Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

“Liu Ming, you must shatter all your bones right now, then form them again. Only then would you be truly considered a cultivator of the Extreme Ra-Asu Breach.”

Liu Ming was lying on the floor of a meditation room, absolutely exhausted. He could feel that there was no Qi left in his body and his bones were trembling violently. The energy that he used to have good control over had now broken free of his grasp and was surging through his body haphazardly.

The weapon spirit of the broken knife spoke in a stern, solemn and reverent voice.

It had seen how Gu Suihan used to cultivate this technique and it was very frightened of it. This technique was hardly meant for a human to cultivate since anybody who tried was very likely to die.

Making a breakthrough with this technique was equivalent to walking on the brink of death. Liu Ming was a testament to that. His nails were all torn and his entire body was covered in blood right now.

He had already lost consciousness a long time ago and only his subconscious was operating.

Perhaps he had never doubted the weapon spirit’s intentions, or he truly believed that the weapon spirit was a family member of his. Either way, despite having lost consciousness, his body was still listening to the weapon spirit’s instructions. He did his best to take control over the unbridled energy in his body and pushed it through his meridians according to the technique’s requirements.

“That’s right, you’ve got to break them and reform them. If you succeed, you’d become the best of all the external disciples.” The voice of the weapon spirit kept ringing in Liu Ming’s head, encouraging the young man and pushing him on.

Crackle! Crackle! The sound of his bones cracking sounded like the crackling of firecrackers. He resembled a deflated balloon as he lay defeated on the floor.

“Don’t give up! Come on!” yelled the weapon spirit anxiously. After training Liu Ming over the past few years, the weapon spirit treated Liu Ming as his successor and disciple. As for who Liu Ming was actually learning any of this from…only the weapon spirit knew.

Perhaps Liu Ming had sensed the anxiety and urgency in the weapon spirit’s voice, so he nodded slightly. The energy that had been moving slowly earlier on was now pushed to move faster by his subconscious, so the shattered bones among the flesh and blood on the floor slowly began to form again.

Crack! Crack! A terrifying sound suddenly echoed loudly in the meditation room. Liu Ming’s dried-up puddle of a body started to tremble and inflate again. His reformed bones were like countless tree roots, twisting and intertwining without leaving any gaps in between at all. Compared to an ordinary person’s skeleton, Liu Ming’s newly formed Ra-Asu bones were thicker and more horrifying to behold.

Did I succeed? Liu Ming began to regain consciousness as his bones formed properly again and instinctively started checking his own body. But before he could celebrate surviving the ordeal, he suddenly felt excruciating pain in his four limbs.

It felt as though something was trying to break out of his body. Liu Ming sat on the floor with a mortified look on his face as he watched several gleaming white spikes slowly grow right out from his knees and elbows.

He lifted his arm to take a closer look and inadvertently noticed how much his palms had changed.

“What’s going on?!” Liu Ming paled in shock as he stared at his own hands. His fingertips were conical and his black, shiny nails were an inch long. When he scratched them against the floor, they left a deep mark without him even exerting much strength.

“I don’t know either.” If the weapon spirit were in human form, it would probably be staring at Liu Ming with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. It had seen Gu Suihan practice this technique and nothing of this sort happened to him. Liu Ming didn’t even look human anymore.

“Good heavens! Touch your head! Why do you have horns?” exclaimed the weapon spirit in fright when it suddenly noticed two little bumps sticking out from Liu Ming’s head.

Liu Ming quickly cast a mirror spell to see what he looked like. He was both shocked and frightened to see his own reflection. His face was all red, his eyes were burning with an uncontrollable rage, his limbs had spikes sticking out from them and his fingernails were glossy, black, and extremely sharp.

“Did I become…an asura?” he murmured as he felt an explosive amount of energy surge through his body. He could sense an urge rising within him to just destroy everything in front of him.

The weapon spirit didn’t speak anymore. It felt like Gu Suihan had cheated it. Gu Suihan must have known about the possible consequences or side effects of practicing this technique but decided to test it out on Liu Ming instead of himself. The weapon spirit only thought that it was hard to make a breakthrough using this cultivation technique. It really didn’t expect any of this to happen.

“Oh never mind, it’s not your fault.” Liu Ming could smell a bloodthirstiness in the air when he breathed. But he could also sense the guilt that the weapon spirit felt, so he tried to console it, “This cultivation technique is pretty powerful. The only downside is that it changes my appearance, but I can accept that. I’ll just use this as my trump card.”

“If that’s really the only downside, that is,” muttered the weapon spirit to itself. It felt like saying more, but when it thought about what Gu Suihan might do to it, it kept quiet again.

