This was truly something he had lived long enough to see.
Wang Li's mouth fell open of its own accord. It seemed that only by gulping in air through both mouth and nose could he keep his mind temporarily clear.
At this moment, the Dao palace seemed to possess boundless magic, firmly drawing in all his attention.
He was not in a state of utterly selfless cultivation, yet that pull made it seem as though he were standing directly before the Dao palace. Even the six white stars automatically faded from his perception.
It was also the first time he had truly seen the Dao palace's full appearance from outside it.
The Dao palace's exterior was strange.
It was ancient and simple. Clearly, it was an ordinary palace with upturned eaves, yet its proportions were utterly unbalanced.
Its footprint was not large, but it was exceptionally tall.
Like a sword. Like a stele.
Over the next few breaths, Wang Li suddenly felt that it even resembled the solitary peak where he stood.
As though that solitary peak had been altered slightly in appearance, becoming a narrow, towering Dao palace.
The solitary peak had always carried an aloof, cold, and defiant air of standing apart from the world within the Profound Heaven Sect. Now, this Dao palace stood alone and still within his sea of qi, with nothing around it but rolling True Essence, making it seem even more frigid.
During the previous tribulation, Wang Li had been absolutely certain that this Dao palace was black—a deep, profound black.
Yet now, the Dao palace was gray.
This gray was exactly the same color as the gray-robed cultivators.
Colors could not speak.
Yet they could give rise to all kinds of immediate feelings.
The gray on those gray-robed cultivators gave Wang Li the most direct impression of destruction and dimness.
But the gray of this Dao palace now filled the space before him as though it covered heaven and earth. What it made him feel was something about to be forgotten and faded away, yet using such an overwhelming momentum to make people remember, to prop open a world of its own!
Wang Li's mind trembled for no reason.
He seemed to have returned to the time when he had just entered the sect, when he saw his senior sister Lü Shenliang speak those three words: "I refuse to accept this."
Wang Li closed his mouth.
He drew a deep breath and settled his mind once more.
The instant his perception touched the Dao palace, the True Essence in his sea of qi crashed against its base like waves, issuing a thunderous roar like raging surf slamming against the shore.
Gray currents of air continuously rippled across the surface of the Dao palace.
This Dao palace was indeed not an illusory sensation produced by the Heavenly Dao laws deceiving his divine sense. It was a true physical entity.
The contact between his True Essence, divine sense, and the Dao palace made him feel that his True Essence was being repelled, yet the Vital Energy of the Dao palace itself also gave him a sense of familiarity.
He immediately realized where that familiarity came from.
The Vital Energy that made up the Dao palace itself seemed to have come from the mixed and impure Vital Energy within spirit sand!
To cultivators, the mixed and impure Vital Energy within spirit sand was a harmful impurity. When Ninth Level of Qi Refining cultivators advanced to Foundation Establishment cultivators, the Spiritual Poison Tribulation they had to face came from the accumulation of impurities within spirit sand and spiritual medicines.
All kinds of mixed, useless Vital Energy were like impurities in iron ore. When a Qi Refining stage cultivator's True Essence condensed into liquid and broke through into the Foundation Establishment Realm, those impurities that had merged with the True Essence and could not normally be detected would naturally separate out like slag, becoming spiritual poison.
Thus, the purer the spiritual energy a cultivator absorbed during the Qi Refining stage, the less mixed Vital Energy accumulated within their body. When they reached the Foundation Establishment Realm, the less spiritual poison would be produced, and the more beneficial it would be for their future cultivation.
The Foundation Establishment Pills, which were exceedingly scarce in the Cultivation World, were used to neutralize spiritual poison during Foundation Establishment.
Yet just like the overwhelming majority of Qi Refining stage cultivators knew that cultivating with cleaner spirit stones was better, they knew Foundation Establishment Pills were useful, but most of them still had no chance of obtaining such treasures.
Lü Shenliang had always made Wang Li cultivate with spirit sand. Moreover, whenever she obtained spiritual pills that aided cultivation, she had Wang Li eat whatever he had, raw or cooked, as if she had never considered whether this method of cultivation would turn Wang Li's body into a general store.
Wang Li himself had never looked too deeply into this matter.
After all, for a low-level cultivator like him, the speed of cultivation and advancement was what mattered most.
Besides, his cultivation of the Profound Heaven Dao Arts had itself developed a bizarre problem.
And given how well he knew Lü Shenliang, he had previously thought that even if the tribulation he faced at the Foundation Establishment Realm remained unchanged and truly was the Spiritual Poison Tribulation, she might well have found a way to obtain a Foundation Establishment Pill by then.
Most importantly, he had not felt that there was any problem with this method of cultivation during his daily practice.
He had not even sensed much accumulation of mixed Vital Energy.
Perhaps it was as the records said: mixed Vital Energy fused with True Essence and would only separate out once True Essence condensed into liquid during Foundation Establishment? But because he could not feel it, that concern had long since been diluted away over the course of his day-to-day cultivation.
Yet the body of this Dao palace was formed from the accumulation of that mixed Vital Energy.
So that mixed Vital Energy had not disappeared—it had merely been used to construct this Dao palace?
Then wasn't his own True Essence now exceptionally pure?
"..."
This discovery and speculation left him speechless once again.
He truly could not help but suspect his senior sister.
Could it be that her raw-or-cooked, anything-goes cultivation method had been premeditated all along?
He even felt that the more mixed Vital Energy there was, the more solid this Dao palace could become.
Still, no matter how much he suspected his senior sister, that was indeed useless for now.
The crucial matter was to find out whether this Dao palace would harm him and whether it was of any use.
For some reason, the instant this thought flashed through his mind, he instinctively felt as though he had formed a strange connection with the Dao palace, which rejected the immersion of his True Essence as if strangers were forbidden to enter. It seemed that as long as he wished it, he could enter this gray Dao palace in an instant.
Wang Li took a deep breath. He forcibly suppressed his curiosity and impulse, withdrawing from his inward observation.
What if he truly entered in one step, only to encounter an even more formidable gray-robed cultivator inside? In his current state, wouldn't that be courting death?
He felt that what he needed most urgently now was another, deeper exchange with his senior sister.
Although his senior sister often seemed unreliable, at least with her nearby, he would be safer.
Even during Old Ancestor Tong Hui's Heavenly Tribulation, the reason he had dared stand so close and directly snatch the Yin Thunder Umbrella at such a time was not because he thought himself so formidable, but because she had been by his side.
The sky gradually darkened.
Countless stars studded the black night sky.
Wang Li appeared outside the several stone huts on the solitary peak.
Based on his understanding of Lü Shenliang, there was a good chance that shortly after nightfall, she would be awake for around half an hour.
By habit, as long as he waited outside her meditation chamber, she would come out and speak with him for a while.
Wang Li rather liked this period of waiting.
But today, his brows suddenly furrowed.
He saw strange Huaguang flowing through the night.
That Huaguang was heading toward the solitary peak, coming from the clustered peaks of the Profound Heaven Sect hidden amid the night.
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