Chapter 450: High Zhijian

Li Huowang's eyes snapped open. As he sat up on his messy bed and looked to his right, he noticed sunlight streaming diagonally through the window; it had been bright for a long time.

"I overslept again," Li Huowang thought, ignoring the blood vessels visible all over his body. He quickly dressed and descended the wooden stairs.

"Good morning, Brother Li," Zhuge Yuan said, holding a fan and cupping his hands in greeting.

"Good morning, Brother Zhuge."

Seeing Zhuge Yuan, Li Huowang immediately slapped his forehead in frustration. He had relaxed too much right after returning to the village, forgetting that Zhuge Yuan, who had saved his life, was still waiting for him to be rescued. Practicing cultivation techniques was far more important than anything else.

He grabbed a few steamed buns and some pickles from the table, ate them hastily, and washed them down with some plain porridge. Afterward, Li Huowang found a quiet side room in the Bai family compound, sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and began cultivating the technique.

Following the obscure instructions in the cultivation manual, Li Huowang enveloped the innate grievance with the divine fire from his eyes. The next step was to guide this innate energy, sequentially pushing it through his body's root chakra, sacral chakra, navel chakra, heart chakra, throat chakra, third eye chakra, and crown chakra.

One by one, he had to immerse all his "ten passions and eight sufferings" within the invisible, colorless innate energy.

The process was extremely difficult. Li Huowang felt as if he was trying to push an elephant with a wheelbarrow; after a long time, it hadn't moved an inch.

However, he wasn't in a hurry. Cultivation wasn't something to be rushed; it required persistence.

Since the Xin Su tricked by Beifeng could achieve it, he was confident he could too.

He didn't know how much time had passed. When Li Huowang finally opened his eyes, feeling exhausted, he noticed the sky outside the window had grown dim. Inside the side room, the furniture was completely askew, and parts of the floor and walls were bulging and sinking.

Seeing this, Li Huowang frowned. Practicing this cultivation technique caused strange changes in the surrounding environment. It seemed he couldn't continue practicing in Niuxin Village; he needed to find a place where he wouldn't accidentally harm others.

Li Huowang stood up and walked towards the door. As he opened it, he was surprised to see a young boy abruptly standing on the ceiling directly above him.

When the boy saw Li Huowang, he recoiled in terror, clearly frightened, scrambling backward along the ceiling with all his limbs.

As Li Huowang looked at the boy in confusion, wondering about his origin, Gao Zhijian's tall figure also appeared, walking towards him upside down on the ceiling.

Upon seeing the giant's appearance, Li Huowang immediately realized the truth: they weren't hanging upside down; he was!

The moment this thought struck him, Li Huowang instantly felt his feet lose purchase and tumbled towards the boy's position.

With a quick shift, Li Huowang landed steadily from the air. Still shaken, he stood up and looked back into the wooden door of the side room.

The cultivation room was completely inverted: the floor had become the ceiling, and the beams were now below. He had been standing on the ceiling for so long without realizing it.

This further solidified Li Huowang's resolve to find a new place to practice. This cultivation technique truly produced very peculiar effects.

"Li... Li... Li..."

Li Huowang looked up at Gao Zhijian and patted his forearm. "How old are you, really? You've grown again in just a few months. Is something wrong?"

"Mhm," Gao Zhijian mumbled, pointing outside.

Li Huowang saw his solemn expression, thought for a moment, then lifted his foot and led him outside.

"Godfather, Godmother asked me to bring you back for dinner," the boy who had been scared stiff on the floor quickly stood up and said.

"I'll be back shortly; tell her to go ahead and eat."

Upon arriving at Gao Zhijian's house, Li Huowang saw him holding a pile of stone fragments and presenting them to him with great remorse.

"What's this?" Li Huowang pondered for a while before realizing these were fragments of the stone slate "Heavenly Book" he had given to Gao Zhijian—the very one Daoist Danyang had treasured.

Through Gao Zhijian's stuttering explanation, Li Huowang learned that one afternoon recently, the Heavenly Book had inexplicably shattered. Afterward, some incomprehensible words had emerged from it, seemingly mocking the delusion of becoming an immortal.

"It's alright, you don't need to feel guilty. This has nothing to do with you. This thing was originally used by the Sitting-Forget Path to deceive people," Li Huowang explained to Gao Zhijian.

Although he didn't know when Daoist Danyang had acquired this so-called Heavenly Book, judging by the immense effort he put into collecting so many "heavenly remnants and earthly imperfections" for alchemy, it must have been a long time, at least three to five years.

The "Old Lord" he spoke of was undoubtedly an impersonation by the Sitting-Forget Path.

It wasn't just Daoist Danyang who had been deceived, but also the humanoids in the cave previously, and countless more victims across the world.

Such a large-scale, long-spanning deception, encompassing almost all corners of the world, could not have been achieved overnight. It must have taken decades, or even centuries, to orchestrate.

Such a grand scheme could only have originated from the Dice.

The Dice had gone through immense trouble collecting lies from so many deceived individuals, all to seize the opportunity to summon the avatar of Doumu and steal the Divine Mountain Ghost's Eye, which the Emperor of Daliang had painstakingly acquired.

The Heavenly Dao within the long-dead Divine Mountain Ghost seemed to be chaotic and disordered.

"It's just strange," Li Huowang thought. "Based on what I know about them, haven't the Dice always been scheming how to trick Doumu out of her Heavenly Dao, intending to achieve physical sainthood and replace her? Why would they help Doumu? Could it be that they were deceived by Doumu themselves?"

Gao Zhijian pulled Li Huowang, who had been momentarily lost in thought, back to reality. "Sorry, I was thinking too much. Gao Zhijian, is there anything else?"

"Yes," Gao Zhijian replied concisely, then turned and walked inside.

Gao Zhijian soon returned, holding a military strategy book. Li Huowang recognized it; he had taken it from Peng Longteng's corpse.

"This... this... this is... is... a military cultivation... cultivation technique..."

Li Huowang took it, surprised, and flipped through it carefully. He was astonished to find that it indeed contained a military cultivation method, a body-refining technique that taught how to increase and control malevolent aura.

"You've practiced it?"

"Mhm," Gao Zhijian nodded. He looked around, then walked to the distant halberd, clenched his jaw, and with a roar, forcefully lifted the heavy weapon onto his shoulder.

As a dense malevolent aura spread from Gao Zhijian, the headless Peng Longteng began to grow agitated, its massive hands clenching and relaxing.

"Hoo!" With another roar, a strong gust of wind blew Li Huowang's clothes and hair backward. The colossal halberd, carrying immense force, slammed heavily onto the ground.

Instantly, the ground shook. Not only did the stone bricks on the floor crack into pieces, but Li Huowang even felt a sensation like an earthquake.

Li Huowang was startled. Gao Zhijian had quietly cultivated to such an impressive degree. If he grew even taller, his strength might rival that of Peng Longteng in his prime.

Should he say that Gao Zhijian was a natural prodigy, or that the military cultivation technique was simply easy to learn?