At this very moment, if one were to examine closely, over a hundred inscribed talismans could be seen drifting within Zong Shou’s Sea of Consciousness vortex.

And as Zong Shou willed it, entirely new Zhen Lu Ling Jin (True Talismanic Spiritual Restrictions) were manifesting in the void at the very center of that Sea of Consciousness.

Normally, condensing even a single one required Zong Shou to expend vast amounts of time and endless effort. Yet, at this juncture, his mental state was abnormally excited; not only was his focus absolute, but his inspiration seemed bottomless. With just a flicker of intent, he could paint the void and scribe a Zhen Lu Ling Jin.

The fierce, all-out battle fought earlier against Hu Qianqiu, under the immense pressure exerted by that Earth Wheel Eighth Meridian Xuanwu Sect master, had pushed his life potential to the brink of explosive release. His mind and spirit had remained continuously heightened, and all his thoughts were exceptionally clear and transparent.

If he were to seize this moment to cultivate his Qi, he would surely advance by leaps and bounds. However, the first to benefit was Zong Shou’s nascent soul.

“The number of Zhen Lu Ling Jin is sufficient; today is the perfect time to condense the Zhen Fu Ling Jin (True Talismanic Spiritual Restrictions)!”

Talismans (Fu) represented the fundamental laws of Heaven and Earth, while Inscriptions (Lu) were the external manifestations of those laws and all ensuing phenomena. The quantity of Zhen Lu Ling Jin was enough, meaning these talismans gathered within his Sea of Consciousness were adequate to support the establishment of this core law.

As Zong Shou’s intent rose, those haphazardly scattered Zhen Lu Ling Jin rushed wildly from all directions. All the talismans converged at the center of the Sea of Consciousness, continuously combining and restructuring.

In less than a moment, a silver-white character appeared within the vortex of his Sea of Consciousness. Fine filaments of electricity branched out and spread in all directions. In mere moments, they saturated his entire divine soul. This power then merged seamlessly with the silhouette of the Thunder Luan above, becoming even more imposing and magnificent.

The first Zhen Fu Zong Shou chose was the character for ‘Lightning.’ This was not only due to the innate mark of the Thunder Luan within his body, but also because this specific Zhen Fu was the most potent among all the talismans.

As this Zhen Fu Ling Jin materialized, subtle flashes of lightning began to shimmer around Zong Shou’s body. A sudden realization surged within him: from now on, when casting Lightning-element Dao techniques, he could skip the majority of the necessary hand seals and incantations. Furthermore, the might of these techniques would increase by at least twofold, making him far stronger than others who had also condensed the Lightning character Zhen Fu!

Then, his Sea of Consciousness abruptly swelled outwards. Stimulated by the new Zhen Fu, all the soul energy within it abruptly divided—once into two, then into four—and finally ceased expanding only after its scope had nearly doubled.

“So fast! It grew by nearly double; condensing Talismanic Restrictions truly is the orthodox path for a Spirit Master’s soul power growth!”

Zong Shou’s eyes lit up, revealing a measure of pleasant surprise. In his past cultivation, even utilizing the Swallowing Heaven Primordial Transformation Great Method for daily practice, his soul power would only increase by about six parts in a thousand daily. But this single achievement had nearly doubled it. The Zhen Fu Ling Jin fundamentally enhances the essence of one's spirit and soul, so its effects naturally differed vastly from ordinary cultivation.

Zong Shou intended to press on and immediately condense the second Zhen Lu character, ‘Water.’ However, after drawing just two more Zhen Lu, a throbbing ache bloomed in his temples, and his consciousness felt hazy.

“Reached the limit! Indeed, there’s no such thing as reaching the heavens in a single leap in this world!”

Zong Shou did not dwell on it; he decisively halted his meditation and resumed his breathing exercises. The cultivation of the World-Defying Spirit Art, however, was far simpler than gathering the Zhen Lu.

Inhaling and exhaling the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth, after several cycles, the true Qi within Zong Shou’s body began to surge. He continually urged and fused the newly augmented World-Defying True Strength—water and fire weaving together like a spiral, churning forward through his meridians.

The remaining acupoints on his Lung Wheel had long become exceedingly lax due to Zong Shou’s ten continuous days of non-stop fist practice. Today’s battle with Hu Qianqiu had shattered them completely. Zong Shou opened them one by one with almost no effort. Then, all that power gathered into a single stream, like two fine ‘needles,’ piercing fiercely into the Outer Wheel.

As those blockages were broken open, more innate vital essence within his body converted into water and fire true Qi, flowing into the meridian wheels throughout his body. Zong Shou leveraged this momentum, pressing his advantage, sweeping aside all obstacles, piercing every vital point in his Outer Wheel one by one.

The nine wheels of the Body Wheel were each composed of twenty-four major acupoints and countless minute subsidiary points. Only the Outer Wheel was different, possessing a total of forty-eight major acupoints distributed across the entire body. Due to the parallel nature of his meridians, Zong Shou’s Outer Wheel comprised ninety-six points in total.

Using the Golden Needle Meridian Probing Technique, Zong Shou had only managed to locate twenty-six spots—or fifty-two meridian points—based on his prior knowledge of the human meridian system. The remaining acupoints were still beyond his identification. Gathering the strength of his entire body at this moment, he managed to blast open only twenty-four of those major acupoints before his momentum began to wane. Almost every time he opened a point, a bloody hole erupted somewhere on his body.

