Nurturing the Cold Mountain Venerable

Li Shun shifted his gaze to the center of the spirit field.

"It seemed to have completely broken free of the conceptual bounds of ordinary plants. If not for the fact that their auras shared the same origin, it would have been hard to believe it had mutated from Cold Mountain Grass."

Li Shun's original plan had been to keep the Cold Mountain Venerable in his hand and use it to repair the Threefold Self-Reflection Stone Statue at a critical moment.

But after successfully cultivating the Cold Mountain Lord, another idea had arisen in his heart.

"If there is only one, then once it is used, it will be gone for good. Yet every time I activate the Threefold Self-Reflection divine ability, the stone statue suffers backlash and cracks apart. I need high-grade spiritual objects to nourish and repair it continuously."

"The restorative effect of Cold Mountain Grass is already getting weaker and weaker, almost to the point of uselessness. But if I can directly cultivate Cold Mountain Venerables in batches within this Square Inch Space..."

Once this thought arose, it could no longer be suppressed.

After calmly weighing the pros and cons, Li Shun felt the matter had great potential.

So he decisively began his attempt.

"My understanding of a wondrous object like the Cold Mountain Venerable is nearly nonexistent. Under such circumstances, trying to devise a cultivation method from thin air would be nothing more than a fool's dream."

"And the best way to quickly deepen my understanding of its essence..."

"Is to swallow it directly and experience it firsthand!"

In reality, Li Shun entered the completed underground passage. With a thought, he took out the Cold Mountain Venerable.

Looking at the wondrous object floating before him, Li Shun did not hesitate.

He grabbed it and bit into it raw.

Its texture was no different from ordinary Cold Mountain Grass.

The only difference came the instant it entered his stomach and its medicinal power dissolved.

If the cold current produced by Cold Mountain Grass was a babbling stream, then the Cold Mountain Venerable was a raging mountain flood.

That terrifying torrent of frigid cold rampaged through Li Shun's meridians and thoughts, like massive hammers carrying barbaric ancient force, ceaselessly pounding and reforging him.

Strangely, he felt no pain or discomfort at all. The icy aura continuously released by the Cold Mountain Venerable forcibly protected his will, keeping him lucid throughout.

Nourished and reshaped by that tyrannical power, his soul and consciousness were expanding wildly at an inconceivable speed!

Onefold, twofold, threefold...

If Li Shun's soul strength before swallowing the Cold Mountain Venerable had been nothing more than a sapling just breaking through the soil, then at the instant the medicinal power erupted, that sapling seemed to have skipped decades of wind and rain, forcibly shooting up into a towering tree.

His spiritual sense and speed of thought were utterly incomparable to before. With this, Li Shun continuously analyzed the Cold Mountain Venerable he had absorbed.

Even after the violent medicinal power was finally exhausted, Li Shun remained seated cross-legged on the cold earth like an old monk in meditation, as though still immersed in the lingering aftertaste of the Cold Mountain Venerable.

A long time later, he finally opened his eyes.

"Cold Mountain Grass, the Cold Mountain Lord, and this Cold Mountain Venerable. Though their grades appear worlds apart, the three are in truth different evolutions of the same life form."

"From weak to strong, they advance layer by layer. And above these three, at the end of this line of evolution, there is an ultimate pinnacle capable of looking down upon and commanding all things."

"Could that endpoint be the Changle Marquis's goal?"

Though Li Shun's soul had been greatly strengthened by his first consumption of the Cold Mountain Venerable, he had not grasped any effective method of cultivation.

The result was within his expectations.

While waiting for nightfall and the activation of Three Reflections Upon Myself, Li Shun, adhering to the principle of never wasting a single chance to rewind, went to Jixia Bookshop to mooch off it again.

Unlike usual, the bookshop's doors were tightly shut this time.

Li Shun frowned and stepped forward to knock heavily on the door.

Only after a long while did exceedingly heavy footsteps sound from within, and the door was slowly pulled open.

The instant the door opened, an old man appeared before Li Shun, his head covered in withered white hair, his face carved with deep wrinkles, and his back bent over.

Both of them froze.

"Who are you?"

"Who are you?"

After a brief moment of astonishment, Li Shun's pupils suddenly contracted, and terror surged through his heart!

For after that brief scrutiny, he had recognized the old man from the contours of his face.

It was none other than the owner of Jixia Bookshop, Zhou Xunzhen!

For some reason, Zhou Xunzhen had aged to such a state after merely a short time apart!

Yet Zhou Xunzhen seemingly failed to recognize Li Shun.

"I came to buy the Book of Imperial Exegesis," Li Shun said, suppressing the horror in his heart.

