Chapter 126: The Revelation of Tianshan

Chapter 126: The Shadow of Tianshan

Jiang Yan’s body shuddered violently. The radiance of the character "Wood" on his forehead slowly dissipated. As the light faded, the cyan glow permeating the high platform also vanished, revealing Jiang Yan once more, sitting cross-legged in his gray robes.

Within his sea of consciousness, a cataclysmic transformation was underway. Because Jiang Yan had forcibly pushed the detection range of his talisman array field beyond its limits, the inner walls of the Thousand Illusion Crystal Ball had successfully projected the scenery outside Qingyang Town. However, in that brief instant, all the spiritual consciousness within Jiang Yan’s body had been drained dry by the crystal ball.

The Thousand Illusion Crystal Ball relied on the power of the entire array field just to scan a range of a few dozen miles. By forcing an expansion, Jiang Yan had effectively used his own consciousness as fuel to drive the array, a drain his internal reserves could not sustain. Due to the immense suction of the crystal ball, his sea of consciousness was completely emptied; the powerful force even drew out the spiritual liquid itself, staining his forehead with a faint cyan hue.

The loss of spiritual liquid meant that his sea of consciousness had been ruptured. As the saying goes, one must destroy in order to rebuild, but the consequences of Jiang Yan’s reckless maneuver were dire: his consciousness was depleted, and his sea of consciousness was shattered.

"Hiss..."

Jiang Yan, sitting on the high platform, took a deep, ragged breath. The agony of total depletion flooded his body, starting from the crown of his head and instantly spreading to every limb.

"Thump."

Having barely drawn a cold breath, Jiang Yan tumbled headlong off the cyan marble platform. The pain of his shattered sea of consciousness followed, so intense that his focus crumbled instantly. His vision went black, and he collapsed.

"Hhh... hhh..."

Unconscious moans escaped his lips. He clutched his head with both hands, rolling aimlessly and gracelessly across the floor beneath the platform.

"Crash..."

As he rolled about in his delirium, he tumbled into a testing ground for talisman arrays. His body knocked over the equipment, sending displays scattering across the floor. Cyan pillars, black pools, raging fire pits, patches of desert sand, and platforms cast from gold and stone—Jiang Yan rolled through them all. His gray robes became stained with water and filth, and the fabric was burned through in several places as he crossed the sea of fire.

"Bang..."

His forehead struck the edge of a golden stone platform, opening a deep gash. Blood trickled out, but as it flowed, a faint cyan spiritual energy slowly wove around the wound. Before long, the skin healed as if untouched, leaving only the blood matted in his hair as evidence of the injury.

"Bang..."

In his rolling, Jiang Yan’s head struck a small tree. It was a cyan-green sapling in the center of the testing ground, about the height of a man, with a few sparse branches and leaves. A few crystalline droplets hung from the foliage.

Struck by Jiang Yan, the slender trunk swayed violently, causing the leaves to flutter and the droplets to quiver as if they were about to be flung off at any moment.

"Bang..."

Jiang Yan’s head slammed into the tree trunk again. Sensing a peculiar, soothing essence upon contact, the dazed Jiang Yan began to strike his head against the roots repeatedly.

"Swish..."

Under the relentless impact, the sapling swayed wildly, its tip nearly brushing the ground. The leaves rattled, and the droplets danced precariously. Yet, despite the violent motion, they clung tightly to the foliage, trembling but refusing to fall.

"Bang..."

Jiang Yan’s forehead struck the base of the tree once more. The "Wood" character on his forehead flashed with a cyan light, which immediately vanished into the point of contact between his skin and the bark.

"Plop..."

Under the continuous jarring, the droplets finally detached, falling toward the ground. One droplet fell directly onto Jiang Yan’s forehead as he pressed against the trunk.

"Drip..."

Jiang Yan jolted in shock. A sound like a massive drop of water falling into a vast ocean echoed within his ears—a thunderous boom that resonated like a lightning strike.

He stopped rolling and leaned against the tree, gasping for air. After that singular drop, the agonizing pain in his head suddenly dulled to a bearable level.

"Crack..."

A sound like something shattering emerged from deep within his forehead. Having caught his breath, Jiang Yan hurriedly sat cross-legged, calmed his mind, and re-engaged his spiritual consciousness.

"Zzz..."

