Chapter 200: Emergence of the Treasured Axis
After parting ways with the tiger-masked man, Han Li released an appraisal mission for the giant egg and the azure feathers in the Transient Guild, then removed his mask.
After stowing his mask away, he immediately pulled out his Twin Starshift Plate and removed the Starshift Stones on it, replacing them with eight second-grade Starshift Stones before activating the array plate.
The Twin Starshift Plate immediately began to glow with dazzling light, but it also began to tremble violently as it gave off an unprecedented type of spatial fluctuations.
Having already been warned by the tiger-masked man, Han Li wasn't surprised by this at all, and after a brief hesitation, he placed one of the Big Dipper Heavenly Star Plates and half of his second-grade Starshift Stones onto the array plate before initiating the teleportation.
The light radiating from the Twin Starshift Plate instantly brightened even further, while the spatial fluctuations emanating from it were becoming extremely unstable, oscillating wildly in power.
A few seconds later, the Twin Starshift Plate finally exploded into pieces, but prior to that, the Big Dipper Heavenly Star Plate had vanished within the light.
Han Li was still feeling a little anxious upon seeing this. After all, this pair of new array plates had exhausted the majority of his assets, and it would've been extremely unfortunate if it had been destroyed by the spatial fluctuations.
With that in mind, he hurriedly chanted an incantation to activate his Big Dipper Heavenly Star Plate.
The profound runes on the surface of the array plate lit up one after another, forming a radiant blue array amid a faint buzzing sound. Countless white specks of light then appeared within the array, much like stars in the night sky.
The space at the center of the array then began to warp slightly, and a large ball of black water appeared.
The teleportation process was extremely smooth and fast.
Han Li was extremely relieved to see this, and he stowed the ball of heavy water away with a sweep of his sleeve.
The Big Dipper Heavenly Star Plate flashed over and over again as one ball of heavy water emerged after another, and it only took less than an hour to transfer all of the heavy water that the Earthly Deity Avatar had derived over these past years.
Han Li patted the True Water Pouch strapped to his waist as he gave a pleased nod.
The heavy water inside was almost enough to fill two small streams at this point, and with this much heavy water, he would be able to do many things.
Even though the array plates had cost a fortune, they had resolved a problem that had stumped him for years, so they were worth the investment.
After stowing the Big Dipper Heavenly Star Plate away, he sat down with his legs crossed to meditate for a day, priming himself into his best mental condition before pulling out the Mantra Axis Scripture and commencing his cultivation.
Three months flew by in the blink of an eye.
Inside his cave abode, Han Li remained seated with his legs crossed like a statue, but his entire body was enveloped in a faint golden glow.
A long while later, he slowly opened his eyes as an elated look appeared on his face.
The Mantra Axis Scripture was extremely complex and difficult to understand, but during the past three months, his cultivation progress had been remarkably smooth. He had managed to bypass all of the potential bottlenecks denoted in the annotation scripture with ease, and they hadn't posed any obstacle to him at all.
The first time this happened, he had thought that he had perhaps just been lucky, but after the second and third time, he couldn't help but wonder if perhaps his constitution just so happened to have been perfectly suited to this cultivation art.
It was no wonder that he would think this. After all, according to the annotation scripture, every single bottleneck laid out would stump the cultivator for at least several years, and even delays of several decades or centuries weren't all that uncommon. As a result, many people chose to give up on the cultivation art.
Unless there was some type of special reason for this, there was no way that progress could've been so smooth for him.
However, throughout his entire cultivation journey, his aptitude had always been inferior to the vast majority of cultivators, and he certainly didn't possess any constitution that granted him exceptional aptitude.
Despite this, he was able to bypass every single bottleneck laid out in the annotation scripture with barely any trouble at all, and he was feeling both perplexed and ecstatic.
In any case, being able to make such smooth progress definitely wasn't a bad thing.
At this rate, he was on track to successfully manifesting a Mantra Treasured Axis in just a few years, whereas countless others had failed in his place even after centuries or millennia of arduous cultivation.
Han Li took a deep breath to rid himself of these thoughts, then continued in his cultivation.
Three years flew by in the blink of an eye.
Countless tendrils of clouds were drifting over the Crimson Dawn Peak as the sun began to slowly rise in the east, basking the entire mountain summit in a warm, golden glow.
Everything remained unchanged on the Crimson Dawn Peak with one exception, which was that the fire miasma that had originally permeated over the entire mountain had receded quite a bit.
Everything from the foot of the mountain to halfway up the mountain was still enveloped in fire miasma, but there was no further fire miasma present above that point.
Meng Yungui and the others arrived on the mountain summit at first light, performing some meditation in the face of the rising sun before carrying out their respective duties in cleaning up the mountain summit.
