Seven days passed in a blur. The Fate Fires within the Void Furnace were wrung dry.
At last, beneath Jing Qian's boundless anticipation, the Revolving Heavenly Son Seal was born!
All the Yin Pearls he had amassed during the Yin Year had been consumed to produce this fire, and now that reserve was completely exhausted.
Within the Void Realm, Jing Qian stood before the furnace, every thread of his spirit fixed on the soon-to-emerge Spiritual Construct.
His Ghost Seal Pattern had undergone hundreds of reforgings over the past seven days, breaking past the Blue-Blood stage and surging toward Violet-Eye.
The once bone-white stamp had transformed into a golden-jade seal tinged with violet.
Within the flames, the seal perfectly absorbed the essence of the Fifth-Rank Yin Ghost, undergoing a fundamental transformation.
A subtle resonance of the Dao suffused the seal, and through the ghost's sacrifice, it sprouted a thread of Life Measure.
As it continued devouring the Yin Ghost's origin, its Life Measure steadily climbed.
When it passed one tael and two qian, Jing Qian's Ghost Seal Pattern leapt from his sea of consciousness and imprinted itself on the seal's front.
Thus, the seal bore its entire Life Measure burden flawlessly.
The Yin Ghost's overwhelming vitality continued to swell the Heavenly Seal's quota until it soon rose another one tael and five qian.
Without hesitation, Jing Qian branded his Heaven's Mandate: Sumeru upon its upper face.
As the Sumeru imprint sank in, the seal's patterns grew ever more profound. Ripples of void-force radiated outward, suffused with purple-gold light, resonating with the very laws of heaven and earth.
This imprint was pivotal; it bound the Heaven's Mandate of Sumeru into the Yanfu Dao system, triggering a wondrous harmony between Jing Qian's entire cultivation and the Dao.
He immediately plunged into deep seclusion.
A single day passed.
The seal's aura grew unbearably heavy, as though it bore the weight of a world, emanating a pressure to suppress all things.
Its Life Measure swelled once more, and Jing Qian pressed his advantage; he imprinted the Shadow Escape Pattern upon it.
In that instant, Jing Qian achieved the nearly unheard-of feat of a triple Spiritual Construct forging.
One Spiritual Construct Seal now carried three Patterns, together bearing three tael and nine qian of Life Measure. Its strength defied belief.
The Yanfu Dao inheritance was no less than any of the Twelve Dao Lineages of the Academy. Its depth was profound beyond compare.
Jing Qian, cultivating both Yanfu Dao and Pure Yang Ruins, while also possessing the stray Xili Spirit Seal, now holds dual Spiritual Construct Disciple identities without ever attending the Academy's Feast of Initiation, a true anomaly.
With the Revolving Heavenly Son Seal complete, Jing Qian's sea of consciousness churned violently.
The White Fang Life Essences within began condensing on their own.
After six cycles of Fate-Burning and Fatebinding, his foundation was unparalleled, and his mana had outgrown restraint.
His White Fang essences resolutely transformed into Azure-Wing Life Essences.
A sudden breakthrough erupted, irresistible, irreversible.
Jing Qian had held it back for so long, but now all he could do was surrender to destiny's gift.
His mana spiraled around the Sumeru Heaven's Mandate, condensed to its limit, and was scoured and refined by its power.
Then, with a thunderous drumbeat within his body, a lustrous, round Azure-Wing Life Essence came into being.
Thus, Jing Qian ascended directly into the Dragon-Elephant Realm, an Eighth-Rank cultivator before his first decade of cultivation was even complete.
His Ninth-Rank training was not only perfected, but it had spilled over its bounds.
The transformation of his Life Essences was like a flood bursting through unstopplably.
The hundred and sixty-odd White Fang essences he had accumulated over years of training compressed into sixteen shining Azure-Wing Essences.
With this came a transformation of his very essence of life.
He felt his body cleansed inside and out.
His lifespan increased by a precious sixty years, and his physical resilience multiplied.
The Flesh-Nurturing Buds Pattern, though newly forged, revealed its extraordinary power at this moment.
Tiny fleshy sprouts quietly bloomed upon his thundering heart.
To the uninitiated, they might look like malignant growths begging to be cut away.
But Jing Qian clearly sensed their vitality; each bud stored enough blood-essence to withstand a mortal wound.
Even if his heart were crushed, the buds would regrow it in an instant.
With mana and body ascended, his power leapt across realms.
And the first to show the change was the Qingping Sword Casket.
Within the Qingping Sword Casket, the core sword-essence nurtured by his White Fang life essences surged, its power increasing by nearly thirty percent, making his strikes even more lethal.
