Chapter 233
The blue light that had colored the entire lake faded within a few days.
Yet the fifth-tier spirit vein freed from its seal remained beneath Yeonha’s lakebed.
The lake water absorbed denser water qi than before, while the spiritual energy rising above the surface rode the wind and spread into the surrounding area.
The spirit herbs growing in the spirit fields sprouted new leaves, and even the low-grade spirit stone veins began to gleam with a clear light.
Cultivators who came to train noticed the change as soon as they set foot in Yeonha.
Merchant guilds’ tower ships and flying dharma treasures gathered at the lakeshore day after day, and before long, rumors had spread throughout the southern region.
“If it were a treasure too precious for the clan to handle, we could not have avoided disaster. Fortunately, since it is a spirit vein, we should have some way to protect it.”
There was also a way for the Yeonha Baek Clan to keep all the benefits for itself.
Yeonha had originally been the Baek Clan’s territory, and the person who awakened the spirit vein was also a member of the Baek Clan.
If one considered only the matter of justification, no one could easily object.
However, a fifth-tier spirit vein was far too great for a Golden Core clan to contain.
If they forcibly monopolized it, even forces that had shown them goodwill might reach out their claws.
Fortunately, the Biyun Sect, which protected the Yeonha Baek Clan, also possessed a fifth-tier spirit vein and had little interest in the southern continent.
“We intend to share the benefits originating from Yeonha’s spirit vein with the clans of the Cheonnam Alliance, and to take responsibility for the necessary defenses together.”
Baek Mu-jin summoned the clan heads of the Cheonnam Alliance to headquarters once more.
In exchange for offering the greatest share of the benefits, the Yeonha Baek Clan required the clans belonging to the alliance to contribute people, spirit stones, and formation materials.
The leasing rights to the newly cultivated spirit fields, the stall fees in the marketplace, and the usage rights to the cultivation caves were also distributed according to each clan’s contribution.
The clans willingly opened their storehouses.
Even if their immediate share became smaller, the benefits a fifth-tier spirit vein would bring were impossible to calculate.
Above all, they had to protect the Cheonnam Alliance together if they wanted to protect their own shares.
Thus, an enormous wall rose around the alliance headquarters.
If the existing Yeonha Immortal City was the city of the Yeonha Baek Clan, the city being newly built was an immortal city belonging to the entire Cheonnam Alliance.
The clan heads named it Cheonnam Immortal City.
The pavilions and marketplaces along the lakeshore were enclosed within the walls, and each clan buried formation eyes in the area assigned to it.
Profound Void Perfected Person linked the different mountain-protecting formations into one together with the formation masters of the Yeonha Baek Clan.
A golden aerial formation spread across the sky, while a detection formation was laid underwater to distinguish aquatic demonic beasts from cultivators approaching from outside.
Cultivators of the Cheonnam Alliance also took turns patrolling outside the walls.
After examining the formations and circumstances of Cheonnam Immortal City, the nearby sects sent congratulatory gifts instead of coveting the spirit vein, while expressing their desire to establish branches or obtain cultivation rights for their disciples.
One by one, more sects seeking friendly relations with the Cheonnam Alliance appeared.
The Yeonha Baek Clan spent busy days handling the ever-growing piles of letters, ledgers, and visitors.
The area around the lake entered a period of upheaval unlike anything it had experienced before.
***
Baek Cheong, the person who had actually brought change to Yeonha, occupied one of the quarters prepared at the Cheonnam Alliance headquarters and shut herself inside.
If she went outside, people asking about the spirit vein and ruins would inevitably cling to her one after another.
Her father and uncles were busy building Cheonnam Immortal City, so they did not call her out when she said she would quietly rest.
Thanks to that, she enjoyed the Nameless Forum without interruption for several days.
‘Oh, right.’
It was time to show off the things she had brought from the ruins.
She took jade boxes out of her spatial dharma treasure one by one and lined them up across the floor.
The more than twenty jade boxes contained all kinds of medicinal materials, from a spirit herb with white leaves and translucent purple fruits to palm-sized silver leaves and dark red roots.
At the very end, she placed the spirit herb with nine jade leaves in the most prominent spot.
She captured all the jade boxes in one image post and uploaded it to the Nameless Forum.
『※Dao Friend (913.14): Looted an ancient ruin.』
[An image of more than twenty jade boxes engraved with preservation formations, lined up.]
The replies multiplied in the blink of an eye.
[Dao Friend (11.23): The white-leaved one on the left is White Spirit Ginseng, isn’t it? If the leaves are that white, it must be at least three thousand years old.]
