Beside the Cold Pool, those Registered Disciples showed no reaction at all. They could not sense a thing.
They only noticed that the long sword strapped to Deputy Captain Liu Chenggong's back had suddenly begun to tremble.
These people were only at the Aperture Opening Stage. They had no Spiritual Power within their bodies and had not truly begun cultivating yet.
Therefore, they had no way of detecting the strange occurrence appearing between heaven and earth.
But Liu Tianfeng and the others were different.
The old man shot to his feet, staring at the Cold Pool in shock.
Niu Yuanshan could not help walking forward and lowering his head to look into the bottomless water.
With their cultivation, they could sense another mysterious "ripple" spreading outward in all directions.
The change in Liu Chenggong's long sword was surely caused by the same thing!
The two Outer Sect Deacons exchanged a glance. With their cultivation realms, they actually could not make heads or tails of it.
They immediately walked over to Liu Chenggong and began examining the sword.
"Did you obtain this sword from Hidden Spirit Mountain?" Niu Yuanshan asked.
Liu Chenggong took down the long sword. This was his Destined Magic Treasure, and in theory, their minds should have been connected. Yet at this moment, even with both hands gripping it, he could not control it!
"Steward Niu, this sword is called Azure Pine. I did indeed obtain it from Hidden Spirit Mountain. It is a Middle Grade Sword Embryo and my Destined Spirit Sword." His eyes were filled with astonishment as he answered honestly.
This was his precious treasure. Ordinary Outer Sect Disciples were not even qualified to go to Hidden Spirit Mountain to obtain a Magic Artifact.
Everyone had at least a little bit of a show-off's vanity. Liu Chenggong carried this sword on his back precisely to bask in the envious gazes of others!
But what was going on now?
"Something's strange." Liu Tianfeng looked at the Azure Pine Sword.
Niu Yuanshan said with considerable certainty, "I suspect that the mysterious power beneath the Cold Pool has affected far more than just this one sword!"
Neither he nor Liu Tianfeng was a Sword Cultivator...
But there was one thing they could be certain of: the treasures inside the Secret Realm had definitely already been taken by someone. Otherwise, this strange occurrence would not have happened!
They simply did not know who had ultimately claimed them!
Outer Sect, Medicine Mountain.
Mo Qingmei, one of the Nine Great Stewards, was practicing her sword in her own courtyard.
There were only three female Deacons in the entire Outer Sect, half as many as the male Deacons. She was one of them.
Mo Qingmei was middle-aged, but she had maintained herself well. She was a mature beauty who still possessed considerable charm, the sort of woman Liu Chengqi would indulge in wild fantasies about at night.
She was not exceptionally beautiful, but her skin was very fair and pleasing to the eye. She was the type whose appeal came from her bearing.
Combined with the fullness natural to her age and her gentle temperament, she was highly popular among the Outer Sect Disciples.
Over the past few days, Mo Qingmei had obtained a Profound Grade Sword Art called Falling Cherry Blossom.
It was a Sword Art created by a female Sword Cultivator senior, and she was very fond of it because it looked exceptionally beautiful when performed.
At this moment, she was halfway through practicing when she suddenly turned around in surprise.
She sensed a mysterious force spreading outward in the form of ripples. It had just swept through her courtyard.
The Destined Spirit Sword in Mo Qingmei's hand suddenly began trembling uncontrollably!
The tremors were not as obvious as those of Liu Chenggong's Azure Pine, but they were still clearly beyond her control.
"What is going on?" She was immediately shocked.
Such an abnormality in one's Destined Magic Treasure was no trivial matter.
"It seems to be coming from the Cold Pool?" Mo Qingmei glanced westward.
She immediately sheathed her sword and headed toward the Cold Pool.
Strangely, even after the sword had been sheathed, it continued to tremble slightly.
Mo Qingmei was a cultivator at the peak of the Third Realm, unlike an Outer Sect Disciple such as Liu Chenggong.
She had been nourishing her Destined Spirit Sword for many years, so the Sword Spirit within it was certainly more sentient than that of the Azure Pine Sword.
"It seems a little excited." Mo Qingmei could not figure it out.
She quickly headed toward the Cold Pool, her expression solemn.
The ripple continued spreading outward, and it soon surpassed the boundaries of Medicine Mountain.
The Dao Sect's Outer Sect had three mountain peaks in total, and Medicine Mountain was the one closest to the Inner Sect.
In the Inner Sect's Purple Bamboo Forest, Tenth Elder Chu Yinyin was flying through the air.
She held her Destined Spirit Sword in her hand, her expression extremely grave.
However, because of her Cultivation Method, her body still looked like that of a little girl. Thus, when she put on a solemn expression, she gave off the air of a miniature adult.
She soon flew deep into the Purple Bamboo Forest, her face as cold as water, as though facing a great enemy.
There was a stone wall ahead. In front of it stood a huge boulder, and a woman sat cross-legged atop it.
She was slender, almost excessively thin, and looked incomparably frail.
The woman wore a Daoist robe, dressed like a Daoist Nun. Her long, ink-black hair had been coiled into a Daoist bun, with a simple wooden hairpin inserted through it.
She faced the stone wall with her back to Chu Yinyin.
She was so thin that her Daoist robe appeared somewhat loose all over.
As the Dao Sect's Tenth Elder, Chu Yinyin possessed cultivation at the Great Perfection of the Sixth Realm.
She deliberately concealed her aura and silently flew here. Then, pointing her Destined Spirit Sword at the Daoist Nun atop the boulder, she suddenly thrust it forward.
As she closed in, the Daoist Nun, whose back was facing her, remained completely motionless. Only the wooden hairpin in her hair seemed to carry an almost imperceptible radiance.
A surge of aura spread out. Chu Yinyin was sent flying backward and crashed heavily onto the ground, landing squarely on her bottom.