The secret art Sword-Light Division also broke through: the Qingping sword energy he split off not only rose to one and a half times the strength of the base sword energy, but it also condensed into a second strand of sword-silk.
Now, with a single Azure Wing life essence, he could release two sword threads at once, his offensive output doubling instantly.
Jing Qian leapt out of his inner realm, his figure turning into a streak of cyan shadow that soared and darted across the open sky.
With his mana fused into his body and life-force interwoven, his entire cultivation had transformed.
Activating the Shadowstep life-pattern, he finally wielded the power to fly, a feat normally belonging to cultivators of the Longevity realm.
The very first gust of high-altitude wind whipped past his ears, and Jing Qian's pupils shrank into vertical teal slits from the sheer speed.
He could hear his robe snapping like thunder in the thousand-zhang heights, all mortal clamor cast beneath the rolling sea of clouds. Only his divine sense surged violently in resonance with the movement of the art.
His Azure Wing life essences coursed through his meridians like reversed rivers in heaven, every burst of emerald light from a fragmenting life essence trailing behind him like a blazing comet tail.
Experimenting with a roll, he realized there was no need for effort, just a flicker of intent, and the clouds themselves split open as if obeying a god.
And nothing compared to the sight from high above: staring down at the endless ocean stretched beneath him.
Unlike the cramped sensation of flying in a mortal airplane in his previous life, this was like ascending as an immortal, every fiber of his soul flooded with exhilaration.
Through the lens of the Worldly Insight, the ocean lost its outer shell, revealing rivers of primordial energy flowing with the tides.
Jing Qian laughed skyward, his footsteps in the air bursting into sonic-boom lotus flowers of blue light, before he plummeted back to the Dingyuan vessel like a meteor.
The Shadowstep art was powerful indeed. With it, even at the entry to Dragon-Elephant, he could tread the skies, something only Longevity cultivators normally achieved.
As for his feelings on the flight? Just one word: ecstasy.
Still, he noticed one oddity. Compared to swimming through the tides with the Waves life-pattern, high above the skies with no current to ride, his flight was actually slower than his ocean speed, a peculiar irony.
Standing firmly again on the deck, he examined himself with the perspective of a Dragon-Elephant cultivator.
Everything felt different.
In his inner sea of consciousness, sixteen Azure Wing life essences revolved around his many life-patterns.
Those life-patterns, in turn, circled the two great Spiritual Constructs anchoring him.
His foundation was so immense that even without invoking the Yanfu Dao's secret method for condensing a Dharma Form, his mana naturally began shaping into one.
But it was not yet the time.
His life-patterns still lay scattered, not yet united into a true formation.
This was his last window to perfect the Qingping Sword Casket.
And besides, the rebirth and refinement of his Yanfu Dao life-patterns were still incomplete; they required time to settle.
The path of cultivation was long and arduous, and there was no moment to waste.
Jing Qian directed his focus to the Revolving Heavenly Son Seal.
As the heart of the Yanfu Dao legacy, this construct carried two supreme powers.
First, "Absorb Spirit": it could automatically draw in ambient energy and refine it into pure life essences, acting as a second mana core.
Its capacity had nothing to do with Jing Qian's own level, only with the rank of the life-pattern serving as its foundational seal.
With the Ghost-Seal life-pattern of White Fang rank, it could only store three life essences, hardly worth mentioning.
But with each upgrade in rank, its capacity tripled.
And in conditions where ambient energy was abundant, the seal produced one-ninth of its maximum every day.
Now, having entered Dragon-Elephant, his Heavenly Son Seal's limit was twenty-seven life essences. Which meant it could produce three Azure Wing life essences per day, a staggering reserve of mana.
And under his command, the seal directly linked with the Qingping Sword Casket: every new life essence went straight to nourish the sword, steadily sharpening its edge.
It meant Jing Qian never again needed to waste effort feeding sword-energy. The process became fully automated.
Second, "Empowerment": the seal greatly enhanced any life-pattern branded upon it.
The Sumeru Heavenly Mandate benefited most.
Jing Qian tested it. With a flick of his finger, a spatial mark etched itself on his Little Ghost.
Then, rising into the air, he let the phantom pilot the ship alone while he sped in the opposite direction.
Hours passed. When the distance stretched beyond ten thousand miles, he still sensed the ship clearly.
Without hesitation, he activated the might of Sumeru.
Space rippled, and in a single step, Jing Qian reappeared on the deck of the Dingyuan, standing before his ghostly servant.
With the Heavenly Son Seal's empowerment, the Sumeru mandate had soared in strength.
He had fully deciphered the space-mark he once stole from Chi Ling.
