Chapter 214: Six Time Dao Runes
A short while later, one restriction after another was activated on the Crimson Dawn Peak, producing a series of light barriers of different colors over the entire mountain.
After doing all of that, Han Li made his way into the secret chamber of his cave abode before taking a seat with his legs crossed.
At this moment, the 72 recovered Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords were enveloped by pure immortal spiritual power inside his body, and were being slowly refined by his nascent flame.
They had been separated from him for many years, and even though their power had significantly increased from absorbing so much sword essence in the Heavenly Sword Tomb, their spiritual nature had become quite chaotic, so it would've been unwise to use them right away. Hence, he had to carefully refine them first.
After a brief moment of contemplation, he flipped a hand over to produce his Heaven Controlling Vial before inspecting it closely right in front of his eyes.
At this point, it had been confirmed to him beyond a reasonable doubt that the Heaven Controlling Vial contained the laws of time.
Back in the Spirit Realm, he had obtained a replica vial from Ma Liang, and by combining the two, he was able to activate the Heaven Controlling Vial to a slight degree to unleash attacks. However, something had to have changed during the 300 years that were missing from his memory, and he found that he was no longer able to use the vial in such a manner.
After a brief pause, Han Li summoned his Mantra Treasured Axis behind him amid a flash of golden light.
With a wave of his hand, the Mantra Treasured Axis flew to his side before beginning to rapidly revolve on the spot.
Golden ripples spread through the air to completely encompass the Heaven Controlling Vial, and there were barely detectable hints of time law powers surging into the vial.
Meanwhile, Han Li continued to scrutinize the Heaven Controlling Vial intently, but the vial displayed no reaction whatsoever.
After some contemplation, Han Li switched to a different hand seal, and the Mantra Treasured Axis began to glow far brighter than before, but it also shrank down into a small golden ball in the blink of an eye before flying into the vial at his behest.
A layer of translucent light flashed over the surface of the Heaven Controlling Vial, and several faint runes appeared on its surface, only to immediately vanish without a trace in the next instant.
Han Li's brows furrowed slightly as he heaved a faint sigh.
Seeing as the Mantra Axis Scripture was a cultivation art that concerned the laws of time and eh had already manifested a Mantra Treasured Axis, he had thought that perhaps he would be able to use it to control the vial to some degree or trigger some type of change in the vial.
However, it appeared that this was not the case, or perhaps this was because he simply hadn't yet reached a sufficiently advanced level in the cultivation art.
Han Li shook his head as he abandoned this endeavor, then summoned that giant ape puppet before instructing it to continue to harvest green liquid and water his spirit plants with the liquid while he was in seclusion.
As for the crystals required for his Earthly Deity Avatar's cultivation, he would create those during the breaks in his seclusion to ensure that his avatar could continue to refine heavy water at an enhanced rate.
Another thought then suddenly occurred to him, and he made his way into another stone chamber before setting up a small spirit gathering array. After that, he placed the giant egg that he had obtained from Fang Pan at the center of the array, hoping that the slow and steady nourishment of spiritual qi would be enough to hatch the egg.
After making all of these arrangements, Han Li returned to his secret chamber to meditate once again.
This meditation lasted three days and three nights, and once he had completely settled his mental state and primed himself into the best condition, faint golden light began to radiate from his skin, instantly illuminating the entire secret chamber.
Over three years passed by in the blink of an eye.
On this day, countless dark clouds suddenly appeared in the sky above the Crimson Dawn Peak, and the world's origin qi was churning violently as it converged toward the cave abode.
Inside the cave abode, Han Li's entire body was radiating dazzling golden light, and three incredibly bright specks of golden light had appeared on his lower abdomen, greedily devouring the abundant world's origin qi in the surrounding area.
He had opened up yet another immortal acupoint, and there were currently six Time Dao Runes on the Mantra Treasured Axis behind him.
Powerful time law fluctuations were emanating from the Mantra Treasured Axis, and these fluctuations were far more potent than the ones released by the axis back when it only had four Time Dao Runes.
Han Li's eyes sprang open as an elated look appeared on his face.
He was naturally quite glad that he had opened up another immortal acupoint, but what he was even more ecstatic about was that he had finally manifested six Time Dao Runes.
This was a stage that cultivators of the Mantra Axis Scripture normally only reached after opening 12 immortal acupoints!
According to the cultivation art's description, the Mantra Treasured Axis would receive a significant increase in power with each set of six Time Dao Runes that it manifested, and Han Li couldn't wait to test out the power of this ability.
The Mantra Treasured Axis began to rapidly revolve at his behest, and countless golden ripples spread through the air in all directions, but were only able to reach about 100 feet away from him.
It seems like as long as I'm still on the first level of the cultivation art, no matter how many Time Dao Runes I attain, the effective range of the Mantra Treasured Axis will only be 100 feet. Perhaps the range will only increase once I reach the second level, Han Li thought to himself.
Inside the area encompassed within the golden ripples, everything had slowed down significantly, including the flow of air and the world's origin qi.
A layer of blue light appeared in Han Li's eyes, allowing him to see this slowing effect even more clearly.
The colorful world's origin qi was clashing against itself like waves before dispersing in different directions.
Everything was clearly visible, and it was quite a mystifying experience.
