Chapter 55 - Split Soul Formation
The Bloody Arena saw many strange battles between unique individuals with a vast range of abilities, so it wasn’t often that the audience was left feeling stunned. However, Yaan’s methods were simply too strange in their eyes. Almost nobody could understand how it was that all of his spells seemed to completely lack Innate Qi, or any sot of energy for that matter!
How could they know that Yaan did not use Innate Qi, and that he was not using spells, but sword arts? Nobody would believe that he was using sword arts, because sword arts were not supposed to produce illusions without the usage of Innate Qi! Only the Spirit Core Realm elders seemed to understand, whilst very few Qi Temple Realm elders were able to make some conjectures.
In truth, even Yaan himself did not quite understand how he was doing this!
As Yaan stood there with his sword stabbed through Shin Jinni’s throat, it was as if the mystical illusory scenes from before were all part of a dream.
With the sword still impaling his neck, the stunned old man fell to his knees and struggled to raise his hands towards the centre of his armour. Seeing this, Yaan narrowed his eyes.
Yaan acted before the old man could touch the armour.
Chi Chi!
After removing the sword from his throat, Yaan quickly sliced through both of the old man’s wrists in rapid succession, liberating both of his hands from his body. He had the feeling that this armour wasn’t simple, and that it would cause him no end of troubles if this old man touched the central formation of the strange golden treasure.
This was simply a feeling of his, but Yaan trusted his instincts more than anything else in this world.
“Ahhh!” Shin Jinni stared at his bloody stumps blankly for a moment, before he suddenly realised what had happened and let out a piercing scream. As he cried out, blood spurted out from the hole in his throat, causing his scream to sound gargled.
“You, you can’t kill me! You can’t kill me! You can’t, I’m-” Shin Jinni looked up at Yaan and started shouting, but due to the hole in his neck, his words were muffled and he continuously coughed as he spoke.
Swichi!
Yaan quickly slashed at his neck, sending his head flying from his shoulders and ending his life instantly.
Yaan couldn’t help but think that there was actually one benefit of having his dantian crippled; his body no longer absorbed the Slaughter Aura of those he killed, so he was not longer assaulted by feelings of bloodlust every time he cut down a powerful opponent. The ability to absorb Slaughter Aura was an attribute of the fiend’s dantian, so with a crippled dantian, he simply didn’t absorb the Slaughter Aura at all.
The battle was over. However, despite beheading his opponent, Yaan felt like something wasn’t right. This was a strange instinct of his, but these instincts had been honed across multiple life and death experiences!
Yaan quickly located the source of his worries and stabbed down into the golden armour, shattering the central formation that was now thoroughly weakened since it was not being maintained by the wearer.
The formation shattered and hateful screams echoed out, before nine strands of light flew off in opposite directions. Yaan felt bewildered by this bizarre scene, but he quickly reached out and grabbed the nine strands of light. Surprisingly, he found that he was able to touch these strands of light with his hand.
He examined each of the unusual things with a dubious gaze. After seeing that they each contained a different variation of Shin Jinni’s aura, Yaan squeezed his hand mercilessly and shattered the nine lights without a second thought.
Finally, the feeling that something was amiss vanished. Yaan had no idea what had just happened, but he had the distinct feeling that if he had allowed those lights escape, then Shin Jinni would have somehow survived!
Yaan furrowed his brows when he thought this, showing a confused expression.
‘Why do I want to kill him so much? It’s not like we have an irreconcilable grudge, and I’m pretty sure I won as soon as I stabbed his throat and destroyed the formation…’
Yaan wasn’t the type of person that loved killing. In the past, he was actually quite resistant to the idea of killing, but he was no longer that same naive child. He killed when he needed to, or at least when there was a reason to do so. However, he didn’t just slaughter for fun like some demons, ‘killing for the sake of killing’.
He couldn’t lie to himself that he was a good, righteous, saint of a person, but neither was he a sadistic, blood crazed demon. Yaan didn’t like killing, he still despised this side of the cultivation world in fact, but he was no longer averse to killing in most situations. The cultivation world was cruel, it was often kill or be killed, and Yaan refused to be the one to die.
Yaan wasn’t actually questioning his heart right now. No, rather than that, he was genuinely curious about why his instincts had screamed at him that he absolutely needed to ensure that Shin Jinni was killed properly.
