Sitting alone by the lake, Yawen played with the Heavenly Diamond in her hand, which was the size of a chicken egg.
It had been a year since they arrived in the underground realm they named the "Realm of Clear Blue." During this year, the condition of her grandfather and three older brothers had been fluctuating.
Although they possessed the Heavenly Diamond, which had the power to create miracles, the soul-destroying fragrance they were afflicted with was too powerful. Combined with the fact that they had been poisoned for over a year, the toxins had already penetrated their bone marrow. The immense energy emitted by the Heavenly Diamond could only suppress the deterioration of their condition, but to completely eliminate the toxins from their bodies, they had to rely on their own strength. This was not something that could be achieved in just a few days.
And this was one of the reasons why Yawen had to endure the mystery of her father's life and death and couldn't dare to return to the kingdom to investigate. After all, if she saw it with her own eyes, anyone would hold on to a glimmer of hope for their father's life and death, no matter how slim that hope may be.
Another reason was that the Greedy Wolf Star had been in its growth period for over two years, but it had yet to enter the metamorphic and mature stages.
Yawen was puzzled by this matter, and even Hanluo, who was knowledgeable and Yaxu, who was cunning, couldn't explain it either.
For this matter, Yawen even stopped practicing the Heavenheart Technique, and instead let the Greedy Wolf Star attach itself to her body, providing it with the energy it needed for growth with all her might. However, strangely, after coming to this Realm of Clear Blue, although Yawen let the Greedy Wolf Star attach itself to her body, she clearly felt that the amount of energy it absorbed was astonishingly little, so little that Yawen could hardly feel if the Greedy Wolf Star was really absorbing energy from her body.
For this reason, Yawen even took the initiative to use a technique he had learned from a secret manual over the past year, forcibly infusing his massive Tianxin true qi into the Greedy Wolf Star that was attached to him, and compelling the Greedy Wolf Star to absorb it. This technique was originally intended for treating injuries with qi, but Yawen made some modifications to use it to infuse Tianxin true qi into the Greedy Wolf Star.
However, the result was disappointing. The Greedy Wolf Star seemed like a bottomless pit, absorbing almost all of Yawen's energy, including his mental power, but there was still no change as if it was completely unaffected.
As a result, it took Yawen nearly two months, with the help of the energy from the Divine Diamond, to recover his original level.
After this incident, Yawen began to wonder if it was because his energy was not enough for the growth of the Greedy Wolf Star?
So Yawen made up his mind and took out the only Divine Diamond he had obtained, which was divided equally with his family, and used his powerful mental depth to combine it with the unique skill of the Greedy Wolf Star called "Fusion", causing the Greedy Wolf Star to "eat" the Divine Diamond.
He hoped that the seemingly endless and massive energy of the Divine Diamond would help the Greedy Wolf Star enter its mature stage.
However, Yawen was disappointed once again.
After swallowing the Divine Diamond, the Greedy Wolf Star did not gain the steel-like hair of the Bloodthirsty Tentacles or the highly organized organization like the Platinum Horn Python, nor did it possess the immense energy of the Divine Diamond as it did in the previous two times.
The Divine Diamond swallowed by the Greedy Wolf Star returned to its original form, with the only difference being that it was embedded in the solid chest of the Greedy Wolf Star, as if the Greedy Wolf Star had always had the Divine Diamond on its body.
In addition, the Greedy Wolf Star remained unchanged, except for a faint blue light shining among its original golden and silver brilliance.
At this point, Yawen had to declare his abandonment, as he could not figure out why the Greedy Wolf Star had not yet entered its mature stage as a Beast Illusion Armor.
Finally, everything can only be attributed to the fact that Greed Wolf Star is an ancient mythical beast left over from ancient times. There must be many things about it that he doesn't understand. After all, Greed Wolf Star has been in the egg stage for hundreds or thousands of years. Perhaps, when the time comes, Greed Wolf Star will naturally enter the mature stage!
