Stellar Transformations

by I Eat Tomatoes

  “Let’s go. What’s yours is yours. You won’t get what’s not yours even if you try.” The martial brother is clearly very cautious. Then the both of them keep going forwards above Qin Yu’s head.

  In the boundless ocean, there may be a certain hidden formidable demonic beast calmly practicing in a certain area of the seabed. Even though the probability of bumping into such a demonic beast is low, it is certainly higher than the probability of finding Qin Yu. After all, Qin Yu is only one man while there must be more than one demonic beast hiding at the bottom of the ocean.

  If their holy senses disturb such a formidable demonic beast, they will probably be eaten by him.

  “Whew.”

  Qin Yu secretly lets out a sigh. Even though he is not afraid of these 2 Xiuyaoists, it would have been terrible if his whereabouts had been revealed because of them. Moreover, according to the conversation between them, he has discovered a bad thing.

  The reward offer!

  “This is bad. I never expected Sang Mo to offer a reward.” He thinks about many things in only a moment. In the end he is sure of one thing -- he must learn the Xiumo secret technique Soul Examination first no matter what. As for some other special secret techniques, there is no hurry to learn them for the moment.

  After learning the Soul Examination, the first thing he is going to do is to find a Xiuyaoist and use it. At least he must know the general situation to be able to make further preparations. After all, he can only always win if he knows his own situation and that of the enemy.

  A half day later, Qin Yu finally finishes refining and absorbing all of the jindan. By now, all of the injuries on his body have completely healed with not even a scar on his left arm, only that there are many scabs on the surface of his body.

  When Qin Yu was refining the jindan, his blood oozed from the yet-to-be completely healed injuries then solidified to form these scabs. Of course, by now his body has totally recovered.

  Buzz ~~

  With a shake of the energy on the surface of his body, all of those scabs are immediately shattered.

  “Very good, this is the best condition I’ve ever been in.” Qin Yu opens his eyes. At the moment he is under a coral reef. Using his stellar energy, he shakes the dirt around him away directly. Concurrently with this, his holy sense enters his spatial ring.

  Qin Yu’s holy sense can scan everything in the spatial ring with ease. It comes straight into the study of Lei Mountain House.

  “Nameless?”

  Only when Qin Yu uses his holy sense to open that Xiumo secret book does he notice that it unexpectedly has a name. Being called Nameless does not mean that it has no name, but that the name of this Xiumo secret book is Nameless.

  He instantly skips over the part about Xiumo methods and gets to the part about how to practice Xiumo secret techniques. In the past he paid little to no attention to them, but now he starts to read them carefully one by one.

  “What is the holy sense? Does it automatically come into existence when a person reaches the Jindan stage and has a strong enough soul? It has been said since ancient times that Xiuzhenists have the holy sense while immortals have the immortal sense. At first I believed this truism, but later I discovered that this is simply not true …”

  When reading this part, Qin Yu totally immerses himself in it.

  Reading using the holy sense is indeed very fast. He quickly finishes reading all of the secret techniques of this Xiumo book. Having done this, he feels that his understanding of the soul has reached a whole new level.

  He then opens his eyes, which flash with excitement.

  “This anonymous senior’s achievement of writing this Nameless book is definitely not inferior to Master’s creation of the Stellar Transformations.” Having read the book, Qin Yu sincerely admires this Xiuzhen senior from the planet Earth in another universe.

  This senior has opened up a new world, a world about the most essential thing -- the soul.

  “Alright, let’s try the 1st step.” The Xiumo secret techniques flash through his mind one after another, but they all have one same basis -- being able to control spiritual energy at will. What is spiritual energy?

  The holy sense is spiritual energy!

  By inference, the legendary immortal sense is also spiritual energy, only that when the strength of the soul reaches certain levels, spiritual energy will also undergo fundamental changes.

  Qin Yu remembers the description of how to practice the 1st step.

  “In this technique, the 1st step is the most difficult to practice. Spiritual energy is very mysterious. Generally, Xiuzhenists can only send out and expand their spiritual energy and it’s extremely difficult for them to do other things to it such as making it rotate like a maelstrom, shaping it into a sphere and so on. This depends on a person’s natural talent. I can only try doing it again and again. There’s simply no shortcut.”

  Qin Yu has no choice but to hope that he is talented enough.

  “Spin, spin.” He says in his mind, trying to control his spiritual energy directly using his thoughts. However, just like what the book says, spiritual energy turns out to be really very hard to control. It seems expanding and withdrawing are the only 2 things he can do to it.

  When he observes through the holy sense, his spiritual energy is expanded. And when he does not use the holy sense, it is withdrawn.

