Chapter 386: Who Is Allowed to Leave the Table

Receiving such a large amount of Imperial Dew Paste was a gift from the heavens, but sometimes, even a meal could be fatal.

Of course, He Lingchuan knew nothing of the underlying principles. He didn't even have time to consider whether the God-Slaying Pill's berserk performance was normal. He simply scrambled to guide the true energy through his meridians towards the Shanzhong acupoint.

However, the torrent of true energy was excessively violent; his main meridians simply couldn't withstand it. He Lingchuan felt his entire body swelling, expanding like a balloon. If he couldn't immediately divert the flow, his meridians would rupture, and he would explode with a "bang," splattering across the entire cavern.

What to do?

The opened meridians couldn't contain it, so... so...

Let's include those that haven't been cleared yet.

Either way, failure to clear them means death, and having them ruined by the impact also means death.

He Lingchuan was not one to sit idly by and await death. Acting on his thought, he immediately guided the majority of the true energy torrent towards the extraordinary meridians.

He had only opened two extraordinary meridians previously, and the rest were meant to be slowly unblocked through painstaking effort. But now, he couldn't afford to be so careful; he directly sent the violent true energy to impact the Ren and Du meridians.

These were the two most important meridians among the eight extraordinary meridians, regulating the flow of yin and yang energy within the body. The Ren meridian, in particular, was the shortest path for true energy from the lower Dantian to the Shanzhong acupoint. He Lingchuan, practicing the Zi-Wu Art, most desired to open these two channels, but unfortunately, they were also the most difficult, and he had intended to tackle them last.

Today, he would tackle them all at once.

Either they opened, or he died.

The pain of true energy forcefully breaking through the blockages felt as if someone was driving steel nails into his meridians, puncturing them countless times.

Normally, he would have screamed aloud, but now, he couldn't even utter a sound. He could only grit his teeth and endure.

If he couldn't endure, it was death.

He watched as the extraordinary meridians, usually completely blocked, were pushed open little by little by the torrent of true energy. This resistance only grew stronger, yet the true energy torrent's clearing speed paradoxically accelerated, much like a locomotive gaining speed after a difficult start.

From Guanyuan, Qihai, Shenque... all the way to Jiuwei, Zhongting, and Shanzhong!

Yet the true energy did not stop; it passed the Shanzhong acupoint without entering, continuing its upward journey to conquer other acupoints.

At the same time, the Du meridian was also being forcefully expanded.

To wait for these two divergent paths of true energy to converge, He Lingchuan had no choice but to guide the remaining true energy torrents to circulate through his main meridians for several cycles.

Approximately fifteen minutes later, the Ren and Du meridians were forcefully opened.

As his entire body's energy began to circulate, He Lingchuan let out a long breath. He only felt the two newly opened meridians throbbing with excruciating pain.

The ferocity of the true energy had inevitably damaged the meridians themselves.

Fortunately, at this moment, the protective properties of the Imperial Dew Paste began to manifest, rapidly repairing the damage just caused.

He Lingchuan had no time to spare to check for internal injuries, because the torrents of true energy, which had split into several paths, had finally converged once more, directly surging into the great Shanzhong acupoint!

After so many detours, he had finally reached this stage.

To expand a single point into a second Dantian required explosive power.

Without the Imperial Dew Paste, He Lingchuan would not possess such power at his current stage. The conventional method would be to repeatedly purify and compress the true energy within the Qihai until it could be compressed no further. Then, this extremely pure true energy would be used to impact the Shanzhong acupoint.

Even then, failure was possible, as each person's physical condition was different, and there was no fixed formula or standard.

However, today he was utilizing the power of heaven and earth. His concern was rather that the Imperial Dew Paste's power might be too great and rupture the Shanzhong acupoint, instead of failing to burst it open.

Helian Chen had told him to choose the Shanzhong acupoint for opening the second Dantian first. This was mainly because the spot between the eyebrows was too close to the brain, and there was a fear that he might go mad and become an imbecile if anything went wrong. This was a case of choosing the lesser of two evils.

However, the Shanzhong acupoint was one of the body's famous vital points; even if struck by an outsider, the consequences could be dire, let alone an excessive internal explosion caused by oneself.

In a flash, the medicinal power of the God-Slaying Pill surged into his body. Before it was even fully compressed, it forcibly blasted open a sea of qi!

After the first explosion, the power of the God-Slaying Pill was not exhausted at all. A second and then a third explosion immediately followed.

The power was simply more than a human body could bear. He Lingchuan immediately vomited three liters of blood, feeling as if a large hole had been blasted open in his chest.

He immediately tried to guide the true energy away from the Shanzhong acupoint, but it was too late. The power of the God-Slaying Pill was rapidly converging, preparing for a third explosion.

He Lingchuan inwardly groaned in despair.

The Floating Life Blade seemed to sense something was wrong and trembled slightly, but as its master, He Lingchuan couldn't spare any mental effort to attend to it.

Was Heaven going to destroy him this time?

He Lingchuan appeared to still be sitting upright on the ground, as quiet as ever.

Except for the twitching muscles in his face and the constantly throbbing veins in his neck.

In the tall grass outside the cavern, insects were performing a grand chorus. Frogs and venomous snakes had also traveled from afar, looking for a buffet.

The fierce tiger lay on a large rock by the cavern entrance, oblivious to any abnormalities.

The eyeball spiders were nearby, feasting heartily on two tightly wrapped grasshoppers suspended by a single strand of silk.

No creature knew that He Lingchuan was going through immense suffering, treading on the brink of life and death.

