Born with immortal seed

Chapter 340 The Featherless Blue Phoenix

After traveling several miles, the air became increasingly stifling, as if dark red clouds overhead were pressing down on us.

"It truly is a fourth-tier spiritual land!"

As the soil beneath his feet changed color and he stepped onto the soft red earth, Ge Cang suddenly felt the spiritual energy around him become even denser, as if he had ascended to another level.

Every pore and acupoint on its body was cheering and greedily absorbing the spiritual energy between heaven and earth.

The true energy within their bodies unconsciously accelerated its circulation.

Even though the spiritual veins here are mainly composed of fire-type spiritual energy, which is not compatible with the attributes of True Person Ge Cang, it still gave him a jolt.

"So this is what fourth-order spiritual energy feels like. No wonder it can support the vast spiritual power needed after Nascent Soul stage... It's qualitatively different from third-order top-grade spiritual energy and could never satisfy a Nascent Soul cultivator."

Even though he had never experienced a fourth-tier spiritual land before, Master Ge Cang was able to instantly determine the grade of this place.

This was a natural reaction for a cultivator who had reached the peak of Core Formation; they sensed the most suitable place for Nascent Soul Transformation.

Master Ge Cang wished he could start breaking his core and transforming into an infant right now, beginning his tribulation process, but fortunately it was just a fleeting, crazy thought.

Reason quickly regained control; even if there were no Azure Phoenix demon beasts on the volcano, directly transforming into a Nascent Soul would be too dangerous.

Without anyone to protect and safeguard the path, even a random third-tier demonic beast during the Heavenly Tribulation could potentially affect the cultivator undergoing the tribulation.

The safest approach would be to set up a proper formation and have Junior Brother Bai protect the formation from the side, thus minimizing any unexpected risks.

Just then, Ge Cang stopped in his tracks, his expression solemn.

On the mountaintop within his sight, a large, beautifully feathered blue bird lay motionless, like a statue.

Its entire body was covered in transparent flames, burning slowly without causing any damage to the ground.

However, Master Ge Cang dared not underestimate it. If he had no other guesses, this should be the legendary Glazed Pure Fire.

Once you're infected, it's like a malignant tumor that's stuck to your bone; there's no hope of ever eradicating it or stopping it.

The large blue bird folded its wings to cover its body, with countless flames intertwined and interwoven. Despite being a demonic beast, it gave off a sense of elegance and nobility.

"No wonder I couldn't sense anything. So this is what Qingluan's sleeping state is like..."

Master Ge Cang suddenly realized that everyone in the cultivation world had only heard of Qingluan's Nirvana Rebirth Divine Power but had never had the chance to witness it.

During this process, the Azure Phoenix lost all traces of life. In the divine vision, there was only a blazing fire, and there was no Azure Phoenix at all.

On the contrary, the legendary fourth-tier great demon could be seen with the naked eye.

Master Ge Cang suppressed his urge to attack. Even though Qingluan was asleep, it didn't mean she had no means of defense.

The life force of a fourth-tier demon is so strong that even if I fight it for a while, it probably won't die immediately.

But when his gaze shifted downwards, his heart began to pound again.

I saw the bare tail of the Azure Phoenix, its iconic long feathers gone, and many gaps in the feathers on its body, as if they had been plucked out.

At the same time, there was an obvious unnatural twist on the left wing, with a handprint clearly imprinted on it, burning the feathers clean.

"It was actually a human cultivator! A human cultivator beat the Azure Phoenix into this state, and it hasn't recovered even after hundreds of years of Nirvana slumber!"

Such obvious man-made injuries horrified Ge Cang Zhenren, stirring up a storm of emotions within him.

Even the Qingfeng Sect, which has settled in Black Mountain for a thousand years and regards it as their base, only has a superficial understanding of the existence of the Azure Phoenix.

Surprisingly, hundreds of years ago, a Nascent Soul True Monarch infiltrated Black Mountain and engaged in a fierce battle with this fourth-tier great demon.

Moreover, the injury has persisted to this day, which shows that the injury was definitely not minor back then.

Logically speaking, even injuries that are close to death should allow the Azure Phoenix to fully recover through a period of slumber.

