Stealing The Heavens
chapter-497

The only tune in the pitch-black mine was the ringing of rocks being picked and smashed. It lingered next to everyone's ears, like the sounds of moving iron chains held in the ghost soldiers' hands while they prowled across hell. The cultivators, in whom Wu Qi had buried a restrictive spell, were working themselves to the bone, pulling carts after carts of ores from the pits and letting those Yakshas send those to the storehouse in Miao Ying Palace.

A dim candlelight was lit in the dark chamber, casting a pale-green light onto Wu Qi's twisted face. The look on his face was frightening, like that of a ten thousand years old vampire laying in a casket. He was bare to the waist. His broken arm was wriggling slowly; countless granulation tissues were gradually growing out from where it was broken, forming into the outlines of new flesh, tendons, blood vessels, and skins.

A sword beam flashed across the dimly lit chamber. The corners of his mouth twitched, then curved into a cruel smile.

The sword beam flashed again.

His other arm flew up high in midair, while his blood sprayed and splattered everywhere.

He smiled cruelly. The faces of Daoist Chi, Daoist Min, and some other Immortals from Yuan Hua Sect kept flashing across his eyes.

Right before the moment the sword beam was about to cut his skin, the Seven Stealing Heaven Meridian in his arm actually rolled up by itself, wrapping all five innate Nascent Souls as it drew away the enormous energy and blood essence in the arm, then collapsed into a seed smaller than a sesame and shrunk back to his shoulder.

What the sword beam had taken away from him was a piece of meat that was shaped like an arm, and nothing else. And, what was left with him were the wondrous Seven Stealing Heaven Meridians and five innate Nascent Souls.

'I'll need to continue to study the profound knowledge found in the Scroll of Stealing!' Quietly, he exercised an evil technique from the Inferno Hell Fiend Scripture to regenerate his flesh, sensing the seed formed from the collapse of the Seven Stealing Heaven Meridian slowly expanding and stretching in his newly grown arm. Soon, with an enormous amount of innate energy and five innate Nascent Souls hiding in it, the Seven Stealing Heaven Meridian had established a unique passage of meridians in the newly born arm.

When compared with the meridians system running through the body of ordinary people, the Seven Stealing Heaven Meridian was a completely different existence.

It traveled through his arm, bringing him a fiery pain. Yet, the pain made him felt a sense of existence, it made him feel strength. Therefore, although the pain had made him soaked with sweat, he enjoyed it with pleasurable excitement. Strength, a very powerful strength was rolling and rocking in his arm. Once again, his spirit had entered the enlightenment state, a state where everything seemed to be in abstraction, where his spirit fused with the heaven and the earth.

A faint purple mist rose from the ground around him, gently filling all the available space. It looked rather familiar, the same purple mist which he saw on the grassland where he had met the old hunchback man. His mind was stirred, and with great delight, he issued a calling to the purple mist, inviting it to come into his body.

The purple mist penetrated his body, fusing into his blood and flesh. The regeneration speed of his broken arm increased abruptly. Amidst some sizzling sound, the broken arm had returned to its original look. The Seven Stealing Heaven Meridian spread out in the arm, and just like before, the strong innate energy surged and rippled in the newly born arm, while a latent force was vaguely spreading across the chamber.

"What exactly is this?"

He roared with a deep voice, both hands stretching forward. Two invisible vortexes rushed out of his palms, trying to pull the purple mist over to him just like how he seized the blood and energy essences from other cultivators. It drifted towards him very slowly.

It was extremely dense and heavy. If the blood and energy essences in cultivators' bodies were like a sheet of cloud that could be easily extracted and seized by Wu Qi, the purple mist was like mercury which had been compressed by one hundred times. Despite how Wu Qi exerted all his strength to absorb it, it wasn't moved by the suction force. Instead, it just drifting aimlessly everywhere, while only a small portion would fuse with him when it went past him.

Not willing to accept the fact, he tried again to tirelessly draw the mist in. A sharp whistling came from his palms as the air spun violently, while two black vortexes one could see with naked eyes appeared. But, even with that, these purple mists still did not stir, and only a very tiny portion rushed into his body. The rest remained the same, moving around slowly and aimlessly.

However, just with this tiny portion of purple mist that fused into his palms had strengthened his arms by leaps and bounds. He felt a heat in them as if a flame was burning them, and in just fifteen minutes, their strength had increased by seventy percent, far stronger than the current strength of his body.

He was struck with both shock and joy, as his spirit retreated from the enlightenment state abruptly. Once he left the state where everything seemed abstract, where he seemed to know nothing but seemingly knew everything at the same time, he could no longer sense the existence of the purple mist even with the Mystic Eyes of Universe. He could no longer absorb it, even the tiniest bit.

"How strange, what exactly is this thing?"

He glanced around. He was in a mine full of Nether Ocean Dark Gold Copper, where all of the natural energy had been absorbed by the ores. However, the peculiar purple mist had turned a blind eye to them, still filling every corner of the void. Yet, no ordinary cultivators could sense its existence.

'If I could use this purple mist like natural energy…!'

He felt an upsurge of emotion. An excitement that he could not press down had rushed up from the bottom of his heart. He pressed his palm onto the ground, silently marking a three inches deep palm print on the Nether Ocean Dark Gold Copper, which was one hundred times tougher than raw iron. He managed to achieve that without using any divine ability or magical power, but purely muscle strength.

"What exactly is this purple mist?" His brows knitted into a tight frown, glancing around in bewilderment.

