Chu Chen was stuck at the second level of Spiritual Mist Stage for three years, faced with a bottleneck for three years. He never thought he would advance from the second level to the third in less than six hours. If his junior sister was present at that time, she might have been more excited than Chu Chen and would cry while hugging him.
Chu Chen tried his best to suppress his excitement. He continued to use the Spirit Drawing Mantra to draw in the spiritual energy outside his body. He wanted to see where his limits were after experiencing life and death.
This time, it took another 10 hours. With that, another blinding light that signified his breakthrough came forth, brightening Chu Chen's entire room.
Chu Chen's mind was brightly lit.
After some time, another flash of spiritual light soared to the sky, chasing away the darkness!
Chu Chen finally opened his eyes and let out a deep breath. A sliver of light was appearing in the dark sky outside the window. It was dawn.
In just one day and night, he had managed to break through three levels. Three times! Bringing him from the second level of Spiritual Mist Stage to the fifth level!
The volume of spiritual energy in his Qi ocean, located within his dantian, had increased over a dozen times. It gave Chu Chen the feeling of being charged up with an unending supply of spiritual energy.
From what he remembered, the strongest genius among the external disciples spent over three months to go from the second level of Spiritual Mist Stage to the fifth level of Spiritual Mist Stage. Could it be that he just out-geniused the geniuses in one night?
'I'm finally not useless? Does this mean I'll no longer need to travel long distances just to meet the monthly herb quota?
I don't need to always depend on my junior sister to save me when I'm bullied…
I can finally hope to catch up with that b*stard Yao Jinghai!
I have hope!
I'm not useless. No way!'
Chu Chen's eyes teared up. Over the years, as the trash among the external disciples, nobody knew how much stress he had to endure. He had suffered greatly with the unmoving cultivation as well.
The multiple breakthroughs were something he had been waiting for far too long.
He wanted to rush out of the door and scream his lungs out. 'Calm down,' Chu Chen told himself. One should not grow too arrogant.
After calming down, Chu Chen once again contemplated on what happened to his body.
'Why did the hurricane-like currents that plagued my cultivation disappear?'
All that should have a reason. Regardless, the person Chu Chen wanted to see most at that moment was his junior sister Tong Meng. He wanted to tell her of his transformation, but she was out collecting herbs. 'Will she be fine?'
Chu Chen imagined how nice it would be if she was by his side at that moment. Although he advanced his stage, the exhaustion in his body had not fully recovered.
'I should rest up.' After eating a Qi nurturing elixir that his junior sister left behind, he slowly realized that he was entering another chaotic state as he fell asleep.
Chu Chen had no knowledge that dozens of miles away from him, another him was awakening. To be exact, it was a clone of his that was about to be born.
It was at the edge of the Black Fog Valley, on top of a tomb, in the nest at the top of an old tree.
There was an egg covered in mysterious dark golden patterns. It gave off an aura that suppresses heaven and earth. Suddenly, a small crack appeared on the surface of the egg!
According to legends, only those that reached the peak of the legendary highest possible stage would be able to manifest another physical body, in other words, a clone.
It should be impossible for Chu Chen, a rookie at the Spiritual Mist Stage, to have a clone.
However, during the process of his accidental fall, his strong will to survive caused a portion of his soul to hide into an eagle's egg. Meanwhile, the egg was at the most crucial point of hatching!
Chu Chen could feel his consciousness falling into another chaotic state. Being unable to move, he was extremely nervous.
'I shouldn't have cultivated that hard today! Having broken through three times in a day, it seems I've triggered some heavenly punishment, being thrown back into the world of darkness.'
Very soon, he realized that it was different from his previous experience. This time, the space within the darkness was cramped. It made him feel shackled, causing him to subconsciously struggle about.
Crack!
Along with a crisp cracking sound, a ray of blinding light poured in from above, illuminating his head. The sudden brightness caused him to subconsciously narrowed his eyes. After having adapted to the brightness above him, Chu Chen looked at the source of the light in a daze.
'T-t-this looks like a broken eggshell?'
Chu Chen shook his head and tried hard to poke his head towards the source of the light while his body started struggling. Along with more crisp cracking sounds, the darkness around him began to shatter, and the feeling of being shackled lessened.
Huff!
Holding his breath, he made one last push to break free of the shackles around his feet, the dark blue sky came into view. With that, he let out a deep breath of air.
Chu Chen turned around and looked at the thing he broke free from. He was immediately taken over by a feeling of hopelessness.
He was right. It was an egg. A greyish-white egg with mysterious dark golden patterns on the shell. The shattered eggshells were strewn all around him.
At the edge of the broken shells was a soft golden hue. It would seem that under the greyish white essence of the shell was another layer of gold-like essence.
Chu Chen looked around once more and immediately came to a surprising conclusion. Around him, layers of soft grass were knitted together to form a warm and comfortable bird's nest.
Yes, a bird's nest. Chu Chen had broken out of a bird's egg that was the size of half a basin. As for his body, it would seem that he had turned into a hatchling fresh out of the shell!