Given the current situation, Master Ge Cang couldn't help but turn his gaze to the tail of the Azure Phoenix, where its long feathers were missing.

"It seems the rumors were true. The True Feather is related to the fundamental strength of avian demon beasts. This feathered beast's strength has been greatly reduced, and its innate Nirvana Divine Power has almost disappeared..."

Ge Cang's eyes flashed with surprise. If this was the state of a fourth-tier great demon, he might actually be able to deal with it.

As the fire-elemental spiritual energy surged towards the sleeping Azure Phoenix at the mountaintop, it absorbed at most one percent of the spiritual energy, while the rest dispersed like the receding tide.

Half an hour later, they converged again, the tide rising and falling.

Without its true feathers, the Azure Phoenix seemed to have lost much of its instinct to transform the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

Master Ge Cang returned the way he came, step by step retreating from the volcano, and only then did he feel relieved.

Facing a fourth-tier demon is extremely stressful, even for a sleeping beast that has no sense of the outside world.

"It's a pity that the Ten Thousand Beasts Sect has lost contact with us. They are more adept at dealing with demonic beasts... After all, these are fourth-tier great demons. If we don't have any means to counter them, we're afraid we'll end up being slaughtered by the demons instead of eliminating them."

After leaving the volcano, Ge Cang Zhenren gazed at the fourth-order spiritual vein from afar.

"The tail injury and the broken wing of the Azure Phoenix do not seem to be from the same initial stage. The brightness of the feathers on both sides is different... Could it be that two groups of cultivators entered Black Mountain and attacked the Azure Phoenix one after the other, resulting in the difference in the injury?"

The True Feather represents the primordial power of a great bird demon; losing even one feather will severely impact its strength.

The part that should have been covered with magnificent and elegant feathers now only has short feathers, which is the root cause of its greatly reduced strength.

The broken wings were only adding insult to injury, but under normal circumstances, the injury would have been healed long ago by the fourth-order spiritual energy from the volcano.

Just as they were about to fly out of the core area of ​​Black Mountain, a thought flashed through Ge Cang Zhenren's mind, and he froze on the spot.

"The human cultivator who inflicted the second injury on the Azure Phoenix could not be Ancestor Qingfeng... With the blessing of the Pink Crystal Shattering Jade Technique, he certainly had the ability to fight against the injured Azure Phoenix, which also explains why the sect has never seen any trace of it since entering Black Mountain."

Ge Cang Zhenren recalled the remains of Qingfeng Ancestor that Bai Zichen brought back, and realized that he had fled all the way to Hejian County before his demise.

It is highly likely that the Azure Phoenix came out to seek blood food back then and set its sights on the sect.

After discovering this, Ancestor Qingfeng lured Qingluan away alone. Relying on the powerful strength gained from unleashing the Pink Crystal Shattering Jade Technique, he fought and fled until he passed away.

The Azure Phoenix, already wounded, developed a fear of human cultivators and returned to its lair, where it remained in a deep slumber ever since.

Furthermore, because it lost its true feather, its recovery speed was not only slower than that of other great demons of its kind, but also slower than that of some powerful demons with immortal bodies.

Originally a darling of fire, a great demon descended from a divine beast symbolizing the virtue of fire, it couldn't even fully refine fire-type spiritual energy.

Nearly a thousand years have passed, and only a section of the true feather has grown back; the injuries in other places have not been taken care of at all.

Thinking about it this way, many things match up.

It's unclear which cultivator stole the Azure Phoenix True Feather before the Azure Maple Sect arrived at Black Mountain.

After traveling dozens of miles, Master Ge Cang transformed into a bolt of lightning and flew swiftly towards the mountain gate.

……

"It can actually reduce the power of lightning by 30%. No wonder the method of refining a magic weapon is of similar status to the entire fourth-order weapon refining inheritance in the inheritance stone tablet."

On the Heavenly Thunder Wall, Bai Zichen tested for three days and finally figured out the Day After Tomorrow Thunder God Pearl.

This treasure is limited by its grade, and its power to control lightning is limited. If the quantity is too large or exceeds the power limit, the lightning beads are likely to shatter.

If it's just for assisting in the forging of the Thunder Sound Sword, that's perfect. When tempering a third-tier flying sword, only the smallest lightning bolts will be chosen.

