Wisdom Seal

The tranquil days slipped by one after another, the chill of late autumn gradually replaced by winter's damp cold.

Another morning arrived. Cold dew had frozen into frost, mist shrouded the mountain woods, and Qin Yi sat before the door in a brand-new padded jacket, hands tucked into his sleeves as puffs of white breath spilled out with every exhale.

"Xiao Yi, I'm going on duty. I won't be back for lunch, so remember to make dinner and wait for me at home."

Ruan Su stood by the courtyard gate, neatly dressed with a short blade at her waist. Her crescent eyes curved as she waved at him with a smile, her loose long hair swaying with the motion. The burn scar on her right cheek was no longer so hideous, having faded greatly; through the hazy mountain mist, traces of her once peerlessly lovely features could still be seen.

The Snowfrost the old proprietor had bought from the prefectural capital was not as good as the spiritual medicine Meng Peijiu had given them, but its effects were still fairly decent.

Qin Yi nodded lightly and watched the girl vanish into the forest with a few hops before rising and returning indoors.

Ruan Su's leave had ended over ten days ago. The old proprietor had wanted her to continue caring for Qin Yi, but Qin Yi had still insisted that she keep going to Yellow Bamboo Town.

To keep watch on that mother and daughter of the Meng Family.

The Big Sister Correction Plan 2.0 was progressing smoothly. Under his deliberate guidance, Ruan Su's intelligence had begun gradually reclaiming the high ground.

Going to the Meng Family Cloth Shop a few times every day at irregular hours to see whether they were at the store—such a simple task should be manageable independently.

Yet according to this big sister's recent bedtime ramblings,

Meng Peijiu seemed to have long since noticed her purpose, but she said nothing. She even gave Ruan Su snacks to bring back for him.

Leaning against the earthen kang bed, Qin Yi entered Spirit Resonance Vision and silently began breathing exercises. Under Inner Vision, Tuanzi, coiled within the Spirit Meridians in his skull, remained utterly motionless.

Though he had always been on guard before, Tuanzi inside his skull had never stirred up trouble again. And since that conversation, it had not uttered another word.

As though it were dead—or had shut itself away.

Even when Qin Yi used it as material for researching cultivation, it stubbornly endured without making a sound.

He had found it somewhat strange at first, but after carefully profiling its character, Qin Yi came to understand.

Because it disdained such things.

Its pride disdained resorting to that sort of shameless nonsense.

Yes,

That pain originating from the Soul Realm was nothing more than shameless nonsense to him.

Suddenly striking him once served no practical purpose beyond disgusting him.

And he neither yielded to pressure nor feared pain. It was even more impossible to manipulate him into cultivating according to its schemes, because he would research it himself. So long as Tuanzi dared reveal anything cultivation-related to him, even if it was half true and half false, he could immediately seize the information within, filter out the useful parts, and turn around to use it for experiments.

He understood this; so did it.

Thus, it chose silence.

And in return for Tuanzi not stirring up trouble, Qin Yi had not considered using Spirit Resonance Pulse to interrogate it.

Respect went both ways.

Of course,

The main reason was that Qin Yi knew interrogation would be useless. With Tuanzi's unyielding pride, it would not speak a single word even if it suffered pain worse than death.

With the Disrupted Scripture circulating,

Qin Yi observed the Spirit Resonance within his body.

Compared with when he had first begun cultivating, the volume of Spirit Resonance flowing through him had already grown immensely. When not being used, it was stored in his lower abdomen, which should have been the so-called Dantian.

Yet the Dantian was not an organ like a stomach pouch. It was an enormous network woven from fine, densely packed Spirit Meridians. Most Spirit Resonance absorbed into his body endlessly circulated through it, gradually expanding its branch meridians with every Heavenly Cycle of breathing exercises and cultivation.

Its pace was slow as a turtle crawling.

To solve this, Qin Yi had made Ruan Su practice the Disrupted Scripture several more times over the past days.

First, to see whether Spirit Resonance could stimulate her to develop further.

Second, he had wanted to try using this big sister as a Spirit-Gathering Formation to dual cultivate with him, helping him rapidly "break through." But the results had been far from satisfactory. Once the amount of Spirit Resonance energy reached a certain level, it would damage the Dantian's Spirit Meridian branches, in turn affecting the physical body.

