Chapter 628: Nascent Soul Spiritual Object Nourished by Heart’s Blood

Fortunately, the order was so irrational that after Elder Jin left, no one besides a few of his direct subordinates actually carried it out.

“Just a moment ago, a sword strike suddenly descended from the sky. There was a flash, and all the cultivators making a move, including Steward Ding, were beheaded by the Sword Light.”

“Stay on high alert! If anyone else endangers the Medicine Garden, I’ll hold you responsible!”

Hong Xuan retrieved his Purple Bowl Magical Treasure. The blaze had been drawn away, but the Five-Leaf Black Cucumber had already been reduced to ashes.

He rushed through five Medicine Gardens in a row, and the situation was more or less the same in each: they had all received Elder Jin’s order to destroy the herbs and ruin the fields.

Some had acted quickly, others slowly, but at the exact same moment, a sword strike from the sky had slain all the cultivators engaged in combat.

Among them were Elder Jin’s die-hard loyalists as well as stewards who answered to Hong Xuan.

Beneath the Sword Light, friend and foe alike had their lives taken in an instant.

Hong Xuan was horrified. Such Swordsmanship was unheard of—to remain in one spot and use Sword Control to strike down enemies dozens of miles away, engaging cultivators in five different locations simultaneously.

If it were only that, he wouldn’t have been so shaken. It was normal for a Nascent Soul Sword Cultivator to have unique methods.

But Bai Zichen had acted with lightning speed, making no distinction between the cultivators in the Medicine Garden. As long as they posed a potential threat, there was only one outcome: death.

‘True Monarch Bai only looks gentle, but how could anyone who has reached the Nascent Soul realm be soft-hearted? From now on, I must serve him carefully. I absolutely cannot let my guard down just because my master and True Monarch Ge Cang have a past connection.’

Hong Xuan ordered the disciples below him to bury the bodies. When he learned that Elder Jin had gone to the half-sized Medicine Garden to the west, he let out a cold laugh.

‘Death is at his doorstep, yet he still treats Qu Yang’s words as gospel.’

After a moment of thought, he activated a Lotus Magical Treasure and sped off toward the west.

…

The Medicine Garden Secret Realm was no more than a few hundred miles from end to end.

For a Nascent Soul True Monarch using Flying Escape, it didn’t take long to arrive before the half-sized Medicine Garden.

‘Just now, I could only sense three Medicine Gardens. One of them didn’t even appear in my Divine Sense until I was almost twenty miles closer… I never expected his Divine Sense to be a notch stronger than other True Monarchs’.’

Whether in the words of his Sect’s elders or in the descriptions from ancient texts, the Vast Holy Body was one of the most supreme talents on this Cultivation Continent.

A Sacred Body was far rarer than even a Celestial Spiritual Root.

Le Zheng possessed the Vast Holy Body and had coincidentally been taken in as a disciple by the Celestial Principle Sect, whose Cultivation Techniques were a perfect match. For a long time, he truly saw himself as a Son of Destiny, a favored child of the Celestial Dao.

And his performance along his journey had not disappointed the expectations everyone had of him.

This was despite saving his Vast Energy for the very end; otherwise, he could have undergone his Nascent Soul Tribulation decades earlier.

But every time he encountered Bai Zichen, Le Zheng was forced to wonder who the true owner of a Sacred Body was.

Back when he first arrived in Liang Country, he and Yan Rulong were acting as the vanguard to take Black Mountain, only to be jointly repelled by Bai Zichen and Ge Cang.

Then later, there was the incident where Bai Zichen defied the odds and slew True Monarch Jiulian.

At the time, Yan Rulong had comforted him, saying that a Heaven-Defying Sword Technique was merely a protective measure and didn’t guarantee he could reach the Nascent Soul realm.

The Great Dao of Cultivation wasn’t a competition of temporary power, but a measure of who could walk the farthest on the path to immortality.

Yet Bai Zichen’s Cultivation speed was even faster than his, a possessor of the Vast Holy Body. Breaking Realms and Tribulation Crossing were as common as breathing for him, something he passed through with ease.

After a hundred years without seeing him, his Cultivation had even caught up to his own Sect Leader.

“The Power of Void… How miraculous, that it can create a landscape like this.”

Before Shi Chengdong’s eyes, half of the Medicine Garden was abruptly gone, as if it had slammed headfirst into the void.

“This Spirit Plant is a bit strange. There’s an indescribable oddness about it…”

Much of the half-sized Medicine Garden was empty, with only a single Lingzhi, covered in blood-red veins, growing in the center.

In terms of shape, it was a thousand-year-old Golden Crown Reishi.

Perhaps calling it a Blood Crown Lingzhi would be more appropriate.

“I killed the eight disciples guarding this Medicine Garden and performed an irreversible Spirit Plant fusion Divine Technique, successfully becoming one with the Golden Crown Reishi. As long as you feed me the Heart’s Blood of one hundred fresh, vigorous cultivators every day, I can ascend to become a Blood Crown Celestial Lingzhi in less than one 60-Year Cycle.”

The Blood Crown Lingzhi had suddenly spoken, and it did so fluently, possessing its own consciousness.

“Break off a piece and steep it in water! Its effects will be no weaker than a Nascent Soul Pill!”

“You’re that Medicine Garden Elder?”

