I Have An Infinite Cultivation Resource
Chapter 86: Heavenly Might
The rain filling the sky transformed into hailstones. Within the black secret realm, the land was suddenly covered in a layer of crystalline white.
Countless hailstones crashed toward Huo Chuan and the others. The raging winds carried the freezing air with them, and the endless hail fused together into a gigantic wall of ice. From afar, it looked as though the heavens themselves had collapsed.
Ice, rain, and wind combined into one, freezing an endless glacier that swallowed Huo Chuan and the others whole.
"So this is Dongfang Bubai's power?!"
Huo Chuan swung both hands repeatedly, shattering enormous walls of ice one after another. But the wind and rain never stopped. The ice walls continued endlessly, reforming hundreds of times faster than he could destroy them.
"Everyone hold on! I refuse to believe Dongfang Bubai can keep expending power like this inside a spiritless secret realm forever!"
Huo Chuan swallowed several Qi-Nourishing Pills and wrapped himself in spiritual energy. Although the massive ice layers froze around him, the cold itself could not injure him.
"Thank goodness this is inside the secret realm. Who could have imagined Dongfang Bubai possessed such terrifying reserves of spiritual energy?!"
The other Golden Core elders were equally shaken. They hurriedly gathered beside Huo Chuan. The eight of them formed a defensive formation together, smashing apart every incoming wall of ice.
Seeing Huo Chuan and the others trapped, the serpent turned to leave, but Lu You patted its head, signaling it to wait a little longer.
After swallowing several more bottles of Qi-Nourishing Pills and restoring his spiritual energy, Lu You seized the opportunity while the storm still raged and activated another ten thousand Lightning Talismans.
BOOM!
Within the darkened secret realm, violet lightning flashed wildly. Electric currents spread through the ice walls like a gigantic spiderweb, completely surrounding Huo Chuan and the others.
"Such immense spiritual energy! Everyone, stop conserving your pills—hold on! This must be Dongfang Bubai's final wave of attacks!"
Huo Chuan roared loudly as he pulled out Qi-Nourishing Pills from his storage ring and chewed them frantically.
Lu You was using talismans—just a thread of spiritual energy was enough to activate one. But Huo Chuan and the others were using full spells to resist the ice and lightning, consuming several times more energy than Lu You.
Each bolt of purple lightning individually possessed only Foundation Establishment realm power. But when tens of thousands of them connected together, even Golden Core cultivators were forced to deal with them at full strength.
In the distance, Lu You stood atop the serpent, his body cloaked in blood-red energy like some legendary demon from myth.
Watching Huo Chuan and the others trapped within the storm, Lu You calmly swallowed more pills.
Protected by both the serpent and the Hell Avatar, the Golden Core cultivators could not catch him anytime soon. Without flying swords interfering or attacking him, and with effectively limitless talismans at his disposal, Lu You had become the heavens themselves within the secret realm.
"To think dignified Golden Core cultivators are trying to outlast a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator in a battle of attrition. Truly shameless."
After restoring his spiritual energy to full again, Lu You pulled out sword cores from the little cauldron.
Now that he had advanced to the Foundation Establishment realm, the number of sword cores he could control had risen to over twenty.
"Boss, this frozen surface is practically an iceberg. The sword cores can't pierce through it, can they?"
Evil Eye greedily absorbed the cultivation origin blood, inwardly ecstatic.
Since Lu You had advanced to Foundation Establishment, even the origin blood had transformed from Qi Refinement realm energy into Foundation Establishment realm energy.
What did that mean?
It meant taking a single bite was like devouring a Foundation Establishment cultivator whole—and there was so much of it he could eat endlessly without ever finishing.
"Boss, let's stop wasting time fighting Golden Core cultivators. Just find some deep mountain wilderness and let me feast on this Foundation Establishment origin blood for ten or twenty years. By then, you won't even need talismans anymore. Just activating the Hell Avatar alone would be enough to casually crush those Golden Core cultivators." Evil Eye drooled as he whispered his suggestion.
