Although he still had plenty of questions in mind and plethora of terrible scenarios in his imagination, Cao Yun was as determined as he could be. After running away and hiding for several months, either from Can Mouye or the Bone Demons, he was tired. Just as he was tired of grasping at straws when it came to finding clues about his family's massacre. What he had tried to do in the Lunar Marsh, he would do this time to Can Mouye. He was going to bring the fight to his enemies instead of waiting for them to act first.
Hopefully, that would become a habit...
In a very short time, he would finally reach the Mortal Warrior realm. Then, his possibilities would increase considerably. Not only would he be able to manifest his Qi and practice more powerful martial arts, he would also develop his other occupations through the control of Qi. And most importantly, he would finally be able to use a spatial ring.
But for now, Cao Yun was focused on the present. Dreaming about the future was a luxury he had not for the time being. The path he had chosen thanks to his mental map would take around two weeks or even less. And although he had to row the partially destroyed ship, Cao Yun could still focus most of his mind on other tasks. Fortunately, the main two things he needed to work on did not require him to use his body much.
In order to increase his performance, Cao Yun had also focused all of his mind cultivation. His Chamber of Government allowed him to stay focused way longer on a single task. And he also noticed that it was able to reduce his mental fatigue. Incidentally, he also realized that he required half as much sleep as before. Then, his Chamber of Ultimate Truth and his Chamber of Jade were still as useful as ever to improve both his understanding and his intuition. Not only could he get most of what he had read, he was also able to make connections with many other things he had already assimilated. And besides that, his mind was full of more novel ideas. Of course it was difficult to quantify, but he was convinced that he had more now. Again, that could have been just an illusion.
The two tasks he had to perform both consisted in understanding a manual.
First of all, 'Ashen Feather Seal' was about focusing one's Qi within to hide his presence. This was the easy task. Indeed, Cao Yun had received it directly from Huang Liyue. The manual was not finished because Huang Liyue was still literally creating this technique. And she had even given Cao Yun an altered version to try and preserve some of the secrets of her family. Namely, she had subtracted some parts concerning blood cultivation. But this was still a superior stealth technique compared to what Cao Yun already knew.
For the time being, Cao Yun put the first chapter, 'Burning the Cinders of the Six Openings', aside. It could improve his senses. Later on, that would be useful. But right now, this was of no use to him. Thanks to his Drop of Wrath, he was able to feel Evil Qi as well as if he had spiritual senses. And since his enemies were using Evil Qi, he would have no problem detecting them from afar. That in itself would increase his stealth. But he had to get close to them because the yellow lake was quite literally under their feet.
Hence, he had to work on his stealth as much as possible. For that purpose, he focused on 'New Life Through Ashes' and 'Covering the Mud with Cinders'. After touching upon the sensation of Qi Manifestation for a mere instant at the bottom of the ocean, Cao Yun realized that he had improved his ability to produce the strange ashes of this technique. This was a kind of internal Qi Manifestation, turning Qi into ashes to then seal certain acupoints. The more he would be able to produce those ashes, the better his stealth would be. Then, he simply needed to send them at specific locations and keep them there.
Of course, this wasn't as easy as that because the natural flow of Qi would always collide with them. So it was necessary to protect them and guide them constantly. Mentally, this task was rather exhausting, even with his mind cultivation. For a Spirit Warrior like Huang Liyue though, it should have been relatively easy thanks to her Soul Embryo.
Cao Yun would obviously not reach Huang Liyue's level before a long time. That said, he could still be able to hide from Can Mouye's senses. On the other hand, he had no idea about possible spiritual senses from the fake Cleansed Asura. In the time he had, he would try to improve as much as possible. Apparently, the last chapter could greatly increase his stealthiness, 'Blood Withers While Life Flourishes'. But this was the one that had been the most altered by Huang Liyue. Indeed, as the name suggested, it related a lot to blood cultivation. And she had taken many inspirations from 'Nine Chambers of Life Fire'.
Thanks to his own blood transformed by the Drop of Wrath, Cao Yun was able to catch a glimpse of some concepts hidden within though. Maybe he could use his new blood to somehow imitate this chapter. Thus, he tried to pour the intent from the Drop of Wrath into the ashes manifested through his Qi. For now, that wasn't very good, but he felt as though he was close to understanding something important. Maybe he could even somewhat improve Huang Liyue's technique by adapting it to his own blood.
Apart from his stealth, the second thing he required was the ability to manipulate Death Energy. For that, he only had the untranslated 'Death Verses' with only a handful of Insight Writings he was able to understand, but also his own experience.
During his time in this world, Cao Yun had already absorbed a certain amount of Death Energy, now agglutinated around both of his Po characters, the one within his Drop of Wrath and the one outside of it. Hopefully, he could use this to try and improve his training. Right now, what he needed was not something fancy. Being able to freely control Death Energy would be nice. But this was impossible in such a short period of time.
Thus, he focused on performing what he would have to. Following Cleansed Asura's visions, Cao Yun knew that he would need to extract and condense a drop from the Yellow Sorrows Water. So the very first thing he needed was the ability to sense what was going on inside this yellow lake. Unfortunately, he had no yellow water on hands. For now, he decided to stick to trying to feel the Death Energy already within his sea of consciousness. In order to do so, Cao Yun circulated his Po characters, looking for any sign of the Death Energy's presence. Moreover, he also focused on the Insight Writings from 'Death Verses'.
Such a training was very frustrating. Even with the intent from the Drop of Wrath, the sensations were few and very elusive. As soon as he was able to feel a strand of Death Energy, it almost disappeared. In a sense, it was like trying to catch a fish with his bare hands.
