Spirit Eye Technique Breakthrough

Wang Mengde's mouth slowly fell open, and the smile on his face grew wider and wider until he could not help breaking into a foolish chuckle.

As a veteran reader of Qidian, he had read countless transmigration cultivation novels. He was practically intimate with this sort of setup.

Those failed Qidian authors had not deceived him after all. Such a thing really did exist.

He tried focusing his thoughts, willing the panel to close.

Whoosh!

The golden scroll in his mind instantly vanished, as though it had never existed.

Then he willed the panel open again.

A flash of golden light later, the scroll reappeared, its information as clear as ever.

Hehehe...

"Brother-in-law, are you all right?"

Seeing her brother-in-law standing on the reef with an ever-changing expression before finally grinning foolishly at thin air, drool nearly spilling from his mouth, Shen Qingyue could not help worrying.

Had her brother-in-law injured his brain too?

"Ahem, I'm fine, I'm fine." Wang Mengde hurriedly wiped the smile from his face and coughed dryly, hiding the wild joy in his heart. Yet the gleam in his eyes could not be concealed.

He raised a hand and pointed to a reef half-buried in the sand not far away. "Qingyue, go check beneath that rock. There's something there."

Though Shen Qingyue was still somewhat worried about her brother-in-law's condition, she obediently answered.

Carefully stepping across the slick rocks, she first probed the edge of the reef with her iron hook, then skillfully used her shovel to pry open the crack in the stone.

"Cloud-Pattern Crabs!" Shen Qingyue cried softly. Quick as lightning, she scooped them up with her net. Two palm-sized crabs with bluish-black shells flailed their claws and legs inside.

These were no ordinary green crabs. Faint cloud patterns covered their shells—they were Cloud-Pattern Crabs containing weak water spiritual energy, worth far more than common sea crabs.

A single one could sell for fifty Blood Copper Coins.

Blood Copper Coins were the most basic currency in the cultivation world, made from Blood Copper, a low-grade artifact-refining metal.

One hundred Blood Copper Coins could be exchanged for one spirit sand, and one hundred spirit sands for one low-grade spirit stone.

"A splendid start, Brother-in-law. Our luck is pretty good." Shen Qingyue was overjoyed as she deftly tied up the crabs and placed them in the fish basket.

"Let's keep going." Wang Mengde was brimming with energy. The experience bar for the Spirit Eye Technique read 99/100—just one point short of full.

Once it filled up, it should break through.

Next, Wang Mengde began seriously casting the Spirit Eye Technique and searching all around.

Each time he used it, he focused completely, striving to push the spell's effect to the limit of its current realm while carefully experiencing the subtle insights he had just gained.

Yet the golden words he had been anticipating did not appear again for a long time.

Once, twice, ten times...

Wang Mengde did not lose heart.

He recalled the panel's description of Heaven Rewards Diligence. Since it promised achievement without fail, advancement could only come through genuine accumulated effort.

He settled his mind and stopped rushing for quick success. Instead, he treated every casting as a process of practice and comprehension.

Time passed bit by bit. Wang Mengde tirelessly cast the Spirit Eye Technique while digging and catching sea goods alongside Shen Qingyue.

Their haul gradually grew. The bamboo basket gained several dozen crabs, some Iron-Shell Snails clinging to the shaded backs of reefs, and several Sand-Line Fish hiding in shallow sandy pools.

Most of them were ordinary sea goods without a trace of spiritual power, and all of them together were not worth as much as two Cloud-Pattern Crabs.

Time slipped quietly away amid the monotonous repetition.

At last, after he had cast the Spirit Eye Technique more than a hundred times, a line of small golden words appeared in his mind again.

[Spirit Eye Technique +1]

Immediately afterward, a torrent of insights several times more vast and exquisite than before surged into his consciousness without warning.

Most of it consisted of every fragmented and hazy experience and realization accumulated by the previous owner of this body through tens of thousands of castings of the Spirit Eye Technique since the age of twelve.

There were also the new insights Wang Mengde himself had gained from more than a hundred focused castings just now.

And there were even finer, more profound details concerning the flow of spiritual power through specific pathways around the eyes.

Techniques for combining spiritual perception with vision.

Knacks for distinguishing the faint differences between varying spiritual powers or life auras...