As the Qi surge caused by the cultivation technique slowly came to a stop, Liu Ming suddenly felt a sharp pain wash over him. He looked down at himself to see that the weird spikes and other abnormalities had disappeared. But the two little horns on his head remained right where they were.

“Mr. Gu, we’ll be waiting outside the mine. If you’re ready, we can leave now.”

After several days of patient waiting, Xi Ran suddenly sent a jade slip to Gu Suihan with this message.

“That was sooner than I’d expected. He was already prepared, wasn’t he?” Gu Suihan chuckled. He instructed Sun Miaozhi and his subordinates to watch over the mine while he left for a few days.

When Xi Ran saw Gu Suihan, he smiled brightly and said, “Mr. Gu, are you ready to go?”

“Why don’t you introduce your friends to me first?” Gu Suihan nodded at the other men next to Xi Ran with a faint smile.

Xi Ran smacked his head with his palm and sighed at himself. “I’m so sorry for being rude. Let me introduce you to them. This gentleman here is a disciple of the Seven Kill Sect, Gu Suihan. He is here because he took up the job of watching over the Spiritual Stone mine here.”

“I’m Wang Mingzhi, nice to meet you.” An older man with a long beard greeted Gu Suihan with a smile. He looked rather friendly and easygoing.

The middle-aged man next to Wang Mingzhi had a stiff expression on his face and dark rings around his eyes, but he forced himself to smile and said in a hoarse voice, “My name is Zhou Xing.”

The four of them spent a bit of time making small talk to get on more friendly terms with one another. At least they were all smiling at one another.

“Let’s go,” said Zhou Xing a little anxiously.

“If everyone’s ready, then let’s go!” Xi Ran looked at Gu Suihan and Wang Mingzhi for their response. Neither objected, so Xi Ran flew up immediately.

Gu Suihan followed behind the three of them with a relaxed smile on his face, but there were a number of thoughts going through his head now. One is a cultivator in the Way of Ghosts, one is an expert in formations, and one of them is advanced enough in his cultivation of jiangshis that he’s become one. This trip is going to be loads of fun.

As the four of them flew together towards their destination, their surroundings became more and more barren. The seemingly vast forest they had departed from thinned out considerably.

“It’s over there,” said Xi Ran with an excited look on his face. He turned and said, “Do you see that gigantic dead tree in front? That’s where we’re headed.”

“Let’s move a little faster then,” said Zhou Xing. He suddenly increased his flying speed and sped off without them.

“Let’s go,” said Gu Suihan as he glanced at Wang Mingzhi with a smile before increasing his speed as well. Wang Mingzhi had been extra friendly toward Gu Suihan throughout their journey here.

They landed one after another on the barren ground, right next to the dead tree that seemed to reach the sky. They looked surprised to see such an enormous tree. The tree was at least 300 meters high and it would take a few dozen people to cover its trunk’s circumference. It looked like a giant tower had risen from the ground. Despite being a dead tree, it was still able to make a deep impression on the four of them.

“Where’s the exact spot? I don’t see any traces of a formation.” Zhou Xing was puzzled after taking a look around.

Wang Mingzhi laughed heartily, then looked at some ordinary-looking shrubs next to the dead tree and said, “Brother Zhou, jiangshi bodies do not come with a strong Spiritual Sense. The one who set up this formation was trying to hide it, so it’s only normal that you weren’t able to find it. The formation is among the shrubs over there, but I believe this formation was set up by Mr. Xi.” He turned to look at Xi Ran with a proud look on his face.

“You’re indeed the most famous formation master from among the countries closest to Qingguo, and you live up to your reputation,” said Xi Ran politely. He made a hand seal that broke the formation, then took out two strange items, walked to the shrubs, and pushed them aside to reveal an indentation in the ground.

The two strange items kept changing shape until they finally matched one another and came together to form a round ball. Xi Ran pressed them together firmly and placed it in the indentation.

“Is that a mechanism trick left behind from ancient times?” Wang Mingzhi looked really astonished. He could see the two items very clearly and they had started off as two flat objects that were only the size of his palm. After it had morphed and fused together, they became a round ball the size of a fist.

“Mr. Wang sure knows a lot.” Xi Ran looked even more confident that bringing Wang Mingzhi along was a good idea.

Immediately after he said that the dead tree suddenly shook and the sound of a mechanism moving could be heard from under it. Brilliant beams of light would shoot out from the roots from time to time.

As the ground continued to shake slowly, the cracked and hardened soil loosened.

The four of them watched as the center of the dead tree suddenly split open, shooting out the image of a road that was translucent and had a gentle white glow around it.