[Dao Friend (46.111): The purple fruit looks like Purple-Flow Fruit. I’ve never seen a product with star patterns inside the flesh before, either.]
[Dao Friend (55.19): The silver leaves in the center are probably Silver Marrow Herb. It’s a spirit herb that disappeared after the ancient era, and its characteristic of gathering medicinal properties in the stem matches the picture.]
[Dao Friend (88.4): Are you laying out pieces made by some apothecary and insisting they’re spirit herbs?]
[Dao Friend (201.9): You expect us to believe you looted an ancient ruin just because you said so?]
[Dao Friend (11.23): The dark red root looks like Red Flame Root. At that size, it wouldn’t even fit in an ordinary alchemy furnace.]
Baek Cheong silently repeated the unfamiliar names to herself each time the replies increased.
White Spirit Ginseng, Purple-Flow Fruit, and Silver Marrow Herb were varieties whose names she had not been able to determine even in the spirit-herb field.
She knew about Red Flame Root, but this was the first time she had learned that its medicinal properties gathered in its red veins.
She had merely shown off, yet the Daoists had appraised everything for her.
The phrase “killing two birds with one stone” had clearly been made for moments like this.
“Pfft.”
Baek Cheong gave each reply a short response, as though she had known everything from the beginning.
[Dao Friend (913.14): Yeah, I knew all of it before I posted.]
[Dao Friend (11.23): Anyone can tell you just learned that.]
In the midst of this, Dao Friend (2.2) appeared late.
[Dao Friend (2.2): Wait, show the rearmost jade box up close.]
└Dao Friend (913.14): Why?
└Dao Friend (2.2): I need to confirm whether there really are nine jade leaves.
Baek Cheong created a new image post so that the nine jade leaves could be seen clearly.
The blue jade-colored veins and the medicinal properties clumped together like beads beneath the soil were all revealed in detail.
This time, the replies stopped for a moment.
[Dao Friend (2.2): It’s a Nine-Leaf Soul-Nourishing Herb. I can’t believe a fully matured one still exists.]
[Dao Friend (55.19): A Nine-Leaf Soul-Nourishing Herb? Isn’t that an ancient spirit herb used to control divine sense?]
[Dao Friend (11.23): The most valuable one among those jade boxes was hiding at the very end.]
[Dao Friend (88.4): Looks like you really did loot an ancient ruin.]
[Dao Friend (201.9): Since the roots are still alive, you must really have dug it up.]
Baek Cheong’s eyes lit up at the unexpected explanation.
A spirit herb that controlled divine sense was exactly what she needed right now.
To advance to the second star of the Spirit Condensation Art, she had to awaken her divine soul clearly, but so far, she had not even found where her divine soul was.
Perhaps the Nine-Leaf Soul-Nourishing Herb could break through the blockage.
She immediately asked how to use it.
[Dao Friend (913.14): So how do I use this?]
[Dao Friend (11.23): If you put one jade leaf up for sale in the marketplace, a Daoist who knows will appear.]
[Dao Friend (55.19): You’re quite greedy, trying to learn how to use an object that precious for free.]
[Dao Friend (88.4): Eat one leaf and leave a review.]
[Dao Friend (2.2): You got the herb’s name and effects for free, and now you want its usage handed to you as well?]
└Dao Friend (913.14): Stingy.
└Dao Friend (2.2): You won’t offer even one jade leaf, yet you treat other people’s knowledge so lightly.
The Daoists did not readily provide an answer this time.
If she put a jade leaf up for sale or offered a fair price, several methods of use would likely pour in immediately.
But she had no intention of giving away one of the only nine jade leaves.
Baek Cheong left the post without hesitation and searched for the name of the Nine-Leaf Soul-Nourishing Herb.
Once she knew its name, finding information about it was not difficult.
After digging through dozens of buried posts, one old informational post caught her eye.
『Dao Friend (304.41): Recording how to consume the Nine-Leaf Soul-Nourishing Herb.』
[Hold one jade leaf in your mouth, and your sea of consciousness will awaken for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea. Do not chew or swallow it; control your divine sense while its medicinal power remains.]
“Found it.”
Baek Cheong leisurely withdrew her divine sense from the Nameless Forum.
She pulled over the jade box on the floor and examined the Nine-Leaf Soul-Nourishing Herb’s leaves.
Each jade leaf was filled to the brim with clear medicinal power.
She took out a small jade knife and carefully detached one of the outermost jade leaves.
When she held the fresh jade leaf in her mouth, cool medicinal power spread from the tip of her tongue.
Without chewing, she closed her eyes and plunged her consciousness deep into her sea of consciousness.
