Great Luo Dharma Body

Clack! Clack! Clack!

It was not yet dawn, but there was already movement in the fields.

Li Yan wielded the sickle, sweeping in with his left hand and drawing it across with his right. Large handfuls of wheat fell in response, neatly arranged behind him, waiting to be bundled later.

After a while, when the sky in the distance showed the pale white of a fish's belly, Li Yan, who had been working with his head down, slowly straightened up. He made a few movements to loosen his waist and back, then turned to look around.

The wheat fields in the distance were just as busy.

The wheat at Li Family Fortress had reached harvest time as well.

There was a proper time to harvest wheat. As the saying went, "Harvest at nine-tenths ripe and lose nothing; harvest at full ripeness and lose one-tenth." One could not wait until the wheat was completely mature.

Even the time of day mattered. Harvesting was usually done in the morning and evening, when the stalks were tougher and less likely to break, while the grains were less likely to fall off.

After laboring bitterly for an entire year, wasting even a little was heartbreaking.

It had been four or five days since he returned. Every night, he practiced observing and preserving the spirit. Though he had yet to succeed, he had made considerable progress.

Now that the sickles had been opened, he could harvest wheat and cultivate without neglecting either.

A strong laborer could cut about one mu of wheat in a day.

Li Yan was a martial practitioner to begin with, with a solid foundation in training. He had also learned the Sickle Skill passed down through the countryside, so his movements were nimble. In a single day, he could cut a full one and a half mu.

The few mu of land at home would take only a few days.

Every day, they cut the wheat, threshed it, dried it in the sun, and stored it in the granary. They often left before sunrise and returned after sunset. Even a martial practitioner ended up exhausted, with an aching waist and sore back.

Yet he enjoyed it.

His mystical power often ran out of control, making his emotions extremely unstable. But after tiring himself out with work, his mind emptied, and he found it easier to enter meditation.

Before he knew it, several more days had passed.

The golden waves of wheat around Li Family Fortress had vanished, leaving behind only boundless yellow earth and dense fields of broken stalks.

Whenever the wind blew, dust and sand rose into the air.

Beneath the setting sun, the land of Guanzhong appeared even more desolate and imposing.

Though the beautiful waves of wheat were gone, the common people were all beaming with joy.

Literati and wandering poets always believed that a sea of golden yellow meant a bumper harvest. But only those who scraped food from the earth knew that hail, rain, and strong winds were each a tribulation. Only when every grain had been gathered into the granary could it truly be called a good harvest.

That very night, Li Yan finally achieved a breakthrough.

In the dead of night, he sat cross-legged on the bed.

At this moment, his mind was free of all external things. His breathing was faint, almost nonexistent, and his consciousness was concentrated entirely between his brows. In the darkness, a glowing human figure floated quietly.

This was the deity he had visualized.

According to the cultivation method in the <True Scripture of the Western Profound Cavern Nether>, he visualized his five viscera and six bowels and every organ in his body each day, gathering all those faint traces of Spiritual Light from the unseen into the space between his brows before preserving the spirit.

The mark of success was that the preserved spirit did not dissipate.

Even after waking, as long as he stirred his thoughts, the preserved spirit would immediately appear in his sea of consciousness.

Of course, this method also proceeded step by step.

As his cultivation advanced, the deity he visualized would gradually become clearer.

Cultivators from the lineages of the other great religions all had their own ancestral masters or divine immortals as templates. But at this moment, an abnormal situation had appeared with Li Yan.

His visualization template was the divine statue in his dantian.

This object always remained in his dantian, linked to him heart and soul. He only needed to focus his attention, unlike other cultivators of the mysterious sects, who often had to gather their scattered minds.

This was also why his progress was so rapid.

At the moment he succeeded in visualization, the glowing figure between his brows suddenly sensed the Substitute Divine Statue. It rapidly descended and enveloped the statue.

This sudden turn of events caught Li Yan off guard.

Before he could react, the divine statue changed once again.

After merging with the light of the preserved spirit, the Substitute Divine Statue's originally indistinct face began to twist continuously. Then its features took shape, becoming exactly like his own.

At the same time, all kinds of information surged into his mind.

Shock filled Li Yan's eyes, followed by delight.

His previous perception of the divine statue had been extremely vague, so he could only infer its function from the incomplete information.

But after preserving the spirit, the divine statue had finally been completely refined by him.

This treasure was called the "Great Luo Dharma Body."

Aside from exchanging wounds and substituting for his life, it could also guard the spirit.

The deity he had visualized had fused into one with the Great Luo Dharma Body.

There were two benefits.

The first was that it protected the preserved spirit, serving the same function as a tower-temple. Even if he did not perform rituals and ceremonies to build a tower for the preserved spirit, it would not dissipate at will.

The second was that, like his physical body, it could exchange wounds.

If he were struck by a curse or similar spell aimed at the Divine Soul, he could transfer it away and have the divine statue bear it instead, leaving the preserved spirit unharmed.

Of course, the tower-temple still had to be built.

After all, the Great Luo Dharma Body could only take wounds in his place; it could not enhance his cultivation.

More importantly, the Great Luo Dharma Body could continue to level up.

It only needed to devour Heavenly Spiritual Treasures to strengthen the Dharma Body. And if he obtained enough Heavenly Spiritual Treasures and performed a certain ritual, he could rekindle his Life Flame.

That was equivalent to gaining another life!