Even though everything around him had slowed down, he remained completely unaffected himself, so in a way, it was as if his speed had increased by twofold.
In the next instant, he appeared several dozen feet away in a flash, and the changes in the surrounding air and the world's origin qi around him triggered by his movement were all clearly visible to him.
A faint smile appeared on his face as he flipped a hand over to produce a small ball of heavy water.
With a flick of his finger, the heavy water instantly exploded into countless drops that erupted in all directions.
The speed at which these drops of heavy water was traveling had also been halved, making every single one of them clearly visible to Han Li.
With a sweep of his sleeve, Han Li was able to easily intercept all of the drops of heavy water before recombining them into a ball and stowing it away again.
Even though the effects of the Mantra Treasured Axis were very clearly laid out in the Mantra Axis Scripture, he would still have to do a lot more experimentation before he could completely master this ability.
In the next instant, Han Li raised a hand, and countless arcs of silver lightning appeared over the center of his palm.
These arcs of lightning were also completely unaffected by the Mantra Treasured Axis.
He spread his fingers open, and several arcs of silver lightning sprang forth, crashing into a wall of the secret chamber.
A layer of translucent white light instantly appeared on the wall before flashing sluggishly a few times, and the arcs of silver lightning extended in all directions over the wall before vanishing.
The sluggishness of the white light and the rapid movement of the silver lightning presented a stark contrast.
Han Li nodded to himself even upon seeing this. Even after the silver lightning had left his hand, it still remained completely unaffected.
If the Mantra Treasured Axis were to slow down his own attacks as well, then it would've been an entirely pointless ability.
He then experimented with his spiritual sense and attacks from his treasures, only ceasing the experiments once he confirmed that none of those things were adversely affected, either.
Han Li then summoned the giant ape puppet into the secret chamber, and as a result of the Mantra Treasured Axis's influence, the sound of the puppet's footsteps was elongated by twofold, producing a very strange sound.
Before long, the giant puppet had drawn to a halt outside the area encompassed within the golden ripples.
"Attack me," Han Li instructed.
The giant ape puppet immediately opened its mouth to blast forth a thick pillar of blue lightning. At the same time, it raised a hand to send five arcs of blue lightning hurtling toward Han Li from its fingertips.
The attacks were quite weak, but the speed of lightning was still nothing to be scoffed at.
However, as soon as the lightning came into contact with the golden ripples, its speed was instantly halved.
This didn't sound like much, but in reality, it was an enormous difference.
Han Li sidestepped the attacks without using any movement techniques, and the arcs of lightning flew right past him without even brushing his clothes.
Han Li was very excited to see this, and he instructed the giant ape puppet to unleash some other types of attacks, all of which also had their speed halved.
After this string of experiments, he had ascertained most of the properties of the Mantra Treasured Axis. He had also thought of multiple ways to use the Mantra Treasured Axis, and the more he thought about it, the more excited he became.
If he could use this ability appropriately, then he would stand a chance at defeating even late-True Immortal cultivators.
However, he then suddenly noticed something a little disheartening. He hadn't been using his Mantra Treasured Axis for very long at all, yet a large chunk of his immortal spiritual power had already disappeared. It seemed that this ability was extremely taxing to use.
However, given how incredible its effects were, it made sense that it would be so taxing on the user's immortal spiritual power.
The Mantra Treasured Axis vanished in a flash at Han Li's behest, and he sat down with his legs crossed, planning to continue to cultivate.
However, before that, he instructed the giant ape puppet to fetch him his Heaven Controlling Vial, and he attempted to activate it with his Mantra Treasured Axis once again, but the outcome was still the same as last time.
A wry smile appeared on Han Li's face upon seeing this, but he quickly emptied his mind before returning to his seclusion.
……
Over 20 years flew by in the blink of an eye.
The Crimson Dawn Peak remained as peaceful as ever, far removed from the lively and bustling scenes one would expect to see on some other peaks in the sect.
The red fire miasma near the mountain had already completely vanished, so the climate had returned to normal, and everywhere that wasn't encompassed under a restriction was covered in a thick layer of snow.
The boundless expanse of pristine snow presented a stunning sight to behold.
Unfortunately, there was no one on the Crimson Dawn Peak to appreciate this beautiful scenery. Everyone was busy at work, either looking after the cave abode or cultivating themselves.
On a plot of empty land at the back of the Crimson Dawn Peak, there was a crimson array that was over 100 feet in size engraved onto the ground. Numerous crimson crystals were embedded into the array, and the crystals were flashing with a fiery glow.
At the center of the array sat Meng Qianqian in a white dress.
Streaks of crimson light were rising up from the crystals before converging around her, making it appear as if she were seated within a crimson flame.
A faint sheen of sweat could be seen on her forehead, and her cheeks were a little red. She seemed to have been cultivating some type of secret technique.
Over the past two decades, her appearance hadn't changed much, but her cultivation base had already reached the late-Core Formation Stage, displaying a rate of progress that was quite extraordinary among the outer sect disciples of the Blaze Dragon Dao.
Of course, the pills bestowed upon her by Han Li and the spirit stones left to her by Meng Yungui prior to his departure played extremely important roles in this, but her resolve in her pursuit of the Great Dao was also an integral factor.
Without these mental qualities, there was no way that she wouldn't have been able to bear the loneliness and mind-numbing monotony of cultivation.
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