Chapter 331: It's Him, Senior Chu!

Chapter 331: It's Him, Senior Chu!

Chu Ning's eyes lit up with excitement as he gazed upon the five spirit swords, but he also felt a twinge of regret.

After all, the five swords hadn't been crafted during the same period. When he crafted the first three, his cultivation was not as advanced.

He hadn't been able to capture the essence of an eighth-order demonic beast, so naturally, their power fell short of the later crafted Gold Spirit Sword and Water Spirit Sword.

Especially the Water Spirit Sword, which had been refined with the complete essence of a mature eighth-order demonic beast.

Among the first three swords he crafted, the Fire Spirit Sword was the most impressive, having absorbed a trace of the fiery sunbird's essence back then.

And the fiery sunbird had been of an exceptionally high grade.

However, the Wood Spirit Sword and the Earth Spirit Sword were inevitably weaker in terms of power.

With this composition, the might of the Five Elements Sword Array would likely fall short of its maximum potential.

But upon further thought, Chu Ning felt that it wasn't that big of a deal.

After all, the original method for refining the Five Elements Spirit Swords didn't require the condensation of demonic beast essences.

By using Black Mystical Gold in the refining process, Chu Ning had already amplified the swords' power beyond that of normal Five Elements Spirit Swords.

And the enhanced power of the Gold and Water Spirit Swords was simply a further boost on top of that foundation.

It didn't diminish the might of the Five Elements Sword Array as a whole.

He could always enhance the Wood and Earth Spirit Swords later when the opportunity presented itself.

It was just a shame that the other eighth-order demonic beasts in the Central Sea region were of the water, metal, and fire attributes.

If there were wood or earth-type eighth-order beasts, Chu Ning wouldn't have minded hunting down a couple more.

However, although the other spirit swords couldn't capture the essence of an eighth-order demonic beast for the time being, there was still room for minor improvements.

That was to infuse the Mystical Earth Spirit Crystal into the flying swords that had already been refined.

At this moment, Chu Ning stored the Water Spirit Sword within his body to nurture it further, and his gaze fell upon the four other spirit swords.

After meditating briefly to restore some of his magic power, Chu Ning began to extract a piece of Mystical Earth Spirit Crystal and placed it with the Gold Spirit Sword.

In the next moment, he opened his mouth and spat out a ball of Elixir Fire, enveloping both the crystal and the sword.

These spirit swords were his signature treasures, having been nurtured by his elixir fire and spiritual consciousness, so despite the high temperature of his elixir fire, it wouldn't cause them any damage.

Under the refining power of his Elixir Fire, the Mystical Earth Spirit Crystal slowly began to melt and dissolve.

Then, guided by Chu Ning's inner flame, it gradually seeped into the spirit sword.

Only when it had completely permeated the sword did Chu Ning retract his internal flame and continue the nurturing process with his internal flame and spiritual consciousness.

Chu Ning repeated this process until all four spirit swords had fused with the Mystical Earth Spirit Crystal, thus completing the true refinement of these treasures.

At this point, Chu Ning took out a jade slip.

This particular jade slip had been brought with him from the Nine Magnificent Sect after it was replicated, and it contained the complete Five Elements Chaos Technique.

He had already cultivated the earlier parts of the manual, and now he was about to learn the sword-driving technique of the Five Elements Sword Array.

As for the body-protecting divine light mentioned in the Five Elements Chaos Technique, Chu Ning had already started experimenting with cultivating it over the past month.

After cultivating the sword-driving technique of the Five Elements Sword Array and the body-protecting divine light for several days in the cultivation room, Chu Ning finally stepped out and made his way to the spirit herb garden.

According to the schedule, it was time for the Snow Crystal Herb to condense its spirit liquid today.

However, when Chu Ning arrived at the spirit herb garden, he noticed that the snowy white leaves of the Snow Crystal Herb had not turned completely transparent.

This indicated that the spirit liquid had not yet been condensed, and it seemed like it would take several more days.

"Bailing!"

Seeing this, Chu Ning called out to Bailing, a hint of confusion in his voice as he asked, "Haven't you been ripening this Snow Crystal Herb lately?"

He had been preoccupied with refining the Water Spirit Sword and cultivating the Five Elements Sword Array, so it had indeed been quite some time since he last used the Mystical Spring Technique on the herb.

