Chapter 272: Reversal True Axis
A hint of bewilderment flashed through Han Li's eyes, and he began to scrutinize the Mantra Treasured Axis intently with his Brightsight Spirit Eyes. He carefully counted the Time Dao Runes on the axis to find that there were now indeed 25 of them.
Could it be that the Eye of Truth also has the ability to absorb the power of time?
Han Li didn't know whether this additional Time Dao Rune was temporary or permanent, but if it were the latter, then this would be an incredible turn of events.
With that in mind, Han Li was immediately tempted to try more, but unfortunately, he only had a single crystal on hand, so he would have to wait a month before he could try the same thing again.
As for his Earthly Deity Avatar, it would just have to do without the crystals for now.
Han Li heaved a faint sigh to suppress the excitement in his heart, then withdrew the Mantra Treasured Axis back into his body.
After that, he reached into the collar of his robes to pull out the Heaven Controlling Vial around his neck.
This was something that had been with him ever since the beginning of his cultivation journey. It contained the most tremendous power of time out of anything in his possession, and it was the treasure that he wanted to make sense of the most.
He brought the vial closer to his own eyes, and a look of focus appeared on his face as he scrutinized the leaf-shaped patterns on its surface.
The Heaven Controlling Vial was his most important treasure and one of his most well-kept secrets. What had happened with the crystal just now hadn't resulted in any detrimental outcomes, but he was still concerned that something bad could happen to the Heaven Controlling Vial.
After some careful consideration, he decided to try something. He had always really wanted to find out the origins of the Heaven Controlling Vial, and at this point, he was confident that a treasure of the Heaven Controlling Vial's caliber wouldn't be damaged so easily.
After making up his mind, he set the vial down onto the floor in front of him, then activated his Eye of Truth and directed its gaze toward the vial.
The eye projected a beam of golden light onto the vial, which immediately shuddered slightly before rising up into the air.
Han Li's entire body was tightly wound, and there was an anxious look on his face as he scrutinized the vial through his Eye of Truth.
Right at this moment, a speck of white light the size of a grain of rice appeared within the vial, illuminating it from the inside to give it a translucent appearance. All of the leaf-shaped patterns on its surface became extremely vibrant and life-like as a result.
Right as Han Li thought that a projection was going to appear, the light within the vial suddenly turned a dark green color, and it devoured the beam of golden light shining into it like a vortex.
Han Li was quite startled by this, and his first reaction was to close the Eye of Truth, but he then discovered that the vial wasn't displaying any further changes beyond what had just happened.
After waiting for a while longer, there was still nothing of interest happening, and Han Li heaved an internal sigh of relief. Following a brief pause, he decided to activate his newly attained 25th Time Dao Rune as well.
With all 25 Time Dao Runes glowing in unison, the Eye of Truth projected another beam of golden light onto the Heaven Controlling Vial, and this time, something unexpected happened.
A flash of light appeared over the surface of the vial, and it devoured the beam of golden light before shooting out a beam of green light toward the Eye of Truth.
Han Li was stunned to discover that even though the beam of green light wasn't moving very quickly, for some reason, it felt completely unstoppable to him.
The beam of green light fell silently upon the Eye of Truth, turning it a bright green color. At the same time, the entire Mantra Treasured Axis began to tremble violently, and the golden light radiating from it began to warp and blur in an unstable fashion.
It was as if the entire axis were about to collapse!
Han Li hurriedly tried to stabilize the axis upon seeing this, but he quickly discovered that a burst of suction force had emerged in the axis out of nowhere, and it was rapidly drawing upon his immortal spiritual power.
This was a rather concerning turn of events, but Han Li didn't dare to stop as he could sense that the Mantra Treasured Axis was slowly being stabilized by the influx of his immortal spiritual power.
Around 15 minutes passed by, during which over two thirds of Han Li's immortal spiritual power had been depleted, and the tremors in the axis finally ceased, while the green light on its surface had also faded.
It seemed that the Eye of Truth had been forcibly shut.
Han Li heaved an internal sigh of relief, and after verifying that the axis and the Eye of Truth were unscathed, he withdrew the axis into his body with a hint of lingering fear in his eyes. He then carefully examined the Heavenly Controlling Vial and was quite relieved to find that it was also unharmed.
"Looks like I've been underestimating you all this time. You're completely fine, whereas the majority of immortal spiritual power has been depleted. I should continue to conduct these experiments once I've further enhanced the Eye of Truth," Han Li murmured to himself with a wry smile.
After that, he stowed the Heaven Controlling Vial away, then sat down with his legs crossed and closed his eyes. At the same time, the image of the stone monument in the secret area sprang into his mind, particularly the section with the third level of the Mantra Axis Scripture inscribed upon it.
