Zhao Gongming, Death Calamity Broken!

After the altar was destroyed.

Zhao Gongming did not leave immediately.

He sat cross-legged where he was.

Yao Bin stood guard beside him, continuously observing the state of his soul.

Half an hour later.

Zhao Gongming slowly opened his eyes.

The last trace of weariness in his gaze vanished completely.

"How was it?"

Wen Zhong asked at once.

Zhao Gongming sensed himself for a moment.

Then he suddenly smiled.

"That feeling these past days, like something had been tugging at my mind and spirit."

"It's gone."

Yao Bin put away the soul banner as well.

"Senior Brother's soul has stabilized."

"That distant pull has also been severed completely."

"If Lu Ya wants to cast the technique again in the future, he will at least have to reestablish a karmic connection."

Lin Yuan finally let out a complete sigh of relief.

At that moment.

The system notification rang out clearly.

[Target: Zhao Gongming.]

[Predetermined death calamity: Continuously cursed to death by the Nail-Head Seven-Arrows Book, his three souls and seven spirits would decay until he ultimately perished.]

[Current result: The altar has been destroyed, and the soul's tether has been severed completely.]

[The predetermined trajectory of death has changed.]

[Fate Reversal successful!]

Lin Yuan's breathing hitched slightly.

A high-value target.

At last, the reward was being settled.

[Inheriting the target's strongest ability...]

The next second.

A terrifying insight far beyond every reward he had received before flooded into his consciousness without warning.

It was not mana.

Nor was it any fixed divine ability.

It was an almost instinctive understanding of battle.

Zhao Gongming's accumulated experience from countless years of fighting.

A Daluo Realm expert's judgment of power, treasures, space, and timing.

How much strength to use in a single instant.

How to force the opponent into the greatest expenditure with the least amount of mana.

After unleashing a treasure, when to withdraw it.

When to pursue.

When to deliberately reveal an opening.

These were things that ordinary cultivation arts could never teach directly.

Yet now, as though he had practiced them countless times already, they were gradually being carved into Lin Yuan's combat instincts.

[Congratulations, Host, for obtaining—Daluo Combat Insight!]

Lin Yuan stood where he was.

His whole body went still.

Back when he had watched Zhao Gongming fight the Twelve Golden Immortals.

He could only understand three or four moves out of ten.

Now, those scenes replayed in his mind.

Many details he had failed to understand before became clear in an instant.

Why had that Sea-Calming Pearl deliberately been half a beat slow?

Why had Zhao Gongming suddenly stopped when he clearly could have pursued?

Why had a pearl that seemed casually hurled down actually sealed off three of the opponent's escape routes?

Layer by layer, everything was peeled apart.

The more Lin Yuan thought about it, the more alarmed he became.

So this was the accumulated combat experience of the Daluo Realm?

It was so powerful it was practically cheating.

Zhao Gongming noticed him spacing out.

"Nephew?"

"What is it?"

Lin Yuan came back to himself.

"Watching Uncle destroy the altar just now."

"I suddenly gained some insight."

Zhao Gongming had long grown used to this kid "suddenly gaining insight" at every turn.

He did not think much of it upon hearing that.

Instead, he burst into laughter.

"A good thing."

"Since you've gained insight, go back and slowly digest it."

"As it happens, I have a few things to give you."

"To me?"

Lin Yuan was somewhat surprised.

Zhao Gongming directly took a storage jade ring from his sleeve and tossed it over.

"Catch."

Lin Yuan reached out.

He swept his divine sense inside.

His expression nearly broke on the spot.

Spirit herbs.

Immortal fruits.

Spiritual materials for artifact refinement.

And quite a large quantity of high-grade spirit stones.

In terms of value.

It was worth more than everything the Four Sages of Nine-Dragon Island had given him before combined.

"Uncle."

"This..."

"Too little?"

"No."

Lin Yuan hurriedly shook his head.

"It's too much."

Zhao Gongming waved a hand.

"You saved my life."

"Why be so polite with me over such things?"

"If that curse had truly continued until the final bow."

"I might not even have known who had made the move against me."

At this point.

A chill flashed through Zhao Gongming's eyes.

"Besides, without you this time."

"At the Treasure-Dropping Coin hurdle, my Sea-Calming Pearls might have been lost first."

"And this time."

