After returning to the cave dwelling at Gazing Star Cliff, Su Ming immediately began the preparation.
He went to his carefully cultivated spiritual plant corner and cautiously picked a few of the most perfectly shaped mutated Silver-Spotted Heart-Clearing Orchid leaves.
Taking out the jade mortar specially used for grinding medicinal herbs, he placed the Heart-Clearing Orchid, Calming Grass, and a bit of Sunken Yin Wood shavings he had conveniently bought from the Administration Hall into it.
Without any violent interference from spiritual energy, Su Ming relied entirely on his physical body’s fine control, grinding the mixture patiently, stroke by stroke. Only after all the herbs had been reduced to the finest powder did he add rootless water, kneading the mixture into a long, thin stick of incense.
He used a strand of the *Like Water Art*’s spiritual energy to forcibly evaporate and dry the moisture within.
After the time it takes to burn one stick of incense, a Soul-Nourishing Incense, exuding a faint, grassy fragrance, was complete.
Su Ming walked to the secret chamber, placed a small jade incense burner beside the dull, lusterless Xuantian ring, and inserted the Soul-Nourishing Incense into it.
He curled his fingertip, and a faint spark of flame flickered past.
The tip of the incense was lit, and a wisp of deep blue smoke curled upwards, slowly spreading within the sealed cave dwelling.
The scent was extremely subtle. Su Ming took just one breath and felt the exhaustion in his Consciousness Sea from days of deducing formations dissipate by more than half, his spirits instantly lifting.
What brought him even more relief was that as this wisp of smoke drifted toward the Xuantian ring, the ancient ring seemed to possess a breath of its own, actively absorbing the smoke into its surface. With the continuous nourishment of the fragrance, the fluctuation of Lin Yu’s soul power deep within the ring seemed to become more stable and peaceful.
“Sleep well, Master.”
Su Ming sat cross-legged beside the incense burner, glanced at the Profound Shadow Egg that was still absorbing starlight within the formation, then looked at the Xuantian ring greedily drawing in the aroma.
He silently calculated the cost in his mind.
The Spirit-Communion Jade Marrow and Star-Pattern Silk had cost one thousand one hundred contribution points; the Soul-Nourishing Incense recipe had cost thirty low-grade spirit stones.
The change in his total assets was minimal.
All the binding materials were ready, and his master’s recovery was on the right track.
Everything was prepared; the only thing missing was the egg hatching.
...
The thick stone gate completely isolated the mountain winds and sea of clouds outside. No Moonlight Stones were lit within the cave dwelling. All the light came from the Profound Shadow Egg, which was gently absorbing starlight at the center of the formation, and from the tiny sparks floating up from the small jade incense burner.
Burning within the incense burner was precisely the Soul-Nourishing Incense that Su Ming had personally prepared.
This fragrance was different from the pungent sandalwood of ordinary temples. It carried a unique, crisp chill, like that of a polar ice field—the essence of the Silver-Spotted Heart-Clearing Orchid, nurtured under extreme cold and starlight. The aroma rose gracefully, transforming into a faint, elusive wisp of deep blue smoke. After circling in mid-air for a moment, it seemed to possess a will of its own, thread by thread, drilling into the Xuantian ring quietly placed before the cushion.
Su Ming sat cross-legged on the cushion, his hands folded over his Dantian, his breathing so long and slow it nearly stopped.
He had been doing this for six full days.
He could clearly feel that the soul power deep within the ring, which had fallen into a deathly stillness after devouring the Soul-Nurturing Wood Pith, was now like an undercurrent beneath the ice in early spring—growing more active and resilient with each passing day.
Tonight, this tremor reached its peak.
The scent of the Soul-Nourishing Incense in the air seemed to grow slightly thick, and the dark golden lines flowing across the Profound Shadow Egg also began to slow down at this moment.
Su Ming’s eyelids twitched slightly.
He felt that the Xuantian ring, which he was holding suspended above his palm, had suddenly changed.
It was no longer the slight warmth it had been before, but a sudden, scorching heat.
Su Ming snapped his eyes open. The deep pupils reflected the anomaly at his fingertips.
The Xuantian ring’s originally dull and rough surface was now radiating a layer of deep-sea blue light. The light was not at all dazzling; instead, it exuded an indescribable, gentle quality, like moonlight spilling onto a windless, deep pool—serene, yet unfathomable.
The deep blue light grew brighter and brighter, gradually detaching from the ring’s surface. Three inches above the ring, in the void, it slowly condensed into a fist-sized orb of light.
The orb rotated silently. With each turn, it rippled a visible wave of soul energy through the air. This was an extremely condensed fluctuation of soul power, without any admixture of the impurities of heaven and earth’s spiritual energy.
“*Humm*—”
A subtle ripple emanated from the orb, gently touching Su Ming’s outwardly released divine sense.
Su Ming’s entire body stiffened, and then the muscles that had been tensed with nervousness relaxed completely in an instant. The touch was so familiar, carrying a hint of cynical worldliness, yet also a profound steadiness that saw through everything. It was an aura uniquely Lin Yu’s.
He held his breath, staring at the rotating deep blue orb, fine blood vessels appearing in his eyes from intense focus.
“*Boom!*”
There was no sound, but in Su Ming’s consciousness, it was as if a muffled clap of thunder had struck.
An unprecedentedly powerful wave of soul power, like a breached flood, surged wildly from the small orb. This soul power swept through the entire cave dwelling like a tidal wave, crushing over the hard greenstone floor, over the spirit stones at the edge of the formation, and even penetrating the thick defensive formation lines outside the cave.
Su Ming felt only a roar in his mind. Before this vast ocean of soul power, his own divine sense was like a lone boat amidst a violent storm, instantly lifted high and carried into the boundless heights.
It was an extremely wondrous feeling. His entire person seemed to lose the weight of his physical body. All fatigue, all gravity, was stripped away in that moment. Through the perspective of this soul power, he could even clearly “see” the subtle, imperceptible grain textures of the stone veins on the cave’s walls.
But this godlike, panoramic sensation lasted only a brief moment.
Like an ebbing tide, the outward-released soul power, after reaching its peak, instantly flowed back inward at a terrifying speed.
The orb began to undergo a violent transformation.
It was stretched, compressed, and twisted in mid-air. The originally hazy halo began to rapidly solidify in a way that defied common sense.
Su Ming’s eyes widened. He saw that a blurry human silhouette was the first to take shape at the top of the orb. First, the shape of a head, then broad shoulders, then a torso, and finally, hanging limbs.
This was not the previous kind of shadowy afterimage that would distort and dissipate at the slightest breeze.
Under Su Ming’s shocked gaze, the deep blue human silhouette grew clearer and clearer, its color gradually shifting from deep blue to a kind of jade-like, gleaming white.
He saw a familiar hem of a long robe, the fine cloud patterns outlined with soul power at the corner of the robe, and a pair of hands with long, powerful fingers hanging naturally at the sides.
Finally, all the light gathered upwards, outlining a face Su Ming was all too familiar with.
It was his master.
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