Chapter 26- Longmin's Nagging Feeling

*Hey there you lovely readers,

I'm going to be taking a two-week hiatus..... It's just some college stuff no big deal, I'll be writing chapters whenever I can during that time. When I come back I'll probably be dishing out two or three chapters a day in the first week I'm back.

Well, see ya my lovely readers!! Hopefully, I'll see you guys in two weeks, Bye!!

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Somewhere in the northeastern area of the inner region, there was a large ruin palace surrounded by mountains and tall trees. At the front, several pavilions and courtyards were scattered about, practically in rubles with vines and bushes covering them. Walking through here, someone would be able to reach what was supposed to be the back of the palace.

Passing through the arching doorway and then turning a hard right, the spectacular sight of a natural spring would enter one's view.

As the water seep through the mountain rocks, it created a waterfall that splashed onto the large boulders in the two acres wide pond below it.

The large pond glowed an orange hue as the four suns high in the sky blared their light rays onto it, a rainbow had also formed across the waterfall giving it an otherworldly feeling.

Within the forest trees surrounding the pond, howls of demonic beasts would ring out from time to time.

Some distance away from the edge of the large pond the two black-robed bodyguards were seated cross-legged on top of two peak tier rank 3 demonic beasts, with the pond to the backs.

Aside from the large Sparrow, the other demonic beast was a crimson red salamander. As it lay there its scaled body was around four hundred and fifty meters long, with sharp claws that casually dug into the hard grassy ground below it.

As the sounds of demonic beast echo from the forest, the bodyguards were calmly sitting there with their eyes closed, but the two demonic beasts would shift their gaze towards the forest trees, ready to attack anything that came out.

On some rocks, at the edge of the pond, several pieces of garments could be seen thrown over them.

In front of the waterfall, on top of a rock, sat Longmin butt naked.

His eyes were closed as the strange aura in the Pocket Realm took on the shape of a swirling wormhole that surrounded him.

The strange aura that permeated the entire Pocket Realm was also within this pond, but the purity of this strange energy within it was at least a hundredfolds purer than the energy outside.

Longmin inhaled, and a stream of the strange energy from within the pond swirled around him, before entering his nostrils. Using his Spiritual Sense Longmin guided the stream of strange energy through his meridians by following a certain path to reach his dantian.

Within Longmin's dantian was a dark void-like space, that had a gigantic circular rune formation with several symbols in the center. At the edge of the formation were nine smaller runes with four of them being taken up by four huge golden pillars. Each pillar had rune inscriptions on them that pulsated with power as the condensed Spiritual Qi inside of them circulated.

These golden pillars were known as Qi Pillars, they were created by condensing the Spiritual Qi of heaven and earth together. After condensing the first three, one would be considered an early-stage Foundation realm cultivator, condensing the sixth and ninth, one would be considered a mid-stage and late-stage Foundation realm cultivator. In the Qi Gathering realm, a disciple would start to gather the Spiritual Qi of heaven and earth within their dantian's Qi Sea, after progressing to the 9th level they would then develop their Spiritual Strength and used it to condense all of the Spiritual Qi gathered so far into the first Qi Pillar, thus entering the early stage of the Foundation Building realm.

The time spent for a normal disciple to go about doing this was around six to seven years. Geniuses with natural cultivation talent on par with Longmin and Longwei were able to complete this process in just four years.

Upon entering the Foundation Building realm, a disciple would move on from naturally absorbing Spiritual Qi, to using a cultivation technique.

The reason for this is that Spiritual Qi absorption in the Foundation realm is a lot more demanding than in the Qi Gathering Realm. Qi Realm disciples' bodies weren't able to handle the strain posed by the strength of a cultivation method's Spiritual Qi absorbing process, as their body was just introduced to Qi and hadn't yet gotten used to it.

The types of cultivation methods weak to strong are, Earth-level, Saint-level, and Heaven-level. These levels are further sub-divided into low-grade, mid-grade, and high-grade. Every cultivation method also has its own unique techniques and Daoist magic known as complementary techniques.

