Vol 4 Chapter 121: Intentional or Accidental?

Time flows like a river.

In the blink of an eye, ten years had passed since various Dao-seeking experts began planning their expedition to the Origin Realm.

During this decade, the continent remained stable without major conflicts. The Heavenly Demon Sect that many factions feared still hadn't arrived.

Only within the Ancient Kingdom was there some turmoil, but these were merely internal affairs of the Ancient Clan. The retired First Ancient Emperor ultimately failed to change the Second Ancient Emperor's decisions... The cultivators throughout the Ancient Clan were unwilling to surrender their interests to unrelated outsiders.

Even though the First Ancient Emperor was the progenitor of the Ancient Clan, he now existed only as a remnant form, still constrained by outsiders. Within the clan, while everyone revered and feared him, none were willing to defy the Second Ancient Emperor's decrees for his sake... Not even the Third Prince whom Lin Jing had recommended to the First Ancient Emperor.

Furious, the First Ancient Emperor abandoned matters of the kingdom. Following Old Man Heavenly Secrets' example, he took Gao Sheng and the Mechanized Turtle to travel across the Ancient Kingdom, intending to discover and nurture talents himself.

During this period, Lin Jing had been cultivating in the back mountains of the Spirit Dao Sect, paying little attention to external affairs—after all, focus is paramount in cultivation.

Ten years... no, more than ten years. Occasionally entering the Hourglass of Time, they had all reaped bountiful gains over several decades.

Lin Jing's true form and avatar, along with the Wood-attribute Pine Leaf Mouse, Dragon Carp, and Ice Soul Gu, had all reached the Half-Step Nascent Soul Transformation stage—the Semi-Divine Realm. They were just one step away from transforming their Nascent Souls into "Heaven-Earth Primordial Spirits," needing only to comprehend and fuse with the power of heaven and earth to temper their Nascent Souls with natural forces.

It wasn't that they couldn't break through, but rather they were suppressing their realms. For Lin Jing who now possessed the Heavenly Demon Physique, the difference between Nascent Soul and Nascent Soul Transformation stages held little significance.

Only by laying a stronger foundation would it benefit their future advancements.

Moreover, breaking through from Nascent Soul to Nascent Soul Transformation in the Origin Realm was actually preferable. The density of natural energy there was conservatively estimated to be ten times that of other cultivation worlds, so Primordial Spirits tempered there tended to be far more powerful.

Additionally, they weren't rushing to break through because currently they had access to supreme resources like the Destiny Rankings, Enlightenment Pool, and Bodhi Tree. Spending time comprehending the Dao offered better returns.

Thus, over the years, Lin Jing and his companions' greatest gains weren't in base realm advancement, but rather the dramatic improvements in their mastery of various techniques.

First was the Dragon Carp. At Lin Jing's request, it devoted all its efforts to advancing its alchemy skills. Now leveraging its advantage with immortal flames, it had a certain probability of refining "Seventh-grade Pills"—the highest quality pills in the Tianyuan Continent, second only to the immortal pill in the Tongtian Tower.

While its success rate remained concerning, none could deny that with its immortal flames, the Dragon Carp's alchemy skills now placed it in the continent's second tier, separated from the top tier only by its own foundational realm.

This advancement in alchemy also reflected the Dragon Carp's improved fire control. The immortal flames obeyed its will more readily, and the Myriad Flame Cauldron's efficiency and power in refining cultivation golden cores had multiplied.

Next was the Ice Soul Gu. Over these decades, it focused mainly on sword Dao—an unconventional path. This was primarily because the abilities of the Ten Great Mystic Gu had already been honed to perfection through their cycles of reincarnation. Normal growth sufficed for perfect application, so further effort on gu techniques would yield diminishing returns.

Instead, the Primordial Chaos Sword Intent, the Skyrend Sword Ancestor's protective sword intent, along with various comprehension-enhancing resources allowed the Ice Soul Gu to forge a path utterly distinct from other gu.

