Chapter 1411: The Improved Life-Bound Insect Gu

The Sky-Eyed Butterfly's fleeting glimpse had caught only a sliver of what lay below, yet that sliver left Qin Sang with an acute sense of danger.

He could not explain it outright to Valley Master Mu and the others, so he settled for an ambiguous warning. If they chose not to heed it, he would not press the matter. At the very least, he himself intended to wait until the pillar of light weakened before venturing in.

Fortunately, all three of them were shrewd and seasoned enough that their own instincts told them the place was far from simple, sparing Qin Sang any further persuasion.

"The question is how long we'll have to wait..." The cultivator surnamed Qi looked around with a worried expression.

Ethereal Sea was no longer the placid expanse it had once been. The aftershocks radiating from the pillar of light had whipped up the fiercest of storms, and their reach extended across the entire sea. Everywhere the eye fell, towering waves surged skyward.

Ahead of them the water had collapsed inward, forming an enormous crater that laid bare the source of the pillar along with the shattered lotus.

Apart from the four of them, not another figure or vessel was in sight for the moment. All of them understood that this was only temporary.

A commotion on such a scale could not possibly be concealed. Low-level cultivators were of no concern, but if any Spiritual Infant cultivators were nearby, they would certainly be drawn here.

Recalling all the time and effort he had poured into breaking the array, Valley Master Mu could not help but smile bitterly. "Let's watch and wait. Everyone should recover first so we're ready for whatever comes next. If this drags on too long, I'm afraid it'll turn into an all-out scramble for the treasure..."

Setting everything else aside, the Jade-Carrying Bee he had valued so highly had self-destructed for this. He had deployed the Three-Spirit Coiling King Array twice and refined two altars, an enormous expenditure in its own right.

On top of that, he had struck a bargain with Qin Sang. He could only hope the harvest ahead would make up for the losses.

With the lotus broken, the Three-Spirit Coiling King Array would likely be unnecessary below. Once they entered Pure Sea Sect, the Fire Jade Centipede's own cultivation would be enough to sense the Myriad Spirit Fruit.

Valley Master Mu halted the insect array. Qin Sang beckoned with one hand and the Fire Jade Centipede flew back into his palm. Its body, once like fire jade itself, had turned dull and lusterless.

It lay sprawled across his hand, unwilling to so much as stir the legs along its sides, its whole body rigid and its qi listless. Had Qin Sang not still been able to sense its consciousness, he might have taken it for a sculpture.

Pop!

Qin Sang produced a jade bottle. Inside was the spiritual dew Valley Master Mu had given him, which could ease a spiritual insect's injuries. They would still need the Fire Jade Centipede to guide them once they entered Pure Sea Sect, so any recovery at all was worth having.

A drop of spiritual dew fell before the centipede and was licked clean at once. It rallied slightly, its body swaying a fraction before it sank into a deep sleep. Qin Sang glanced at it, then withdrew his hand into his robes.

"Daoist Mu?" Qin Sang was reminding him that their earlier bargain had come due.

The Fire Jade Centipede had done its part and the entrance had been found. It was hardly Qin Sang's fault that they could not enter right now.

Valley Master Mu sighed softly and, with some reluctance, tossed him a jade slip.

Qin Sang offered his thanks and immediately sent his spiritual consciousness into it. Naturally, Valley Master Mu had not handed over the entire inheritance. The slip contained only Hundred Flowers Valley's transmission of the life-bound insect gu technique.

Qin Sang had anticipated as much, yet reading it he still could not help marveling. The two really did share a common origin.

He had not been mistaken. Hundred Flowers Valley's life-bound insect gu technique was indeed a refinement of the witch race's inheritance, reworked into a secret technique suited to human cultivators, and the method of refinement was an eye-opener for Qin Sang.

Even cultivating the original version of the life-bound insect gu technique, Qin Sang could not have achieved this.

It made him wonder whether the world truly held prodigies of such caliber, capable of receiving an unprecedented secret technique and conceiving a method like this out of thin air.

But the alterations were not without flaws.

