Chapter 163: Chapter 52: Young Master Ming’s Memory

Yu Lian sensed Wang Ping’s thoughts. Flicking her forked tongue, she extended her head to sense the skull completely encased in vines. "His consciousness is dormant right now," she said. "Using the Soul Searching Technique won’t leave any trace."

Wang Ping snapped out of his thoughts. He decisively took out a pair of divination blocks, condensed his spirit, and communicated with the Luck-Borrowing Talisman. He sacrificed ten years of his eight-hundred-year lifespan to cast a divination. As he did, the space within the tent flickered with a momentary darkness.

’Not bad!’

Seeing this, a hint of joy appeared on Wang Ping’s slightly weary face. He took out a high-quality Gathering Spirit Pill and swallowed it. Then, forming a hand seal for a Spell, he performed the Soul Searching Technique on Young Master Ming’s head.

Chaotic images instantly flooded Wang Ping’s spirit, then slowly linked together into a single thread...

From his earliest memories, Zi Ming was surrounded by countless people. This was because the Lord had accepted him as a Direct Disciple right after he was born. However, his aptitude for cultivation was not the best. He was twenty-five before he barely managed to sense qi and begin his training.

Later, he couldn’t even enter a meditative state because his emotions were always so intense. He only learned how after taking Calming Soup. By then, the disciples who had surrounded him in his childhood were already venturing out on their own to gain experience.

He gradually came to understand his situation. And so, he never again took a single step out of Heart Inquiry Hall.

He worked diligently every day, practicing Qi Cultivation, marrow washing, and Foundation Establishment. Then, by the narrowest of margins, he broke into the next realm using the Essence Wood Technique.

After breaking through, he thought his destiny would change. But in reality, he had no time to experience the world. The Essence Wood Technique involved planting a Wood Spirit Vein within his body, then fusing it with and extracting from the Spirit Veins cultivated in his bones and meridians—an incredibly slow process.

So, he could only continue his ascetic training, using an Essence Wood Soul to guide the Wood Spirit planted in his Qi Sea. The process was excruciating. The Essence Wood Soul constantly assaulted his mind, and he had to use all his strength to keep it from dragging him into the Spiritual Power Realm. This caused his progress in fusing and refining the Spirit Veins in his body to be extremely slow.

When the end of his lifespan approached, he realized in despair that he had no path left. He could only grit his teeth and try to break through to the Second Realm, hoping for a miracle. Unfortunately, he failed. But he did not lose consciousness. Instead, he survived in another form and gained the power of the Second Realm.

He was ecstatic, yet in utter agony.

So, he walked out of the small courtyard he hadn’t left in who knows how many years. Then he walked out of the sect he had always been grateful to, and into the outside world he had so longed for.

No one stopped him.

He had planned to travel the world, but his heightened senses allowed him to hear disciples from his sect mocking him. To his ears, their taunts were a complete negation of his very existence.

He was furious. This time, there was no one to suppress his anger. He struck out, and he fell in love with the feeling. He cast aside the goodwill he had clung to for centuries and unleashed the malice he had suppressed for so long.

After that, his memories descended into chaos, tyranny, and bloodlust.

Wang Ping was forced to stop. The subsequent memories threatened to stir his own inner desires. Only after calming himself for a long time, and with Yu Lian’s help, was he able to probe some fragments of later memories. In them, he saw Young Master Ming frequently attending gatherings in a magnificent, opulent hall. But when he tried to look deeper, he was met with nothing but darkness.

Young Master Ming’s purpose for coming to Crescent Mountain didn’t seem to be the Blood Pill. Instead, someone else was plotting something. This was the feeling his emotions conveyed to Wang Ping, but the specifics were a complete muddle.

"His memories contain almost no images of the Xiao Shan Lord. Some kind of rule is preventing him from recalling the Xiao Shan Lord’s appearance, but I can confirm that he is indeed the Xiao Shan Lord’s youngest disciple."

