Su Yan's mind blazed with possibility. As a qi refiner, controlling his own power was natural. Gods shaped their power into flying swords. He could shape his vital energy into a sword too!
He tried again and again to form his energy into a blade. Each attempt failed.
He refused to give up. But a sword shape was different from the Elephant King manifestation. The divine form followed a fixed path within his cultivation method. A sword had no such structure. He needed to control his energy consciously, forcing it into a blade's shape. The difficulty was extreme.
"Maybe I should start with controlling the willow branch."
He poured his energy into the branch, using his spiritual awareness to guide it. Slowly he loosened his grip.
The branch wobbled, then floated in the air.
Su Yan grinned. With a thought, the branch flew, weaving unsteadily through the air.
Yuan Qi gaped. "He actually did it... Which sentence of mine enlightened him? If I can enlighten him, I can enlighten myself!"
Confidence surged through him. If Su Yan could do it, so could he!
Su Yan practiced controlling the branch, running through the sword techniques he had comprehended. The willow branch was too light, difficult to control. Slight excess force ruined the form.
He practiced clumsily, again and again, learning to balance his thoughts, spiritual awareness, and energy.
His progress astonished even him. Soon he had developed a flying sword technique, controlling the branch through all the basic sword moves.
Yuan Qi still hadn't figured out which of his words had helped. He watched Su Yan perform with proper form and felt bitter despair. "What use is this brain of mine?"
The willow branch hovered half a foot above Su Yan's shoulder, following his movements. He frowned. "My flying sword moves like my own arm, but can I project sword energy and sword glow the way I do when holding a blade?"
Yuan Qi saw his frustration and said, "A-Yan, I hear that smart people can draw inferences from one instance..."
Su Yan's eyes lit up. He clapped his hands. "You're absolutely right! Thanks for the pointer! I finally understand!"
"I wasn't finished... Never mind, as long as you're happy."
Su Yan explained excitedly, "You said draw inferences! I use spiritual awareness to control the energy in the branch. That awareness is like my arm. When I hold the branch, energy flows through my arm into it to create sword energy. So I can send my own energy continuously through the spiritual connection into the flying branch, projecting sword energy and sword glow!"
The willow branch circled them at high speed. A sharp cracking sound burst from its tip.
Yuan Qi jerked his tail aside as invisible sword energy sliced past. A boulder behind him split in two, dust rising.
Su Yan sent the branch flying everywhere. Sword energy flashed from its tip, unstoppable. One slash cleanly severed a massive tree's crown.
The crown whooshed through the air, flying a dozen paces before crashing down.
Yuan Qi's heart pounded. That crown weighed thousands of pounds, yet Su Yan's strike had hurled it a dozen paces. The power in that single blow was staggering.
This sword energy rivaled the gods' incense flying swords.
Su Yan recalled the branch, laughing. "Little Seven, without your guidance, I'd never have mastered flying sword technique so quickly!"
Yuan Qi summoned his courage. "See, reading is useful. A-Yan, since I guided you to learn flying sword technique, could you teach it to me?"
Su Yan nodded readily. "Of course. It's simple."
Yuan Qi practiced for a long time, growing suspicious. "Simple? Are you tricking me?"
He tried again and again. The branch refused to lift.
Su Yan abandoned him and continued studying. He suddenly wondered: if spiritual awareness and energy could make the branch fly, and his awareness didn't bear the branch's weight, could he stand on the branch and fly?
He tried immediately. The branch rose. He leaped onto it. The branch snapped and fell.
He tried again. And again. The branch couldn't support his weight.
"A-Yan, we're at Mount Wuwang!" Yuan Qi suddenly sped up. "Come! This is my home! My family has lived on Mount Wuwang for three generations! North is the Shuikou Temple, west is Yilin Temple, south is Mount Xiao, east is Niaotang Village. Wild fruits everywhere. In autumn, transformed yao carry ripe fruit to trade for rice in the markets!"
He rushed onto the mountain, pointing west. "Look, that's Yilin Temple. The abbot is the yao god Bai Junzi... Wait, where's Yilin Temple?"
Yuan Qi froze. "No! No! Where did Yilin Temple go? And Shuikou Temple! Where's Niaotang Village?"
He raised his head, confused, looking around. "Is this still Mount Wuwang?"
The familiar surroundings had vanished. Instead, towering peaks surrounded them, carved by knife and axe. Rivers ran through valleys. A vast lake spread in the distance like a sea.
Only Mount Wuwang remained familiar.
Suddenly the earth shook. Mount Wuwang rumbled upward, massive rock faces emerging from underground, growing taller and taller!
A cliff formed before Yuan Qi, sheer and impossibly steep, growing outward from the mountain itself.
Moments later the cliff reached a thousand zhang. Boulders tumbled from its face, crashing down with thunderous impacts.
Yuan Qi looked up, eyelids twitching. Two characters were carved into the cliff face.
Wuwang.
His familiar Mount Wuwang was gone. Only Wuwang Mountain remained.
