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"Ha! Condense!"
Xiao Yan's face was grave, his attention utterly focused. Beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks as the hand seals he formed shifted repeatedly. All his Soul Power spread out, gathering and drawing together before him. A humanoid phantom that looked exactly like Xiao Yan gradually took shape.
Seeing the right moment, Xiao Yan stirred his mind and rapidly changed the hand seals.
"Bang!"
Unfortunately, in the end, the soul phantom burst apart with a bang, scattering into countless tiny points of light that gradually vanished into the void.
Xiao Yan frowned slightly, but his expression was utterly calm. The impatience he had shown earlier was long gone. He looked quite wooden, as if he had known all along that he would fail.
Xiao Yan paused briefly, then changed his hand seals again. His Soul Power gathered once more as he repeatedly shifted the seals without expression, his hands moving faster and faster.
The failures continued, but Xiao Yan's expression no longer changed. His face remained impassive and calm as he shifted his hand seals, and the phantom before him burst apart again and again.
As he repeated the exercise in this dazed state, Xiao Yan seemed to enter another space. Across from him stood someone who looked exactly like him.
Both Xiao Yan and the man constantly changed their hand seals, the seals in their hands identical. A closer look revealed that they were those of the Nine Revolutions Avatar Art.
The two changed their hand seals together, but Xiao Yan was always a beat behind the man. His fingers flicked at tremendous speed, and waves of energy spread out whenever they touched, forming dazzling, water-like ripples before him.
Xiao Yan's expression was calm as he looked straight ahead. The man opposite him was looking back at him, and their eyes met. The speed of Xiao Yan's hand seals quickened involuntarily. In only a moment, they matched the beat of the man's seals, falling into the same rhythm.
Just as the rhythm of Xiao Yan's hand seals synchronized with the man's, his eyes suddenly regained their brightness. Until then, his expression had remained calm and unruffled.
A glint flashed through Xiao Yan's eyes, and they abruptly opened wide. Standing with his legs apart, he suddenly stepped another half step to the right with his right leg, his hand seals changing rapidly.
An instant later, Xiao Yan's eyes abruptly brightened, and he opened his mouth with a shout:
"Condense!"
As the word rang out, the Soul Power surrounding Xiao Yan rapidly spread out. The figure before him had long since vanished, replaced by a soul phantom condensed from Soul Power.
As soon as the soul phantom formed, Xiao Yan, who looked as though he were holding a horse stance, suddenly stepped forward. At the same time, his hand seal changed, and he struck out with a palm, shouting:
"Split!"
The soul phantom immediately dispersed, but unlike before, it did not vanish from the world. Instead, it turned into a mass of hazy white mist, which then spread out and divided into nine equally sized clouds.
With a thought from Xiao Yan, the nine clouds floated before him. Then, beneath his gaze, which held a trace of wonder, they condensed into nine figures identical to him.
The nine figures were extremely illusory; unless one looked closely, one might overlook them entirely. Xiao Yan smiled faintly and let out a long breath.
Although the nine avatars were not very solid, he had at least completed the most difficult first step. Once that was done, cultivating the Nine Revolutions Avatar Art to its peak was only a matter of time.
With a thought from Xiao Yan, the nine avatars dispersed invisibly and returned to his body. The reason the earlier avatars had made a sound when they vanished was entirely because they had exploded when Xiao Yan failed to control them completely. Unlike his effortless control now, that had been purely accidental.
"Hey, kid, not bad. Being able to enter a state of empty clarity at a time like that today-you've got good fortune."
Xiao Yan's expression changed drastically when he heard this, but an instant later, he spoke with a slightly gloomy look on his face:
"Old Gu, you didn't say anything for so long that I thought you'd fallen into a deep sleep. But then you suddenly spoke, and you nearly scared me to death! I finally managed to enter a state of empty clarity, only to wake up and be scared to death by you."
"Hehe! You've lived all these years and seen plenty of right and wrong, life and death. How could you be scared to death so easily? Besides, even if you really did run into danger, couldn't I at least warn you, even if I didn't help you fight?"