However, there is still a shadow that fills Yawen's heart with deep fear. What if the growth period of Greed Wolf Star also requires hundreds or thousands of years, just like the egg stage? Then what about him...
Sitting alone by the lake, Yawen held the God's Diamond borrowed from his elder brother in his hand. Although the God's Diamond could not help Greed Wolf Star enter the mature stage, its effects could not be ignored by Yawen.
Over the past six months, Yawen had been practicing the Tianxin Technique using the God's Diamond he borrowed in turns from his grandfather and three older brothers.
Every time he held the God's Diamond to practice, he could feel an indescribable energy flowing out of it, a peculiar energy that made him feel both cold and hot, a strange sensation of mixed cold and heat, making him feel extremely comfortable all over his body.
And when he circulated his true qi to dissolve this peculiar energy, it would naturally merge into his true qi, strengthening his Tianxin true qi, so that Yawen's cultivation progress was more than twice as efficient as usual.
Moreover, Yawen discovered a great function of the God's Diamond. When he placed it in his lower abdomen dantian for cultivation, the God's Diamond would emit a wonderful gravitational force, accelerating the circulation of his Tianxin true qi, making each cultivation session much shorter, but without reducing the effectiveness.
When he joyfully told his family members, including Hanluo, about this discovery, they tried it out and indeed found that the cultivation of their Pomo true qi became more efficient. This significant discovery allowed the whole family to have extra energy to use true qi to eliminate the soul-destroying fragrance in their bodies.
In addition, Yawen also found that placing the God's Diamond on his forehead for cultivation of mental power had the same effect.
So whenever Yawen had free time, he would take turns cultivating his Tianxin true qi and mental power using the God's Diamond.
However, because his God's Diamond had already merged with Greed Wolf Star, he couldn't use it for cultivation and had to borrow the God's Diamonds from his family members every time, which was quite troublesome and also delayed their recovery from the poison of the Silver Blade family.
Therefore, Yawen often went to the lake to look for God's Diamonds from the Platinum Horned Python that had submitted to their family. However, it seemed that the largest God's Diamonds the Platinum Horned Python brought ashore a year ago were the biggest ones, because although the Platinum Horned Python had also found some God's Diamonds in the past year, the largest ones were only the size of mung beans.
After practicing with the trial cultivation of Yawen, she found that although these green bean-sized divine crystals contained immense energy, they were far inferior to the chicken egg-sized divine crystals of Yuanxin when used for cultivation. It seems that the efficacy of the divine crystals is directly proportional to their volume.
Today is Yawen's last attempt to make the Platinum Horn Python try.
During this year, Yawen day and night wanted to uncover the mystery of her father's life and death and seek revenge for her family.
Now, she couldn't bear it anymore.
She had made up her mind. In the past year, there had been no pursuers coming to this clear blue realm. With her ancestors and brothers gradually recovering, and the remaining poison not being completely eliminated in a short time, this place, besides being extremely concealed, was also guarded by a Platinum Horn Python. She believed that there would be no safety issues.
Now there was no reason to stop her from returning to the kingdom.
As Yawen was lost in thought, the lake water in front of her suddenly churned, and a snow-white horn emerged, followed by a huge snake head, which was the Platinum Horn Python.
After surfacing, the Platinum Horn Python let out a light hiss and shook its head at Yawen.
Yawen sighed softly, "Still haven't found any?"
The Platinum Horn Python shook its head, opened its big mouth, and extended its blood-red long tongue, throwing three small blue divine crystals the size of green beans towards Yawen. Yawen reached out and caught them.
Looking down at the palm of her hand, she saw three divine crystals the size of green beans and sighed, "It seems that these divine crystals are really formed by the long-term precipitation and accumulation of lake water. There won't be any larger ones. Well, Jinjiao (the name of the Platinum Horn Python), don't search anymore."
Hearing this, the Platinum Horn Python shook its massive head, hissed lightly, and turned around to sink back into the lake to continue its slumber.
