Divine Sense Awakens

Tie Muzhan was fleeing like a puff of smoke, moving so fast he was little more than a blur. But just at this moment, the great trees that had been standing tall and straight ahead of him suddenly began to crash down one after another, completely blocking his path. Some of them even flew through the air directly toward him at high speed.

"What's happening?" Tie Muzhan was greatly alarmed.

He violently swung the blackwood thorn whip in his hand, transforming it into a curved, arcing streak of light that sliced through the incoming trees. Like a saw cutting through wood, the trunks of the great trees were split clean apart. But Tie Muzhan was forced to slow down.

"Hua hua~~"

From all directions, a dense mass of branches, leaves, tree trunks, and even large chunks of earth and rocks from the ground came flying, crazily surging toward Tie Muzhan.

"What in the world is going on?" Tie Muzhan was completely baffled.

"These rocks, branches, and trees… why are they all flying toward me?" He had never heard of such a thing. Even a Zifu Disciple could only control his own magic treasures through his elemental ki, making them fly! A Zifu Disciple was incapable of making ordinary objects fly around as they pleased.

A sky-obscuring torrent of rocks and trees came surging over, and Tie Muzhan's speed naturally plummeted.

"Tie Muzhan, you cannot escape!" From behind him, Ji Ning was also flying over like a streak of light, shouting loudly.

"How are you doing this?" Tie Muzhan shouted back even as he arced in a curve, continuing his frantic escape, trying to dodge these trees. But the surrounding mud, rocks, and trees still surged toward him, making it impossible for him to run quickly.

Ji Ning just grinned.

Right.

He was the one who had done this. Just now, after Tie Muzhan had activated his Agility Talisman and Lightness Talisman, he'd looked like he was about to get away. Naturally, Ji Ning had been anxious. In that moment of anxious desperation, Ji Ning had discovered that the violent fluctuations of his own thoughts were causing the pond water and the ground around him to tremble.

He could clearly sense that his own will was like an invisible hand, able to grasp the trees, mud, and all other objects around him.

"Divine Sense!" Ji Ning's heart was suddenly filled with a surge of wild joy.

As the soul grows more powerful, various strange phenomena will appear.

Generally speaking, Zifu Disciples could achieve a divided mind! Wanxiang Adepts could manifest Divine Sense! Primal Daoists could open their Heavenly Eye and fully display their divine consciousness!

Visualization techniques were extremely rare and mysterious. Within the Ji Clan, there wasn't even a tradition of visualization techniques! How did one strengthen the soul? Generally, it was through tempering the will, comprehending the Dao, and using the enhanced physical body to nourish the soul in turn. Ji Ning had been training in the visualization technique, the Nuwa Diagram, and was nearing its limits. After his night of enlightenment, which itself had benefited his soul, Heaven and Earth had responded by sending down the essence of Water and Fire to nurture his Fiendgod Body. The great increase in his physical power had once again benefited his soul.

Without him even realizing it, his soul had already crossed the threshold into the 'Divine Sense' level! He himself hadn't known; it was only when Tie Muzhan was about to escape and Ji Ning's anxious thoughts had taken material form, affecting the pond water and mud, that he had become aware of it.

"You cannot escape." Ji Ning directly used his Divine Sense to control objects, sending the trees, mud, and rocks all to block Tie Muzhan's path.

...

"Could it be that this Ji Clan brat didn't do it, and there's some terrifying cultivator in the shadows who saw his talent and decided to help him?" Tie Muzhan, finding himself completely unable to escape, was both anxious and panicked.

"Water-Fire Lotus!" Ji Ning's gaze focused.

A massive lotus leaf of fire appeared above Tie Muzhan, while another huge lotus leaf of water appeared beneath him. The two then began to rotate slowly in opposite directions.

"Might I ask which senior is intervening?" Tie Muzhan shouted loudly, even as a Dao talisman appeared in his hand. It instantly transformed into a golden guardian phantom that merged into his body, and a faint golden light could be seen on the surface of his skin. "I am a son of the Tiemu Clan, and I have excellent relations with Snowdragon Mountain."

"Stop struggling." Ji Ning had already arrived in the distance.

"Ji Clan brat!" The golden light on Tie Muzhan's body was trembling, on the verge of collapse. He wildly swung the blackwood thorn whip in his hand, which lengthened rapidly as it flew, directly lashing out toward Ji Ning.

Ji Ning held his two swords, moving as fast as lightning.

"Chi!" The Northsea Sword in his left hand executed the 'Not a Single Leak' technique. When the blackwood thorn whip touched the sword, it naturally began to coil around the blade. But Ji Ning actively twisted his left hand, causing the whip to wrap around it many times, until his left hand was actually gripping the whip itself.

Swoosh!

Ji Ning's right-handed sword strike was incredibly fast.

"Open!" Tie Muzhan roared, trying desperately to pull the blackwood thorn whip back, but he couldn't budge it at all. "No, I will not die here! I will not die at the hands of this Ji Clan brat!" Feeling death approaching, Tie Muzhan became utterly frantic. He simply let go of the blackwood thorn whip.

Then he turned his head and tried to flee again!

"Boom!" Under the slow, grinding pressure of the Water-Fire Lotus, the golden light on his body finally shattered and collapsed.

"Ahhh!" The moment the Water-Fire Lotus crushed down on him, his outer clothes were turned to ash, revealing a body that was beginning to char and blacken. He let out a miserable, agonized shriek.

"Swoosh!"

A single raindrop pierced through Tie Muzhan's forehead.

The Water-Fire Lotus then dissipated. Ji Ning pulled his sword back and stepped away, silently watching the charred, blackened figure of Tie Muzhan standing before him.

