Chapter 1513: Anxious Depletion

In that case, the two bottles of pills in Great Master Lan’s hand must be for a time when they might sense Elder Tang also emitting the Power of the Cold Moon.

If Li Yan couldn’t capture it in time, then they would have to use the last two bottles of pills to chase after it relentlessly.

“Understood!”

Li Yan replied, feeling a little regretful in his heart.

It would be great if all these pills could be given to him. But now that he knew the cause and effect of this matter, Li Yan certainly understood the priorities.

Even if it wasn’t to rescue the two Supreme Elders, now that he knew the area behind the mountain might hold an exit to the outside world, he would have to give it his all.

Moreover, only if the two Supreme Elders came out would he have any hope. Otherwise, relying on the remaining Void Refining cultivators in the sect, going in would just be sending them to their deaths.

Thus, he decisively agreed.

Then, without anyone needing to urge him, Li Yan immediately sat down cross-legged in front of the mountain crevice. Before him, he placed the ten bottles of medicinal pills in a row.

Great Master Lan and the others had never warned him that this side of the mountain crevice was dangerous, so Li Yan didn’t need to be too concerned.

The position he chose was almost directly facing the mountain crevice. With just a stretch of his hand, he could touch the yellow-glowing membrane.

But he just sat there cross-legged, maintaining the closest possible distance. There was no need for physical contact; it was better to have less.

Li Yan immediately circulated the “Saintly Soul Transformation Art,” and a stream of special soul power imbued with the Power of the Cold Moon shot into the crevice.

Xue Tieyi and the other two stood behind Li Yan, observing on one hand and acting as his guardians on the other.

Time slipped by under the watchful eyes of the three. A quarter of an hour, half a shichen, a full shichen… (TN: A shichen is a two-hour period.)

After three shichen had passed, even with Li Yan’s Spirit Transformation Realm cultivation, sweat had beaded on his forehead, and his complexion had become much paler.

So, with a wave of his hand, the stopper of a pill bottle opened, and a red pill flew out from within, landing in his mouth.

At the same time, magical power surged around Li Yan’s body as he began to rapidly refine the pill. Afterward, the color quickly returned to his face.

The three behind him knew that Li Yan’s internal store of the Power of the Cold Moon had been running low.

However, they couldn’t judge the depth of Li Yan’s cultivated Power of the Cold Moon based on just these three shichen.

It was like using divine sense or magical power to probe certain places. Naturally, the stronger your cultivation, the deeper your divine sense and magical power, and the longer you could probe.

But if your divine sense was small but exceptionally resilient, you could also persist for a longer time during an external probe.

This was similar to a person’s willpower; resilience was sometimes more important than sheer volume.

And just as the three were estimating the strength of Li Yan’s Power of the Cold Moon, trying to predict how long the ten bottles of pills could support him, Li Yan waved his hand again. Another pill flew out of the small bottle and into his mouth.

‘One pill… is not enough to replenish him!’

Seeing this, Great Master Lan frowned. Every extra pill Li Yan swallowed meant they had one less moment of time to utilize later.

But this thought had just arisen when the cross-legged Li Yan waved his hand again, and another pill flew into his mouth.

Clearly, this was the first time Li Yan had taken this pill, and he couldn’t be sure how many he needed. He could only determine the right amount after consuming and refining them.

“Is the consumption that great?” Xue Tieyi muttered to himself, his gaze still fixed on Li Yan.

Great Master Lan had previously instructed Li Yan to take a pill only when his Power of the Cold Moon was down to thirty percent.

But at this moment, he had taken two or three in a row. Obviously, the pills had not yet fully replenished his Power of the Cold Moon.

Tang Feng’s fists, hidden in his sleeves, clenched involuntarily.

After three shichen, Li Yan began to replenish his soul power. He was afraid that Li Yan would swallow an entire bottle of pills in one go. In that case, ten bottles would only be enough for thirty shichen.

But Tang Feng knew the reality wasn’t that simple. As the Power of the Cold Moon extended further, the intensity of consumption would only increase. In the end, it might be completely depleted in just a dozen shichen.

And under the watchful eyes of the few, several breaths later, only the surge of magical power around Li Yan indicated that he was still refining the pills. He did not take any more.

The few of them couldn’t help but exchange a glance.

‘Three pills can replenish about seventy percent of the Power of the Cold Moon!’

Each of these pills was priceless.

Although they only exhibited the Power of Stars, they had an effect similar to “Rongsun,” possessing the ability to rapidly restore power without causing any damage to the soul.

This was the result of countless hours of Great Master Lan’s painstaking effort, which had finally produced these few hundred pills. So, seeing Li Yan swallow three pills at once, their hearts also tightened.

Under such circumstances, Li Yan continued to probe ahead. But the time interval between his pill consumption indeed kept shrinking.

From three shichen, it became less than three shichen, and then it continued to shorten. But fortunately, Li Yan only took three red pills each time, which gave the few of them some relief.

And when it was almost two days, only three bottles of pills remained in front of Li Yan.

By this time, Li Yan’s consumption of pills had reached the point where he needed to take them about once every shichen.

During these two days, Xue Tieyi had only stayed here for a little over four shichen before leaving on his own.

The two sides were currently in the midst of a great war. Due to the special laws of heaven and earth in this area, he could not receive any news from the outside world.

He couldn’t have some major blunder occur just because he and Great Master Lan were both here. That would be a huge joke.