  A weak small heat current then gradually flows in Qin Yu’s head from the Meteoric Tear. In the depths of his head, there is a disc of energy. Various sinuous electric sparks are zigzagging around this disc nonstop. At the same time, the disc is slowly radiating a seven-colored light.

  That weak small heat current is absorbed by that disc little by little.

  ……

  Qin Yu is still experimenting on spiritual energy control. Since spiritual energy is immaterial, he cannot see it with his eyes, and can only feel it. He keeps experimenting over and over without giving up, because that Xiumo secret book says that …

  The most talented disciple of this school needed 3 days of experimentation only to be able to slightly control spiritual energy while the author of the book even spent a whole year’s time.

  Suddenly, the nonphysical spiritual energy, which has been quietly whirling around Qin Yu’s soul in his mind, shakes for a short while.

  “It’s moved!”

  A pleasant surprise surges up in Qin Yu’s heart. He simply never thought that it would take him only 2 hours to succeed. He basically cannot explain how he was able to gain control of his spiritual energy so easily.

  “Soul Examination!”

  Wasting no time, Qin Yu immediately recalls the Soul Examination technique and begins to practice it. Less than 1 hour later, he can already completely control 10% of his spiritual energy.

  Yes, 10% of the spiritual energy is now under his total control. This seems to be a very small amount, but even the author of the book needed 5 whole decades’ time to reach this level.

  However, even though Qin Yu keeps experimenting, he cannot control more spiritual energy.

  “All right, let’s consolidate the foundation first.” He then controls that 10% of his spiritual energy, making it move. That amount of spiritual energy starts to rotate like a maelstrom, surrounding his soul and the remainder of the spiritual energy in its center.

  On Earth, this was the method of defending against other people’s spiritual-energy-charged attacks. Even though it cannot resist the attacks forcefully, it can weaken them by using the various layers of the maelstrom.

  That maelstrom-like mass of spiritual energy is slowly moving. Suddenly, the Meteoric Tear in Qin Yu’s body vibrates for a short while. A burning hot heat current flows out from it and rushes up into Qin Yu’s head directly.

  The maelstrom simply cannot block it. With an unstoppable momentum, that heat current smashes the maelstrom formed by Qin Yu to pieces.

  “No good!”

  This is the 1st time Qin Yu has formed a maelstrom with his spiritual energy, but
it has been shattered all of a sudden. That amount of spiritual energy has unexpectedly become chaotic. Even worse, it has started to cause the rest of Qin Yu’s spiritual energy, which is not controlled by him, to become chaotic too.

  When his spiritual energy is in a calm state, he can only control 10% of it. Now that it has become totally chaotic, he quickly gets panicky.

  However, at the moment, above Qin Yu, a middle Yuanying-stage Xiuyaoist is slowly going in the distance. His holy sense has spread out in a very lordly manner. Judging from his direction, he is going towards Qin Yu. Given Qin Yu’s currently chaotic spiritual energy, he definitely will not be able to avoid detection by this Xiuyaoist.

  “According to the reward offer, that Xiuxianist is very likely to be within a 100,000 li radius of this place. This idiot Sang Mo, I never thought he wouldn’t be able to catch a Xiuxianist who hasn’t even reached the Yuanying stage.” With a cold ‘humph’ this single-horned man rushes extremely fast in Qin Yu’s direction.

  Chapter 7: Soul Examination

  At the moment Qin Yu does not know that a middle Yuanying-stage Xiuyaoist is about to search his area. His entire attention is being focused on what is happening inside his head.

  That burning hot blue heat current rushes into the area of his spiritual energy in an unstoppable manner.

  Water is variable in shape and spiritual energy, which is immaterial, is also the same. Despite being disarranged, Qin Yu’s spiritual energy will calm down as time passes. Of course it will need quite some time to completely calm down.

  In his head,

  As opposed to the huge mass of spiritual energy, in its center -- that disc, which is continuously sending out various serpentine electric sparks, is the real core of a person, the soul! The relationship between the soul and spiritual energy is just like that between the sun and sunlight.

  Only the soul is the very essence of a person. At Qin Yu’s current level, he only has some understanding of spiritual energy while knowing nothing about the soul, the real fundamental thing in him.

  The soul is a forbidden domain that Xiuzhenists cannot touch.

  “What is exactly the blazing blue heat current the Meteoric Tear sent out?” Qin Yu focuses his entire attention on that blue air current, which has appeared all of a sudden. That blazing blue air current goes through the spiritual energy without being obstructed in the least, heading straight for the soul.

  The area of the spiritual energy is like a violent ocean. In the center of this violent ocean of spiritual energy, there is an islet-like disc, which is none other than the soul!