However, the heavenly tribulations during the Nascent Soul stage are all punishments carried out on behalf of Heaven, leaving no room for choice or avoidance.

Each heavenly lightning bolt is stronger than the last. A low-grade magic weapon would likely be overwhelmed and explode after absorbing only 30% of the first heavenly lightning bolt.

The fact that the Heavenly Thunder God Pearl was listed as a Tribulation-Crossing Treasure by the Naihe Sect clearly indicates that it was not merely a decoration.

With full activation, the Divine Pearl of the Day After Tomorrow can transform into a lightning strike body, ensuring that any lightning in the sky will inevitably fall upon it.

After being refined, the Thunder Pearl and the cultivator are regarded as one, and the heavenly tribulation that strikes the Thunder Pearl is also regarded as surviving one round of heavenly tribulation.

Except for the final tribulation, which must be borne by the person undergoing the tribulation, the first eight tribulations can be borne by the acquired Thunder God Pearl.

Furthermore, some cultivators from the Naihe Sect once attempted to refine several Acquired Thunder God Pearls, hoping to have the pearls bear all the tribulations except for the final one.

As a result, the second one was used, which caused the Heavenly Tribulation to mutate, and its power increased by more than a hundred times. It directly blasted the opportunistic Core Formation Perfection cultivator into ashes, and even the area within a hundred miles was reduced to dust.

Using the Thunder God Pearl he had acquired after birth, Bai Zichen crushed the remaining Bodhi of Enlightenment and seized every minute to successfully forge two Thunder Sound Swords.

It's not that we don't want to continue, but the decades of accumulation in the Tianlei Cliff Bamboo Forest have been exhausted, leaving not even a single Thunder Sound Bamboo.

In order to ensure that their ancestor had enough Thunder Sound Bamboo, the Bai family members did not hesitate to send a large number of Sacred Sound Bamboo to be struck by heavenly lightning, directly causing a large number of Sacred Sound Bamboo to be destroyed by the lightning and fire.

In this respect, the conditions for cultivating Thunder Sound Bamboo at Thunder Cliff are even better than those at Fish Dragon Sect.

Among the Myriad Star Islands, finding such a sacred place that is constantly bombarded by heavenly lightning day and night is no easy feat.

Another point is that even if such an environment exists in the archipelago, the Fish-Dragon Sect will never allow the location for planting bamboo forests to leave Chilong Island.

Besides the Thunder Sound Bamboo, the sect's higher-ups were more concerned about not letting the sacred beast's blood essence stray too far from their sight.

Even after being trapped in the Fish-Dragon Sect for thousands of years, the essence of the sacred beasts, apart from separating its aura to mutate the Yi Wood Azure Divine Technique, has not been able to be used in any other way.

Taking advantage of the lingering effects of the Enlightenment Bodhi, Bai Zichen returned to the weapon-refining room and began refining the Azure Dragon Havoc in the Sea Sword overnight.

The essence of heavenly water, the essence of Geng metal... one by one, the spiritual materials that had been prepared and refined were thrown into the bronze cauldron that was being scorched by the earth fire.

After bursting forth with a dazzling burst of spiritual light, these high-grade spiritual materials gradually returned to normal and began to merge.

After a series of complex refining techniques, impurities were scorched and tempered by the earth fire, becoming increasingly condensed and pure.

"Unfortunately, the step of adding the dragon soul must be done when the sword embryo is in a liquid state; otherwise, this sword would be more suitable for water forging..."

After completing these tasks, Bai Zichen was drenched in sweat. The continuous high-intensity forging of third-tier flying swords was a considerable burden on a cultivator.

Think of the swordsmiths of the Tianhe Sword Sect, who spend more than ten or even decades on a single third-tier flying sword.

Bai Zichen practiced swordsmanship multiple times in just seven days and even successfully crafted two Thunder Sound Bamboo swords.

Although the Thunder Sound Sword's forging method is special and different from ordinary flying swords, and because he did a lot of preparatory work in advance.

However, it also causes a great loss to the spiritual consciousness of the sword refiner.

It was only thanks to Bai Zichen's spiritual strength being far superior to that of other cultivators of the same level that he was able to barely hold on.

(End of this chapter)