Chapter 341 - 339: The Featherless Cyan Simurgh

Chapter 341: Chapter 339: The Featherless Cyan Simurgh

After advancing several miles, the air grew increasingly stuffy and hot, as if the dark red clouds overhead were pressing down on him.

"This is really a Tier Four Spirit Land!"

When the soil beneath his feet changed color and he stepped onto the soft, red earth, Ge Cang suddenly felt the surrounding Spiritual Qi grow even denser, rising to a new level.

Every pore, every Acupoint on his body cheered, greedily gulping down the nature’s spiritual energy.

His True Essence unconsciously began to circulate faster.

Even though the Spirit Vein here was dominated by Fire Element Spiritual Energy, which didn’t match Master Ge Cang’s own attributes, he still felt a jolt of invigoration.

’So this is what Tier Four Spiritual Energy feels like. No wonder it can support the immense Spiritual Power required after Nascent Soul formation... There’s a fundamental difference between this and Tier Three Top-Grade Spirit Qi, which could never satisfy a Nascent Soul Cultivator.’

Even though he had never experienced a Tier Four Spirit Land before, Master Ge Cang was able to instantly judge its grade.

It was a natural reaction for a Perfect Core Formation Cultivator, sensing the most suitable place for forming a Nascent Soul.

Master Ge Cang wished he could start Shattering his Core and Transforming into a Nascent Soul right then and there, beginning his Tribulation Crossing process. Fortunately, it was just a fleeting, mad impulse.

Reason quickly took over. Even if the Cyan Simurgh Demon Beast wasn’t on the volcano, directly forming a Nascent Soul would be far too dangerous.

Without a Dharma Protector to guard him, even a random Tier Three Demon Beast appearing during the Celestial Tribulation could affect the Tribulation Crosser.

The safest method was to set up an Array and ask Junior Brother Bai to act as his Dharma Protector, minimizing the risk of any accidents.

At that moment, Ge Cang stopped, his expression turning grave.

At the summit, within his line of sight, lay a large, cyan bird with magnificent plumage, as motionless as a statue.

Its entire body was covered in transparent flames that burned slowly without causing any damage to the ground.

But Master Ge Cang didn’t dare to underestimate it. If he wasn’t mistaken, this had to be the legendary Glazed Purifying Fire.

A single touch would be like a festering curse, impossible to ever remove or quell.

The large cyan bird’s wings were folded, covering its body. Countless flames intertwined around it. Though it was a Demon Beast, it exuded a sense of grace and nobility.

’No wonder I couldn’t sense its presence. So this is what a Cyan Simurgh looks like in its slumber...’

Master Ge Cang had a sudden realization. Everyone in the Cultivation Realm had heard of the Cyan Simurgh’s Nirvana Rebirth Divine Technique, but few had ever witnessed it.

During this process, the Cyan Simurgh lost all aura of a living being. In his Divine Sense, there was only a mass of raging flames, with no so-called Cyan Simurgh to be found.

Instead, it was with his naked eye that he could see this legendary Tier Four Great Demon.

Master Ge Cang suppressed the impulse to attack. Just because the Cyan Simurgh was asleep didn’t mean it lacked defensive measures.

With the life force of a Tier Four Great Demon, it probably wouldn’t die immediately even if he attacked it for quite some time.

But when his gaze shifted downward, his heart leaped wildly again.

He saw the Cyan Simurgh’s bare tail. Its iconic long plumes were gone, and there were many patches on its Demon Body where feathers were missing, as if they had been violently plucked out.

At the same time, its left wing was bent at a clearly unnatural angle, with a palm print seared into it, burning the feathers clean off.

’It was a Human Cultivator! A Human Cultivator beat the Cyan Simurgh into this state, and it still hasn’t recovered after hundreds of years in its Nirvana slumber!’

Such obviously man-made injuries horrified Master Ge Cang, and a storm raged in his heart.

Even the Qingfeng Sect, which had settled in Black Mountain for a thousand years and considered it their home base, only had a vague understanding of the Cyan Simurgh’s existence.

Yet hundreds of years ago, a Nascent Soul True Monarch had infiltrated Black Mountain and fought a deadly battle with this Tier Four Great Demon.

Moreover, the fact that the injuries persisted to this day showed how severe they must have been.

Logically, a Cyan Simurgh should be able to fully recover from even near-fatal injuries through its slumber.

The current situation made Master Ge Cang’s gaze shift to the Cyan Simurgh’s tail, which was missing its long plumes.

