Su Ming’s pupils suddenly constricted. He slapped his sleeve hard, shattering the fragmented runes hovering in midair, and sprang up from the meditation mat, teleporting to the edge of the formation in an instant.
His gaze locked onto the top of the eggshell.
There, a hair-thin fissure was forming, accompanied by spurting golden light, appearing with shocking abruptness. The crack then, as if alive, spread downward along the curve of the shell at a speed visible to the naked eye, crazily branching out.
“What’s happening? It’s early?”
Su Ming’s heart dropped, his breath coming short. According to Second Senior Brother Qin Yi’s earlier estimate, although the Profound Shadow Egg was teeming with life, it should still be at least two to three months from hatching; nothing like this violent reaction should occur tonight.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Su Ming pressed his right palm directly onto the dazzlingly golden eggshell.
“Hiss—”
The instant his palm touched it, searing heat conducted through his skin, as if he’d pressed onto a red-hot branding iron. If not for the exceptionally resilient water-attribute spiritual energy of the Like Water Art coursing through him — which immediately formed a dense water membrane in his palm to protect him — the contact would have scorched his flesh.
Through that thin water membrane, Su Ming closed his eyes and carefully sent his divine sense inside.
“Thump! Thump! Thump!”
Life within the shell was beating violently. Each strike was accompanied by energy violently smashing against the inner wall of the shell, trying to break its confinement.
“It’s starving for energy! This basic gathering formation isn’t enough!”
Su Ming’s hands blurred into afterimages. His fingers snapped in a precise rhythm as several strands of pure, liquid spiritual energy were channeled straight into the core nodes of the seventy-two mid-grade spirit stones surrounding the formation.
“Minor Heavenly Cycle Star Power Gathering Formation, activate!”
At Su Ming’s low shout, the seventy-two mid-grade spirit stones simultaneously wailed under the strain as the formation began to frantically siphon the spirit energy contained within them in a near-extractive manner.
Su Ming looked up, his left hand forming a complex hand seal, and he jabbed a finger hard at the cave dwelling’s domed ceiling.
“Boom!”
The skylight that had only been one-third open swung wide with a roar as the mechanism turned.
In the night sky, the originally scattered starlight seemed to be pulled by some mighty force, forming a visible silver funnel above the cave. The boundless stellar power, like a waterfall inverted from the heavens, cascaded through the skylight and poured down onto the Profound Shadow Egg at the center of the formation.
With this massive influx of star power, the egg’s trembling calmed a little, but the outward-expanding energy grew even more immense.
“Crack… crack…”
The sound of the fissure widening was still clearly audible amid that starry torrent.
Soon, the crack at the top of the shell had enlarged to the size of a fingernail. From the deepest part of that gap, pure golden light shot out like tangible flames, mixed with a scorching heat that slapped against Su Ming’s strained face.
A fine sheen of cold sweat had already formed on Su Ming’s brow.
Though his cultivation was firmly at the peak of Foundation Establishment initial stage and his formation skills had improved by leaps and bounds, he knew nothing about incubating spirit beasts. He had no idea what rules ancient exotic beasts followed when breaking their shells or whether there would be any backlash.
Worse, the Master trapped inside the ring was in a deep sleep while absorbing Soul-Nurturing Wood Pith and could provide no guidance at all.
“We can’t brute-force this, we need an expert.”
Su Ming made the decision decisively.
While maintaining left-hand spiritual energy input into the formation, his right hand darted into his storage pouch and pulled out a pale purple communication talisman.
He pressed a sliver of spiritual energy from his index finger and sketched symbols across the talisman at lightning speed.
“Second Senior Brother, the Profound Shadow Egg is having an emergency reaction. A crack has formed, star power is raging. Come to Gazing Star Cliff immediately!”
The moment his voice fell, Su Ming tossed the talisman forward. The pale purple paper instantly ignited, transforming into a streak of light that tore through the air toward Spirit Beast Peak.
Even after doing that, Su Ming didn’t relax in the slightest.
He took a deep breath, kept his left hand driving the formation at its limits, and plunged his right hand back into the storage pouch.
When he pulled his hand out this time, it held an exquisite mutton-fat jade bottle and two high-grade defensive formation plates engraved with a complex Control rune.
Inside the jade bottle was the Meridian Protection Pill gifted by Grand Elder Hao Yuan, capable of protecting the core meridian and preserving the last breath of life.
Su Ming flicked the bottle’s stopper open with his thumb, poured a fragrant Meridian Protection Pill to the base of his tongue, but didn’t swallow it. Instead, he enveloped it with spiritual energy while holding it in his mouth.
He sat cross-legged a safe distance of about three meters from the formation, gripping a defensive plate in his right hand, left hand made into a loose seal, and pushed his Like Water Art to its peak.
In the cultivation world, preparing for the worst is always the only way to survive.
Inside the cave dwelling, starlight poured like a waterfall, and golden light turned the place as bright as day.
Su Ming sat quietly before the egg, waiting for Qin Yi to arrive.
Time passed, and under extreme tension, every second felt interminable.
The golden light in the cave intensified until it spilled beyond the formation’s bounds, illuminating every corner of the Gazing Star Cliff cave dwelling like daylight. The moss on the stone walls, the discarded formation plates piled in a corner, even tiny dust motes floating in the air were gilded with a sacred sheen by the pure gold light.
“Thump—thump—thump—”
The egg’s internal beating grew heavier. From the fingernail-sized crack there issued not only scorching heat but faint, beast-like low buzzing—like a barely audible roar.
Su Ming remained cross-legged, the Meridian Protection Pill tucked beneath his tongue, the defensive plate in his right hand slightly damp with sweat. His eyes never blinked as he watched that fissure, his divine sense locking onto every ripple of spiritual energy around him.
The instant that raging energy showed any sign of uncontrolled explosion, he would not hesitate to activate the defensive plate, swallow the pill, and use the formation plate’s recoil to blast himself backward.
Life is always more important than any exotic beast.
With a dull thud, the heavy stone gate to the cave did not open fully, but a moon-white figure forced its way through the half-open gap.
It was Second Senior Brother Qin Yi.
His usually meticulously tied hair was somewhat disheveled; evidently, the moment he received the talisman, Qin Yi had raced over at full speed.
“Young junior brother! Where’s the egg?!”
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