Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-93

Lu Ping looked at the huge ruins in front of him, the remnants of what used to be Fei Ling Sect’s Pavilion of Smithery. The ruins seemed to tell the story of Fei Ling Sect’s glorious days.

Lu Ping spent a whole day searching through Cang Mountain. Although there were some gains, unfortunately, they were not as good as those in the spirit herb garden. So Lu Ping decided to search the ruins of the Pavilion of Smithery.

He walked in the middle of the ruins, hoping to find something good. At the same time, he felt a sense of wonder and wanted to pay homage to the magnificent ruins.

The Pavilion of Smithery was such an important place that every cultivator entering Fei Ling Island would come to explore. Hence, he wasn’t expecting to find anything nice lying around.

On the other hand, Dabao was like a running meatball as it explored the ruins, the dust on the ground turning his originally yellow fur into a grayish color. From time to time, Dabao would give Lu Ping fragments of broken mystic instruments it found. And whenever he praised it, Dabao would react with excitement.

When Lu Ping reached the middle of the ruins, an object in his interspatial pouch suddenly quivered. He glanced around his surroundings and saw nothing but desolation. He then took out a big jade box from his interspatial pouch.

Lu Ping opened the jade box, revealing a blue fire flickering inside. It was his most precious possession—the Azure Spirit Fire.

Lu Ping had already finished refining the spirit fire and claimed ownership over it. But because he practiced pure water cultivation, he never placed the fire on his body, but kept it in a spirit jade box in his interspatial pouch.

At this time, Azure Spirit Fire quivered slightly, Lu Ping who was connected to it mind and soul, knew that this was a resonance between spirit fires. His spirits suddenly lifted, could there be a hidden chamber with a heaven-and-earth spirit fire somewhere in the ruins? After all, this was Fei Ling Sect’s Pavilion of Smithery, it was normal to have such an item here.

Lu Ping followed Azure Spirit Fire’s senses and came to the end of a large hall in the ruins, which looked like a back room. As he approached the room, Azure Spirit Fire’s resonance grew more violent, but Lu Ping still found nothing after carefully searching the entire back room.

While he quietly pondered where the resonance was coming from, Dabao suddenly made a discovery in the corner of the back room. Lu Ping hurried over and saw Dabao circling in the corner, using its paws to scratch the floor from time to time.

But this was the Pavilion of Smithery, the floor was paved with rough steel lapis, so it was impossible for Dabao to dig through it.

Lu Ping searched the corner carefully, but still found nothing. Then, he used his divine sense to sweep the spot and found a faintly discernible ripple of spiritual energy beneath the pavement. Taking out a flying sword, he pried open the lapis slab from the corner.

A small basement appeared before his eyes. Lu Ping carefully walked down and was overjoyed at what he found.

There was a large amount of spirit materials piled up in the basement!

Mystic Iron, Fine Gold Stone, Blazing Copper, Azure Crystal, Thousand-year Peach Wood, Speckled Thunder Bamboo, Spirit Willow Branch, Spirit Water Peal, Humming Wind Stone, Frost Jade, Rumbling Thunder Stone, and more.

These spirit materials that were used to forge high-grade mystic instruments were neatly stacked, taking up almost a third of the basement’s space.

However, although abundant in variety, they were very little in number, with mostly one or two pieces of each type. Even so, Lu Ping was hugely satisfied.

Among the spirit materials, four were of the same quality as the Deep Sea Frosty Iron, all used to forge top-grade mystic instruments. They were Deep Sea Frosty Iron, Thousand-year Lightning Struck Spirit Pine Wood, Thousand-year Water Jade Spirit Pearl, and Fang Ling Stone.

There were also two types that Lu Ping couldn’t recognize. But the spiritual energy rippling inside them was stronger than the four aforementioned spirit materials. They certainly weren’t ordinary.

He stored them together with the aforementioned four in his personal interspatial pouch. As for the rest of the spirit materials, he naturally wouldn’t hesitate to collect them as well.

Lu Ping initially thought this basement was a storage place for spirit materials.Yet the spirit materials were casually stacked up together and placed aside. They were not stored in interspatial pouches and systematically arranged like Zhen Ling Sect’s Blood Condensation Treasure Vault.

Sure enough, after he put away all of the spirit materials in his interspatial pouch, the only thing left in the basement was a smelting furnace in the center.

It appeared that this was actually a room for a Fei Ling cultivator to practice smithing. Lu Ping just didn’t know why the smithing room was in such a secretive place.

At this time, Azure Spirit Fire’s resonance was getting stronger and stronger. Clearly, the object resonating with it was inside the furnace.

Lu Ping was surprised. It had been 4,000 years, so even if a heaven-and-earth spirit fire had once been inside of the furnace, it should’ve long been extinguished from the lack of spiritual energy. Could there be something special inside?

Lu Ping meticulously opened the furnace and saw a bean-sized fire candle emitting a faint light. The fire was very small, as if it would extinguish in the next second.

Lu Ping hurriedly took out eight mid-grade spirit stones and discharged the spiritual energy in them.

The spiritual energy gathered towards the fire candle, strengthening it slightly. The flame swayed softly and brightened a little.

Lu Ping gently took out the spirit-gathering chassis from the furnace and noticed a scattered spirit vein branch underneath.

It must have been broken from the extermination battles on Fei Ling Island 4,000 years ago. But even so, the residual spiritual energy from the spirit vein branch had managed to preserve the spirit fire until today.