He had complete trust in Great Master Lan, so he had only come to confirm. Seeing that Li Yan could indeed probe with the Power of the Cold Moon, he had only stayed for a few shichen before quickly leaving.

At this time, Great Master Lan’s face had become exceptionally grave, as had Tang Feng’s. Sweat was even beading on his forehead.

There were only three bottles of pills left in front of Li Yan. One of them had already been more than half used.

Now, the remaining available time was only a little over two shichen.

‘Could our luck this time really be this bad? Ancestor, you used to send probes over several times a month. Now you need to come through, come through! Hurry up and appear!’

Tang Feng began to pray in his heart, thinking of and begging every deity he knew of.

…

This was a world filled with yellow mist. An invisible force, exuding a deep cold, was sweeping through the yellow mist from left to right. This was the Power of the Cold Moon that Li Yan had condensed.

But at a certain moment, as this force swept past a patch of yellow mist, a familiar scene once again appeared in the mind of the cross-legged Li Yan outside the mountain.

The Power of the Cold Moon, which had been continuously sweeping horizontally, had for some unknown reason, suddenly changed its scanning direction from right to left.

And he had clearly been controlling the direction all along. This had happened to him many times over the past few days.

Sometimes, in the middle of a scan, the direction would become even stranger. It might make you feel as if you were upside down, with the entire space inverted.

The direction of your scan would also change without any warning. It could be up and down, or back and forth. In any case, it was completely inconsistent with the direction Li Yan wanted to control.

Therefore, after these few days of probing, Li Yan had no idea how deep he had gone, or where he was.

He had even begun to suspect that he had been dawdling at the entrance all along. But judging by the consumption rate of his Power of the Cold Moon, that didn’t seem to be the case.

Soul power, after all, was not divine sense. Although it could sense things, it was more like someone exploring with a wooden stick while squinting. Even if something was sensed, it was a rather hazy picture.

‘There are only about two bottles of pills left. At this rate, it’s really like a blind cat trying to catch a dead mouse. Either he runs into me, or I run into him!’

‘If you say there’s a chance, it might happen in the next moment. If you say there’s no chance, we might not run into each other for ten or a hundred years…’

Li Yan also began to feel anxious in his heart.

It even made him feel the urge to personally enter the crevice. But that was just a thought. Even a Body Integration old monster had gone in and never returned. The most he could do was dream about it.

‘If this continues, it’s most likely not going to work. And once these pills are used up, I can only rely on my own recovery of the Power of the Cold Moon each time and start all over again.’

‘But the nine major powers won’t give me that kind of peaceful time…’

‘And if I stay here, I don’t know how many years and months I’ll have to wait. Even Mu Guyue could be in danger. Is there another way?’

Li Yan’s mind raced. He felt that this method was not reliable at all; it was just a matter of luck.

If both his and Elder Tang’s luck were at rock bottom, it was possible that they could be right next to each other, but due to the influence of the fog, they could both be walking in circles in their respective spots for dozens or even hundreds of years. This was not an impossible scenario.

Li Yan began to slow his scanning speed, his thoughts racing.

But the Power of the Cold Moon he had sent out would not be consumed any less just because he had slowed down his scan. As long as he maintained that depth, it would continue to be depleted.

Time, under the gaze of the two behind him, slipped away, resolute and swift…

Soon, only one last bottle of medicinal pills remained in front of Li Yan.

Tang Feng sighed in his heart. He knew that this time, unless there was a miracle, it would be difficult to make any further progress.

You had to know that most of the time, it was impossible for his ancestor’s probe to appear multiple times in a month. On the contrary, it was more likely that a probe would appear near the exit once every few decades.

It wasn’t as if, just because the sect didn’t have much time, they would happen to run into the ancestor probing the moment they arrived.

Of course, they hoped for that in their hearts, but that was just a hope.

Great Master Lan was also shaking her head in her heart. Things were indeed not that simple. She had also been hoping for divine protection for the Soul-Suppression Palace, but it seemed that was not to be.

As the two watched, their heartstrings tensed again. Li Yan waved his hand once more, and a total of three pills flew from the last two pill bottles into his mouth.

The fact that pills had to fly out of two bottles at the same time meant that one of them had less than three pills left. He had finally started on the last bottle…

A while later, another three pills…

As time passed, another three pills…

And Li Yan still hadn’t sensed anything. But he was still forcing himself to calm down, thinking of a reasonable countermeasure.

And just after another three pills entered his mouth, Li Yan felt the star power rapidly surging within his soul power. The “Saintly Soul Transformation Art” once again circulated rapidly, converting this power into the Power of the Cold Moon.

Feeling the cool sensation seeping into his soul, a flash of inspiration suddenly struck Li Yan’s mind like a bolt from the heavens.

‘The Soul-Lodged Star! The special power cultivated from this art all comes from this star. The other party has also cultivated the Power of the Cold Moon, so his Soul-Lodged Star situation must not be too different from mine.’

‘And we both succeeded in cultivating this art within the same sect. It’s possible that our Soul-Lodged Stars are not too far from each other…’

Li Yan suddenly thought of a problem.

He had already cultivated to the stage of “The Stars Move and the Moon Appears.” Li Yan’s current Soul-Lodged Star was completely different from before. His soul-lodging had already transformed into a faint crescent moon.

This faint moon of his was still very blurry. According to the cultivation method, it was now called the “Soul-Lodged Moon.”