Chapter 44: Accidentally Obtaining 4 Python Shadow Swords

Chapter 44: Chapter 44: Accidentally Obtaining 4 Python Shadow Swords

Lotus Formation Realm, Tier Twenty...

Lotus Formation Realm, Tier Twenty-one...

...

Tier Twenty-eight: Early Stage... Middle Stage... Late Stage... Peak.

Chu Fan’s Cultivation soared, advancing a full nine tiers before halting at the Peak of Tier Twenty-eight. At that moment, he felt himself once again touching the edge of the Golden Core Realm.

The feeling was both familiar and strange.

It was familiar because it felt like gazing at a landscape through a thin veil—hazy, yet capable of stirring memories.

It was strange because the landscape behind this veil was far vaster than the one he remembered.

The giant python, once as thick as a bucket and sixty to seventy feet long, was now nothing but skin and bones.

Chu Fan pulled his Long Sword from the python’s eye socket. The other giant python, however, continued to attack him relentlessly.

With the rapid increase in his Cultivation, Chu Fan felt as if he possessed limitless power.

"Broken Dreams, Falling Stars, Scattered Clouds!"

He executed the second form of the Dream-Breaking Meteor Sword. The Sword Aura descended like a golden sun, and the immense pressure bore down on the giant python. It narrowed its eyes, lowered its defiant head, and coiled on the ground, trembling all over.

BOOM!

With a tremendous bang, the python’s head, as large as a winnowing basket, was pierced by the Sword Qi and exploded.

A pale red Inner Core, the size of a fist, shot out.

’An Inner Core?’

Chu Fan was stunned by the power of his own attack. Seeing the Inner Core fly out, he leaped into the air and snatched it.

The moment the Inner Core was in his hand, however, it transformed into a stream of light and entered his meridians.

His face twisted in horror.

’These two giant pythons were at least Late Stage Level 3 Profound Beasts. How could I possibly refine their Inner Cores in a short time?’

’It would be a cruel joke if this massive energy suddenly erupted inside me and blew my body to bits.’

But Chu Fan’s worries were unfounded.

Not only did the energy not erupt, but after entering his Dantian, it was absorbed by one of the Lotus Seeds on the lotus flower within.

Of the thirteen original rice-sized Lotus Seeds, the one in the very center, having absorbed the Inner Core’s energy, became plump and began to emit a faint red glow.

It bathed the entire lotus flower in a mesmerizing, brilliant red light.

POP—

With that crisp sound, Chu Fan clearly felt every inch of his meridians undergo a world-altering transformation.

’I broke through? Just like that?’

At this moment, Chu Fan was a whirlwind of emotions—delight, shock, excitement, confusion... Yet, the expression on his face was one of pure bewilderment.

Ever since his Cultivation reached Tier Nineteen of the Lotus-Birth Realm, he had trained bitterly for over two months with no progress whatsoever.

Who would have thought that here, because of these two giant pythons, he would break through directly to the Pill Formation Realm.

’Was this a pleasant surprise?’

’But why did it feel like this had all been arranged?’

He sat cross-legged on the ground and spent a short time performing Introspection, briefly assessing the changes in his body after his Realm advancement, before standing up.

It was impossible to fully master all the changes from his new Realm in such a short time, but the most urgent task was to find the secret treasure left by his Master.

He had absorbed one python’s Inner Core, but what about the Inner Core of the first one?

Chu Fan searched the desiccated corpse of the python but naturally found nothing.

He suspected that the surge of power he had absorbed when his sword was embedded in its eye socket was likely the energy from that python’s Inner Core.

He returned to the inner chamber where he had first encountered the pythons to look for a new exit.

As for the unconscious Cultivators from the Eastern Domain behind him, he couldn’t be bothered with them. They were merely unconscious and in no mortal danger.

The entire inner chamber seemed to be a space carved from a single massive rock. Aside from the passage he had come from, the surrounding Stone Wall was seamless.

The same was true for the ceiling.

And the floor...

When Chu Fan looked down at the ground, he was dumbfounded.

The python’s blood had spilled onto the floor and was slowly flowing along the lines of a strange pattern.

In the darkness, one would likely miss it without paying close attention, even with Level 9 Spiritual Power.

As for the pattern itself, Chu Fan couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

There was an outer circle and an inner circle, with the ring between them filled with a web of irregular connecting lines.

Chu Fan just stared, watching the blood flow along the pattern.

However, the instant two lines converged within the inner circle, something changed.

A pillar of red light shot up from the pattern.

The red light hit the ceiling, illuminating the entire chamber. Chu Fan then saw countless points of light moving rapidly across the four walls.

Looking closely at those points of light...

"Holy shit, is this a Sword Manual?"

The points of light combined to form humanoid figures, each holding a Long Sword.

There were four walls in total, displaying four Sword Forms.

Chu Fan had always had a special passion for the sword. Seeing these four Sword Forms on the walls, he momentarily forgot everything else.

His heart and eyes were completely captivated by the four Sword Forms.

Sword in hand, he began to imitate the movements of the figures of light on the walls.

A lunge here, a slash and lift there...

He didn’t use any True Qi, merely copying the motions. Once he had a rough grasp of one form, he moved on to imitate the next.

He was afraid the light would suddenly vanish, and he would lose his chance.

As for the Sword Intent of these four Sword Forms, he would comprehend that later, after he had memorized the movements.

But even just imitating the movements took him well over an hour.

This was mainly because the four Sword Forms were incredibly complex, each one slightly more intricate than the second form of the Dream-Breaking Meteor Sword.

And the Dream-Breaking Meteor Sword was already the most difficult Sword Manual he had practiced in all his years. Otherwise, he wouldn’t still be limited to using only the first two of its seven Sword Techniques.

After he memorized the movements, the light had still not faded, so he moved on to comprehending the Sword Intent.

He poured his True Qi and his own understanding of the Sword Dao into the Sword Techniques.

But the next moment, as he slashed out, the Sword Aura formed a red python shadow in mid-air. As he extended his Long Sword, the python shadow would either whip its tail or open its massive jaws.

BOOM!

The python shadow’s head slammed into the wall, blasting a hole more than three feet long and over a foot deep into the hard Stone Wall.

Spiderweb-like cracks spread out from the hole.

Chu Fan, completely unprepared, was startled by the power of this one sword strike.

The Dream-Breaking Meteor Sword was a technique of ultimate speed, while this new technique was not fast, but its power was in no way inferior.

’Maybe I can use these Sword Techniques to blast a new passage out of here?’

With that thought, he continued to comprehend the Sword Intent of the remaining three techniques.

The second technique also produced a red python shadow. He turned and slashed, and the shadow charged around the circumference of the chamber wall.

A continuous roar filled the air. When he looked again, a trench over a foot deep had been carved into all four walls of the chamber.

At that very moment, the blood-formed pattern on the ground began to tremble, and Chu Fan’s body was suddenly pulled into the air above it.

Then, the pattern began to fall.

No matter how Chu Fan kicked his legs, he couldn’t break free. He could only follow the pattern as it plummeted downward.

It didn’t last long, perhaps half an incense stick’s time, before the space before Chu Fan’s eyes opened up once again.

It was a vast space filled with numerous sculptures.

Before he could even look around in his confusion, the sound of fighting reached him from not far away.

He looked in the direction of the sound.

He recognized both of the combatants. One was Master Ni, and the other was the male disciple from the Celestial Dao Palace.