But if Bailing had maintained the ripening process, the discrepancy shouldn't have been this significant.

"I was just about to bring it up with you, Master," Bailing said with a helpless look on her face.

"Just sense the spiritual energy, and you'll understand," she added.

Hearing Bailing's words, Chu Ning paused for a moment to sense the spiritual energy, and then he exclaimed in surprise, "What's going on? The spiritual energy seems to have thinned out quite a bit."

As soon as he finished speaking, Chu Ning seemed to realize something, and he quickly added, "Is it because the Hidden Spirit Vein has been consuming too much spiritual energy?"

Bailing nodded, "The spiritual energy in the Inner Sea is still insufficient to replenish the consumption of the spirit vein in time."

Chu Ning's eyebrows furrowed slightly as he realized that this was indeed the drawback of the Hidden Spirit Vein.

The advantages of the Hidden Spirit Vein were obvious—its hidden nature meant that if discovered, it would be of a fairly high grade.

But the downside was that it absorbed celestial spiritual energy at a slower rate than ordinary spirit veins, which was why hidden spirit veins tended to be smaller.

The hidden spirit vein here wasn't particularly large, but in the past, it had been sufficient for Chu Ning's cultivation and the cultivation of various spirit herbs.

However, over the past year or so, things had changed. First, Chu Ning had broken through to the late Golden Core stage, absorbing a large amount of spiritual energy.

Then, he had refined the Golden Spirit Seed, undergoing a magic power conversion that absorbed an even more massive amount of spiritual energy.

After that, the two Golden Thunder Eagles had broken through, requiring a substantial amount of spiritual energy to support them.

On top of that, the various spirit herbs that Chu Ning was currently cultivating were of a relatively high grade, absorbing spiritual energy at a rapid pace.

With such massive consumption, the spirit vein had been pushed beyond its limits.

Chu Ning guessed that his recent refinement of the Water Spirit Sword, which involved condensing the essence of an eighth-order demonic beast, had attracted a large amount of spiritual energy, pushing the spirit vein from a quantitative change to a qualitative change, resulting in a drop in its grade due to insufficient spiritual energy.

At this moment, Chu Ning went straight to the hidden spirit vein below and carefully sensed it once more. Finally, he sighed and said, "If we continue at the current rate of spiritual energy release, this hidden spirit vein can only support our cultivation for another year or two.

I guess we'll have to find another place to cultivate or head back to the Iceland Immortal City."

Immediately, Chu Ning performed a series of intricate hand seals, directing them at the talisman.

Suddenly, the spiritual energy within the hidden spirit vein began to leak out at a rapid pace, twice as fast as before.

Bailing blinked her eyes at this sight.

Chu Ning calmly explained, "Instead of slowly releasing spiritual energy like this, it's better to ensure we have enough for our current stage of cultivation. Anyway, we'll have to find another place eventually, so it doesn't matter if we do it sooner or later."

With that, Chu Ning and Bailing returned to the underground cave.

Soon enough, they could feel the spiritual energy becoming dense again.

Chu Ning re-entered the spirit herb garden and, after applying the Mystical Spring Technique to the Snow Crystal Herb, he turned to another herb garden nearby.

Here, he found rows upon rows of Purple Origin Fruits.

Unlike ten years ago when they were first transplanted here with blue shells, the fruits now had shells of a bluish-purple color.

But what truly caught Chu Ning's attention was the presence of two distinct types of power within these fruits.

One was the heavenly spiritual energy that Chu Ning was intimately familiar with, and the other was the so-called primal force that the Nine Derivatives referred to!

"I know very little about this primal force. I used to think that heavenly spiritual energy and primal force couldn't coexist, which is why there are places like Spiritless Island.

But the fact that this fruit contains both types of energy is truly astonishing."

Chu Ning speculated that the primal force was inherent to the fruit's seeds, while the heavenly spiritual energy was absorbed later.

As for why it wasn't possible before but became possible after he used the Spirit Locking Technique, even Chu Ning couldn't explain it clearly.

However, the fact that these two fundamentally different powers could coexist within the fruit still amazed him.

Ever since he discovered this ten years ago, Chu Ning would check on the fruit's growth from time to time.

But the fruit's growth was exceedingly slow, and even after another decade, there wasn't much noticeable progress, let alone knowing when it would mature.

