Chapter Eighteen: The First Encounter

  Days are fleeting fast, Kong Zhuo practices sword on one side and practices work on the other, from time to time familiarizing himself with the three beads he just got, half a year's time has passed in the blink of an eye.

  This half-year's seclusion and meditation brought great benefits to Kong Zhuo.

  In the torrent of Yishui, he practiced swordsmanship, not only greatly increasing his sword skills, but also breaking through to the fourth layer of Xiantian Purple Qi, reaching the final stage of drawing in air and entering the body, barely stepping into the threshold of Lianqi Huashen.

  Refine the Qi and transform the spirit, what spirit is transformed? The Original Spirit.

  Now, Kong Zhuan can already use his own yuan Shen to control the sword, but, although the speed is fast, the duration is not long, and he doesn't dare to be long, his own yuan Shen is far from being stable, just getting used to it is enough, he doesn't expect himself to be able to control the sword and fly back to Luo Fu from here.

  What excited him the most was not his ability to fly with a sword, nor the benefits that the Taiji Luliu Golden Body Technique brought him, but the chain reaction caused by the three iron beads and the Taiji Luliu Golden Body Technique. A reaction that made him feel delighted. With his current strength, he couldn't even bring out one-tenth of the power of these three beads, but for now, it was enough. Most importantly, these three beads were high-quality earth-based artifacts, and Kong Zhan was also a person with an earth element in the five elements, so they could be said to complement each other perfectly, making it very easy for Kong Zhan to grasp the basic usage of the three beads.

  On the other hand, an unexpected gain was the Mahavairocana's Body of Five Wheels. After Kong Zhen cultivated the Mahavairocana's Body of Five Wheels, he gained extremely great benefits, which were beyond his previous imagination. He found that his body was developing towards a pure land physique.

  What is a pure earth constitution?

  Ordinary people's physical attributes tend to lean towards a certain aspect, such as leaning towards metal, wood, or earth. Kong Zhuo was someone who leaned towards the earth element, but this was only a tendency. Apart from the earth element, there were still many impurities in his body. However, the Great Sun Crystal Golden Body Technique is a method that uses the true fire of the sun to directly forge the body. In the cycle of the five elements, there is a relationship where fire generates earth. After several months of practice, Kong Zhuo was delighted to discover that under the combined effect of the Great Sun Crystal Fire and the three earth-element pearls, all the impurities in his body had been transformed by the true sun fire and converted into the earth element. He now had an almost purely earth-element constitution.

  The reaction is linked, and the benefits are absolutely not limited to this. After the physical properties transform into pure earth attributes, Kong Zhuo also obtains an additional attribute or ability, controlling the power of the terrestrial core magnetism.

  The force of terrestrial magnetism is gravity, which is the power that pulls all things on earth downwards.

  So now, even without using the Yuan Shen Yu Jian or the Qing Gong body method, Kong Zhuo can still make himself float up, although it's only three inches off the ground. However, he is already very satisfied with this result. As for those three pearls, Kong Zhuo finally figured out their names. When his strength broke through to the fourth layer, he clearly saw that under the influence of his true yuan, one of the pearls flashed with three characters: Ning Yue Pearl!

  Three Congealing Jade Beads floated in front of his left shoulder, running in a small space like stars in the azure sky. When he wasn't using them, he could retrieve them into his Yuan Shen to nourish and warm them up. While utilizing the Earth Phase Yuan Force to modify his physical attributes, he was also gradually stabilizing his connection with them.

  To sum up, in these six months, Kong Zhuan's strength has grown extremely fast and he has gained a lot of benefits, so he doesn't want to leave.

  Anyway, since I'm living here in this hut, from now on when people ask about my whereabouts, I'll just say that I'm staying here to observe filial piety for my parents. In that case, he won't be able to say much either.

  So, after half a year, he stayed here for more than half a month again, until one morning, after practicing a set of sword moves in front of his parents' graves and cultivating the air towards the sunrise, he discovered something strange.

  In the small village at the foot of the mountain, a strange atmosphere was lingering. Normally, at this time, smoke should be rising from the kitchens and farmers heading out to work. For more than half a year now, he had seen this scene every day without fail. But today, it didn't happen. It seemed as if all the doors were tightly shut, and the entire air was filled with a tense atmosphere.

  But far away, in the mountains opposite, there was a faintly discernible aura that made Kong Zhuo extremely uncomfortable.

  The mountain opposite is not a small hill where you are now, but a real and huge mountain range called Wuling Mountain.

