Sword Sect Outer Sect

Chapter 2 Yin and Yang
size……

It is no different from the other array beads, and seems to be slightly larger, but the difference is minimal.

Color...

Waste pills are usually grayish-white, but the array beads in this set of discarded array plates are crescent-white.

But this one has a certain indescribable feel to it; if I had to pinpoint a difference…

The white of this bead is purer.

Weight and feel...

Song Yan held the array bead in his left hand and the "strange bead" in his right, weighing it up and down and rubbing it carefully.

This strange bead seemed lighter and had a rougher feel, more like an unpolished jade.

Upon examining the strange bead with divine sense, no spiritual energy fluctuations were found.

A discarded ritual implement?
The strange stone bead looks intact and undamaged, but perhaps there is something wrong with it inside.

He knew absolutely nothing about crafting magical artifacts.

He casually tossed it into his storage bag.

"Take these to Xiaohe to play with when you go down the mountain. She loves these round things the most."

After searching around, a total of six array beads were found.

The Minor Spirit Gathering Array can be activated with just five array beads, but usually a few more are refined for backup.

In short, it's sufficient for the formation to function normally.

It's just unknown whether his attempt to modify the array, done by a complete novice, will be able to make the array work.

“You’ll know after you try it.”

Having made up his mind, he walked out of the garbage dump.

There are not many formalities. After paying the spirit stones, you can leave at any time without disturbing the steward's cultivation.

Song Yan left without saying goodbye to Steward Xu.

……

Dongyuan Sect, Outer Gate.

Aoba Peak.

Numbered Xuanzi Sanjiu, it was merely an ordinary outer disciple's cave dwelling.

Song Yan sat cross-legged on the stone bed, manipulating a formation stone similar in size to the formation plate with his spiritual power, examining it closely.

As subtle spiritual energy flowed, a section of the array stone was gradually chipped away.

"call……"

After a moment, he let out a long sigh of relief.

"It should be almost done."

At this moment, he didn't have much spiritual energy left in his body, but he still managed to condense a wisp of it, which flowed little by little along the patterns on the array plate.

In the center of the array plate, the patterns lit up inch by inch until they covered the entire array plate.

"Great, it actually works!"

Song Yan was overjoyed; all his efforts had finally paid off.

After all, it was something salvaged from Huogongzhai, and it was basically scrap. If it could be used normally after simple repairs, then it was pure luck.

I've been collecting trash for over half a year, and this kind of situation has happened no more than once.

His study of formations was only at the most basic level.

Perhaps due to his experience of living two lives in this world, his spiritual sense is slightly stronger than that of ordinary people.

This one point alone can determine a lot.

He found that he learned things very quickly, whether it was refining Qi-nourishing pills or getting a basic understanding of formations, it didn't take him too long.

Of course, there are also relatively simple factors involved in these two aspects.

He knew very well that with his aptitude and talent, whether it was alchemy or formations, once he really delved into them, his original cultivation speed would plummet even further.

Therefore, in the art of alchemy, he only studied and refined the simplest Qi-nourishing pills to supplement his cultivation resources.

In terms of formations, he only had a rough understanding of the basics and could roughly know how they worked.

He spent all the remaining time cultivating.

Having completed everything, Song Yan did not immediately begin working on a breakthrough.

Today, after practicing alchemy and formations, I am somewhat exhausted in both spiritual energy and spirit. To attempt a breakthrough now would be tantamount to courting death.

He took a spirit stone in his left hand and held it in his palm, slowly recovering his spiritual power.

As if guided by some strange force, my gaze fell upon that odd bead…

The bead lay quietly in his palm, without a trace of spiritual energy.

What on earth is this?
When divine sense probed into it, there was nothing there except for an unowned spiritual energy restriction.

Judging from its appearance, this should be a magical artifact... or part of a magical artifact.

The fact that the spiritual energy restriction is unclaimed means that the original owner of this magical artifact has died or actively severed the connection with it.

A careful scan with divine sense revealed that the spiritual energy contained within the spiritual energy restriction was incomplete and was currently recovering subtly and slowly.

"It seems that someone had already broken the barrier before, but ultimately discarded it."

Song Yan didn't feel disappointed. It was perfectly normal that nine out of ten things he salvaged from the garbage dump of Huogong Village were useless.

However, since I've already brought them back, I've already done so.

Breaking the seal was just a piece of cake. I'll see what this thing is. If it's really useless, I'll just give it to Xiao He when we get down the mountain.

About an hour later, most of the spiritual energy in his body had been restored.

Click.

He watched with heartache as the spirit stone in his hand lost its luster, turned gray and brittle, and began to crack from the edges.

"Sixteen spirit stones remain."

Of the forty-two spirit stones earned from selling pills today, thirty should be set aside to purchase alchemy materials and other expenses for next month.

Adding the four spirit stones that were originally left, there are now sixteen spirit stones left.

He saved each pill one by one and refined them one by one.

"A fortune lost will return... it will return..."

He comforted himself and casually took out the strange stone bead.

With a surge of spiritual energy, the barrier was broken.

This is the most basic restriction. Judging from its complexity, it could be opened by an ordinary cultivator at the first level of Qi Refining.

"Whose failed attempt was this, crafting disciple?"

Song Yan, puzzled, broke the restriction.

"..."

As he tentatively poured in his spiritual energy, it was like a stone sinking into the sea, without causing any ripples.

"..."

Nothing happened.

A scan with divine sense yielded no results.

"Hey..."

What a waste of time.

He made a self-deprecating remark and prepared to put the stone bead away.

