laws of heaven and earth, allowing one to integrate the laws they had just begun to touch upon in the late-stage Nascent Soul Realm, and stepping through the great gate of the “divine.”
Now, with a single point of his finger, Li Yan could easily obliterate a late-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, leaving not even bones behind.
This was no longer just an increase in magical power, but rather the ability to command the forces of heaven and earth.
Therefore, the higher a cultivator’s level, the more they rely not just on their own magical power, but on borrowing the power of heaven and earth.
To be able to easily create something from nothing, to draw out the hidden powers of heaven and earth and wield them at will—that was the direction of continuous research for every law a cultivator pursued.