Three Years to Break the Restrictions
Su Fuxi spent three years completely unraveling the passage through the restrictions. Forming hand seals, she sent out nearly a hundred seals in succession, stabilizing most of the passage but leaving eleven untouched to keep anyone else from noticing.
She still planned to stay for a while and study the garden's restrictions thoroughly. Most importantly, as she gazed at the immortal herbs and spirit flowers filling the garden, she found it hard not to be tempted.
The clump of bamboo on the other side of the jade bridge looked particularly familiar. On closer inspection, wasn't it the same kind of slender bamboo she had seen in front of the moon gate when she first came in?
Su Fuxi stood at the edge of the bamboo grove, in a spot that happened to be outside the restrictions. The last time she had entered this place, she had lacked experience and sufficient skill with restrictions, leaving her deeply uneasy. Finding tight restrictions everywhere and no exit, she had thought only of breaking her way out.
It had taken her more than five years to escape in sorry shape.
Now Su Fuxi sat cross-legged, regulated her breathing for a short while, then immediately sent out a strand of spiritual sense and formed a seal to brush against the restriction. It lit up, but upon detecting no destructive force in her spiritual sense, it did not react violently, merely continuing to flash. Once Su Fuxi had gained an understanding of it, she immediately began working it out.
Nearly half a year later, she finally managed to break through forty-eight restriction nodes with great difficulty, barely allowing her to touch the bamboo. She immediately used her crude imitation restrictions to create a long, narrow passage only half a palm wide.
With little time to spare, she immediately formed a seal and guided the Embroidered Gold Sword through the passage. She was not aiming to chop down the bamboo, but at a bamboo root protruding three inches above the ground!
She had just tested the bamboo with a blade of spiritual power. Whatever variety it was, it rang like metal when struck and was exceptionally hard!
In that case, she might as well take a section of root. Whether or not she could plant it outside and keep it alive, it would still be useful. Taking the bamboo itself would simply require too much effort.
She did not have enough time. As she controlled the Embroidered Gold Sword to dig out the root, she also had to keep forming seals to support the passage and prevent it from closing.
To her surprise, the root was not easy to extract either. Though not as hard as the bamboo, it was extraordinarily tough. Su Fuxi patiently shaved away at it bit by bit with her sword, sparks flying from the blade. She was loath to damage her sword and dared not use too much force for fear of nicking it.
In this way, she spent nearly half a month digging out a foot-long root. Seeing that the passage through the restrictions could hold a little longer, she gritted her teeth and dug for another two months before she had to give up, obtaining four roots of varying lengths.
After retrieving both the roots and the sword before the restriction closed, she lowered her hands. Sweat covered her brow from exhaustion. It had been quite a thrill.
The slender bamboo twig she had deliberately cut off as a test had already been crushed to powder by the restriction. That was what happened to anything that failed to leave the passage in time!
Over the past few years, Su Fuxi had breathed in the primal energy of life, replenishing it as she spent it. Her white hair had changed several times, turning black, then white, then black again.
In the end, it had settled, remarkably, at three white strands-the very ones that had turned white when she refined the restriction dharma treasure years ago.
She spent another month regulating her breathing and restoring herself to peak condition. She glanced at the five bamboo roots lying quietly in her storage pouch. They truly were supreme treasures, rich with the breath of life; a single whiff cleared her mind.
Finally, after making sure she had left nothing undone, she supported the eleven remaining nodes of the garden's exit passage and shot through the two-foot-wide gap like a meteor.
Next, if nothing went wrong, she would be transported to the Pill Pavilion, where she had triggered a destructive restriction years ago.
Along the central route through the ruins, amid the wreckage of a hall a hundred li from the remains of the Pill Pavilion.
Three Golden Core cultivators in purple stood at the head of a damaged white jade bridge. This was the plaza in front of the hall, evidently one of the central areas of the great battle that had once taken place here.
Besides the damaged restrictions, a violent, rampaging aura of slaughter had formed a fierce astral wind, confined within by the restrictions covering it and unable to spread.
"Junior brother, junior sister, the restrictions here have been damaged. But to get across to the palace on the other side, we need to pass through these astral wind ruins. Follow my steps. You must not make a single mistake."
The speaker was Zha Wuren. Only two cultivators who had recently reached the Mid Golden Core stage remained in the group; Elder Sun had long since left the ruins.
When Sun first entered all those years ago, he followed Su Fuxi's jade slip through the ruins and found that he had no way to deal with the restrictions. It was a thankless struggle, and he had even tried to persuade his two fellow sect members to leave.
