Chapter 308: Chapter 54: Phosphorescent Enters the Brain, The Ultimate Yang Spirit Root
Li Mo immediately noticed the invisible sword blade on Elder Fen Xin’s forehead, which carried an incomparably profound Taoist Body aura.
"It’s the sect’s flying sword [Invisible] from the Heart God Sect, taboo for its preference for devouring human brains."
He wanted to obtain the sword blade, but the moment his finger touched it, the blade vanished into the void without a trace, taking Elder Fen Xin’s life in the process.
Indeed, it was the invisible sword blade that killed Elder Fen Xin.
Thinking about the fate of Xinfang Hermit, it seemed almost theatrical how all Five Hidden Sword elders met their end at the hands of their flying swords.
"What a pity."
Li Mo shook his head helplessly.
If the Three Nascent Souls weren’t restricted, with the Soul-devouring Demon Infant’s capabilities, sealing the invisible sword blade would’ve been effortless. Pure physical limitations remained too severe.
"Since Fen Xin managed to channel Spiritual Power, it proves the Five Hidden Sword has found a way. I need to regain control of the Three Nascent Souls first."
Li Mo’s Divine Sense detected that the invisible sword blade had already left the True Word Secret Realm.
It was highly likely recalled by the sword’s main body.
"Two Five Hidden Sword elders remain; the destruction of the spiritual shrines is only a matter of time."
Unless the elders voluntarily revealed themselves, Li Mo would struggle to locate them, given the thousands of spiritual shrines scattered throughout the town.
Besides, Li Mo had no need to stop the Five Hidden Sword’s schemes.
The contest between the White Bone Sect and the Five Hidden Sword had no relation to him. Observing from a distance would maximize his gains.
It wasn’t worth clashing with madmen when the Five Hidden Sword planned to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of people—a move already resembling Devil Sect practices.
Li Mo collected Elder Fen Xin’s corpse and thoroughly scavenged the resources within the Bottle World before retreating back into the cancerous spiritual shrine from its opening.
He didn’t immediately take control of the shrine, remaining where he was instead.
Moments later, the remaining Five Hidden Sword elders once again released invisible sword Qi.
Though the Gold-plated elders hated Li Mo to their core, they dared not waste their sword Qi on him—it would seriously hinder their sword refinement process.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
Only Li Mo’s spiritual shrine remained protected by Da Ai Mi Tian, avoiding further damage, while cracks on the surfaces of other shrines spread increasingly.
The Five Hidden Sword’s provocative actions made the True Word Arhats’ faces twist with rage.
"Amitabha Buddha."
The twenty-four True Word Arhats erupted in anger, trying to pinpoint the source of the invisible sword Qi, plunging the town into a state resembling the Luminous Pure Land.
Amidst the chaos, Li Mo stealthily retreated into the alleyways, vanishing within a few fleeting movements.
The cancerous spiritual shrine burrowed into a secluded corner, carefully tunneling deep into the soil, with cancer cells doing their utmost to obscure the shrine’s presence.
Once the True Word Arhats’ aggression was diverted, they no longer paid attention to the shrine.
Finding the moment relatively safe, Li Mo retrieved Elder Fen Xin’s sword bag.
"Jackpot."
Li Mo diligently organized the resources within the sword bag, including the True Word Sect techniques he sought along with several exclusive Nascent Soul stage techniques for sword cultivators.
"Coming to the True Word Secret Realm was indeed the right choice; I’ve reaped a bountiful harvest."
Even disregarding Elder Fen Xin, the ten-plus spiritual shrines Li Mo plundered yielded considerable rewards, especially from a Core Formation cultivator from Guodan Mountain.
He coerced twenty-some unique elixir recipes from them.
While processing the resources, Li Mo simultaneously handled Elder Fen Xin’s corpse, deliberately refraining from burning it to ashes using the End-of-the-World Dao Seed.
The Five Hidden Sword lineage all specialized in Molten Rock Spirit Power and likely cultivated the same technique.
Nine Profound Heavenly Palace Sword Holding Technique.
After dissecting the corpse, Li Mo gazed at the frenzied activity of plant and tree cultivators within the Corpse Mountain Mini World, noticing an increased production of Nascent Soul stage corpse wine.
