The chill from the surroundings gradually became stronger, and based on Mo Wuji’s estimates,it wouldn’t be long before he returned to his previous frozen state. A flame would burn within him while training in Seven Styles Lightning Sky"s first style, but now that he had succeeded in acquiring this technique, the intensity of the burning sensation was greatly reduced when he continued to circulate his energy based on it.
Once the burning sensation left him, he would turn into the sorry state of the man and woman that entered with him.
Mo Wuji dared not hesitate any further, he quickly harvested both ice flowers together with their 15cm roots, and rushed back up the icy stairs.
Half an incense’s time later, Mo Wuji stood once again in the hall that he originally came from, panting heavily. Fear lingered in his heart as he peered down the icy stairs that led below. He had almost died down there.
He was sure that the treasures that lay below were not only these two stalks of Immeasurable Soul-forging Crystal. Perhaps there were even more valuable items there, but he dared not stay in that icy h.e.l.l for a moment longer.
Both stalks of ice flowers gave off a cooling aura in his hands, making him especially clear headed. Mo Wuji was confident that even if these were not Immeasurable Soul-forging Crystals, they should at least be something extremely valuable.
Two long jade boxes appeared in his hands, and Mo Wuji carefully placed the two stalks of Immeasurable Soul-forging Crystals into them, before returning both into his storage bag.
His reward for almost freezing to death down there, was at least succeeding in the Seven Styles Lightning Sky"s first style. No, perhaps what he learnt was not the real Seven Styles Lightning Sky. After all, the pictures were incomplete, part of the energy circulation path unclear, and all these uncertainties were resolved based on his understanding in the Immortal Mortal Technique.
Regardless, he could control lightning attacks now.
At this point, Mo Wuji circulated his energy, used various hand techniques, then thrust a single hand out. Six to seven streams of energy burst out, before a bright flash of lightning exploded around him.
Sadly, Seven Styles Lightning Sky"s first style was not aesthetically pleasing. Only spiritual energy was released, and no electric arcs appeared. The spiritual energy only exploded into a flash of lightning after being released, instead of directly coming out as lightning. As a result, there was a distinct lack of artistic beauty to the technique, which made it seem neither here nor there.
Once again, Mo Wuji formed multiple hand techniques. This time, he did not release streams of spiritual energy, but rather gathered them all together. "Bang!" A burst of lightning many times greater than before caused the ground a few metres ahead of him to blow up. The st.u.r.dy ground exploded with a bundle of lightning sparks, and ice fragments lying on the floor immediately got blown to bits.
Mo Wuji satisfactorily looked at his hands. While the Seven Styles Lightning Sky"s first style was not pleasing to the eye, it was very practical. But the prerequisite would be that he could not let the lightning dissipate, which would greatly reduce the technique’s impact.
Seven Styles Lightning Sky"s first style was called Electric Storm, yet he was sure that this was different from what Electric Storm was supposed to be. Why not call it Lightning Flash? This name sounds much more stylish than Electric Storm. It’s almost as different as the heavens and the earth.
Mo Wuji sighed to himself one last time, before taking a final look at the icy staircase behind him reluctantly. There were good stuff down there, but it was a pity that all he could do was look from a distance.
Leave this hall of ice quickly, it’s really cold here.
Frantically charging back to the stone door, Mo Wuji was still worried that it did not have a keyhole on the inside, which meant that he was trapped. After all, he was in a rush when coming in, so there was no time to inspect the door closely.
Thankfully these worries were unfounded, and there was an obvious keyhole in the stone door, identical to the one outside. Only then did Mo Wuji heave a sigh of relief, and took out the key. Just as he was going to put the key into the keyhole, a low rumbling sound came from outside.
That’s not good, someone’s coming. From these sounds, they must be attacking the stone door. Hence Mo Wuji dared not open the door. After listening to the sounds by the door for some time, he realised that the attacks did not reduce in intensity, but rather became stronger.
He no longer stayed near the door, quietly sneaking to a secluded corner of the large hall before stopping. At this moment, Mo Wuji kept praying that the stone door would not be opened. Once it did, this hall was only so big, thus he would be found eventually.
A good two hours pa.s.sed by, and the roaring and banging from the stone door’s position carried on. However, the door did not budge at all, neither did it give any sign of opening. Now Mo Wuji could truly relax, but this was when the cold set it. Although the top level was much warmer than the freezing depths below, but after a prolonged period of time, it began to become unbearable.
So Mo Wuji got to work. He placed a pile of Earth Grade spirit stones beneath him, at the same time taking out Spirit Strengthening Pills. The plan was to use cultivation to fight the cold. While cultivating with the Immortal Mortal Technique was no help in resisting the sub-zero temperature of the lower floor, it would be sufficient for the top floor.
Now that he had opened up 72 meridians, he could probably only cultivate until the peak of Channel Opening Stage Level 9, maybe the Great Circle of Channel Opening Stage Level 9. Once he hit that, there was no rush to advance to Spirit Building Stage. As Shen Lian said before, if one could cultivate to Channel Opening Stage Level 10, at Transcending Mortality Stage Level 9, one would be able to attempt to advance into the Extreme Mortality Stage. Since he had the Channel Opening Solution, naturally he would want to enter the Extreme Mortality Stage.
If he could not concoct future batches of channel opening solution, he would not be able to reach Channel Opening Stage Level 10, and to choose to advance into Spirit Building Stage then it still would not be too late.