Because of Su Fuxi's subtle attitude toward Zha Wuren, Elder Sun had secretly grown a little wary. He decisively withdrew from the ruins and went to try his luck on the outskirts instead.
The two who remained had heard that their eldest senior brother possessed a life-saving dharma treasure given to him by the sect master, and they trusted Zha Wuren completely. At his words, they immediately nodded together. "Yes! Rest assured, eldest senior brother!"
The two carefully followed Zha Wuren's footsteps, matching him step for step. Neither noticed that along the way, Zha Wuren seemed to hesitate and changed his footing several times.
"Eldest senior brother!" The female cultivator in the middle suddenly turned pale. It seemed she had stepped in the wrong place, and a fierce astral wind coiled around her feet. "How could this be? I... I was following you..."
She was certain she had not misread his steps. The astral wind bound her tightly like a rope, while another current, filled with killing intent, circled in front of her, only a fist's distance from her heart. She dared not move a muscle.
"Oh, how did you..." Zha Wuren frowned, then pretended to ponder before reassuring her. "Don't be afraid, junior sister. We can't turn back here. Once I reach the Pill Pavilion, I'll return by another route and undo the restriction for you!"
"That's right! Hold on, junior sister. Eldest senior brother will definitely save you!" The male cultivator at the back felt his heart tighten. With those words, he put the pressure on their eldest senior brother, then hurried past the female cultivator and stayed close behind Zha Wuren.
This time, he stared fixedly at Zha Wuren's steps ahead, not daring to relax in the slightest. With a few shifts of position, the two passed through the astral wind region in an instant, their backs receding into the distance.
"Eldest senior brother! Sixth senior brother!" the female cultivator cried in despair. "Don't go! You can't abandon me!!"
Zha Wuren hurried toward the Pill Pavilion, his lips twitching heartlessly. Along the way, breaking the restrictions had helped them obtain some treasures he did not care for. In that astral wind region, only one person was needed as the eye of the wind to hold the restriction in place, allowing the others to pass safely. He was merely leaving her there.
As long as she did not move, she would not die. As for going back to save her, that would require breaking every restriction in the plaza. Of course Zha Wuren would not do that. It had only taken a few words to say it; after all, time was short. Who knew if he might run out of time later, or forget to save her?
By the time Zha Wuren reached the Pill Pavilion, twelve Golden Core experts had already gathered in front of the surviving buildings.
Among them were several junior cultivators who had come last time. Now that they had formed their cores, they wanted to seek opportunities in the center of the ruins, but they had not experienced the eruption of the destructive restriction.
Even though they had heard frightening rumors, they could not help feeling the stories were exaggerated. They only needed to be a little careful.
"The restrictions here are complex. Three fellow Daoists skilled in restrictions will need to break them simultaneously. Would any of you be willing to step forward?"
The group sized one another up and exchanged polite cupped-fist greetings. Then a middle-aged Golden Core cultivator spoke first, breaking the silence.
"..."
Everyone looked at one another. After all, they might end up sewing a wedding dress for someone else, and they also had to guard against a knife in the back.
"Eldest senior brother." The male cultivator from his sect instinctively looked at Zha Wuren, knowing that his skill with restrictions was also quite good.
Ignoring him, Zha Wuren swept his gaze over the crowd but did not see Su Fuxi. He knew she would come and was waiting for her to appear and break the restrictions.
At the same time, a cultivator recognized them. "Greetings, Fellow Daoist Wu of the Azure Cloud Sect. I am Zhang of the Pine Mountain Sect in Mo Liang. I met you at the Three Kingdoms Immortal Sects Conference. Back then, Fellow Daoist, you were at Half-Step Nascent Soul... uh..."
Discovering that Zha Wuren's cultivation had become Mid Golden Core, the cultivator surnamed Zhang stared in astonishment and stumbled over his words, unable to continue. Zha Wuren shot him a cold glare, and he could only cup his fists awkwardly and retreat to one side.
Just as everyone was sounding one another out, a teleportation passage abruptly appeared in midair above the ruins. A moment later, a purple-clad female cultivator with an immortal bearing and jade-like beauty flew out.
Her figure was both graceful and poised, her air both spirited and lovely. Purple silk and black hair fluttered around her. Though everyone's eyes turned toward her, she still looked down upon them all, sweeping them with a cold gaze. Like a mystic maiden descending slowly from the nine heavens, her singular, peerless bearing was utterly at odds with the ruins around her.