Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-357-30041322

It had been more than ten thousand years since Zhen Ling Sect’s creation, and in that time, countless Core Forging Realm Enlightened Masters had risen up. Even if each Enlightened Master left only one of their heritages behind in the Flying Cloud Minor World, the number of accumulated heritages would be enormous.

Perhaps, not even the Great Ancestors of the sect knew exactly how many heritages were there in total.

Although the Flying Cloud Minor World might not be the most advanced place of inheritance in the Zhen Ling Sect, it was the most popular because of its diverse range of heritages and lower requirements of entry.

Every Enlightened Master of the sect had entered the Flying Cloud Minor World before, and many left their heritages here. These heritages ranged from the Early Core Forging Realm to the Late Core Forging Realm, taking various forms and aspects, from different time periods of the North Ocean.

The sect’s high-level heritages were naturally not easy to access, having strict requirements. In comparison, the Flying Cloud Minor World’s requirement was only to become an Enlightened Master.

Lu Ping had been in the Flying Cloud Minor World for ten days. In this time he had found dozens of heritages in various corners of the cave-like minor world. For example, Lu Ping had found a heritage that was carved onto a small piece of stone by the roadside.

Right now, he was squatting beside an extinguished campfire, picking up a leftover bone from the ashes. Apparently, one of the predecessors had used this leftover bone from a meal as a vessel to contain a sword heritage.

The sword heritage was engraved inside the bone with divine revelation. From the sword heritage, Lu Ping could tell that the owner’s swordsmanship was most likely even better than him. Unfortunately, their paths in swordsmanship were incompatible, so he could only use the sword heritage as a reference.

Lu Ping sighed and randomly threw the bone aside just as the owner had done. Just as he got up, his divine revelation picked up a tiny flow of breeze amongst the wind. The breeze quietly revolved around him for two rounds, and then continued onwards into the distance.

A thought flashed in Lu Ping’s mind, and he suddenly followed the vanishing soft breeze.

On the side of a cliff, Lu Ping was surprised to see a few heritages left on the smooth cliff wall. However, these heritages didn’t interest him much, as he was attracted by the soft breeze which had led him here. Sadly, the soft breeze vanished without a trace after he chased it here.

Lu Ping looked at the cliff and hesitated for a few moments.

Then, he cast the [Tri-Pristine True Vision]. The technique was even more powerful now that he had started absorbing the fourth peculiar water into it.

A moment later, he looked happy but he quickly hesitated again.

As Lu Ping had guessed, the smooth cliff wall was a sealing formation set up by a predecessor to contain their heritage. However, the sealing formation was so well-made that a few predecessors had failed to see it and left their heritages on the sealing formation instead.

This was now giving Lu Ping a hard time. If he wanted the heritage in the sealing formation, he would have to break the formation; in doing so, the other heritages on the wall would be destroyed.

Although he could copy the heritages down onto other vessels, they wouldn’t be as genuine as the original articles. This was because heritages were left behind by predecessors with their divine revelations, containing their original understanding and insights. If Lu Ping was to transfer the heritages, it was inevitable that he could interpret the heritages differently, altering the original teachings to some degree.

This was why it was a taboo to destroy a heritage in places of inheritance; each and every heritage was irreplaceable and irreplicable.

However, after some consideration, Lu Ping still decided to take the chance. Something about that bizarre soft breeze told him that this heritage would be useful to him.

After finding some boulders, he learned the heritages on the cliff and then copied them down on the boulders, leaving them to the side.

After that, he stood in front of the cliff wall and quickly cast a series of hand signs. Although he wasn’t adept at array formations, he was quite good at deciphering and disabling seals thanks to the mysterious jade scroll about seals from Fei Ling Island.

Lu Ping, as carefully as he possibly could, opened a small opening on the cliff wall, affecting one of the heritages on the wall. Despite foreseeing this happening, he still couldn’t help but sigh with regret after seeing its destruction.

Lu Ping walked through the opening to the back of the cliff wall and arrived in a small cave. To his great shock, he saw a cultivator sitting there quietly!

After taking a second glance, he quickly realized that the cultivator had been dead for many years and had already decayed to just a skeleton. Next to the skeleton, there was a small banner that softly swayed on its own without any wind present. This banner was the source of the bizarre soft breeze!

Lu Ping scanned the cave only to find nothing else besides the banner. He shook his head regretfully, and turned his focus to the small banner.

Through the [Tri-Pristine True Vision], he saw a faint specter lingering mindlessly inside the banner. His expression changed, and he re-evaluated the situation. A moment later, his eyes turned sharp as a water-blue light emerged from his body, surrounding the banner like a river stream.

After completing his preparations, Lu Ping cautiously reached out with his divine revelation to the banner.

Bang—

The instant his divine revelation touched the banner, the mindless specter inside it was triggered, turning into a huge wave of divine revelation that lunged at Lu Ping’s divine revelation. The impact caused Lu Ping to suffer from a mild concussion and his face turned pale while he swayed like a drunkard.

At the center of his heartspace, the three Jiaos in his Golden Core were also stimulated, as if they were abruptly awakened from their slumber. The Jiaos each let out a furious whistle, and then soared inside the Golden Core, crushing the foreign divine revelation.

Lu Ping heaved a long sigh of relief, and then quickly sat down to recover his damaged divine revelation. At the same time, he also took the time to digest the information that he had just received from the foreign divine revelation.

The biggest reason for cultivation was to achieve longevity. In other words, to survive and not die. But more often than not, cultivators would find themselves in difficult situations with seemingly no way of survival. This led to the creation of a special method known as possession.