Xiao Yan nodded at that and was just about to answer when Gu You spoke again:
"Actually, I can't do that either."
Xiao Yan expelled the breath he had just drawn into his lungs and coughed several times. Only then did he speak again, his expression sour:
"You can't even help me sense danger?"
"Of course I can. Once an inheritor has been chosen, the inheritor has five chances to ask the spirits of the Heavenly Flames for help. But you've already used them."
Xiao Yan raised an eyebrow. Used them? When did that happen? Why don't I remember? As Xiao Yan struggled to recall, Gu You spoke again:
"Don't bother thinking about it! You used them when you asked me to check whether anyone was around last time in the Ancient Desolate Forest."
Xiao Yan's gaze sharpened and his mouth fell slightly open. Then, somewhat incredulously, he gently bit his lip, the muscles in his face twitching.
After a while, Xiao Yan frowned and asked again:
"That's not right. Didn't you say there were five chances? But I only asked once, so what about the other four?"
Gu You smiled faintly and said:
"I forgot to tell you. There are five of us old fellows, one chance each. Hahaha..."
Xiao Yan's mouth twitched slightly, and the hope in his heart was dashed again. He let out a long sigh and looked up at the sky overhead. Judging by its color, night was falling. He had gone a whole day without eating, and it was time to cook something.
He half closed his eyes and spread out his Soul Power. A few breaths later, Xiao Yan opened his eyes. Before him, a rabbit was huddled tightly in on itself. Xiao Yan picked it up and looked at the pitiful-looking creature.
"If you want to live, in the end, you still have to rely on yourself!"
"Hehe! In this world, the weak have always been prey to the strong. If you don't strive for strength yourself, you'll gain nothing and can only be meat on someone else's chopping block. If you want to survive, you have to kill others. That is the rule of the continent and the creed of the strong!"
Gu You sighed softly and spoke with feeling.
Time flew. Two months had now passed since Xiao Yan came to this world.
Stars dotted the night sky, making the entire expanse look like a painting.
In the Ancient Desolate Forest, a campfire gave off a faint glow. Its light spread out, draping the forest within a hundred meters in a thin veil of red.
Beside the campfire, a young man dressed in white sat cross-legged.
Xiao Yan's eyes were tightly shut. Between his brows, the lotus-shaped fire mark, half red and half white, gave off a faint glimmer.
The silence lasted only a short while before Xiao Yan's eyes abruptly opened. A sharp imposing force burst from them, setting the leaves within several yards of him stirring without wind.
Xiao Yan changed his hand seals, and Soul Power surged from between his brows, slowly circling him and gathering.
A moment later, nine figures identical to Xiao Yan sat cross-legged around him. The nine avatars were now very different from when they had first appeared. At the Qi cyclone inside each avatar and over each one's body, a faint, barely perceptible layer of invisible flame constantly tempered them. That flame was the Heavenly Flame most effective on Soul Power, the Fallen Heart Flame.
Xiao Yan's Soul Power surged out and constantly changed above his head. In the end, it formed several invisible spheres, each the size of a basketball, suspended overhead.
With a thought from Xiao Yan, the Heavy Soul Beads smashed toward the nine avatars one after another. Although he had now refined the nine avatars, they were still too fragile. He first had to use tempering methods to make them solid.
Most importantly, Xiao Yan had no attributed Spirit Stones on him now. He could not inscribe a cultivation method to let the avatars cultivate on their own, and as far as the Nine Revolutions Avatar Art was concerned, avatars unable to cultivate independently were no different from soul puppets. Thus, Xiao Yan had no choice but to spend this period solidifying the avatars first.
Time passed. The campfire that had lit up the forest went out, the stars faded from the sky, and the earth regained its light. Another new day had come to the continent.
Xiao Yan slowly opened his tightly shut eyes and glanced into the distance at the silhouettes of trees on the horizon. He rose to his feet, and the nine avatars around him vanished. His figure flashed, leaving only an extinguished campfire in the forest.