"Qinyan Cave! Yes! My Qinyan Cave must still be there!" Yuan Qi slithered down the slope toward the cave.
Su Yan followed. Soon Yuan Qi found his home. Multicolored light poured from the cave mouth, surging with vital energy.
Su Yan approached. The light touched his body, and his healed wounds began itching unbearably.
He tore open his collar and stared.
Several wounds marked his chest, including three bone-deep claw marks from the stone mountain god that had nearly disemboweled him. After bathing in dragon blood at the Terrace of Longing, the wounds had closed but left horrifying scars.
The worst scars had looked like small red dragons sprawled across his chest, rough and ugly to the touch.
Now those scars were fading rapidly.
The skin beneath became indistinguishable from the surrounding flesh. No trace of injury remained.
"This Qinyan Cave contains extraordinary vital energy!" Su Yan stared in disbelief. This was really the place where the ox family had lived for three generations?
Yuan Qi's scars faded too. He had never expected this change. Without hesitation, he plunged into the cave.
Su Yan followed, worried. Qinyan Cave stretched more than ten li deep into the mountain. With the mountain's transformation, the cave had grown many times larger, deeper than before.
They pressed forward. Strange fungi grew on the walls, emitting exotic fragrances. Some walls looked freshly formed, without the dark patina of age, yet enormous spirit pearls hung from them, casting faint light.
"Little Seven, your home is huge," Su Yan said, looking around in wonder.
Yuan Qi led the way through winding passages filled with stalactites and strange rocks. Caves within caves connected to each other. Some sections were flooded, requiring them to swim through.
Su Yan carried the bell, following Yuan Qi underwater. Bizarre rock formations surrounded them. Massive stone tablets covered with strange writing lined the walls. The light was too dim to read them.
Without Yuan Qi guiding him, Su Yan would never have imagined such wonders existed beneath the water.
"Qinyan Cave is so complex, pursuers will never find us here!" Su Yan laughed. Wuwang Mountain had become Wuwang Mountain, the geography completely changed. Even Yuan Qi couldn't recognize it. How would officials or the city god find them?
"They probably don't even know where Wuwang Mountain is anymore," Su Yan thought.
Yuan Qi swam toward a stone wall covered in cracks. A section had collapsed, revealing a passage. They swam through and surfaced, finding a white jade staircase rising from the water.
Su Yan followed Yuan Qi out of the water. A white jade bridge stretched across the water's surface, extending into the distance.
Yuan Qi finally relaxed. "My home is still here, my home is still here..."
He led the way. Su Yan walked the jade bridge until the water ahead grew bright and spacious. A white jade palace came into view, stunning in its beauty.
"This is where I cultivate," Yuan Qi said proudly. "Without me leading the way, nobody could find this place!"
Su Yan looked around, speechless. Who would have imagined such a magnificent palace hidden inside a mountain cave?
The vital energy here was even more concentrated. His cultivation improved noticeably with every breath. It was like an immortal paradise.
Su Yan stopped abruptly, heart pounding.
In the center of the white jade palace stood a pitch-black coffin.
Near the coffin, a young woman stood with her back to them, gazing up at a massive jade wall.
"Little Seven, didn't you say nobody could find this place without your guidance?" Su Yan whispered, backing away.
Yuan Qi saw the black coffin and retreated, groaning softly. "For three hundred years, my family lived here. No one else ever came. How did a female ghost find it?"
The mountain's changes had already driven him mad. Now his home had been invaded by a ghost.
The ghost they spoke of was the coffin girl from the stone mountain's abandoned well.
The black coffin in the palace was the same one from the well.
Su Yan would never forget the night the Naihe changed course. He remembered the strange eye in the well controlling them, the blood bubbling up, the girl combing her hair at the well's edge.
"The bell was wounded by her!"
Su Yan suddenly remembered: the bell had suppressed the coffin girl for untold years. Their hatred ran bone-deep.
And right now, Su Yan was carrying that bell in his hands...
He dropped the bell over the bridge's edge.
A dull splash. The bell sank into the water.
The coffin girl turned, startled by the sound. Her face made Su Yan's breath catch.
She seemed to recognize him, slightly puzzled why he could find this place. But she immediately lost interest and turned back to the jade wall.
Su Yan backed away. The bell floated on the water like wood, drifting after him wherever he went.
Su Yan's scalp prickled. He silently urged, "Sink! Bell, please sink!"
The bell seemed to be sulking. It floated steadily on the surface, refusing to sink, as if determined to drag him down with it.
Then a soft sigh drifted from the palace, a gentle voice echoing through the cave like an orchid blooming in an empty valley.
"South of the Xiao River, deep in Cangwu. Beneath Mount Jiuyi, the deathless immortal. This ascension ground has fallen to ruin after all."
The girl murmured, "Could even one as mighty as you not escape sickness and death? Could even your immortal palace become a den for yao and demons?"
The bell shuddered and slowly sank into the water.