Mutated Locust

At this moment, quite a few rice stalks in the Spirit Field already bore traces of being gnawed by strange insects.

"I haven't come by for a few days, and these strange insects are already showing signs of spreading. Perfect—I can test out my Lightning Arts."

As his spiritual sense improved, Dong Lin was now able to initially project it outward to scout his surroundings.

Back when he was in the Early Qi Refining Stage, he could only sense an area within roughly five meters of himself, which was not particularly useful.

After advancing to the Mid Qi Refining Stage, however, the range of his spiritual sense had abruptly expanded to fifty meters.

This provided Dong Lin with tremendous help in searching for strange insects within the Spirit Field.

"This increase in realm merely expanded my dantian's capacity, yet my divine sense improved so much as well.

I heard that once one's divine sense reaches the Spirit Awakening Late Stage, one can lock onto enemies hundreds of meters away.

Killing enemies beyond one's line of sight? Truly achieving 'slay a man in a hundred steps, leave no trace across a thousand miles'!"

In mere moments, Dong Lin discovered a strange insect hiding among the fields.

It was a Mutated Locust, its entire body covered in a glazed azure-gold shell. Under the sunlight's refraction, its mouthparts gleamed with threads of cold light.

Dong Lin cautiously approached it, slowly circulating the spiritual power within his body. "Lightning Strike!"

With his divine sense locking onto it, lightning plasma burst forth from his fingertips at a thought.

In an instant, the high temperature unleashed by the lightning melted an opening in the Mutated Locust's shell.

If one looked through the locust's armor at this moment, one would find that its insides had already been completely carbonized. It was dead beyond any doubt.

These Mutated Locusts were, after all, genuine Low-Tier Spirit Insects, possessing the destructive power expected of Qi Refining Stage cultivators.

The defense of their shells rivaled ordinary metal shields in the mortal world; blades and swords could not harm them, while water and fire could not breach them.

These tiny strange insects, especially winged ones such as locusts, possessed considerable speed.

Ordinary Qi Refining Stage cultivators could generally only drive away the strange insects in the fields, unable to kill them outright.

The insects' defenses and speed made it exceedingly difficult for cultivators' spells to strike them.

Even if they happened to be grazed by a small portion of a spell's residual force, it was difficult to break through their defenses.

To deal with such nimble little insects, one either had to lay down a large-scale controlling and trapping formation.

Or one had to use control-type spells to drastically slow the insects down.

Yet Qi Refining Stage cultivators rarely cultivated a binding or control spell specifically.

They generally began by cultivating basic Five Elements spells compatible with their own spiritual roots.

As a result, these strange insects in the fields were difficult to eradicate, and gradually began to multiply throughout the Spirit Fields.

But this did not trouble Dong Lin.

Lightning-attribute spells stood alone at the head of all spell types with their cheat-like speed and power.

This was also why disciples who cultivated Lightning Arts were generally peerless prodigies.

Ordinary cultivators simply could not step through the gate of Lightning Arts cultivation.

The threshold of that gate demanded extraordinarily high talent.

In the cultivation world, a person's talent often determined their upper limit—determined, in the absence of heavenly treasures and heaven-defying opportunities,

just how far they could ultimately go through nothing but steady, step-by-step cultivation.

Just this small test of his skill had shown Dong Lin where the might of Lightning Arts lay.

Dong Lin could not help clicking his tongue in amazement. "This spell is actually so powerful."

He picked up the strange insect's shell, which had been melted through with a small hole, and tugged at it a few times.

"Such a hard shell, and a casually unleashed Lightning Art of mine pierced through it instantly?"

Dong Lin gained a deeper understanding of his own spell's power.

The Spirit Rice had only just begun to grow, so it had not attracted many strange insects. This was also related to the sect's environment.

Among the spirit farmers cultivating Spirit Fields within the sect, there was no shortage of experts at Foundation Establishment or even higher realms.

They regularly cleared away strange insects from within the Spirit Fields and even from a certain range around them.

