Xia Linlang had left, heading off to who knew where. By the looks of it, she wasn't the least bit worried that Yang Kai might use the opportunity to escape.
Yang Kai had no intention of fleeing, either.
The Earthly Heaven Spring had yet to be fully refined, and its constant siphoning of his World Force caused his Small Universe to fluctuate wildly from time to time. On top of that, when he had collected the Spring from the vast stretch of shattered Spirit Lands, a great deal of impure energy had infiltrated his Small Universe. Until both of these hidden dangers were resolved, no amount of skill would allow him to escape from under the nose of a High-Rank Open Heaven.
The small island at the heart of the lake wasn't large, but it boasted beautiful scenery — a gentle breeze, swaying bamboo groves, and ten thousand koi of every color dancing through the crystal-clear waters. It was a breathtaking sight.
He spent two days constructing a bamboo cottage to shelter from the wind and rain, then set up numerous barriers around it to block outside detection. Only then did Yang Kai begin his secluded cultivation.
The Earthly Heaven Spring could wait for now. The pressing matter was to purge the impurities from his Small Universe as quickly as possible.
These impurities remaining inside his Small Universe forced Yang Kai to spend considerable effort keeping them suppressed. If they were allowed to merge with the Small Universe, they could very well undermine his very foundation.
Fortunately, this wasn't the first time he'd dealt with such a thing, and Yang Kai went about the purging process with practiced ease.
After a full half month, his Small Universe was once again pure and flawless.
With that concern taken care of, Yang Kai finally turned his attention to refining the Earthly Heaven Spring. From the moment it had taken root within his Small Universe, it had already entered a state of self-establishment. Yang Kai's refinement merely accelerated the process.
Before, when his fate had been uncertain, he hadn't bothered to examine it closely. Now that things had settled down, he discovered that as the Earthly Heaven Spring devoured his World Force and gradually took root, a kind of invisible vital resonance had spread through and permeated the entirety of his Small Universe.
With this resonance in place, his Small Universe had become all the more stable and flawless, and its very foundation had even received a modest boost.
Yang Kai quietly calculated. At the current rate, fully refining the Earthly Heaven Spring would require another one or two months of arduous effort, and the amount of World Force consumed in the process was incalculable.
He swallowed handful after handful of Open Heaven Pills to replenish his expenditure, yet it still wasn't quite enough.
A full two months passed before, under the steady infusion of vast World Force, the Earthly Heaven Spring — which had been periodically causing his Small Universe to tremble — finally fused into one with it.
Instantly, Yang Kai was struck by a sensation akin to a withered tree bursting back into bloom. The oppressive feeling that had hung over him for months vanished in a sweep. He lightly clenched his fist, and his World Force surged forth smooth and unimpeded, no longer troubled in the slightest.
The Earthly Heaven Spring possessed the power to suppress one's Small Universe. Before it had been fully refined, Yang Kai's strength had been drastically affected. Had that not been the case, he wouldn't have been utterly helpless under Xia Linlang's hand earlier.
He had, after all, fought Zuo Quanhui to the bitter end. No matter how formidable Xia Linlang was, she was roughly on Zuo Quanhui's level — and no better.
Now that the Earthly Heaven Spring had been thoroughly branded with his mark, it still retained its suppressive effect on the Small Universe, but it no longer hindered him from wielding his World Force. On the contrary, thanks to the Spring's presence, his Small Universe could weather any storm without wavering. As long as it didn't take an impact beyond what it could bear, there was no longer any risk of instability.
While he was focused on examining the changes in his Small Universe, the barriers outside the bamboo cottage registered a disturbance. Yang Kai frowned slightly and focused his gaze outward, spotting a dark-skinned young man standing outside, his face twisted in indignation. It was unclear who had put him in such a foul mood — but when he threw a punch, the hastily erected barriers shattered with a thunderous crack, and the bamboo cottage collapsed along with them.
The barriers Yang Kai had set up earlier served only as a rudimentary early-warning system, offering virtually no defensive capability. And while this dark-skinned young man's temperament left something to be desired, he was, unexpectedly, a Sixth-Order Open Heaven. How could mere warning barriers withstand his punch?
There was another Open Heaven Realm cultivator here besides Xia Linlang? Yang Kai's brow furrowed slightly, but after a moment's thought, he accepted it. Xia Linlang might live in seclusion here, but as a Seventh-Order cultivator, it was hardly unusual to have capable subordinates.
As the bamboo cottage crumbled to pieces, Yang Kai drifted gracefully to the ground.
Their eyes met. The young man's gaze was sharp and hostile as he looked Yang Kai up and down. "You're Yang Kai?"
Yang Kai nodded. "That's right."
The young man snorted coldly and held up a spatial ring, shaking it at Yang Kai. "The Palace Master asked me to deliver this to you."
Yang Kai glanced back at the ruined cottage and smiled. "Did your Palace Master also ask you to smash my cottage?"
The young man ignored the question and said angrily, "I don't care who you are, but the things in this ring were obtained through life-and-death effort by our brothers. Every last item was hard-won. The Palace Master wants to give them to you, and as Qin Fen, I have nothing to say against that. But whether you can actually take them — that depends on whether you've got the ability!"
Yang Kai regarded the young man who had called himself Qin Fen with a half-smile, vaguely understanding the source of his fury.
Xia Linlang wanted him to advance to the Seventh Order as quickly as possible, which naturally meant providing cultivation resources. She had inspected his spatial ring earlier for precisely this purpose. However, in the Broken Star, cultivating materials were not easy to come by. Qin Fen, as a member of the Linlang Palace, wouldn't dare disobey a direct order from the Palace Master — but being asked to hand over resources he'd risked his life to gather to a complete stranger? That was something he could hardly stomach.
With all that pent-up anger and nowhere to direct it, Yang Kai's poor bamboo cottage had borne the brunt.