All these disordered insights, differing in depth and clarity,

seemed at this moment to be carefully sorted, linked, deepened, and fused by an invisible pair of hands.

It was as though enlightenment had been poured straight into his head, as though clouds had parted to reveal the sun.

[Spirit Eye Technique (Minor Mastery) 0/200]

Wang Mengde could not help closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.

When he opened them again, an extremely faint gleam of spiritual light seemed to flash through his eyes and vanish.

He cast the Spirit Eye Technique once more.

The world was utterly different.

The hazy filter from before had become a clearer, sharply layered field of vision that seemed to see through things.

The obstruction of seawater, mud, sand, and reefs had greatly weakened.

Formerly vague outlines became exceptionally clear. Based on his experience, he could directly identify what sort of sea goods they were.

He could see creatures deeper beneath the sand, though naturally, the deeper they were, the blurrier their outlines became.

He could even distinguish whether a creature beneath the sand contained a trace of spiritual power.

The range of his observation had also expanded from two zhang around his body to four zhang.

This meant his effective search area had increased fourfold.

His efficiency would grow by leaps and bounds.

Of course, maintaining this stronger Spirit Eye Technique consumed noticeably more spiritual power—roughly twice as much as before the breakthrough.

With the pitiful amount of spiritual power in his dantian, he probably could not maintain it at full strength for even half an hour.

The spiritual power remaining in his dantian was now less than half, enough to sustain it for roughly a quarter of an hour.

A sense of urgency filled Wang Mengde's heart. His gaze was like lightning as he swiftly swept the area within four zhang.

"Qingyue, three steps to the left front. Beneath the puddle beside that black rock, there are two Green-Claw Shrimp."

"In the seaward-facing crack of that large reef behind us, there are several Purple Shells."

Just then, Wang Mengde's gaze sharpened as he looked toward the edge of a puddle half-concealed by seaweed to his left front.

Within his Spirit Eye vision, a long outline roughly as thick as an arm lay quietly hidden between the silt and aquatic grass. It carried faint, mottled spiritual light and a fishy water scent, its aura tightly restrained. Without the Spirit Eye Technique at Minor Mastery, it would have been easy to overlook.

Sea goods with spiritual power.

Wang Mengde's eyes brightened slightly. He jumped down from the reef, took a few steps to the puddle's edge, and looked carefully.

It was a sea eel about three chi long, covered from head to tail in interwoven brown and dark yellow markings. Its head was hidden beneath the seaweed, with only half its body exposed, utterly motionless.

"A Spotted Eel, and a large one at that."

This kind of eel contained even denser spiritual energy than an ordinary Cloud-Pattern Crab. More importantly, it was large and its flesh was firm and delicious.

Even more importantly, its skin was one of the auxiliary materials used to make low-grade water-element talisman paper, making it quite valuable on the market.

However, Spotted Eels were immensely strong, vicious by nature, and equipped with sharp teeth. A bite from one would be no laughing matter.

Wang Mengde did not rashly enter the water. Holding his breath, he slowly crouched down. The five fingers of his right hand spread slightly as the meager spiritual power in his body swiftly began circulating along the route of the Entwining Silk Technique.

A faint cyan spiritual glow, nearly imperceptible, appeared at his fingertips.

He gently pressed through the air toward the Spotted Eel's head beneath the seaweed.

At the beginner level, the Entwining Silk Technique could not yet release actual threads. It could only transform spiritual power into a supple, dense binding field, barely capable of temporarily trapping small catches or assisting in reeling in a line.

Wang Mengde focused his mind. Though the pale cyan light was weak, it precisely enveloped the Spotted Eel's body.

Almost at the same time, Wang Mengde's left hand shot out like lightning, its five fingers clamping like pincers around the vital spot roughly seven cun behind the Spotted Eel's head.

It felt icy cold and slick in his grasp. The eel's body twisted and thrashed wildly, its strength considerable.

Wang Mengde maintained the Entwining Silk Technique with his right hand, increasing his spiritual power output to limit its struggles.

His left wrist exerted force, his five fingers tightening like iron pincers as he violently lifted the eel from the water.

He gave it a savage shake in midair, scattering the force from its struggles.

With his other hand, he swiftly threaded a grass rope through its gills and tied a knot. Only then did he let out a breath of relief.