Hearing that his senior sister was still around, Li Sheng stopped resisting. Their relationship had long surpassed that of a typical master-disciple bond; they were like family. "Foolish woman, we endured so much hardship for this, and even the pursuing giant monster nearly fell; in the end, we only got two, and you just gave one to an outsider?" A frustrated voice erupted from his senior sister, her aura fluctuating violently as it battled for control of her body. Liu Hongfeng smiled and said, "That's my junior brother... not an outsider, so don't cause a fuss..." With that, she gestured for Li Sheng to focus on his cultivation and flew toward another meat mountain.
Inside the demon's lair, energy overflowed, and the life essence was dense, making Li Sheng feel an intense sense of suffocation. After a moment of adaptation, he opened the jade box, intending to refine his clone first. The ratio of the blue and black fruits was just right. After playing with them for a bit, he bit into the blue side. A crunch echoed as the blue fruit transformed into a stream of energy that flowed into his mouth, leaving the black side intact.
Then, he drew out a third-grade spear and pierced his chest to draw a drop of blood, feeling a wave of weakness wash over him. Li Sheng focused and let the blood drop onto the black fruit. A deep fog began to rise, enveloping the fruit and forming a black sphere the size of a head, floating before him. Sighing in relief, he hurriedly absorbed the surrounding life essence.
Within him, the blue energy surged into his sea of consciousness. Moments later, the vast space of the sea of consciousness merged with his intention, forming an illusory two-colored fruit. His immense mental power flowed toward the sky, merging into the illusory fruit. As time passed, the illusion gradually solidified. During this process, his awareness seemed to split into two perspectives, uniquely connected a fascinating sensation.
Suddenly, the two-colored fruit began to spin, and a repulsive force arose between the two perspectives. "Bang!" A faint cracking sound echoed, causing the two-colored fruit to separate. The blue side sank to the lake's bottom, while the black side pierced through the sea of consciousness and dove into the black sphere.
Li Sheng opened his eyes, holding the black sphere as a sense of blood connection surged within him, as if it contained another version of himself. According to his senior sister, reaching this point meant success; now, it was time for it to absorb life essence and perfect itself. Setting the sphere aside, he moved downwards, landing beside a giant cocoon over ten zhang wide, where the life essence was even denser than that of a demon crystal.
Noticing this, Li Sheng returned to his previous position, bringing the black sphere with him, and waved his spear, creating a crack about ten feet long. Without hesitation, he stepped inside. He had checked earlier, and inside, the demon creatures were still just life essence, not yet formed. Setting the black sphere aside, Li Sheng examined his sea of consciousness. The departure of the black fruit had taken a quarter of his intention and mental power, but with the blue fruit's compensation, his intention and mental power had not diminished; instead, they strengthened by a third and became more refined.
"How long will the clone take to refine? Let's test the effect of this void liquid..." Li Sheng muttered to himself, retrieving a jade bottle and pouring it into his mouth. A chilling sensation surged through him, causing him to shudder. According to his senior sister, after taking the void liquid, once its effects fully disseminated, he could practice martial arts and refine his divine abilities. There was a chance for a spiritual form to undergo a mutation and evolve into a spatial attribute.
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Feeling enveloped by the cold, Li Sheng stood up and summoned the second divine ability seed, practicing repeatedly. The second tier divine ability contained ten beast forms, with the remaining two being water and wind forms. As he began to practice, the ten beast forms and water form remained unchanged, but the wind form started to mutate.
Li Sheng cleared his mind and sensed the pulse of the spiritual forms, arriving at the wind form. Winds swirled around him, sometimes gentle, sometimes fierce. Moments later, several blue wind blades began to spin ceaselessly, their sharp aura causing ripples in the space around him. Suddenly, the sharp howling of the wind ceased, and the blue wind blades gradually faded to transparency, merging into the surrounding space.
Invisible and intangible, they vanished completely. Yet in Li Sheng's perception, the space within a ten zhang radius seemed to become part of his body. As his intention fluctuated, the space rippled with tiny cracks, revealing an aura of desolation and stillness that jolted him awake. "Is it done?!"
Li Sheng opened his palm, and five dark cracks appeared three feet away. "The wind blades have transformed into spatial cuts..." A hint of joy crossed his face. The range of the spatial cut was only three feet, but it was well-hidden. If he ambushed someone, even the strongest master would suffer greatly. After trying it a few times, he was quite satisfied with its power; however, it consumed too much energy his spiritual power had already decreased by twenty percent.
"The limitations of the fourth-tier realm are still too great..." Li Sheng sighed. If he could break into the master realm, after being tempered by heaven and earth, he could harness the energy from the entire space, eliminating concerns over spiritual power.
Thinking about the fourth-tier realm, he took out the third set of spiritual martial arts and began studying. Cultivating in the core of the demon's lair was akin to treating top-tier pills as candy; aside from lacking the ability to achieve enlightenment like with top-tier pills, he was crushing it in every other aspect. He had already refined two tier divine ability seeds, making the practice of spiritual martial arts much smoother. Even without the enlightenment from top-tier pills, the results wouldn't be slow.
If he counted the time saved in body tempering, the efficiency might even surpass that of top-tier pills. Time passed, and suddenly the black sphere next to him surged with energy, jolting him from his meditation. Li Sheng stood up as a faint bird's call slowly faded away. "This place is indeed extraordinary; it only took such a short time to refine five spiritual forms..." Li Sheng marveled, sensing that no more than nine hours had passed.
"Maybe I should bring all the disciples from the sect here; with my senior sister's help, they could all reach the fourth tier in less than ten days." This thought flashed through his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. He didn't know much about this place; if something went wrong along the way, it would be too late to regret. "I'll ask my senior sister later and make further plans."
As he thought this, the black sphere before him intensified. The towering black sphere began to collapse inward, and moments later, a figure emerged. Its skin was like bronze, with well-defined muscles and wild black hair. He took out a clean set of clothes from his storage bag and tossed them to the figure. Watching the clone put on the clothes piece by piece, a strange sensation rose in his heart. It seemed like the clone was dressing, but that peculiar feeling was akin to experiencing it himself.