Yawen smiled bitterly, took out a fist-sized white bag from her pocket, opened the mouth of the bag, and put the three divine crystals in her hand into it. The bag felt heavy, indicating that it contained quite a few small divine crystals.
Standing up, Yawen put the large divine crystal in her hand and the bag containing the small divine crystals back into her pocket, and walked towards a wooden house less than a hundred meters away from her.
The small wooden house, if it can be called a house, is not very appropriate, because it is supported by eight large pillars that are three meters high and have a diameter of nearly 80 centimeters. There is no roof, only a few smaller pieces of wood covered with bark to form a few compartments. Each compartment is no larger than two square meters and is also covered with bark.
Originally, the compartments were separated by hand-woven straw mats, but now they are all rolled up, with no furnishings inside.
The central compartment is the largest, about five square meters, with nothing on the floor, except for a few dry logs about 70-80 centimeters high and as thick as a waist, and a large tree trunk about one meter high and two meters in diameter in the middle, with several rough pots and cups made of wood.
Han Luo, Ya Hua, Ya Xu, and Ya Ruo are sitting on low logs around the tree trunk, apparently using them as their living room and bedrooms.
Originally, in this blue realm of the cave, there was no strong sunlight, and there was no need for a house as it wouldn't rain or have windy weather.
But due to habit and the need for training and detoxification, they still built such a crude and simple wooden house.
When Ya Wen saw all his family gathered together, he seemed surprised. Looking at the position where the sunlight was projected through the crystal on the top of the cave, it was still early morning when the sun had just risen.
In the past, at this time, Grandfather and the brothers were either practicing or still sleeping. Why were they all gathered together today?
Han Luo and the others saw Ya Wen approaching, and Ya Hua was the first to exclaim excitedly, "Ya Wen, come here quickly, your second brother has made a new discovery!"
Ya Wen was taken aback and wondered, "What new discovery?"
Although filled with questions, Ya Wen quickened his pace and came to his family's side, sitting down on the only remaining wooden chair, and asked, "What new discovery, Second Brother?"
Yaxu, who was usually calm, couldn't hide his excitement at this moment. He said, "Actually, this is not a new discovery. Yawen, do you remember that you mentioned to us before that Xiaoma once taught you to practice in continuous cycles of thirty-six?"
Yawen nodded, wondering what this had to do with thirty-six cycles.
Yaxu continued, "Last night, I was struggling to break through in my practice, unable to force out the Soul-Extinguishing Fragrance from my body. Suddenly, I remembered what you told me."
"At that time, I was stuck in a bottleneck, so I made up my mind to try the thirty-six cycles you mentioned."
"You see, in the world of martial artists, when practicing, each time is usually focused on one cycle, mainly due to limitations of time and concentration. Not everyone has the special mental power like you."
"Yawen, you were focused on mental cultivation from the beginning of your practice, and you were already accustomed to practicing thirty-six cycles during the foundation-building cultivation. So it seems easy for you, but for me, it's different."
"I was used to practicing one cycle at a time in my training, so suddenly practicing thirty-six cycles requires me to exert thirty-six times the mental effort, which is really challenging."
Yawen was surprised to hear this. He couldn't imagine that for him, practicing thirty-six cycles in one go was as easy and natural as drinking water, but according to what his elder brother said, it seemed like a difficult task for him?
Yaxu continued, "Last night, with determination, I started practicing the thirty-six cycles as you said."
"At the beginning, I did indeed encounter difficulties, especially when attempting to complete one cycle and immediately enter the second cycle in the local market. I found it almost impossible to restrain my true qi and redirect it back to my dantian. Fortunately, I was mentally prepared and forced myself to skip the dantian and go directly to the second cycle after only one cycle of practice. With the experience from the first cycle, the second and third cycles were not a problem, and I continued to progress smoothly until the thirty-sixth cycle."
"However, I overlooked one thing, which is that the mental power required to complete thirty-six cycles in one go is not something that a first-time practitioner like me can easily bear."
