Chapter 363: The game of evil seals
Cao Yun spent a few days getting ready for his departure. Since the Wubei Sect had been gravely wounded, they had almost no resource to help him. Even Xiao Xuefeng could not help him out by giving him a mount.
Thankfully, he had heard that the Huang family might be able to provide him with a flying demonic beast. The Matriarch had not been more clear than that. But since they were known for their beast tamers, Cao Yun was confident. However, he would still need to plan his trip to Baziyun City. The former lair of the Wolf Head Sect was on the way. Since he would be on foot, he chose his path very carefully to get there as soon as possible.
After that, he also thought about all possible paths he could follow. Right now, his mind was set on going to the Subei Province because Gu Song and Mo Zi were both from that province. Since it was a province that bordered on the demon territory, those provinces were always watched attentively by the Imperial City. But he was confident in his ability to conceal himself.
Talking with Xiao Xuefeng who wanted to find Gu Song, Cao Yun learned that she had thought about going there as well. However, the damage to the Hongchen Kingdom was worse than she had thought. Almost everyone was forced to help both repair the damage and prepare for a potential demon invasion. Right now, she was not completely free of her movements. Thankfully, she could still help the Wubei Sect hunt down demonic cultivators. Concerning the border provinces though, high cultivators were forbidden to go there without a direct permission from the Imperial City.
Indeed, the mere presence of a late Spirit Warrior would cause some reaction by the demons. Although the tensions were worse and worse, and many skirmishes occurred regularly, it wasn't yet a full-out war. As long as the Imperial City was not ready, they wanted to prevent the war from breaking out. And it could be imagined that the demons had the exact same idea. Late Spirit Warriors were just too powerful for any side to ignore them. If one were to go to the Subei Province, the demons would react immediately.
Right now, Xiao Xuefeng was an 8th-grade Spirit Warrior. Her sister Hua Fenfei who was only a 6th-grade Spirit Warrior might have been able to go there but she was working on preparing the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute for the upcoming Alchemy Conference. Despite the current crisis, this conference was of paramount importance.
Depending on what he would learn from the Myriad Cherry Blossom Hall, Cao Yun would change his plans. But for now, he intended to go to the Subei Province just after Baziyun City.
With that in mind, Cao Yun decided to use those few days to work on his mind and on his stealth. 'Weeping Demon' didn't seem that complicated to master. At least, it wouldn't be difficult for him to do so. Indeed, the first prerequisite to use this technique was to have a strong affinity with one's corporeal soul. Since Cao Yun was literally working on his Po character to subdue the Seven Turbid Demons, he was very close to his corporeal soul.
Then, to practice 'Bleeding Eyes', the first chapter, Cao Yun would need to find strong feelings inside his own soul. Just by crossing eyes with someone, he would then be able to send those feelings and even sensations directly into their mind. The technique depended heavily on the imagery used. Considering the goal of 'Bleeding Eyes', Cao Yun knew exactly what he was going to use. Thanks to Dian Mo, he had lived the most brutal fight of his entire life when he had been slaughtering the blood beasts. He could simply recall those fights to send it into his enemies' mind.
Cao Yun worked on creating a powerful mental image of this terrible battle. He was able to feel the blood flowing all over his body. He could remember the iron smell of blood invading both his nose and his mouth. His own blood was mixed with the blood of the beasts. His eardrums and his very skull were vibrating through the screams of the blood beasts. Every ounce of his body was full of rage, fatigue and pain. When he was done imagining this scene, Cao Yun opened his eyes while focusing on his Po character.
Anyone who would have looked at his eyes at that instant would have seen an ocean of blood under a storm of death. Weaker cultivators would simply collapse on the ground, losing their will to fight while stronger ones would be halted for an instant. Mortal Warriors would probably not be delayed for long, but even an instant could mean death during a fight. This could also allow Cao Yun to disturb a battle formation.
Three Mortal Warriors working independently were no threat to him. But if they were working together with a good battle formation, they might be bale to put up a fight or even kill him. However, if he disturbed the formation long enough to wound or even kill one of them, their fighting ability would collapse immediately. Using such mental attacks was always a way to surprise the enemy and try to gain a bit of advantage. If unleashed at the right moment, it could completely turn the tables on a fight.
Since he was working on his Po character, he also focused on his mind cultivation. To subdue the Flying Poison, he first had to extract every filament of the Po of Jing from his Po character. Each time he was reeling the filaments of Death Energy and of his own corporeal soul, he was reliving moments of his life. Since he had to feel everything, he couldn't use his mind cultivation to calm them down or he would delay his progress. However, his mind cultivation had deeply changed him and so had what he had lived in the Palace of Supreme Wisdom.
Although it was long and strenuous, Cao Yun was progressing steadily. It was hard to be sure of it, but he felt that in a couple of years, he would have completely subdued the Flying Poison and his Po of Jing. At the same time, he was working on the Drop of Wrath to reconstruct the Flying Poison with his own. For now, there was almost no progress at all, but he could still feel that the Drop of Wrath was responding to his efforts.
Finally, he had to work on seals. As he had read more and more of the documents he had memorized, Cao Yun realized that the way to unravel the soul seals used by demonic cultivators was identical to what he was doing with his own corporeal soul. According to Chief Elder Lümian and Xiao Xuefeng's observations, demonic cultivators were using Evil Qi to create a complex network of resentment and regrets within their disciples' soul.