Lu Ping placed sixteen mid-grade spirit stones on the spirit-gathering chassis, and the fire candle swayed energetically as if it had suddenly come to life. But the fire candle was badly damaged—it wouldn’t recover without one or two years of careful nurturing.

Lu Ping could already confirm that this was a heaven-and-earth spirit fire. But he didn’t know enough to recognize what type of spirit fire it was. He had to wait until the spirit fire recovered before checking the books to identify it.

The smelting furnace itself was actually a high-grade mystic instrument, which came as a slight surprise to Lu Ping. Although such furnaces weren’t as precious as alchemy cauldrons, they were still incredibly valuable compared to other mystic instruments.

He could give this smelting furnace to Chen Lian. Lu Ping believed it would be a huge surprise to him.

After that, Lu Ping extended his divine sense to explore the basement again. This time, he noticed the words carved on the basement walls. He quickly walked over and inspected them—they seemed to be some isolated phrases.

“Practice more, practice harder!”

“I will not stop, I am not giving up!”

“Surpass Jiao Yu-Qiang!”

“I will shut the mouths of those who mocked me!”

It seemed like this was a practice room of an unpopular Fei Ling smith disciple, which explained its location in the Pavilion of Smithery.

On the other side of the wall, Lu Ping found a diagram recording a smithing secret technique called the [Spirit Fire Refinement and Purification Technique]. Lu Ping was not proficient in smithing and he didn’t know if it was considered precious or not.

However, he still recorded the diagram with a jade scroll. Then, after some thought, he used his flying sword to destroy the diagram. After all, a secret technique wouldn’t be a secret anymore if it was known by everyone.

Due to the discovery of the underground basement, Lu Ping spent another day searching the entire ruins of the Pavilion of Smithery. He even made Dabao lose a pound of weight from combing the vicinity. Unfortunately, such a fortunate encounter wasn’t so common.

In the end, Lu Ping could only leave with the spoils he already had so far. He led Dabao and headed towards the Pavilion of Alchemy which was located at Xiang Lu Mountain.

It wasn’t that Lu Ping didn’t know the path to Ling Yao Mountain, where Fei Ling Sect’s main spirit herb garden was located. He only knew that this garden was the goal of everyone who entered Fei Ling Island.

He was already two days behind, so more than half of the spirit herbs on Ling Yao Mountain had most likely been harvested already. It was already too late for him to go.

Furthermore, Xiang Lu Mountain was the closest to Cang Mountain, even closer than the central Fei Ling Mountain. Besides, as the mountain where the Pavilion of Alchemy was located, it was the second largest spirit herb cultivation base, right after Ling Yao Mountain.

It was more economical for him to go to Xiang Lu Mountain than Ling Yao Mountain.

Lu Ping was walking down Cang Mountain when suddenly, his double-layered divine sense discovered danger and he stopped.

Twenty feet in front of him, there was an array formation that had just been set up. The strange flow of spiritual energy emanating from it alerted Lu Ping and he quickly realized that someone was trying to ambush him.

A sudden sound of clapping ran out while someone said, “My dear Zhen Ling friend has a keen sense!”

The Hai Yan disciple he met on Cang Mountain walked out of nowhere, along with three other cultivators. They stood in all four directions and encircled Lu Ping in the center.

Lu Ping looked at the four cultivators. Two of them were from Hai Yan Sect and the other two were from Shui Yan Pavilion. These two sects were strong and neutral sects in North Ocean Alliance, but now it seemed that there was an underlying tacit agreement between them.

The mere fact that their disciples were working together to ambush him showed that their sects’ relationship wasn’t simple.

Lu Ping looked at the leading Hai Yan cultivator and asked, “So, it’s you?”

The Hai Yan cultivator smiled wickedly. “Yes, me. I know you’re not an ordinary cultivator. Your arcane energy is profound and you’ve probably attained the state of Technique. But you’re still just at the Second Layer, and the four of us are the best among the Third Layer. I don’t believe we can’t beat you down, there’s just no way we can’t. But I must say, I’m quite impressed. You actually noticed Junior Sister Wang Hui-Min’s array formation. Count us amazed. Can you tell us how you did it?”

Lu Ping suddenly stormed forward, his Flying Swallow Sword flashed gracefully like a sea swallow dancing on the tip of a wave. A torrent of water followed along the blade as it attacked the Hai Yan cultivator.

Lu Ping replied, “You’ll naturally know after you die!”

But the Hai Yan cultivator was also prepared. He took out a feather fan and swung it towards the Flying Swallow Sword. A fire bird flew out from the fan, chirping as it swooped towards the blade.

He swiftly cast out a small bell to protect himself while saying, “Junior brothers and sister, he has at least two 500-year spirit herbs on him. Let’s work together to kill him and share his wealth!”

No matter what world it was, obtaining wealth was always the best thing to move people’s hearts.

As the Hai Yan cultivator shouted, the other three immediately surrounded Lu Ping from all sides. A flying sword, a piece of red silk, and a flying spear appeared in the sky. In addition to the Hai Yan cultivator’s fire fan, four mystic instruments attacked Lu Ping in unison.

Lu Ping cast his crystal mirror above his head, and the hexagon mirror started cloning itself.

One became two, two became four, four became eight, and so on. At last, a total of 128 crystal mirrors aligned together to form a huge crystal ball that covered Lu Ping, defending him from the attacks.

The four cultivators surrounded Lu Ping and bombarded him with their attacks. Lu Ping tried his best to parry their assault but many blows still hit the crystal ball.