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‘Perhaps it was a vague premonition, that if I allowed him to escape, it wouldn’t end well for me.’ Yaan could only settle on this answer.
Anyway, he stopped thinking about it for now. With a glance, Yaan turned towards the dismembered corpse. Ignoring the stunned crowd, he swiftly collected the golden armour and spear.
Whoosh!
“Here, elder.” Yaan handed the spear over to the Ghu Clan Elder without hesitation.
If a Spirit Core Realm powerhouse wanted it, then Yaan had no intention of trying to keep it for himself. Shin Jinni was rich, and the armour was definitely more precious than the spear anyway. Nadda’s great grandfather was already being generous and showing his good will by allowing Yaan to keep all but three of Shin Jinni’s treasures.
He left the arena to the background sounds of thunderous cheers and awestruck chatter. He was followed by Ghu Nadda and his great grandfather, who were both wearing serious expressions as they watched Yaan’s back.
They entered a hall that was usually reserved for Ghu Clan access only. Since Ghu Nadda’s great grandfather was a Ghu Clan Elder though, nobody would dare say anything about it.
“Yaan, you can’t use Innate Qi, right…?” Nadda couldn’t help but ask as soon as they were out of earshot of anyone else.
“Mm, that’s right.” Yaan nodded.
“But then…how did you create those shocking scenes…those wind blades…the water sword…the typhoon?”
Yaan blinked, surprised to see Nadda so shocked for once. Besides, he was fairly certain that he had created similar scenes before.
In the end, Yaan shrugged.
“Not sure, it just happened.”
“Hahaha, so it’s like this, you don’t even understand it yourself.” Nadda’s teacher and great grandfather laughed amusedly. Still, he didn’t hide the gleam of admiration from his eyes when looking at Yaan. “Unknowingly, you have been comprehending the dao of illusion to turn the essence of your sword arts into a reality. It has nothing to do with Innate Qi, or any energy for that matter, but dao comprehension…usually, such a level of comprehension would only be found on Rank 4 beings, but your dao comprehension is simply too far ahead of your cultivation.”
“Dao…the dao of illusions?” Yaan asked dazedly.
Dao…
Dao was the most illusive concept in the cultivation world. It was said that at higher cultivation realms, it was necessary to comprehend dao in order to progress. At lower realms, like the Innate Qi and Qi Temple Realms, this comprehension was also needed, but only to a minor degree. To reach the Spirit or Demon Core Realm, it was necessary to comprehend a specific dao, and to use this dao comprehension to break past the realm boundary.
Dao could be nameless, but dao could also be named. A cultivator could comprehend dao as a general concept of enlightenment, or they could comprehend a very specific type of dao, such as the dao of fire or the dao of water. In order to break through to the Core Realms, it was necessary to gain this sort of specific dao comprehension. The requirement was generally higher for Qi refiners than for body temperers, but those who cultivated their body still needed dao comprehension nonetheless.
“Don’t worry about it too much.” The old Ghu Clan Elder chuckled when he saw Yaan’s confused expression. “With your comprehension, you will naturally come to understand it one day. For people like yourself, it is best to comprehend it on your own.”
Yaan nodded slowly and decided to stop thinking about it for now. Dao was too abstract, and right now, it was not important for his cultivation.
He turned his attention to the armour. As Yaan studied the golden armour, he glanced at Ghu Nadda’s great grandfather with a doubtful expression.
“You’re really letting me keep this?”
After seeing the bizarre formation on the golden armour, he realised that this item was nothing ordinary. Even now, the shattered formation was starting to restore itself! The old man noticed this and showed a serious expression, before placing his palm down onto the red rune.
Yaan stepped back to give the elder some space, but he didn’t expect the old man’s face to instantly turn pale. He trembled slightly and a trickle of blood even appeared at the corner of his mouth!
Yaan was shocked. This tiny formation could injure a Demon Core Realm powerhouse so quickly?!
After focussing on the formation intently for a few minutes, the Ghu Clan Elder finally removed his palm and furrowed his brows.
He swallowed an unknown pill, allowing most of the colour to quickly return to his face. He then formed a hand seal, manifesting a red rune between the tips of his fingers, before repeating this another 80 times, forming a total of 81 overlapping runes. The translucent glowing runes unhurriedly fused together, before suddenly dropping down and slamming into the formation on the armour.