Yet, Chu Ning remained undeterred.

On the contrary, he vaguely felt that the fruit's growth might be connected to some secret.

After all, the Golden Thunder Eagle had produced a beast crystal after consuming countless primal beasts on Spiritless Island.

However, after it came to Iceland Immortal City and broke through to the next level, the beast crystal disappeared from its body.

After carefully observing the fruit for a while, Chu Ning left the herb garden and continued his cultivation of the Five Elements Sword Array and his spiritual treasures.

Time passed quietly on the island.

The young master of the Beast Taming Sect didn't reappear as expected, but occasionally, there were still cultivators and demonic beasts who stumbled upon the island, only to be stopped by the array.

A year went by in the blink of an eye.

On this day, Chu Ning stood on the sea island, surveying the place he had stayed for over seventeen years, and shook his head.

Then, he began collecting the array instruments from various corners of the island.

After a year, the spiritual energy of the hidden spirit vein beneath the island had been completely depleted.

There was no point in cultivating here anymore.

Long ago, Chu Ning had already collected the various spirit herbs from the spirit herb garden.

He had spent a significant amount of time refining this set of array instruments, so he naturally wouldn't leave them behind.

After retrieving all the array instruments, the sea island was once again revealed.

Chu Ning took to the skies, checked his direction, and rode the Golden Thunder Eagle toward the east.

After all, it had been over a year since he last left the island, and he had no idea what the current situation in the sea area was like.

About a thousand miles to the east was a large island called White Sand Island, inhabited by many human cultivators and with a teleportation array directly linked to Iceland Immortal City.

Bailing also rode on a Golden Thunder Eagle, but after flying for five hundred miles, she and her eagle entered a spirit beast bag.

At this moment, Chu Ning glanced at another spirit beast bag.

Inside was the giant turtle of unknown origin, silent and unmoving.

For over a year, the turtle hadn't shown any signs of activity, and although Chu Ning had been worried at first, his concern gradually faded as time passed, and he stopped paying attention to it.

Ever since the Golden Thunder Eagle had broken through to the fifth-rank, its speed had increased significantly.

With the distant island only a hundred miles away, Chu Ning didn't bother to extend his spiritual sense too far, but he still sensed a group of cultivators flying toward him from the front.

A quick scan with his spiritual sense revealed a group of two to three dozen people, mostly composed of Qi Refining cultivators with only a handful of Foundation Establishment cultivators.

They all wore looks of panic, glancing back over their shoulders from time to time.

Chu Ning extended his spiritual sense further and soon discovered five demonic beasts pursuing them from behind.

Among them were four third-order beasts and one fourth-order beast.

Seeing this, Chu Ning wasn't too surprised.

After all, the cultivator with the highest cultivation level among that group was only at the mid-Foundation Establishment stage, and even facing a third-order demonic beast of the same level would be challenging.

Not to mention a fourth-order beast.

Without hesitation, Chu Ning directed his Golden Thunder Eagle toward the group of cultivators.

He might not be a kind-hearted person, but when he saw a group of cultivators being chased by demonic beasts, he couldn't just stand by and do nothing.

The Golden Thunder Eagle was much faster than the pursuing beasts, and in the blink of an eye, it reached a point ten miles ahead of the cultivators.

The group consisted of men and women, young and old, and among them, the cultivator with the highest cultivation level was a yellow-robed elder at the mid-Foundation Establishment stage.

He was also the most sensitive to spiritual fluctuations.

Previously, when Chu Ning and his eagle were farther away, the elder couldn't sense them.

"It's over, there's a fifth-order demonic beast up ahead!"

The elder, who had been leading the group in their flight, suddenly stopped, his face filled with despair.

The rest of the cultivators also came to a halt, their faces etched with terror.

"A fifth-order demonic beast?"

They were already unable to deal with the fourth-order beast, and now faced with a fifth-order one, they knew their fate was sealed.

The elder nodded, turning to them and saying, "Everyone, flee for your lives. Those who can escape, do so. Hurry, or it will be too late."

As soon as he finished speaking, the group began to scatter in different directions.

However, the next moment, their faces paled in horror.

The fifth-order demonic beast's speed far exceeded their expectations. In the brief moment they had been talking, the beast had already closed the distance to within a hundred zhang.

