The two of them walked in silence for about a mile, far from the city gate, when Ma Mian suddenly stopped in his tracks.
“Why did you stop?” Shen Luo walked beside him, puzzled.
“Take a different route.” Soul Hook Horse Face answered, revealing a mysterious smile.
Shen Luo’s gaze swept around, seeing only the path under his feet. Change path? Change to which path?
Just as he wondered, he saw that Soul Hook Horse Face was holding a yellowish talisman and belted it onto his shoulder with a swift pat, and then grabbed his shoulder abruptly.
Upon hearing Ma Mian’s command, Shen Luo suddenly felt as if the ground beneath his feet turned as soft as mud, before he could react, he sank under the ground covered by a layer of yellow light.
“Escape Ground Technique?”
Shen Luo was taken aback, but his body was pulled by Soul Hook Horse Face through the underground at breakneck speed. Whether it was mud or rock ahead, none could impede their progress as they parted naturally to create a passageway for them.
Just as Shen Luo marveled at the magic of Ma Mian’s Escape Ground Technique, the two had already arrived at an underground cave.
The cave was spacious, an underground river ran through it, and a line of cracks at the ceiling allowed a dim natural light to pour down, casting a wide strip of brightness on the cave floor.
“Alright, you will seclude here. Let’s get this straight: Seven days later, whether or not you’ve broken through, you have to follow me into Hidden Wind Valley immediately.” Soul Hook Horse Face looked at Shen Luo and said solemnly.
“Of course!” Shen Luo replied seriously.
As he spoke, he took out a white jade porcelain bottle from his sleeve and poured out a yellow elixir the size of a longan kernel. It exuded a pungent sulfuric aroma.
He held his breath, threw the Elixir into his mouth with a flick of his hand, and quickly crossed his arms in front of his chest, closing his eyes to meditate.
The Elixir in his belly quickly dissolved into a warm current flowing in his Dantian.
At first, Shen Luo felt the warmth quite comfortable, but it didn’t take long for the warm current to merge with the mana in his Dantian. The combination was like pouring oil on a fire, instantly becoming scorching hot.
Shen Luo grunted lowly from his mouth, his teeth clenched tight, as he urged the scorching current to drive the Dantian mana towards his meridians.
Glowing veins, visible to the naked eye, appeared all over his body, and wisps of heat began to rise from his head.
Soul Hook Horse Face watched him at the side, his eyes flashed with surprise, and he muttered to himself:
“This kid seems to have average talent, but the path of his mana circulation is very proficient. He doesn’t seem like a mid-stage Qi Refining monk. Initially, I thought this Yinling Pill would be wasted on this kid at least eighty percent, but now it seems that may not be the case.”
Little did he know, Shen Luo had already cultivated himself to the Nascent Soul Stage in the Dreamland. Naturally, he was extremely proficient with the cyclic operation of his mana inside his body. The slow progress in reality was mainly due to his inferior physical talents.
Soul Hook Horse Face, seeing Shen Luo in a good condition, relaxed and went to a side to sit cross-legged.
At this moment, Shen Luo was burning all over, and he genuinely didn’t understand why such a hot elixir was called Yinling Pill.
In fact, the Yellow Spring Essence and Other Shore Flower pollen in Yinling Pill were cold in nature, but their effects were quite vigorous. The medicine power they released, in addition to the conventional replenishing power, also has a strong supporting force.
It is by relying on this wave-boosting medicinal power that Shen Luo’s mana in his body is forcibly pushed up against the current in the meridians, and the acupoints that were not originally cleared were pierced one after another.
However, Shen Luo had not condensed his meridians, and the widths of all the meridians in his body were limited. When this power forcibly collided within it, it was like countless small knives ruthlessly scraping inside, the pain was imaginable!
Finally, Shen Luo couldn’t bear it any longer and let out a painful shout for the first time.
Ma Mian, at the side, was awakened by the cry. When he looked towards Shen Luo, all he saw was his body enveloped in a layer of light, shrinking and stretching irregularly, looking a bit weird.
He frowned slightly, but did not intervene. At this point, they could only rely on Shen Luo himself.
Shen Luo was not only subjected to a test in his meridians at the moment, but even his Sea of Knowledge was somewhat dizzy from the impact of that power. However, he kept a strand of his divine soul in his mind, operating the Nameless Cultivation Technique and guiding the mana to follow the correct path.
Time was gradually passing, the ray of light above Shen Luo’s head slowly darkened from bright, from dusk to starry night, from nightfall to dawn.
Three days later, when the first ray of morning sun shone on Shen Luo through the crevice above his head, his eyes suddenly opened, he let out a soft shout, and a momentum suddenly released from his body, raising a wave of dust.
What followed was a sound of hearty laughter.
Shen Luo rolled over and got up, shook his arms, and the dust around his body was all scattered. After closing his eyes and feeling a bit, he found not only had he advanced to the seventh layer of Qi Refining, but he was not far from the eighth stage.
“Good kid, I misjudged you before. It only took you three days and three nights to break through two realms!” Soul Hook Horse Face walked up and asked in surprise.
“Well… I’m not sure myself. It’s mainly because the spiritual medicine the elder gave me worked far better than expected,” Shen Luo said, scratching his head in response.
What Shen Luo said was not untrue because he genuinely didn’t know why he could make such a quick breakthrough. However, he had some guesses related to his cultivation in Dreamland.
In reality, his talent was definitely not good, even worse than ordinary cultivators. His internal meridians were far from naturally smooth like in Dreamland, so the speed of mana circulation was naturally much slower, hence his cultivation speed was slower too.
However, due to the cultivation insights from Dreamland, he didn’t have to go through the most difficult hurdle of understanding the cultivation techniques. His cultivation was now advancing at a significantly higher speed.
Nevertheless, the limitations of his physical condition were still greatly restricting his progress.
Except for containing a rather strong spiritual power, the Yinling Pill acted as a bridge between his enlightenment from cultivation and physical limitations. In a short time, it could break his physical restrictions, force his mana to circulate quickly inside him, thereby accelerating his cultivation speed.
“Kid, what are you thinking about over there?” Soul Hook Horse Face saw Shen Luo lost in thought and asked.
“Oh, I was just wondering, do you have any more of these Yinling Pills? We still have around three or four days until the seven-day period is up. If I could advance another realm or two, it would be foolproof going into Hidden Wind Valley. At that time, all the elder needs to do is open his mouth to say where to hit, and my Thunder Talisman will land there.” Shen Luo said, a sincere smile on his face.