Mixing and Merging

Facts proved that yin spirits were not invisible. However, whether one could see yin spirits directly with the naked eye or if one had to rely on the Zhaoshen Map to discover them was a question that needed studying.

Yu Ci still wanted to see more clearly, but right at that moment, his eyes began to smart. The breath he had been holding naturally dissipated, and an unmistakable sense of exhaustion spread through his entire body. The imagery in the small courtyard seemed to have a layer of light gauze draped over it as it blurred.

Encountering this situation, Yu Ci suddenly had a realization and directly raised his perspective, overlooking the entire Juebi City.

Dan Cliff and the central basin were closely adjacent. Comparing the upper city and lower city that pressed against one another, Yu Ci indeed found some differences. As the foundation of Bai Ri Mansion, the upper city appeared in a slightly lighter color on the Zhaoshen Map, like a slightly faded painting or as if draped in a thin veil; whereas in the lower city, the gathering area of ordinary commoners, the color of the central basin was extremely bright and vivid.

This difference was extremely subtle, hidden within the five-colored, dazzling light and shadow. If Yu Ci had not kept this thought in mind, it would certainly have been difficult to distinguish. Combined with his past experience and the actual situation before him, could he make a conjecture:

The range displayed by the Zhaoshen Map and its clarity had a direct relationship with the strength of individual living beings around its reflected target? It was just that the clarity shown by the Zhaoshen Map was precisely the reverse: the weaker the target, the clearer it was, while the more powerful the target, the more blurred it was.

If he followed this theory, then everything was explained.

Of course, speaking of strength alone was also inaccurate, because strength and weakness were relative concepts, and there had to be a reference point within this. But if there really were such a reference point or standard, what could be more suitable than himself, the owner of this Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror?

The matter returned to a most basic question: what kind of strength did he himself count as right now?

The instant this thought arose, his mind shifted, and he jumped all at once from Dan Cliff dozens of miles away to this patch of mountain forest, which was the exact center of the Zhaoshen Map. There, the human figure sitting on a large tree stump in the forest was none other than his own reflection on the Zhaoshen Map.

This was the first time Yu Ci had carefully examined his "self-reflection" within the Zhaoshen Map, and it felt extremely wonderful. He had once thought that while he was observing the reflection, the reflection must also be observing another "reflection inside the Zhaoshen Map"; and "that other reflection inside the Zhaoshen Map" would go to observe "the other reflection inside the Zhaoshen Map observed by the reflection inside the other Zhaoshen Map"... Nested repeatedly like this, ad infinitum.

Yet in truth, the thing he guessed did not happen, because the moment his gaze landed, the reflection in the Zhaoshen Map seemed to gain sentience, slowly raising its head and casting its gaze outward, meeting his eyes precisely.

At this moment, in the center of the Zhaoshen Map, his own reflection moved.

The tiny human figure inside seemed to stand erect and gaze into the distance, deep in thought; or it seemed to stand in a post, relaxed and natural. But no matter how one described it, this was certainly not a reflection of his physical state. At this moment, the reflection in the diagram seemed alive, possessing free sentience.

Yu Ci stared at the human figure in the diagram, feeling that there was an irresistible magic within it. Unconsciously, his poured-in intent merged into one with it, to the point that he could no longer distinguish whether the world inside or outside the Zhaoshen Map was true and which was false. At this moment too, driven by an unknown force, his body gave a jolt, and the tree stump beneath him collapsed with a crash.

He stood steadily by instinct, having actually struck a pose identical to the reflection in the diagram. As his blood and Qi churned, he only felt the bones, sinews, and muscles of his entire body violently twist into a single strand, while all his vital essence and physical strength condensed together and surged upward violently.

His crown shook, as if an opening had been forced open, and the vital essence and physical strength of his whole body broke out of his body just like that.

At this same time, his sleeve shook, and the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror seemed to gain its own sentience, flying out spontaneously. It spun, crossed over the top of his head, and then its rotational speed abruptly stopped. The moment the bronze mirror stopped, its smooth mirror surface was facing directly downward, covering his crown and also blocking the surging force of blood and Qi.

The bronze mirror hummed and vibrated, and the Zhaoshen Map directly in front of it was also affected. Its light flared immensely, and then it transformed into a ball of light mist that flew toward the location of the bronze mirror above his head, merging into it in the blink of an eye. At this moment, only Yu Ci and the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror remained in the quiet mountain forest, the two of them undergoing an extremely wondrous reaction.

The bronze mirror seemed unable to bear the power contained within the vital essence and physical strength, beginning to sway unsteadily before starting to spin once more.

Without the Zhaoshen Map, Yu Ci should not have been able to see the changes in the mirror above his head, but at this very moment, a truly unmistakable connection was born between him and the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror. The suspended bronze mirror felt as though it were held in his hand, or had fundamentally become a part of his body. He clearly sensed a circuit similar to meridian acupoints behind the mirror surface; when blood and Qi were transmitted into it, an immediate response was obtained.

Injection, circulation, accumulation; injection, circulation, accumulation... These three clear links looped endlessly like this, gathering all the vital essence and physical strength that had burst through his crown into the mirror, accumulating them within the "acupoint" at the center of the "circuit," condensing like a pearl without a single shred of leakage.

Yet beneath the bronze mirror, Yu Ci's state was quite ominous. That single instance of blood and Qi rushing to his crown had stripped away all his strength, and an irresistible sense of emptiness instantly spread throughout his entire body. His current state was perhaps even inferior to a newly born newborn; a gust of mountain breeze sweeping past might just take his life.

Then the wind came, and Yu Ci's body drifted, as if it had lost its weight and was about to fly away along with the wind.