Tie Muzhan's eyes were wide open, his eyebrows gone, and a bloody hole was in the center of his forehead. His gaze was filled with disbelief and fury. He hadn't expected to die at the hands of a teenager. Deep down, he bitterly resented the senior cultivator who had covertly intervened to hinder him. If it weren't for that cultivator, he could have escaped.

"A cultivator?" Ji Ning murmured to himself, but within his heart, a wave of indescribable excitement and exhilaration was surging.

Finally!

He had finally become a Xiantian lifeform!

Even the infamous and powerful 'Tie Muzhan' had come here solely to die before him.

"Even though I was reincarnated into the mortal world!" Ji Ning roared silently in his heart, "Through my own efforts, I can still become a Xiantian lifeform! This is only the beginning. It is the beginning for me, Ji Ning!"

His past life's experiences, and everything he had seen in this life…

They had forged within Ji Ning a heart that burned with an incomparable desire for power, a desire to control his own destiny. He refused to be toyed with by others, and even more so, he refused to be toyed with by fate itself.

"This is only the beginning!" Ji Ning stepped forward, approaching Tie Muzhan's corpse. With a thought, a burst of flame shot out, instantly burning Tie Muzhan into flying ash, leaving behind only an armguard and the blackwood thorn whip lying on the ground.

"Oh?"

The armguard and the blackwood thorn whip flew into Ji Ning's hands. Ji Ning carefully examined them. "This armguard… it's a storage-type magic treasure! The blackwood thorn whip is a magic treasure too."

"Yeah."

Ji Ning turned and went back.

He returned to the edge of the pond and collected the eight formation flags of the Yin-Yang Dual Qi Formation. The surfaces of the flags were very dim, but they still emitted a series of ripples.

"Magic treasures and Dao talismans… you need to be at least a Xiantian in Ki Refining to use them." Ji Ning put everything away into his own storage crystal. "I'll need to train my Ki Refining to the Xiantian stage first."

...

After clearing the area, the Huan Beast and Tie Muzhan had naturally turned to ash. Ji Ning continued to sit by the pond, meditating and cultivating. He had a feeling that reaching Xiantian in Ki Refining would be extremely easy.

Late at night, after the battle!

Ji Ning was still sitting cross-legged by the pond. At this moment, a radical transformation was taking place within his dantian. Rumble! The originally powerful strands of inner energy were now spinning at high speed, condensing into liquid drops. Drop by drop, true essence began to coalesce. A faint aura of water vapor automatically gathered around Ji Ning's body.

"And just like that, I've broken through." Ji Ning smiled.

When he had been in the womb, his meridians had been damaged. If he had tried to reach Xiantian through Ki Refining alone, it would have been very difficult. However, after reaching the Xiantian stage in the Crimsonbright Diagram, the Sunstar and Taiyin Star had sent down True Fire and True Water to nourish his entire body, forging a Fiendgod physique. His entire body had transformed from a mortal shell into a divine Fiendgod body, and his meridians had been completely renewed!

His meridians were now tough and perfect, without a single flaw. They were even tougher and wider than the meridians of many Xi'an in Ki Refining! And since his realm of enlightenment was also very high, his breakthrough naturally happened just like water flowing into a channel.

"Storage-type magic treasure." Ji Ning took out the armguard. At the same time, his true essence began to invade it, and in just a few moments, he had refined it.

"So this is how a storage-type magic treasure is different from a natural storage crystal." As Ji Ning sensed it, his heart was filled with joy. The storage armguard contained an extremely large space, a chaotic void about several dozen zhang in diameter. It held a large number of items, including some everyday objects like clothes, food, and gold.

The most precious items were eight Dao talismans! This was what Tie Muzhan had accumulated over a century, and he'd used three of them in this fight alone, yet they still hadn't been able to save his life.

"It's a pity there aren't any other magic treasures." Ji Ning shook his head, but it was only to be expected. For someone at the Xiantian level to have two or three magic treasures was already quite good.

"This bow is pretty good."

Ji Ning flicked his wrist and took out an ancient-looking large bow from the storage treasure. "This should have been the bow Tie Muzhan normally used. Since I've reached the Xiantian stage, I've been lacking a good bow."

Hua!

With a single, explosive pull, the titanic Fiendgod-like force exerted itself on the bow, and it was immediately drawn taut.

"Good bow." Ji Ning praised it, then looked at it more closely. On the bow were two pictographic characters: 'Jia Yong'. The name confused Ji Ning. "Probably the name of the bowyer who made it."

"As for this blackwood thorn whip… when I get back to the Western Prefecture city, I'll trade it in for a magic treasure." Ji Ning put everything away, feeling incredibly pleased. "Without experiencing the bitter cold of winter, how could there be the fragrant scent of the plum blossom? I started training in the sword at the age of four, and I've cultivated diligently ever since. With this single breakthrough, I have truly entered a whole new world. I suppose this counts as finally smelling the plum blossom's fragrance."

With this breakthrough, both his Fiendgod Body Refining and Ki Refining had reached the Xiantian stage. Even his soul had reached the 'Divine Sense' level. After his night of enlightening by the pond, he had comprehended a hint of the True Meaning of the Dao and had created the 'Water-Fire Lotus' technique.

"Ah, right. There is also this!" Ji Ning took a deep breath, forcing himself to completely calm down. Then, with great solemnity, he took out the book his mother had given him. It was the most precious technique manual she possessed. She had forbidden him from passing it on to anyone in the Ji Clan, telling him he could only look at it after becoming a Xiantian lifeform.

Ji Ning carefully examined the gold-colored cover. On the cover were four large characters: Windwing Evasion!

Then, he opened the book and began to read it carefully.