Using the space teleportation formation, the Black Ice Python had left the Green Illusion Realm and went to an unknown space.
The mysterious door made of light shattered into various dots of light which shot high into the skies. As for the twelve obelisks with raging flames and extreme cold, they calmed down in a flash.
Nie Tian, who was standing underneath the stone pillar, originally had wanted to explore the wonders of the Stone Temple.
But he found that the bones in the numerous grooves of the square-shaped sacrificial platform burst into fragments of light and they left a vast amount of energy.
His eyes lit up, as he released his mental perception and found that the whole stone palace was filled with peerless, dense energy.
The energy had come from the high grade beast bones, each sparkling and translucent bone, had been urged into action by the activation of the Space Transmission Array.
The numerous beast bones, that the Black Ice Python had expended a lot of effort in collecting, were the key to leaving.
Now that all the animal bones had been crushed, their energy was still left in the stone palace, albeit slowly dissipating.
“Good quality, unlimited energy!”
Nie Tian immediately dismissed the idea of exploring the stone palace and sat down cross-legged, circulating his Lianqi tactics at the very first moment.
Once his spirit sea moved, it was as if he became a gigantic magnet, madly absorbing the gradually disappearing energy inside the stone palace.
The scattering strands of silvery-white mist, as if they were a band of moths flying into a flame, converged onto him from all directions.
At that moment, he felt his spirit sea surging with spiritual power!
In the Lianqi realm there were a total of nine levels. Each level, from one to nine, had no bottlenecks to break but rather required continuous expansion of the the spirit sea, without any extra requirements.
Only after reaching the ninth level, and after being on the verge of breaking into the Houtian realm, would you then stop solely relying on spirit strength accumulation and spirit sea expansion.
The first bottleneck appeared between the ninth Lianqi level and the Houtian realm.
And Nie Tian’s dantian’s spirit sea, from the time he had first swallowed the Earth Lizard’s meat, hadn’t stopped expanding; he originally was going to breakthrough soon.
If he didn’t encounter the gigantic Black Ice Python, he perhaps could have stepped into the eighth Lianqi level with one more session of cultivation.
This time, the concentrated energy, that had filled the inside of the stone palace, crazily poured into his spirit sea, and he very quickly discovered that he would very soon reach his goal - the eighth Lianqi level!
He persistently cultivated.
Not too long later, his moveless, sitting figure minutely shook.
His face was filled with joy as he opened his eyes, shouting, “Success!”
He had successfully entered into the eighth Lianqi level!
Not in a rush to stand up, he continued to use his mental perception and probe around, after which he found that the energy inside the stone palace, although thinning out a bit, was still quite abundant.
He sensed that, as each period of time passed, the amount of energy within the Stone Temple lessened.
“Such a rare opportunity. From now on... it’s uncertain whether or not I will run into Grade Two spirit beasts. Without any Grade Two spirit beast meat, I’m afraid it won’t be too easy if I want to continue to quickly break into the ninth Lianqi level.”
“The source of the energy is each and every high grade beast bone. Plus, the energy is very easy to absorb.”
“Before the energy completely dissipates from this world, I must definitely capture this once in a lifetime opportunity to continue to expand my spirit sea!”
Thinking like this, he once again calmed down, finding no reason to feel satisfied after reaching the eighth Lianqi level.
He once again began to execute the Lianqi tactics, drawing support from the dense energy within the stone palace’s deposit and carrying out a new round of bitter cultivation. He once again began to transform his spirit sea.
Unwittingly, several days passed.
Sitting in the stone palace, Nie Tian cultivated without food or sleep, obsessed with the transformation of his spirit sea and completely oblivious to the flow of time.
Only after he couldn’t absorb any more dense and concentrated energy from inside the stone palace, did he stop his cultivation.
Afterwards, he discovered that the stone palace was completely still, and the dots of pure, concentrated energy that he had been excited about, had completely disappeared.
He quickly realized that the dissipating energy from within the stone palace after that period of time, had already completely disappeared.
As for him, after breaking through to the eighth Lianqi level, he had undergone another round of bitter cultivation while drawing support from the energy within the stone palace, so his spirit sea had tripled in size!
On the eight Lianqi level, further expansion of the spirit sea by three times required an immense amount of energy.
Without the refined, pure energy from within the stone palace, if he had cultivated in the Nie Family, he would probably need another half a year’s worth of time in order to expand the eighth Lianqi level’s spirit sea to that degree.
Sitting in the stone palace had increased his cultivation speed by more than ten times!
A pleased Nie Tian, knowing that the energy had already dispersed and that there would be no point in any further cultivation here, finally stood up and carefully went to inspect the stone palace.