Everyone's role was very clear-cut, and even though there were only 10 of them, they were able to keep the massive courtyard, the nearby spirit medicine fields, and the cave of the mountain guardian beast halfway up the mountain in a very clean and orderly condition.
The spirit veins of the Crimson Dawn Peak weren't that exceptional in the context of the entire Bell Toll Mountain Range, but the abundance of the world's origin qi here still far exceeded that of other places on the Ancient Cloud Continent, making it an exceptional place of cultivation. On top of that, thanks to the pills that Han Li had bestowed upon them, all of them had progressed in their cultivation bases to different extents.
In particular, Meng Qianqian had made two breakthroughs in rapid succession, taking her to the late-Foundation Establishment Stage, and she was only one step away from the Core Formation Stage.
In contrast with three years ago, much of the childish aspects of her features had faded, and she had become even more beautiful.
"Elder Li has been in seclusion for quite some time, hasn't he?" Meng Qianqian remarked as she took occasional glances at the cave abode while cleaning up the spirit medicine field.
"At Elder Li's level, it's quite common to go into seclusion for centuries or even millennia. Have you run out of spirit stones and pills now that you're on the cusp of the Core Formation Stage?" Meng Yungui asked.
"No, I haven't," Meng Qianqian replied in a slightly grumpy voice.
"Qianqian, you must remember at all times that we are already extremely fortunate to have been chosen to serve Elder Li. Elder Li has always been quite lenient and amicable to us, but as servants, we must never forget our place," Meng Yungui said in a meaningful and heartfelt voice.
"I understand," Meng Qianqian replied as she lowered her head slightly.
Meng Yungui's expression eased slightly upon seeing this, and he patted Meng Qianqian's head as he said, "I still have some spirit stones here, you can take them..."
All of a sudden, a burst of violent rumbling suddenly rang out, and the entire Crimson Dawn Peak began to shudder and quake, causing many of the birds and beasts residing on the mountain to flee in a panic.
Immediately thereafter, large swathes of dark clouds suddenly appeared in the originally bright and clear sky, tumbling and surging incessantly.
The world's origin qi surged violently as it converged toward the mountain summit, forming an enormous vortex, and the center of the vortex was directly above the cave abode on the mountain peak.
Meng Yungui and Meng Qianqian were both quite surprised by this phenomenon, but they weren't overly alarmed, and the same applied to everyone else as well.
They had no idea what types of cultivation arts Han Li was using, but what they did know was that he would regularly trigger this type of astonishing phenomena. In fact, something like this happened virtually once a month, so they were already accustomed to this.
Meng Yungui's brows furrowed slightly as she looked up at the dark clouds in the sky, and he felt like this phenomenon seemed to have been different from previous ones.
However, he then immediately shook his head and returned to work as he self-reprimanded, I was just telling Qianqian to not get overly involved with Elder Li, yet here I am, speculating about his cultivation. I need to focus on performing my duties as a servant and nothing else. Ignorance is the best policy.
Inside his secret chamber, Han Li's entire body was enveloped in dazzling golden light, to the point that his facial features appeared rather blurry and indistinct.
As the world's origin qi continued to converge from all directions, the golden light radiating from his body became brighter and brighter, forming an incandescent sea of golden light that inundated the entire secret chamber.
Enormous spiritual power fluctuations surged through the surrounding area in waves, only to be contained by the restrictions set up in the cave abode.
Only after a full two hours had passed did the rate at which the world's origin qi was gathering begin to slow.
The dark clouds above the Crimson Dawn Peak gradually faded to reveal the clear, blue sky, and it was as if the phenomenon that had just unfolded had never taken place at all.
Inside the secret chamber, the massive sea of light shuddered before surging into Han Li's body and was completely absorbed in just a few seconds.
A speck of golden light that was fluctuating in brightness appeared on Han Li's lower abdomen, glowing as radiant as the sun one moment, then almost completely fading the next.
The golden speck of light was like a tiny mouth, and with each flash, a vast amount of the world's origin qi was devoured.
At the same time, a light golden wheel that was around a foot in size appeared behind him before slowly revolving on the spot.
A series of lustrous golden clouds appeared around the wheel, resonating strongly with the surrounding world's origin qi. At the same time, the sound of heavenly music rang out, as if to praise the emergence of the golden wheel.
The golden clouds revolved rapidly around the wheel, gradually transforming into countless semi-transparent threads of light that converged together to form a pair of semi-transparent runes that engraved themselves onto the wheel.
The runes were extremely lively and were constantly flashing and moving as if they were living creatures while emanating faint law fluctuations.
Han Li slowly opened his eyes before taking a glance at his own body, and his gaze lingered on the speck of golden light as an ecstatic look appeared on his face.
After three years of arduous cultivation, he had finally opened up his first immortal acupoint, thereby taking the first step on his cultivation journey as a True Immortal.
As for the golden wheel behind him, that was none other than the Mantra Treasured Axis.
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