But there was another part to this training, to extract a drop of the Yellow Sorrows Water, just sensing it was not sufficient. After that, he needed to be able to control it. Cao Yun had no spiritual senses and could not control his Qi outside. But he had his Drop of Wrath. When it came to Evil Qi and Death Energy, this drop of blood was incredibly useful. By infusing it around him, Cao Yun could detect Evil Qi and even control it to some extent. Hopefully, he would be able to duplicate the prowess with Death Energy.
Once more, he had no Death Energy on hands. But he still had the Death Energy within his sea of consciousness. Thus, he mainly focused on his Po characters to familiarize himself with the sensations of Death Energy. Even manipulating Evil Qi was easier. After all, Evil Qi was just Qi intertwined with something else. In the end, it wasn't that different from Qi. On the other hand, Death Energy was not only related to souls which were more difficult concepts, but it was a degenerate form of soul.
Using his mind to the best of his abilities, Cao Yun spent the two weeks of travel juggling both activities. On one hand, he was familiarizing himself with Death Energy, trying to feel every sensation from it. On the other hand, he was learning to control the ashes in his body while attempting to form more and more of them.
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This time, Cao Yun was able to avoid the paper boats. Several times, he was able to sense them approaching and avoided them. Most likely, it was a good sign. Not only was he feeling the currents through the Evil Qi in the black water, but he was also getting a bit more sensitive toward Death Energy. Indeed, those paper boats had Death Energy in them. At one point, the idea even popped in his mind to maybe use them in order to advance his mastery of Death Energy. But he had no idea what they were exactly. Maybe there were paper boats way larger or with strange abilities, just like the Bone Kings compared to the Bone Warriors.
During the travel, Cao Yun decided to stay cautious. Besides, he knew precisely where to find Death Energy to train. The best way to understand the Death Energy within the yellow water was with the same yellow water.
Until he reached the shore, Cao Yun focused mainly on his stealth, knowing that he would switch his priority once he would be back on the continent.
And after an uneventful crossing, the 'Feng Soaring Junk' hit the shore. To be more accurate, it hit the foot of a cliff. Since Cao Yun had no idea whether the Bone Demons would be awake or not by the time he reached the continent, he had chosen to go through a path that was rather isolated. Thus, in front of him was a giant cliff against which the 'Feng Soaring Junk' had collided into. Although the shock was not that intense, the boat had already suffered a lot of damage. Besides, most of the Wei Qi produced by Huang Liyue's final attack had dispersed by now, under the effect of the corrosive black water.
Anyway, Cao Yun did not intend to use the ship again. Either he would succeed and Huang Liyue would wake up, or he would die trying. But of course, he did not plan on dying any time soon. Instead, he was absolutely determined to kill Can Mouye, take care of the fake Cleansed Asura and get back to the Hongchen Kingdom with Huang Liyue in perfect health.
With this determination in mind, Cao Yun pierced through the cliff and climbed into the mountains. From what he had seen in Cleansed Asura's visions, those mountains were riddled with tunnels. And because the very rocks had been imbued with Death Energy and Evil Qi, Cao Yun was able to use his Drop of Wrath to get a perfect picture of this underground maze.
For the time being though, he decided to stay here a little while longer.
From his understanding of the geography, in a single week he could get to the yellow lake. Of course, he would probably need to slow down once he got too close to the fallen palace above. But he could allow himself to take a few hours to get ready.
Since he was now faced with a cliff made of rocks contaminated with Death Energy, he would be stupid not to try his understanding of 'Death Verses' on those.
Thus, he sat cross-legged while the dust was settling down all around and over him. Opening all of his acupoints, he used the Drop of Wrath to get rid of most of the Evil Qi while he was focusing on Death Energy. For that, he wasn't using the intent of the Drop of Wrath at all. What he wanted was to improve his understanding of 'Death Verses'. Right now, he was quite literally covered in Death Energy. By climbing into the mountains, his spear had reduced many rocks into dust indeed. But what would have worried him some time ago was now absolutely voluntary and even planned.
An intense sensation of cold took over his entire body. This was not really due to the temperature but to the nature of Death Energy.
Using Po the Metal Corporeal Soul, Cao Yun focused on the Insight Writings from 'Death Verses'. The intent from the Drop of Wrath was protecting his body as the Death Energy was slowly trying to get inside his system. At the same time, Cao Yun was completely focused on perceiving all the subtleties of this corrupted Po. For that, he was also very focused on sensing his own Po. The character in his sea of consciousness was the mental representation of his Po. As such, by putting his focus on it, he was more closely connected to his corporeal soul. Besides there was already Death Energy around this character.
In the end, it didn't take long for Cao Yun to be able to feel Death Energy as well as he had been able to feel Qi when he had first reached 3rd-grade Mortal. He wasn't hoping to become as proficient in it without more training. But hopefully, that would be enough while coupled with the intent of the Drop of Wrath and his mind cultivation. After all, when he had first become a 3rd-grade Mortal, his mind was way less developed and he had not had all this experience. Using his past experience with mastering both the sensation and the manipulation of Qi, he would be able to learn faster with Death Energy.
If he could read the 'Death Verses', he would probably be even faster though. That was quite annoying to think about. And in a corner of his mind, the idea of finally translating everything was still present. For the foreseeable future, he would focus his efforts on understanding this very text. As he would get more proficient, he would also be able to understand the context with more ease and that would help with the overall translation.
Because Cao Yun didn't want to waste too much time, he decided to try and control of few strands of Death Energy. Even though the path he had chosen was rather fast, he had no idea how long this inner world could endure. After all, many more tremors had shaken his crossing already.