’It seems the rumors were true. The True Feathers are tied to an avian Demon Beast’s Origin Power. This feathered beast’s strength has been greatly reduced, and its innate Nirvana Divine Technique has all but vanished...’

A strange light flickered in Ge Cang’s eyes. If the Tier Four Great Demon was in this state, it might actually be possible to deal with it.

He watched as the Fire Element Spiritual Energy on the summit surged toward the sleeping Cyan Simurgh like a rising tide. It absorbed one percent of the Spiritual Qi at most, and the rest dispersed like a receding tide.

After half an hour, it gathered again, ebbing and flowing.

Without its True Feathers, the Cyan Simurgh’s very instinct to convert nature’s spiritual energy seemed to have weakened considerably.

Master Ge Cang retraced his steps, backing out of the volcano one step at a time, only then feeling his heart relax.

Facing a Tier Four Great Demon, even one that was asleep and completely unaware of the outside world, still exerted immense psychological pressure.

’It’s a shame we’ve lost contact with the Ten Thousand Beasts Sect; they’re much more skilled at dealing with Demon Beasts... This is a Tier Four Great Demon, after all. If we don’t have a way to counter it, I’m afraid we’ll be the ones slaughtered instead of the other way around.’

Master Ge Cang left the volcano and gazed at the Tier Four Spirit Vein from afar.

’The injuries to the Cyan Simurgh’s tail and its broken wing don’t seem to have happened at the same time. The vibrancy of the feathers on both sides is different... Could it be that two different groups of Cultivators entered Black Mountain and attacked the Cyan Simurgh one after the other, causing the different injuries?’

The True Feathers represented the Origin Power of an avian Great Demon. Every single one lost would severely impact its strength.

The area where magnificent and graceful True Feathers should have grown now had only short plumes, which was the fundamental reason for its drastic drop in power.

The broken wing was merely salt in the wound; under normal circumstances, it would have long since healed the injury using the Tier Four Spiritual Energy from the volcano.

As he was about to fly out of Black Mountain’s core region, a thought flashed through Master Ge Cang’s mind, and he froze in place.

’Could the Human Cultivator who inflicted the second injury on the Cyan Simurgh have been Ancestor Qingfeng? Boosted by the Pink Crystal Shattering Jade Technique, he would indeed have had the power to fight an injured Cyan Simurgh. That would also explain why the Sect never saw a trace of it after entering Black Mountain.’

Master Ge Cang thought of the remains of Ancestor Qingfeng that Bai Zichen had brought back; he had fled all the way to Hejian County before finally perishing.

It was highly likely that the Cyan Simurgh had come out to hunt for Blood Food back then and had targeted the Sect.

After discovering this, Ancestor Qingfeng had drawn the Cyan Simurgh away by himself. Relying on the immense power gained from unleashing the Pink Crystal Shattering Jade Technique, he fought and fled until his death.

And the Cyan Simurgh, with new injuries piled on old, grew fearful of Human Cultivators from the outside world. It had returned to its lair and remained in a slumber ever since.

Furthermore, without its True Feathers, its recovery speed couldn’t even compare to some powerful Demon Beasts with an Immortal Body, let alone other Great Demons of its own kind.

It was originally Fire’s Favored One, a Great Demon descendant of a Divine Beast that symbolized Fire Virtue, yet it couldn’t even fully achieve Refinement of Fire Element Spiritual Energy.

In nearly a thousand years, it had only just managed to regrow a short section of its True Feathers, completely neglecting its other injuries.

Thinking about it this way, many things started to line up.

He just didn’t know which Cultivator had taken the Cyan Simurgh’s True Feathers before the Qingfeng Sect arrived in Black Mountain.

After traveling for several dozen miles, Master Ge Cang transformed into a streak of lightning and flew rapidly toward the Mountain Gate.

...

"It can actually nullify thirty percent of a Thunderbolt’s power. No wonder the refining method for a single Magical Treasure holds a similar status on the Inheritance Stele as an entire Tier Four Refining Inheritance."

At the Celestial Thunder Wall, Bai Zichen had spent three days testing the Acquired Thunder God Pearl and had finally figured it out.

This treasure was limited by its grade and had finite control over Thunderbolts. If the quantity was too great or the power exceeded its limit, the Thunder Bead would easily shatter.

If it were only used to assist in refining the Thunder Sound Sword, that would be perfect, as one would only select the faintest bolts of thunder to temper a Tier Three Flying Sword.