Just then, he suddenly felt a tremendous force pulling at him, and his consciousness was being torn apart by something!
The pain was excruciating, as if the wound had been torn open from the very depths of my soul.

"This?!" He tried to withdraw his consciousness, but it was too late. Before he could react, he was pulled in by the suction force.

His consciousness remained clear, yet it felt as if he were falling into an abyss, constantly sinking.

The feeling of suffocation made him want to grab onto something, but his consciousness began to blur until, at a certain moment, he sank into the "water".

Bang!
Although it was clearly submerged in water, it seemed as if the two worlds had been reversed.

The Song banquet has "emerged" from the "surface"!
He knelt on the inky black ground, panting heavily.

"What kind of place is this...?"

Adjust your mindset and look up.

He stood in a void as dark as ink.

This void is empty and boundless, with only black and white intertwined and chaos surging.

Occasionally, ancient black and white characters would appear from nowhere, disappear, and repeat endlessly.

"?"

Song Yan looked down at himself; he was still wearing the Taoist robe of an outer disciple of the Dongyuan Sect.

It was very blurry, indistinct, and when touched lightly, it was just an illusion.

"Could it be that my soul has left my body...?"

The thought made me laugh.

Ascending to heaven overnight?
Daydreaming.

Song Yan guessed that this was just a mimicry of his divine sense in this space.

He stopped trying to figure out why he could "emerge from his body like an ant" and instead looked around, beginning to explore the space.

"It doesn't look like it's for storage..."

He had never seen such a large storage space before, and besides, he had tried to put things in it when he was outside, but he couldn't.

Unable to get out either way, he started walking forward.

He was soon surprised to discover that he seemed to be able to shrink the distance between people and move at an incredible speed.

"what?"

I tried floating in the air again.

"Is it really okay?"

In this space, he seemed to be able to do whatever he wanted...

However, this space is too monotonous.

He tried flying for a while, but the lack of realism quickly made him lose interest, and he landed back on the ink-like ground.

He reached out to touch the black and white characters that came into being, but he couldn't grasp anything.

"How do we get out..."

Just then, in the virtual realm, somewhere in front of Song Yan, two ancient characters of different colors appeared faster and more densely, until in a certain instant, they condensed into a black stone tablet.

They took a few steps and arrived in front of the black stone tablet.

On the pitch-black stele, pure white, ancient characters are engraved.

The first few small characters seemed to be the title of an inscription, but they were blurry and indistinct, so I ignored them.

After reading the inscription over and over, Song Yan was startled.

This must be some kind of secret technique or mantra for cultivating divine sense.

The inscription is short, with just over 380 characters, each word a gem. After a moment of silent reading, I quickly memorized it.

hum-

Just as Song Yan was still immersed in the nameless incantation, specks of black light began to gather on the white sky. In a short while, they solidified into a giant black monument, which fell rapidly toward where he was.

"?!"

Startled, he hurriedly tried to resist, but there was no spiritual power available in this space; only his divine sense could be released.

Before he could think, the giant black monument fell straight down, and he instinctively released his divine sense to meet it.

laugh.

Unexpectedly, the divine sense transformed into a sharp blade, splitting the black giant monument in two, which then dissipated into ink-like fragments throughout the space.

"Huh? This..."

Song Yan exclaimed in surprise, but before he could ponder why his divine sense had such an effect, the second black giant stele condensed again and crashed down.

Without time to hesitate, his divine sense condensed once more, and another sharp ray of light cleaved through the giant monument.

At this moment, his divine consciousness was already struggling to continue.

Transforming divine sense into a blade seems to have consumed a considerable amount of energy.

The black monolith seemed tireless, coalescing once more above his head.

"Again?!"

Song Yan instinctively tried to dodge, but only when he was right in front of it did he realize just how big the giant stele was.

"..."

In that instant of facing life and death, he felt his movements and reactions become very slow, and all sounds receded from his ears like the tide.

boom! ! !
The deathly silence in my ears suddenly turned into a roar.

Space, stone tablets, ancient characters...

Like a bursting bubble, it vanished in an instant, and the scene in my sight receded like the tide.

……

"hiss……"

it hurts.

Song Yan, suffering from a splitting headache, awoke from the stone bed.

His divine consciousness was shattered by the black giant monument, leaving him extremely exhausted. The moment his divine consciousness faced death was still vivid in his mind.

His brows furrowed as he gazed intently at the stone bead still held in his hand.

The cave was shrouded in deathly silence.

"..."

"This thing should not be known to outsiders..."

At this point, how could he not realize that this was a treasure?

Putting everything else aside, there are very few cultivation methods that specialize in cultivating spiritual consciousness; at least Song Yan had never heard of them.

For this reason alone, this stone bead can be considered a treasure.

But why, despite the numerous signs of previous investigations, was this item still abandoned in Huogong Village, and even about to be poured into the Jiangyan Furnace?

"hiss……"

There are so many questions I want to answer about this stone bead.

However, at this moment, he no longer had the energy to think; the excruciating pain of his soul being torn apart left his mind blank.

Song Yan tried to refine it with spiritual power, but as before, the spiritual power entered it as if it had been thrown into the sea, so he had no choice but to hide it in his storage bag.

Only after finishing everything did I feel a sense of relief, but an endless feeling of fatigue and drowsiness kept washing over me.

He didn't resist and went straight to sleep.

Nobody pays attention to an ordinary person.

Especially for outer disciples like Song Yan, who struggle to make ends meet while cultivating immortality.

Unbeknownst to him, a major event had recently occurred within the Dongyuan Sect.

(End of this chapter)