[After nine months of arduous cultivation, relying on your Foundation Establishment Great Perfection divine sense, you successfully cultivated the Soul Imprint Art to the major mastery realm. You had already mastered the Life Soul Imprint with ease and had begun to study the Vengeful Soul Imprint. During 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 tracking of the Blood Soul Imprint or the karmic tracing of the Vengeful Soul Imprint, both essentially made use of living beings' attachment to the "self." When you continued cultivating this secret art in the future, you planned to try stripping away this obsession and understand the true nature of the soul from a more objective perspective.] [After another half year, your Soul Imprint Art improved steadily, but you could feel that, with your current divine sense strength, cultivating this secret art was becoming increasingly arduous. You felt it would be difficult to achieve another breakthrough in this secret technique. However, you were already capable of refining 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 part of its behavioral traces from before death. This gave you a deeper comprehension of the flow of soul energy.] [Eight months later, your control over souls had reached the realm of minute detail. Not only could you clearly sense the fluctuations of the soul flames of living beings within a certain range through divine sense, you could also use the power of soul imprints to interfere, to a certain extent, with the divine sense perceptions of cultivators or demon beasts whose divine sense was weaker than yours. You sighed at your considerable talent on the path of souls. If you were unfortunate enough to perish, perhaps becoming a ghost cultivator would not be a bad choice either.] [Half a year later, your Soul Imprint Art had reached the pinnacle of major mastery and could advance no further. You attempted to force a breakthrough. As pain stabbed through your sea of consciousness, you discovered what seemed to be an invisible barrier stretching across your path. A realization arose within you: this was a sign that your divine sense strength was insufficient to bear higher-tier soul arts. 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, your body and Dao would both perish. Helpless, you stopped here, though it was not as if you had gained nothing else. Through countless refinements of soul imprints, combined with your understanding of the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm, you gained a deeper understanding of souls and prepared to continue studying along this path.] [Three months later, you made great gains! Based on your minute observations of souls through the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm, you believed that souls and divine sense were like ripples upon water. Since water could take form, souls should also be able to scatter. You dismantled your own divine sense and soul essence, turning them into countless fine "star sands" and dispersing them throughout your sea of consciousness rather than gathering them into a single mass. This method of "scattering the soul" was in truth exceedingly dangerous. Ordinary cultivators would never dare do this, for the slightest carelessness could leave their souls permanently fractured. But you were different. With the support of the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm, so long as your mind did not waver, you needed only an instant to gather your scattered, star-like soul back together. The effect of scattering the soul was foreseeable. If you encountered an overbearing method such as a soul-searching grand art, it would be difficult for the other party to seize hold of your complete soul core. Furthermore, even if you encountered powerful soul-attacking methods, 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." It was a soul-protection method created by you alone.]
Looking over the cultivation information, He Sheng was somewhat astonished. After investing time in cultivating the Soul Imprint Art twice, he had actually developed new techniques both times.
The first time, he had comprehended a soul-searching grand art on his own. This time, he had gained two additional rewards: first the so-called "Memory Retracing Art," then "Soul-Scattering Thousand Stars."
"Soul-Scattering Thousand Stars looks rather high-end, but I wonder what its actual effects are."
With a thought, He Sheng sank his divine sense into his sea of consciousness.
Within the sea of consciousness, once calm as a lake, starlight now glittered everywhere. Countless fine motes of light floated and flowed like star sand. They appeared chaotic, yet secretly conformed to some profound rhythm.
This was the result of using "Soul-Scattering Thousand Stars" after strengthening his soul with the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm.
"The soul is like the stars: scattered, it has no form; gathered, it takes shape."
He Sheng felt something stir within him. He found this method exceedingly wondrous, as though his very form of life had undergone a transformation.
"It seems this soul-protection method I created myself is even more valuable than the Soul Imprint Art.
Could it be that I truly possess remarkable talent on the path of souls?"
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 Mastery): 400/400] (Total cultivation time: three years, two months, thirteen days)
"Divine sense is restricted again!
Previously, the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm was limited by the strength of my divine sense. I could not observe the more microscopic existence of water, 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 perfected realm.
It seems my next priority is to find a divine sense secret art to cultivate."
He Sheng had previously plundered the He Family's Scripture Transmission Tower. Within it was a divine sense secret technique obtained from the Xu Clan: the Thousand Threads Spirit Art.
"But this secret art is not only crude, it is also incomplete. It only contains the Qi Refinement stage portion."
He Sheng felt that the Thousand Threads Spirit Art had little cultivation value. After all, given the scale of divine sense at the Foundation Establishment Realm, tempering from the Qi Refinement stage would be unlikely to produce any substantial improvement.
However, according to Brother Piao's memories, secret arts capable of enhancing divine sense were exceedingly difficult to obtain.
Especially at the Foundation Establishment level, such inheritances were secretly stored away by the great sects of every side. Obtaining a suitable divine sense secret art would likely not be easy.
"If I cannot find another secret art to strengthen divine sense in the short term, it would not hurt to spend some time cultivating the Thousand Threads Spirit Art. I can always turn back anyway."
As the thought flashed through his mind, He Sheng stopped thinking about it. His right hand once again formed a claw around He Yiyang's head, while his left hand swiftly formed seals.
"Rise!"
With the Soul Imprint Art at major mastery, his execution of the art had become far smoother.
In an instant,
the resentment within He Yiyang's remnant soul was forcibly bound and compressed by an invisible force.
The resentment twisted and struggled within his sea of consciousness, letting out silent shrieks, yet it could not escape He Sheng's control at all.
A moment later,
a thread of soul as dark as ink, yet faintly suffused with bloody light, was forcibly drawn from He Yiyang's head and suspended above 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 madly like a compass needle before finally pointing steadily in a certain direction.
"Found him!
This is the direction Ji Yunlai left in."
A red gleam flashed through He Sheng's eyes. The Vengeful Soul Imprint instantly entered his brow, transforming into a burning guide.
"Now let's see where you can run!"
With a wave of his hand, He Sheng stored He Yiyang's corpse in his storage pouch.
Then his figure flashed. His entire body seemed to merge into the water vapor between heaven and earth, transforming into a water-blue streak of light that vanished beyond the horizon in the blink of an eye.
Before you continue