"Fortunately, on the one hand, I was mentally prepared, and on the other hand, the miraculous effect of the Divine Diamond greatly accelerated the circulation of my true qi during practice, significantly reducing the estimated time required. In this way, I finally managed to barely complete thirty-six cycles."
Upon hearing this, Yawen asked anxiously, "Elder brother, what is the result?"
Yaxu happily replied, "It's truly amazing. After practicing thirty-six cycles, I feel that my Demon-Breaking True Qi has made great progress. If I can persist in this practice, I believe not only can I expel the toxins from my body, but my Demon-Breaking True Qi will also greatly advance."
Yawen was overjoyed for her family upon hearing this.
Hanluo couldn't help but stroke his long beard and smiled, "I have practiced martial arts all my life, and only today have I gained new knowledge in martial arts. I didn't expect my daughter-in-law, who knows nothing about martial arts, to teach me, her father-in-law, what true martial arts is. It turns out that martial arts are about constant innovation and improvement, that's what true martial arts are."
As he spoke, Hanluo was momentarily in awe, but he didn't expect his four grandsons below to show thoughtful expressions.
Hanluo laughed and said, "Strike while the iron is hot. Let's practice and improve ourselves!"
After saying that, Hanluo stood up, ready to start practicing, but Yawen suddenly exclaimed, "Grandfather, please wait a moment, I have something to say."
Han Luo was taken aback, then sat back down and asked, "Yawen, what's the matter?"
Yawen thought for a moment and said solemnly, "Grandfather, I want to go back to the kingdom for a while."
As soon as these words came out, not only Han Luo was stunned, but also Yahuang, Yaxu, and Yaruo were equally shocked.
Yahuang immediately opposed without hesitation, "Yawen, you want to go back to the kingdom? No, it's too dangerous, you shouldn't go."
Han Luo looked at Yawen steadily, sighed after a while, and said, "Yawen, you finally brought it up. I've noticed that your heart has not been here for the past two months, and I believe you have already made a decision! Perhaps I can't stop your determination either."
Yawen nodded firmly, he had made up his mind to go to the kingdom.
Yahuang saw that Han Luo seemed to agree, and said, "No, I still object. Going back to the kingdom now is like seeking a dead end, it's too dangerous, I object."
Yawen spoke softly, "Big brother, don't worry. I believe that with my current cultivation level, unless I encounter a true expert, I should be fine. Moreover, I have gone through countless battles during my year of exile, so you can trust my abilities."
"Besides, with my current appearance, I believe that no one would recognize me as Yawen Stadak unless I tell them myself." Yawen gently touched his white long hair that had grown to his back and said.
Upon seeing the long white hair of Yawen, Hanluo and the others fell silent. It was a perpetual pain in their hearts, representing the sorrow of the past for the Starks family.
The deep sorrow in his heart made Hanluo sigh deeply involuntarily. "Yawen, go ahead! Take good care of yourself. Even I can't bear the pain of losing another family member again."
Yahua smiled bitterly, not knowing what else to say, and could only pat Yawen's shoulder heavily to express his concern.
Yaruo also sighed along with Hanluo, saying, "Yawen, Third Brother was also against you taking risks again. But when Third Brother saw your white hair, Third Brother didn't know what to say to stop you. Promise Third Brother one thing, don't leave any trace that will make Third Brother regret for the rest of his life outside of the white hair. Otherwise, Third Brother will never forgive himself for agreeing to let you take risks today!"
Upon hearing this, Yawen couldn't help but nod with tears in his eyes.
Lastly, Yaxu said calmly, "Yawen, this time when you go out, you must remember one thing. You are not just one person. No matter what you do, even if you don't think for yourself, you must think for Grandfather. Don't let us worry, okay?"
Yawen nodded.
After tidying up a bit, Yawen walked into the tunnel under the gaze of his family and set out on his journey.
The time was the year 3773 in the calendar of the mainland, also the year Yawen turned eighteen and the continent was about to plunge into another war.