The Nascent Soul transformed into spirit stone veins within the mountains under the influence of the Hidden Phase Dao Seed.
However, the quality of sword cultivators’ Nascent Souls was notably inferior. The spirit stones provided were even less than those from initial Nascent Soul stage demon cultivators—barely worth mentioning.
What shocked Li Mo was the mountain spider.
After devouring the brain, the third artifact soul spirit pattern got completed.
The enhancement of the Magic Treasure indirectly nourished the spider’s skeletal structure, generating substantial spinal marrow.
At first, imprinting the mountain spider seemed recklessly rushed but ultimately validated his hypothesis.
Li Mo had never heard of a portion of an Innate Taoist Body becoming a Magic Treasure. What transformations might the spider’s integration bring?
The clash of Magic Treasure and Taoist Body might even lead to discovering a shortcut for Taoist Body fusion.
Li Mo threw batches of spiritual materials from the sword bag into the Corpse Mountain Mini World. Amid the lively commotion, thousands of new plant and tree cultivators emerged.
The Mini World’s current spiritual resources could sustain multiple small sects.
Li Mo had no need to establish Taishang Qingtian temples in the physical realm; the proportional increase of believers continuously reinforced the Three Nascent Souls.
"I’ve found it..."
From the sword bag, he unearthed over a hundred volumes of True Word Sect manuscripts, thirty-seven of which recorded a particular cultivation technique.
[Praise of the Seven Treasures Scripture].
It seemed the Five Hidden Sword had deciphered a fraction, around one-tenth.
Their ability to channel Spiritual Power in the True Word Secret Realm stemmed from cultivating the opening Chapters of the Praise of the Seven Treasures Scripture, gaining a slight Buddha Power aura.
They hadn’t delved deeper mainly because the scripture was excessively verbose, filled with copious irrelevant anecdotes and idiomatic expressions.
Li Mo immersed himself in the profundities of the Praise of the Seven Treasures Scripture, spending three days studying its contents.
"This is indeed a Divine Separation stage technique."
He discerned the opening Chapters borrowed from Buddhist techniques, but overall, it was more fitting to classify it as a Demon Sect technique.
The Buddha Power gained was essentially transformed from pure Yang attribute Spiritual Power.
Though it fell short of authentic relic Buddha Power, the purity of Yang Qi made up for the disparity with Buddhist practitioners.
While Buddhist practitioners condensed relics in the Mud Pill Palace, the Praise of the Seven Treasures Scripture resembled Beast Cultivation, converting the brain into a unique Buddha Spirit Root to anchor external Yang Qi and advance from Core Formation to Nascent Soul.
Buddha Spirit Roots were categorized into seven types, each formed by absorbing Gold, Silver, Glass, Coral, Red Pearl, Agate, and Conch.
"The Praise of the Seven Treasures Scripture shouldn’t have been created by someone as malevolent as the Seven Treasures Buddha. It’s likely True Word Sect was originally an undercover faction of the Buddhist sects."
The Divine Separation stage methods were downright peculiar, causing Buddha Spirit Roots to proliferate throughout the body, transforming flesh, bones, and blood into an Externalized Dharma Body.
Li Mo turned his gaze to the stream of people passing through the secret realm’s town.
Their exposed brains were evidently a consequence of cultivating the Praise of the Seven Treasures Scripture—separated brain tissue directly transformed into spiritual materials.
"So, Divine Separation stage True Word Sect cultivators are essentially oversized spiritual materials?"
Li Mo grew wary. Even if he planned to cultivate the scripture, he would need to refine it to eliminate its hidden flaws.
He hesitated for several breaths before employing Mayfly Dream to simulate the Praise of the Seven Treasures Scripture.
In the Mud Pill Palace, a Fake Soul Consciousness was born, attempting to cultivate the scripture within an illusion but refraining from choosing any of the seven treasures.
The Fake Soul Consciousness followed Li Mo’s thought process, searching the expansive Sea of Spiritual Materials for alternatives to replace the seven treasures.
Li Mo waited for the conjecture to conclude, leisurely examining the elixir crafting techniques from Guodan Mountain.
Guodan Mountain’s cultivation technique [Ma Ying Cheng Dan Miao Method] was astonishingly strange—injecting unborn infants into the fruit of spiritual materials.