Her ambush had failed. After crying out in pain, the naturally lively Chu Yinyin immediately threw a tantrum. "You dead woman! You deliberately made me land on my butt again!"
The Daoist Nun, the Dao Sect's Seventh Elder, continued facing the stone wall as she sat atop the boulder with her back to Chu Yinyin. She did not make a sound, as though she had heard nothing.
Chu Yinyin cursed and complained for a long while, but the other party still ignored her.
Yet she seemed to have long since grown accustomed to this.
After cursing to her satisfaction, Chu Yinyin finally looked up at the slender figure atop the boulder and said, "Shen Man, when are you finally coming out of Secluded Cultivation? You have no idea how they've bullied me while you were gone!"
She began rambling about what had happened in the main hall that day. She described how they had all acted like riddlers, saying that they had important matters to discuss and that anyone below the Seventh Realm was unworthy of knowing. She even complained that Senior Brother, as the Enforcement Elder, had set up a formation to stop her from eavesdropping.
"They just look down on me!" Chu Yinyin put her hands on her hips and puffed out her completely flat chest indignantly.
As the Junior Sister, the person she actually liked most was her Seventh Senior Sister, while the one she disliked most was her Ninth Senior Sister, Nangong Yue.
The reason was simple. Because of the flaw in her Cultivation Method, she still looked like a little girl even now, whereas Nangong Yue was the classic example of being blessed with an abundance of assets.
Not only was she charming, but her chest was astonishingly ample.
Chu Yinyin had bathed with her before. Those two things had actually floated in the water, and just seeing them had left her dizzy with envy! It was simply infuriating.
But Seventh Senior Sister was wonderful. Because she was so terribly thin, only the tips of newly grown lotus leaves showed above the water.
Although her bearing was otherworldly and, despite her thinness, she somehow gave off an ethereal air, I'm cute too!
I'm not inferior! I'm not inferior!
But Nangong Yue was different. She was obscenely huge, indecently large!
Therefore, although Chu Yinyin called her "dead woman" after her prank failed, the truth was that after the Dao Sect's Seventh Elder, Shen Man, obtained the Dao Ancestor Inheritance, she had drawn boundaries around herself in the Purple Bamboo Forest and entered Secluded Cultivation to comprehend it. Chu Yinyin was the only one who often came to disturb her, because she missed her terribly after only a few days apart.
After speaking at length by herself, the Daoist Nun sitting high atop the boulder merely nodded slightly. She still did not say a word, like a mute.
But Chu Yinyin naturally knew that her Seventh Senior Sister could not possibly be mute. She simply did not like talking.
Even when she did speak, Shen Man was just like her name suggested: her speech was extremely slow, and her pauses were very strange.
—Because she stuttered.
Chu Yinyin was just about to say a few more words when she suddenly turned around again and looked behind her.
That mysterious ripple had already spread to this place.
As the ripple continued to spread, it stirred countless swords into motion.
Even the Destined Spirit Sword in her hand, Xiang Jian Huan, trembled lightly twice.
Although the movement was extremely slight, Chu Yinyin naturally noticed it.
"Hm? What kind of anomaly is this..." She abruptly raised her head and looked toward the Daoist Nun atop the boulder.
Chu Yinyin stared curiously at the wooden hairpin in her hair.
The result disappointed her.
Her Spirit Sword, Xiang Jian Huan, could not help reacting as well, yet the wooden hairpin atop the Daoist Nun's head, despite her also being a Sword Cultivator, remained motionless.
After the ripple spread to the boulder's location, it suddenly came to a halt.
This time, the Daoist Nun, who had remained silent all along, finally responded to her.
She gave the answer to the strange occurrence.
Her speech was very slow, and her pauses were strange, but her voice was beautiful:
"Clear Heart... Sword."
"What!?" Chu Yinyin immediately cried out in surprise, then looked toward Medicine Mountain.
"That's the Outer Sect!" Her voice rose a little.
Her figure vanished in an instant as she flew toward Medicine Mountain, leaving only a sentence behind in the air: "Shen Man, I'm leaving!"
The Daoist Nun atop the boulder was left alone, shaking her head and laughing.
"You d-didn't even call me S-Senior Sister. So, so rude," she murmured affectionately.
Inside the Cold Pond Secret Realm, Chu Huai Xu, who sat cross-legged, and Han Shuangjiang, who was protecting him, had no idea how lively things were beside the Cold Pool at that moment.
The Xuantian Fetal Breath Pill was being rapidly digested and absorbed, filling his entire body with warmth.
Although his body was so hot that it felt as if it were about to boil, he did not feel the slightest discomfort.
Unlike when he practiced the "Sword Refining Art," that "painful scripture," Chu Huai Xu felt so comfortable he could die!
Just half an incense stick earlier, he had heard the System prompt sound: "Ding! Congratulations, your Spiritual Embryo Attribute has increased by 1."
And just now, he had heard the same message again.
A single Xuantian Fetal Breath Pill had actually increased his Spiritual Embryo Attribute by a full two points!
He had originally thought it would increase by one point at most. After all, the pill's special quality was that it had a high probability of increasing the grade of one's Spirit Fetus, which meant it was also possible for it not to increase it at all.
"As expected of a pill personally refined by the Pill King. It really is overbearing!" he marveled inwardly.
Chu Huai Xu even suspected that an ordinary Xuantian Fetal Breath Pill was a Level 7 Spirit Pill, while this one might well be more than Level 7!
Immediately afterward, he soon heard a third System prompt sound.
"Ding! You have successfully unlocked the Spiritual Embryo Divine Ability: Clear Heart Sword!"
Hearing this, Chu Huai Xu, who had been sitting in meditation with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them.
(PS: Second update. Please vote for me~)
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