Chapter 273: Shock
Three years later.
A streak of blurry golden light was flashing back and forth through the air within a valley in the Crimson Dawn Peak's territory. It was flying at an incredible speed, leaving trails of afterimages in its wake, and it was impossible to follow with the naked eye.
What was even more peculiar was that there was no rhyme or reason to the streak of golden light's movements. One moment, it would be whizzing directly forward, only to appear in the opposite direction the next instant.
All of a sudden, the streak of golden light drew to an abrupt halt, and Han Li was revealed.
At this moment, his face was slightly flushed, and there was an irrepressible look of joy in his eyes. His entire body was enveloped in a layer of faint golden light that was giving off bursts of strange fluctuations, and he murmured to himself, "If I activate all 25 Time Dao Runes at once, my speed is indeed enhanced. It looks like as I attain more and more Time Dao Runes, this ability will only be enhanced further. Having said that, it is also extremely taxing on my immortal spiritual power..."
The layer of golden light around him then began to gradually fade, but instead of disintegrating, it vanished into his body instead.
As it turned out, that layer of golden light had come from the Mantra Treasured Axis in his body.
During the first year or so in which he had been cultivating this ability, he wasn't even able to circulate his immortal spiritual power in the correct fashion, and that proved to have been a very difficult hurdle to overcome.
There were instances in the past where there had been a mountain no larger than the size of a grain of rice from his perspective, but after activating the cultivation art, he would reach the mountain in the blink of an eye and crash headfirst into it in an uncontrolled manner.
During this period of time, he had inadvertently smashed through several hundred mountains, severely ravaging the surrounding scenery in a radius of several thousand kilometers while also sustaining some minor injuries in the process.
Thankfully, this area was part of his territory, so there weren't any problems.
The silver lining on the dark cloud was that fundamentally speaking, this ability wasn't actually completely opposite to the original cultivation art. Instead, the two shared some similarities, so after failing over 100 times, Han Li was gradually able to master the process of reversing the axis before drawing it into his own body.
At this point, he had become so skilled at this process that he didn't even need to summon the Mantra Treasured Axis at all. Instead, he could reverse it while it was still in his body, thereby significantly enhancing how quickly he was able to unleash the ability, as well as making it much more covert.
Additionally, he was very excited by the fact that the 25th Time Dao Rune had remained all this time without displaying any signs of fading away.
With this ability up his sleeve in conjunction with his lightning teleportation array, he was confident that he would be able to escape even in the face of the average Golden Immortal.
I've spent a very long time mastering this cultivation art. It's time to move onto something else.
With that in mind, Han Li descended toward his cave abode down below.
Before long, he had reappeared in his secret chamber, and he sat down with his legs crossed, then summoned his Mantra Treasured Axis before opening its Eye of Truth.
Sitting on the palm of his hand was a small semi-transparent crystal, which was being basked in the golden light released by the Eye of Truth.
In order to focus on mastering the Reversal True Axis, all of the spirit liquid produced by the Heaven Controlling Vial during the past three years had been used to water spirit plants by Han Li's puppet, so he had only recently taken the time to manifest another crystal.
A faint crack rang out, and the golden thread flew out from within before shooting into the Eye of Truth.
Han Li's entire body shuddered violently as if he had been dealt a heavy blow, but this time, instead of closing the Eye of Truth, he allowed the golden thread to fuse into it.
Moments later, a 26th Time Dao Rune appeared on his Mantra Treasured Axis amid a flash of white light.
A relieved smile appeared on Han Li's face upon seeing this, and it was finally confirmed to him that the Eye of Truth could indeed add Time Dao Runes to his Mantra Treasured Axis by absorbing these crystals.
This meant that as long as he manifested a crystal each month, he would be able to attain a new Time Dao Rune every single month!
For the average immortal, the Mantra Axis Scripture was extremely difficult to cultivate, and it was often the case that two immortal acupoints had to be opened to attain a single Time Dao Rune, yet through this method, it would only take him a single month to attain each new Time Dao Rune, and there didn't appear to have been any upper limit to this!
24 Time Dao Runes were enough to slow time down to less than a 10th of its original speed, and with each cluster of six Time Dao Runes attained, this slowing effect would be noticeably enhanced, so what would happen once he attained 30 Time Dao Runes, 36, or even 60 or 108?
As long as he continued to cultivate the second level of the Mantra Axis Scripture while manifesting crystals every month, it wouldn't take long at all before he got there!
Han Li suppressed the excitement in his heart as he switched to a different hand seal and closed his Eye of Truth.
After that, he closed his eyes as well and began to chant an incantation, commencing his cultivation of the second level of the Mantra Axis Scripture.
……
10 years passed by in the blink of an eye.
During this time, Han Li had been cultivating the second level of the Mantra Axis Scripture while manifesting crystals for the Eye of Truth to absorb, and at this point, the number of Time Dao Runes on the Mantra Treasured Axis had already increased to 108.
For some reason, the number of Time Dao Runes refused to increase further from that point, and it appeared that some type of limit had been reached.
