Spiritual Light Like a Sea

"Instructor, we set out tomorrow. Why are you still awake?"

Pei Ruyi had left the banquet and reached the covered corridor when she spotted Cao Jinsong, who had departed earlier, sitting at a stone table in the courtyard.

Broken porcelain shards littered the ground around him.

From the faint patterns on those fragments, it appeared to be a vase Magistrate Fang treasured dearly.

Instructor Cao was continuously refining spiritual energy at his fingertips, condensing it into grains the size of rice. Facing an intact vase on the stone table, he muttered under his breath.

Judging by the sweat on his forehead, he seemed to have been trying for quite some time.

"I'm trying to channel spiritual energy into the vase and leave it there. Sending it in is easy enough, but keeping it inside is incredibly difficult. Out of ten attempts, only one or two succeed."

Pei Ruyi was somewhat baffled after hearing this. "Could this be some new technique?"

Cao Jinsong's hand trembled as he carefully approached the vase. "Ruyi, have you ever considered this? If it is so difficult, how did Ji You manage to nourish a little girl until spiritual light shone from the crown of her head?"

"This..."

"Spiritual energy is the origin of heaven and earth, concealing Heavenly Dao power within it. The five Hall Masters of the Inner Court are able to refine spiritual energy until they wield it as easily as their own arms. If Ji You did not succeed by sheer luck, then I'd say the Upper Five Realms are nothing to him—perhaps even the Immortal Approaching Realm would pose no obstacle."

As his words fell, the vase before Cao Jinsong suddenly could no longer bear the strain. It exploded from its belly, shards scattering across the ground, leaving behind only Instructor Cao's grave expression.

He had entered the Upper Five Realms years ago. Though he had remained at the initial Profound Connection Realm without advancing, he was still one realm above Ji You.

Moreover, the Lower Three Realms were the Essence Realm, while the Upper Five Realms were the All Laws Realm. Their control over spiritual energy should have been as different as heaven and earth, yet the outcome left him utterly dumbfounded.

Either Ji You was monstrously gifted, or he himself was too foolish.

Naturally, Cao Jinsong refused to admit that he was foolish. Thus, the only explanation was that the student he had just taken in possessed even more potential yet to be discovered.

"Such overwhelming fortune..."

"Ruyi, this boy will surely enter the Inner Court with ease. Perhaps he may even have a chance to become a personal disciple of one of the five Hall Masters."

Upon hearing this, Pei Ruyi could not help but give a dry laugh.

Perfection of the Lower Three Realms before reaching twenty was indeed extraordinary, but she felt Instructor Cao was exaggerating somewhat.

On the path of the Immortal Dao, there were countless talents who had stunned the world. Take those who had reached Perfection of the Lower Three Realms before twenty—this year alone, the Seven Great Immortal Sects had found ten of them, with Celestial Academy claiming two by itself.

Even so, with Ji You included, the three of them were still somewhat ordinary among the younger generation.

After all, Spirit Sword Mountain's Young Master Jian had achieved Perfection of Cultivation at ten, while a personal disciple of Dao Seeking Sect had entered the Upper Five Realms at twelve. The personal disciples of other immortal sects were all freakish geniuses as well.

Ji You was only one year away from twenty. Reaching perfection right on the line merely meant he had climbed to the threshold where he could meet them.

As she pondered this, Cao Jinsong in the courtyard suddenly furrowed his brow. Then he sprang to his feet and gazed toward the south of Yuyang County.

"Instructor, what happened?"

"Ruyi, have you noticed? The spiritual energy here seems to be surging southward with all its might. It is even beyond my control."

"?"

Pei Ruyi froze for a moment, then crossed the covered corridor, left the Yuyang County yamen, and headed straight for the southern grain yard where Ji You was.

Under the night sky, everything in Yuyang County was shrouded in darkness. Only the grain yard blazed with countless lights, illuminating the surroundings in a festive red glow, as lively as a rich landowner's grand wedding.

The area around the grain yard was packed with commoners, their figures dense and shifting in the distance.

The darkness beneath the lamps obscured their faces, but one could roughly make out their gaunt bodies and scant clothing.

Amid that brilliant radiance, seventy-two young children knelt upon the grain yard, calling him godfather in clear childish voices before pressing their foreheads to the ground.

Perfection of the Lower Three Realms was not some profound cultivation realm. It was merely the beginning of the Immortal Dao, and there was not much it could accomplish.

But Celestial Academy's name still carried some weight. After all, it belonged to the Great Xia Sacred Sect.

Great Xia law stated that godparents were family as well, and naturally ought to receive protection. He did not know whether this would be of any use, but something was better than nothing.

If he was fortunate enough to find a method to repair his spiritual source and enter the Upper Five Realms, perhaps his deterrent power would become even greater.

Ji You, seated at the front, fell silent for a long while. Then, looking at those children, he suddenly laughed.

Perhaps he had ultimately failed to save the children with leukemia, but in the end, he could still strive to save another group of children.

As Ji You thought this, for some reason, the night sky above his head suddenly brightened by several degrees.

Then countless motes of spiritual light appeared over the grain yard, pure as white stars and drifting like fireflies. They floated endlessly, gradually gathering here.

Moments later, the entire grain yard glittered like a sea of stars, leaving Ji You deeply shaken.

"What is this?"

"Whoa..."

"I don't think I ate any mushrooms this time... right?"

Ji You looked up. A few breaths later, he froze slightly, astonished.

For he discovered that this light had not appeared from nowhere, nor had it descended from the heavens. It seemed to come from the seventy-two children before him.

Each child had a thread of spiritual light at their brow. At that moment, it flew into the sky, and then a mote of spiritual light descended.

Before Ji You could react, those lights began flying continuously toward him, entering his body.

His brows drew together, and he instinctively tried to evade them, only to discover that there was no avoiding them at all.

After struggling for a long time, all the spiritual light in the sky had vanished. Only then did Ji You turn his Divine Sense inward and discover that, above his shattered Spiritual Spring, a disorderly cluster of light had suddenly gathered, misty and swirling in fine strands.

At that moment, an uncontrollable immortal aura boiled endlessly around him, charging straight toward Vast Heaven and rolling beneath the boundless starry sky.

At that very moment, for some unknown reason, the bloodstain stretching across the heavens became even more ferocious.

Pei Ruyi, who had come from the county yamen, stood not far away, staring blankly at him.

She could not see the starlight filling the sky like a sea, nor could she see that surging aura. Yet she still frowned slightly, feeling that Ji You's presence was entirely different now.

As the foremost student of the Outer Court, Pei Ruyi had seen many disciples from all manner of immortal sects.

Yet she simply felt that Ji You was truly somewhat strange at this moment.

Was it... immortal aura?

Pei Ruyi's brows suddenly knitted tightly together.

She did not know why that thought had popped into her head, and she could not help but be slightly stunned.

When mortals encountered cultivators, they respectfully called them immortals. Even cultivators called themselves immortals, as though they were not of the same race as mortals.

But in truth, unless a cultivator could laugh aloud and ascend, they could not be considered an immortal at all.

Pei Ruyi had naturally never met a senior who had ascended, so she had no way of knowing what true immortal aura was. Yet as she watched Ji You's hazy, ever-shifting presence, that thought surfaced of its own accord.

No, she must be overthinking it...

Without laughing aloud and ascending to the immortal realm, how could a person of the mortal world be filled with immortal aura?

"Ruyi, this boy is certainly extraordinary."

"Perhaps he truly may become a personal disciple of one of the five Hall Masters."

"..."