Five hundred spirit sand grains floated silently above the array disk, threads of spiritual energy slowly seeping out. At first, they were like smoke and mist, but as they continuously gathered, they became streams of water brimming with spiritual charm.
These streams flowed onto Wang Li, who sat at the center of the array disk, then vanished.
Wang Li had long since entered a state of complete selflessness. In his perception, his physical body seemed to have vanished entirely.
His body seemed to have become a cloud of qi, a small chaotic world.
The heaven and earth spiritual energy that entered his world was like falling meteors, tracing graceful, splendid streaks of light across this world before vanishing and merging into it.
That Purity Returning Spirit Pill, however, was like a cyan star floating at the center of his world. Surging flames continuously rose around it, and every wisp of flame that scattered brought forth countless terrifying storms that crashed all the way to the edges of his world.
This cyan star appeared savage and powerful, as though it possessed overwhelming, world-overturning force against this world. Yet as time passed and the surging flames continued to disperse, its fierce aura gradually weakened, and its blazing light slowly dimmed.
More lights appeared in the chaotic sky.
A mass of black radiance first appeared at the very highest point. This black light slowly expanded upward and downward from a long, narrow line, like a black eye opening at the summit of the chaotic world.
Immediately afterward, five clusters of white halos slowly lit up.
As these five white halos appeared, the spiritual energy falling into this world like meteors seemed to find a target to pursue, all of it descending toward the five halos.
The five white halos grew brighter and brighter. Their hazy glow disappeared, and the five halos became like five crystalline stars.
Then, at their center, a brand-new white halo appeared.
"It's here!"
As this new white halo appeared, it was as if another Wang Li's alarm rang out within his perceptual world. Almost at the same instant, the scene within that world suddenly changed. Wang Li appeared inside a black Dao palace. Outside the Dao palace lay a Sea of Qi churning with Vital Energy, and beyond the Sea of Qi was his physical body.
Wang Li watched ahead with a wary expression.
Within the black shadows deep in the Dao palace, a mass of gray airflow suddenly appeared. It twisted rapidly and transformed into a gray-robed cultivator.
The cultivator's Dharma robe was formed from condensed gray airflow, but it was badly tattered.
It was not merely his Dharma robe. His body was likewise... ruined.
He was a lean male cultivator with the appearance of a man in his forties. He was tall, standing half a head taller than Wang Li.
A blasted hole lay where his left eye should have been. It had destroyed all the flesh and bone above his left eye, piercing straight through to the back of his head. Only a layer of scalp remained, hanging like torn stuffing from the skull on the right side of his head.
His left arm had been severed at the elbow, while his lower right abdomen bore another festering wound several fists wide.
Apart from these enormous wounds, his body was covered in many smaller injuries.
At a glance, this appeared to be the corpse of a cultivator who had endured a brutal battle before his death.
Yet at this moment, intense Vital Energy fluctuations arose around him.
An ordinary cultivator encountering such a thing during cultivation would likely have already been at sixes and sevens, but Wang Li had long since grown used to it.
He cultivated the Profound Heaven Dao Arts.
Like the Huayang Sect's Huayang Heavenly Dao Arts, the Profound Heaven Dao Arts were among the most orthodox righteous methods of the immortal sects.
Every inner disciple of the Profound Heaven Sect cultivated the Profound Heaven Dao Arts.
It was a complete righteous method that, so long as one cultivated step by step and possessed sufficient opportunities, could carry one all the way to the Golden Core, Nascent Soul, even Spirit Transformation, Nirvana, and Mahayana.
By cultivating such an immortal sect righteous method and walking the path of defying heaven openly and honorably, one would receive equally open and honorable recompense from the Heavenly Dao laws.
The Heavenly Dao laws would also grant Heavenly Tribulations in an orderly fashion according to the different stages of these cultivators' cultivation.
When everyone followed the rules, there were the fewest variables.
Setting aside the superiority and completeness of the cultivation method itself, this was the benefit of cultivating an orthodox method.
Thus, in theory, when a cultivator of the Profound Heaven Dao Arts successfully drew qi into the body and became a First Level of Qi Refining cultivator, the tribulation to be faced would be the Wind Fire Tribulation. When advancing from the Qi Refining stage to the Foundation Establishment Realm, the tribulation to be faced would be the Spiritual Poison Tribulation.