This was clearly an illusion; it was not his body that was drifting away. In reality, his body had not moved a fraction of an inch. The things about to fly out were his perception, consciousness, and other purely spiritual aspects—his spirit and soul, which he had refined for over a decade and was on the verge of achieving a breakthrough with.

He had long since reached the level of spirit and Qi echoing each other; at this moment, this was a phenomenon produced by the mutual resonance and attraction between the innate essence accumulated in the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror and his spirit and soul.

If he were even the slightest bit careless, with the increasingly strong attraction between the two, his spirit and soul really might plunge into the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror along with the innate essence. For the essence to break through the crown was already a terribly bad thing, and if even the spirit and soul were to desert their apertures, he would truly be left with nothing more than an empty shell, devoid of any meaning for existence.

At this life-or-death moment, Yu Ci nevertheless steadied his mind. Ignoring everything else, he solely employed the "aperture-guarding" technique from the Nine Palaces Moon Bright True Return Marvelous Method, condensing his spiritual intent to guard the Mud Pill Palace, and then gathered the very last bit of strength in his body, letting out a spring-thunder roar from his tongue:

"Fix!"

The soundwave diffused, the rotation and vibration of the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror abruptly ceased, and the mountain forest suddenly fell still. Immediately, Yu Ci felt a heaviness on his scalp, as if a heavy iron weight were pressing down against his crown. Facing this, instead of being alarmed, he was overjoyed. For what was pressing down was precisely the ball of essence pearl already condensed within the central "acupoint" of the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror!

Spirit and Qi echoed and mutually attracted; if one side did not move, the one that moved naturally had to be the other!

The essence pearl slipped out from the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror, neither quite solid nor quite empty, and sank into his crown without the slightest obstruction, pressing further down into the Mud Pill Palace. Subjected to the pressure of this force, the Mud Pill Palace leaped, thereby driving the four directions and four corners, further spreading to his entire brain palace, all the way to his limbs and skeletal frame, driving the muscles, bones, and blood of his entire body to tremble in unison.

Yu Ci faintly sensed that this essence pearl ought to have aggregated together, but the pressure brought by the pearl was truly too great, and his body could not quite withstand it. Therefore, driven by his spirit and soul, his body spontaneously reacted, and his limbs and bones generated a powerful suction force, acting upon the essence pearl through the convergence of the Mud Pill Palace.

Influenced by these thousands of wisps of gravitational pull, the essence pearl had just sunk into the Mud Pill Palace when it lost its original form, transforming from a heavy iron weight into warmth like a spring breeze, and also like body-temperature water of the most comfortable sort, flowing down from the brain palace. Paying no heed to meridians or blood vessels, it instead soaked into his flesh, bones, and viscera in wisps and dense threads, from crown to heel, and from heel to crown, like an inverted hourglass, cycling back and forth.

After several rounds, Yu Ci felt this warmth fill his entire body, gradually like water filling a mountain stream or vapor steaming a great marsh. Truly, brightness was it, and darkness was it; strength was it, and weakness was it; existence was it, and non-existence was it. It reached everywhere and penetrated everything, to the extent that his mind and spirit blended indistinguishably within it.

At this moment, his stiffened body could finally move. Yu Ci spread his palm, his hand slightly damp with sweat. He had to admit that his state was good—unprecedentedly good. Yet prior to this, what he had encountered was the deadliest danger. If he had erred even slightly, his essence, Qi, and spirit might have been sucked dry by the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror, leaving him with nothing more than an empty, hollow shell to rot away amidst the mountains!

Why had such a situation appeared? Especially since the feeling was so familiar, just like... just like when he had swung his sword to slay that Second Master Xu beneath the Sky Split Rift, his mind and primordial Qi blending and harmonizing without a single seam.

He stared at his own palm, slowly bending his ring, pinky, and middle fingers together, aligning all three straight as a sword. Pausing in stagnation, he suddenly slashed out. A low, faint hiss issued from the air, instantly melting into the mountain wind coursing through the forest, leaving not the slightest trace behind.

Yu Ci felt no obstruction whatsoever at his fingertips, not even the resistance of the air. He only felt that when his three fingers slashed through empty space, there was an unprecedented lightness, as if his flesh and blood had turned ethereal. Yet in reality, a bowl-thick fir tree stood right beside him, positioned precisely along the trajectory through which his fingers had swept.

Another gust of mountain breeze blew past, and the edge of the fir tree on this side suddenly eroded into a small opening, fine wood shavings sliding down from it. In the blink of an eye, this small opening extended outward, half an inch deep, with an inner cut surface as smooth as though meticulously planed by the most skilled carpenter.

Fixing his gaze on the gash in the fir tree, Yu Ci was somewhat dazed. The sensation of earlier still lingered at his fingertips, but that feeling was too subtle, making it difficult for him to recall the exact details.

Yet that feeling vaguely resembled the time when Ye Bin's lingering sword intent had penetrated straight through his body at the summit of the Sky Split Rift, by the edge of the cliff.

For these past few days, Yu Ci had been constantly studying that wisp of mist-like sword intent, and had also been constantly imitating the profound and subtle wonder of that sword intent passing through the body, yet the effects had consistently been poor. But the finger-sword he had just casually released unexpectedly possessed three parts of its flavor. It had to be said, this was a tremendous surprise.

And all of this certainly could not bypass that azure-glowing bronze mirror above his head.

He raised his head, his face happening to reflect upon the smooth mirror surface. At this moment, the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror truly looked like the most ordinary of bronze mirrors—except for the fact that it was still suspended in mid-air.

"Old partner, just what kind of thing are you?"

Amidst the sigh, the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror seemed sentient, its azure light rippling like water and shimmering with waves. Then Yu Ci saw a beam of light shoot down from the center of the mirror surface, giving him no time to react as it pierced straight into his glabella.