Chapter 88: Earthly Deity Avatar
Inside the courtyard, Han Li was flicking incessantly through the air to release a series of streaks of azure light, which quickly revealed themselves to be azure array flags. The array flags quickly vanished into the air around the courtyard, following which an azure light barrier appeared to encompass the entire courtyard.
After doing all of that, he sat down with his legs crossed and closed his eyes to meditate.
As time passed, the sky gradually darkened, and day transitioned into night.
Han Li opened his eyes and took a glance up at the starry night sky, then flipped a hand over to produce a pill that he swallowed. After that, he took a deep breath before activing his Big Dipper Origin Arts, and seven blue specks of light immediatley appeared on his chest and abdomen.
The starpower in the night sky converged to form seven pillars of starlight that descended from the heavens, and as they starpower entered Han Li's body, his pale complexion slowly began to improve.
The night quickly passed by, and in the morning, Han Li opened his eyes as he exhaled.
Not only had all of his physical fatigue been alleviated, even the damage that he had sustained while passing through the interrealm gap had been completely healed.
He took a moment to stretch, then made his way into a side room in the courtyard.
The room wasn't very large, only around 70 to 80 feet in size, and aside from a bamboo cabinet and several sandalwood tables and chairs, there was only a futon directly at the center of the room. However, everything was very clean and tidy, indicating that the room was clearly very well looked after.
Han Li sat down onto the futon with his legs crossed, then flipped a hand over to produce a jade box, which he opened to reveal a yellow walnut.
The patterns on the surface of the walnut formed a human face, and it was giving off astonishing earth-attribute spiritual qi fluctuations. This was one of the fruits from the strange walnut tree that Han Li had obtained from that mysterious space within the bubble.
He had been in quite a hurry earlier, so he didn't get a chance to carefully examine the fruit, but now, he finally had the opportunity to make a closer assessment.
Thus, he immediately released his spiritual sense and injected it into the walnut for a thorough examination.
As a result, he was immediately stunned by what he saw.
The earth-attribute spiritual qi imbued within the walnut was downright astounding, but it had been compressed to the extreme so that it could fit inside the fruit.
Due to the Heaven Controlling Vial, Han Li was quite experienced when it cameto identifying all types of spirit medicines and ingredients, particularly when it came to judging their age.
He didn't recognize this walnut, but given the vast volume of the world's origin qi imbued within it, it had to be at least 100,000 years old.
However, just this alone still wasn't enough to warrant having two demon beasts comparable in power to True Immortals fighting over it.
With that in mind, Han Li continued to carefully examine every single inch of the walnut with his spiritual sense.
After examining the walnut for close to 20 times, he finally noticed something interesting.
The incredibly dense earth-attribute spiritual qi within the walnut seemed to be completely chaotic and haphazard, but there was actually a certain pattern to the way that it was flowing and circulating.
It seemed that these spiritual qi fluctuations would periodically display a rather peculiar state of fusion, and an extremely faint yet special aura would emanate from this type of fluctuations.
Could it be...
Han Li's heartbeat began to accelerate as a thought occurred to him.
This special aura seemed to be rather similar to the power of laws, but also a little different.
After examining the walnut for a while longer, he was still unable to arrive at a concrete conclusion.
After a brief moment of contemplation, he flipped a hand over to produce a wooden box.
He removed the lid of the box to reveal a miniature yellow figure with several talismans plastered onto its body. It was none other than the nascent soul of the one-eyed giant from that mysterious space within the ywllow bubble, and its eyes was half-open in a rather disoriented and drowzy state.
Han Li grabbed onto the nascent soul with one hand, and threads of black light emerged from his fingertips before directly entering the nascent soul's body.
In order to uncover the secrets behind those strange human-faced walnuts, the quickest way was naturally to search the giant's soul.
A pained look appeared on the nascent soul's previously wooden and emotionless face, following which a layer of yellow light surfaced over its body.
Han Li's brows furrowed slightly upon seeing this. There seemed to be some type of strange power residing within the nascent soul, making it very difficult for Han Li's spiritual sense to infiltrate into it.
He gave a cold harrumph as the black light on his hand brightened further, and he gradually increased the forcefulness with which he was enforcing the soul search technique.
The yellow light emanating from the nascent soul's body also became brighter and began to flash violently. A painted look appeared on the nascent soul's face, and it opened its mouth as if to let loose an agonized scream, but it was unable to make any sound under the restrictive effects of the talismans adhered to its body.
Finally, Han Li's spiritual sense pierced through the layer of strange power within the nascent soul before reaching deep into the soul itself, and a hint of elation welled up in Han Li's heart at this development.
However, in the next instant, his expression abruptly changed drastically, and the semi-transparent True Extreme Membrane instantly appeared over his body.
Immediately thereafter, a burst of scintillating yellow light erupted out of the nascent soul, and it exploded violently into an incandescent yellow sun that engulfed Han Li's entire body.
Moments later, the yellow light faded to reveal Han Li once again, and he remained completely unscathed, but there was a dark look on his face.
He hadn't anticipated that the power within the one-eyed giant's nascent soul would be so aggressive, so much so that it had instantly led to the nascent soul's self-detonation as soon as Han Li's spiritual sense pierced into it.
As a result, he wasn't able to glean much information at all, only a few fragments of the one-eyed giant's memories. It seemed that the giant would always consume one of those human-faced walnuts every 10,000 years or so, and that seemed to have a remarkable positive effect on its cultivation.
Han Li heaved a faint sight, then glanced at the human-faced walnut for a while longer before stowing it away.
It seemed that he would have to explore other avenues to find out the origins of this fruit. At the moment, he had only just returned to the Immortal Realm, so he had more important things to attend to.
