Nine Star Hegemon Body Art

Leaving the Huayun auction house, Long Chen felt a bit uneasy when he had seen Yao Niming and Yao Niqian once more. The two of them had been extremely reserved, no longer acting as carefree around him as before.

He knew that was definitely because of his battle with Yin Wushang. His reputation had grown immensely, to the point they were no longer close to the same level.

Long Chen was still the same Long Chen, but in their eyes, they could no longer treat him as an ordinary friend. Even speaking with him had to be done very carefully.

This time, he had gone over to collect a few of the medicinal ingredients he had asked Zheng Wenlong to gather for him. He was preparing to refine the Heaven Ascension Pill.

This pill’s name was a bit frightening, sounding as if it was used for suicide. Later, people had felt it was such a bad name that they had changed it to be called the Heaven Advancing Pill.

As the name implied, it was used for peak Meridian Opening experts to break through to the Xiantian realm.

There were many pill formulas for the Heaven Advancing Pill, but their effects were different.

An ordinary Heaven Advancing Pill would only give a person an extra ten percent chance of advancing. But the best Heaven Advancing Pill sold by the Pill Tower increased a person’s chances of breaking through by fifty percent.

However, within Long Chen’s Pill God memories, he had a formula that could only be described as heaven-defying. It gave people a one hundred percent chance of advancing to the Xiantian realm.

Yes, one hundred percent chance. There was no chance of failure. That was a pill formula that came from the ancient era. The fortunate thing was that the medicinal ingredients required hadn’t gone extinct. Zheng Wenlong had managed to gather them all.

However, they had been extremely expensive. The huge sum of money Long Chen had obtained by selling the ‘divine soil’ would have been enough to pay back the majority of his debt. But now, his debt had once more inflated.

Not only had it inflated, but it had gotten too big, causing Zheng Wenlong to have an urge to cry. He had no choice but to once more send in an application to the Huayun Sect for more authority, allowing him to keep a higher amount of debt.

It could be said that Long Chen’s debt to Zheng Wenlong, which was also Zheng Wenlong’s debt to the Huayun Sect, had grown to a frightening level. Zheng Wenlong had even once held Long Chen’s hand, imploring, “You absolutely cannot die. If you die, your brother will also die with you.”

Although he knew Zheng Wenlong was joking, he felt certain that Zheng Wenlong was under a great deal of pressure.

The Huayun Sect was just too large. With his current position, he had severely overdrawn his limit. But it still wasn’t enough for Long Chen.

However, Zheng Wenlong had first promised to do what Long Chen asked before saying his joke. That made Long Chen admire him greatly. He truly was bold.

This time, Long Chen had picked up sixteen medicinal ingredients, all of which he had urgently needed. Refining the Heaven Advancing Pill required over a hundred medicinal ingredients, but his primal chaos space had already had the majority. These were all the rest he had needed.

After obtaining these, he had hesitated a great deal before clenching his teeth and giving Zheng Wenlong a pill formula.

That was the Meridian Opening Pill formula, and its main ingredient was the Meridian Opening Spirit Cliff Fruit. It was the best Meridian Opening Pill formula that he possessed.

Even the Pill Tower didn’t have such a pill formula. Currently, all the members of the Dragonblood Legion had already advanced to Meridian Opening, so this formula was already useless.

Other than its obvious effect, this particular formula had an even greater use. But for now, that use wasn’t as obvious.

After leaving behind that pill formula, Long Chen had also written a letter for Yao Niming to give to Zheng Wenlong. Then he returned to Mo Gate.

After his battle with Yin Wushang, all of Qingzhou City had become calm. There were very few people on the streets these days. An extremely grave air hung over the city, and people felt like a boulder was pressing onto their hearts, making it hard for them to breathe.

Mo Yi had also warned Long Chen and Mo Nian not to go out as much, because they were currently in an extremely dangerous period.

Their opponent had tried probing their strength twice now and failed both times. It was very likely for them to lose their patience and skip straight to a decisive battle.

Most importantly, Long Chen had killed Yin Wushang’s clone, destroying years of his efforts. The Yin family would definitely go crazy. So Long Chen definitely had to be worried about being assassinated when he was outside Mo Gate.

After returning to Mo Gate, Long Chen asked for a private room. He was going to focus on refining the Heaven Advancing Pills.

Although he wasn’t aware of the Dragonblood Legion’s current state, according to his calculations, that ocean’s worth of Bone Tempering Pills they had consumed must have stored a tremendous amount of medicinal energy in their bones.

After advancing to Meridian Opening, that medicinal energy would slowly release, allowing them to cultivate at an extremely rapid pace. They should be able to quickly reach the late Meridian Opening realm. It wouldn’t be long before they would touch the Xiantian barrier.

The Xiantian realm involved transforming Houtian qi to Xiantian qi. Once you reached the late Meridian Opening realm, you would be able to sense another kind of spiritual qi. That was Xiantian qi.

Heaven and earth’s spiritual qi was split between Houtian and Xiantian. Houtian spiritual qi was the most ordinary spiritual qi of the world.

But Xiantian spiritual qi was hidden within Houtian spiritual qi, and like a fish in water, it needed to be deliberately caught. 

