Li Yu had only just gained an introductory grasp of "Taiyi Starshine." For now, he could only look within himself, not observe others, so he needed physical contact with Jin Ling as a medium to send the power of his spiritual sense into her body.
With the aid of "Micro-Yi Qi Control," Li Yu guided his spiritual sense along the meridians in Jin Ling's palm and began carefully examining the spirit roots within her.
Spirit roots belonged to the five elements and were concealed within the corresponding five internal organs. If one existed, spiritual energy of the matching element could stir it.
Li Yu's Taiyi Scripture was balanced and harmonious, suitable for cultivating with any spirit root. Thus, as long as Jin Ling had a spirit root, Taiyi Starshine could identify it.
Yet Li Yu examined her three times and found nothing.
Once he confirmed that she had no spirit root, Li Yu sighed.
Jin Ling, who had been watching him the whole time, once again lost the light in her eyes.
Just as Li Yu was about to withdraw his spiritual sense from her body, Taiyi Starshine suddenly strayed slightly from her internal organs and illuminated Jin Ling's spine.
This happened because Li Yu had only just mastered the spell and was still unfamiliar with it.
Luckily, Taiyi Starshine has no destructive power!
Just as Li Yu was counting his blessings and deciding never to play the good Samaritan again, the spine illuminated by "Taiyi Starshine" suddenly lit up with a dazzling thread of golden radiance.
The golden radiance shone through the bone, brilliant and blinding. Like a great dragon startled awake, it climbed the spine vertebra by vertebra, making Jin Ling's sinews and bones resonate together as though forged from refined gold, accompanied by peals of sword-song.
What... is this?
Li Yu saw the scene within Jin Ling through Taiyi Starshine, his face filled with shock.
But he soon remembered what Xiong Meng had said: Jin Ling's father had received teachings from a divine bird in a dream and was supposedly a reincarnated immortal.
Could it actually be true?
Does Jin Ling have an immortal's root bone within her?
Just as Li Yu considered this possibility, the dazzling golden radiance had already coursed throughout Jin Ling's body. Detecting Taiyi Starshine's strand of foreign power, it charged straight toward it.
Although Jin Ling possessed immortal bones, she had never cultivated, so the golden radiance could do nothing to Taiyi Starshine.
As Li Yu's spiritual sense held the golden radiance at bay, Jin Ling's body suddenly shuddered. Heat spread through her, her blood surged, and sweat poured from her skin.
Her body had not yet fully developed and could not withstand the awakening of her immortal bones.
Realizing this, Li Yu immediately withdrew his spiritual sense from her body.
By then, Jin Ling had already fainted.
Holding her small body, Li Yu saw a faint golden glow flowing beneath her flesh. Most of it eventually returned to her marrow, but a small portion flowed into her lungs.
The lungs corresponded to metal and were where a metal spirit root resided.
"Yi Light Condensing Edge," recorded in the Taiyi True Explanation, was an art for refining and nurturing a sword. It used taiyi true essence to condense the killing metal energy between heaven and earth into a strand of sharpness, which was nurtured within the lungs.
When needed, one could open one's mouth and spit it out as a strand of invisible Sword Qi, capable of slicing gold and cleaving jade with ease.
Moreover, as time passed, the power of this strand of sharpness would continue to increase without limit.
To strengthen "Yi Light Condensing Edge," Jiang Taiyi had refined the Heaven-Questioning Pavilion's spirit vein, using its vast water vein to temper the killing metal energy. Metal and water nourished each other, allowing the edge to evolve endlessly while possessing the greatest sharpness under heaven. Its sword swept through all living beings, cutting everything in its path, restoring the spell to its original divine ability, the "Primordial Unity Divine Sword."
At this thought, Li Yu stirred his will and activated the method of "Yi Light Condensing Edge."
Sure enough, the killing metal energy between heaven and earth, normally so difficult to sense, was exceptionally clear within Jin Ling, as though she herself were its crystallization. The metal-affinity spiritual energy in her lungs, which had previously failed to resonate, also began to stir. This meant that she now possessed a metal spirit root.
Yet Jin Ling suffered from the awakening of her immortal root bone. Her back trembled as beads of sweat the size of beans seeped out, soaking her entire body. Li Yu felt waves of scorching heat against the arms holding her.
Li Yu suspected that this was because his Taiyi Starshine had triggered Jin Ling's immortal bones prematurely.
A trace of hesitation crossed his face.
But he quickly made up his mind. To save her, he could no longer afford to worry about so much.
Li Yu pressed his hand over Jin Ling's lungs and activated the method of "Yi Light Condensing Edge." Soon, strands of blazing golden light burst through her flesh.
As the golden light left her body, Jin Ling's expression eased.
Only when her temperature returned to normal did Li Yu stop using the method.
The golden light he had drawn out of her body was transferred into his own lungs through "Yi Light Condensing Edge."
What exactly is the origin of that faithless man? Li Yu stopped using the method because he needed to look after the unconscious Jin Ling, but his curiosity about Jin Guang, Shi Sang's husband who had gone to sea, only grew.
Legends of immortals had circulated in the eastern lands since ancient times.
So-called immortal cultivators sought to become immortals and live forever without aging. The earliest immortals had come from the Three Immortal Isles out at sea.
Every great cultivator in the Mountains and Seas who attained the primordial spirit realm would come to the eastern lands in their twilight years. This was because the eastern lands' Daoist tradition was an inheritance from immortals, and this region was also the closest to the Three Immortal Isles.
East of the eastern lands lay a vast, boundless ocean.
According to the Five Lotus Sect's records, before the Tianxia Dynasty, when the land had not yet been divided into four regions, immortals had come from the sea to teach humanity civilization and the methods of immortal cultivation. From then on, the Mountains and Seas were opened up, the tribes and peoples rose, and the Dao began to flourish.
In those days, humans and immortals lived together in great harmony. It was a wonderful time, and some ancient sage kings were even escorted to the immortal isles to partake of ageless sweet dew and divine medicines of longevity.
But ten thousand years later, something happened that the ancient sages erased from history, and the immortals could no longer descend upon the Mountains and Seas. Humans could still secretly contact them, however, through offerings and worship.
Later, Emperor Zhuanxu severed the passage between heaven and earth, utterly cutting off contact between humans and immortals.
Still, legends of medicines that granted immortality drew countless people overseas in search of the Three Immortal Isles.
Li Yu's parents, for instance, had originally gone to sea because the family had obtained a treasure map supposedly leading to the Three Immortal Isles. They had never returned.
Such examples were beyond counting, so people in the eastern lands scoffed at anyone who claimed they could find the Three Immortal Isles.
But primordial spirit cultivators already live forever without aging. Why would Jin Guang, an immortal, need to reincarnate?
Li Yu could not quite understand it.
Moreover, the Five Lotus Sect's records stated that many primordial spirit old monsters from other factions had borrowed their sect's ancient texts, hoping to reach the Three Immortal Isles.
Was it to pursue a realm beyond the primordial spirit?
Through the Star River Platform, Li Yu knew that the Great Ascension stage lay above the primordial spirit realm, but he did not know whether the great cultivators here knew.
They knew.
"Ah, Ling'er, what happened to you!" Just then, a startled cry rang out. It was Shi Sang.
With her belly protruding and a bamboo basket over her arm, she had been about to go out to gather mulberry leaves, only to discover Jin Ling unconscious in Li Yu's arms.
"I taught her an immortal cultivation art. This is a normal occurrence when sensing spiritual energy for the first time," Li Yu said.
Upon hearing this, Shi Sang harbored no suspicions and thanked him over and over.
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