Once the fruit matured, practitioners refined it wholly.
The method entailed inner refining and external nurturing until the elixir and the infant merged into one.
Compared with Dan Ghost Sect’s possession-based cultivation approach, Guodan Mountain resembled a more orthodox Taoist path, though their combat capabilities lagged.
Dan Ghost Sect stood nearly invincible, with little risk of annihilation.
Of course, Guodan Mountain had its advantages.
Guodan Mountain’s alchemy efficiency far surpassed Dan Ghost Sect’s, producing a new head roughly every twenty years.
Buried underground, the heads were watered with corresponding medicinal elixirs and sprouted within six months.
Five years later, the elixirs dangled like fruits.
When the Primordial Dao Seed assimilated Guodan Mountain’s alchemy techniques, Prosperity Through Grain underwent transformation.
Li Mo instantly activated Prosperity Through Grain, linking its Divine Skills to Giant Swallowing Evil. Through interaction between Gu Worms and alchemy, guided by the Primordial Dao Seed, a new method emerged:
[Fly Wine Worm]
[Offering corpse wine lees as tribute, supplemented with three thousand pounds of corpse wine and a high-grade spirit stone, a specific organ forms fly wine worm eggs.]
Li Mo raised a brow.
He had all the materials for the fly wine worm, including corpse wine lees selected from Fetal Heart Wine.
The lees burrowed into flesh, absorbing the high-grade spirit stone. After five days, the resulting worm eggs were placed into a Liu Li jar filled with fetal heart wine.
Though the worm eggs barely spanned millimeters, the fetal heart wine visibly diminished. After consuming three thousand pounds of corpse wine, a maggot hatched.
"Ugh."
Li Mo’s mouth twitched as he directed the fly wine larva into the Corpse Mountain Mini World.
The fly wine larva scurried recklessly across the hills, devouring corpses indiscriminately. Within several hours, it transformed into a fist-sized green-headed fly.
Li Mo observed the fly wine worm’s movements. When the Gu Worm laid eggs inside the heads of corpse residents, the eggs slowly turned back into wine lees.
The yield of fetal heart wine from individual corpses increased significantly by thirty to forty percent.
Fly wine worms had lifespans of up to a century, continuously producing eggs throughout their lives. If provided with sufficient fetal heart wine, their longevity could extend even further.
Li Mo let the fly wine worms roam freely across the Corpse Mountain Mini World.
If high-grade Spirit Stones weren’t so limited, he would’ve eagerly nurtured a few more worms.
The Three Nascent Souls consumed vast amounts of fetal heart wine, making the current production barely sufficient. With future promotions, their appetite would only increase.
"Since even Core Formation cultivators from Guodan Mountain can spawn methods like these, what groundbreaking creations might a Nascent Soul stage cultivator yield?"
Li Mo surveyed the town, noting Elder He Guo within a spiritual shrine.
Once the shrine was destroyed, he might swoop in to capitalize.
Crack, crack, crack.
The sound of splintering shrines echoed as cracks covered significant portions of them. Even the most oblivious cultivators realized the Five Hidden Sword’s ill intent.
To safeguard themselves, they wouldn’t sit idle.
"As for the White Bone Sect, just where are they hiding?"
Li Mo recalled the sect holding his fake body. Who knew what sinister plans they might be executing with it?
While he pondered, the simulation of the Praise of the Seven Treasures Scripture concluded.
Li Mo instinctively reviewed the technique, his expression changing from calm to astonished, as he let out strings of curses.
In forty years, the Fake Soul Consciousness fragmented its brain into countless pieces, attempting over ten thousand experiments to generate Buddha Spirit Roots, nearly driving itself insane.
By the final five years before its collapse, the Fake Soul’s brain had lost the ability to sustain Spiritual Wisdom.
In a dazed, muddled state, the Fake Soul ushered in a breakthrough, selecting phosphorescent light, successfully creating Buddha Spirit Roots before descending into aberration due to a surge of uncontrollable light.
Although the Fake Soul Consciousness perished and its Dao disappeared, from Li Mo’s perspective:
The method showed definite potential.
Transforming Nine Nether Immortal Energy into Spirit Roots might be the pinnacle of Yang Spirit Roots!