Wang Ping’s face was full of confusion. "I don’t understand," he said. "Why would the Xiao Shan Lord take him as a disciple when his aptitude was so poor? And his affection for him was clearly greater than for his other disciples. After his ’ascension,’ he even went so far as to slay a great demon just to reforge a puppet body for him."

"Is he the Lord’s illegitimate son?" Yu Lian asked, her mind jumping to the plots of folk tales.

"The Lord has already achieved the Primordial Spirit realm. How could he possibly have children?" Wang Ping shook his head, then called up the light screen panel for the Essence Wood Technique:

[Essence Wood Technique (First Realm): Use the human body’s Qi Sea as nourishment and extract the Wood Spirit Consciousness for one’s own use, thereby achieving a level of life that transcends reality. This technique is incomparably dangerous. Before reaching the Third Realm, it is best to avoid the contamination of the mortal world.]

[1: Within a fixed Calming God Array, respond to the call of a Wood Spirit in the world of spiritual sense and subdue it. Then, refine the impurities from its body and plant it in your own Qi Sea. It is best to sense the Wood Spirit in an area rich with Gold Spirit Qi, as this makes failure nearly impossible.]

[2: Within the same Calming God Array, use ordinary Qi Cultivation methods to assimilate the Wood Spirit planted in your body. Do not exceed 10 attempts per day. With your aptitude, you can succeed within half a year. (Progress: 0/100. Today’s Progress: 0/10 attempts).]

[3: Use the Wood Spirit in your Qi Sea as a catalyst to guide a natural Wood Spirit Vein to fuse with your Qi Sea. Please pacify the Wood Spirit’s emotions first; the guidance can only proceed when its emotions are stable, otherwise it will certainly fail. Success will result in shedding mortality. Failure will lead to being assimilated by the Wood Spirit. Current Success Rate: No reference data.]

[Note 1: You must cultivate a stable state of mind. Do not be disturbed by worldly matters.] 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

[Note 2: Do not forcibly suppress the Wood Spirit’s emotions. You must slowly refine it. Before that, you must endure any of its eccentric emotions.]

[Note 3: The diagram for the Calming God Array is as follows...]

Wang Ping nodded in satisfaction after reading through this guide. Although it had many restrictions, it was a Secret Technique that could lead to the Third Realm. In the future, once he found and planted a Wood Spirit Vein, he could rename the technique and let the disciples of his sect cultivate it.

Zi Ming’s memories originally contained the Secret Technique for the Second Realm of the Essence Wood Technique, but that section of memory was chaotic and agitated, making it completely illegible. Thus, the light screen panel couldn’t read it.

Through Zi Ming’s memories, Wang Ping learned that the magic used to enlarge the copper bell was called the Giant Object Technique. However, this was a Bloodline Magic, activated by the bloodline of a Long-armed Ape Great Demon, so it was impossible for Wang Ping to learn it.

The copper bell was a Magical Artifact personally refined by the Lord for Zi Ming. He had relied on this set of Magical Artifacts to dominate the southern regions for hundreds of years.

In the previous battle, he hadn’t intended to abandon the set of Magical Artifacts. As long as the base of the artifact remained, he could sense the copper bell’s location. And as long as he could sense its location, there were plenty of ways to retrieve it.

Wang Ping eagerly took out one of the copper bells and laid it sideways in the tent. Then, he summoned the Tongyu Taoist and said, "Apologies for disturbing you, Fellow Daoist. I need your help to suppress the consciousness within this bell."

"A small matter. But my power is limited. I can buy you ten breaths’ time at most."

"That’s more than enough!"

Seeing that Wang Ping was about to observe the Sealing Array inside the copper bell, Yu Lian immediately grew interested. "Do you need my help?" she asked.

"Yes... Stabilize my spirit. If anything unusual happens, sever my connection to the copper bell immediately."

"Alright!"

There was an eager excitement in Yu Lian’s voice as she replied.