Over the past few days, Yang Kai had reaped some small rewards—Artifacts, medicinal pills, cultivation techniques and secret arts, all sorts of things.
However, compared to his gains within the Emperor's Garden, these were heaven and earth apart. They were hardly enough to make his eyes light up with excitement.
Better than nothing, at least.
On this particular day, he ventured deep into one of the palaces and, unexpectedly, didn’t emerge for several days straight. The people from the Zhantian Alliance and the Leitai Sect, who had been keeping a close watch on Yang Kai’s movements, were completely baffled, unable to understand what had happened to him.
Inside that palace, in a certain underground chamber, Yang Kai sat cross-legged, circulating his cultivation technique, greedily absorbing the nearby spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
Within this chamber, the spiritual energy had become so dense it was visible to the naked eye. It had coalesced into strands of pure white silk, swirling around Yang Kai. With each of his breaths, those silken threads, as if drawn by an invisible force, surged into his body and vanished.
As time flowed onward, the white threads in the chamber grew ever fewer.
Pure Spiritual Energy!
Yang Kai hadn’t expected to make such a discovery.
It was rumored that in this world, a special kind of spiritual energy existed that could be absorbed directly by martial artists without needing to be converted through cultivation. It could directly enhance a martial artist’s cultivation realm and fundamental strength.
This was Pure Spiritual Energy. Its effects on any martial artist were indescribable, countless times better than even the finest grade of earth veins.
But it was exceedingly rare and seldom appeared. Even if it did, it would quickly dissipate into the heavens and earth, becoming part of the ambient spiritual energy, unless one used special methods to confine it, allowing it to be preserved for a long time.
This ruins of an ancient Sect was situated atop an excellent earth vein, and occasionally, one or two wisps of Pure Spiritual Energy would be born here. This underground chamber was arrayed with many complex and profound formations. Though Yang Kai couldn’t decipher them, he knew their purpose was precisely to trap and store this Pure Spiritual Energy.
Accumulated over a year or two, the effect might not be obvious. Even a hundred or a thousand years might yield only a thin amount.
But tens of thousands of years of accumulation… that was something that would make anyone take notice.
When Yang Kai first opened the door to this chamber, he had almost thought his eyes were deceiving him. The Pure Spiritual Energy inside was so dense it had solidified into a tangible form, something one could grasp with a casual reach.
This unexpected find filled him with elation. Once he confirmed this was the legendary Pure Spiritual Energy, how could he hesitate? He immediately sealed the chamber and began meditating to absorb it.
Generally speaking, a chamber designed to trap Pure Spiritual Energy would only be opened once every few hundred years. It wasn’t meant for martial artists to simply boost their strength. After all, though Pure Spiritual Energy was rare, it was scarce beyond measure. Using it merely to increase strength would be a colossal waste.
Its true purpose was to aid martial artists who had hit a bottleneck in breaking through.
Fine steel must be used on the edge of a blade.
The denser the surrounding spiritual energy when a martial artist attempted a breakthrough, the less obstruction they would face. Pure Spiritual Energy was the best catalyst, capable of reducing the risks for any martial artist during such a critical moment.
And now, this precious resource was being absorbed into Yang Kai’s body without restraint, incrementally bolstering his strength. It could truly be called a squandering. This amount of Pure Spiritual Energy would be more than enough for a hundred martial artists to break through.
Yet, in just three days, he had absorbed over seventy percent of it.
His own Saint Power grew increasingly vast and dense, his realm climbing bit by bit until it swiftly reached the peak of the First Stage!
At this point, Yang Kai faintly perceived a restriction, a thin membrane-like barrier hindering further advancement of his strength. This was the bottleneck.
For other martial artists, they would definitely need to first temper their mindset, comprehend the Heavenly Dao and the Martial Dao, and spend considerable time to break through this barrier.
But Yang Kai was different. He had absorbed the soul essences of many martial artists whose realms far surpassed his own. His comprehension of the Heavenly Dao and Martial Dao was already far beyond his current level. The only thing he still lacked was tempering in his state of mind.
However, if he was willing, it wasn’t impossible for him to break through right now and reach the Second Stage of the Return Void Realm!
Yang Kai, however, was not so eager for quick success.
Haste makes waste. He had only broken through to the First Stage of the Return Void Realm not long ago. Although he had managed to condense his own aura by leveraging the Emperor’s Might emanating from the Emperor’s Garden, breaking through continuously so quickly could very likely cause some hidden troubles.
After a moment of contemplation, he decided not to absorb the remaining Pure Spiritual Energy. But leaving now would be too wasteful. After pondering for a while, Yang Kai took out his Message Compass and infused it with his spiritual sense, attempting to contact Qian Tong and Fei Zhi Tu.
Having the two of them come and absorb the remaining Pure Spiritual Energy would suffice.
However, to Yang Kai’s disappointment, Qian Tong actually gave no response at all!
That was rather odd. Although the ruins of this ancient Sect were quite large, they were definitely not beyond the range of the Message Compass. Could something have happened to Qian Tong, preventing him from responding?
It was possible. Since this was a Sect ruins, there were certainly some isolated places. Perhaps Qian Tong had stumbled into some kind of restriction.
Unable to contact Qian Tong and Fei Zhi Tu, yet unwilling to simply abandon the remaining Pure Spiritual Energy before him, Yang Kai was left scratching his head and ears in frustration, at a complete loss for a plan.