Bizarre Changes

"Crazy."

"Crazy woman."

"Lü Shenliang!"

Although Wang Li's head was still splitting with pain, the image of his senior sister immediately reappeared in his mind.

He recalled that too many doubts still pointed directly to his senior sister.

This was the first time he had truly clashed with his own Dao Palace.

Logically speaking, the Dao Palace, which was a manifestation of his willpower within his body, should only be a part of his spiritual sense. But if the two truly clashed, it should be his own spiritual sense clashing with itself, so how could there be a difference in strength?

If the Dao Palace were also a person.

Then if he vomited blood, the Dao Palace should also vomit blood and be injured at the same time.

But just now, during the tribulation, when his body violently impacted the wall of the Dao Palace, that tough, indestructible, chilling sensation made him feel like they were not on the same level at all.

The Dao Palace's cold and powerful nature even gave him a sense of being crushed by the ruthless Great Dao.

Now, upon careful reflection, he even felt that there was a vast will within the Dao Palace that he could not resist at all.

He even suspected that the formation of this Dao Palace, including being dragged into fighting a strange gray-robed cultivator during his advancement, was all the work of this terrifying will.

He couldn't help but suspect that this will came from Lü Shenliang.

But he knew Lü Shenliang well and felt that Lü Shenliang's spiritual sense power was nowhere comparable to that force.

This seemed to have led him into a dead end, a tangled mess he couldn't unravel.

However, even so, the coincidences this time seemed to be too many.

When Lü Shenliang was lucid, she was practically the embodiment of beauty and wisdom, and her schemes were exceptionally shrewd.

In the past decade or so, many of the benefits he had received were the result of Lü Shenliang's careful planning when she was lucid.

The Yin Thunder Umbrella plan targeting the Purity Returning Spirit Pill this time was also devised by Lü Shenliang.

This was just a few days ago, when they learned that someone in the Blackwater Market was selling such a spirit pill, and it had fallen into the hands of their acquaintance, Meng Xiqiong.

He and Lü Shenliang didn't have enough spirit sand for their own cultivation, so they certainly didn't have any spare spirit sand to buy a Purity Returning Spirit Pill.

Furthermore, if they had tried to buy it through conventional means with spirit sand, even if Meng Xiqiong was worried about Lü Shenliang self-detonating her Golden Core, he wouldn't have readily agreed to sell them the Purity Returning Spirit Pill.

Because according to the rules, spirit pills of this caliber were supposed to go to auction, unless exchanged for treasures of equal or higher grade.

Therefore, Lü Shenliang's plan was to use the Yin Thunder Umbrella to obtain the Purity Returning Spirit Pill.

This plan, from conception to execution, was quite perfect, and it even managed to trap two mysterious cultivators of extraordinary origin.

But exactly how Lü Shenliang had predicted Old Ancestor Tong Hui's tribulation time in advance, and how she had made him retrieve the umbrella even after Old Ancestor Tong Hui had already achieved Nascent Soul... Wang Li had no idea about her confidence or the source of it.

He only vaguely felt that this Heavenly Tribulation of Old Ancestor Tong Hui seemed to be unusually related to her, and that Old Ancestor Tong Hui giving her the Yin Thunder Umbrella in the end, and even gifting her a refining technique, was merely a deliberate act of repayment.

As for the Purity Returning Spirit Pill itself, it was even more suspicious.

Because in their plan, the Purity Returning Spirit Pill was meant for him to use.

Based on the outcome of this tribulation, if not for this Purity Returning Spirit Pill, while he might not have been killed by this gray-robed cultivator, his spiritual sense would have been severely damaged, and he might have needed several years to recover.

So, either it was a mere coincidence, and his senior sister's spiritual sense was so damaged that her thoughts had become peculiar. Or, his senior sister truly knew something and was manipulating things, but had been keeping it from him and deliberately not telling him.

Between these two guesses, he even leaned towards the latter.

But he had no proof.

Interrogating his senior sister was impossible.

Perhaps even if he could capture his senior sister and interrogate her, given her unpredictability, she might not find the interrogation uncomfortable. She might even find it stimulating and fun.

What if she became addicted to interrogation and decided to do it whenever she felt like it!

"There's really no solution!"

"There's really nothing I can do!"

Wang Li's head ached, and he couldn't help but let out a couple of mournful cries.

He could only persuade himself not to dwell on his senior sister. After all, his senior sister wouldn't harm him. If there was something she was hiding, then so be it.

He was certain that he had successfully advanced and was now a cultivator at the Sixth Level of Qi Refining.

He planned to immediately examine the changes in himself after the advancement.

Now, he had an intuition that the changes this time seemed to be greater than during his previous advancements.

But at this moment, when his gaze fell upon the spirit sand on the formation disk, he was immediately greatly alarmed.

The spirit sand on the formation disk had lost all its spiritual light and had directly turned into mere gravel, devoid of any spiritual energy.

"How could this be?"

He extended his spiritual sense outside the quiet room. Although he sensed the sun setting outside, from the moment he activated the spirit gathering array to cultivate until he defeated the strange gray-robed cultivator and successfully passed the tribulation, no more than two hours had passed.

After cultivating the Profound Heaven Dao Arts on the lone peak and encountering this strange gray-robed cultivator tribulation, his rate of refining spirit sand had already far surpassed that of cultivators at the same level. But these five hundred grains of spirit sand should have been enough to support his cultivation for at least a day.

In his original plan, he was supposed to remain within the formation disk, continue refining the spiritual energy from the spirit sand, and stabilize his cultivation.

But in less than two hours, all five hundred grains of spirit sand had already been refined by him?

In that instant, he even suspected if there was something wrong with this spirit gathering array.

However, he quickly dismissed this overly suspicious and foolish thought.

This kind of spirit gathering array only served to contain spiritual energy and prevent leakage; it had no effect on increasing the speed of drawing and refining spiritual energy from spirit sand. The speed of drawing spiritual energy from spirit sand was solely determined by his own absorption and refinement of the spiritual energy within it.

"I... this..."

Wang Li forcibly calmed his mind and looked inward. Then, his eyes instantly bulged, his face filled with shock, and even a hint of terror.

Six white stars flickered incessantly within his body. With each flicker, a large amount of Vital Energy was circulated. The spiritual energy currently filling his physical body was absorbed by these six white stars, which then, as if giving back, flowed out strands of True Essence.

This was the most direct manifestation of cultivating the Profound Heaven Dao Arts to the Sixth Level of Qi Refining.

It was clear that with the lighting of one more star, there had been a qualitative leap in both the speed of absorbing and refining spiritual energy and the strength of the True Essence formed.

But what shocked him beyond measure at this moment was not these normal changes. Instead, he clearly saw that beneath these six white stars, within his Sea of Qi, a Dao Palace stood!

This Dao Palace normally only appeared when he was advancing through a tribulation and facing those strange gray-robed cultivators. The moment it appeared, he would be pushed into the Dao Palace by an irresistible will. After he defeated the gray-robed cultivator and successfully passed the tribulation, this Dao Palace would immediately disappear again.

Before this, he had always thought that this Dao Palace was merely a product of his spiritual sense and will manifesting, but now, this Dao Palace stood incredibly real within his Sea of Qi!