Chapter 213: Chapter 203: Rumor 5
The Outer Fog Area.
Endless fog swirled all around. A massive maze of ruins, like a giant, elliptical egg, was firmly embedded in the mists of the Outer Fog Area.
Like water encountering a reef, the surrounding fog parted on its own as it neared this area, receding away.
The entire maze was enormous. By circling its perimeter, Lin Hui estimated it was about the size of three Xinyu Towns.
And that didn’t even include the area of the floating islands suspended in mid-air.
He now stood at the edge of the ruins. The place had no formal entrance; one could enter or exit from anywhere.
The gray, chaotic ruins were a sprawling mess of ashen stone debris.
Lin Hui hoisted his bundle, got his bearings, and then, with practiced ease, turned and ran several hundred meters along the perimeter. Beneath a huge, gnarled black tree, he found a gray stone passage and entered the ruins without hesitation.
The Wind of Surrounding, enhanced by his Wind Disaster Affinity, silently enveloped his entire body, extending to cover and protect the large bundle at his side.
After entering the gray stone passage, Lin Hui flew forward at a steady pace for several minutes.
The path ahead suddenly opened up.
It revealed a small, irregularly shaped clearing in the ruins.
Supplies packed in large wooden barrels were already stacked here and there in the clearing.
It was surrounded by towering gray stone walls, and remnants of other walls could be seen on the ground in some places.
This clearing was clearly not natural; it had been forcibly expanded by someone using some kind of power.
This was the result of Lin Hui’s year of hard work.
He had used the immense decomposition power of the Wind Disaster to carve out a secret, safe base deep within the maze.
The area was a little larger than a soccer field. As soon as Lin Hui entered, he breathed a sigh of relief. He turned and moved a large boulder to block the entrance he’d used.
Although the passage’s perception interference would prevent most people from proceeding very far, he still habitually made sure not to leave any openings.
The passage had over a dozen forks. Combined with the maze’s perception interference, a single wrong turn at a three-way junction would make it impossible to ever find this base.
Only because he had Wind Disaster Affinity, which allowed him to forcibly envelop himself and remain unaffected by the mysterious power, were his senses normal, enabling him to enter so quickly.
He took a brief look around the clearing.
’The amount of food I’ve moved in is enough for a hundred people for a year. Water is lacking, but there’s an underground stream within the maze. I can check if the water is usable when I have time. If not, I’ll need to stock up more.’
Now that he was here, Lin Hui felt a profound sense of security wash over him.
The powerful interference mechanism of the maze ruins had, ironically, given him the greatest sense of safety he’d ever known in his life.
Ever since he had slowly uncovered the truth about the Moon Tower, learned of the methods the Fog People and Original Blood used to rule everything, and understood the rules of the Taixu Federation...
...he had been worried constantly.
He worried he would become some terrifying old monster’s reserve Treasure Medicine.
Even though his strength was now far greater than before, this sense of unstable, unknown threat still grew stronger by the day.
But here, for the first time, Lin Hui felt what true peace was like.
Setting down the large bundle, he found a corner by a stone wall and sat down cross-legged. He opened the bundle and simultaneously pulled up the Blood Seal notification bar in his vision.
He took out a Yun Lingzhi and drew a deep breath.
’The evolution of the Jiuxiao Gate will happen today!’
CRACK.
He bit off a piece of the Yun Lingzhi and, in a few quick chomps, chewed it up and swallowed it. He had begun his frantic consumption of medicine.
Now that he no longer had to worry about medicinal toxins, his speed of consuming Treasure Medicine was far greater than before.
After all, he had strong teeth; a few bites to chew and swallow was all it took. In a single minute, he gobbled down a full sixty stalks of Yun Lingzhi!
Due to his resistance, a single Yun Lingzhi now only reduced the evolution time by less than four months. Therefore, by eating sixty stalks, Lin Hui was finally able to eliminate the remaining nineteen years.
As the last stalk of Yun Lingzhi was still in his throat, not yet fully in his stomach...
...Lin Hui saw the last bit of remaining time on his Blood Seal finally hit zero.
As the timer reached zero, the characters for "Jiuxiao Gate" flickered slightly and then blurred.
Immediately after, a terrifying stream of information, far larger than any he had experienced before, flooded madly into Lin Hui’s mind.
It was a massive amount of information about the Jiuxiao Gate, which had once existed in some unknown, distant place.
At the same time, new characters appeared on the Blood Seal.
’Qingfeng Temple—Jiuxiao Gate Sect Template beginning integration...’
’Notification: You have obtained the Qingyuan Grand Seal.’
’Notification: You have obtained the Righteous Body Grand Seal. You have obtained the Righteous Heart Grand Seal. You have obtained the Righteous Virtue Grand Seal.’
’Notification: Within the Jiuxiao Gate template, all Official Disciples must be personally granted one of the Three Seals by the Sect Leader to qualify. The number of seals obtained corresponds to a disciple’s authority and status within the sect. The more seals one receives, the greater the power boost and the higher the status.’
Lin Hui groaned. His mind felt as if an entire library’s worth of information had been shoved into it in an instant, all of it about the past history of the Jiuxiao Gate.
This powerful sect had long since vanished into the vast, unknown expanse. Its demise was caused by the loss of the Grand Seals, which led to a break in its lineage. This, coupled with internal power struggles and severe infighting, eventually caused it to split into three branch sects.
These three branches later slowly died out due to large-scale natural disasters.
They had persisted for several thousand years, and the Blood Seal had dumped all the information about these changes into Lin Hui’s mind at once.