Even though he stopped immediately, Qin Yi experienced negative symptoms such as abdominal pain every time.

Still, one point was worth noting: if he used the spiritual plants he had "bought" from Meng Peijiu to rapidly repair the Dantian's Spirit Meridian branches, he could stimulate the Dantian to expand faster.

Unfortunately, those spiritual plants were soon used up.

Silently,

Strands of Spirit Resonance seeped from Qin Yi's palm, gradually gathering into a fluffy ball of light. Under Qin Yi's control, the light sphere instantly transformed into three Resonance Threads, drifting continuously through the air.

This was the limit of how much he could currently divide it.

As his thoughts moved, the Resonance Threads abruptly became streaks of light and shot toward the square table in the small room, leaving three "needle holes" in it in an instant.

Their power had increased greatly, and their speed was like crossbow bolts.

With the medicinal stones provided by Meng Peijiu accelerating his progress, Qin Yi had gained a certain degree of frontal combat capability. But it was clearly still not enough.

When sparring with his own big sister, she did not even need to draw her blade. With a sway of her body, she caught one Resonance Thread in each hand and pinned the third beneath her foot.

Whenever this happened, Ruan Su would happily offer her assessment.

Suitable for sneak attacks, but any ordinary martial artist could pin him to the ground and beat him in a direct fight.

At that thought, Qin Yi's breathing shifted slightly, and the hand forming seals instantly changed into the Great Thoroughfare Seal from Nine Songs.

In an instant,

The glow of the three Resonance Threads solidified, and their speed as they whirled through the air suddenly increased severalfold.

Qin Yi raised a hand and pointed.

Whoosh—

Three streaks of light instantly pierced the wooden wall beside him, more than two feet away, which was covered in rammed earth!

It worked.

The thought had barely flashed through his mind when Qin Yi felt a wave of dizziness in his skull.

He stopped the technique and lay collapsed on the bed for a quarter of an hour. The dizziness, weakness, and other negative symptoms gradually faded.

Sitting up again, Qin Yi began breathing exercises while pondering how to improve the technique further.

This was a method that combined Nine Songs with Spirit Resonance Pulse, capable of explosive power over a short period.

While using the "pulse" to accelerate the flow of Spirit Resonance within his body, he used the Yin Halberd Seal to form a circuit and ease the pressure on his Spirit Meridians. Then, within his skull, he abruptly increased the wavelength and intensity to amplify the Soul Realm, thereby strengthening the Resonance Threads and his control over them.

However, Qin Yi currently possessed no cultivation method related to the Soul Realm. His understanding of it was limited to knowing that controlling Spirit Resonance consumed soul power, that it could recover on its own, and that its recovery speed was extremely fast.

Thus, before this, he had already conducted no fewer than a hundred experiments using Tuanzi.

Now that this method had taken shape, it proved this path was viable. The next step would be to try using the Spirit Meridians in his hand to physically connect to the surface of his brain, further increasing the pulse amplitude.

Its power should be able to rise further.

At that thought,

Qin Yi lowered his eyes slightly. Fine strands of Spirit Resonance began circulating around the bone of his middle finger, then slowly approached his temple.

Just before the two were about to touch,

[Are you insane?!]

The ethereal voice rang out again after a long absence.

Tuanzi had ultimately been unable to hold back from speaking.

Just as Qin Yi had said, it merely despised those lowly, insignificant, and incompetent lifeforms. Toward those blessed by heaven with extraordinary talent, it could specially pick up its reverence for them.

Over these past days, Tuanzi had silently watched this human cub.

It watched this extraordinarily gifted human carve out an entirely new path of cultivation by himself with only a fragmentary understanding, yet it had never expected the other party to be so bold.

Despite knowing absolutely nothing about the Soul Realm,

He actually dared use the Spirit Realm and his physical body to forcibly interfere with it.

But unfortunately,

Just like the reason it had chosen silence these past days.

Qin Yi did not trust it. He trusted only himself.

Tap...

A faint, soft sound.

It was the bone of his middle finger lightly tapping above his temple.

[...] Tuanzi.

Bzzzz—

Without any warning, the three threads abruptly merged into one, tearing through the air as it shot outward in an instant!!

It pierced through the wooden wall and left a small hole in it, pierced through the courtyard wall and left a crater there, and finally snapped several century-old trees outside the courtyard before gradually dispersing...