Closing the interface and putting it in the spatial bag, Liu Xing walked a little faster than before. He was in a hurry but still wanted to take it slow to digest the last three battles and enjoy the green scenery around him.
Liu Xing decided to summon his gun and observe it. This gun had turned his life around. Without it, he would still be a nobody among the outer sect disciples. Still, the gun also brought responsibility. He would never forget the day Nui's fragment visited him. The image of Mamat, Joni, and Nui fighting something that looked like an overwhelmingly strong spirit beast was still fresh in his mind.
Liu Xing filled the gun with qi, and it converted his qi into normal variant bullets. He threw the gun into the air for no reason. The gun spun in the sky, light gleaming from it, and he wondered if he would die if he did this race without his gun.
Catching the gun with his left hand, Liu Xing checked the grin strips beside it. There was no glow since he had already absorbed the beast core from the moss, but even these normal variants would be useful in most circumstances. Once again, he wondered what this gun truly was. Was it really made from the darkness he was supposed to defeat?
Absorbing the bullets, Liu Xing felt pure qi coursing through his hand and settling in his chest. Usually, he would channel this pure qi into his necklace or gauntlets, but since there were no enemies, there was no reason to do it.
As he jumped from a small waterfall and landed in a creek below, Liu Xing played with this qi. He sent it to his feet, hands, ears, and all over his body. He smiled a little when he felt that this qi was like an excited puppy moving around.
As he played with this qi, he also wondered about it. What was this qi? Unconsciously, Liu Xing had called it pure qi, but that wasn't quite right. Pure qi was just a type of qi not tempered by other sources, and some people cultivated using this type of qi.
"I think it's better to call it potent qi instead of pure qi," Liu Xing thought.
He nodded to himself. The qi from converted bullets was potent; it could activate his treasures with less qi and strengthen his techniques, making them easier to control.
"What if I use this potent qi to cultivate?" Liu Xing wondered, pinching his chin.
People couldn't fill their locks with self-produced qi; it was like trying to fill a well with water from the same well. But in this case, it was a little different since he had converted the qi and made it more potent.
As he contemplated it, Liu Xing's heart suddenly beat faster. What if he could do this? What if he could cultivate using the potent qi? Would this mean he could advance infinitely without doing a single thing? What an oversight! He should have realized this from the start!
Taking a deep breath, Liu Xing tried to restrain his excitement. It sounded too good to be true, but this gun was overpowered, so he couldn't know if he didn't try.
Sitting on top of a rock in the center of the creek, Liu Xing absorbed this potent qi settled in his chest into his consciousness. In his mind, this qi poured in like a small waterfall. Then, he directed this waterfall toward the last lock with excitement filling his heart.
Liu Xing pushed the qi inside his lock, trying to make it settle and fill the lock. But as he tried, he felt strong resistance from the lock, as if he were trying to push a blunt nail into the strongest wall in the world.
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When he realized that he could not cultivate his converted qi, disappointment surged in his heart, and Liu Xing pulled the qi out of the lock. It seemed that he couldn't have this shortcut to immortality.
As he opened his eyes in the real world, he sighed. While the result was disappointing, it helped him understand more about his gun and this potent qi. This reaction, like pushing a blunt nail against a wall, was the same as when someone pushed their own qi into the lock. It proved that this converted qi, while potent and extraordinary, was still his qi. Otherwise, he could have cultivated infinitely using this converted qi.
This conclusion made him wonder how strong the real Nui was. While the gun did not give him a free ticket to immortality, the weapon is still overpowered, and to send a fragment of himself to other worlds and give him this overpowered gun, Nui must be unfathomably strong, perhaps even as powerful as a god.
Thinking about this made Liu Xing wonder who the strongest person in this world was. Then, he wondered if whoever was the strongest in this world could replicate what Nui did.
As he thought deeply about what the strongest people in this world could do, he was actually trying to recall information about higher realms. After all, the world of xianxia is always layered, there are mountains beyond mountains, skies beyond skies, and higher realms beyond normal realms. He believed that there was also a higher world beyond this world, but surprisingly, there wasn't even a single mention of ascension. As far as he knew, the peak of power was only reaching the highest realm and becoming an immortal, not ascending to higher realms.
After pondering for a moment, Liu Xing shook his head and began to walk again. While thinking about higher realms was exciting, Liu Xing suspected it was still too far away for him. He was just a bird trying to soar higher into the sky, while higher realms were like a faraway sun in deep space.
As he walked, Liu Xing also thought about the frog and the moss and fox duo, and how abnormally strong they were. He wondered about the mummy in the deep lake and why that inverted pyramid could bend space around it and conceal its qi completely.
As Liu Xing jumped over a fallen tree blocking the way, he finally arrived right at the front of the giant river. The water was brown, as if someone had dug up the river bottom and made it muddy. He knew he was further downstream from where he had destroyed the pyramid. After all, this brown color must be because the water was carrying earth and mud from where he had created a big hole in the ground.
Turning his head to the left, he considered going to Second Gray Cloud City to get clothes for himself. After all, he was now bare-chested and only wearing pants. While the cold air didn't bother him, he wanted to be presentable if he met someone. But the people there must still be in an uproar about him, and he didn't want to deal with another uproar.
Liu Xing aimed his gun toward the direction of the city and willed himself to be invisible, thinking it would be better if no one saw him. But the invisibility didn't spread, and he dismissed his gun with a sigh. He didn't feel threatened by the city, so he couldn't turn invisible.
"Let's just buy clothes in the next city," he decided.
As he tried to remember where Whirling Cloud City was, Liu Xing heard heavy footsteps and the sound of a galloping horse. He checked his surroundings and saw a group emerge from the foliage across the river. The group consisted of ten people. Leading them was a giant black horse with a tan man wearing ornate silver armor on top. His face was stern, his eyes focused, and strapped to his back was a silver spear, its tip gleaming in the light. Around him were nine men, also wearing silver armor, albeit plainer and less shiny. Each wore a helmet and carried a spear, eyeing Liu Xing with a hint of nervousness and determination, as if they wanted to subdue a tiger successfully.
But Liu Xing knew their leader wasn't the man on top of the horse. While that man was at the sixth stage of the Lock Opening realm, Liu Xing could feel another qi approaching. He looked upward and soon saw a man riding atop a giant silver sword. He stood like an emperor overseeing his nation, with his hands behind his back.
His skin was white, he had long black hair, and a relatively handsome face with sharp eyebrows. Yet his face was contorted into an ugly, angry expression, veins popping up around his eyes, which were red as if he was angry and sad at the same time.
That man soon leaped from the sword and landed in front of the group. As he landed, the man on top of the horse got off and stood behind him.