Sea of Cultivators

In the Profound Heaven Sect, amidst a solitary peak.

Within his inner vision, Wang Li was once again facing the peculiar Dao Palace in his Sea of Qi.

A fifth-grade spirit pill like the Purity Returning Spirit Pill was indeed a luxury for a cultivator of his level.

In just half a night, the needle-like pain in his head had completely vanished. Not only had the damage to his spiritual sense fully recovered, but the successful tribulation, combined with the medicinal effects of this spirit pill, had also greatly increased the strength of his spiritual sense.

The stronger his spiritual sense became, the more real this gray Dao Palace before him appeared.

He could now even see the gaps between the bricks and stones on the walls of this Dao Palace, as well as the holes in the slightly loose bricks.

It was too real, which made it even more bizarre.

Although his conversation with his senior sister that night might have seemed useless to others, he didn't think so.

Many times, Lü Shenliang's words seemed nonsensical, but he was certain that Lü Shenliang's seemingly groundless intuitions and judgments were often very accurate.

Just like before, when she deduced that Wang Li might encounter these strange gray-robed cultivators every time he broke through a minor realm in the Qi Refining stage, she was spot on.

During their conversation that night, she had suggested that Wang Li refine some low-grade elixirs with extremely mixed Vital Energy to see if this gray Dao Hall would absorb the impure, useless Vital Energy and become more solid.

Wang Li had actually tried it.

And the result was just as she predicted.

Although he didn't know the formation mechanism of this gray Dao Hall, nor could he determine the laws of Vital Energy that governed its existence, the fact remained that the impure Vital Energy contained in those low-grade elixirs, which was originally extremely detrimental to cultivators, caused him no harm. It was all absorbed by this gray Dao Hall.

This gray Dao Hall now seemed like a special artifact specifically for refining the True Essence within him.

If it were just an artifact with such a special function, Wang Li would truly be thanking his lucky stars.

An artifact that could refine True Essence and absorb the impure Vital Energy within a cultivator was absolutely priceless in the Lesser Jade Continent.

But this gray Dao Hall was completely beyond his control.

And those fierce gray-robed cultivators had left him with too much psychological trauma.

If this gray Dao Hall contained a horde of such gray-robed cultivators, wouldn't it be like a giant coffin, with a bunch of zombie-like gray-robed cultivators buried inside?

Having such a giant coffin appear out of nowhere in his own Sea of Qi made him feel uneasy no matter how he thought about it.

The unknown was always frightening.

He was genuinely afraid that if he voluntarily entered this gray Dao Hall, a bunch of gray-robed cultivators would be lined up neatly inside, waiting for him.

To his fear, Lü Shenliang's reply was: "Then if you don't go in and see, how will you know if those gray-robed cultivators are inside? Are we cultivators so timid?"

These words seemed quite irresponsible, as if she didn't care about her junior brother's life or death.

But for him, the fact that Lü Shenliang didn't directly object meant that he could indeed try it.

Because based on his understanding of his senior sister, if she truly felt there was a fatal danger, she would never have said such a thing.

"Whatever, fortune favors the bold... This... I'm going..."

To his surprise, as soon as he steeled his resolve and finally decided to go in and take a look, this gray Dao Hall instantly generated an irresistible suction force, pulling him directly inside. His vision blurred, and he was already within the gray Dao Hall.

"..."

He was momentarily speechless.

Weird, still weird.

The inside of this gray Dao Hall was filled with a faint, hazy gray mist. This mist didn't truly interact with him and seemed to cause him no harm.

There were no neatly arranged gray-robed cultivators inside the gray hall as he had imagined. Instead, five faint gray lights floated quietly in the gray mist.

They were five slender streams of light, flickering in the gray mist, as if they might extinguish at any moment, yet they stubbornly persisted.

Wang Li watched these five slender streams of light with a solemn expression. As his gaze fell upon any one of them, his consciousness seemed to be instantly drawn in.

He saw that these lights seemed to be composed of countless incredibly tiny light stars.

These tiny light stars were more like faintly glowing dust motes in dying embers, as if in the next instant, they would lose their light as the last bit of heat dissipated.

But in his perception, there was a remarkably tenacious will supporting their glow.

Countless such small but tenacious wills formed a single stream of light.

Now, in the gray mist before him, these five streams of light were all like this.

For some reason, each stream of light felt like a miniature gray Dao Palace to him, as if it could draw him in. However, this will was different from the immense, irresistible will of the Dao Palace.

It seemed to attract him, but more like certain artifacts' magic arrays, waiting for his summons, waiting for his integration.

Wang Li hesitated for a breath.

He very cautiously attempted to release a wisp of True Essence, approaching the closest stream of light as if testing some magic tool.

With a soft poof.

This wisp of True Essence easily entered the stream of gray light, like piercing a gas bubble wrapped in extremely thin leather.

Countless tiny light stars flew out from within, rapidly expanding.

It was like a brand new miniature world unfolding before him, then filling the entire Dao Palace, even infinitely stretching and expanding the entire Dao Palace outwards!

Wang Li's entire body froze.

No words could describe his shock at that moment.

It was as if he had instantly found himself in a sea of stars.

Around him, in all directions, were floating gray-robed cultivators!

No matter how he twisted his body, no matter how he turned his head, no matter which direction he looked, the space within his sight was filled with silently floating, different gray-robed cultivators.

These gray-robed cultivators included female and male cultivators of various ages. However, they all wore tattered garments and bore horrific wounds. Many of them were even just small fragments of their bodies.

Wang Li felt no fear.

At first, the absolute shock overwhelmed all other emotions. He didn't feel fear afterward because these gray-robed cultivators were like pure dead objects floating in the void.

They had no life, and unlike any gray-robed cultivator he had encountered before, they didn't give him the feeling of being a living person.

The broken bodies of these gray-robed cultivators were like they were frozen in the long river of the void, completely still.

Only he was alive.

Only he had vitality.

Suddenly, amidst the dense crowd of gray-robed cultivators, he spotted a familiar figure.

It was a short and stout gray-robed cultivator whose front appeared undamaged, but whose entire back of the head and back had been riddled with holes by spells.

This short and stout gray-robed cultivator was the strange one he had encountered for the first time when he advanced from the first to the second stage of Qi Refining.

This gray-robed cultivator also floated lifelessly in the gray void.

But as Wang Li's gaze lingered on him for a long time, his tightly shut eyes suddenly opened.

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