Absolute Trust

(Guys, please cast a few more recommendation tickets~~) "Back when I taught the Kindling inheritors, several of them were beaten to death by goddess demons. If they had learned your method, they wouldn't have had to worry about being beaten to death after mating." The little flame in Zhong Yue's sea of consciousness cried out excitedly.

"Courting young cows? Could Kindling mean that Senior Sister Tao and Senior Sister Yu came here looking for me?"

Zhong Yue was stunned. He walked toward the two girls.

When the two girls saw him approaching, they both panicked a little. Tao Daier quickly said, "Zhongshan Clan, we didn't come here to look for you, nor did we come to sing for you! This isn't your territory. Anyone can come here! We came first, so you're the one who came looking for us!"

Zhong Yue smiled. "Naturally. Please, make yourselves comfortable, Senior Sisters."

Unable to hold back, Yu Feiyan said, "Junior Brother Zhong, we really did come looking for you. I want to ask you about entering the space between life and death. I wonder if Junior Brother could teach me?"

"You want to use this method to cultivate too?"

Zhong Yue pondered for a moment, then shook his head. "This cultivation method is already extremely dangerous for me. For you, it would be even more dangerous. If you also jumped off the cliff, the chance of death would be ninety-nine percent—and it would be ninety-nine percent every single time!"

He was not exaggerating at all. Using the space between life and death to enter a state of extreme reaction was not as simple as taking a leap, because while entering that state, one needed to visualize and cultivate, using the opportunity to improve one's cultivation. Yet once one fell into visualization, it was extremely difficult to wake up, leaving one completely unaware of the outside world!

During the fall, if one failed to wake up in time, the only fate awaiting them would be being smashed into mincemeat!

The reason Zhong Yue's success rate was so high was not that he could wake up in time every time. It was because Kindling was in his sea of consciousness. Kindling calculated the timing precisely and awakened his soul, greatly reducing the mortality rate!

Although every leap was dangerous, Kindling awakened him in time, allowing Zhong Yue to succeed again and again.

Yu Feiyan, however, did not have that advantage. If she cultivated alone, she would certainly fail to wake up in time and fall to her death. Even if Tao Daier floated in midair and calculated the timing to awaken her soul, it would still be impractical. The opportunity vanished in an instant; if she were even a moment too late, Yu Feiyan would most likely die.

Having another person awaken a soul that was still visualizing in the sea of consciousness was already extremely difficult. It required calling out to it with one's soul. If Tao Daier made even the slightest mistake during the process, Yu Feiyan would be the one to die!

"If you have Junior Sister Tao help you, you could lower the mortality rate to eighty or ninety percent, but that's still extremely high. Senior Sister Yu, I'll pass on the trick for entering the space between life and death to you. Whether you cultivate it will be your own decision."

Zhong Yue passed on everything he knew about entering the space between life and death and suppressing the great terror and fear. "Senior Sister, I still need to cultivate, so I'll be leaving first."

He hoisted the rock onto his back and leaped off the cliff.

Tao Daier hesitated. "Senior Sister, are you really going to do this?"

Yu Feiyan was also struggling inwardly. Zhong Yue had passed the secret of entering the space between life and death to her and had pointed out the dangers, making her realize that this cultivation method was indeed incomparably perilous!

"Even with Tao Tao's help, I'll still survive only by a hair's breadth! And if Tao Tao makes a mistake..."

After hesitating for a long while, Yu Feiyan suddenly sighed. "I won't try it. This cultivation method means staking one's life. Only by fighting to the death can one become a qi practitioner, but becoming a qi practitioner isn't difficult for me. Why should I risk my life like this?"

Tao Daier also breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. "Senior Sister is right."

Yu Feiyan revealed a confident smile and said proudly, "Junior Brother Zhong is cultivating so desperately, but hasn't he still failed to become a qi practitioner? I've cultivated step by step, and I'm still the Senior Sister of the Women's Court."

Zhong Yue waited for a while beneath the cliff. Seeing that Yu Feiyan never jumped, he would have gone to save her if she had leaped and failed in her visualization.

After all, Yu Feiyan's nature was not bad, and yesterday she had even risked her life to save him.

"Boy Yue, not everyone has courage like yours, nor does everyone have your luck—to be able to meet me!"

The Kindling Child spoke smugly. "That girl looks steadfast in mind, but her state of mind is inferior to yours. She and the other girl have a good relationship, but it isn't yet good enough for them to entrust their lives to each other. If she jumped off the cliff, worrying whether the other girl could awaken her in time would inevitably prevent her from stabilizing her spirit and entering visualization. She would only turn into a flying bird and flee for her life again and again. She couldn't pass even this hurdle! But you trust me completely, entrusting your life and death to me. When I told you to jump, you leaped without hesitation. That was why you could easily enter visualization and make your cultivation soar!"

Zhong Yue thought it over carefully and realized that Kindling was right. When Kindling told him to jump, he had indeed leaped without a second thought, never considering what might happen if Kindling were a fraction too late in waking him.

That was absolute trust, absolute reassurance!

He had spent only a little over a month with Kindling. For ordinary people, such a short time would at most be enough to become drinking buddies. Yet in his heart, he had already felt that he could entrust his entire life to Kindling!

He trusted Kindling without reservation. That was why, when he jumped from the cliff, he had entered the space between life and death at the first opportunity, visualizing Suihuang to raise his cultivation and strength!

The space between life and death tested not one person, but two—the trust between two people!