Bai Zichen’s brow furrowed. When had the Holy Lotus Sect become so obsessed with researching Spirit Plant fusion Secret Techniques?

Beside the Blood Crown Lingzhi was a pile of clothing and several chunks of bone and flesh, which were still melting and seeping into the Lingzhi itself.

This Secret Technique was different from the one True Monarch Jiulian and Qu Yang had used to merge with the Snow Lotus. This was a complete abandonment of one’s human form to become part of the Spirit Plant.

But a Golden Crown Reishi was not a High-Tier Spirit Grass; it was fundamentally incapable of containing a cultivator’s Divine Soul.

At most, this person’s soul would dissipate in a matter of days.

To pay such a heavy price and transform a Golden Crown Reishi into a so-called Blood Crown Celestial Lingzhi—the scheme was clearly enormous.

“That’s right! Hurry up and take me into your Realm… Once I become a Blood Crown Celestial Lingzhi, I’ll be able to move on my own and choose a suitable Spirit Field. If I get away and burrow underground, you won’t find me so easily.”

The voice from the Lingzhi continued to speak, shrill and thin, every word filled with temptation.

“Surely you’ve heard of the Blood Crown Celestial Lingzhi? It’s the most supreme Spirit Medicine that can grow on the Yin Sha Battlefield! As long as you don’t use more than a third of me, I’ll grow back completely after one 60-Year Cycle. Refining me is like having a guaranteed Nascent Soul Pill every sixty years.”

“I think I’ve read about this Spirit Medicine in an Ancient Book,” Shi Chengdong said. “It came from the Heavenly Demon Realm, but it wasn’t suited to grow in the Human World, so it quickly vanished without a trace.”

Shi Chengdong’s heart pounded wildly as he secretly began to calculate.

‘One hundred people a day means the Heart’s Blood of 36,500 cultivators a year. Over a 60-Year Cycle, that’s more than two million people… That number is just too absurd. You could turn all of Liang Country into a river of blood and still not gather that many. Reducing the number by ninety percent seems more realistic.’

The Pill Formula for the Nascent Soul Pill wasn’t rare; many Nascent Soul Major Sects, including the Celestial Principle Sect, had a copy.

The main difficulty was gathering the Alchemy Materials. The formula required dozens of spirit medicines that were over a thousand years old, and even with a Medicine Garden Secret Realm, there wasn’t enough time for them to grow.

The only way was for several Sects with Medicine Garden Secret Realms to join forces, agree on which spirit medicines each would cultivate, and then perform a session of Opening the Furnace and Refining Pills periodically.

After the pills were made, dividing the Nascent Soul Pills based on each Sect’s contribution was the most realistic approach.

Even in the Super Major Sects of the Central Domain, it was difficult for any True Inheritance disciple other than the Saint Child and Saintess to be granted a Nascent Soul Pill.

The conditions for forming a Blood Crown Celestial Lingzhi were indeed harsh and an affront to nature, but Shi Chengdong knew it still held immense value.

He secretly raised his guard, gave Le Zheng a meaningful look, and the two of them took a small step back.

According to their agreement, the Medicine Garden Secret Realm belonged to the Qingfeng Sect. Any immature spirit medicines would also be left behind, as long as Spirit Stone compensation was provided.

But this Blood Crown Celestial Lingzhi came from the Heavenly Demon Realm, which was a sensitive topic in the Cultivation Realm. It was highly likely that Bai Zichen wouldn’t want word of this getting out.

If he were in Bai Zichen’s shoes, Shi Chengdong knew he too would be troubled by how to handle the witnesses present.

He already had the Eight Trigrams Diagram clutched in his palm, having made up his mind. If Bai Zichen truly decided to strike, he was prepared to self-detonate this Spiritual Treasure to protect Le Zheng and ensure his escape.

“Silence!”

Bai Zichen’s expression changed abruptly. A Thunder Dragon Sword Light erupted from his hand, blasting the endlessly chattering Blood Crown Lingzhi to smithereens.

“A blood sacrifice of millions for a single Nascent Soul Spiritual Object… The Qingfeng Sect is an orthodox Daoist Sect! We scorn such methods!”

The Thunder Radiance darted back and forth, annihilating the Blood Crown Lingzhi until not even a speck of dust remained, turning its underground roots completely to ash before it finally ceased.

The first rule of the Qingfeng Sect was that any disciple who fell to the Demon Path would be expelled and never accepted back!

Moreover, this was a product of the Heavenly Demon Realm, one that required the Heart’s Blood of millions of cultivators to form. The moment Bai Zichen heard this, he was filled with revulsion.

The Qingfeng Sect had no need for such a Nascent Soul Spiritual Object. With him and his Senior Brother Ge Cang around, if a disciple were to attempt a breakthrough to the Nascent Soul realm in the future, there would be no shortage of Nascent Soul Pills.

Besides, a Blood Crown Celestial Lingzhi created in such a manner was bound to bring endless trouble.

That Core Formation Cultivator from the Holy Lotus Sect had actually used his own body to lay a trap, hoping to lure him in with the irresistible temptation of a Nascent Soul Spiritual Object.

As long as he kept the Blood Crown Spirit Plant, the scheme would have been a success.

But the Elder could never have imagined, even in death, that Bai Zichen wouldn’t hesitate for a second when faced with such a temptation, and would instead destroy the Blood Crown Lingzhi at its very root.