After a brief moment of further contemplation, he stood up and left the courtyard.
As it turned out, Luo Feng was waiting for him outside the courtyard. "Luo Feng pays his respects to Senior Liu."
"Why are you here, Chief Luo?" Han Li asked as a hint of surprise flashed through his eyes.
"I came to see if this residence was to your liking, Senior Liu. Also, here are some of the cultivation resources that I've gathered according to your instructions. Unfortunately, due to the short notice, I've only managed to gather some of the items on your list, but I'll send out people to gather the rest as soon as possible, so please bear with me," Luo Feng said with a fawning expression as he produced a black bracelet before offering it to Han Li with both hands.
Han Li reached out to accept the bracelet, then briefly inspected its contents with his spiritual sense before giving a nod.
Luo Feng immediately heaved an internal sigh of relief upon seeing this.
"You came at just the right time. I wanted to ask you if there was a scripture library or something of that nature on this island. There are some things that I want to examine," Han Li said as he stowed the bracelet away.
"There is indeed such a place on our island, Senior Liu. Please come with me," Luo Feng hurriedly replied before leading the way as he flew away into the distance.
Han Li rose up into the air and followed along behind Luo Feng.
As he did so, he quickly inspected his surroundings to find that much of the damage left behind by the battle that had taken place the previous day had already been repaired, and reconstruction efforts had also already begun on the collapsed buildings.
At the same time, many mortals with no cultivation bases had appeared on the previously deserted dock on the island, as well as some of the surrounding towns.
The battle from the day before had wreaked widespread destruction over the island, but it hadn't had much of an impact on the towns inhabited by these mortals.
At this moment, the mortals in those towns and some cultivators had gathered together in one place, and they were performing a type of ritual of worship in front of series of statues depicting the Ancestral God of Dark Veil Island.
"There are many mortals residing on all of the islands in the Black Wind Sea, and they count on the cultivating families on the islands for their protection. During the battle yesterday, all of them went into hiding. The cultivators on the islands have always had a history of regular conflict, but generally speaking, they won't attack the mortals on the other islands," Luo Feng explained after noticing the subject that Han Li's attention had been drawn to.
Han Li nodded in response. The situation here reminded him of the Scattered Star Seas back in the Human Realm. [1]
Moments later, the two of them arrived in front of a large two-story pavilion.
"Esteemed Ancestral God!"
"Chief!"
There were several Spatial Tempering cultivators stationed at the pavilion, and they were greatly startled by the sight of Luo Feng and Han Li. All of them hurriedly extended respectful salutes with reverent looks on their faces.
Luo Feng paid no heed to them and led Han Li directly into the pavilion.
On the first floor of the pavilion was a series of neatly arranged bookshelves, which were laden with all types of scriptures, scrolls, and objects like jade slips.
Han Li swept his gaze around the room to find that this scripture library was quite small, far smaller than the one at the Cold Flame Sect.
"My apologies, Senior Liu. Our tribe is quite weak, so we haven't been able to gather many scriptures. The first floor is filled primarily with cultivation arts and historical accounts, while the second floor contains some scriptures related to treasures and pills," Luo Feng said with an apologetic look in his eyes.
"It's fine. I'll be alright here on my own. I'm sure there are many things that you have to attend to on Dark Veil Island, so there's no need to accompany me," Han Li replied in a nonchalant voice.
Luo Feng faltered slightly upon hearing this, then replied, "Yes, Senior Liu."
After that, he turned and departed, yet right as he was about to fly away, a thought seemed to have occurred to him, and he stopped in his tracks, then made his way back to the scripture library before waiting patiently outside.
Han Li slowly browsed through the bookshelves, and given his incredibly powerful spiritual sense, he was naturally able to read through all of the scriptures at an incredible speed.
The scriptures collected by Dark Veil Island were quite chaotic, and just as Luo Feng had said, most of the scriptures on the first floor were either historical accounts pertaining to the Black Wind Sea or cultivation arts for those at or below the Grand Ascension Stage.
What Han Li wanted to find was information on Earthly Immortals, but unfortunately, there were very few resources here containing such information.
However, he was eventually rewarded for his efforts. After scouring through virtually the entirety of the first floor, he finally found several old jade slips that contained some information on Earthly Immortals.
Close to an hour later, Han Li set down the final jade slip before opening his eyes.
There wasn't much information contained in these jade slips, but they had still given him a relatively clear understanding of Earthly Immortals and Ancestral Gods.
Just as Luo Feng had described, Earthly Immortals were just one type of immortals, and the only remarkable about them was the special method through which they cultivated.
According to the scriptures, Earthly Immortals could manifest powers of laws using the power of faith from their followers.
However, the powers of laws manifested through this type of external assistance were severely limited in that the Earthly Immortal could only unleash those powers of laws in the region where their faith resided. As soon as they left that area, the powers of laws manifested would become completely ineffective.
Due to the fact that gathering the power of faith formed the foundation for an Earthly Immortal's cultivation, each Earthly Immortal had a statue erected from a special material that was capable of storing and refining the power of faith, forming an Earthly Deity Avatar that was unique to Earthly Immortals, and these Earthly Deity Avatars were able to better harness the powers of laws than even the Earthly Immortals themselves.
Under normal circumstances, the Earthly Immortals would generally be hidden, with only their Earthly Deity Avatars active in the outside world. If that avatar were to be destroyed, then the Earthly Immortal would suffer severe backlash. In more serious cases, the Earthly Immortal could even lose the ability to control their powers of laws, thereby rendering all of their previous efforts completely wasted.
1. For more information on the Scattered Star Seas, please refer to RMJI Chapter 389: Heavenly Star City and the Star Palace. ☜
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