At this point, he was already extremely familiar with the first level of the cultivation art, so he was focusing solely on examining the second and third levels with his spiritual sense, trying to see if those two parts contained any information pertaining to the Eye of Truth.
He sat for seven days and seven nights, carefully reading through both of the latter parts of the cultivation art during this time.
However, in the end, he was unable to find anything. Aside from the records of the Eye of Truth secret technique, there was no further content regarding the Eye of Truth in the rest of the cultivation art.
Han Li slowly opened his eyes and stretched lazily as he rose to his feet.
Even though he hadn't found what he was looking for, he wasn't disappointed in the slightest. Instead, there was a hint of elation in his eyes.
This was because during the reading process, he had summoned the Mantra Treasured Axis on multiple occasions for reference, and he discovered that the 25th Time Dao Rune still remained without displaying any signs of fading away. It appeared to have been just as permanent as the 24 other Time Dao Runes.
Furthermore, he could sense that the flow of time in the area encompassed within the golden ripples had slowed down a little further. It wasn't a significant change, but a noticeable one, nonetheless.
This meant that the Time Dao Rune that had arisen after the Eye of Truth absorbed the crystal manifested by the Heaven Controlling Vial was most likely permanent, but further observation would be required to confirm this.
In any case, Han Li was very excited by this discovery.
Aside from that, he had also made another encouraging discovery while inspecting the third level of the cultivation art.
Attached to the mantra of the third level of the cultivation art was an ability called the Reversal True Axis, and this was an ability that had the completely opposite effect to the Mantra Treasured Axis, accelerating the flow of time rather than slowing it down.
However, this ability only applied to its user. According to the description of the ability, it required one to keep the Mantra Treasured Axis in their body and reverse it, thereby accelerating the flow of time for them and enhancing their speed.
There was a prerequisite to cultivating this ability as well, which was that one had to have manifested at least 18 Time Dao Runes on their Mantra Treasured Axis, and it had nothing to do with which level of the Mantra Treasured Axis that one had progressed to.
However, according to the description in the Mantra Axis Scripture, only after mastering the third level of the cultivation art was it possible for one to attain 18 Time Dao Runes, which meant that it should've been impossible to cultivate this ability at any point before that.
However, Han Li had already attained 25 Time Dao Runes, so theoretically speaking, he should've been able to attempt cultivating this ability.
His original plan was to go into seclusion to cultivate the second level of the Mantra Axis Scripture, but he decided to set that plan aside for now to focus on cultivating this ability instead.
If he could master this ability, then his combat prowess would immediately receive a significant boost.
With that in mind, Han Li sat down with his legs crossed once again before closing his eyes.
After taking several days to prime himself into the best possible condition, Han Li commenced his seclusion.
The Reversal True Axis appeared to have been quite a simple ability, but it was actually far from easy to cultivate.
It was the complete opposite of how one would normally use the Mantra Axis Scripture, so not only were all of the insights that had developed through cultivating the Mantra Axis Scripture completely useless, they were serving as obstacles to a certain extent.
Inside the secret chamber, Han Li was seated with his legs crossed while making a hand seal with both hands, and the Mantra Treasured Axis behind him was slowly revolving while releasing faint golden light. 18 of the Time Dao Runes on its surface had lit up in unison, and they were releasing bursts of peculiar fluctuations throughout the entire secret chamber.
Right at this moment, Han Li brought his palms together, then folded down two his fingers before turning both hands toward to make a strange hand seal while also chanting an incantation.
The Mantra Treasured Axis behind him shuddered slightly, and the buzzing sound that it was emitting gradually subsided. The speed of its rotation was also gradually decreasing, and it looked as if it were going to stop revolving altogether.
Immediately thereafter, Han Li switched to yet another different hand seal, and the Mantra Treasured Axis instantly began spinning rapidly once again, except in the complete opposite direction to before.
Han Li was quite elated to see this, and he was just about to attempt to withdraw the axis into his body when he felt some tightness in his chest, following which blood began to gush up toward the back of his throat.
He immediately stopped what he was doing, and the Mantra Treasured Axis reverted back to its original state before vanishing into his body on its own.
As expected, it's not that easy. Just the method of immortal spiritual power circulation alone is quite difficult to grasp. It appears I won't be able to successfully cultivate this ability without at least several hundred attempts while making adjustments along the way.
A wry smile appeared on Han Li's face as he wiped away the blood that was trickling down from the corner of his lips.
Just now, the immortal spiritual power had begun to circulate in opposite directions, thereby clashing against itself, and if he had continued in that fashion, he would've been sure to sustain internal injuries.
After taking a moment to rest and adjust the circulation of immortal spiritual power in his body, Han Li summoned his Mantra Treasured Axis once again.
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