He still possessed residual strength internally; with a bit more accumulation, he should be able to penetrate a few more points. But Zong Shou understood the wisdom of stopping while ahead. After cycling his energy through a few more major orbits, he let the flow of Qi and energy in his body gradually stabilize. All his true Qi returned to his Qi Sea and the subsidiary points throughout his body.

“Indeed, battling a strong opponent to stimulate life potential is the best shortcut to cultivation. Under normal circumstances, even with the Thunder Luan essence within me, I would need nearly two months of arduous training to open the Outer Wheel! But today, it was achieved in one go, equivalent to four months of hard cultivation. It’s a pity that suitable opponents are rare in this world; fighting without the right match yields no benefit—”

Though today’s battle was not one of life-or-death struggle, the pressure from Hu Qianqiu, the profound martial artist of the Earth Wheel Eighth Meridian, benefited Zong Shou far more than his previous fight against Li Xieling of the Hundred Thousand Blood Killers. What he gained now was only the initial harvest; the rest would gradually manifest over the coming month. The stimulation of his life potential would cause his body to absorb more innate vital essence gradually. His cultivation speed for the next few months would also increase dramatically, enough for him to easily step into the peak realm of the Body Wheel.

“The nine wheels of the Body Wheel—I wonder what my current strength is?”

As Zong Shou’s will moved again, a ball of vital energy suddenly shot out from his fingertip. It showed water and fire entwined, flashing with electric light; this single strike projected nearly two zhang (about 6.6 meters).

“Qi projection of one zhang and seven chi! My World-Defying Spirit Art’s spiral true Qi is already more concentrated, sharper, and more refined than ordinary martial arts. Calculating based on this, my strength should be around ten thousand jin (about 5,000 kg)!”

Zong Shou felt a touch of frustration. The number of acupoints on his body was fully double that of a normal person! Furthermore, because he mastered the Golden Needle Meridian Probing Technique, while others could only open a dozen major acupoints on one meridian wheel, he could open and connect all of them. Logically, his strength and true Qi reserves should be nearly double that of an ordinary Martial Master. But because most of his true Qi was lost to internal friction, his strength was merely equivalent to that of an ordinary Nine-Meridian Martial Master, perhaps only slightly superior, and his endurance was far inferior.

This was despite his recent continuous strengthening of the spiral meridians. Before this, when he had just entered the Seventh Meridian Secret Martial Master realm, he didn't even possess eighty percent of a normal person’s strength. He could only hope that when the spiral meridians fully solidified in the future, this situation would improve. He wasn’t asking for double the strength of others, but since the cultivation time required for his parallel dual meridians was more than double that of others, his strength and true Qi reserves should logically surpass ordinary people somewhat.

With a slight sigh, Zong Shou closed his eyes again. The sword fight not long ago had done more than just stimulate his life potential; it had also been a tempering for his swordsmanship. Having to rebuild his entire swordsmanship from scratch was actually a good thing. It allowed him to reflect on himself, discover many past shortcomings and errors, and even find areas for improvement to become more refined, thus building a more robust foundation. The fierce struggle with Hu Qianqiu had exposed many flaws in his sword techniques. Especially those final few sword strikes, which had nearly propelled his fundamental martial arts into an entirely new realm!

Just as Zong Shou’s Cloud-Turning Cart sped southward toward Cloud Land, at the very spot where Zong Shou and Hu Qianqiu had fiercely battled— Two slender figures stood atop a nearby hillside, taking the highest vantage point. They were the same two individuals who had appeared at the location where Li Xieling died. Among them, Qiu Ling was holding his arms across his chest, his shrewish face filled with impatience.

“Senior Brother Yun, what are you still looking at? There isn't the slightest trace here.”

“There are no traces!” The young man surnamed Yun nodded, gazing into the distance. Where his gaze fell, there was only a flat expanse, with a sparse scattering of a few trees. Nothing remarkable, but, “Yesterday, the Qi here was so immense that even City Lord Lianhai dared not approach carelessly. The complete lack of residual signs is rather suspicious—”

“That makes sense!” Qiu Ling chuckled dismissively. “But since the place has already been cleaned up, any further investigation by us is useless!”

The young man surnamed Yun smiled silently, offering no rebuttal, only saying lightly, “I forgot to mention, news arrived from Cloud Saint City this morning: Master has already investigated. The innate experts near Cloud Saint City did not approach Blood Valley that day. There is another matter: this Crown Prince of Qian Tian Mountain also knew Gong Xinran at Linhai Academy. Two years ago, their relationship was quite intimate.”

Qiu Ling’s eyes immediately brightened, a thoughtful expression dawning on his face. “So you mean this Crown Prince of Qian Tian Mountain is suspicious? Although he himself is disabled, his father left behind quite a few subordinates. Oh, these past two days have indeed been strange. Yun Xia Mountain and Blazing Flame Mountain were prepared to gather their forces to ambush and kill this Crown Prince near here. But since midnight yesterday, the spies following those two factions were all wiped out in an instant. And Zong Ling, we don’t know where he is. Figures like the Purple Thunder Spear Sect Master have also vanished without a trace—quite bizarre. If we eliminate everyone else, only this Crown Prince remains as the suspect.”

The young man surnamed Yun remained noncommittal, a cold glint in his eyes. “If most of the enemies are dead, regardless of whether it was him or not, simply slaying this boy should mostly avenge Elder Mi!”