He had never expected that the Great Luo Dharma Body also required divine refinement.

A smile appeared on Li Yan's face. With a stir of his thoughts, the preserved spirit returned between his brows. Even when his mind became cluttered, the glowing figure would no longer dissipate.

Suppressing his excitement, he followed the Mystical Gestures taught in the <True Scripture of the Western Profound Cavern Nether> and adjusted his breathing. Then, as he concentrated his mind, his mystical power suddenly changed.

His Olfactory Mystical Power had originally been out of control. Most of the time it was faint and indistinct, but it would occasionally erupt without warning. Afterward, his head would spin and throb, his vision would blacken, and it would take a long time for him to recover.

Now, however, that astonishing sense of smell began to fade.

In the end, it became no different from an ordinary person's.

Li Yan did not panic. With his left thumb, he pinched the upper joint of his second finger.

This was the Yang Seal, representing the Solar Star Lord.

He held the hand seal and took a deep breath. The Nose Mystical Power immediately activated. All kinds of scents flooded into his nostrils, growing stronger in accordance with his thoughts.

Then his left thumb pinched the upper joint of his fourth finger.

This was the Yin Incantation, representing the Lunar Star Lord. His mystical power was shut off once more.

According to the canonical text, mystical powers originated from the Yang Six Roots. They were not merely physical strength. Using them consumed both mental energy and the Divine Soul.

After preserving the spirit and mastering the Yin and Yang Incantations, he could control his mystical power freely.

Keeping it shut off during ordinary times would prevent those sinister things from setting their sights on him.

The dark cloud hanging over his head finally dispersed at this moment.

Plop!

Just as Li Yan was rejoicing, a stone suddenly flew into the courtyard.

In the silent night, there was no way it could escape Li Yan's ears.

Someone's here!

His brows rose sharply. He rolled out of bed, grabbed the Guanshan Knife from the wall, and slipped quietly out the door.

Plop!

Another stone landed on the ground.

Li Yan narrowed his eyes slightly, his right hand pressing down on the knife hilt.

This was casting a stone to test the road, a method understood only by people of the martial world.

If it was a fellow traveler, one would call out a phrase of underworld argot, and the other party would leave, avoiding an unauthorized intrusion, a clash, and the brewing of a blood feud.

If no one answered, then one could enter and leave as one pleased.

He had been about to speak and drive the other party away, but then his thoughts stirred. He formed a hand seal and inhaled deeply. At once, he could distinguish every scent within a hundred meters.

Sha LiFei?!

When he smelled the newcomer, Li Yan was immediately somewhat surprised.

He looked toward the other side and sensed that his grandfather, Li Gui, was still asleep. Then he suddenly rushed forward, reached the corner of the wall, kicked off with his left foot and then his right, and used the force to vault into the air. With a clean sideways somersault, he cleared the courtyard wall.

The person standing outside the courtyard wall was indeed Sha LiFei.

He was clearly in a sorry state. His clothes were tattered, his body covered in dust, and he was hiding in the shadow of a jujube tree, poking his head out and looking around.

"What happened?"

Li Yan frowned and asked in a lowered voice.

Sha LiFei scratched his bald head and said bitterly, "Let's talk outside the village. Daoist Wang came too. He's at the ruined temple on the back mountain."

"Also, could you bring me some water and food?"

"I've been hungry all day..."

On the back mountain of Li Family Fortress stood a Mountain God Temple.

Temples like this could be found throughout the Divine Land. Before entering the mountains, herb gatherers, hunters, and travelers often offered a stick of incense to pray for safety and avoid being startled by Demons and Monsters.

Back when the old soldiers of Li Family Fortress were still alive, the temple's incense had been fairly prosperous. After all, every one of those old soldiers had excellent archery skills and often went into the mountains to hunt game.

But these days, fewer and fewer people went up the mountain. Besides, there was nothing worthwhile in these barren hills, so the Mountain God Temple's incense had died out. After years of disrepair, even one corner of the roof beam had collapsed.

At this moment, a campfire crackled inside the temple.

Sha LiFei and Wang Dao Xuan held flatbreads over the fire to warm them, then gulped them down with cold water like starving ghosts reborn.

"Bandits smashing the village?"

Li Yan sat to one side, somewhat astonished.

No wonder. During the time he had been cultivating, the hired harvest workers who had gone out, including Hei Dan and the others, had already returned, while Wang Dao Xuan and Sha LiFei had remained nowhere to be seen.

He had originally thought that the eldest lady had held on for a long time and that the funeral rites had not yet been completed.

He had not expected them to have encountered bandits invading the village.

"Mm, exactly!"

Sha LiFei muttered while eating. "The moment the harvest workers left, bandits came to smash the village that very night. Luckily, Daoist Wang and I had gone to order a coffin, so we weren't surrounded."

Li Yan frowned. "The Lu Family has quite a few guards. Were there a lot of bandits?"

Sha LiFei forcefully swallowed the flatbread in his mouth and cursed, "More than enough. They were a black mass, too many to count, but there were at least three or four hundred."

"I even saw someone—the Qi-Lu Highwaymen Leader we ran into on the road that day. He had joined up with several major bandit leaders from Guanzhong."

"Damn it, the entire village was slaughtered. They were vicious as hell!"

"The Qi-Lu Highwaymen?"

When Li Yan heard this, he immediately fell into thought.

This matter was probably not so simple...