Xiantian spiritual qi was the spiritual qi that had been present when the world was first born. At the late Meridian Opening realm, you would be able to sense that spiritual qi and gradually form a connection. To put it frankly, it was almost like fishing. You had to come up with a way to lure the fish into your body.

Once you drew that Xiantian spiritual qi into your body, it would baptize your physical body, transforming your Houtian qi into Xiantian power. Then you would be a true Xiantian expert.

This was a true milestone. Once a person reached the Xiantian realm, once they were nourished by that Xiantian spiritual qi, their body would completely transform. A person’s longevity would multiply by ten times, and they would also age slower.

That was why Xiantian experts might look to be in their thirties but actually be centuries old. When a person reached the Xiantian realm, then while their Xiantian power had yet to decline, they would generally keep the same appearance.

But once their longevity began to reach its end, and if they couldn’t break through, then even a Xiantian expert would age a great deal.

Once a person reached the Xiantian realm, it was essentially impossible to deduce their age by looking at them. Some people might look very old but only be a few centuries old because their talent was too low, and so they only reached the Xiantian realm in their sixties or seventies.

Furthermore, once you reached the Xiantian realm, there were countless youngsters. That was why most female cultivators treated the Xiantian realm as their final target.

In the Xiantian realm, a person’s longevity would be around one thousand years. Furthermore, during the first eight hundred years, your appearance wouldn’t change much. What beauty could resist that temptation? The most terrifying thing to them was to slowly watch as they powerlessly aged to an old and withered state.

Entering his room, Long Chen directly placed the medicinal ingredients into the primal chaos space. The primal chaos space was truly Long Chen’s treasure mine.

It could be said that without the primal chaos space, Long Chen would have zero chance of ever cultivating the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art to its pinnacle in his lifetime.

Let alone everything else, just the Alioth Star had made him completely stuck. The Qilin Fruit was essentially extinct. Although he had found one tree, considering how many Qilin Fruits he had needed, he wouldn’t have been able to completely condense the Alioth Star without several millennia at least.

“Eh?” Long Chen suddenly sensed there was something odd with the primal chaos space. Then, he noticed that at some unknown time, a strange little tree had appeared.

That tree was growing at the center of the black soil. It was three meters tall, and runes covered it completely, releasing an odd aura.

“Wha-… what?!?!”

Long Chen was struck dumb for several long moments. Even his tongue felt like it was in a knot. He was filled with absolute shock.

That small tree had many leaves, all the size of a palm. However, each blade of those leaves contained a rune. It was those runes that shocked him so badly.

That was because those runes were very familiar. Those were the Heavenly Dao runes that had been released into the void when Yin Wushang had died. Back then, Long Chen had thought they had returned to heaven and earth.

Now that he thought back to it, he recalled that the primal chaos bead had trembled slightly at that time. Could it be that it had absorbed those runes? And then…?

Long Chen was completely bewildered as he looked at this tree. This terrifying black soil could even devour Heavenly Dao runes?

Heavenly Dao runes were the core runes of Celestials. Celestials used them to summon the help of the Heavenly Daos, creating that manifestation known as the Cry of the Heavenly Daos. It was similar to using one fish to draw over more fish.

But these runes represented the will of the heavens. With Long Chen’s current strength, they still suppressed him. However, since he had condensed the Life Fate Star, he was just barely able to resist it.

Nevertheless, resisting these runes didn’t represent suppressing these runes, let alone forcing them to submit. But the primal chaos space had somehow managed to do that, and furthermore, it had grown this mysterious tree.

A tree?

A sudden thought popped into Long Chen’s mind. Would this tree eventually bear fruit? If it could…

“Ah, I get it now! During the Mo family’s inheritance, the primal chaos space was trying to absorb the Heavenly Dao seed for this!”

He thought back to how when he had obtained the Heavenly Dao seed, it had refused to be refined by him, but with a slight thought from the primal chaos bead, it had been about to be drawn into the black soil.

He had assumed that it would be transformed into life energy, and that would be an absolute waste. That was why he had decided to place the Dao seed into Mo Nian’s body.

“Primal chaos bead… just what kind of existence are you?” muttered Long Chen.

The primal chaos bead’s power was too heaven-defying. Not only could it allow vegetation to grow quickly, but it could even absorb the energy of the Heavenly Daos.

It was so powerful that it was terrifying. But Long Chen was so excited he almost danced. The primal chaos bead gave him confidence. With it, he could fight against the entire world.

“Ah, no good, I’m too excited. This state isn’t suitable for refining pills.” Long Chen left the primal chaos space but still felt a wild joy. The failure rate of refining would be too high like this.

Suddenly, a light buzz came from the bottom of his right foot. Long Chen was startled, hastily checking what had happened.

“Hahaha, it really is a case of fortune coming in pairs. The Life Fate Star has fully condensed. Now I just need to focus on the nine star transformations. Hehe, when I summoned the Three Star Battle Armor, so what if Yin Wushang’s true body comes? I’ll smack him dead with a single slap!”

Long Chen sat down and took out a large jar. Inside were the Life Fate Pills he had previously refined. Opening his mouth, he swallowed a dozen of them in one go.