In the Core Forging Realm, Enlightened Masters host their mind, true energy, and divine revelation inside their Golden Cores. This allowed Enlightened Masters to temporarily survive without their bodies and just their Golden Cores alone. This short window of time allowed a dying Enlightened Masters to possess someone else and gain a second life.

The first issue with this was that their divine revelation was often not powerful enough to fully protect their minds during the possession. As a result, these Enlightened Masters would inevitably suffer from different types of permanent mental damage such as memory loss.

The second issue was that their true energy wasn’t strong enough to alter and modify the possessed body to their cultivation methods and special needs. As a result, their cultivation and body was not fully compatible, often putting an end to their cultivation potential.

Although possession had many flaws, it was still a method where the cultivator could at least survive. In contrast, not possessing a new body and purely staying inside the Golden Cores was a slow but sure death.

Without a body, Enlightened Masters weren’t able to cultivate or recover. So as time passed, their true energy and divine revelation would eventually be depleted, and their minds would no longer be protected.

In most cases, it was their minds that would lose consciousness and sentience before their true energy and divine revelation were depleted. In these cases, a mindless shell would be left inside the Golden Cores, wandering mindlessly until the Golden Core was depleted.

Although he didn’t know the identity of this Zhen Ling Sect predecessor, Lu Ping had learned from the remnant divine revelation that he was a Late Core Forging Realm Enlightened Master that was just half a step away from the Avatar Realm!

Before death, the predecessor had given up his true energy and Golden Core, only extracting his mind and divine revelation to seal inside the banner. Such an extraction process would inevitably come with huge losses of divine revelation, on top of the natural leakage of divine revelation over the many years. Despite this, the divine revelation was still powerful enough to give Lu Ping a mild concussion.

After all, Lu Ping’s divine revelation was in the level of the Mid Core Forging Realm now. A Late Core Forging Realm’s divine revelation would be able to affect him, while a Peak Core Forging Realm’s divine revelation could give him a concussion.

However, the predecessor’s mind had vanished with the passing of time, leaving only a mindless shell. As a result, Lu Ping couldn’t get any more information from the remaining divine revelation besides the heritage contained inside.

Lu Ping didn’t know the predecessor’s identity, why he chose to die here, how he died, why he left his heritage in such a bizarre way, or anything at all.

The heritage left behind was a cultivation art that consisted of the cultivation and usage methods of divine revelation. For someone that had an exceptional divine revelation and heavily relied upon it, this cultivation art alone was more valuable than anything else Lu Ping had come across in the minor world.

Lu Ping respectfully bowed to the predecessor’s skeleton, and then meticulously scrutinized every inch of the cave with his divine revelation and [Tri-Pristine True Vision]. After making sure that he didn’t miss anything else, he used his water-blue true energy to wrap around the banner. He left the cave and returned the sealing formation to normal.

Lu Ping calmed himself down from the excitement of receiving the divine revelation heritage. Then, he used his limited knowledge in divination to cast a spell that could tell the passage of time. To his surprise, it had already been eight days since he entered the sealing formation.

Although Lu Ping knew that the concussion lasted longer than an instant, he didn’t expect it to last several days. It seemed that the predecessor was not just in the Peak Core Forging Realm, but also had an exceptional divine revelation like Lu Ping.

…

A month passed. Lu Ping was now walking inside a valley.

Over the past month, he had come across a variety of heritages, including divine abilities. Even though he didn’t get to learn all of them, just knowing them opened his eyes and expanded his knowledge. For instance, there was a heritage that talked about the Central Plain, and another that talked about various kinds of rare spirit items.

Suddenly, Lu Ping heard the sounds of water. As a pure water-element cultivator, he was naturally fond of water, always feeling comfortable and relaxed around it. So, he quickly traced the sound and arrived at a small creek.

Lu Ping walked up to the creek, dipped his hands into the water, and scooped some up to wash his face. To his surprise, not a single drop of water was scooped out of the creek. For a moment, he doubted if the creek was indeed real. However, the touch and sensation from the running water couldn’t be faked.

Lu Ping dipped his hands in the creek again, while casting the [Tri-Pristine True Vision] and also reaching out his divine revelation. A moment later, he retracted his hands from the creek with a surprised look on his face.

It turned out that this creek was a heritage left behind by a Zhen Ling Sect predecessor. This predecessor had fused a mini water divine ability with the creek, making the creek able to exhibit the strange characteristic.

A mini water escape divine ability, it fits me perfectly!

Lu Ping rubbed his chin with a pleased face.

Besides the divine revelation heritage, this mini water escape divine ability would probably be the second most valuable heritage that he had found in the Flying Cloud Minor World. One of the things lacking in Lu Ping’s cultivation was a flying mystic treasure and a defensive mystic treasure.

Even though this wasn’t a flying mystic treasure, a mini escape divine ability would still be sufficient. Since both a flying mystic treasure and a mini escape divine ability had the same characteristic of being quick and fast.

In some aspects, a mini escape divine ability was more outstanding in stealth and speed at full-burst. After all, being noticeable would defeat the purpose of escaping from danger.

Lu Ping raised his hand, and water-blue true energy surged out, covering the entire creek inside of it. Then, he cast the [Water Manipulation Art] that quickly proved to be ineffective.

Lu Ping frowned slightly. He closed his eyes and probed his divine revelation into the creek. Some time later, the true energy subsided, and he opened his eyes that held a trace of joy.

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