Starting at the Source

Perhaps they could not be called runes; they could only be called imprints.

The imprints were blurry and hazy, their shapes indistinct.

Three days had passed by now. During those three days, he had experienced several illusions, though they had grown shorter each time.

Hum!

The purple eyeball glowed continuously as its double pupils began to overlap again.

Runes lit up within the pupils, threatening to drag Lei Chong into an illusion once more.

But the imprints in Lei Chong's eyes glowed and radiated a mysterious power, blocking the Double Pupils' illusion without letting it affect him in the slightest.

Moreover, when the imprints were activated, the scene before his eyes changed again.

Some insects flying around him moved many times more slowly, just as if he had activated the Martial Dao Heavenly Eye, allowing him to see through certain traces.

And Lei Chong knew very well that he had not activated the Heavenly Eye.

His eyes had gained a portion of the Double Pupils' power.

The Double Pupils could do more than create illusions; they possessed many other special abilities.

Their true might could only be unleashed when their bearer activated them personally. The illusions they created were their most basic ability.

Hum!

Lei Chong activated the Martial Dao Heavenly Eye, and two beams of lightning shot from his eyes. Imprints lay hidden within the beams, making the Heavenly Eye's penetrating power even stronger.

Not only that, but as the imprints appeared, the surrounding insects stopped beating their wings, as though they had fallen into an illusion and forgotten how to fly.

Sizzle!

A beam of lightning pierced one of the insects, completely reducing it to ash.

Yet in Lei Chong's eyes, the insect was stripped apart layer by layer. His Heavenly Eye captured the entire process of its disintegration.

"It's actually grown so much stronger." A look of delight appeared on Lei Chong's face.

The Double Pupils in the eyeball he held were definitely mature.

He even had the notion of refining the eyeball into his own eye.

He believed that after he refined the Double Pupils, the Martial Dao Heavenly Eye would evolve rapidly and merge with them, becoming many times more powerful.

He could even gain the Double Pupils' abilities without having to refine them slowly.

In the end, Lei Chong gave up. This was someone else's eye, after all. Though the eyeball still retained vitality, it was ultimately a dead thing that had reached its end and could not improve any further in the future.

Besides, the thought made him somewhat uncomfortable, and he also feared there might be something strange about the eye.

Putting the eyeball away, Lei Chong left the inn.

Several days had now passed, and he wanted to return to Divine Medicine Valley to take a look.

Standing on a street in the Medicine Capital, he asked the passersby around him and learned that the people of Demon Spirit Lake had searched for a day. They apparently had not found the true culprit, and had all left the Medicine Capital.

However, when Demon Spirit Lake left, they had issued some harsh threats: no matter which faction was responsible, Demon Spirit Lake would not let this grudge go.

Lei Chong paid it little mind. These great factions were always like this: whenever they suffered a setback, they had to recover their swagger with words.

Standing on the great rock in Divine Medicine Valley, Lei Chong continued to study the formation patterns.

Now that his Heavenly Eye had improved, he could see the formation patterns more clearly.

And when he used it to inscribe formation patterns, his success rate would also improve somewhat.

But Lei Chong did not act rashly. His main purpose in coming here was still the glowing mass within the formation. Now that his Heavenly Eye had improved, he wanted to try to see through it.

Before long, the sound of chanting rang out once more, and the glowing mass within the formation flickered in and out of sight.

Hum!

After Lei Chong activated the Heavenly Eye, countless runes shot from his eyes.

This time, with the Double Pupils' runes enhancing it, he truly saw what lay within the glowing mass.

It was a symbol, sometimes resembling a ball of flame and sometimes transforming into a mass of runes.

Of course, even with the Heavenly Eye's improvement, this was all he could see.

As for what it truly was, he still could not see it clearly.

But this was already enough for him.

As for taking out the glowing mass, even with the Heaven Ascending Ladder here, it was still impossible. The formation here was too powerful; even the Heaven Ascending Ladder was not enough.

He had already reached this conclusion when he observed it from behind that day.

Hum!

Lei Chong opened his Heavenly Passage, and two spirit bodies emerged from it.

He wanted to comprehend the Dao for a long period. This session was extremely important, and he absolutely could not be disturbed again, or he might injure himself.

Lei Chong sat cross-legged on the great rock and began to study the mass of runes.

He remembered very clearly that in the original work, black fragments of bone had been dug up nearby. They looked as though they had been scorched by flames, yet remained exceptionally hard.

After careful consideration, he could now be certain that those mysterious bone fragments might be inside the glowing mass ahead.

For bone fragments to remain intact for countless years within a formation of this level, the being they came from must have been incomparably powerful in life, and its precious technique must have been formidable as well.

The mass of runes was not complicated. On the contrary, it looked extremely simple, as if sketched with a few strokes. But the runes constantly shifted, like dancing flames.

After studying them for a long time, Lei Chong began to comprehend the mass of runes.

The runes seemed simple, but when he earnestly tried to comprehend them, his primordial spirit felt as though it were burning with flames, and he could not grasp them.

"What's going on?" Lei Chong had never encountered anything like this.

He was merely cultivating a rune, yet it had such an effect.

He had not felt this way when cultivating the Kunpeng Method before.

But things were different then. When he cultivated in the blood pool, the technique left behind by the Kunpeng had been demonstrated for him, helping learners comprehend it.

Now Lei Chong had to comprehend the flame runes on his own, and they were incomplete, making them even harder to understand.

Besides, a precious technique of this level could not be comprehended at a glance.

Before long, the sound of chanting rang through the valley, helping Lei Chong enter a state of Dao comprehension.

Within Lei Chong's sea of consciousness, a mass of runes flickered constantly.

Bolstered by the chanting, the mass of runes grew more solid.

He did not try to force himself to memorize it. Instead, he began breaking it down into its fundamental symbols, hoping to understand it thoroughly from its source.

Though this would waste some time, once he understood it from the source, no matter how the mass of runes changed, it could never stray from that source.

Time passed swiftly, and three days went by in the blink of an eye.

During those three days of Dao comprehension, a ball of fire occasionally appeared on the surface of his body, and at times it transformed into a glowing mass, with no fixed form.

After three full days, Lei Chong slowly opened his eyes. Two bolts of lightning shot from them, seemingly ready to pierce the void in a single strike.

But within his mind, lines of patterns were still shifting.

After three days of strenuous comprehension, he had finally grasped the runes' source.

Hum!

Lei Chong moved his hands, inscribing runes in the void.

They were crude symbols that looked like careless doodles.

As the doodles multiplied, changes occurred in the void.

The doodles gradually fused, eventually becoming a series of red patterns.

The red patterns soon began to change, seemingly about to transform into a ball of flame.

This was the very mass of runes, now completely mastered by him. As for what the rune could do and whether it would have the expected effect, he would have to put it to a proper test.