Immediately after, they felt a dark golden shadow flash over their heads.

Before they could react, they saw a giant eagle soar past them and confront the pursuing beasts.

The eagle swooped towards one of the fourth-order beasts, its sharp claws extended.

The beast frantically channeled its demonic energy, but to no avail.

It was torn in half by the eagle's claws, leaving the group of cultivators stunned.

However, their attention quickly shifted to the figure on the eagle's back.

"There's someone on that eagle! It's not a demonic beast, it's a spiritual beast tamed by a human cultivator!"

This discovery brought relief and joy to the group of over twenty cultivators, who now felt like they had survived a disaster.

As they spoke, they saw the giant eagle strike towards another third-order beast.

If it couldn't withstand the eagle's claws, there was no need to mention the third-order beast.

It was instantly killed with a single strike.

The remaining three beasts scattered in fear, while the dark golden eagle flashed through the air once more, giving chase.

However, the cultivators didn't have time to witness what happened next, as the figure on the eagle's back flew towards them.

"Greetings, Senior!"

Although Chu Ning looked young, his aura was unmistakably that of a Golden Core cultivator.

The elder sensed this and immediately bowed respectfully.

The others followed suit, offering their greetings as well.

A few of the younger cultivators couldn't help but sneak glances at Chu Ning, who appeared to be around the same age as them.

"It's rare to see such a young Golden Core cultivator," one of them remarked.

Chu Ning was not oblivious to their gazes, but he didn't pay them much mind. Instead, he directed his attention to the elder and asked, "Where are you all from, and why are you being chased by these beasts instead of heading towards White Sand Island?"

"We are from White Sand Island, Senior. The island is currently under attack by a group of demonic beasts.

We are cultivators who were originally near the island, and by the time we realized something was wrong, it was too late to return.

Instead, we ended up attracting the attention of these beasts, and they've been chasing us ever since."

"White Sand Island is being besieged by nine demonic beasts? How many beasts are there, and what levels are they?"

As Chu Ning asked, he released his spiritual sense to its fullest extent, probing towards White Sand Island.

"There are a lot of beasts, countless. I'm not sure about the exact number or their levels since we were too far away, but I sense that there are quite a few fifth-order and sixth-order beasts..."

Before the elder could finish his sentence, he saw a blur of motion in front of him, and Chu Ning's figure had disappeared from his sight.

He could only vaguely make out a figure speeding towards White Sand Island, leaving a trail of afterimages in its wake.

"This senior is going to aid White Sand Island. How wonderful! With a Golden Core cultivator like him and that spiritual beast, they will surely be able to drive away the besieging beasts."

The group of Qi Refining cultivators couldn't contain their joy and relief.

However, the few Foundation Establishment cultivators did not share their optimism. Their faces remained grim.

Although they had maintained a distance from the island, their cultivation levels were higher than the Qi Refining cultivators, allowing them to sense more.

They could feel that among the besieging beasts were fifth-order and sixth-order beasts. They doubted that a single Golden Core cultivator could turn the tide of the battle on the island.

"What should we do now?" a young female cultivator asked.

Everyone's eyes turned to the elder, the most senior cultivator among them.

He hesitated for a moment, then grit his teeth and said, "Let's fly back towards White Sand Island. Perhaps we'll find an opportunity to return to the island.

Otherwise, if we encounter other beasts, we may not be so lucky to have a senior cultivator save us again."

Another Foundation Establishment cultivator nodded in agreement, "I think so too! We should follow that Golden Core cultivator.

Wherever he goes, he will surely eliminate any pursuing beasts, ensuring our safety."

Without further delay, the group changed their course and flew back towards White Sand Island.

As they approached the island, they noticed that the number of beasts had decreased significantly.

Especially in the direction they were coming from, there were no signs of any living beasts.

On the other hand, beasts continued to arrive from other directions, only to be swiftly slain by a familiar figure wielding several flying swords of different colors.

The elder's eyes widened as he witnessed this, and he seemed to realize something. His face lit up with joy as he exclaimed, "That youthful figure, capable of wielding multiple flying swords... it's him!"

"Who?" the others asked, puzzled.

"If I'm not mistaken, that's Chu Ning, the famous Golden Core cultivator from Iceland Immortal City!" the elder declared.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end