Now, upon breaking into Dragon-Elephant, he condensed a personal Sumeru space beacon.
In this test, placing the beacon on his Little Ghost allowed him to perform a vacuum leap across ten thousand miles, a perfect synergy of Sumeru and the Little Ghost life-pattern.
Because of this breakthrough, countless scenarios of using movable space-beacons unfolded in Jing Qian's mind, filling him with boundless anticipation.
Having a mobile teleportation point was yet another fundamental transformation that came with stepping into the Dragon-Elephant realm.
With each increase in cultivation, his ability to reshape the world around him steadily grew stronger.
The birth of the Little Ghost's beacon immediately altered his next plans.
He no longer needed to personally return to Hunzhou Island to participate in the inevitable restructuring and redistribution of power that would follow the end of this Yin Year.
All he needed was for the Little Ghost to sail the Dingyuan back and plant the flight-flag.
His true self could remain at sea, wandering freely a while longer.
The ship cut across the waves. Meanwhile, Jing Qian once again sank into his inner realm.
He entered the stele-space and stood before the Sumeru Dao Stele.
Lifting his right hand, he lightly tapped upon the Shadowstep life-pattern.
After his advancement into Dragon-Elephant, his elevated life-essence and soul-body could now bear a third Heavenly Mandate.
Among all his life-patterns, only two were eligible for ascension: Shadowstep and Flesh-Bud Nourishment.
But for his third Heavenly Mandate, Jing Qian had long since planned his path.
The Sumeru Dao Stele shuddered violently as the divine power of the Knowledge of Heaven's Mandate erupted.
A tolling bell rang in his ears, resonant and boundless.
The Shadowstep pattern within his sea of consciousness shattered instantly.
Unlike when he reforged Qingping's End, this time Jing Qian was already a Dragon-Elephant cultivator, and the Knowledge of Heaven's Mandate revealed itself in a far more tangible form.
Cloud-wrought runes upon the stele's surface spilled into the air like falling stars, weaving a sky-covering constellation map.
His spirit was drawn into a vast, endless silver-gray sea of mist.
"This mist…" Jing Qian's pupils trembled. He realized each droplet reflected fragments of different times and spaces.
Branches of infinite possibility stretched outward in the fog like mandalas blooming at the dawn of creation.
From deep within, the sound of bells and chimes echoed as one hundred and eight black-jade chains entwined with fragments of time snapped through the void toward him.
Strange fate-fire suddenly erupted upon Jing Qian's body, rising to nine feet and nine inches, the exact measure of his Life Measure.
When the chains struck the fire, they seared eighty-four thousand radiant glyphs into existence across the void.
At their far ends, a blurred silhouette floated its upper half shimmering in liquid light, its lower half woven from shadow.
This was the deepest Dao-trace of the Shadowstep pattern made manifest.
The eighty-four thousand glyphs surged into it, merging in violent resonance.
A tidal wave of grand Dao-meaning burst from Jing Qian, etching itself into the fabric of heaven and earth.
A new Heavenly Mandate, never before seen, was born:
Bian Yuan Weiyang – Jing Qian
Rank: Heavenly Mandate – Unique
"On the far shore, all is but a dream of reincarnation; within the endless dusk, a single thought becomes the tower of samsara."
Like a streak of lightning, the third Heavenly Mandate descended into his soul-sea, where a delicate flower of the Other Shore bloomed quietly within his heart.
The Revolving Heavenly Son Seal trembled furiously, and from it emerged a phantom Dharma Form shaped like a blossom from the river of death.
Under the influence of Bian Yuan Weiyang, his cultivation surged yet again, even stirring the premature birth of a Dharma Form.
But the very next second, Jing Qian slashed it apart with a strand of sword-light.
It was not yet time to condense his Dharma Form!
And if he did, Bian Yuan Weiyang would not serve as the absolute core.
The newborn Mandate had failed to seize the central seat.
For Jing Qian, this breakthrough in movement arts was an invaluable tool, nothing more.
Within his cultivation framework, the starring role remained reserved elsewhere.
Yet this qualitative change in evasion techniques brought him a wholly new experience of life.
Leaping back into the material world, his form turned into a streak of flowing radiance that roamed the skies.
It was soundless, shapeless, formless lightning incarnate, flashing in and out of the heavens.
With the empowerment of Bian Yuan Weiyang, his flight speed easily broke through double the sound barrier, a level normally belonging only to Spirit-Suppressing cultivators.
At the very least, even Yang Jia, the mightiest being Jing Qian had ever seen in Hunzhou, might not rival him in pure speed.
As he streaked through the skies, Jing Qian tested the divine abilities within this Mandate, marveling at its power to stride across life and death, to pierce through samsara.