The more powerful a cultivation method was the faster a disciple's Spiritual Qi absorption and cultivation speed would be. The Qi that's absorbed would be a lot purer as well.

Longmin's cultivation methods, both the Emperor's Tactics Manual and Seven Daos Runes scripture, were Saint-level cultivation methods along with the other Legacy Techniques in the Wu Clan.

He was currently using the Seven Daos Rune Scripture to absorb the strange energy from the pond. As the stream entered into his dantian he used his Spiritual Sense to guide it towards his fourth Qi Pillar.

Looking at it, one could tell that it was slightly shorter in height than the other three and it looked a little unstable as well. As the strange energy entered into his fourth Qi Pillar it trembled for a moment before it actively started to suck in the strange energy.

The height of the fourth Qi Pillar would increase as it continued to greedily absorb the strange energy. When it reached the same height as the other three the suction force it emitted stopped and then it started to shimmer in soft golden light.

Seeing this Longmin cut the flow of the strange energy, then with a thought from him, his Spiritual Sense cluster together to form a soul projection that slowly floated in the dark void.

Longmin's soul projection had his original appearance, but since it was just a projection, the only color that was visible aside from the black and white were the swirling blue and gold runes within his eyes.

Those eyes were curiously looking between his fourth Qi Pillar and the other three.

He then glanced down at the massive red rune down below.

After a while of silently observing, Longmin thought to himself, 'There's no change. I thought condensing one of my Qi Pillar with this energy would lead to some kind of change within my Qi Pillar, but it's no different than using Spiritual Qi. Maybe it's due to the fact that I had already condensed a third of my Qi Pillar with Spiritual Qi before finishing it with this strange energy. I wonder what would happen if I condense my fifth Qi Pillar entirely of this energy, would there be a change then?'

As Longmin thought this, he looked over to the rune next to his fourth Qi Pillar, then with a swing of his arm, he sent the stream of energy towards it.

After the energy entered the rune it started to condense into the base of his fifth Qi Pillar, albeit rather slowly.

Longmin then thought to himself again, 'It would take a while for me to condense my fifth Qi Pillar, and the Pocket realm is only opened for a full day. If I stay here for that entire time and solely focus on cultivating maybe I'll be able to condense about 2/5 of it, but I can't do that, brother and I have already decided to explore the Pocket Realm together, so spending all my time doing this would be a waste, especially if it turns out to be a fruitless endeavor.'

Longmin's soul projection had on a deep frown.

He wanted to figure out why this energy felt so strange to him, ever since he stepped into the Pocket Realm he just had this nagging feeling deep down that made him unsettled.

His brother hadn't felt anything off about the energy, but Longmin could guess why.

All though it was small, he was still able to notice that after absorbing the strange energy, a sliver of it would force itself from his control and head towards his granduncle's runic seal.

He wasn't talking about the one below him, this red rune was a product of the Seven Daos Rune scripture he cultivated, the one he was talking about was the one located in his soul.

Longmin glance at his fifth Qi Pillar that already had a corner of its base forming before he closed his eyes and vanish.

The space between the eyebrows was where a person's Sea of Consciousness and soul reside.

Longmin appeared in that location and looked around.

White clusters of fog were all around him, from time to time they would show images of his bitter-sweet memories.

With familiarity Longmin began to float through the fog, glancing ever so often at the images to his lift and right. After a while, he stopped in the depths of his Sea of Consciousness and waved his hand.

The fog that was within his surroundings began to move away on its own. When Longmin's vision became clear, what appeared before his eyes was a two hundred meters large semi-transparent version of himself.

It was his soul.

Longmin's soul was seated cross-leg with its hands forming a circle above its dantian as if it was in meditation.

Aside from its massive size, one striking feature that stood out on its large body, was the rune on its forehead that flashed in multi-colored light.