Chapter 434: Border Town Inn

In the Blood Mud Space.

Inside the shrine, there was a one-foot-square iron box.

Inside the box was a page from the Bhagaloka Sutra, also known as the Scripture of Luminous Stars.

According to carvings on the stone walls of the underground Immortal Abode, the Scripture of Luminous Stars has a mysterious origin, stemming from a catastrophic meteor shower in ancient times.

During that kalpa, Bhagaloka Buddha rose to prominence, collecting the fallen stars, deciphering their mysterious energies, and forging the Scripture of Luminous Stars.

Each star corresponded to one page of the scripture.

There were forty-two pages in total.

The 'stars' may not have been actual celestial bodies.

However, it was indeed incredibly heavy; even Tang Wanzhou, with his Longevity Realm cultivation, could not move it.

Each page of the scripture was written by Bhagaloka Buddha with his life's devotion, its characters imbued with supreme magical power and its content profound.

Over countless kalpas, the forty-two pages of the Scripture of Luminous Stars were lost one by one. The Twin Rice Sect, after a thousand years of excavation in the underground Immortal Abode, found only nine pages, which they called "Three Thousand Star Bhagaloka."

Without understanding the scripture's true meaning, the Rice Ancestor could only comprehend this one Imperial Art from it.

Li Weiyi believed that what he had found was likely the tenth page.

The Rice Sect possessed ancient Sanskrit texts that interpreted the Bhagaloka teachings, and Li Weiyi had indeed studied them. However, this tenth page of the Scripture of Luminous Stars remained an indecipherable enigma to him.

For days, he had been meditating cross-legged, meticulously sensing the radiant power emanating from this page of the scripture.

Similar to his contemplation of the Nine Heavens Secret Treasury, he simultaneously absorbed the spiritual essence of Buddhism and the light directly into his spiritual realm between his eyebrows.

Within his spiritual realm, the spiritual light of his psychic energy, primarily composed of Golden Crow flames, subtly began to transform.

Time passed, minute by minute.

White specks of light emanated from Li Weiyi, forming a swirling halo around him, imbuing his entire being with a sacred and flawless aura.

He thought of directly absorbing the luminous power because the fragments of the 'Spiritual Platform Blazing Star Stone,' rumored to aid psychics in breaking through realms, were said to be as vast as mountains in their complete form, possibly being one of the meteorites from outside the heavens.

After consuming the 'Star Day Pill,' Li Weiyi's psychic energy had reached the peak of a Six-Star Psychic.

Before this, he had already refined a large number of Spiritual Platform Blazing Star Stone fragments, attempting to condense a seventh psychic star.

However, it ended in failure.

Whether in martial arts or psychic power, the Seventh Realm was an extremely difficult major realm to break through.

The Spiritual Platform Blazing Star Stone fragments had to be used sparingly.

Li Weiyi absorbed the luminous power from the Scripture of Luminous Stars to see if it would make breaking through to a Seven-Star Psychic easier. If it proved effective, advancing to Eight-Star and Nine-Star Psychic levels in the future would naturally be much simpler.

“The spiritual light of my psychic energy, predominantly Golden Crow flames, is incredibly powerful, enabling a combat strength superior to that of inheritors at the same realm. However, precisely because of its potent and masculine nature, it is difficult to condense into a psychic star.”

“The power of light not only softened the turbulent flame-like spiritual light but also elevated the purity of the psychic flames to a higher level.”

Sensing the changes in his psychic energy within his spiritual realm, Li Weiyi stopped absorbing the luminous power and closed the iron box.

He planned to absorb for a bit longer before attempting to break through to a Seven-Star Psychic again.

Reaching the Seven-Star Psychic level would truly open up a vast world of possibilities; there would be few individuals below the Longevity Realm whom he would still need to fear.

As for the martial arts insights gained from contemplating the tenth page of the scripture, they merely manifested as eight luminous script markings on his Divine Pivot Dao Lotus.

The entire scripture contained over four hundred ancient characters.

Even just to imprint all of them would require an extremely long time.

He could only hope that imprinting all of them onto the Dao Lotus would bring about some significant change.