He circled the stone palace three times and discovered that only the space array teleportation formation lay inside the stone palace.
There were many scattered, strange, and ancient engravings on the inside temple walls and some eccentric, ancient writings which were in the form of animal outlines.
These writings appeared to have been created by high level spirit beasts after they had gained great intellect and wisdom.
These words on the stone walls appeared to be explaining something but unfortunately he couldn’t read those words and could only sigh in resignation.
The numerous shattered animal bones, twelve within the stone pillars sitting on the sacrificial stone platform, seemed to be unable to be started again, temporarily losing its purpose.
He carefully inspected it, but didn’t find any more discoveries except when he had found the six engraved flame dragon pillars that would probably be of great use to him.
On the the six stone pillars had six coiled flame dragons, though it was not flame dragons that had actually appeared, but rather an engraved stone object.
However, he thought that within the six stone-made flame dragons, a terrifying flame energy was contained.
His own piece had also evidently come from the bones of the flame dragon, that had an unending demand for flame energy.
The animal bone had absorbed the entire Nie Family’s mining mountain’s worth of Fire Cloud stones before condensing a single drop of blood.
After forming the rare drop of blood, the animal bone had another occurance of a transformation, allowing him to return while easily finishing off two strong men Yuan Qiuying had arranged for to ashes.
Also, not long after he had returned to the Nie Family the animal bone had ripped space apart, taking him to a mysterious land.
In that mysterious land, there were many wondrous things, and he had also comprehended the angry fist style there.
However, the animal bone sending him to the mysterious land and then taking him back to the Nie Family had required an immense amount of fire energy to support it.
He believed, that to pass through the slit of space and understand the mysteries of the mysterious land at the right time using the animal bone, the animal bone would need to absorb a massive amount of fire energy.
This stationary Stone Temple, with six fire dragons coiled around the stone pillars would supply a tremendous amount of fire energy!
“It is a bit of a pity that it isn’t possible to bring a flame dragon bone inside. Otherwise, that animal bone should be able to suck the hidden fire potential within the six stone pillars dry.”
Nie Tian’s heart was filled with regret, as he walked around the stone temple for a while and checked around carefully once more.
After failing to discover anything else, he climbed to the top of a stone pillar and used the top of this stone pillar, which was connected to the ceiling of the stone temple, to dash into the hole.
This hole was connected to the lake and the outside world.
This hole was made up of sand from the desert and if he was to pierce his hand downwards, he would be able to stab into the sand.
Using two hands as a ladder, he climbed up bit by bit and after an hour, he finally entered the original hole and returned to the centre of the lake.
Having gotten out of the mudhole and standing in the middle of the lake, he realized that the lake surface was shimmering softly with a mysterious light.
The mud hole, which had been created by the tail of the Black Ice Python breaking the ground, started to curiously reform.
He walked out of the lake and stood at the side of the lake. As he looked towards the center of the lake again, he discovered that all had become normal once again and no peculiarities could be seen.
“The stone temple is just below. If I can enter the Green Illusion Realm again, I must definitely bring the animal bone and suck the fire potential in the six stone pillars dry.”
He squinted his eyes, as he was determined to memorize every single detail of the terrain, the surroundings, and the colour of the lake.
He hoped that the next time he entered the Green Illusion Realm, he would be able to find this location accurately.
“A lot of time must have passed, I am not sure if I can still reunite with An Ying and the rest. The Ghost Sect and Blood Sect should have found them long ago. I hope they are still alive.”
He no longer had any spirit beast meat with him and he had already absorbed the spirit qi from the stone temple and used the opportunity to cultivate.
As of this moment, he had not only successfully broken through to eight Lianqi level, he had even expanded his spirit sea by thirty percent. He already had nothing else to do.
“Let’s see if I can reunite with them and help them kill the disciples of the Ghost Sect and Blood Sect.”
Having decided his next course of action, he left the lake and headed to his original location where the Black Ice Python had brought him away from.
He walked alone in the desert.
After about 10 to 12 hours, he was a bit tired so he stopped and took out a spirit stone from the cloth bag around his waist, before he started to regain some of his spirit qi.
“Oh? Is there someone?”
After a while, he heard a loud sound and threw away the used spirit stone, which had already lost its spirit qi, before he frowned and stood up.
He sent out his mental energy to sense the surroundings.
“Two people, one has strong signs of life while the other has weak signs of life. Who are they?” He moved swiftly towards the area where he had sensed the signs of life.
Two people wearing grey clothes, with blood on their chest areas, were whispering softly to each other, as they hurried along and suddenly entered his line of slight.
“Han Feng! Yun Song!”
[Editor note: For all those like me, who can’t remember the names. These are the two guys from the Grey Valley.]
……