The sound of consciousness slicing through the air rang out. Jiang Yan was astonished to find that, as he moved his consciousness out of habit, it surged forth from his sea of consciousness, spinning around him and weaving a massive, net-like barrier of energy within a radius of several feet. His control had become so effortless that what once required immense exertion was now a simple flick of his will.

He slowly retracted his consciousness and sank his mind into his sea of consciousness.

Everything had changed. The once pale cyan spiritual liquid had become completely transparent. The threads of consciousness, previously as thin as hair, were now several times thicker. The total volume of his consciousness had increased significantly, and the area of the sea itself seemed to have more than doubled.

These were all signs that Jiang Yan had firmly stepped into the realm of a First-Grade Intermediate Talisman Master.

He looked up at the cyan-green sapling, eyeing the crystalline droplets on the leaves with a surge of triumph. He had stumbled upon a treasure; the drop that had fallen into his consciousness was clearly a spiritual artifact of great potency. In a single moment, it had replenished his depleted reserves, repaired his shattered sea of consciousness, and catalyzed his breakthrough.

Even more exciting was the expansion of his sea of consciousness. He knew how sturdy it was; usually, each advancement only brought a marginal increase. A doubling of capacity meant he likely wouldn't need to expand his sea of consciousness again even when he reached the advanced stages of a First-Grade Talisman Master.

He pulled up his transparent status interface:

Name: Jiang Yan
Sect: Huashan
Position: Sect Leader
Cultivation: Foundation Establishment Mid-Stage, First-Grade Intermediate Talisman Master
Weapon: Green Wood Vine (Second Grade)
Techniques: Green Wood Art (Second Grade Intermediate), Green Wood Archery (Third Grade), Ground-Shifting Golden Light Technique (Grade Unknown), Fire Condensation Art (First Grade), Spirit Refinement Chapter, Spirit Communication Art (Fifth Grade), Spirit Cocoon Technique (First Grade), Green Wood Spirit Transformation Art

As he had judged, after the agonizing pain and the chaos in the array field, he had reached the intermediate stage. Thanks to the droplet, he was only a step away from true mastery. But when his eyes landed on his cultivation level, he froze.

"Foundation Establishment Mid-Stage?"

When had he advanced? He only remembered the Battle of the Monster Hunt, where he had used the power of the Heavenly Green Primordial Wood to establish his foundation.

"Nine pulses merge into one, the meridians reach completion; this is the Mid-Stage..."

The mantra of the Second-Grade Green Wood Art flowed through his mind. He realized that when the powerful energy of the Primordial Wood had destroyed his nine original meridians and the subsequent healing process had integrated them into one major meridian, he had accidentally crossed into the Mid-Stage.

"Dong..."

A clear, serene bell toll echoed in his ears. It was soothing, yet it made Jiang Yan jump—the sect was in trouble.

After upgrading the Grand Hall, he had installed a row of Second-Grade "Clear Sanskrit Bells." They were used to summon disciples, with seven different tones corresponding to different levels of urgency. The sound he just heard was the heaviest tone—the one reserved for an existential threat to Huashan.

"Whoosh..."

Jiang Yan vanished from the array field and instantly appeared on the prayer mat in the Grand Hall.

Tang Wan was there, dressed in her alchemy robes, standing beside the platform. Before the platform stood the kind-faced Monk Wukong, speaking with her, while Wukong’s disciple, Lin Ke, stood quietly behind him.

"Little Monk Wukong, you only left a few days ago. Why have you returned to Huashan so soon?" Jiang Yan asked with a smile.

"Ah!" Wukong was startled by the sudden appearance. Upon seeing Jiang Yan, he bowed with his single hand pressed against his chest. "Greetings, Lay Practitioner. It has only been a few days, yet your cultivation has advanced again. This is truly worth celebrating."

Jiang Yan, having just broken through, could not yet perfectly control his aura. The escaping pressure made Wukong visibly uncomfortable.

"I have been sent by my Uncle-Master Kong Se to deliver a message," Wukong said. "Uncle-Master says that Lu Tiannan of Tianshan has brought the newly promoted Foundation Establishment expert Lu Mingyuan, along with the grandson of Ximen Yuan—an outer-sect elder of the Fourth-Grade Xixia Sect—to Linqing Prefecture. At the Curio Pavilion auction, they purchased a Second-Grade spiritual artifact, dampening the spirits of the Golden Flame Sect. Furthermore, Lu Tiannan has boasted that in ten days, he will surely annihilate the newly promoted Second-Grade Sect, Huashan..."