511: Completion I

Following the voice's directions, Lin Hui quickly drilled underground, reaching a depth of over ten kilometers, where the view below suddenly opened up.

A large, oval space, dimly lit yet comfortable.

Inside, the air is fresh and clean, and there are rows of black stone houses on the ground. Neatly maintained gray and white paths connect the houses.

A small golden sphere of light floated in mid-air, clearly the only source of illumination here.

At this moment, standing beside a stone house was a slender and delicate young girl dressed in a green gauze dress.

She looked to be just an adult, and when she saw Lin Hui, she waved in their direction.

"Senior, over here, over here!" the girl called out telepathically.

Lin Hui closer and landed gently.

"My name is Lin Chengdao. Thank you for your kind reminder, fellow Daoist." He clasped his hands in a fist and bowed to the other party.

"I wasn't acting out of kindness either..." Zhao Shuling smiled bitterly. "Our senior was attacked by two Cleaners before; this is a process that every new Fusionist must go through."

"Yes, we are considered guides permitted by both major powers. After experiencing the hardships of the Cleaners, the vast majority of people will choose to obediently pay their fees." Another deep, tired male voice interjected.

Behind Zhao Shuling, a flash of blue light appeared, and a middle-aged man with broad shoulders suddenly appeared.

The man clasped his hands in a fist salute to Lin Hui.

"My name is Guo Shan, and I'm in charge of this hiding place."

"Lin Chengdao, I haven't been here long, and there are many things I don't understand at all." Lin Hui casually gave himself a pseudonym.

"Come inside first." Guo Shan walked to a stone house on the side, opened the door, and invited him in.

The three of them entered the stone house together.

Guo Shan sat down cross-legged.

"Senior, you must have just come from outside, right?"

"Yes, please elaborate on the specifics, fellow Daoist," Lin Hui said, clasping his hands in a fist salute.

"Actually, it's similar to the other courts. The Thunder King Sect and the Myriad Stars Tower are the two largest forces here. In this small court, which can be reached in a day, these two forces are the key to whether we live comfortably. And they require each individual to hand over a portion of their Cognition Crystals," Guo Shan said softly.

"But where would we get so many crystallized insights here? The exit only opens once every nine hundred years..." Lin Hui frowned.

"Yes, so the core objective of the two major forces is not actually the crystallization of knowledge, but rather to make everyone obey their constraints and be used by them." Guo Shan nodded with a wry smile.

"How exactly should we use it?" Lin Hui asked.

"If they can't hand over the knowledge crystals, they'll be sent to refine the Primordial Corpse," Zhao Shuling said helplessly from the side.

"Primordial Corpse? What's that?"

"It's an enormous and incredibly powerful corpse. No ordinary injury can leave a mark on it. Only by using a special soul-dissolving technique, concentrating Divine Power at a single point, and proceeding step by step, can the Primordial Corpse's tissues be slowly dismembered," Zhao Shuling sighed. "This work is extremely taxing on mental and spiritual power. If I really go, I'm afraid I'll be stuck doing that kind of thing forever..."

"So, fellow Daoist, do you understand now? Please hand over one thousand standard units of Cognition Crystals. This is the amount for the next ten years." Guo Shan nodded in agreement... Lin Hui was speechless. He wasn't Fusion Faction at all, so where would he get any Cognition Crystals? Asking him to pay was obviously impossible. Seeing his silence and calm expression, both of them smiled helplessly, having already made up their minds.

"It seems you'll have to do manual labor, senior," Zhao Shuling said. "The two major sects will be investigating all outsiders in three days. You can choose to leave now, or stay and wait for the envoy to arrive. We can provide some temporary accommodations."

"Let them stay." Lin Hui recalled the troublesome male and female cleaners from before, and felt somewhat irritated.

He gets really annoyed when he encounters someone who's fearless and keeps going back and forth trying to outlast him.

If all Fusionist fight like this, then he suddenly understood why other experts of the same level couldn't defeat Fusionist of the same level. The corruption and erosion of the Calamity was one aspect, but the Fusion Faction' self-destructive fighting style was the real core issue.

Seeing that he truly had no cognitive crystals, Zhao Shuling and Guo Shan didn't say much. They arranged a small stone house for him and gave him a blue jade pendant marked with the number 6849.

"Three days from now, at dawn, a dragon beast will roar outside as a time signal. Upon hearing this, Senior, please be sure to come out and greet the envoy. Otherwise..." Zhao Shuling carefully instructed.

"Don't worry, don't worry." Lin Hui nodded and readily agreed.

After watching Guo Shan and Zhao Shuling leave, Lin Hui turned back to look at the small stone house he had been assigned.

Scan it once with your mind, then verify it again with the Blood Seal.

Only after confirming that there were no problems did he enter and block the stone door.

The Surrounding Wind dispersed, and the Immortal Fire consumed the entire interior space of the house.

After finishing the task, Lin Hui sat down cross-legged with peace of mind and began to unleash the Wind Righteous Seal and the Heart-Shadow Devil Incense.

The seal amplifies his physical and mental defenses, while the Devil Incense slows down all negative influences around him, concealing his own aura fluctuations.

Having done this, he exhaled slightly and finally began to ponder how to proceed once he entered the courtyard.

"Judging from the strength of the Cleaners, the power of the Thunder King Sect and the Myriad Stars Tower is far beyond my expectations. It's impossible for just a few materialized energy levels to suppress such a large situation."

Just before he entered the house, he scanned the surrounding area with his mind and sensed that there were at least a hundred independent cultivators from the Fusion Faction living there. It was definitely not as few as Zhao Shuling had said.