It was just too far fetched! He was still a human just a moment ago, yet in the very next moment, he turned into a newborn hatchling!
He was just sleeping in his little hut. How did he turn into a bird after he opened his eyes?
Chu Chen helplessly lowered his head to have a good look at himself.
His hatchling body was covered in a layer of down. From the shape of the body, it looked like a hatchling of an eagle. Although he just hatched, both the creamy yellow claws were exceptionally sharp. It seemed as though it could easily rip through steel.
Compared to the tiny claws, his body was a lot bigger. Just as he tried to walk forward, he immediately rolled over, only able to stop himself after subconsciously stretching both his wings out.
'D-d-does this mean that I'll have to learn how to walk as a hatchling from now on?'
Chu Chen looked at his tender little wings and could not help but feel helpless. However, the next moment he realized that the roll had coincidentally brought him to the edge of the eagle's nest.
From his angle, he could see the green mountain range stretch out indefinitely, all the way to the horizon.
'This scene...why is it so familiar?'
Chu Chen narrowed his eyes and peered with his eagle vision that was far superior compared to humans.
Moreover, the eaglet that Chu Chen transformed into seemed to be even more extraordinary with keener sight. With one glance, he could even see things that were a hundred miles away with impressive clarity.
'That mountain range...how come it looks like Crystal Spring Celestial Mountain? Isn't that courtyard the one where us external disciples are staying?'
The longer Chu Chen observed, the more shocked he was. When his vision swept downwards, that entire stretch of the mysterious valley covered in black fog took his breath away. It was Black Fog Valley!
That was where he met his accident. He remembered the tree on top of the tomb at the edge of Black Fog Valley. On top of that tree was a worn-out eagle's nest.
He was in that very nest!
Chu Chen felt devastated. He was only sleeping in his sect. Never did he expect to wake up turning into an egg in an eagle's nest!
'What was going on?'
Chu Chen closed his eyes. He could faintly feel that several dozen miles away, there was another him that existed.
Could there be two of him? One was sleeping at the sect, while the other turned into the little eagle on top of the old withered tree?
Chu Chen's mind was filled with many questions. The nest was not small. It seemed to be about the size of a carriage's wheel. He was the only one in the nest with no other eagles. It would appear that there was some irresponsible eagle that laid the egg and just flew away without a care.
While Chu Chen was looking around, he did not notice a breeze blowing. Unknown to him, a small amount of black fog unique to Black Fog Valley drifted to his nose.
When he detected the pungent smell, he finally realized. Once he saw it, he was immediately shocked to his core!
It turned out the entire nest was covered by a thick layer of black fog without him realizing it. From the looks of it, it must have been blown upwards naturally by the winds in Black Fog Valley.
The magical fog from Black Fog Valley kills all who touched it! That was something all the members of Crystal Spring Sect knew about. Back then, it was because of him accidentally inhaling some of the fog from Black Fog Valley that led to him taking a trip between life and death.
Right then, he had just sucked in some of that nightmarish magical fog once again!
Chu Chen's heart skipped a beat. However, to his surprise, apart from the slightly pungent smell, his body did not show any abnormal reaction after inhaling that black fog. It would seem that this eaglet body of his was immune to the fog.
'That's right. If the eagle dared to build a nest right above Black Fog Valley, it must've been immune to the black fog. If that was the case…'
Chu Chen suddenly thought of the reason he came back to life. Perhaps his accident here allowed him to acquire this eaglet clone of himself. The eaglet was immune to the black fog, which led to his main body to recover on its own.
Finally understanding the reason behind his recovery, the happy Chu Chen once again shifted his gaze to the Black Fog Valley.
An unstoppable urge started welling up in Chu Chen's heart. He would never forget the terrifying scenes he witnessed back when his soul first projected out of his body and dove into Black Fog Valley.
The strewn corpses around the mountain, the shattered and forgotten weapons, magical treasures...If he was immune to the black fog, it meant that he could come and go as he wished in Black Fog Valley when he grew up and learned to fly.
The entire region was filled with corpses of godly demons and shattered treasures. That would make it a treasure mountain with unimaginable riches!
Godly demons from the ancient past had terrifying cultivation. Their bodies were cultivated to the manifestation stage, making them immortal. Leaving others aside, just the corpses of those godly demons of old would be the ultimate treasure. Moreover, their weapons, magical treasures, and other things were left behind too.
Those heavenly treasures were refined using divine materials for eons. Even a shard from them would be many times superior compared to the common weapons of the current times. Furthermore, if one was lucky enough to find a treasure or two that were undamaged...that would be a great fortune!
Unimaginable! Chu Chen's heart was filled with unprecedented joy. Putting all else aside, he clearly remembered seeing Crystal Spring Sect's founding ancestor's storage ring, the Ring of Green Fortune Emperor, at 1000 feet from the entrance of Black Fog Valley back when his soul toured the celestial mountain. That ring was gleaming brightly, obviously suffered no damage at all!
It was the founding ancestor's storage ring! How much good stuff was stored in there? It was unimaginable!
If he got his hands on those things, would he still be afraid of that trashy eldest senior brother, Yao Jinghai?