Before she had even taken a few breaths, her inner world opened up brightly.
The divine sense that had spread like waves until then was a force whose origin she could not discern.
But after the medicinal power of the Nine-Leaf Soul-Nourishing Herb spread, every movement led back to a single place.
The intention to examine her divine sense, the will to move, and the self looking into her sea of consciousness all extended from the same place.
It had neither form nor light, but she could not fail to recognize what it was.
It was her divine soul.
‘So this is it.’
Baek Cheong grasped her divine soul and moved her divine sense.
Her divine sense, which extended sixty zhang, could now be grasped all at once from beginning to end, unlike before.
The incantations of the second star of the Spirit Condensation Art also flowed without obstruction.
“Already?”
After wrestling with it for so long and only faintly sensing her divine soul, she had found it all at once with a single jade leaf.
It was so easy that it felt anticlimactic, but there was no reason to feel disappointed.
She was already short on time just building her cultivation; she could not spend several months merely examining her sea of consciousness in search of her divine soul.
Above all, she had to enjoy the Nameless Forum in her spare time.
‘Free gains are the best.’
While the jade leaf’s medicinal power remained, Baek Cheong used her divine soul to grasp her divine sense.
Following the incantations of the Spirit Condensation Art, she pressed her widely spread divine sense inward.
The divine sense that had already been compressed once did not shrink easily.
She pushed it in little by little, layering it to eliminate every gap.
After a tea interval had passed and the jade leaf crumbled transparently, part of her divine sense had ripened more densely than before.
.
.
.
The next day, she held a second jade leaf in her mouth.
Finding her divine soul was no longer difficult.
When she used the third and fourth jade leaves, the speed at which she compressed her divine sense grew even faster.
Each time she used one jade leaf, she let her sea of consciousness rest, and after the medicinal power faded, she spent her time rummaging through the Nameless Forum.
Outside, the walls of Cheonnam Immortal City grew taller, while inside, the divine sense that had extended sixty zhang contracted inward day by day.
It was the day she put the last jade leaf in her mouth.
The incantations of the Spirit Condensation Art were completed with her divine soul at the center.
She grasped the remaining divine sense all at once and drew it into the place she had compressed it until then.
The sensation of filling her sea of consciousness rapidly narrowed.
Its size had shrunk, but its density had risen to a level incomparable to before.
When she layered even the last scattered strands of divine sense inward, the Spirit Condensation Art began compressing them on its own.
In the end, the divine sense that had extended sixty zhang was compressed to exactly half—thirty zhang.
‘The second star of the Spirit Condensation Art.’
Baek Cheong slowly unfolded her divine sense and swept through her quarters and the surrounding buildings.
Its range had decreased, but she could perceive even the spiritual energy flowing between the walls and formations more clearly than before.
The benefits of the second star of the Spirit Condensation Art did not end with compressing her divine sense to half.
Once she clearly awakened her divine soul, she could extract only her will from her divine sense and store it in another object.
As a test, she infused spiritual power into the One-Star Sword and left behind the will for it to circle the quarters along the same path.
Even though she severed its connection to her divine sense, the One-Star Sword did not fall to the floor.
Even after she withdrew her divine sense, the One-Star Sword continued circling the room and repeating the same movement.
She no longer needed to maintain a connection to her divine sense whenever she moved a flying sword or puppet.
The will stored in advance continued the movement until it repeated a designated action or fulfilled a given condition.
As long as the spiritual power and will left in the object were sufficient, it could carry out its command for a while even after leaving the range of her divine sense.
‘In a way, should I call it a one-shot Divided Mind Technique?’
The divine sense divided by the Divided Mind Technique was always connected to her, so she could change its movements according to her will.
By contrast, the will stored in an artifact performed only the predetermined actions, like a severed fragment of divided consciousness, and dispersed once it finished its command.
It also differed from an artifact spirit, which could make its own judgments; if it encountered an unexpected obstacle or needed a new command, she had to reconnect her divine sense.
Even so, divine sense capable of handling the divine soul and will to this degree was unquestionably at the Nascent Soul level.
Her divine-sense range and the depth to which she could explore the Nameless Forum’s deep sea had immediately decreased, but she was much less worried that her sea of consciousness would reach its limit before she reached Foundation Establishment Great Perfection.
‘I should give the turtle a little more.’
Baek Cheong gazed at the hollowed-out Nine-Leaf Soul-Nourishing Herb and smiled with satisfaction.
The spirit herb she had dug up from the ancient ruins had even opened her long-blocked divine soul.
The fifty high-grade spirit stones still seemed far from having exhausted their value.