"The trust between Senior Sister Yu and Senior Sister Tao is inferior to that between me and Kindling. It's only natural that she chose to give up. Even if they could achieve the same level of trust as Kindling and me, the mortality rate would still be extremely high. After all, how could Senior Sister Tao's eyesight compare to Kindling's seasoned vision?"

Zhong Yue climbed back up the cliff. Yu Feiyan stood at its edge, her black clothes fluttering and her heroic bearing striking. Suddenly, she said in a clear voice, "Junior Brother Zhong, you cultivate so desperately that I want to compete with you and see whether your desperate cultivation or my steady cultivation is stronger. There are still two months until the end of the year. At year's end, there will be an Unrestricted Duel between the disciples of the various qi practitioners in the Upper Court. This duel will determine who qualifies to enter the Spirit Void Hall! I hope I can meet Junior Brother Zhong in the final duel!"

"The year-end duel, the Spirit Void Hall?" Zhong Yue was somewhat bewildered.

"You don't know about the Spirit Void Hall?"

Tao Daier was surprised and continued, "Well, you've only been in the Upper Court for a month, so it's understandable that you don't know about the Spirit Void Hall. The Spirit Void Hall is the place where one can most easily sense spirits, and it's the best place to cultivate a spirit. For example, if you want to sense the Sun Spirit, your soul needs to fly to the sun's side to draw it out. Can your soul fly to the sun's side? But in the Spirit Void Hall, you can sense the spirit within the sun and thus cultivate the Sun Spirit. The Spirit Void Hall is the supreme Holy Land of our Sword Gate. Being able to cultivate there means that the Sword Gate has already deemed your foundation solid enough for you to become a qi practitioner."

"Junior Brother Zhong, there's only one opportunity each year to become a qi practitioner. Whether you qualify to enter the Spirit Void Hall depends on your performance in the year-end duel."

Yu Feiyan turned and walked away. "However, you've only cultivated the Thunderclap Sword Art, a single offensive technique. With only that technique, you won't be able to reach the end, and you might not even make the top ten! Besides, you'll need excellent soul weapons and an excellent Totem God Pillar, because this will be an unrestricted battle! Tao Tao, let's go!"

The two girls left. Zhong Yue asked in puzzlement, "Kindling, is cultivating a spirit really this troublesome?"

"Cultivating a spirit is indeed very troublesome, but cultivating one in the Spirit Void Hall gives me an unreliable feeling."

Kindling said, "During Suihuang's era, Suihuang's descendants belonged to the Yanzi Divine Emperor clan. I remember that when they sensed spirits, they had a true dragon pull a ship while the imperial clan's descendants stood aboard it, sailing toward the sun in mighty grandeur. They sensed the spirit beside the sun, and the spirit of the Sun Golden Crow Spirit they obtained was the highest grade! If one cultivates a spirit in this Spirit Void Hall, I estimate that the Sun Spirit one obtains would only be an ordinary fire spirit. The other divine clans were the same. They brought their disciples straight to where the spirits were and cultivated and sensed them at the nearest possible place."

Upon hearing this, Zhong Yue seemed to see a giant dragon pulling a golden ship through the starry sky toward the sun. His heart raced with longing.

"Who can personally come to the sun's side now and sense a spirit?" He could not help shaking his head.

"I can!"

The Kindling Child smiled smugly. "Whether you want to refine a Sun Spirit or a Moon Spirit, I can make it happen! But that little girl was right. Your accumulation really isn't enough—far from enough! It's not that the offensive technique you cultivate is too limited. Your foundation simply isn't solid enough. If you can reach a level that satisfies me, I'll send you to the edge of the sun and above the moon, allowing you to cultivate the Sun and Moon Spirits!"

Zhong Yue's heart pounded. He hurriedly asked, "How will you send me there?"

"Back then, the previous Kindling inheritor and I wandered here. That old fellow was already decrepit, so I had him leave arrangements for the next Kindling inheritor. He set up two great arrays. Once activated, they can teleport you to the edge of the sun and onto the moon."

Kindling laughed. "As long as you can reach a level that satisfies me, I'll let you bask in the benefits and enjoy the treatment of a pure-blooded Kindling inheritor. I just don't know whether our arrangements were destroyed after all these years... Come, continue cultivating!"

More than ten days later, Zhong Yue continued cultivating without pause, regardless of wind or rain. The Feather Spirit Pills were being consumed at a frightening rate as well. During these days of frenzied cultivation, more than half of the nine hundred-plus Feather Spirit Pills had been used up, leaving only a little over three hundred.

Zhong Yue's sea of consciousness had astonishingly expanded to a circumference of three thousand mu, as vast as a great lake. With a single thought, furious waves surged across the sea of consciousness, and his spiritual power erupted with terrifying force!

Moreover, weighted climbing had given him fingertip control over the Flood Dragon Totem and his body. The combination of the Thunderclap Sword Art and the Flood Dragon Totem had also become increasingly exquisite. Zhong Yue could Ride the Thunder Across the Sky and fly more than a li at tremendous speed, but it consumed an enormous amount of spiritual power and was less efficient than wing-type techniques.

Having cultivated to this point, Zhong Yue felt that his progress was becoming slower and slower, while the chance of entering the space between life and death had also fallen sharply.

This cultivation method no longer posed much of a threat to him, so the chance of entering the space between life and death naturally decreased.

"Tomorrow is the day the Upper Court qi practitioners give lectures again. The two soul weapons Elder Pu promised to refine for me should be finished as well. I wonder what those two soul weapons he's been refining for me these days are like?"

Zhong Yue could not help growing excited. This was his first time coming into contact with such high-grade treasures as soul weapons!