Outside, there was a little tyrant. Li Weiyi dared not linger in the Blood Mud Space. As the space vibrated in ripples, his body returned to his room in the inn.

The guest room was large, divided into an inner and an outer chamber.

Li Weiyi had set up a formation in the inner room, not daring to let Yu'er know the secret of the Dao Ancestor's Tai Chi Fish.

She was Yu'er now, well-behaved and obedient, but who knew if she would be the same tomorrow?

Through the light barrier of the formation, Li Weiyi looked into the outer room. Within his sight, a four or five-year-old girl with a Pure Immortal Physique, dressed in a white gown with two pigtails, sat at a table, writing.

This was a task Li Weiyi had given her that morning before his cultivation.

There was no other way.

He needed to enter secluded cultivation to quickly improve his strength and cultivation, so he couldn't constantly accompany her, nor did he dare let her go out. Thus, he had to find something for her to do.

Yu'er was very capable of calming herself down; she had already copied a thick stack of scriptures.

She continued from morning until late afternoon, as the sun began to set.

“Whoosh!”

Li Weiyi swiped a finger, opening the formation's light barrier, and walked over to her. He inspected the scripture on the table. “Excellent, your writing has improved!” he said. “Are you hungry? Let’s go downstairs and get something to eat.”

“Master, let me finish copying this passage,” Yu'er replied.

Li Weiyi had taught her how to write.

After waiting for about fifteen minutes, Yu'er put down her pen, rubbed her sore little hands, and slid off the chair, holding onto the edge of the table. “Master, let’s go!” she said.

She was wearing a pair of cloth shoes embroidered with blue flowers.

“Don't be so silly in the future,” Li Weiyi explained, fearing future repercussions. “I merely told you to copy scriptures to pass the time when you had nothing else to do, not to copy them continuously.”

“Okay,” she replied.

As they walked down the stairs.

Yu'er pursed her lips, hesitating as if to speak, then suddenly said, “Actually… Master, I also want to cultivate martial arts. I heard Uncle Shopkeeper say that martial arts experts can run on walls and rooftops; it’s really amazing!”

“You don't need to cultivate it,” Li Weiyi replied.

Yu'er looked thoughtful, then asked, “Master, can you already fly and burrow into the ground? Are you even more powerful than martial arts experts?”

“I'm not powerful,” Li Weiyi quickly denied.

Yu'er fell silent, saying nothing more, thinking her master didn't want to teach her.

They arrived on the inn's first floor and ordered three dishes.

Seeing her dejected, Li Weiyi said, “You are suited for cultivating psychic power! I can teach you the methods to cultivate psychic power.”

Yu'er’s round eyes lit up. “Can I run on walls and rooftops?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Can I be as powerful as Master?”

“I'm not powerful.”

The inn was a four-story building with interconnected beams spanning four sections, boasting over fifty rooms, situated in the bustling center of Huangjiang Border City. The innkeeper was no ordinary person; he ran a large business and even hosted spirits from the Netherworld.

The streets outside were much livelier than usual, with large groups of people passing by at high speed quite often.

The sounds of carriages and horses were constant.

On the inn's first floor, the number of transient guests dining in had noticeably increased.

All of them possessed considerable martial cultivation; some carried Dharma artifacts on their backs, others had spatial bags at their waists, and Li Weiyi even spotted martial cultivators in the Dao Seed Realm.

“It’s said that the armies of the Zuoqiu Clan and the Jiuli Tribe have breached Coffin Mountain. However, the Buddhist brigands from Coffin Mountain had already retreated into the Netherworld of the Dead, with Xu Fodu fleeing faster than anyone.”

“What good is escaping into the Netherworld of the Dead? Ordinary martial cultivators will sooner or later become soul food and blood offerings for the departed spirits.”

“Old Zhang, didn't you say yesterday that the human army in the Southern Region suffered heavy losses from a counterattack by the demon forces?”

“That was fake news deliberately spread by the Buddhist brigands of Coffin Mountain to stabilize morale.”

Over the past month, Li Weiyi had heard various pieces of news, secretly organizing and categorizing them.

Some of this information could indeed be confirmed.

