Xuantian Immortal Cultivation Record

He moved swiftly along the rock formations beside the waterway, easily refining the low-level异魔 (yī mó, roughly translated as 'otherworldly demons') that occasionally appeared along the way.

Half an hour later, he arrived again at the gourd-shaped entrance.

In the upper part of the gourd, the Qi of Emptiness gathered, so dense that it could not be dispersed. Yet, he found no low-level 异魔 within. The place gave him an extremely dangerous feeling.

“Master, Zhang San feels that a powerful demon is hidden there!”

“Oh? How strong?”

“At least at the level of a Nascent Soul cultivator. It seems similar to the face-changing 异魔 we encountered here last time.”

Zhang Yuanjing sneered. “This demon is truly persistent, actually recovering again.”

He stood outside the cave, unmoving. With the current power of the Refined Yang Umbrella, dealing with that 异魔 was not too difficult. The key was that such 异魔 were good at hiding. If he failed to kill it in one strike, it would inevitably escape again. Therefore, the Refined Yang Umbrella could not be used immediately.

About half a day later, a gray shadow slowly emerged from the cave. At first, it had no face. After a moment, the shape of its face began to change, eventually settling into the appearance of Sun Muyang.

“I've seen you before! Who are you?” The gray shadow's voice was somewhat stilted, but the words were relatively fluent.

“Are you Sun Muyang?” Zhang Yuanjing asked in return.

“Sun… Yes, I am Sun Muyang. Have you been here before? Have you seen me?” The gray shadow's words were somewhat confused, perhaps because it had been refined once by the Refined Yang Umbrella, causing it to lose many memories.

“Are you not Perfected Being Wen?”

“Perfected Being Wen?” The gray shadow hesitated for a moment, then suddenly said firmly, “I am Sun Muyang. Wen Songnan is my enemy, and I have already killed him! He dared to harm me; he deserved to die!”

The gray shadow seemed somewhat agitated, its body trembling as it drifted a dozen feet outward. Zhang Yuanjing stood still.

“Perfected Being Sun, do you remember Wu Yuankui?”

The gray shadow was stunned, muttering, “Wu Yuankui? Who is Wu Yuankui? Have I met so many people?”

“That's right. If you are Perfected Being Sun, then you have met many people. Ling Xiao, Xuanyi, Wu Yuankui, Wen Zaidao, and many more. Think carefully?”

“How could I have met so many people?” The gray shadow shook its head, unsure whether it was denying or doubting. After a long while, it said, “Have these people all been here? Why do I have no impression of any of them?”

Zhang Yuanjing sighed inwardly, knowing that although this 异魔 had devoured the souls of Sun Muyang and Wen Songnan, it had lost all memory of both of them. Perhaps this 异魔 was not the same one that had originally devoured Sun and Wen.

“Why don't you leave this place?” Zhang Yuanjing asked.

“Why don't I leave this place?” The gray shadow cackled. “Because I am still missing a body. Now, I have finally waited!”

It suddenly disappeared. Immediately afterward, a cold aura pounced on Zhang Yuanjing.

Zhang Yuanjing guarded his primordial spirit and released the Qi of Supreme Yang. The cold aura stopped instantly upon colliding with the Qi of Supreme Yang, revealing the outline of the gray shadow.

At this moment, a Luo Umbrella rose, and a dark field covered a range of several dozen feet, fixing the gray shadow in place.

The gray shadow was both shocked and terrified, shouting angrily, “It's you, it's you again!”

It struggled desperately, but how could it be a match for the Refined Yang Umbrella, which had been tempered by lightning tribulations? It was completely immobilized.

A round of golden Yang swept across the black umbrella surface, and the blazing Qi landed on the gray shadow, gradually refining its body.

The 异魔, which was originally the size of a person, quickly shrank. In just a few breaths, only a piece the size of a palm remained.