The Primordial Chaos Sword Intent could combine with one's own Dao to transform into any sword intent. For the Ice Soul Gu, this Dao was undoubtedly poison. The power of the Ten Great Mystic Gu, converted through the Primordial Chaos Sword Intent, became the Ice Soul Gu's "Poison Sword Intent."

Unlike directly spreading gu poison, imbuing sword intent with gu poison greatly enhanced its invasive and destructive capabilities, allowing it to better penetrate defenses like magical treasures, secret techniques, and physical constitutions.

While poisoning was fearsome, top-tier cultivators had far more complete toxin resistance methods than lower-level practitioners. If poisoning had severe consequences, they simply avoided being poisoned.

But sword intent—sword cultivators—were renowned for their offensive prowess at every cultivation stage. As the Ice Soul Gu understood it, sword cultivators weren't just about raw power, nor were poison specialists merely about tricky mechanics. When power and mechanics combined, the Ice Soul Gu's poison became truly unstoppable.

As for the Dao-seeking level protective sword intent from the Skyrend Sword Ancestor, it wasn't purely for the Ice Soul Gu to comprehend sword Dao principles. Through continuous study—until this Dao-seeking protective sword intent was completely worn away—the Ice Soul Gu's sword Dao attainment now rivaled peak Nascent Soul Transformation sword cultivators.

This might not seem impressive, but remember—it was just a gu insect, a spider that started learning sword Dao from scratch.

Most importantly, when the Ice Soul Gu fused with Lin Jing, Lin Jing would gain all its sword Dao mastery. Even without personal sword skills, he could instantly become a top-tier sword master with attainments matching peak Nascent Soul Transformation sword cultivators—an excellent additional skill.

Finally, the Wood-attribute Pine Leaf Mouse had gained the most among the three spirit beasts. First, it pushed the "Green Emperor Longevity Art" one layer further, raising its ceiling to the Void Mystical Stage. Then it devoted all its efforts to studying spatial Dao.

It even successfully learned top-tier spatial secret techniques like "Heavenly Demon Crossing," using them quite adeptly.

However, the Pine Leaf Mouse studied spatial Dao not for escape or travel, but to create larger storage spaces. Through relentless effort, it finally realized the grand vision Lin Jing had painted for it in childhood:

"One flower, one world;

one leaf, one space."

Now, despite only being at the Nascent Soul Great Perfection stage, the Pine Leaf Mouse could create independent spaces within objects like Void Mystical Stage cultivators. A single carefully condensed leaf contained a space comparable to a large storage ring.

That alone wouldn't be remarkable, but crucially, the Pine Leaf Mouse could detonate these miniature spaces at will, creating violent spatial turbulence. While the damage couldn't compare to golden core divine abilities, spatial attribute attacks now ranked as its second most destructive method.

Most importantly... it could stockpile these spatial leaves!

One or two might pale against golden core divine abilities, but a hundred million? A billion?

Yet no matter how impressive the spirit beasts' gains, they paled beside their beast tamer Lin Jing's harvest.

Regarding his true form: besides advancing to Nascent Soul Great Perfection, Lin Jing had mastered the Yin Household Sect's corpse-driving technique. Through his deductions, once both he and the Ice Soul Gu reached the Nascent Soul Transformation stage and fused, by burning lifespan with "Divine Control Art" to elevate his beast taming realm and utilizing life-death origin power, he could preliminarily control that Celestial Beast corpse—forming formidable combat strength.

That Celestial Beast corpse, if controllable, would undoubtedly become a supreme weapon in the Origin Realm.

As for his avatar—this Heavenly Demon avatar now showed preliminary might, having mastered the Heavenly Demon Finger, the destructive centerpiece of Heavenly Demon secret arts.

The demonic bloodline had also reached great completion during this cultivation, just one step from the so-called perfection stage that could rival immortal physiques.

The great completion Heavenly Demon Finger required the cultivator to sever an arm, continuously refining it into a treasure. Only by using this arm could one unleash the technique's full