He was capable of evolving. Back when Lu You's cultivation had been too low, Qi Refinement realm origin blood hadn't benefited Evil Eye much. But now that Lu You had entered Foundation Establishment, the energy had undergone a qualitative leap.
If Evil Eye could devour it for over a decade, it would be equivalent to consuming millions upon millions of Foundation Establishment cultivators.
To be honest, despite living for tens of millions of years, the amount of Foundation Establishment realm origin blood Evil Eye had absorbed in just this short period already surpassed the total number of Foundation Establishment cultivators he had consumed in his entire life.
Smacking his lips, Evil Eye sighed emotionally:
"Foundation Establishment cultivators can live for two hundred years. Wow~ Boss, if I can eat for two hundred years straight, then even if your talent never lets you form a Golden Core, I'll still have lived a worthwhile life!"
Lu You's face darkened with black lines, but his focus remained undisturbed. He rapidly attached Mount Tai Talismans onto the sword cores.
Facing the sky-filling ice walls that resembled frozen mountains, he fired all twenty sword cores outward.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
After a string of metallic impacts, the sword cores embedded themselves into the ice surface. Under Lu You's control, the sword cores shattered apart, but the Mount Tai Talismans remained fixed onto the ice.
Suppress!
At that moment, the heavens truly collapsed.
The enormous ice walls emitted thunderous rumbling sounds. The elders resisting the ice were instantly smashed into chaos. Even when they tried to break free, the entire world around them was filled with rainwater.
And where there was rain, there was ice.
All the elders were completely buried beneath the frozen mountains.
The constantly babbling Evil Eye instantly shut his mouth.
Then his pupils trembled violently.
"T-This… Boss, you're suppressing Golden Core cultivators while only at Foundation Establishment?!"
Although Lu You's success this time was aided by both the serpent and Evil Eye, the serpent merely provided mobility while Evil Eye provided concealment.
The true destructive power had come entirely from Lu You's talismans alone.
"I can't suppress them for long."
Lu You looked at the massive ice mountains that had appeared across the ground and sighed softly.
If this were outside the secret realm—where timing, terrain, and circumstances favored him—then any Golden Core cultivators trapped by him would surely die here.
But inside this secret realm, spiritual energy was constantly being drained away. In only a few days, the ice mountains would melt as their spiritual energy dissipated.
"But delaying them is enough. This attack might not kill them, but it'll definitely drain them heavily."
Even if the spiritual energy dispersed eventually, resisting the combined force of the ice mountains and Mount Tai Talismans would force the eight Golden Core cultivators to bleed their resources dry.
By the time they escaped, they wouldn't have much left.
"After all, they're Golden Core cultivators. Fighting them head-on is still too dangerous for us. Once they run out of resources, we win. Big snake, you've lived in this secret realm for so long, so take us somewhere safe."
Lu You dismissed the Hell Avatar and jumped from the serpent's head back into its mouth.
Although Lu Xiao'e kept saying she had "given up," her body hadn't relaxed in the slightest. She was still leaning against the serpent's venom fang, quietly regulating her breathing to recover.
When she saw Lu You jump back in, her eyes dimmed slightly. Clearly, this amount of time still wasn't enough for her Golden Core to recover.
But her mouth remained as lively as ever.
"So you still can't stall them forever, huh? It's fine, it's fine. Life and death are fate. This is just a tribulation on the path of cultivation. How long until they catch up again? Lu You, you'd better calculate the timing carefully. Don't run out of time."
As she spoke, Lu Xiao'e suddenly reacted to something and shot Lu You a teasing glance.
"Hey, hey… you waited until now to come back in. Don't tell me you were afraid you'd finish too quickly and I'd look down on you?"
Lu You stared directly into Lu Xiao'e's eyes.
Then he suddenly walked toward her, grabbed her hand, and rolled up her sleeve.