However, Han Li wasn't overly disappointed by this. After all, according to the Mantra Axis Scripture, even mastering the third level of the cultivation art should've only given rise to 18 Time Dao Runes, and up to this point, no one in the Blaze Dragon Dao had been able to accomplish that.
Compared with before, the Mantra Treasured Axis's effective range hadn't changed, but it was capable of slowing down the flow time within its effective area to an astonishing degree of less than one thousandth of its normal speed.
He had experimented by instructing a puppet of his to attack him, and as soon as its attack entered the effective area of the Mantra Treasured Axis, it was slowed down to the point that it appeared to have fallen completely still.
Additionally, the speed enhancement effect of his Reversal True Axis had also reached an extraordinary level, allowing him to fly through the air like a shooting star in a completely untraceable fashion.
However, activating either of the aforementioned abilities to their full extent was incredibly taxing on his immortal spiritual power, and his current immortal spiritual power reserves weren't able to support such an astonishing level of expenditure for long at all, so he was only going to use these abilities against extremely formidable opponents.
At this moment, his entire secret chamber was filled with dazzling golden radiance.
Han Li made a hand seal, and the Mantra Treasured Axis appeared behind him with all 108 of the Time Dao Runes on its surface radiating golden light, basking his entire body in a golden glow that made him resemble a Buddha statue.
As the Time Dao Runes lit up one after another, the Mantra Treasured Axis also began to slowly revolve, and all 108 Time Dao Runes had lit up within the span of just a few seconds.
Han Li's complexion had paled slightly, and he could sense his immortal spiritual power being rapidly expended, but he was already prepared for this, and he flipped both hands over to produce a pair of Immortal Origin Stones to replenish his energy.
He then began to chant an incantation, and the axis turned into a complete blur, while a series of golden threads emerged from its surface before converging toward the hole at its center.
These golden threads then intertwined to form a fist-sized golden ball that was flashing incessantly with golden light.
Immediately thereafter, the golden light radiating from the ball of golden threads brightened significantly, and it transformed into the Eye of Truth.
A beam of faint golden light was projected out of the Eye of Truth, and Han Li closed his eyes to inspect his surroundings through the Eye of Truth.
All of the restrictions that he had set up on the surrounding walls were instantly revealed in a transparent state, and there were countless spiritual power runes surging over them. Han Li could see all of the minute changes taking place in the restrictions as clearly as the back of his own hand.
The space up ahead had also turned into a vast expanse of murky grayness, and Meng Yungui, Meng Qianqian, and the others were all gradually revealed alongside the scenery outside the Crimson Dawn Peak.
It seemed that the Eye of Truth was able to peer directly through space itself, and Han Li's heart stirred slightly upon seeing this
The ability of the Eye of Truth to see through illusions wasn't much different from that of his Brightsight Spirit Eyes, but after the number of Time Dao Runes on his Mantra Treasured Axis had increased to 108, the Eye of Truth had become significantly more powerful, able to observe far more than his Brightsight Spirit Eyes.
He had an ability that could combine his Law Destruction Eye and his Brightsight Spirit Eyes, but even that was now severely lacking compared with his Eye of Truth.
Han Li gently exhaled as a solemn look appeared on his face, and he flipped a hand over to summon his Heaven Controlling Vial.
Right as he was about to observe the vial with his Eye of Truth, an unexpected turn of events suddenly unfolded.
The vial flew out of his hand before hovering mid-air, and dazzling light began to radiate from its surface, making it resemble a tiny green sun.
Immediately thereafter, a burst of tremendous force surged out of the green light, and Han Li was caught completely off guard, flying back involuntarily through the air until his back struck the wall behind him.
A surprised look appeared on his face, and before he had a chance to do anything, his Mantra Treasured Axis flew over to the Heaven Controlling Vial while radiating dazzling golden light that was several times brighter than normal.
In particular, the Eye of Truth was glowing extremely bright, and the circle of runes around the pupil were all squirming rapidly as if they had sprung to life.
It was as if the two were resonating with one another.
Han Li hurriedly set down the pair of Immortal Origin Stones in his hands so that he could make a hand seal, but to his surprise, both the Heaven Controlling Vial and the Mantra True Axis were no longer under his control.
All of a sudden, the Eye of Truth shot a beam of golden light into the Heaven Controlling Vial, and the vial began to rapidly swell in size, reaching the size of a human head in the blink of an eye.
Countless green runes then appeared on the surface of the vial, and they resembled countless swimming tadpoles.
A thick pillar of green light shot out of the vial, then tore through the space up ahead before vanishing into it.
Instead of closing over, the torn space began to warp violently, resembling a large black mouth that convulsing incessantly.
In the next instant, a vast expanse of light erupted out of the spatial rift.
The light was very radiant, but not blindingly so, and it was flowing out of the spatial rift like a gentle stream of water.
At this point, Han Li had already risen to hsi feet and was observing the scene unfolding before him with a bewildered expression, unsure of whether this was going to spell fortune or disaster.
Even though the Mantra Treasured Axis was currently out of his control, he could still make it disappear by cutting off the immortal spiritual power flowing out of his body, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to do that.
Right as Han Li was hesitating about how to proceed, the situation took another turn.
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