Nor did anyone notice that the large clump of moss deep within the cavern had turned from dry to wet. It had completely regained its vitality and was splitting and growing outward at an astonishing speed.

It had no legs, but it could advance step by step towards the cave entrance by replicating and growing.

That is, it was moving towards He Lingchuan's back.

By now, it could no longer be called a clump of moss, but rather a vibrant, thick fungal mat. Spores emerged from it like bamboo shoots after rain. At first, they were mere tiny dots, but within a few breaths, they grew into white, red, or red-and-white mottled mushrooms.

After they unfurled their caps, they began to tremble, and each tremor released a large amount of dust into the air.

In just a short while, hundreds of spores grew on the fungal mat, and the dust they released filled the entire stone cave.

This toxic dust had strong hallucinogenic properties. Any creature that inhaled it would quickly fall into a coma or a state of madness.

But He Lingchuan's eyes were closed; he was completely unaware.

At this moment, he was absorbed in his internal breathing, not breathing through his mouth or nose.

Instead, the mirror hanging at the cave entrance sensed something amiss:

"Hey, there's something behind you, hey!"

He Lingchuan had positioned the mirror facing the cave entrance to guard against external enemies. Who would have thought the anomaly came from deep within the stone cave!

Darn it, it couldn't turn its head on its own and couldn't see what was happening behind him!

The mirror cried out, but He Lingchuan didn't respond.

This was bad.

If this newly acknowledged master were to perish, and it had no mirror servants, it couldn't get out of this cavern by itself!

What to do, what to do?

As the mirror was churning with anxiety, the fungal mat had already extended to He Lingchuan.

At this moment, another kind of creature appeared on the mat:

White ladybugs.

They hadn't flown in from outside the cave but had emerged from within the fungal mat. It was unclear if they had resided there all along or if their eggs had hatched temporarily.

As soon as they emerged, they began to voraciously devour the fungi, and their bodies grew rapidly at a visible speed. In no time, they transformed from sesame seed-sized to hazelnut-sized.

Only then could one clearly see that they also had an antenna-like appendage on their tails, connected to the fungal mat.

At this moment, the fungal mat also "crawled" to He Lingchuan's side, silently encircling him.

As if counting three, two, one, the fungal mat suddenly flipped inward, enveloping He Lingchuan entirely with a "snap!"

It was as if he had tightly wrapped himself in a blanket, from head to toe, without a single strand of hair showing.

The ladybugs on the fungal mat simultaneously received a command and simultaneously crawled onto He Lingchuan's body. Three or four grouped together, each aiming for several vital acupoints.

From their mouths, they extended sharp, needle-like proboscises, piercing the acupoints precisely through his clothes.

Of course, this included the Qihai and Shanzhong acupoints.

The true energy within He Lingchuan's body was immediately absorbed in a continuous stream.

If the old residents of this forest had witnessed this scene, they would have known that the man-eating fungus was hunting again.

This creature fed on living beings. The ladybugs residing within the fungal mat had a symbiotic relationship with it, extracting nutrients from the living creatures' bodies to feed the fungal mat in return.

Of course, the order of absorption was true energy first, then flesh and blood.

When He Lingchuan refined the God-Slaying Pill, the man-eating fungus awoke. It had lurked here for a long time, only launching its sneak attack when He Lingchuan was completely absorbed in meditation.

The day after the Imperial Dew Paste erupted, there were plenty of opportunities to seize.

If it couldn't find an easy score, it would settle for meat.

The ladybugs began to suck, making gurgling sounds. Both they and the fungal mat were overjoyed:

The true energy within this prey's body was simply too abundant!

It was like someone going to an unremarkable small restaurant, expecting only to eat fried noodles, only upon sitting down to discover it served a full Manchu-Han Imperial Feast—the kind where you couldn't leave until you finished everything.

Yes, you couldn't leave until you finished it all.

These hundreds of ladybugs sucked voraciously, and the true energy flowed continuously along the tubes on their tails to the fungal mat.

The latter slowly expanded, every hypha becoming thicker, longer, and more vibrant. Spores emerged from the fungal mat in batches, each consisting of hundreds, growing from small to large and then bursting open, all within a few seconds.

The mirror shouted, "Hey, hey, what's going on here!"

It released a malevolent spirit to act as its eyes and finally saw clearly the changes occurring inside the cave.

"What the hell is this thing... oh no, this is the man-eating fungus!"

This was bad; He Lingchuan was completely enveloped by it, his fate unknown.

Just as the mirror intended to notify the fierce tiger to come to the rescue, the fungal mat had already turned deep red and was rapidly expanding towards the outside of the cave.

*Clang*, the mirror was knocked to the ground, landing in a small corner. From there, it had a perfect view of everything inside the cave.

Uh... it wasn't as if it hadn't seen man-eating fungal mats before. How could this one be so berserk?

In fact, the fungal mat itself wasn't doing well either.

It had been happily enjoying its "buffet" from He Lingchuan and then became full.

This was the first time the fungal mat had been sated without completely draining its prey. It ordered the ladybugs to release He Lingchuan, planning to resume feeding after it had digested the newly acquired true energy.

Anyway, the prey was infused with the ladybugs' venom and couldn't even lift a hand.

However, when the ladybugs tried to disengage, they discovered the most critical problem:

Their proboscises couldn't be retracted!

The true energy within He Lingchuan's body was sucking their proboscises in reverse, rendering the ladybugs immobile. They had become direct conduits for the outward flow of true energy, which continuously surged into the fungal mat.

Now, no one was allowed to leave the table!