’So much useless information... I just want the template, why do I care about its developmental history?’ Lin Hui clutched his forehead, a helpless look on his face.
He quickly ignored the mass of useless information and focused on extracting the key points from his memory.
Namely, the details about the seals within the Jiuxiao Gate.
’Seals... the Jiuxiao Gate has four types. First is the Qingyuan Seal, a powerful Dharma Seal that can amplify Wind Disaster Power for all sect members. It is the most dangerous and also the most powerful seal in the sect. Normally, only the most elite Core Disciples could receive it.
Then there are the three: Righteous Body, Righteous Heart, and Righteous Virtue. Each of these Three Seals can increase a disciple’s corresponding attribute by half. It’s insane.
And the only condition to acquire these Special Effects is that I, the Sect Leader, must personally grant the seals.’
Lin Hui raised his hand and held up a finger. A complex golden character suddenly materialized, floating a centimeter above his fingertip.
The character was not from any language he knew, but was an Origin Script with special power, created by the Jiuxiao Gate itself.
The golden character shifted rapidly, changing in sequence from "Body," to "Heart," to "Virtue," and finally transforming into "Qing."
This was the final Qingyuan Seal.
’So this is the Jiuxiao Gate’s sect template? Then what about me? Since I control the seals, I should hold the position of Sect Leader or Supreme. I should get a corresponding boost too, right?’
A thread of doubt naturally arose in Lin Hui’s mind.
But the very next second after this doubt appeared...
...a tremendous ROAR exploded in his mind.
Three golden Dharma Seal characters silently materialized behind him, arranging themselves in a pyramid formation and shining with golden light.
At the same time, a massive amount of Wind Disaster Power, gushing from some unknown source, surged madly into Lin Hui’s body.
His entire being began to expand uncontrollably. Like an inflating balloon, his body grew larger and taller.
Before long, large patches of sky-blue markings began to appear on his skin, and he had grown to a height of three and a half meters.
Strangely, despite his three-and-a-half-meter frame, he maintained the same proportions as his normal physique. He wasn’t bloated, but rather looked as if he had been perfectly scaled up in size.
Lin Hui shook his head and stood up straight, only then realizing how much taller he had grown. At the same time, his long hair had turned a translucent blue and even seemed to glow with a faint fluorescence.
His hair cascaded to his waist like seaweed, thick and dense, moving on its own without any wind.
But when he reached out to touch it, he was stunned to find his hand passing right through the strands.
He sensed it carefully and discovered that what looked like hair was not hair at all. It was some kind of conduit, constantly drawing Wind Disaster Power from an unknown void.
A multitude of these conduits were pieced together, forming a special, hair-like organ.
’Well... I seem to have... changed a bit too much...’ Lin Hui looked down at his ripped clothes and saw the sky-blue markings exposed beneath the tattered fabric.
He could feel an endless tide of Wind Disaster Power pouring into his body.
Wind Disaster Power was distinctly different from ordinary Inner Strength or wind power.
In his perception, the Wind Disaster Power was extremely violent, like a roiling torrent of spikes and blades, incredibly sharp. A single moment of carelessness could cause it to disintegrate and shred everything around it.
Moreover, what made him most wary was that the Wind Disaster Power was inexhaustible. It was simply inexhaustible!
It seemed infinite and endless.
But what power in this world could truly be infinite? Every power has a source, a root.
He just didn’t yet know what the root source of the Wind Disaster Power was.
Sensing the current state of his body, Lin Hui felt that his total Inner Strength had at least more than doubled.
He drew Ruyi and gave it a light swing.
BOOM!
He had used only a tiny bit of strength, like a casual sword swing. He hadn’t even used his Inner Strength—it was just a simple wave.
The air before him suddenly split apart, and a black-blue, rift-like slash shot out. SWOOSH! It landed on the gray stone wall ahead like a bolt of lightning.
The stone wall split open silently, a black fissure over five meters long carved into it.
Lin Hui stared blankly at Ruyi in his hand.
He really hadn’t put any effort into it. He had just wanted to test his strength and was still getting used to Ruyi’s current weight. He planned to swing it a few more times before formally testing the sword...
But the result...
’Is this the power of the Qingyuan Seal?’ Lin Hui searched his mind for descriptions of how Jiuxiao Gate disciples performed when using the Qingyuan Seal.
It was quite similar to his current appearance. All disciples who used the Qingyuan Seal would experience an increase in size, and their hair would turn into formless, sky-blue, fluorescent filaments.
The disciples of the Jiuxiao Gate called this form the Qingyuan Body.
’Retract.’ Following the method from his memories, Lin Hui used his Heart and Spirit to reverse-weave the "Qing" Origin Script.
Instantly, his entire body blurred, releasing a multitude of blue light particles.
The light particles dissipated in a second, and he had returned to his original form and size.
’Qingyuan Body... not bad, not bad at all. That state not only increases Wind Disaster’s destructive power, but it also provides an additional boost to pure strength—somewhere between three to four times my normal state...’ Lin Hui estimated internally.
The sect evolution of this Jiuxiao Gate truly yielded immense benefits.
At his current Cultivation realm, stacked with the Qingyuan Body and combined with his various Special Effects and Typhoon Swordsmanship, he himself had no idea what level of power he could achieve.
He had definitely far surpassed any High Priest. As for a Palace Master, he had never fought one, so he would have to wait until a real battle to know for sure. The Palace Master level was a realm where the most masters hid their strength, and the gap in power could be enormous.
He didn’t dare to be careless.