Once he hit the Great Circle of Channel Opening Stage, and had no way to advance into the 10th level, then he would just continue training his spiritual will. That was why Mo Wuji took out both spirit stones and Spirit Strengthening Pills at the same time.
As Mo Wuji began cultivating, the spiritual energy in the surrounding air came flowing towards him non-stop. Dense spiritual energy swirled around his body continuously, and the True Yuan within him stirred, expelling all traces of coldness out.
The dense spiritual energy, coupled with the pile of spirit stones that he took out, made his cultivation improve by leaps and bounds. In only three days’ time, he had reached the Great Circle of Spirit Opening Stage Level 9. As expected, he could not advance to the 10th level.
Swallowing an Inedia Pill, Mo Wuji carried on with training his spiritual will the the Spirit Strengthening Pill. At this point, Mo Wuji knew having spiritual will was an advantage. If he did not have greater spiritual will than others, he would have been no different from other cultivators at Channel Opening Stage Level 9, much less able to come so far and obtain the Immeasurable Soul-forging Crystals.
Time gradually pa.s.sed by as Mo Wuji cultivated. Initially, he was still worried that the stone door would get blasted open, but eventually he immersed himself in training his spiritual will. As for the stone door, this matter was thrown to the back of his mind.
An unknown amount of time later, he felt that his spiritual energy had reached another extreme, then burst open again, seemingly advancing to a new realm. Mo WUji then opened his eyes suddenly, sweeping his spiritual will out.
His spiritual will, many times stronger than before, instantly swept through every nook and cranny in the hall. A feeling of power overwhelmed him, making Mo Wuji restless for a Spirit Building Stage expert to test out his new strength and see exactly how much of a gap there was.
There was a certain level of confidence in his heart; now that he had such powerful spiritual will, he stood a fighting chance against cultivators in the initial Spirit Building Stage,.
"Ah!" Mo Wuji stood up with a loud yawn, but before he checked which pills were left, his spiritual will abruptly stopped.
He saw a patch of complex runes, which he thought he had seen before somewhere. Ah! The bracelet had some runes like this. Previously when he found out the bracelet could give directions, and used his spiritual will to take a peek in it, the runes found inside were rather similar to what was before him now.
These runes were very detailed, some even having explanations in words.
Retracting his spiritual will, Mo Wuji decided to check on the stone door, then take a look at the runes. There was no change with the door, meaning it had not been opened.
In his bottle of Inedia Pills, only five were left. One bottle held 18 pills, so taking into account that he consumed one pill every two days, Mo Wuji realised that he had stayed in there for almost a month. As for Spirit Strengthening Pills, he was almost out of them too. One pill remained out of two bottles of Spirit Strengthening Pills.
After keeping the pills and leftover spirit stones, Mo Wuji intentionally walked in front of the stone door to listen for any signs of people. Once he confirmed that there was no one attacking from the outside, he then turned around and head for the corner of the hall with the runes.
Walking closer, Mo Wuji could see them clearer with his spiritual will. This did not look like a stone wall, but instead a wall made out of some sort of metal. Countless words littered the wall, squeezed together. Not only were there words, but also various pictures and runes which took up a good half of the wall. [1]
He walked in front of the very start of everything on the wall, which clearly wrote, "Little chicken, you want to use this ice hall to lock up your Grandpa Chu Xingzi? Have you eaten too much pig’s brain? Wait till the day that your Grandpa opens this shabby hall, then I’ll come to show you how your Grandpa goes about doing things…"
"...Little chicken, why don’t you learn something from that woman’s belly. Yes, you’ve trapped your grandpa for a day, but your grandpa wants to tell you little b.a.s.t.a.r.d one thing, that woman has been f*cked by me until she puked."
Reading until this point, Mo Wuji had drawn an image of a man cursing furiously. One moment using "your father", and another "your grandpa", really reflected the immense rage that this guy called Chu Xingzi held in his heart.
Yet Mo Wuji was chuckling to himself. This Chu Xingzi really did not act like an expert. Aren’t all experts well mannered? He seems like a hooligan on the streets cursing another, without a care in the world.
"...Good, that woman has indeed pa.s.sed you everything in her belly. Even though everything she has was given by grandpa, but grandpa is still very unhappy. Grandpa has actually be trapped for a month now…"
"B*tch, sl*t...Trash that your father f*cked until he threw away. So what if you’ve given everything that your father taught you to that little chicken? Trapping your father for 10 years? Are you really able to confine your father here for his whole life? Little chicken, you actually went to f*ck that b*tch just to learn your grandpa’s array dao? Kneel down and call me grandpa, then grandpa will personally give it all to you."
"Good, you’ve called me well, grandpa will pa.s.s on his mantle of array dao to you, little chicken. This is at least ten thousand times stronger than anything that b*tch taught you…"
Mo Wuji’s heart sank. He could almost see Chu Xingzi cursing and swearing while he was trapped here. In the end giving in to despair. Reading the last line of words, it was apparent that Chu Xingzi had become deranged from the rage.
"Arrays are simple. Setting up an array is like making a cage. There’s living ones, dead one, and those neither living nor dead…Look at grandpa’s runes. This first rune is called the Array Initiating Rune, Only with the best Array Initiating Rune can one make the best array,,,"
As he carried on reading, he became more and more surprised. Chu Xingzi’s description of array dao was detailed yet easy to understand. There were no esoteric terms at all.
[1] TL: Runes make up arrays that serve various purposes