The wash was done, and it was already dark, barely enough to see.
Returning to the small cabin, Ye Ju felt a subtle change in her body, suspecting an advancement. Ye Ju lacked experience in this area, but her intuition told her so. Placing the fire-poker beside her, she sat cross-legged and entered meditation.
Within her dantian, the mass of Qi was rotating. A large number of five-colored light spots spun down from above her head. Unlike the initial tentative influx from her entire body, it was as if the correct channel had finally been found, and they were flying in joyously!
This caused Ye Ju’s body to tremble slightly, her meridians aching, feeling as though a trickle had turned into a great river.
The five-colored mass of Qi in her dantian spun faster and faster, being squeezed and compressed. A large amount of spiritual energy was consumed. Ye Ju was beginning to understand that these five-colored light spots represented the Five Elements. She had previously cultivated spiritual fire and ice blades, so these red light spots were fire elements, and the blue ones were ice or water elements. Now, the blue light spots were visibly thick, converging into a blue ribbon surging forward.
Because the mass of five-colored light spots was dominated by the red and blue elements, they occupied half the volume. Now, with the blue light spots gathering in large numbers, they were subtly surpassing the red light spots. Water and fire were irreconcilable. Now, these two elements in her dantian had broken the balance, threatening to burst the dantian. Her abdomen ached intensely, and she was drenched in sweat.
The blue element was still pouring in. Normally, the five-colored light spots and five elements would flow in smoothly, orderly. But Ye Ju did not know that she had eaten the famous water-attribute Blue Scale Fish today, which could help absorb water elements. This was why the blue light spots were imbalanced today, experiencing explosive growth!
What she didn't know was that she possessed a five-spirit root and was mistakenly cultivating five-elemental energy. Ordinary cultivators would only choose to cultivate a single spirit root or a dual spirit root, absorbing single or dual elements.
Suddenly, a gentle white energy enveloped Ye Ju’s entire body. The turbulent water elements, as if encountering their nemesis, calmed down and flowed slowly into the five-colored mass of Qi, repairing the damaged meridians. The white light spots now occupied half of the five-colored mass.
Ye Ju woke up. The sky was bright, and Xiao Bai was curled up weakly at her feet.
"Xiao Bai, what's wrong with you?"
"Wuwu..."
Xiao Bai let out a weak cry, its large, wet eyes looking at her with a wronged expression. Seeing Ye Ju's confused look, it exhaled a bubble of spiritual energy, which formed a smoke ring and then vanished. It was clearly depleted of spiritual power. Ye Ju found this spiritual energy inexplicably familiar. Wasn't it the same energy that had saved her?
"Wow, Xiao Bai, so it was you who saved me! Now you've run out of spiritual energy? What should we do? Right, right, right, drink some spiritual spring water, spiritual fruits..."
After a frantic search, Ye Ju unearthed everything in the cabin, including that blue bead. Before she could collect herself, Xiao Bai leaped up, snatched the bead in its mouth, and swallowed it with its neck stretched out.
After swallowing, it crawled to a corner and fell asleep. Ye Ju decided to ignore it and fill her own stomach first. She didn't know what time it was, but her stomach was rumbling loudly from hunger.
She left the cabin, grabbed a bamboo basin, and went to the seaside to look for some seafood. The strange thing about this island was that during high tide, many fish and shrimp would appear, but during low tide, there were no signs of fish or shrimp in the shallow waters. She had never lived by the sea before and assumed it was a natural phenomenon, otherwise, why would there be "sea gathering" events?
Now that she knew the blue bead was useful to Xiao Bai, she would pay attention to where to catch such fish next time. After some rummaging, she found a few conch shells. She didn't recognize anything else and dared not pick them up, for fear of poisoning herself and meeting Buddha, as there was no one to save her here. Xiao Bai was so weak, and these few conch shells wouldn't be enough. Undeterred, she continued to search in a tide pool. The water was slightly yellowish and unclear, so she had to feel with her hands. Suddenly, she touched something slippery, and a surge of electricity shot up her fingertips. Her hair immediately stood on end, her body went limp, and she convulsed! Her heart constricted instantly, almost causing her to faint. "My God, what was that? An electric eel?" She circulated her spiritual energy once and slowly recovered. Ye Ju felt like she had narrowly escaped death, believing that if she had encountered this on her first day, her corpse would have already started to stink...
