Chapter 468: Spirit Domain
At this moment, the entire secret chamber was filled with a churning sea of murky golden light.
Cloaked in the golden light, Han Li was seated with his legs crossed and his eyes closed at the center of the secret chamber, and all that could be seen of him was a blurry outline.
Immense world's origin qi converged from all directions, swirling around the center of the room to form a powerful vortex, causing all of the restrictions that Han Li had set up to sway and ripple incessantly.
Only after several hours did the disturbance gradually begin to subside, and right at this moment, Han Li's eyes sprang open as he let loose a thunderous roar.
Beams of bright golden light shot out of his pupils, lingering for a long while in the air without fading.
Some time later, he exhaled before immediately inhaling again, and all of the golden light in the entire secret chamber instantly converged together before being sucked into his belly.
Immediately thereafter, a speck of golden light appeared beneath his throat. The speck of golden light was extremely bright, and it was constantly absorbing the lingering world's origin qi in the surrounding area.
With that, the final immortal acupoint required to reach the mid-Golden Immortal Stage had been opened.
Right at this moment, Han Li's Mantra Treasured Axis flew around from behind him until it was hovering in front of him, and it was radiating dazzling golden light, as were all of the Time Dao Runes on its surface, of which there were now more than 400.
A faint smile appeared on Han Li's face as the golden light in his eyes faded, and he made a beckoning motion, upon which six time law threads instantly shot out of his Mantra Treasured Axis toward the palm of his hand.
Right before they struck his hand, the time law threads drew to an abrupt halt, then curled around his fingertips momentarily before falling onto the palm of his hand.
Through this latest bout of arduous cultivation, Han Li had managed to manifest three more time law threads.
He had thought that he would be able to manifest at least one more time law thread now that he had reached the mid-Golden Immortal Stage, but that didn't turn out to be the case.
Over the course of the past 1,000 years, he had constantly been immersed in cultivation, and he had only awakened three times.
Each of those times came immediately after a state of enlightenment, which led to the formation of a time law thread, seemingly completely by chance.
With each additional time law thread that he attained, his understanding of the laws of time also seemed to have deepened, and as always, any bottlenecks that he encountered during the course of his cultivation of the Mantra Axis Scripture were simply resolved on their own, resulting in very smooth progress.
For a mortal, 1,000 years could span the course of several dynasties, yet for a cultivator, it was essentially only an instant. It was said that there were some immortals using special cultivation arts that could sleep for extraordinarily long periods of time, and even a nap for them could be thousands of years.
Hence, Han Li was astonished that he had managed to reach the mid-Golden Immortal Stage so quickly, and he was amazed by just how effective the Profound Baleful Spirit Arts had been.
Of course, at the same time, he was also feeling a little uneasy. After all, channeling baleful qi to accelerate one's cultivation was sure to come with negative side-effects. However, aside from the wisps of baleful qi in his immortal acupoint, which he was unable to eradicate, despite his best efforts, it seemed that there were no other negative side-effects.
Given the current situation, he could only hope for the best. Now that he had reached the mid-Golden Immortal Stage, he finally stood a chance of leaving this place, and everything else would just have to wait until after he made his escape.
With that in mind, Han Li immediately rose to his feet, then withdrew all of the surrounding restrictions before leaving the secret chamber.
Upon arriving at the hall where the soul fragment was situated, even before entering the hall, Han Li could already hear the soul fragment mumbling to itself.
As he stepped into the doorway, Han Li caught sight of the soul fragment hovering in mid-air, talking to its own statue.
"I was so graceful and handsome back in the day. Not only was I an immortal lord, just the title of the Boundless Daoist was enough to have countless beautiful celestial maidens clamoring over me. How long have I been trapped in here? I'm sure all of my past lovers would've been distraught at my disappearance..."
Han Li was struck by the urge to roll his eyes in exasperation, and he cleared his throat to alert the soul fragment to his arrival as he said, "Looks like you're recovering quite well, Senior. You're certainly much more energetic than when I first saw you."
The soul fragment immediately turned around to look at Han Li with a surprised expression, following which an ecstatic look appeared on its face.
The soul fragment then began counting on its fingers as it exclaimed, "How could this be? It's only been just over 1,000 years and you've already reached the mid-Golden Immortal Stage? This is preposterous! Unless..."
"Unless what?" Han Li asked as his brows furrowed slightly, thinking that there was something wrong.
The soul fragment looked up at him with a serious expression as it said, "Unless you're also an unmatched prodigy like myself!"
Han Li was instantly rendered speechless upon hearing this.
