Zhanxian

Strictly speaking, Liang Meng Shao’s punishment could be considered fair, since he hadn’t raised the any accusation against Yang Chen nor raised his punishment, as the punishment for closed door training was decided by Xu Cheng Xin, which also could not be considered to be on Liang Meng Shao’s head. Regarding Chu Heng’s case, although there was a small suspicion of favoritism, Chu Heng’s temperament was certainly a problem and everyone present could see this point. And the best way to transform one’s nature was to go out to train to temper it, so he couldn’t be held accountable for this.

The rewards were given and the punishment was declared, this affair did not need to be discussed anymore. Yang Chen had already said that this was Pure Yang Palace’s affair and neither had they obstructed or injured anyone, so they did not need to hand over anything to anyone. Although the Pure Yang Palace was a second rate sect, the people of the Pure Yang Palace were still not something which could be taken advantage off.

But before Yang Chen could enter closed door training, he was stopped and interrogated by Zhu Chen Tao.

“You want to experiment with methods to grow thunder pomegranate? How much certainty do you have?”

Zhu Chen Tao didn’t have the as much confidence in Yang Chen as Gongsun Ling, but was instead somewhat anxious.

“Otherwise, you better concentrate on cultivation first and wait until you start refining pills at foundation stage, until then it will also not be too late.”

“Many thanks for your concern, Elder!”

After Yang Chen expressed his thanks, he said with a smiling expression:

“I don’t have any certainty, I merely wanted to try, that’s all, who could be so bored, so as to play up such an affair to get this much of a fanfare!”

“Whatever other people say, you don’t have to pay any attention to them, just relax and train!”

Zhu Chen Tao thought of something and did not say too many words:

“I still want to look at your performance in the sect’s martial arts competition, so by all means, don’t disappoint me!”

“Be relieved elder!”

After Yang Chen finished his exchange with Zhu Chen Tao, Du Qian immediately took him away to the forbidden rooms where the punished disciples would have to enter closed door training within the Pure Yang Palace.

The forbidden rooms were very small rooms which could only be opened from the outside. On the door there was a small opening to the outside, so that food and water could be delivered from the outside. From the inside however, the door could never be opened, but this was necessary, to control the punished disciples. But one could still enjoy some food and water. After all although the fasting pills were good, they didn’t satisfy the need for good food. Cultivators also could not put away all of their feelings and emotions, otherwise why would the Heavenly Court’s jade emperor feast every day and drink every night, countless immortals still enjoyed something and never got tired of it.

Since it was closed door training, naturally it was to help people in cultivation. Inside the forbidden rooms there was the exit of a spirit vein which was linked with all of the spirit veins of the MeiQing mountains. On top of every exit, there was a very small praying mat, made of straw, for the use of disciples in closed door training. After Yang Chen entered the forbidden room, he immediately replaced it with the piece of obsidian jade.

All of this time for closed door training was exactly what Yang Chen had been looking for. Originally he was still anxious that people would find out about him growing the thunder pomegranate in the Medicine Garden, but within the forbidden rooms this was not a problem at all, and it was just enough time for Yang Chen.

After settling down properly and checking everything, Yang Chen first inspected his own body. The spirit power in his body was already above the third qi layer and he was convinced that he would break through to the fourth qi layer very quickly. Due to climbing the Heavenly Stairs two times, Yang Chen had already broken through to one more level, which had saved him at least one year of hard work.

The increase in the spiritual awareness made Yang Chen even happier, because if he had continued with the normal routine, even if the Three Purities Secrets was quite wonderful, still, to increase the spiritual awareness from middle foundation stage to late foundation stage would still have taken him at least ten years of hard work. But thanks to the fusion with the will of the XianTai Stage, Yang Chen’s spiritual awareness had already become comparable to late foundation stage.

Despite the vast difference in the realm of spirit power, due to the reverse Yin and Yang five phases secrets, the ten attributes of condensed power were not worse than those of a sixth qi layer disciple. The frantic increase of spiritual awareness also made up for his lacking spirit power. So at the moment Yang Chen already had the minimum requirements to use a magic weapon.

This does not mean using a magic weapon while brandishing it in his hand, but rather using sword techniques to control it and use it to fly. Compared with previous way of fighting, his battle prowess had already improved by much. Comparing killing, by slashing with his blade, with one strike of a flying sword, there was a difference of earth and heaven between them.

Unfortunately, the insufficient spirit power had been a big problem from the beginning. When attacking with sword techniques, Yang Chen could only use it for two strikes, before his spirit power was almost used up. Though Yang Chen had somewhat less spirit power, but even the disciples at the peak of the qi realm could only use treasure gems, so for them Yang Chen was already an existence which could make them so envious that they would be fuming with rage.

What made Yang Chen most surprised was the ability to genuinely control magic weapons, this also implied that Yang Chen could now officially begin to refine magic weapons. Previously, no matter whether it was the Profound Spirit Furnace or the sword box, Yang Chen had only forcefully left his spirit imprint on them, so strictly speaking as long as a person had a cultivation base higher than Yang Chen and was at least a foundation stage master, if he tried, he could immediately remove Yang Chen’s spiritual awareness.