For instance: “Jiuli Ancestor Cangming has emerged, all wondrous Lingxiao insects obey his command, and the Evil-Breaking Sect’s yin cadavers cultivate rice”; “Lingxiao City destroyed, millions dead or wounded within the city”; “Flying Phoenix cries, ten thousand demons prostrate themselves”...

Among these, the news concerning the army of departed spirits was the most certain.

This was because Huangjiang Border City was close to the Southeast Netherworld, which was the territory of the departed spirit overlord, “Lord Lan.” During this period, powerful departed spirits fled back daily from the direction of Lingxiao Living Realm.

They hurried on their way, emitting strong aura fluctuations; sometimes they transformed into an eerie wind passing through, other times they caused the earth to quake. Yet, these renowned departed spirit giants from Qingzhou and Guanzhou were all in a state of panic, lacking their formidable might of the past century, not daring to enter the city to stay, and instead fleeing directly into the depths of the Netherworld.

The defeat of the departed spirit army undoubtedly indicated that the war situation was not as dire as some believed.

The innkeeper, named Huang Liao, appeared to be in his forties with a sallow complexion and a cultivation level of the second stage of the Dao Seed Realm. Everyone who could establish themselves in Huangjiang Border City had their own stories and backgrounds.

Li Weiyi had been staying at the inn for nearly a month, and they had interacted many times, each getting a measure of the other.

Huang Liao sat down at the table and said in a low voice, “Brother Li, there's definite news: the Evil Sect is completely finished. Even their main altar has been breached, and Coffin Mountain no longer exists. Large numbers of Evil Sect remnants and Buddhist brigands have already entered the city, preparing to depart by sea from Huangjiang.”

“Depart by sea? Fleeing to islands, or other living realms?” Li Weiyi asked.

The Huangjiang River, with a waterway spanning two thousand li, flowed through the Netherworld of the Dead directly to the East Sea.

The East Sea was an enormous inland sea in southern Yingzhou, long and narrow in shape, with a width of ten thousand li. Its length was astonishing, rumored to be over ninety thousand li, extending deep into the Netherworld.

Normal ships would take several years to reach the other end of the East Sea.

A thousand years ago, when the Lingxiao Living Realm occupied three hundred prefectures, humanity's activity extended two to three tens of thousands of li deep into the East Sea.

Now, however, they could only occupy a small coastal section.

The three islands of barbarian pirates in the Eastern Region—Huaiyi Island, Baiyi Island, and Jiaoyi Island—were all within the ten-thousand-li sea area. Even so, once their maritime formations were activated, the imperial army would be helpless, utterly unable to eradicate them.

The East Sea was perilous and vast, teeming with malevolent demons such as flood dragons, cloud kun, and Xiangliu, among other monstrous creatures.

Both shores of the sea were covered by the Netherworld of the Dead, where terrifying departed spirits frequently appeared.

Consequently, even though the other end of the sea was rumored to connect to a rainforest living realm, no human dared to take that sea voyage route.

There was no cover at sea, making it easy to be targeted by malevolent departed spirits.

Land and underground smuggling routes were comparatively safer. However, it was easy to get lost in the darkness.

Huang Liao said, “They’re definitely fleeing to the islands! With their cultivation levels, a mass escape to the rainforest living realm? They wouldn’t even need malevolent departed spirits to act; if they encountered severe weather, a single large wave would send them all plunging into the sea. The East Sea’s weather is terrifying, especially the Yin Fiend Hurricanes, which can even scatter defensive formation barriers.”

Li Weiyi secretly nodded. The Rice Sect, Dragon Gate, and the barbarian pirates were indeed all in the same boat now.

“Shopkeeper Huang, have you traveled the sea?” Li Weiyi asked.

Huang Liao chuckled, “Back when I broke through to the Dao Seed Realm, I was full of vigor and ambition, believing myself to be a worldly overlord capable of going anywhere. I ventured to the East Sea with others to search for treasures of the Dragon Clan. I barely survived that ordeal and never dared to be so reckless again, settling down honestly to open an inn in Huangjiang Border City.”

Li Weiyi didn't believe for a moment that he was truly 'honest.'

Huangjiang Border City was no benevolent place; anyone daring to stay there was utterly fearless, literally gambling with their lives to conduct business.