"Fifth Realm!"
Pang Jian's heart jolted. His gaze, fixed on the darkness, suddenly grew deep and solemn.
"It really could be the Fifth Realm! The Fifth Realm's harsh and unusual environment is exactly as Pang Jian described it!"
Han Duping cried out in alarm. He had already started backing away and was loudly urging Zhou Qingchen to hurry.
Like a frightened bird, Su Meng hurried toward the city gate behind them, terrified of touching the endless darkness.
After his initial shock, Pang Jian quickly regained his composure and silently sensed the abnormality within his body.
The force he had inhaled into his dantian a moment earlier had filled it with impurities. He felt as though he had returned to the days before he had truly entered the Qi Refining Realm, when he had repeatedly cleansed the impurities in his "cotton fluff."
With filthy dregs and foreign matter in his dantian, its circulation became sluggish, and the movement of spiritual power through his meridians grew sluggish as well.
He could only silently rotate the vortex connecting his Spirit Sea to his dantian, purifying and cleansing those impurities first.
That, in turn, consumed the spiritual power he had stored up.
In other words, cultivating in the darkness would be counterproductive, since the foul aura within it far exceeded the spiritual energy. Taking it into his body would only do more harm than good.
Pang Jian immediately grew wary. He realized he absolutely must not try to absorb spiritual power and cultivate in the darkness; doing so would only deplete his strength.
He also couldn't breathe in too much of the air there, or his internal organs seemed unable to bear it.
He could hardly imagine how any living beings could exist in the completely dark Fifth Realm, under such harsh conditions.
And