But refining a magic weapon was different, it could be forcefully taken back if captured by someone and the labor required would also be much lower, compared to the original requirement. It could only be obtained if the master had already died and his spiritual awareness had already disappeared. But some high grade magic weapons would still require some special kind of methods, like the Yang Mountain Medicine Garden and the Sword Box.

Every cultivator and every sect had their own unique methods, similar to their own refining method to control the magic weapon. If this was his previous life, Yang Chen would have surely used the method which he was good at in his previous life, the Great Sun Fierce Heart method, fitting with the Pure Yang Palace’s controlling skill to refine the magic weapon. However, in this life, Yang Chen had even more alternatives.

The Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets, this was a god level refining method, passed on from the thirty six principal heavenly stars gods, Yang Chen was getting itchy to test the effects of this refining method’s secrets.

As the name implies, since it was used by the heavenly gods, these Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets had thirty six layers. Every layer also had three minor layers within it, closely fitting and imitating the heavenly stars to tighten it. The happiest thing for Yang Chen was that, not only did this method not have any restrictions regarding the attribute of spirit power, it also did not limit how many types of spirit power were used, due to this, every time he would use the Yin and Yang five phases spirit power, adding onto the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets, the effects would double.

Wanting to try it, Yang Chen immediately took out the Profound Spirit Furnace. The current Profound Spirit Furnace was merely the lowest levelled magic tool, relatively speaking, the refining would also be somewhat easy. It was even easier, since Yang Chen was familiar with the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets.

Even if it was the first layer of the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets, based on Yang Chen’s strength, it would still require at least ten days of time, only then could the Profound Spirit Furnace be considered as refined to the first layer.

The Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets were, as expected, the Heavenly Court’s principal gods’ secret way for binding, so with just the refining to the first layer, Yang Chen had already achieved a level of control which he would have had achieved at the foundation stage in his previous life.

And what made Yang Chen even happier was that after passing through the refining process, not only was the Profound Spirit Furnace upgraded to the first rate, his Yin and Yang five phases secrets had also become somewhat concentrated, as if this Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secret was not just refining the Profound Spirit Furnace, but also refining Yang Chen himself.

While the Profound Spirit Furnace was within his hands, the palm sized cauldron shaped furnace’s body in a flash turned thick enough that he could wrap his arms around it. With just a slight movement of his hand, two threads of flame rushed into the furnace from his hands and soared within the Profound Spirit Furnace.

This was Yang Chen’s technique to manage the tool and not just to manage the fire, every reaction from the Profound Spirit Furnace made Yang Chen get the feeling that what his heart wished, his hands could accomplish. Under the perfect control of his spirit power, even a single speck of dust in the Profound Spirit Furnace could be sensed clearly.

Having used the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secret for the first time, although merely to the first layer, it still allowed Yang Chen to have an even deeper understanding regarding the refining of magic weapons and tools. When Yang Chen was at the XianTai Stage, he had firmly remembered all of these methods without thinking too much and only after he had begun to cultivate did he discover the profound mysteries inside them one by one.

This was only the Heavenly Stars Treasure Raising Secrets, if he waited until the spirit power was sufficient and his cultivation was enough, all of these methods could be used on these magic treasures by use of the terminating spell formation to refine them, afterwards the Universal Treasure Raising Secrets could be used on all of the magic weapons to strengthen them. Yang Chen had already started imagining that, by the time when all of these things were completed, not only would his Yin and Yang five phases secrets become top notch, but he also wondered what kind of an appearance his strong magic weapons would have by that time.

The Yin and Yang Five Phases Secret’s spirit power within Yang Chen’s body also had a few variations because of the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets. Within the spirit power of every attribute, apparently many types of new branches appeared.

Yang Chen noticed that, because of cultivating the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secret, each type of spirit power within his body had been transformed into thirty six tiny paths of spirit power, this thirty six tiny paths of spirit power had condensed together in accordance with the directions of the Heavenly Stars and together with his own ten types of spirit power, in total there were three hundred and sixty threads. Passing through this kind of combination of spirit power, it became even more concentrated and even more stable.

At the same time, this would also mean that every time he did something, whether it be attack, defend or even refining pills or tools, every time he would naturally use the Yin and Yang five phases secrets spell and on every branches’ spirit power, a Heavenly Stars spell would emerge. This spell within a spell, just this one tiny change allowed Yang Chen’s attack and defense to increase by a lot.

His spiritual awareness had also somewhat changed. Originally it was just frantically expanding, but, now it had even started to sense even the most minute changes in Yang Chen’s body. The thirty six threads of spirit power constituting the Heavenly Stars Spell were converging into one type of spirit power, he had precisely this kind of sensation. Yang Chen had a premonition, as long as these thirty six threads of spirit power grew more and more powerful, the spirit power in his body would also become more and more powerful.

