Yun Du Forms His Core! Cloud-Sky Morning Clear Qi!

The return trip was swift.

At the first hint of dawn, Sun Kezheng, covered in cold dew, slipped silently into the back mountain of Hongtian City, his steps hurried.

"Patriarch, I was fortunate enough not to fail you!"

Sun Kezheng knelt on one knee and presented a green Jade Slip in both hands.

Shi Jian lay sprawled on a bluestone and raised his eyelids to glance at it.

"What did Song He say?"

"I didn't see Elder Song He."

Sun Kezheng lowered his head and said respectfully, "The head of White Cloud Temple's Law Enforcement Hall received me. He examined the flying sword and the testimony, then remained silent for a long time. In the end, he gave me this Jade Slip and told me to bring it back."

Shi Jian extended a wisp of Demon Power and touched the Jade Slip.

The Jade Slip cracked, and an aged, weary voice, tinged with a bone-chilling killing intent, rang out in the cave abode:

"White Cloud Temple will remember this favor."

"Guard Hongtian City well. Concern yourselves with nothing else."

When the voice faded, the Jade Slip crumbled completely into fine ash and vanished into the world.

Sun Kezheng raised his head, worry on his face. "Patriarch, that was all he said?"

"What if they..."

"Enough. Don't lose your composure."

Shi Jian cut him off, patting the ground with a heavy forepaw. "Those few words are a pill to put our minds at ease..."

"Song He refused to see you to avoid suspicion."

"The head of the Law Enforcement Hall came forward himself. That shows White Cloud Temple believed us and took the matter seriously."

"From here on, we don't need to concern ourselves with anything. Just shut our doors and focus on farming and managing our affairs. Some things aren't for us to meddle in yet."

Sun Kezheng assented and withdrew.

Shi Jian looked at the daylight beyond the cave abode and grinned.

Yan Qiu of the Fenghe Sect had wanted to fish in troubled waters, but Shi Jian had exposed him beforehand. Unless White Cloud Temple was foolish, it would know how to guard against him now...

Time slipped by, the seasons turning from cold to heat.

In the blink of an eye, another three years had passed.

During those three years, an uncanny calm hung over White Cloud Commandery.

After Han Qing's death, the restless Rogue Cultivators to the south seemed to vanish without a trace overnight, and the Fenghe Sect made no major moves either...

It seemed that Yan Qiu and the other Golden Core cultivator had their hands tied by something, or perhaps White Cloud Temple had secretly revealed a trump card and forced them to abandon their probing.

White Cloud Temple, meanwhile, sealed its mountain and shut its doors.

Its sect-protecting formation was fully activated, and disciples could leave but not enter. Its defenses were plainly at their highest.

The nine counties under its rule now had to escort their own Spiritual Qi taxes to the sect gates. It was a posture of extreme retrenchment...

Outsiders saw weakness, but Shi Jian understood: they were holding back a major move.

Yun Du had reached the most critical moment!

In the third year, late autumn arrived.

Outside Hongtian City, maple leaves blazed like fire.

Shi Jian was sprawled in the back mountain valley, watching the three youngsters, Shi Pan, Shi Mo, and Shi Yin, bite and spar with one another.

The three little ones were fully grown now, and their demonic Qi had grown ever more refined!

Just then-

Shi Jian jerked his head up, his slit pupils fixed on the north!

The wind had risen.

It was no ordinary wind, but a Spiritual Qi Gang wind born of rampaging Spiritual Qi!

At the same moment, Sun Bo'an also sensed something amiss and rushed up the back mountain to report it. "Patriarch! The north... it's in the north!"

Sun Bo'an pointed in the direction of White Cloud Temple, a trace of fear on his face and his voice trembling, as though he had sensed some great terror.

"Bo'an, don't panic."

Shi Jian strode heavily to the edge of the cliff and gazed into the distance.

The sky had changed.

The sky above White Cloud Temple had been cloudless for ten thousand miles, but now an enormous Spiritual Qi vortex had appeared out of nowhere.

The vortex was shaped like a funnel, covering the sky for nearly a hundred miles around!

The Spiritual Qi across all nine counties was being frantically drawn out by an irresistible force, converging on the vortex.

"This is... the heavenly phenomenon of core formation."

"Could Senior Yun Du be about to succeed?!"

Sun Kezheng swallowed, his eyes full of shock. This was the first time in his life he had witnessed such a terrifying spectacle.

Shi Jian narrowed his eyes and circulated Demon Power to them, his gaze piercing through layer upon layer of clouds and mist.

The many records he had read in the past surfaced in his mind.

The leap from Foundation Establishment to core formation was a true transformation of one's level of life. It likewise required one to pass three trials; nearly every breakthrough in cultivation was accompanied by three barriers...

The first was the spiritual power trial.

A cultivator had to compress the liquid Foundation Establishment true essence within their body to its limit and withstand the frenzied influx of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi...

Endure it, and the true essence would transform; fail, and their body would explode, killing them!

At that moment, the enormous Spiritual Qi funnel poured down toward White Cloud Temple's main peak with a force that swept all before it, stirring up wave after wave of spiritual power!

Rumble!

Faint thunder came from the distance, a strange sound caused by Spiritual Qi rubbing against itself.

