After Lu Quanan left, Yi Yang slid the door bolt back into place.
He sat cross-legged on the prayer mat, took the grayish-white Xuannian Stone from inside his robe, and turned it over twice.
The stone felt heavy in his hand, more than three times heavier than it looked.
Its appearance could not have been more ordinary.
Left beside the road, it would not have earned a second glance.
Yi Yang slowly pressed it against his brow.
At first, a cool sensation, like immersion in a frigid spring, spread from where the stone touched his skin.
Then that coolness turned into warmth.
Strand by strand, thread by thread, it passed straight through his brow like invisible silk.
Deep within his Sea of Consciousness.
The nine-foot-tall golden-furred giant ape had been sitting cross-legged in the chaos with his eyes closed. Now his golden fur, like flowing fire, rippled slightly.
As the Xuannian Stone's power surged in, his tightly shut eyes abruptly trembled.
A low roar, like muffled thunder, rumbled from his throat.
The roar rippled through the Sea of Consciousness in waves, shaking its walls with echoes. The previously still sea of divine sense instantly erupted into towering waves.
The giant ape snapped his eyes open.
Two dazzling golden beams shot from his pupils, brilliant as the rising sun, illuminating the entire Sea of Consciousness as brightly as day.
He threw back his head and beat his chest, bringing both fists down.
Humm-
A dull sound rang through the void, as though some invisible barrier had been riddled with cracks by that blow.
The Xuannian Stone's clear radiance at Yi Yang's brow grew ever more intense, turning into countless strands of light that wrapped around the giant ape.
Those strands were like chains, yet also like carving blades. Inch by inch,