Among these cultivators, a small number were surrounded by an aura similar to his, that is, the seventh level of materialization.

"Even if I possess various secret techniques, such as the Fate Reversal and the Origin Scene Sword Canon, and am not afraid of being attacked in a relentless manner, I still need to hide here for nine hundred years, waiting for the next time the gate opens so I can leave. There's no need for constant fighting and killing. We still need to create a relatively peaceful and stable cultivation environment."

Lin Hui knew very well that what he lacked most right now was time.

Given enough time, Yin-Time Self-Origin Art can convert a large amount of Wind Energy and further enhance its energy level, eventually reaching the same level as Master Seven Extinctions.

"However, the highest level of the Nine Heavens Gate's techniques is only the level of Colloidal Dissociation, and I have not practiced the standard techniques; I have followed a different path that I evolved myself."

He initially advanced to materialization using the Nether Seed. The Nether Seed was actually evolved from a secret technique given to him by Teacher Seven Extinctions for energy level advancement. Now that the upper limit of the secret technique is materialization, which he has achieved, he will have to find another way to further improve.

In essence, although Lin Hui called Seven Extinctions" Teacher," the two of them actually practiced completely different cultivation techniques.

The Nine Heavens Divine Wind Art, cultivated by the Seven Extinctions Cultivation Sect, is the traditional main martial art of the Nine Heavens Gate.

However, Lin Hui did not practice it. Instead, he bypassed his main martial arts training and obtained the qualification to fully master the seal technique by directly using the Blood Seal method.

Normally, only those who cultivate the Nine Heavens Divine Wind Art to a very high level are qualified to receive the seal.

But the Blood Seal defied this prerequisite.

The problem this caused was that Lin Hui had not actually majored in martial arts.

"The Origin Scene Sword Canon is essentially for conquest and protection. My cultivation and power-up rely entirely on various random secret techniques. Currently, it primarily uses the Yin-Time Self-Origin Art and the Immortal Fire in combination."

Lin Hui understood.

With the blessing of the Flash Extreme Seal, he instantly figured out which directions he could take in the future.

"First, by continuously transforming Wind Disaster and accumulating enough Wind Energy, I can probably establish my own Wind Disaster domain and develop a completely new energy level advancement system by imitating Wind Disaster. Fortunately, I Existence Force at my disposal, so evolving a corresponding cultivation technique shouldn't be a problem. This is actually the path of controlling Wind Disaster."

"Secondly, I'll follow the path of Karmic Fire. Transforming the Disaster Energy of Light Disaster, burning all things, transforming everything. The Immortal Fire has given me more and greater possibilities. And after the Nameless Heart allowed me to imitate Karmic Fire once, further advancement in my realm will be much easier."

Because he imitated the Karmic Fire, a large number of Karmic Fire cultivation techniques and memories are still deeply etched in his mind.

For Lin Hui, as long as he is willing to follow the path of cultivating Karmic Fire, he can easily begin to reach a level of power similar to reincarnation and rebirth, where he can retrieve the Karmic Fire.

However, Karmic Fire never actually completed this path before completely disappearing. Judging from the remaining memories, he is most likely dead. Thirdly, let's continue evolving the secret techniques for increasing energy levels and see if the Blood Seal can provide a better direction. Essentially, powerful techniques like the Yin-Time Self-Origin Art, which converts energy into Source Disaster Energy, were also evolved step by step by the Blood Seal. Using the current Existence Force, perhaps we can evolve a new direction.

The neutral, covert route belonging to the Heart Source Demon Emperor flashed through Lin Hui's mind.

After pondering for a few moments, he decided to first try to evolve and see if the Blood Seal could offer a better option. If there was no suitable one, he would continue on the path of the Wind Disaster.

He was far too unfamiliar with the path of transforming Light Disaster into Karmic Fire.

After finalizing the plan, he closed his eyes and entered the Blood Seal identification state, first selecting the Wandering Convergence Seal in its used-up state.

This technique, which could only advance one's material energy level, has now lost its effectiveness.

Lin Hui designated him to begin a new Blood Seal identification process.

"The Wandering Convergence Seal: Can borrow from external beings..." After a series of introductory information, small print slowly appeared at the bottom.

"Evolvable branch: 5."

"Evolving the Wandering Convergence Seal back then cost me a million units of Existence Force. Now, I hope what I have is enough..."

Lin Hui took a deep breath and gently clicked on the evolution branch.

In a flash, a dense array of text messages appeared before him.

"1. Heart-Sealing Fire-Severing Seal: Seal your mind and spirit, ignite your soul with the frenzied fire of anger, and stimulate a trace of the Disaster Energy Colloidal Dissociation. This method is to maximize internal pressure, with a success rate of 40% for advancing to the Colloidal Dissociation energy level. After success, it will leave behind significant soul trauma sequelae."

"2.1-3-Turn Floating Seal: The universal advancement seal method of the Nine-Bend Heavenly Splendor Pavilion. By relying on a huge external force and increasing the external pressure, it repeatedly compresses all of its own energy three times, and finally has a 30% probability of generating a Colloidal Dissociation energy."

"3. Mystic Yellow Wind Curtain Seal: Created by an unknown person, it allows one to forcefully impact and merge with the energy of Wind Disaster Colloidal Dissociation, comprehend its rules and meaning, and then forcibly incorporate a point of Colloidal Dissociation Disaster Energy into it, ultimately reshaping the physical body and soul to enter a new energy level. The success rate is up to 50%. However, the difficulty of subsequent advancement doubles."