By the time he found the cave again, the night had already started to shift into a new dawn.
'Finally found the cave again', he thought, while ignoring the strange feeling he felt within his body.
'I don't remember seeing anything in this cave besides bones and carcasses though? Maybe I missed something', Tang Lin wondered, while scratching his head with his right hand.
Before heading in, Tang Lin decided to inspect the area again to make sure he wouldn't get ambushed by any enemies.
"Ok, all clear! Heavenly treasures, here I come!" he muttered delightfully as he skipped into the cave.
***
15 Minutes later.
"Nothing, nothing, NOTHING! There's not a single valuable thing here!" Tang Lin complained loudly.
"How can there be nothing here? Where's my heavenly treasure?" he said with a frown.
'Haah… I should calm down. According to Shen Long, there should be a heavenly treasure guarded in every cave and altar by a powerful beast. So, there should be something that the frost-scaled basilisk was protecting', Tang Lin reflected carefully.
In the corner of his eye, the milky, azure striped egg glistened in the dark at the very end of the cave. It was the egg that the frost-scaled basilisk was protecting previously.
"It can't be! Is this egg the heavenly treasure? WHAT THE HELL AM I MEANT TO DO WITH THIS?" he grumbled.
'I guess I shouldn't be too negative about it. After all, it's still a heavenly treasure. I wonder if it's the frost-scaled basilisk's egg or will it grow up to be something else?' Tang Lin thought, while furrowing his brows.
Walking up close to the egg, it was massive. The egg was slightly bigger than Tang Lin and exuded a mysterious aura. Upon closer inspection, the azure blue stripes had inscriptions engraved onto the surface of the shell.
"What exactly are you?" Tang Lin asked as he extended his dirty, bloody palm and rested it on the egg.
Suddenly, a bright light emanated from the egg as swirls of air started to form. It was devouring his blood that was stained on his hands as the azure stripes lit up. Correspondingly, a symbol was also being engraved on his forehead in the shape of a dragon.
Runes started to appear in the air as the egg started to tremble violently before moving towards him. The egg quickly shrunk in size as it disappeared into the draconic symbol on his forehead that had finished forming.
Everything had happened so quickly that Tang Lin didn't even have a chance to react in time.
"What the fuck… why do weird things keep merging inside my body", he mumbled as he sat down to meditate.
Sure enough, the egg had somehow moved into his spiritual mind. Although he wasn't too sure on how to awaken the egg within his mind, Tang Lin was still happy that he managed to solve one of his concerns with this incident. Now, he didn't need to worry about how he would transport the heavenly treasure.
"Ugh", Tang Lin moaned unexpectedly.
He finally figured out what the uncomfortable sensation was from before. After going through all the recent life and death battles the heaven and earth qi from the frost-scaled basilisk had finally been fully absorbed by him. Tang Lin's dantian was now filled to the brim and after what just happened; it seemed to have triggered his current situation.
The amount of energy from the frost-scaled basilisk was astonishing. His dantian and meridians were three times the average cultivator on the same level as him, yet Tang Lin was still feeling pressured. Starting his breakthrough, Tang Lin circulated the qi within his body as he struggled against the pain from the overwhelming amounts of qi crashing against the walls of his dantian and meridians, constantly expanding them.
"AH! IT HURTS!" he screamed, while shutting his eyes tightly and clenching his fists.
Usually, when a cultivator makes a breakthrough, there isn't this much of an adverse reaction. However, due to the effect of the crimson bloodline that merged with his principle qi, everything he cultivated would take on a violent and explosive nature. Luckily, Tang Lin's body was previously tempered or his past physique would never be able to handle the pressure.
Over the course of a couple of hours, the outer walls of his dantian and meridians were refined. Inside the cave, Tang Lin had fallen from his meditative posture as he wreathed in agony. He was barely able to maintain his consciousness in order to circulate his qi throughout his body or he would fall into qi deviation.
*Fwoosh*
"Breakthrough!" yelled Tang Lin tiredly, yet excitedly.
Waves of heaven and earth qi condensed after expanding his meridian channels and dantian. Slowly, a wave of crimson qi soothed his pain. He had entered the second Qi Condensation stage.
'It seems that although the use of qi is restricted, we can still cultivate and make breakthroughs somehow', he thought, unaware that he had managed to bypass the laws of this trial.
Standing back up, Tang Lin left the cave as the light of the dawn blinded him for a brief moment.
"6 days left", he reminded himself.
As Tang Lin looked up into the sky, a giant, ethereal scroll had emerged from the sky.
[Ranking - Insert a wisp of your spiritual sense to input your rank]
1. Yan Xue - 971 points
2. Duan Shuren- 863 points
3. Fang Yue - 767 points
4. Xu Yang - 486 points
5. Shen Long - 254 points
6. Shen Yin - 173 points
7. Xu Ming - 89 points
8. Meng Chao - 50 points
9. Jiang Zhen - 33 points
10. Peng Tao - 15 points
'A ranking? Seems like you can choose to show off your points on the leaderboard', thought Tang Lin curiously.
'It would probably be better for me to not publicly reveal my points or that could endanger me', he thought as he left the area.