But during the Celestial Thunder Tribulation of the Nascent Soul Tribulation, every bolt was a punishment enacted by the heavens, leaving no room to pick and choose or to evade.

The Celestial Thunder would only grow stronger with each bolt. Given its nature as a Low-Grade Magical Treasure, it would probably be overwhelmed and burst after absorbing just thirty percent of the first bolt of Celestial Thunder.

However, for the Acquired Thunder God Pearl to be listed by the Naihe Sect as one of its Tribulation Crossing Secret Treasures, it clearly couldn’t be a mere decoration.

When fully activated, the Acquired Thunder God Pearl could transform into a Thunderfall Body, causing any Thunderbolt in the sky to inevitably strike it.

Once refined, the Thunder Bead and the Cultivator were considered a single entity. A Celestial Tribulation bolt striking the Thunder Bead directly was considered equivalent to withstanding a round of the tribulation.

Except for the final bolt of the Celestial Tribulation, which the Tribulation Crosser had to endure personally, the Acquired Thunder God Pearl could be used to bear any one of the first eight bolts.

A Naihe Sect Cultivator once tried refining several Acquired Thunder God Pearls, hoping to have the Thunder Beads endure all but the final Celestial Tribulation bolt.

But the moment he deployed the second one, it caused the Celestial Tribulation to mutate. Its power surged by more than a hundredfold, instantly annihilating the opportunistic Core Formation Perfection Cultivator and turning everything within a hundred-mile radius to dust.

Using the Acquired Thunder God Pearl, Bai Zichen crushed his remaining Enlightenment Bodhi and seized every moment to successfully refine two Thunder Sound Swords.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to continue, but that the decades of accumulation in the Bamboo Sea of Celestial Thunder Cliff had been completely exhausted. Not a single stalk of Thunder Sound Bamboo was left.

To ensure their Ancestor had enough Thunder Sound Bamboo, the Bai Clan Members had willingly sent large quantities of Sacred Sound Bamboo to be struck by Celestial Thunder, resulting in a great number of them being destroyed by the Thunder Fire.

From this perspective, the conditions at Celestial Thunder Cliff for cultivating Thunder Sound Bamboo were even better than those of the Fish Dragon Sect.

In the Ten Thousand Stars Islands, it wasn’t easy to find a Spirit Land that was constantly bombarded by Celestial Thunder day and night.

Furthermore, even if such an environment existed somewhere in the islands, the Fish Dragon Sect would never allow the Bamboo Sea to be planted anywhere but on Hornless Dragon Island.

Besides the Thunder Sound Bamboo, the Sect’s upper echelon was more concerned with not letting the Holy Beast Essence Blood get too far out of their sight.

Even though the Holy Beast Essence Blood had been in the Fish Dragon Sect’s possession for several thousand years, aside from separating its aura to allow the Wood God Skill to mutate, they had not discovered any other way to use it.

While the enhancing effect of the Enlightenment Bodhi had not yet faded, Bai Zichen returned to the Artifact Refining Room and began refining the Cyan Dragon Sea Roaring Sword through the night.

Celestial Water Essence, Geng Metal Spirit... one by one, the Spiritual Materials, which had long been smelted and prepared, were thrown into the Bronze Cauldron being scorched by Earth Fire.

After erupting with a dazzling Spirit Light, these High-Tier Spiritual Materials gradually returned to a quiescent state and began to fuse together.

After a series of complex Artifact Refining Hand Techniques, specks of impurities were burned and tempered out by the Earth Fire, making the mixture increasingly condensed and pure.

’Unfortunately, the step of adding the Dragon Soul must be done while the Sword Embryo is in a liquid state. Otherwise, Water Refining would be more suitable for this sword...’

After finishing these steps, Bai Zichen was drenched in sweat. The continuous, high-intensity refining of Tier Three Flying Swords placed a considerable burden on a Cultivator.

Consider the Sword Refiners of the Tianhe Sword Sect, who would spend ten or even dozens of years on a single Tier Three Flying Sword.

But Bai Zichen had performed Sword Refinement multiple times in just seven short days, and had even successfully forged two Thunder Sound Swords.

Admittedly, this was partly because the refining method for the Thunder Sound Sword was special and different from ordinary flying swords, and also because he had done a lot of preparatory work beforehand.

But it was also an immense drain on the Sword Refiner’s Divine Sense.

It was only thanks to his Divine Sense being far stronger than that of his peers that Bai Zichen was able to barely endure it.