With their strength, dealing with these low-tier strange insects was naturally as easy as turning over one's hand.

It was already extremely difficult for ordinary pests to mutate and become Spirit Insects.

Only because the Heavenly Sect Mountains were rich in spiritual energy had they bred a great number of mutated spirit beasts and Spirit Insects.

With these sect experts regularly exterminating insects, the ecology of the sect's Spirit Fields was still passable.

Large-scale insect infestations basically never occurred. Small-scale outbreaks of several insects like this were left for the disciples to handle themselves,

which both tempered the disciples and conserved the sect's strength—a stone killing two birds.

Dong Lin carefully inspected the Spirit Field and discovered three different strange insects.

With the aid of Lightning Arts, he easily eliminated all three pests.

Dong Lin collected the shells from those strange insects. They were incomparably tough and clearly valuable materials.

Dong Lin planned to visit the market when he had time and ask how much these strange insect shells were worth.

After dealing with the Spirit Field, Dong Lin returned to the Spirit Chamber.

"It's time to properly study this Dao Xuan Heart Sutra."

Ever since Steward Xuan had handed this inner sect heart sutra to him, one matter after another had piled onto him.

Dong Lin had not yet found the time to cultivate this core secret art of the Heaven Sect.

The Dao Xuan Heart Sutra was the foundational sect art created and passed down by the founding ancestor of the Profound Dao Celestial Sect.

This cultivation method primarily cultivated divine sense. Upon entering this method, one could greatly enhance the power of one's divine sense.

On the path of cultivation, divine sense was the most important thing.

Only with sufficiently powerful divine-sense perception could one effortlessly draw spiritual energy into the body, cleanse the meridians, and nourish the dantian.

Thus, one's cultivation could advance a thousand miles in a day, allowing one to attain the Great Dao.

It could be said that the strength of one's divine sense often determined the strength of a Qi Refining cultivator's actual combat ability.

Those combat geniuses capable of fighting across realms

mostly relied on their solid foundations and indispensable, extraordinary divine-sense power surpassing that of ordinary people.

Only then could they seize the initiative in battle, catch their opponent's flaws, and establish victory in a single stroke.

This Dao Xuan Heart Sutra was profound beyond profundity, entirely different from ordinary Qi Refining formulas.

Heart and Dao unite; the mystery reaches through the Azure Nether.

All methods return to the heart; the heart holds no Outer Realm.

Qi sinks into the dantian; spirit gathers in the Violet Mansion.

Neither born nor extinguished, neither stained nor pure.

This heart sutra was divided into three realms.

They corresponded to minor accomplishment, major accomplishment, and perfection in the cultivation method.

They were respectively the Heart Realm, Spirit Realm, and Immaculate Realm.

Upon cultivating it to the end, one would rival an Innate Immaculate Saint Body, invulnerable to all methods and untouched by all thoughts.

Yet even its entry requirement was exceptionally difficult.

It required the cultivator to use the heart as the pivot, subdue the monkey of the heart and the horse of intent, and harmonize divine thoughts with the Great Dao of heaven and earth.

After entering the method, one would gain the mysterious, indescribable ability to faintly sense the workings of heaven.

Once cultivated to major accomplishment, one could open the Violet Mansion of the heart and spirit.

This was equivalent to opening the Sea of Consciousness ahead of time.

The Sea of Consciousness was generally the standard feature of Golden Core cultivators.

Ordinarily, only after a cultivator formed their own Creation Golden Core would they naturally open the Sea of Consciousness.

From then on, their divine-sense capacity would contain rivers and seas, while the range of their divine-thought perception would cover dozens of li.

Seeing through all things, a Golden Core True Person could change the heavens with a single thought—terrifying and awe-inspiring.

This Dao Xuan Heart Sutra gave the sect's prodigies an opportunity to open the Sea of Consciousness in advance.

But the difficulty involved was well known.

Those who could successfully transcend their realm and open the Sea of Consciousness while only at Foundation Establishment Late Stage were as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns, and were usually heaven-defying talents with the potential to reach the Nascent Soul Realm.