Chapter 421 – Seeing the Black Ox Again, Waiting a Thousand Days (2/2)
Li Qingshan smiled. He could finally see the gate. Now, all he had to do was barge through that gate. He immediately mobilised his soul sense to attack the golden dragon. With that, the golden dragon jerked awake, emitting a lengthy roar. It seemed to kick up a fierce gust of wind, making his entire sea of consciousness tremor.
The soul sense Li Qingshan had released was basically torn to shreds instantly. He felt his head grow light as the world spun around him. He had never expected a will left behind by the Soaring Dragon Elder who had been dead for all these years to still possess so much power.
To Foundation Establishment cultivators, the sea of consciousness was even more important than their sea of qi. If the sea of qi were destroyed, they had a chance at cultivating it again, but if their sea of consciousness shattered, even the best outcome was being reduced to an imbecile.
Li Qingshan was not completely unprepared. He bellowed out inside, The Spirit Turtle Suppresses the Seas!
A turtle’s shell no different from his daemon core appeared in his sea of consciousness. In the beginning, it was only the size of a grain of rice, but as it absorbed the shatter soul sense, it rapidly strengthened. Before long, a huge turtle shell hovered in the sea of consciousness, forcefully suppressing all the chaos.
Li Qingshan eased up, and his mind cleared. Afterwards, he immediately sent the spirit turtle hurtling towards the golden dragon.
Boom! There was a thunderous rumble in his mind, and he experienced a splitting headache.
Only after a very long time did the rumbling stop. Li Qingshan had already withdrawn his soul sense, and he discovered that the spirit turtle had already shrunk, while the golden dragon had grown slightly dimmer too. Fortunately, the will the Soaring Dragon Elder left behind only attacked reactively and not proactively, giving him sufficient time to catch his breath. It also reminded him to be constantly cautious about this aspect when he fought other people.
Practising the Arts of the Boundless Ocean, his spiritual energy was powerful and his body was tough, but there were no improvements in his soul sense. It was said that only the cultivation methods of mohism focused on this aspect, as it could improve their control over many more powerful puppets.
However, perhaps due to practising the three supernatural abilities of the ox demon, tiger demon, and spirit turtle, Li Qingshan’s sea of consciousness had been extremely powerful the moment he opened it. He recovered rather quickly too. When the spirit turtle returned to its original size, Li Qingshan sent it towards the golden dragon again.
Boom! There was another rumble. He repeated this again and again. After who knew how many times, the golden dragon had already become extremely dim, as well as less than a tenth of its original size.
However, through the constant depletion and recovery, the spirit turtle had instead grown slightly larger. Mustering up all his strength, the spirit turtle smashed down, and the golden dragon let out another roar, but it was so feeble that it sounded more like a wail before death. Unable to bear the burden anymore, the dragon twisted.
The sumeru ring flashed, and the obstacle that blocked Li Qingshan finally vanished. He let out a sigh of relief, about to open up the sumeru ring and look for what the black ox had left behind.
A man with a pair of horns appeared out of nowhere with his back towards him, seated on the spirit turtle. Li Qingshan had only seen this figure once, but it was deeply embedded in his mind. It was even loftier than mountains.
Li Qingshan cried out, “Brother ox!”
“You’re finally here.” The black ox’s voice seemed to boom out like a bell, enough to cause avalanches. It resounded through his entire sea of consciousness, but it caused Li Qingshan no discomfort at all.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been hiding away and secretly spying on me the entire time!” Li Qingshan had absolutely no doubt that the black ox possessed a repulsive habit like that. After all, he had spent a dozen or so years like that, playing himself off as a normal ox.
“Kid, don’t get too ahead of yourself. This is just a part of my soul sense that I left behind. Why would I care about what you do? A decade for you is as brief as a day for me.”
“Then why’d you leave in such a hurry? Why didn’t you spend a day or two longer with me? That way, I can continue to listen to your teachings too. If I ended up being finished off by someone, that day of yours would be wasted.”
Originally, Li Qingshan thought the black ox would say, I have plenty of time. Even without Li Qingshan, I have a Zhang Qingshan and a Wang Qingshan.
However, the black ox said instead, “Then I’ll have to find you again in saṃsāra and spend another day. Don’t doubt yourself. No matter who tells you you’re of absolutely no importance or significance, you can just treat them like they’re talking out of their ass.”
“Then can you tell me why you chose me?” Li Qingshan wondered. Was it because he possessed some kind of impressive talent? Or because he was just some reincarnation of someone powerful, which the black ox wanted good graces with?
“That’s because I believe you, even though you’re just a regular old kid with a bit of innate knowledge.”
At this moment, the black ox’s figure flickered. “I’m going to go. Keep advancing forward, kid. Don’t make me find you in saṃsāra. That takes a lot of time, y’know. I don’t have too much time. I hope this won’t be the last time we meet.” As he said that, the black ox’s figure gradually faded away.
Li Qingshan shuddered inside. “Then how long do I have?”
“Around a thousand days.”
Li Qingshan was relieved. “Then just wait in peace! I might just be a regular old kid, but I’m not that useless.” If I can’t even achieve something with ten thousand years of cultivation, I’ll kill myself, alright? “Oh right, what about the thing you left for me?”