After recovering from the shock, a lingering fear remained. She focused her mind and recited "Freeze the Pool." She pointed her sword at the tide pool, and it successfully froze. The consequence of using spiritual energy was that she became weak again, her spiritual power depleted. She was still too weak. This isolated island held many unknown dangers, and she lacked the ability to protect herself. This island would be her final resting place... with no one to collect her corpse... She drank some spiritual spring water carried in the purple bamboo, recovering some spiritual power. After a brief period of adjustment.
The transparency of the frozen tide pool increased slightly. After searching for a while, she saw a colorful, snake-like creature frozen in a crevice beside the pool. If not for its colorful appearance, it would have been truly difficult to spot in the slightly murky ice. At the same time, she also found several Blue Scale Fish, but they were not as large as the previous one, likely weighing half a jin or eight taels each. She dared not chip away at the suspected electric eel for fear of it releasing electricity again if it was still alive, so she directly cut it out along with the ice block. Ye Ju realized her ice blade had strengthened, slicing as easily as cutting tofu. She carried the cut ice block and the bamboo basin filled with fish back, no, back to the nest!
Upon returning to the small wooden cabin, she cleaned them simply. The conch shells were directly roasted over the fire. The cleaned fish were also stewed with spiritual spring water. Previously, she had accidentally stewed them with spiritual water, which directly caused her blue element to surge, and her ice blade's power increased significantly. Now, with Xiao Bai’s spiritual energy transferred to her, it was suppressed. Eating them probably wouldn't cause another surge. When butchering the fish, she didn't see any blue beads. She suspected the blue bead was the inner core of the fish, but the fish were too small to have formed a bead yet. It must be said, Ye Ju was indeed close to the truth.
These blue fish were treasures in the cultivation world for enhancing water elements. Eating these fish could increase spiritual power. Blue Scale Fish that could form blue beads were at least five hundred years old. Blue Scale Fish matured at five hundred years old and only formed beads after maturing. The small fish she stewed were only a hundred years old. Blue Scale Fish grew extremely slowly, and their adult size was also petite, with adult blue fish only weighing six to seven jin. No one had ever seen a Blue Scale Fish that had cultivated into a spiritual beast, nor did they know what its ultimate skill might be. In this world, Blue Scale Fish were only known to spray water arrows, possessing little offensive power. However, the places where Blue Scale Fish lived were always accompanied by fierce beasts, such as the colorful, electricity-releasing creature. Blue Scale Fish shed their scales annually, much like lobsters shedding their shells. The scales of the Blue Scale Fish were also precious treasures for refining spiritual pills. Spiritual pills refined with the scales of Blue Scale Fish could enhance any spirit root. The creature resembling an electric eel fed on these scales and would protect the Blue Scale Fish from stronger enemies, cooperating to resist threats! Although Blue Scale Fish could spray water arrows, they had a fatal weakness: once out of water, they had no offensive capabilities and would die. All of this was unknown to the cultivation novice Ye Ju.
As for the large Blue Scale Fish that Ye Ju picked up, it was like a blind cat catching a dead mouse, truly a stroke of luck. It had been washed ashore by the sea tide and had already fainted, allowing Ye Ju to get it easily.
After a while, the aroma of the food wafted through the air. Before it could even be served, Xiao Bai had woken up. It was already squatting beside the bamboo pot, waiting. It still looked somewhat weak and listless. She affectionately stroked Xiao Bai’s head, feeling grateful for the little creature saving her life. She quickly served the food into its bowl, blew it to cool, and placed it in front of it. After they had both eaten, Ye Ju, holding the now-sleeping Xiao Bai, walked towards the spiritual spring.