  That kind of breath that made him feel extremely uncomfortable, although he had never encountered it before, but he could be sure that it was not a good thing. The yin evil air emanating from inside made people feel suffocated.

  Kong Zhan's eyebrows furrowed, although he didn't like to interfere in other people's business, this was his parents' burial ground after all, and he certainly didn't want anything unclean to disturb their eternal rest.

  ……………

  …………

  The village is now quiet, at least on the surface, but the closer he gets to the village, the closer he gets to Wuling Mountain, the more Kong Zhan can feel the dark and evil aura emanating from the depths of Wuling Mountain, so thick that it makes him feel cold in his heart.

  However, he still went in, and it seemed that his courage had increased a lot due to the significant improvement in his strength over the past six months.

  Although the sky was already bright, there wasn't a single person in sight in the village. The village shrouded in morning mist was eerily quiet and mysterious. With soft mud underfoot and the fragrance of grass filling his nostrils, his heart was pounding rapidly. Intuitively, he felt that today might bring something big.

  Then, soon after, a shrill scream pierced through this quiet and eerie village.

  Finally something normal happened.

  Hearing the sound of footsteps, Kong Yan's heart actually calmed down, but his body shot towards the direction of the sound like an arrow off the string.

  This is a place like an ancestral temple.

  The gate was closed, under the cover of a dull sky, some were tall and majestic, some were strange, and others seemed melancholic.

  Tragedy, for some unknown reason, Kong Zhuo suddenly felt this way.

  The temple's gate was tightly closed, but behind the thick and heavy gate, Kong Zhuo clearly heard a burst of noise, among which the most ear-piercing one was the sharp cry that had caught his attention earlier. It sounded like it came from a middle-aged woman.

  Kong Zuo looked at the tightly closed big gate, then looked at the high wall, and his body moved slightly, his fat body was like a cotton ball, floating up, and soon floated to the top of the wall, stopped, looking down, the scene inside the temple was in full view.

  It seems that all the men in the village have gathered here, and apart from big and small, old and young men, there are only two women. One of them is the one who let out a mournful cry, and the other is only six or seven years old, sitting on a small table, wearing an eight-treasured pendant hairpin, dressed in a red silk jacket with a green satin chessboard-shaped collar, tied around her waist with a large red flower-patterned skirt, wearing a pair of shallow red silk shoes with crab-shell heads, and wearing two pairs of golden knee-high socks. Her face is clean and tidy, with a light layer of rouge on it, looking very pretty. A pair of big, bright eyes are staring at the crying woman, seemingly unable to understand why her mother is crying so hard. Is it because she didn't dress well today?

  "What a ruckus!" A loud shout, accompanied by the heavy sound of a staff striking the ground. "Jiuyuer, won't you take your woman back? What kind of scene are you creating here with all this crying and commotion?"

  A lean old man in his sixties, with an angry look on his face

  Next to the wailing woman stood a young man of twenty-eight or nine, with an equally bitter expression. The good woman was holding onto his sleeve and wouldn't let go. After hearing the old man's words, he gritted his teeth, steeled himself, and pulled the woman up from the ground. At the same time, the old man gave a signal, and four or five young men with robust physiques appeared around them. They didn't care about any propriety between men and women anymore and rushed forward to grab the woman, wanting to drag her to the side door of the temple. The woman was weak and couldn't withstand the rough handling by these big men, who were like wolves and tigers. Except for letting out a cry that was almost a wail, she was really helpless. The little child sitting on the table saw its mother being bullied and also burst into tears. For a moment, the cries of the two women in the temple echoed each other, making Kong Zuo, who was standing on the wall, frown.

  "My son!!"

  Daughter

  Daughter

  "My son, waaahhh!"

  At last, the woman's mouth was stuffed with a piece of cloth and she was dragged into the back of the temple.

  The temple was left with only the sound of the little girl's crying.

  The old man on the temple looked at the crying baby with a gentle sigh.

  "Child, don't cry, crying won't help. If you want to blame someone, you can only blame yourself for being born into the wrong family, being born here with us. Hopefully in your next life, you'll be born into a rich and peaceful family!" With that, he waved his hand, "Take him away!"

  At his command, four young men in red robes emerged from the crowd, carrying two poles. They placed one under the table and lifted it up, then carried it out of the ancestral hall, where someone had already opened the heavy doors.

  It was just when they lifted the table to the door that it stopped, and Kui Zhao also stunned for a moment, unaware of when, at the gate of the temple, a white-clothed woman stood.