First, any disciple cultivating the life-bound insect gu had to possess a water-based spiritual root, and had to take a spiritual insect attuned to water-based power as their life-bound insect gu, in order to minimize the risk of being devoured by it.

Qin Sang shot a glance at Valley Master Mu. No wonder every Hundred Flowers Valley disciple's life-bound spiritual insect was of that type, the valley master himself included.

Second, even after the alterations, a spiritual insect remained less intimate with its master than the life-bound insect gu of a witch cultivator.

The jade slip's contents were limited to what lay below the Spiritual Infant Realm, but Qin Sang did not press for more. This alone revealed a great deal to him.

Altering a secret technique grew more difficult the higher the realm. Qin Sang suspected Hundred Flowers Valley's inheritance had a limit, likely reaching only the late stage of the Spiritual Infant Realm, perhaps only the middle stage. He wondered whether Valley Master Mu's willingness to risk everything storming the Pure Sea Sect stemmed from a search for the road beyond.

"Oh?" A thought struck him suddenly.

Hundred Flowers Valley's inheritance was inferior to the original. Their bond with their life-bound insect gu was not as close as the one between him and the Sky-Eyed Butterfly.

This meant his own odds of successfully performing the Spirit Elevation Rite with the Sky-Eyed Butterfly were higher than those of a Hundred Flowers Valley cultivator!

The unexpected discovery delighted him. If he could find the Myriad Spirit Fruit soon, his confidence would be greater still. It was a pity the Fire Jade Centipede was not a life-bound insect gu; whether it could ever break through to the fourth metamorphosis rested on its own luck alone.

As for the fat silkworm, Qin Sang had been wavering over whether to perform the Spirit Elevation Rite on it.

The fat silkworm was not his spiritual insect, so the odds of success would be pitifully small, and squandering the opportunity for nothing hardly seemed worthwhile.

Besides, the fat silkworm's talents were narrow, and it could already shrug off the virulent poison released by the Transformation Realm frog-fish with ease. That was enough to handle most situations, so there was no need to force an advancement for now.

These thoughts flickered through his mind.

Qin Sang destroyed the jade slip in full view of Valley Master Mu and transmitted with a wry smile, "No wonder you agreed so readily, Daoist. It requires cultivating the life-bound insect gu, which occupies the position of one's life-bound astra. Even in possession of this secret technique, I could never cultivate it now."

Valley Master Mu laughed heartily. "Our sect's inheritance is a peculiar one, and its demands on natural talent are exceedingly high. Even were your aptitude sufficient, Daoist Master, the chance to cultivate it has long since passed you by. Still, this was created through the painstaking efforts of our ancestors, and it should offer you some inspiration."

"Well said, Daoist." Qin Sang nodded perfunctorily.

While the two of them conversed by voice transmission, the phenomenon showed no sign of weakening. Its momentum only grew stronger, swelling to fully twice what it had been moments before, and Qin Sang and the others were forced to retreat a further distance.

Time slipped slowly past. Before long a night had gone by and the morning of the second day arrived. Tireless, they watched every last change in the phenomenon.

Far off, a ship drifted on the surface with several figures standing aboard. Two of them were Golden Core Realm cultivators who had been passing through Ethereal Sea. Spotting the phenomenon, they had assumed a great treasure was emerging and hurried over in delight to seek it out, only to run headlong into four Spiritual Infant grandmasters. They trembled with fear.

Fortunately the four were not the vicious sort and did not kill them to silence them.

Not long after, another treasure ship belonging to immortal cultivators drifted in and was likewise detained, bound to the sea's surface by a simple barrier. No one dared voice an objection.

Ethereal Sea was safe waters and had always been the site of important shipping routes. More and more people and vessels were drawn in, and all of them were kept there. As for those elsewhere, Qin Sang and the others were long past being able to do anything about them.

In the blink of an eye another day and night passed. The phenomenon raged more violently than ever, and still no Spiritual Infant cultivators had shown themselves.

Just as their anxiety reached its peak, the pillar of light finally ceased its expansion, its rise turning at last to decline.

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