Chapter Thirty-Eight: Refining the Spirit, Returning to the Void

Cultivation is like rowing upstream; if you do not advance, you will be swept back, and neglect leads to decay. Luo Zu often practiced, so naturally he progressed. After all, the physical constitution of the human race is evident. To call him a legendary innate Dao body from his previous life would be an exaggeration. But in the Wilds, with his status as a third-generation human, had he not tread every step with extreme caution, his cultivation might have already soared to the level of Integration with the Void, and then ascension.

Luo Zu gently exhaled, and the breath spiraled upward, gathering above his head. At this moment, atop his head hovered wisps of energy, resembling tiny swimming dragons. They entwined and darted swiftly, each strand moving with a pattern too intricate to discern. Upon careful counting, there were eighty-one dragon-like breaths.

With the last strand merging in, the eighty-one wisps began to circulate at high speed, so fast that the naked eye could only perceive a spherical glow appearing above Luo Zu’s head. Yet only Luo Zu knew that these were the fusion of his true Qi and his own spells.

He had plenty of true Qi within, but only eighty-one spells. This was already the limit his Yin Soul could bear after refining Qi into spirit. Eighty-one—the ultimate number. Although Luo Zu’s cultivation wasn’t bound by such strict numerology, the limit was set. Luo Zu could not easily surpass it, nor was he some hot-blooded youth bent on breaking boundaries every day.

Of course, other spells beyond the eighty-one were not unusable; they simply required the appropriate incantations and true Qi allocation to employ. The roots of Luo Zu’s spells lay in the innate divine abilities of humanity, and the eighty-one spells he mastered were on par with those abilities. As long as he had enough true Qi, he could wield them freely, adjusting the amount to alter their power, as easily as moving his own limbs.

Spells not anchored in soul and flesh needed incantations, gestures, and true Qi to cast. Furthermore, each level of a spell required different gestures and incantations—added or omitted as dictated by one’s own calculations during casting. Precision wasn’t vital; a rough impression sufficed.

“Others’ Wilds shatter heaven and earth, mend the sky with stones, while mine is stingy and cautious, living by counting on my fingers,” Luo Zu muttered as he recorded his spells.

At this time, the eighty-one spells drew evenly from his true Qi, then, as Luo Zu advanced the Yin Soul method of the Three Souls and Seven Spirits, progressing to the Yang Soul method, they slowly coalesced into the shape of an infant in broad daylight.

Bathed in sunlight, the infant’s flesh was plump and tender, not a vaporous entity formed of spells and true Qi, but resembling a newborn of flesh and blood. At the moment of its birth, Luo Zu’s physical eyes dimmed, his body withered, as if all his blood had been drained.

Yet in the next instant, the infant’s eyes opened—no childish innocence there, but filled with the emotions of an adult.

“There’s a hint of the Primordial Soul as I expected,” the infant spoke, not babbling but uttering clear words far beyond his apparent age.

This was the method Luo Zu had deduced over “thirty years” to finally refine the Yang Soul. The results were excellent; Luo Zu was quite satisfied.

By infusing various spells into the Yin Soul, the spells’ yang essence gradually transformed it, eventually reconstructing the Yin Soul into the Yang Soul. This method was the most stable, and according to Luo Zu’s calculations, the ninth-tier spells he had recently mastered could now ascend directly to the first-tier Dao Arts.

Just as Luo Zu had predicted, the eighty-one spells ascended to Dao Arts, now composing the small Yang Soul entirely of Dao Arts. This feedback brought him much joy.

Moreover, viewing the world as a Yang Soul was vastly different. Flowers and trees, mountains and rivers, birds and beasts, insects and the tiniest creatures—all were shrouded in vibrant clusters of spiritual energy, the colors of heaven and earth richer than ever before.

This was the state of “seeing the mountain as no longer a mountain.”

Luo Zu recalled a philosophical saying from his previous life, one that lingered long in memory.

Spiritual energy was no longer a colorless, tasteless, formless, intangible thing in his eyes. Now it was dazzlingly vivid, overwhelming to behold, and each type carried its own unique flavor when absorbed by the Yang Soul.

The miraculous effect of the Yang Soul’s vision surprised even Luo Zu, perhaps due to the eighty-one Dao Arts. Regardless, he made careful note of it.

Having gained this Yang Soul, Luo Zu soared away on the wind, leaving his physical body behind.

His destination was none other than the ravine where most of the bloodsucking purple vines had been buried.

Luo Zu hadn’t expected that a simple return to his homeland would be so fraught with complications.

He had already burned the bloodsucking purple vines, then lured a horde of nocturnal undead there to root out hidden dangers. Yet this somehow resulted in a new population of zombies, who now buried themselves beneath the ravine by day.

They settled there, never moving on, as if the ravine had become their second homeland. Of course, Luo Zu couldn’t be sure how many “homelands” they’d had before.

Regardless, neither Luo Zu nor the “Cave Dwellers” would allow these undead to wreak havoc in their ancestral home.

So, by day, they would “cultivate” the land, digging up the undead and burning them to ashes, sweeping the remains into the stream to drift downstream.

This was but an episode, three months after they first poured oil onto this land.

The delay was not due to laziness on the part of the “Cave Dwellers,” but because, for three months, rain from Dragon Lake had been relentless, making it impossible to set the land aflame.

At last, the rain stopped a day ago, and they hurried out by daylight to turn the soil, dig up the undead, pile them in the valley, and burn them to charcoal. Under Luo Zu’s supervision, the charcoal was then crushed to dust.

After such thorough destruction, Luo Zu doubted they could survive.

Unfortunately, they still survived...

No, rather, their remnant souls and lingering wills remained attached to the land.

On the second night after their bones were ground to ash, the remnants emerged to wander, searching for food among the ravine’s mountains, even burrowing into the earth to snatch creatures dwelling in soil and stone.

Thankfully, they remembered nothing of the “Cave Dwellers’” cruelty, and the bonfires in the tribe kept them at bay. Whenever they passed, they ignored the settlement.

Yet each night, their disturbances kept the “Cave Dwellers” from restful sleep.

Luo Zu knew this could not continue. Thus, after refining the Yang Soul today, he decided to investigate the matter.