Soul-Scattering Thousand Stars

[After nine months of arduous cultivation, relying on the divine sense of your own Foundation Establishment Realm Great Perfection, you successfully cultivated the Soul Imprint Art to the Major Accomplishment realm.

You had already mastered the Life Soul Imprint with ease and had begun to delve into the Vengeful Soul Imprint.

Throughout this period of bitter cultivation, you discovered that the core of this secret art, born from the demonic path, lay in the two words "obsession."

Whether it was the Blood Soul Imprint's pursuit or the Vengeful Soul Imprint's karmic tracing, both essentially made use of living beings' fixation upon the "self."

When you prepared to continue studying this secret art in greater depth, you resolved to try stripping away this obsession and understand the essence of the divine soul from a more objective perspective.]

[After another half year, your Soul Imprint Art advanced steadily according to plan. Yet you could feel that, with your current divine sense strength, cultivating this secret art was becoming increasingly strenuous. You felt it would be difficult to make any further breakthroughs in this technique.

However, you could now refine a complete Vengeful Soul Imprint. Moreover, based on the Vengeful Soul Imprint, you deduced a "Memory Retracing Art" that could use fragments of a remnant soul's memories to reverse-engineer portions of its actions during life.

This gave you a deeper understanding of the circulation of soul energy.]

[Eight months later, your control over the divine soul had reached a minute level. Not only could you clearly sense the fluctuations of the soul flames of living beings within a certain range with your divine sense, you could also use the power of soul imprints to interfere, to a certain extent, with the innate divine-sense perception of cultivators or demonic beasts whose divine sense was weaker than yours.

You sighed at your considerable talent in the path of the soul. Should you unfortunately perish, becoming a ghost cultivator might not be such a bad choice.]

[Half a year later, your Soul Imprint Art reached the peak of the Major Accomplishment realm and could advance no further.

When you tried to force a breakthrough, your sea of consciousness throbbed with pain, and you discovered what seemed to be an invisible barrier stretched before you.

Realization dawned upon you: this was a sign that your divine sense lacked the strength to bear a higher-tier soul art.

Forcing a breakthrough would only cause your spiritual platform to collapse and your divine sense to suffer grievous damage. At best, you would become an idiot; at worst, you would die and vanish from the Dao.

Helplessly, you stopped there, though you had not gained nothing else.

Through countless refinements of soul imprints, combined with the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm you had comprehended, you gained a deeper understanding of the divine soul. You prepared to continue your research along this path.]

[Three months later, you achieved great gains!

Based on your minute observations of the divine soul through the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm, you believed that souls and divine sense were like ripples upon water.

Since water could take form, so too should the soul be able to scatter.

You dismantled your own divine sense and soul origin, transforming them into countless tiny grains of "star-sand" and dispersing them throughout your sea of consciousness rather than condensing them into a single mass.

This method of "scattering the soul" was in truth exceedingly dangerous. Ordinary cultivators would never dare attempt it, for the slightest carelessness could permanently split their divine souls apart.

But you were different. With the support of the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm, so long as your mind did not waver, you could, in but an instant, gather your divine soul, scattered like stars, back together.

The effects of scattering the divine soul were foreseeable. Should you encounter such tyrannical methods as a soul-searching art, it would become difficult for the other party to seize hold of your complete divine soul core.

Furthermore, even when facing powerful attacks targeting the divine soul, you could use the soul-scattering method to offset part of the damage.

You named this method of "scattering the soul" Soul-Scattering Thousand Stars, a divine-soul defensive technique of your own creation.]

Looking at the cultivation information, He Sheng was somewhat surprised. After investing time into cultivating the Soul Imprint Art twice, he had unexpectedly developed new methods both times.

The first time, he had independently comprehended a soul-searching art. This time, he had gained two additional rewards: first the so-called "Memory Retracing Art," then the comprehension of Soul-Scattering Thousand Stars.

"This Soul-Scattering Thousand Stars looks quite sophisticated, but I wonder what its actual effects are."

With a thought from He Sheng, his divine sense sank into his sea of consciousness.

Within the sea of consciousness, once as tranquil as a lake, starlight now glittered everywhere. Countless tiny motes of light floated and flowed like star-sand. They appeared chaotic and disorderly, yet secretly followed some profound rhythm.

This was the effect of Soul-Scattering Thousand Stars after he had reinforced his divine soul with the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm.

"Like stars, the divine soul is formless when scattered and takes shape when gathered."

Something stirred in He Sheng's heart. He found this method exceedingly marvelous, almost as though his very form of life had undergone a transformation.

"It seems this divine-soul defensive method I created may be even more valuable than the Soul Imprint Art.

Could it be that I truly am quite talented in the path of the soul?"

He Sheng lowered his head to look at the clepsydra water droplet in his palm. The information on the Soul Imprint Art had already updated.

[Technique]:

[Soul Imprint Art (Major Accomplishment): 400/400]

(Total cultivation time: three years, two months, thirteen days)

"Again, I'm restricted by divine sense!

Previously, the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm was limited by the strength of my divine sense. I couldn't observe water's existence at an even more microscopic level, preventing the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm from advancing further.

Now this Soul Imprint Art is likewise limited by divine sense strength and cannot enter the Perfection realm.

It seems my next priority is to find a divine-sense secret art to cultivate."

He Sheng had previously looted the He Family's Scripture Transmission Tower. Within it was a divine-sense secret technique acquired from the Xu Clan: the Thousand Threads Spirit Art.

"However, this secret art is not only rather crude, but also incomplete. It contains only the portion for the Qi Refinement stage."

He Sheng felt that the Thousand Threads Spirit Art held little cultivation value. After all, given the scale of divine sense at the Foundation Establishment Realm, tempering it at the Qi Refinement stage would be hard-pressed to bring any substantive improvement.

However, according to Brother Piao's memories, secret arts capable of strengthening divine sense were exceedingly difficult to come by.

Especially at the Foundation Establishment level, such inheritances were secretly hoarded by the major sects. Obtaining a suitable divine-sense secret art would likely be no easy matter.

"If I can't find another secret art to strengthen my divine sense in the short term, spending some time cultivating this Thousand Threads Spirit Art won't matter. I can always roll back anyway."

With that thought, He Sheng stopped dwelling on it. His right hand once more curled into a claw around He Yiyang's skull, while his left rapidly formed hand seals.

"Rise!"

Now that the Soul Imprint Art had reached mastery, casting the technique came far more smoothly.

In an instant, the resentment within He Yiyang's remnant soul was forcibly bound and compressed by an invisible force.

The resentful energy twisted and struggled within his sea of consciousness, letting out soundless shrieks, yet it could not escape He Sheng's control in the slightest.

A moment later, a strand of soul-thread, dark as ink yet faintly glimmering with bloody light, was forcibly drawn from He Yiyang's skull and hovered over He Sheng's palm.

This was the so-called "Vengeful Soul Imprint."

He Sheng infused it with a thread of spiritual power. The soul-thread immediately spun wildly like a compass needle before finally settling, pointing firmly in one direction.

"Found it!

This is the direction Ji Yunlai left in."

A red glint flashed through He Sheng's eyes. The Vengeful Soul Imprint instantly sank into his brow, transforming into a searing guide.

"Let's see where you can run now!"

With a flick of his hand, He Sheng stored He Yiyang's corpse in his storage bag.

Then his figure flashed. His entire body seemed to melt into the moisture between heaven and earth, becoming a streak of watery-blue light that vanished beyond the horizon in the blink of an eye.