Evil Qi was made of pure Qi intertwined with the negative emotions of the dead. In those seals, the Qi was used as a support, as both a foundation and a nourishment, while the negative emotions were the trigger. Instead of using a part of their souls or of their intents, the demonic cultivators were manipulating this Evil Qi to act like them. This really was a smart way of doing things. But the demonic cultivators should not have had such knowledge. Most likely, it came from whatever they had found from the Great Sorrow Era when demons ruled.
Dian Mo himself was very impressed. Indeed, it was an ingenuous way of mixing together the arts of humans and of demons. In fact, he got as passionate as Cao Yun about this. Indeed, Cao Yun required this knowledge to get rid of the seals used by demonic cultivators, or even protect himself from them if need be. But he was also fascinated as it could help him develop his mind cultivation faster. Thus, both of them discussed those seals as Cao Yun was working with them. They even forgot that they were enemies at some point and got completely immersed in those conversations.
"Dian Mo, could you try and make such a seal to see if I can unravel it without using the Drop of Wrath?"
Even Dian Mo was surprised. This was dangerous as he could turn this seal against the boy. Of course, the mention of the Drop of Wrath reminded him that at any moment, Cao Yun could get rid of it. But this seemed like a huge leap of faith anyway. Pushing those thoughts aside, Dian Mo decided to help him by creating such a seal. After all he was curious about those too. As he had only just learned of the way demonic cultivators could make them, his first seal was not that good.
Cao Yun felt something dark and cold invade his mind. It caused a great sensation of fear and sadness at the same time. If he wasn't sure that his mind was protected, Cao Yun would have fallen into despair and anguish. He could understand what demonic cultivators could feel when they were marked by their masters.
If he focused on the Evil Qi, he was able to catch glimpses of memories. But they were completely erratic. Indeed, Evil Qi was created by violent and painful deaths. Then, Evil Qi like Qi was flowing all around and mixed with one another. As such, Evil Qi was almost never the result of only one person. And even in that case, all the memories of the dead would be in utter chaos. Thus, the memories were incomprehensible. However, they were all brutal, violent and painful.
Just by seeing them, deep emotions were birthed in Cao Yun's mind. They shook him to his very soul. Thankfully, he had learned to be detached from both his emotions and his thoughts if need be. Right now, he really needed to be detached.
At first, he didn't use the intent from the Drop of Wrath but he did use his mind cultivation. In particular, he activated his Chamber of Medicine Field. That chamber was meant to cultivate positive emotions and reject negative ones. In order to purify Evil Qi, this was the best thing Cao Yun had after the Drop of Wrath. At that moment, he was able to see and feel every single strand of resentment and regret coiled around the pure Qi of the seal.
Then, Cao Yun got to work. Sadly what he was doing now could not be replicated outside of his body because he could not expand his mind or soul outside yet. However, he had an idea in mind. With his Qi, he could inject the intent from the Drop of Wrath outside of himself. So if he learned to duplicate the process, even partly, with his intent alone, he might be able to pull it off somehow. But first he had to learn how to do it at all.
As Cao Yun was working on unraveling the seal created by Dian Mo, the spirit was carefully watching to see how he was doing it. At the same time as Cao Yun was learning the weaknesses of the seal and how to exploit them, Dian Mo was learning of them too in order to strengthen them. The two of them did this several times. Each seal Dian Mo created was a bit superior to the last one. But Cao Yun was also better at getting rid of them. One was developing his seals while the other was developing his defenses to them.
Just like martial arts, learning with someone was way more efficient than working alone. Besides, Dian Mo was able to see everything Cao Yun was doing to then adapt to him. Of course, the problem could be that they would both get too used to one another at some point. It was best to train with different partners. Thus, both Cao Yun and Dian Mo always tried to imagine new ways to improve their methods that were not predictable. In fact, it even became a kind of game that Dian Mo was very fond of as he had been trapped for millenniums.
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The time was coming for Cao Yun to leave the Wubei Sect. All his brothers and sister were now extremely busy. And they were not going to leave the Wubei Sect for some time. After everything that had happened, they were all busy on improving themselves. Still, Cao Yun decided to go to all of them to bid them farewell.
Considering that going from the Wubei Sect to the Subei Province would take him around six months even with a flying demonic beast, Cao Yun would probably not come back to the Wubei Sect. In fact, he might even directly go to the Alchemy Conference in two years. Only after that would he have time to come back. But it was impossible to know what would happen in two to three years. After all, in a mere three years, the Hongchen Kingdom had suffered the worst demonic beast stampede of this current era, the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute had been breached for the first time and the Wubei Sect had almost fallen because of traitors.
Since he was decided on improving his alchemy in order to participate in the Alchemy Conference, Cao Yun decided to get a new and better cauldron, as well as a furnace. Until now, he had always used the cauldron and furnace he had obtained from Zhong Ling. Going to the alchemy pavilion, Cao Yun was sad to learn that Zhong Ling had left the Wubei Sect. She had become an inner disciple last year and yet she had decided to leave because of familial reasons. Many of the familiar faces he knew were gone too. Most of them had simply moved on as Cao Yun had met them when he was a first-year, but some had been killed in the collapse of the pavilion.
Thankfully, Meng Jia was out of seclusion. In fact, he had come out when Cao Yun was inside the Palace of Supreme Wisdom. And since the end of the battle, he was helping to rebuild the alchemy pavilion.
That being said, he was always trying to find some secret place to sneak to and take a nap. Since he was so useful the rest of the time, no one annoyed him about this. But knowing that a 1st-grade Spirit Warrior spent almost half his days sleeping was very strange for everyone. A Spirit Warrior could go on weeks with only a few hours of sleep. For most alchemists, this was a dream as they could spend their time studying their craft. For Meng Jia, this was a nightmare though, as he seemed to love sleeping.