It was still trembling violently, trying to escape from the Refined Yang Umbrella's dark domain. Compared to floating before, the gray shadow was now like cotton wool, making the refinement much slower.

Zhang Yuanjing took out the Yin-Yang Creation Furnace and, manipulating it, sucked the 异魔 into the furnace's belly.

As soon as the gray shadow entered the furnace, it became docile and stopped struggling, as if it had encountered its nemesis.

Zhang Yuanjing was secretly amazed. In the past, when refining low-level 异魔, he had not paid attention to this matter because their strength was weak. Today, he had captured this gray shadow, which was a demon at the Nascent Soul level, and was able to subdue it so easily, which exceeded his expectations. In this way, it also shows that this Yin-Yang Creation Furnace is indeed uniquely mysterious in refining demons.

He ignited the Yin and Yang fires and burned and refined the demon, which took a day and a night to complete. What he obtained was a black stone the size of a dragon's eye, whose Qi was quite similar to the stone core of the Void Sky Stone.

Zhang Yuanjing held the stone in his hand and weighed it a few times, feeling that its weight seemed quite heavy. He assumed that this 异魔, having devoured two Nascent Soul cultivators, had a very high level of spirituality, which led to this mutation. It was a pity that such 异魔 were too rare.

Storing the stone, he walked into the gourd cave. At the connection between the upper and lower parts of the gourd, lightning still flashed, and electric snakes moved, ready to strike down heavenly lightning at any time.

On the soil layer below, some large and small black stones were scattered, which were Void Sky Stones formed by heavenly lightning striking 异魔. Last time, he had taken away two slightly larger ones. Decades had passed, and another Void Sky Stone the size of a fist had appeared on the ground.

Having experienced the Nascent Soul lightning tribulation, he already understood that these Void Sky Stones were both the result of the will of heaven and earth killing 异魔 and the resources used by heaven and earth to replenish their power.

The extraordinary power formed by the Void Sky Stone he used when breaking through, which was refined by the tribulation lightning, was only absorbed in small part by him, Zhang Shi, and Ape Thirteen; most of it was actually scattered into the heavens and earth.

This place, which looked like a scar of heaven and earth, was constantly eroded by the Qi of Emptiness, but it also obtained Void Sky Stones through the bombardment and killing of 异魔, thereby replenishing fresh power to this world.

He took out the煞雷竹 (shà léi zhú, roughly translated as 'baleful thunder bamboo') and protected himself with it, slowly approaching the connection of the gourd cave. The thunder power in the thunder bamboo, drawn by the thunderclouds above, began to become active. Five feet away from the Void Sky Stones, the thunder bamboo was ready to move, as if it would release thunder power to bombard the Void Sky Stones.

He quickly stopped and, reaching out, grabbed the largest Void Stone.

Due to this change, the thunderclouds in the sky trembled, and a bolt of lightning struck down.

Zhang Yuanjing had already sacrificed the 源生石 (yuán shēng shí, roughly translated as 'source stone') and used the Art of Overturning Earth into Mountains to block it with an earth mountain.

“Boom!”

Mud and soil scattered, and smoke rose from the boulders.

“Zhang Shi, how is this lightning?”

“Master, this lightning hurts Zhang Shi quite a bit. However, it has not caused any damage.” Zhang Shi's voice was slightly aggrieved.

Zhang Yuanjing chuckled. “When I master the Mountain Moving Art, you won't have to fear such heavenly lightning. Even if it's a few times stronger, it won't matter.”

“Oh!”

Zhang Yuanjing put away the 源生石 and, looking at the various polarized spiritual powers around the thunderclouds, suddenly had an idea.

Because this place had a collision between the spiritual Qi of heaven and earth and the Qi of Emptiness for many years, it produced and accumulated a lot of polarized spiritual Qi, among which the pure power of earth was also not a few. If he could take it into the '裂土寻真' (liè tǔ xún zhēn, roughly translated as 'splitting earth to find truth') painting, it would be a good method.