Bang!
“Peugh!”
“Teacher!” Ghu Nadda’s eyes widened and he exclaimed. Seeing the elder cough up blood so violently also stunned Yaan. In his eyes, a Demon Core Realm Ghu Clan Elder was almost a peak existence in the Ghu Province, he didn’t expect this random formation to give him so much trouble!
The old man didn’t respond, but his expression became even more ferocious. He wiped his mouth and snorted coldly.
“Break the former, replace with present. Devour!” After chanting this, a fluorescent red disk appeared on the surface of his palm. This red disk was small, but it released an aura that caused Yaan to feel extremely apprehensive.
Suddenly, the Ghu Clan Elder slapped the golden armour so hard that metal ringing noises echoed throughout the hall!
“Hah…” Finally, he stood up straight with a look of satisfaction.
“So…” Yaan didn’t know where to begin. The old man chuckled and shook his head slowly, his gaze flashing as he stared at the armour.
“I really never expected it to be like this…that Shin Jinni, his soul had been converted into a strange form and stored inside of this bizarre formation in the armour! The armour’s power stemmed from it having a sentient treasure spirit, the spirit being Shin Jinni himself…now that the spirit has been killed, its power will be much weaker. I changed the formation such that a new spirit can be added at any time…but this isn’t an ordinary spiritual treasure. It seems to require a portion of the wearer’s soul to become the formation spirit! Only, that crazy fool actually split his soul into nine and placed all nine fragments within the armour! No, perhaps it was his teacher who altered the armour to absorb and split his soul. As for why, I have no idea…”
All of this was a lot for Yaan to take in. He didn’t know much about the soul, only that the mortal soul would develop into an Origin Soul at the Origin Soul Realm or a Primal Soul at the Primal Soul Realm, also known as the 5-Star Realm.
Splitting souls was a technique beyond his understanding. The old Ghu Clan Elder understood this and didn't say much more, but he still insisted that Yaan keep the armour.
“It’s still a good spiritual treasure for someone at your level, even without being complete. If you decide to complete it in the future, it will become at least ten times more formidable. As for me…it has no use to me. Splitting my soul at my stage will only cause me troubles when trying to reach the Origin Soul Realm.”
Yaan nodded, not realising that even the Ghu Clan Elder didn’t really understand this treasure properly. The fact that Yaan was able to touch Shin Jinni’s fragmented soul with his bare hand was enough to tell the elder that something was wrong with this treasure.
After taking the golden spear, the old man emptied Shin Jinni’s spatial ring, took two more items, then directly left.
Staring at the mountain of treasure which was left behind, Yaan felt like he was dreaming. He couldn’t even identify 80% of these things, nor could he guess their value, or even their rough usage!
In the end, Nadda agreed to sort everything for Yaan with the help of some specialists. If Yaan tried to sort through these things, he would first need to spend multiple years studying up on treasures, which he simply didn’t have the time for right now. Yaan insisted that Nadda should keep anything extremely useful to him, as well as the 15 Rank 4 recovery pills that he owed the young ghoul. They would both be working together in the inheritance after all, it would be beneficial for both of them if either of them improved.
A few days later, the loot was not only sorted, but everything useless to Yaan was directly converted to Rank 4 recovery pills, making Yaan feel a bit rich. He was sure that the Ghu Clan ‘specialists’ likely undervalued many items and kept some good things for themselves, but there was no other way around it, since Yaan couldn’t even identify the items.
He needed wealth right now, before the opening of the inheritance, so he would just need to accept this loss in exchange for the immediate benefits. Anyway, before handing the treasures over to Nadda, Yaan had kept anything which looked particularly valuable for himself.
Even after many items were converted into Rank 4 recovery pills, he still had multiple life saving treasures and spiritual treasures in his possession…all of which he was unable to use.
Yaan didn’t hesitate to spend a large portion of his wealth immediately, but even after purchasing all of the resources he could possibly need, he still had 46 Rank 4 recovery pills in disposable funds!
Soon after they finished sorting through everything, Ghu Nadda entered closed door cultivation in an attempt to reach the 4th Layer Qi Palace Realm. Meanwhile, Yaan finally decided to attempt his own breakthrough.
The breakthrough to the 3-Star Realm!