"I came here to bid you farewell, Senior. Now that I've become a mid-Golden Immortal cultivator, I'll be able to leave this place. As for that Soul Nurturing Burner, it's not anything precious, so you can keep it as a parting gift," Han Li said as he cupped his fist in a parting salute, then prepared to turn and leave.
However, he was immediately interrupted by an urgent cry from the soul fragment.
"Hey, aren't you going to take me with you?" the soul fragment yelled as it flew around to position itself in front of Han Li.
"When did I ever say I was taking you with me?" Han Li asked with a faint smile.
"You ungrateful little..."
The soul fragment's voice abruptly cut off here, and it didn't dare to hurl any insults at Han Li for fear of retaliation.
Han Li was completely unbothered as he raised an eyebrow, seemingly encouraging the soul fragment to continue.
The soul fragment immediately changed tactics, putting on a pitiable expression as it said, "At the very least, I told you the way out, so you can't just leave me here. Besides, once you destroy the core of this secret area, this underground palace will most likely be destroyed, so how am I supposed to survive?"
Han Li intentionally put on a contemplative expression, as if he was hesitating about how to proceed.
After a brief silence, he said, "I suppose you're right. How about this? You teach me how to manifest a spirit domain, and I'll take you with me."
The soul fragment was immediately struck by the urge to slap itself.
It had boasted to Han Li earlier that it had taught Mo Yu how to manifest a spirit domain, and only now did he come to realize that Han Li had most likely been plotting this well in advance.
"I can teach you how to manifest a spirit domain, but what if you change your mind?" the soul fragment asked with a serious expression.
"If you have doubts about my character, then I suppose we'll just have to part ways. I don't want to force you to do anything against your will," Han Li replied with a casual shrug.
"You... You... Fine, you win! I'll do as you say," the soul fragment sighed in a resigned manner.
" A wise decision, Senior!" Han Li praised with a faint smile.
The soul fragment was still feeling quite exasperated, and it asked in a sullen voice, "What do you know about spirit domains?"
"Not much, I'm afraid. Please start from the basics, Senior," Han Li replied.
The soul fragment rolled its eyes upon hearing this, then continued, "I'm sure you've already witnessed your fair share of spirit domains in the past. Essentially, spirit domains are a manifestation of the effect that a cultivator has on the environment around them once they've mastered a certain type of law power. The size and potency of the spirit domain is directly correlated to the cultivator's level of mastery over law powers."
"Can a spirit domain only be unleashed after mastering a certain type of law power?" Han LI asked.
He recalled that back in the Spirit Realm, Bao Hua was able to unleash a spirit domain even without mastering any law powers.
"Mastery over law powers is a prerequisite to whether one can unleash a spirit doman, but that's not set in stone. Cultivators who haven't mastered law powers can unleash spirit domains through the use of certain special treasures coupled with special cultivation arts. However, those spirit domains are nothing but low-quality counterfeits with many fatal flaws, and they can't even begin to compare with true spirit domains," the soul fragment explained.
"I see. Seeing as law power is so integral to spirit domains, is law power also required to maintain a spirit domain?" Han Li asked.
"That's correct. Furthermore, the stability and the power of a spirit domain is also correlated to how advanced the cultivator's mastery over law power is. The more law threads you possess, the more powerful your spirit domain should be," the soul fragment replied.
As the conversation continued, the soul fragment imparted more knowledge pertaining to spirit domains upon Han Li, and in the end, the soul fragment concluded, "The cultivation art that I'm about to teach you has no name. It's one of the most common spirit domain manifestation methods in the Immortal Realm, and it's a method that's both very prevalent and very safe. Listen carefully."
With that, it began to recite the mantra of the cultivation art to Han Li.
The soul fragment was making this cultivation art sound very mundane, as if it were something that one could easily find at any streetside stall, but that was only the case for a High Zenith cultivator as he had been in the past. For someone of Han Li's current cultivation base, such a cultivation art was much more difficult to come by.
Back when he was cultivating in the Blaze Dragon Dao, he had tried to search for cultivation arts of this nature, and there were some in the inner sect, but they could only be accessed by those at or above the Golden Immortal Stage. He was also able to find certain spirit domain manifestation cultivation arts in the Transient Guild, but all of them were being sold at an extremely lofty price.
"Have you memorized all of it?" the soul fragment asked.
"I have. It doesn't seem very difficult, but I'll have to give it a try first to find out," Han Li replied with a nod.
"I knew you wouldn't believe me until you've given the cultivation art a try," the soul fragment grumbled in a disgruntled voice.
"It shouldn't take too long, so please wait here for me for a bit longer," Han Li said with a smile, then departed from the hall, leaving the soul fragment behind to continue mumbling to itself.
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