"You noticed that something was wrong in advance."

"Twice in a row."

"And you're still pushing back and forth over a little cultivation resource with me."

"Are you looking down on your uncle?"

After hearing that.

Lin Yuan decisively put away the jade ring.

"Then this disciple won't stand on ceremony."

"That's more like it."

Zhao Gongming smiled.

Then he took out another Sea-Calming Pearl.

Lin Yuan froze.

"Uncle."

"You really can't give me this."

Zhao Gongming's eyelid twitched.

"Who said I was giving it to you?"

"..."

Lin Yuan coughed.

"This disciple misunderstood."

Gao Yougan beside them had already burst out laughing.

"Junior Brother Lin."

"You really dare to imagine things."

Zhao Gongming was amused as well.

"The twenty-four Sea-Calming Pearls are a set."

"Even one missing would affect their power."

"I'm letting you take it for study."

"Didn't you just say you had gained some insight?"

"You may borrow one for a while."

"When you've comprehended enough, return it to me."

This gift suited Lin Yuan even better than simply giving him cultivation resources.

He had just obtained Daluo Combat Insight.

Paired with close study of Zhao Gongming's most frequently used Sea-Calming Pearl.

He could grasp many things much faster.

"Thank you, Uncle."

This time, Lin Yuan sincerely bowed.

After returning to the Shang Camp.

He immediately began closed-door cultivation.

Zhao Gongming's death calamity had been lifted.

For the time being, there were no new great battles outside either.

It was the perfect opportunity to digest this wave of gains.

The Sea-Calming Pearl floated before him.

Lin Yuan did not attempt to refine it.

He merely observed the circulation of the Dao rhythms within it.

Daluo Combat Insight continually brought out the problems from his past actual battles and sorted through them anew.

How could Wind-Thunder Escape use less mana?

How could he switch between his two spirit swords the fastest?

When should the Blackstone Dao Body withstand attacks head-on?

When should he not recklessly take attacks just because he could rely on his physical body?

And how could the insights into formations he had gained from the Ten Ultimate Formation be turned toward individual combat?

Though each of these abilities had been powerful in the past.

More often than not, they had still been used separately.

Now, Daluo Combat Insight was like a true thread.

It began stringing everything together.

Cultivation knew no passage of years.

Lin Yuan remained in seclusion for several full months.

The resources Zhao Gongming had given him were continuously refined as well.

The spiritual power of the Early Profound Immortal realm grew rapidly.

Mid Profound Immortal.

Late Profound Immortal.

Until Peak Profound Immortal.

At last, the barrier to Golden Immortal appeared.

Lin Yuan did not rush to force his way through it.

He continued his contemplation.

Another month passed.

One day.

He was deducing a previous battle with Nezha.

He suddenly realized that if, at the thirty-seventh exchange, he had not chosen to use the Thick Earth Sword to block head-on, but instead used Wind-Thunder Escape to shift sideways half a step before using the Qingxuan Sword to cut through Nezha's spear momentum...

Everything that followed would have been different.

The instant that thought emerged.

The spiritual power within his body seemed to find, along with the current, that "half-step" it had always lacked.

Boom!

The Golden Immortal bottleneck shattered in response!

Immortal light shot from the military tent into the heavens.

A vast amount of heaven and earth spiritual energy converged in a frenzy.

Wen Zhong, Zhao Gongming, and the others sensed it at the same time.

"Did he break through?"

Wang Mo raised his head.

"That kid broke through again?"

Gao Yougan calculated for quite a while.

"When he entered the Shang Camp, wasn't he only a Heavenly Immortal?"

Li Xingba nodded.

"Right."

"And now he's a Golden Immortal?"

"Right."

The group fell silent at once.

In the end, Wang Mo squeezed out one sentence:

"Youth is good."

Yet Zhao Gongming smiled with considerable delight.

"Good breakthrough."

"Only after reaching Golden Immortal can one truly be qualified to take part in battles of ever-higher levels."

Lin Yuan emerged from seclusion.

His cultivation had stabilized firmly at Early Golden Immortal.

The moment he stepped out of the military tent.

Zhao Gongming tossed a jade slip straight at him.

"Clean yourself up."

"Return to Golden Turtle Island with this Daoist."

Lin Yuan froze.

"Teacher wants to see you."