The increasingly acute spiritual awareness even discovered, that within the thirty six threads of spirit power, there was one spirit power thread that was thicker compared to the others. After mulling over this for some time, he understood that this was because he had only cultivated to the first layer of the thirty six layers of the Heavenly Treasure Refining Secrets. The present Heavenly Stars Spell, when compared to the complete Heavenly Stars spell was still too distant.

However just the first layer had already allowed Yang Chen’s senses to sharpen, his spiritual awareness and in this situation his attack power had also increased by three times. It was still unknown to which extent he could become strong, if the Heavenly Stairs spell had been completely intact.

Similarly, what made him look forward to the future was that, together with the Heavenly Stars Treasure Raising Secrets a terminating spell formation had appeared. Whether or not this would allow his spirit power to segment again into spirit paths identical to these, terminated in the Heavenly Stars spell. (Ed. Note: We’re very confused by the raws here and couldn’t figure this sentence out) Thinking about the time when it would reach the second layer was making him go crazy.

The Profound Spirit Furnace was a pill concocting furnace, in the future it would require various sorts of Yin and Yang five phases attributes, therefore Yang Chen had used the Yin and Yang five phases spirit power to refine it, which had only benefits and no harm. However, to refine the sword box, Yang Chen had run into trouble, which type should he use to achieve the best results?

Before he could resolve this issue, Yang Chen had no option but to consider what his primary weapon should be from now on. The sword box was after all only a sword box, even if it was very high grade, it was merely one sword box. If he wanted to display the formidable power of the sword box, he needed to replenish it with strong flying swords. And in the future what kind of flying swords would he use?

This problem, Yang Chen previously only had a vague idea but hadn’t considered this problem seriously. However, now the situation had changed, when confronted with the problem of deciding the direction for his future development, Yang Chen also wanted to calmly and diligently think about it.

Fortunately, this problem couldn’t confuse Yang Chen for long. Since he had already picked the great Yin and Yang five phases secrets, when the time came he could only choose to make use of the universal Yin and Yang five phases qi to refine the flying swords for the sword box, like that, the sword box would require the spirit power of five phases of Yin and Yang to advance as before with the refining.

Presently the sword box was of a much higher grade than the Profound Spirit Furnace, so Yang Chen had to spend two to three times more labour than for the Profound Spirit Furnace. Just to refine the sword box, he had to spend two entire months.

The first layer of the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets had also become more and more advanced and the sword box also began to appear more and more sharp, it still had the look of the XianTai Stage’s blade within his hand, but from time to time it flashed a cutting edge, appearing to people like a unique blade. Only, looking at this kind of situation, Yang Chen could not help but shake his head.

A truly strong magic weapon would not reveal its cutting edge like this. This was a point which the greatest cultivators could easily see through. Clean jade bottles, a bunch of immortal ropes, a palm leaf fan which could even cut diamonds and many others, were all unremarkable in looks, but based on how one wished to make them appear they would still be considered as high quality weapons in the immortal realm.

These exceptionally famous tools have all been improved and baptized by blood countless times, only then were they able to become genuinely outstanding and magnificent. Magic weapons and people were actually the same. Therefore Yang Chen’s understanding of this was that, because he could reveal the cutting edge of the sword box, the magic weapon could also reflect his cultivation in the future. Perhaps, after the martial art competition, Yang Chen had to choose somewhere to go to train himself.

He let it be for the time being, there were still several days before he could come out of seclusion. Yang Chen just took out the clean bottle of the Yang Mountain Medicine Garden. Since Yang Chen’s cultivation was lower previously, he could only brand it with his own spirit power. But the Medicine Garden was of an even higher grade than the sword box, so Yang Chen did not have any expectations of being able to refine it for the time being. He had taken out the Medicine Garden only to resolve the affair of the thunder pomegranate.

The thunder pomegranate required extreme conditions to grow, but that was not the only problem, previously countless number of elders had only failed, because dealing with the seed required too much skill.

The thunder pomegranate not only required to be planted in regions with lightning from the beginning, but it’s seed, although looked as if had abundant spirit power, was nevertheless empty on the inside. For the seed to survive, it had to be planted in a region thick with First Tree spirit power, only after absorbing enough could it grow, otherwise it would not even be able to germinate or produce roots. Not only that, at the time of absorbing spirit power it should not be polluted by other kinds of spirit power and only then could it grow.

Within the Medicine Garden, some First Tree type of plants were growing, so fortunately the spirit power was absolutely abundant. Yang Chen carefully used a wooden knife to split open the thunder pomegranate and after planting the seeds in a satisfactory place, he withdrew from the medicine garden. For now he had to wait until they had absorbed enough spirit power.

After completing these tasks, Yang Chen finished everything and adjusted his whole body to its peak condition, as finally the time had come to come out of closed door training. After he came out of closed door training, on the next day was the sect’s martial arts competition.