What overbearing absorption speed.

Shi Jian marveled inwardly. Even from several thousand miles away, he could feel the Spirit Vein beneath Hongtian City trembling slightly, its Spiritual Qi draining away more than ten times faster than usual...

Yet this first trial alone lasted a full three days and three nights!

Three days later, the funnel dispersed.

But the sky did not return to calm. Instead, it grew darker...

An even more profound, even more terrifying presence was gathering above White Cloud Temple.

The second trial was to absorb a wisp of the Heaven and Earth Qi Dynamic!

The Golden Core Great Dao was no small matter. It was the threshold at which a cultivator truly stepped onto the path of cultivation; once past it, heaven and earth would roam at their side.

Only by taking a wisp of the Heaven and Earth Qi Dynamic and fusing it into oneself could one form a Golden Core!

The so-called Heaven and Earth Qi Dynamic could be Qi of the five elements, or yin and yang, or a wisp of the origin of life, death, time, or space...

Below those were the Qi of many lesser paths, such as wind, lightning, darkness, ice, strength, and the physical body. All could serve as the Heaven and Earth Qi Dynamic!

This trial had defeated countless brilliant and peerless cultivators at the peak of Foundation Establishment.

Very few cultivators could draw this wisp of heaven and earth Qi from the world entirely by themselves, if they had no sect foundation or heaven-defying fortuitous opportunity.

That wisp of heaven and earth Qi was an insurmountable barrier!

"Patriarch, the sky has split open!"

Sun Bo'an cried out in alarm. High in the distance, a fissure had suddenly opened through the thick clouds, and a strand of the Heaven and Earth Qi Dynamic appeared in the sky.

Clearly, Zhao Qing had left an inheritance to the sect after all...

Cloud Dao Qi Dynamic: Cloud-Sky Morning Clear Qi!

They did leave a contingency after all-the Heaven and Earth Qi Dynamic...

Shi Jian licked his fangs. White Cloud Temple was indeed worthy of being a great sect with seven or eight hundred years of heritage; it had reserves to draw upon after all...

Perhaps Zhao Qing had dared to fight to the death back then because he had this hope that the inheritance would survive.

Once that wisp of Qi Dynamic entered the body, life and death hung on a single instant.

Rejection meant the destruction of body and soul; fusion meant entering the third trial.

Time passed, second by second.

There was no movement from White Cloud Temple. The deathly silence was suffocating.

At that moment, the cultivators of the entire White Cloud Commandery were watching in that direction.

Success would make him a king; failure, an outlaw. It all came down to this.

Just as everyone thought Yun Du had failed, a mass of clouds gathered across heaven and earth, then swept toward the eight directions...

Aang-!

A clear crane's cry tore through the sky.

Immediately afterward, a pure beam of heavenly light, brilliant to the extreme, shot up from White Cloud Temple's main peak and pierced straight through the heavens!

Within the white light, a flawless, perfectly round white pearl the size of a longan could faintly be seen, radiating a terrifying pressure that suppressed everything.

The third trial: forming the Golden Core!

Yun Du had always possessed the talent of dual Spirit Roots and excellent aptitude. On top of that, the sect had spared no effort in providing its resources, along with that wisp of the Heaven and Earth Qi Dynamic.

He had succeeded!

Boom!

The pressure of a fully formed Golden Core swept out from White Cloud Temple in every direction, like a solid wave.

The pressure swept over Hongtian City.

The city's three hundred thousand mortals all felt their knees go weak and dropped to the ground.

The Sun Clan's Qi Refining cultivators could not withstand the crushing force of that higher level of life either. One by one, their faces turned pale and their heads bowed.

Only Shi Jian remained standing firm at the cliff's edge.

Demon Power surged through his body, his bones creaking as he forcibly withstood that Golden Core pressure, that flawless Golden Core Qi Dynamic!

Golden Core...

And a Cloud Dao Golden Core at that. Though it isn't one of the eleven great paths-the five elements, yin and yang, life and death, or time and space-it's still immensely powerful.

Shi Jian stared fixedly at the white light soaring into the sky. There was no fear in his slit pupils, only deep ambition and longing.

One day, he too would reach that realm.

And even surpass it!

The ethereal, mysterious light gradually withdrew, and the strange phenomena in heaven and earth faded with it...

The sky over White Cloud Commandery brightened once more.

But everyone knew that this sky had returned to its master!

Sun Bo'an wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and let out a long breath. "Patriarch, Yun Du succeeded. White Cloud Temple has been saved."

"Yes, it's been saved."

Shi Jian turned and walked back to the bluestone, settling down beside it. His voice was calm. "The twenty-year deadline has been broken. Yun Du's breakthrough took just eight short years."

"The Supreme Purity Sect won't punish them now, and Yan Qiu of the Fenghe Sect can only draw back the claws he stretched out..."

"Then what about us..."

"We'll carry on living as we always have."

Shi Jian yawned lazily. "He can form his core, and I'll cultivate as a demon, as long as we pay our taxes on time and stay out of trouble."

"Along with the loyalty we've shown, Yun Du not only won't make trouble for us, but he may even do his best to support us in the future."

"For the next hundred years, the Sun Clan can remain safe and sound, and may even enter a golden age. The Lineage will surely flourish..."