"Hey, hey, hey—you're actually coming over?!"
The fierce and imposing Lu Xiao'e from moments ago instantly froze when Lu You grabbed her. Her entire body stiffened, her face rapidly turning red. She hunched her neck and tightly shut her eyes, yet even then her mouth refused to admit defeat.
"At a time like this, why are you still touching my arm? There's not even enough time for foreplay!"
Lu You placed two fingers against Lu Xiao'e's pulse. A thread of spiritual energy entered her body as he checked her condition.
Even after consuming an entire bottle of Qi-Nourishing Pills, her spiritual energy remained completely empty.
"Stop letting your imagination run wild. Those Deep Literary Pavilion elders won't catch up for at least another three to five days."
Lu You released her wrist and flicked her forehead.
"How exactly does your Golden Core recover? I checked, and the Qi-Nourishing Pills have no effect whatsoever."
"So those people really won't catch up for another few days…"
Lu Xiao'e opened her eyes. Realizing Lu You had merely been checking her spiritual energy, she immediately regained her spirited demeanor.
She didn't even bother pulling her sleeve back down. Her pale arm openly brushed against Lu You as she spoke.
"Wait, no—that group of Golden Core cultivators headed straight toward your location the moment they entered the secret realm. Something's definitely wrong. Were they deliberately tracking you?"
"The Golden Core cultivators were always near me?"
Lu You's eyelids twitched. His first reaction was to check the storage ring Elder Wen had given him.
Inside his sea of consciousness, Evil Eye frantically shook his head, swearing on his life that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the storage ring.
"Could it be…?"
Lu You finally thought of the Qi-Nourishing Pills and hurriedly took them out from the ring.
Inside his mind, Evil Eye cried out loudly:
"Those old dogs from Deep Literary Pavilion actually engraved a tracking formation onto the pill bottle! Who could possibly have expected that?!"
Afraid Lu You would blame him for carelessness, Evil Eye hurriedly added:
"That bottle was issued to Lu Xiao'e by Deep Literary Pavilion! She was the one who gave it to you that day, so I never checked it…"
"Relax. I'm not docking your food supply."
Lu You also remembered where the pills had come from, and immediately understood everything.
The Deep Literary Pavilion had mistaken Lu Xiao'e for Dongfang Bubai, so they had secretly monitored her. Through a bizarre twist of fate, the Qi-Nourishing Pills ended up in his possession instead.
But honestly, nobody else could really be blamed for this.
After all, the identity of Dongfang Bubai had been fabricated by Lu You himself from the start.
"So it really was this bottle of pills!"
Clearly, Lu Xiao'e had figured it out as well.
But before she could think further, Lu You immediately turned the accusation around.
"Alright then, explain yourself. What exactly is your identity? You infiltrated the Verdant Cloud Sect and ended up under their surveillance too."
"You really want to know?"
Lu Xiao'e hesitated briefly. The playful smile disappeared from her face, replaced by genuine seriousness.
Lu You took half a step back, almost as though avoiding suspicion, and snorted.
"Drop those weird ideas of yours. If you can talk about it, then talk. If not, I'll still treat you as my roommate."
Seeing that Lu You showed absolutely no curiosity and was completely immune to her pitiful-act routine, Lu Xiao'e failed to maintain her solemn expression any longer.
She burst into laughter.
"Stupid Lu You. I was originally planning to seriously trick you for a bit… fine, I'll tell the truth."
Lu Xiao'e touched her storage ring, then took out an ancient map.
The material of the map was exactly the same as the one Lu You had obtained from the inheritance tomb.
Lu Xiao'e openly handed the ancient map to Lu You.
"On the front side of the map is a cultivation technique called the Jade Toad Swallows the Moon Technique. It can absorb all things between heaven and earth to nourish oneself. Every ancient map only records part of the technique. Mine describes Spirit Devouring—if someone gathers the complete technique, they can devour anything in the world containing spiritual energy without wasting even the slightest trace of it, and without being limited by spirit roots."