When Wang Li entered the Profound Heaven Sect and became a First Level of Qi Refining cultivator, the Heavenly Tribulation he faced had indeed been the most ordinary Wind Fire Tribulation.
The instant the first wisp of heaven and earth spiritual energy entered his body, it clashed with his inner qi, forming cleansing wind and fire that swept across the plains in a blaze.
Like the vast majority of newly initiated disciples cultivating the Profound Heaven Dao Arts, he passed through it without real danger.
But from the time he advanced from the First Level of Qi Refining to the Second Level of Qi Refining, his cultivation had already become abnormal.
At the instant he advanced from the First Level of Qi Refining to the Second Level of Qi Refining, his consciousness seemed to slip beyond his own control and sink into his Sea of Qi Dao Palace. It was as if his consciousness had completely detached from his physical body, and his body had become an absolute external object to it—a vast palace beyond the Dao palace.
Naturally, he had been utterly horrified at the time, believing something had gone wrong with his cultivation and that he might very well suffer the scattering of his soul.
But what shocked him even more was that after his consciousness was dragged into the Sea of Qi Dao Palace, an eerie gray-robed cultivator appeared before him, just as one had today.
The gray-robed cultivator who appeared had likewise possessed a ruined body, like a corpse.
Yet after such a gray-robed cultivator appeared, he would attack Wang Li without warning, directly engaging him in a life-or-death battle within his Sea of Qi Dao Palace.
Though it was clearly a battle on the level of consciousness, a clash of divine souls, if his body within the Sea of Qi Dao Palace was injured during the fierce battle, then after he awakened and emerged from cultivation, the corresponding part of his physical body would likewise ache unbearably.
Even though no injury could be seen on the surface, that same spot would feel as if it had truly been struck by the might of a spell.
In that battle against the first eerie gray-robed cultivator, encountered when he advanced from the First Level of Qi Refining to the Second Level of Qi Refining, he had fought with everything he had and only defeated the gray-robed cultivator after nearly suffering fatal injuries. When he awakened afterward, he was as if he had truly been severely wounded, his whole body on the verge of splitting apart. He had needed to lie still for dozens of days before he could move again.
Later, when advancing from the Second Level of Qi Refining to the Third Level of Qi Refining, from the Third Level of Qi Refining to the Fourth Level of Qi Refining, and from the Fourth Level of Qi Refining to the Fifth Level of Qi Refining, the same thing happened every time. At the instant of breakthrough, his consciousness would be forcibly dragged into his Sea of Qi Dao Palace, and he would immediately encounter another such eerie gray-robed cultivator.
Long illness made a doctor, let alone when he was truly no fool.
After encountering these eerie events one after another, he easily detected the pattern within them.
First, every breakthrough through a minor realm brought him face-to-face with one such gray-robed cultivator.
Second, every gray-robed cultivator he encountered was different. Whether in physique, appearance, the locations of their injuries, sect of origin, or combat methods, they were entirely different. Yet their strength also continued to rise.
The first gray-robed cultivator he encountered when advancing to the Second Level of Qi Refining had been a Second Level of Qi Refining cultivator.
The second gray-robed cultivator he encountered when advancing to the Third Level of Qi Refining had been a Third Level of Qi Refining cultivator.
These eerie gray-robed cultivators that appeared possessed cultivation equal to his level after advancement, and he had to defeat them before he could truly advance.
Moreover, the experiences of the previous times had shown him that such battles did not truly consume his own True Essence, but they greatly exhausted his divine sense and took a heavy toll on his mind.
During battle, this body of his within the Dao palace was entirely like a reflection of his real body. Not only could he use all the spells he had mastered, but he could even use whatever talismans and magical treasures he possessed. To his senses, the effects and power they produced were exactly the same as when real talismans and magical treasures were activated.
Likewise, the gray-robed cultivator could use all manner of spells and magical treasures.
To him, it was entirely like an eerie, genuine battle where time and space had intertwined.
But so long as he won, once his consciousness left the Dao palace and he awakened, it would all seem as though it had never happened. The talismans and magical treasures on his body naturally had not been consumed either, but the places where he had been injured during battle still gave him the most genuine feedback.
Before you continue