While flying, he began blending the spatial might of the Sumeru Mandate into Bian Yuan Weiyang.
In the very next moment, a crack of void split open, and his figure vanished from the world.
Within the higher dimension, his velocity did not falter; he continued at supersonic speed.
Jing Qian was so moved he nearly wept.
He finally possessed a way to travel within the higher dimension, no longer forced to crawl like an ant, wasting months merely on the road. Now, the cost to his mana was reduced by more than ninety percent.
His mobility had skyrocketed once more. In battle, he could be everywhere and nowhere, ghostlike and untouchable.
He flickered back and forth between the mortal world and the higher dimension, sometimes present, sometimes absent, now visible, now vanished, covering a hundred thousand miles with ease.
Then Jing Qian plunged headlong into the sea, piercing the vast waters until he reached the depths below.
Returning to old ground, he once again arrived at Yang Jia's lair, where the sea monster had cultivated its Firefiends.
The master of this place was long dead, leaving behind a trove of Firefiend treasures just waiting for a thief to covet them.
Yang Jia had not been some common, penniless sea beast. It was a sixth-rank Spirit-Suppressing powerhouse, ruler of a hundred thousand miles of ocean.
Cruel and ruthless, Yang Jia had for centuries fed every eighth-rank sea demon born within its territory to the Yin Ghosts, refining their essence into treasures.
Decades upon decades of accumulation meant its resources far outstripped those of an ordinary Spirit-Suppressing.
For the sake of its own advancement, it sank all of its stolen wealth into this volcanic vent, refining more than twenty Solar Dragon-Scale Firefiends, each one priceless.
From the Nether Cycle of Yanfu Dao Scripture, Jing Qian had learned that Firefiends were rarely innate; nearly all cultivators of the Earth Fiend stage relied on painstakingly refined, postnatal Firefiends.
For Spirit-Suppressing experts, whether forging or absorbing a Firefiend was a task of endless grinding effort, one that consumed unimaginable resources.
This was why Yang Jia had so mercilessly devoured its kin to forge treasures.
For any cultivator, to purchase a finished Firefiend at a fair price was already considered an incredible stroke of fortune.
To get one for free? That was true plunder.
Within Jing Qian's Stele-Space, outside the safe zone, only Luo Yaozhi and the bound soul of a fifth-rank Yin Ghost still lingered.
Zhouzhou's aura was faint, clearly battered.
As for Yang Jia, it had long since been ground down and fully absorbed.
Even a Spirit-Suppressing soul could not withstand the single sword-qi Jing Qian had stored within his Qingping Sword-Casket, empowered by untold destiny-energy.
From Yang Jia's memories, he had harvested centuries' worth of insights on refining Solar Dragon-Scale Firefiends.
Even though Jing Qian was still far from the Earth Fiend realm, such cultivation notes were a priceless inheritance.
More importantly, with these memories, he now found the volcanic nest warm and welcoming, rather than an inferno of torturous flame.
Every structure here unfolded in his mind as though he himself had built it.
And the hiding place of the Firefiends was unknown to outsiders, secured by Yang Jia's own painstaking seals.
Jing Qian slipped into a fissure at the mouth of the volcano, drilling deep into the earth.
Only after descending more than a hundred yards did he halt in a cavern.
Inside stood the massive shell of a great turtle, its surface clad in shark scales.
There was no fragment; the entire carapace had been stripped intact.
Upon it, Yang Jia had woven a seal using its own sixth-rank scales.
This shell-furnace was one of the vessels Yang Jia had used to store Firefiends.
Jing Qian approached, ready to form a seal to awaken it and claim the flames within.
But when his spiritual sense swept over it, he was startled to find that the right foreleg of the shell had a palm-sized hole gnawed through.
The Firefiend once stored here had already been stolen.
Jing Qian hadn't expected that someone else would be even faster than him.
In the boundless ocean, for a stranger to find this volcanic vent was like searching for a needle in a haystack.
He couldn't help but wonder what kind of sea-tribe insider had struck so decisively.
Still, though the Firefiend was gone, Jing Qian did not grow agitated.
With a wave of his hand, a crack in space opened, engulfing the turtle-shell furnace and pulling it into his inner realm.
Even without the Firefiend, such a vessel was priceless.
Having stored it away, Jing Qian did not leave but instead pressed his palm against the rear wall of the chamber, searching carefully.
Before long, he pried loose a hair-thin chain from a crack in the stone.
Channeling his mana into it at the exact frequency recalled from Yang Jia's memories, the chain began to hum.
Then, with a sharp tug, another secret chamber slowly revealed itself before him.
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