Half a year later, when few cultivators paid heed to the Stone Bat anymore, the firm shell of the stone cocoon gave a sudden shudder, a hairline fracture splitting open, leaking wisps of aura and the faint, colorful light of spiritual artifacts.
The thundercloud, which had been circling the small island sky for a full six months without descending, finally sensed the aura emanating from Ye Qin with uncanny acuity, unleashing a furious barrage of lightning bolts.
"Boom!"
The hard shell of the Stone Bat shattered under a single strike from the dark lightning.
Simultaneously, the figure of a young, white-robed cultivator shot out from the broken cocoon, ascending into the sky. Three radiant primordial spirit artifacts—purple, gold, and cyan—orbited the figure.
The figure erupted with the domineering aura only a Core Formation (Jindan) cultivator possessed.
The dark lightning descended in three successive strikes from the clouds.
The white-robed cultivator let out a clear, dragon-like cry, pointed a finger, and the three primordial spirit artifacts orbiting him instantly transformed into three streaks of flowing light, shooting straight toward the three bolts of dark lightning. In the mid-air, the spirit artifacts clashed with the lightning.
For a moment, the sound of explosions shook the heavens and earth.
The purple flying sword, wreathed in continuous, blazing flames, dyed the entire sky crimson. The golden flying sword’s intense golden radiance nearly pierced the thunderclouds. The cyan sword emitted threads of celestial music, enveloping the entire island and drawing several low-level sea beasts from the depths to surface.
The minor heavenly tribulation’s dark lightning exhausted itself completely, failing to injure Ye Qin's physical body in the slightest; it only drained a vast amount of his magic power. Afterward, the dark clouds gradually dispersed. The long-shadowed island was finally revealed under the sunlight.
Having weathered the lightning tribulation, Ye Qin floated in the air, controlling the three primordial spirit artifacts hovering beside him. His eyes shone with sharp brilliance as he swept his gaze over the small island.
Around the island, several mid-to-low-level Foundation Establishment (Zhuji) cultivators remained, staring blankly and rapturously at the sky, utterly transfixed. These cultivators, greedy for the stone cocoon but fearful of touching it, had refused to leave until now.
They were captivated by the celestial music and hadn't snapped back to their senses. It was only when Ye Qin’s cold gaze swept over them that they violently jolted, feeling an icy chill throughout their bodies, suddenly awakened.
"Core Formation! It’s actually a Core Formation cultivator!"
One cultivator cried out in shock. They could never have imagined that what emerged from that strange Stone Bat was a Core Formation cultivator, not a seventh-rank Golden Core demonic beast, nor any kind of rare treasure.
Ye Qin stared at them with an icy expression, letting out a cold snort.
With a sweep of his hand, the Golden Crow Breaking-Aura Sword, the South Bright Departing Fire Sword, and the Celestial Music Silken Sound Sword shot out again, directly targeting the Foundation Establishment cultivators. Startled by the terror, the Foundation Establishment cultivators barely managed to deploy their artifacts to flee before they burst into popping sounds, dissolving into clouds of bloody mist—their bodies and primordial spirits utterly annihilated. Ye Qin's powerful divine sense swept across the entire island; finding no other hidden cultivators, he coldly withdrew his power.
His divine sense was submerged within his Purple Mansion, but that did not mean he was oblivious to external events.
After the third Earth Mansion successfully materialized within his Purple Mansion, his divine sense had already been extended outward, rapidly perceiving the surrounding situation.
It was just that this Stone Bat was excessively tough.
He had exerted immense effort to break out of the cocoon and forcibly withstand the minor heavenly tribulation. For a Core Formation cultivator, resisting the minor tribulation was neither extremely easy nor overly difficult; the most crucial factor was the quality of the spiritual artifacts.
He possessed three top-grade primordial spirit artifacts that he had nurtured for a long time, making enduring the minor tribulation not too difficult.
As for the deaths of those Foundation Establishment cultivators, he could not be blamed for his ruthlessness.
His cocoon transformation was extremely strange; he still hadn't figured out why he crystallized into a cocoon every time he broke through.
It was understandable for demonic beasts to form a Golden Core by crystallizing; yet, for a cultivator to transform into a cocoon upon reaching the Core Formation stage was exceedingly bizarre.
This matter concerned the immense secret of the Purple Mansion. In the East Sea region, experts at the Core Formation and Nascent Soul stages were numerous. He did not wish to attract attention, lest unknown troubles arise. Those Foundation Establishment cultivators who lingered day and night hoping to snatch benefits, and who witnessed him emerge from the stone shell, had sealed their own doom. Ye Qin recalled his primordial spirit artifacts and looked towards the ethereal, graceful figure atop the island's highest peak.
In the past year or so, that graceful figure had grown visibly haggard and thin. A pang shot through his heart.
Huangfu Bing'er had already awakened from the influence of the celestial music and flew swiftly to his side, throwing herself into his embrace.
"Bing'er, you’ve worked hard," Ye Qin said, embracing her delicate frame with emotion.
Huangfu Bing'er clung tightly to him, looking up, her jade-like hand caressing his slightly indifferent face. Ye Qin's features were somewhat thinner, softer; the shyness of the past was gone, replaced by a deeper sense of composure and resolve. His lips were tightly pressed, conveying forbearance and profound understanding. That distant, cold expression was reserved only for others. For her, his eyes held nothing but endless tenderness.
A hint of happiness crossed her face, and two silent streams of clear tears involuntarily flowed down.
"I was just so worried you wouldn't make it out." The small desolate island soon returned to tranquility.