She glanced at Lu You before continuing:
"Though the portion I possess only records how to absorb heavenly treasures and earthly treasures."
"As for the back side of the map, it contains part of a map pointing toward the next secret realm hiding another ancient map. Only by deciphering the map can one locate the secret realm and obtain the next piece, gradually completing the cultivation technique."
"If all the ancient maps are gathered, you can obtain the complete Jade Toad Swallows the Moon Technique. And the maps themselves will combine together as well."
Lu Xiao'e carefully chose her words as she continued:
"The material of the ancient maps was made from the skin of a Tribulation Transcendence cultivator. It was this very cultivator who discovered something while crossing the tribulation and left behind a warning never to undergo tribulation ascension. He hid his greatest secret within these maps. Gather them all, and you'll learn exactly what that Tribulation Transcendence cultivator discovered."
Lu You held the ancient map in his hand, yet there wasn't the slightest trace of greed in his eyes.
If anything, he looked vaguely disgusted.
"And you're not worried this might be a trap? What if all of you fight and scheme over these maps like poisonous insects in a gu ritual, until only the strongest gu remains… and then that cultivator uses the survivor's body to reincarnate through possession?"
Lu Xiao'e rolled her eyes at him.
"You really cram a lot of conspiracies into that head of yours. That Tribulation Transcendence cultivator was my clan's ancestor. He left behind the maps because he never had the chance to personally return home and tell us what he discovered."
"Our clan possesses a secret technique that allows us to sense anyone who has learned the Jade Toad Swallows the Moon Technique. That's exactly why I infiltrated the Deep Literary Pavilion—to search for the ancient map in their possession."
Lu You tossed the map back to Lu Xiao'e.
"Your family's that powerful, yet they sent only you—a lone Golden Core cultivator—to do something this dangerous in the Verdant Cloud Sect?"
"It wasn't supposed to be dangerous. But for some reason, things suddenly became dangerous."
Lu Xiao'e puffed out her cheeks unhappily. Even now, she still hadn't figured out how Deep Literary Pavilion had discovered her.
"Telling you this much secret information is already enough. Stop prying into my family matters. But if you're willing to join my clan, I can tell you even more secrets."
She grinned slightly.
"Think about it. My clan once produced a Tribulation Transcendence cultivator. Wouldn't our inheritance be far superior to the Verdant Cloud Sect's?"
Lu You looked utterly disgusted.
"If your clan is really that strong, then why are you sneaking around like rats crossing the street to collect the ancient maps? Isn't it because your ancestor discovered something so dangerous that your clan can only survive by hiding in the shadows? The moment you're exposed, you're in danger, right?"
Lu Xiao'e instantly exploded like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
"Ahhh! You're the ones who are like rats crossing the street! We're simply biding our time and hiding our brilliance, okay?!"
Then she angrily glared at him.
"Idiot Lu You! Why'd you throw the map back to me? I already decided to let you learn the cultivation technique inside it as compensation for dragging you into all this!"
"I'm not learning it." Lu You refused immediately.
"Your clan can sense anyone who cultivates the technique. If I learned it, wouldn't that just mean I'd be stuck forever with a clingy troublemaker like you?"
Although he spoke jokingly, his eyes were completely clear. There wasn't even a trace of desire toward the ancient map.
"I get it now. Because you formed your Golden Core by absorbing heavenly treasures, ordinary spirit stones and Qi-Nourishing Pills can't nourish your Golden Core anymore. You need heavenly treasures to repair it, right?"
"Exactly…"
Lu Xiao'e sighed softly.
Inside this secret realm, even spiritual energy itself was constantly being drained dry. There was no way heavenly treasures could still exist here.
"No need to worry too much, I would think of something."
Lu You destroyed the remaining Qi-Nourishing Pills inside the bottle, then casually played with the empty container as a new idea formed in his mind.