"The Book of Imperial Exegesis?" Zhou Xunzhen's memory seemed to have deteriorated terribly as well. Not only had he completely forgotten Li Shun, but at this moment, he could not even remember what books were hidden in his own bookshop.

"My apologies... esteemed customer. It seems this humble old man's bookshop... does not have the book you are looking for." After searching blankly among the dim bookshelves, Zhou Xunzhen turned back and apologized shakily.

Staring at Zhou Xunzhen, who was now at death's door and radiated an air of death from head to toe, Li Shun opened his mouth, then stopped himself.

In the end, he rationally shut his mouth without saying anything, turned, and quietly left.

On his way back, Zhou Xunzhen's former youthful face and the horrifying, mummified old visage he had just seen kept flashing alternately through Li Shun's mind like a revolving lantern.

"In barely two months, he aged to this extent?"

"Could this be the side effect of the Twelve Longevity?"

"Borrowing Longevity from Heaven..."

"What is borrowed must be repaid?"

Even when night fell, Li Shun had not fully emerged from the shock Zhou Xunzhen had brought him.

"Three Reflections Upon Myself!"

As the vast, resounding voice rang out, everything finally returned to how it had been.

The Cold Mountain Venerable that Li Shun had already eaten reappeared within the Square Inch Space.

And Li Shun's explosively enhanced soul was reduced to its original state.

That abrupt sense of loss, like shrinking from a giant back into a dwarf, left Li Shun feeling as if he had been drained dry, unbearably weak.

It took him quite a while to adjust.

Once his emotions settled somewhat, Li Shun repeated the process. He returned to the underground passage, took out the [Cold Mountain Venerable] with a thought, and swallowed it.

This time, Li Shun no longer focused on the changes in his own soul.

Instead, he focused on the Cold Mountain Venerable itself.

Amid the cold aura that surged forth ceaselessly like a burst dam, like a billowing flood, under extreme concentration and resonance, Li Shun vaguely seemed to glimpse an incomparably secretive, incomparably indistinct azure-green figure.

Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, it was already May.

Numerous abnormalities began gradually appearing throughout Cold Mountain County.

Ordinarily, even during the hottest days of midsummer, Cold Mountain County would never become unbearably hot.

But this year...

Beneath the blazing sun, Cold Mountain was no longer cold.

Instead, it resembled a gigantic furnace, mercilessly roasting every living thing within it.

Just after the beginning of May, temperatures throughout Cold Mountain County had already reached an extreme that ordinary people could scarcely endure.

Not a single shadow could be seen along the entire main street during the day. The common folk had all hidden in the shade of their homes.

The extreme, inescapable heat was making everyone increasingly irritable.

From time to time, fierce arguments sparked by trivial matters could be heard breaking out from every corner of the city.

Yet deep within the Cold Mountain County yamen, there was an entirely different scene of coolness.

The scorching air outside, enough to roast people alive, seemed to have been blocked out by an array. Threads of refreshing coolness permeated every corner of the county yamen.

Yet even so, fine beads of sweat still dotted Fang Xun's forehead, and beneath his seemingly calm gaze lay a trace of urgency.

Until a loud, ringing infant's wail shattered the suffocating silence.

Fang Xun's entire body trembled, and he hurriedly pushed open the door.

Inside, an old woman was holding a newborn infant, beaming as she repeatedly offered congratulations. "Congratulations, my lord! Congratulations, my lord! It is a son."

But Fang Xun did not hurry to look at the child. Instead, he first squeezed a drop of blood from his fingertip and pressed it onto the infant's brow.

Only after watching the glaring bloodstain completely seep into the texture of the child's skin, feeling that bond in his soul where blood dissolved into water, did Fang Xun finally put his mind fully at ease.

"He is indeed this official's bloodline."

A first-time father, Fang Xun was exceedingly pleased and generously rewarded the midwife.

Holding the tiny swaddled bundle, he paced excitedly back and forth around the room.

"Brother Xun, now that we already have a child, when will you formally marry me as your wife?" Yu Niang, who had just given birth and still looked exceptionally weak upon the bed, asked in a frail voice.

As Fang Xun teased the child, his gaze flickered slightly. He evasively avoided the real issue. "Hehe, there is no rush."

Then he continued to focus all his attention on playing with the infant in his arms.

He did not notice the fleeting resentment in Yu Niang's eyes.

Inside the Square Inch Space.

The Cold Mountain spirit field had now been divided into two halves.

One half was still planted with Cold Mountain Grass in orderly rows, as before.

As for the other half...

Several dozen stalks of Cold Mountain Grass twisted and entwined around one another, strangling and devouring each other as though engaged in a battle to the death.

At this moment, the battle seemed to be approaching its final stage.

"After several dozen days and nights of unceasing research, and three rewinds spent repeatedly consuming the Cold Mountain Venerable."

"It has finally come to this last step."