The Mystic Eyes of Universe still could not discover the existence of the purple mist, and the void was emptied when he scanned them with divine will. Nothing could escape from his divine will, not even the tiniest dust. But apart from dust, he found nothing.

Frustrated, he slapped the ground a few times with his palm and shook his head. Then, he thought of that King Zhang Qiu, who he had bumped into at Miao Ying Palace's main entrance.

The man brought Wu Qi an ill feeling. He was dull and rigid, ancient and almost primeval, like an old stone slab placed on a mountain peak that had been showered by rains and blown by winds for several tens of thousands of years. He was sending forth a weird air that no words could have described. Wu Qi could sense a danger from him. 'He is a dangerous man who will bring me and many others a great trouble.' Wu Qi's intuition told him that. And, the magnitude of the trouble would be huge, something that would drag many people into it.

'King Zhang Qiu, could he be a King?'

Only those Heavenly Kings in the Heaven would have a title like that. But, it sounded more like a title given by the Imperial Court of Great Yu. Evidently, this King Zhang Qiu did not emanate any energy wave like that of an ordinary cultivator. He should be practicing the cultivation technique of body cultivators commonly found among the people of Great Yu, and was assisted by the divine abilities of some extraordinary beast soul. What was a King of Great Yu trying to do here in Miao Ying Palace? And, he was even Goddess Miao Xin's prestigious guest!

A King from the human race was actually the prestigious guest of a Primordial Immortal, a Celestial Lord of the Heaven. No matter how it was told, it just sounded very strange.

While Wu Qi was pondering over and over again on King Zhang Qiu's background, trying to figure out what his relationship with Miao Ying Palace was, a rather baffling cultivation technique suddenly emerged in his spiritual ocean– the 'True Body of Heaven and Earth Scripture • Foundation Chapter'!

He was seized with great terror. There was absolutely no way that this cultivation technique was from Scroll of Stealing. It had just appeared in his mind in a very baffling manner. He glanced around with fear. The thick, dark rock wall had blocked his vision. But, even when he looked through them with Mystic Eyes of Universe, his vision reaching several hundred miles away, he still could not find anything unusual.

Then, a mysterious rune made its appearance in his spiritual ocean almost immediately afterward. The energy circulating technique which contained several hundred words, as well as the rune, both were all the essence of the cultivation technique.

He was rendered speechless, sitting on a hassock with a blank expression and a body drenched with cold sweat. Beyond all doubt, he was watched by some almighty expert! But, what did this expert want from him? And, what was the purpose of giving him this foundation cultivation technique?

He gave the surrounding a glance with panic, clenching his jaw and cursing under his breath.

Wu Qi decided to give it a try. He formed the rune in his spiritual ocean with his powerful divine will and poured all his mind into it. Then, he took a deep breath and quietly went through the few hundred words of energy circulating technique. 'A deep inhale, followed by a long exhale with three pauses in between, and repeat the cycle without end. No part of the body makes the core. Spread the body outward like air, fusing them with the surrounding void.'

Soon, the rune had taken shape in his spiritual ocean. It flickered with a bright light, then began to spin rapidly like a vortex. A vast suction force rushed out of every single cell in his body. Slowly, faint purple mists were gathering around him, forming into the outline of a rune under his body which looked exactly like the one in his spiritual ocean and measured several tens of feet in diameter.

The purple mist, which he could only see in the enlightenment state but not use them as his wished, began to flow while gurgling into his body like a freshly unfrozen stream of water.

The strength of his fleshly body skyrocketed as each one of his cells was being strengthened. A crisp ringing of dragon scales breaking and shattering echoed out from within his body. The purple mists had easily destroyed his dragon body which was formed after practicing Dragon Transformation Script, occupying every single cell while modifying his body with a mysterious method that could not be described with words.

When his cultivation of Dragon Transformation Script was destroyed, his fleshly body nearly disintegrated at the same time. The strength it had abruptly dropped from the realm of Thirty-fifth tier Heaven Immortal to that of an ordinary mortal. But, the purple mist had solidified it, and in just a blink of an eye, its strength had shot back close to the level of Heaven Immortal. Two hours later, it had gone back to the realm of Heaven Immortal.

His muscles wriggled and twisted like waves. On top of the foundation built by the now destroyed Dragon Transformation Script, the purple mist had modified and strengthened his fleshly body. It was now as strong as a Thirty-third Tier Heaven Immortal who focused on body tempering, glutted with a fearful, pure physical strength. He even had a feeling that he could shatter a star with just one punch.

All of a sudden, new cultivation techniques emerged in his spiritual ocean, branding into the depth of his soul.

'True Body of Heaven and Earth Scripture • Skin Refining Chapter'!

'True Body of Heaven and Earth Scripture • Flesh Tempering Chapter'!

'True Body of Heaven and Earth Scripture • Bone Forging Chapter'!

'True Body of Heaven and Earth Scripture • Blood Changing Chapter'!

'True Body of Heaven and Earth Scripture • Tendon Changing Chapter'!

'True Body of Heaven and Earth Scripture • Marrow Washing Chapter'!

Each of the cultivation techniques came with either a few or several dozens of runes. And, the last chapter that appeared in his spiritual ocean was 'True Body of Heaven and Earth Scripture • Pangu Chaotic Chapter'!

It frightened him, making him wake up with a start from the strange enlightenment state. Cold sweat was trickling down his back. Countless thoughts leaped into his mind. He could now vaguely guess who the experts he had attracted were.

A blind old man, a hunchback old man, and an old man who had lost one leg... Their images suddenly flashed across his eyes.