Azure Yang Profound Residence, Crane Hall.
Profound Chief Zhu sat silently upon a meditation cushion.
Not far before him, Yun Chen likewise sat upright, his eyes lightly closed, his five centers facing heaven. His broad sleeves draped over the cushion beneath him; his bearing was relaxed yet not slack, solemn yet not tense.
Before him stood a purple-bronze incense burner, emitting wisps of blue smoke. The smoke curled upward, seeming to meet one of the Great Azure Banyan's long branches above. Then threads of aura brimming with vigorous life descended and flowed into the incense burner.
Before long, something like a mass of blazing fire seemed to ignite within the burner, blooming into a dazzling radiance, like molten iron and flowing gold.
Yun Chen sensed something at that moment and slightly opened his eyes. Then he drew in a forceful breath, and the flowing radiance was instantly drawn out of the incense burner and absorbed into his body.
In an instant, light burst forth from his body, bathing the entire Crane Hall in brilliance.
Under that ultimate radiance, his entire person became utterly translucent, his flesh-and-blood body fading into insubstantial nothingness.
At that moment, threads of mist rose from above his head, seeming to form an auspicious cloud. Fine, dense raindrops like sweet dew fell from it, flowing over the ground into pools of radiant water.
Once these pools appeared, they continuously shrank, as if restrained by some force. Yet replenished without cease by the rain of light above, they still struggled to expand little by little, finally gathering before him into a radiant pond some ten feet across.
Upon the rippling surface of the water, Yun Chen's figure gradually appeared.
At first, it was blurred, shattering and shifting with the rings of ripples spreading across the pond. But as