When other cultivators came to investigate the island later, they were astonished to find that the mass of minor heavenly tribulation dark clouds that had hovered over the island for over half a year was gone. However, the strange stone cocoon remained, cracked open with visible scorch marks from the lightning strikes, clearly indicating it had broken open due to the thunder tribulation. The demonic beast they had speculated about had vanished.
Various rumors began circulating in the area. Some cultivators claimed to have seen a sky full of blood-red flames over the island from afar; others swore they saw golden light piercing the horizon; and still others spoke of witnessing mysterious, wonderful celestial music.
Such bizarre occurrences sparked much discussion among Foundation Establishment cultivators within a radius of several hundred miles, who expressed regret.
However, these discussions did not last long. At most, the stone cocoon contained only a seventh-rank, earth-attributed Core Formation demonic beast; anything else was embellished hearsay lacking evidence and hard to believe.
Many Core Formation cultivators on the Northern Islands possessed demonic beasts of that rank; none sought trouble over this peculiar beast. The matter faded like smoke, eventually becoming just another piece of immortal lore among the countless tales of the Northern Islands.
Several months later.
On another desolate island, far removed from the first, Ye Qin brought Huangfu Bing'er to establish a simple new cave dwelling.
Huangfu Bing'er had sustained minor injuries while guarding him. At Ye Qin's insistence, she used spiritual elixirs to recuperate for nearly a month. Only after she had fully recovered did she take the fire-attributed Core Formation Pill and begin refining the spiritual elixir.
The Northern Islands were a place where countless disputes and struggles unfolded daily, driven by the quest for treasures and advantages, day after day.
For Ye Qin, everything happening in the outside world was secondary to Bing'er successfully reaching the Core Formation stage.
Ye Qin ignored external affairs, staying vigil outside the seclusion chamber.
He knew Bing'er was cultivating a dual-element immortal cultivation technique, and her ice and fire spirit roots possessed a subtle imbalance. During the Core Formation process, the ice and fire spiritual energies could easily become unbalanced, presenting significant danger.
If danger arose, he had to intervene to provide aid.
However, for Bing'er to fully refine the fire-attributed Core Formation Pill would take a significant amount of time, roughly several months, before she could fully attempt to break through the Core Formation bottleneck. The immediate few months were relatively safer.
Before that, he needed to wait silently.
Most of Ye Qin's divine sense was focused on monitoring Bing'er’s condition. A small portion of his divine sense was directed towards the floating islands within his Purple Mansion, observing the newest one.
Floating hundreds of miles away from the Wood Mansion and Fire Mansion floating islands, a new, ashen-rock floating island drifted, shrouded in a misty grey fog, obscuring its details.
He now possessed three floating islands, arranged in a triangle within the endless void. On this new island stood an ancient stone stele, about ten feet high and three feet wide. This stele had materialized when the island formed, becoming one with the entire landmass, enveloped by a faint halo of light.
The stele bore many fine, cracked markings that conveyed information: "Destiny Primordial Spirit Stele. Earth Mansion. Total Lifespan Endowment: Four Hundred and Eighty-One. Lifespan Consumed..." Ye Qin gazed from afar at the intricate script on the Destiny Primordial Spirit Stele, musing for a long moment before muttering quietly.
This floating island was, as expected, the Earth Mansion.
This Earth Mansion gave him a feeling of profound stability, solemnity, and pressure. He was still unclear about the Earth Mansion's function. However, he already understood the roles of the Wood Mansion and the Fire Mansion. He could infer the Earth Mansion’s purpose by comparison. The Wood Mansion could grow spiritual herbs, spiritual grasses, spiritual flowers, and spiritual wood, but they required spiritual stones to supply spiritual energy for their growth. The Fire Mansion could nurture flames; one could use spiritual wood to fuel earthly fires, or compress and refine low-grade earthly fires into higher-grade ones.
By inference, the Earth Mansion should be intimately related to earth itself.
He needed to retrieve some items to conduct experiments and confirm his suspicions.
Ye Qin considered the materials within his Purple Mansion; the most abundant were various spiritual herbs. He casually tossed a few low-grade fire-attributed and wood-attributed spiritual grasses from the Wood Mansion into the Earth Mansion to observe any changes.
These low-grade spiritual grasses, upon landing in the Earth Mansion, immediately began to wither and die, then slowly sink, decompose, and after several days, resolved into a small pile of earthen dust. Within this dust were glimmers of red and cyan light.
A thought flickered in Ye Qin's mind, and with a flash of divine intent, a small amount of glittering fragments of fire spiritual stones and wood spiritual stones appeared in his hand.
This sight caused Ye Qin's expression to change in surprise.
He threw spiritual flowers and spiritual wood into the Earth Mansion, repeating the process several times, with the results always being the same.
If he burned these low-grade spiritual grasses with fire, the sinking and disintegration process accelerated; it took only a few hours to yield spiritual stone fragments.
A peculiar expression crossed his face; he seemed lost in deep thought.
If the Wood Mansion used the spiritual energy of spiritual stones to nurture spiritual grasses, then the Earth Mansion did the exact opposite: it allowed the spiritual grasses to sink and decompose, releasing the spiritual energy contained within them, reverting them back into spiritual stones. To verify this hypothesis, and out of caution, Ye Qin performed another experiment.
He used one low-grade wood spiritual stone to cultivate several low-grade spiritual grasses within the Wood Mansion. Then, he placed these several low-grade spiritual grasses into the Earth Mansion, allowing them to decompose back into one low-grade spiritual stone.
Throughout the entire process, the spiritual energy completed a full cycle; the resulting spiritual stone neither increased nor diminished in the slightest.