  When the blue air current flows to the islet-like disc, that is, the soul, it is immediately absorbed. At the same time, the seven-colored light of the soul, which keeps sending out sinuous electric sparks, suddenly becomes chaotic. The blue light immediately intensifies, but in a short while, it goes back to its state moments ago.

  At this moment, the huge mass of spiritual energy around the soul flashes with a blue light. All of the spiritual energy seems to have undergone a transformation, while an extremely great change has also occurred in Qin Yu himself.

  “What a wonderful feeling.”

  Qin Yu suddenly opens his eyes, which glitter. Mental control! Now Qin Yu’s mental control is much stronger than it was in the past. It has many uses, for example, to control the movement of the elemental energy inside his body.

  The stronger the mental control is, the more his elemental energy follows his direction, and the more finely he can control his energy when attacking.

  “But the spiritual energy seems to have become harder to control.” When Qin Yu tries controlling his spiritual energy again, he discovers that it has transformed. Previously it was like an untrained scholar, but now it is like a strong muscular man. An indescribable change has happened to it. At the same time, it has also become much more difficult to control.

  Even though Qin Yu’s mental control has suddenly improved, he unexpectedly can only control 10% of his spiritual energy as before.

  His control has increased and his soul has also transformed, but controlling 10% of his spiritual energy is still his limit. It is 10% just like before -- what does this mean? Qin Yu is doubtful but he simply cannot understand because theoretically neither spiritual energy nor the soul itself can suddenly improve.

  A practitioner has to try using his mental control many times over to improve it, and even then it improves extremely slowly. As for his spiritual energy, it also gradually improves thanks to the transformations that happen to his soul as his power increases.

  Just now, Qin Yu’s mental control and spiritual energy both improved by one step in only a moment, which simply cannot happen to the other Xiuzhenists. The cause of all of this is one blazing blue air current from the Meteoric Tear.

  “The Meteoric Tear, what is it exactly?” Qin Yu becomes even more curious about the Meteoric Tear, which fused with his body.

  He also tries sending his spiritual energy out. The moment he sends it out, he discovers that a middle Yuanying-stage expert is rushing above him in his direction and, worse still, that expert is even searching using his holy sense.

  However, when that holy sense sweeps across Qin Yu, it detects nothing. Moreover, when his holy sense expands, the expert does not feel anything happening whatsoever.

  Their holy senses are on 2 different levels. That middle Yuanying-stage Xiuyaoist’s holy sense is slightly weaker than Qin Yu’s holy sense so it cannot detect his. Qin Yu simply does not know the principle of this. It is really somewhat mysterious.

  He only knows the outcome, that is, a holy sense can detect a weaker one but cannot detect a stronger one.

  After a while, Qin Yu’s whole body shoots out through the coral reef from under it like lightning. His current condition is the best he has ever been in. The bad effects of using the Meteor Escaping Art have all been removed. Moreover, he has also learned the Soul Examination technique.

  “Xiao Hei is in the northeast and even not very far from here.” Closing his eyes, he can feel Xiao Hei’s existence clearly.

  A special telepathy developed between Xiao Hei and Qin Yu when they were still little, allowing them to feel each other’s existence.

  Qin Yu slightly narrows his eyes and immediately considers his situation: “By now Sang Mo has already offered a reward because of his son’s death. Plus, these underwater Xiuyaoists seem to be able to tell that I’m not a Xiuyaoist with ease, including even the demonic beasts weaker than me!”

  He recalls how, when he and Xiao Hei had just dived down the deep parts of the ocean, those weak demonic beasts ran away very fast.

  “Those Xiuyaoists can recognize me. Added to this the reward offer, and it’s hard for me to take a step in this underwater world. Plus, I know nothing whatsoever about this world of Xiuyaoists. Now the most important thing to do is to sneakily kill a Xiuyaoist and use the Soul Examination to know the situation of this underwater world’s Xiuyaoists clearly.”

  Qin Yu knows very well that in an unfamiliar environment he has to be extra careful.

  He then sends his holy sense out, very confident about it. Not even a middle Yuanying-stage expert was able to detect him so it is easy to imagine how formidable his holy sense is.

  Like a beam of light, Qin Yu flashes south directly.

  However, soon afterwards, he detects 8 Xiuyaoists not far from him. In an instant, he stops using stellar energy and suppresses his aura. But he has no worries about using his holy sense at all because, after all, these 8 Xiuyaoists are only at the Jindan stage.

  “Big brother Sang Tan, this time Patriarch is about to go insane already. He ordered us to search nonstop without allowing us to take a rest.” A Xiuyaoist says.

  These 8 Xiuyaoists are none other than members of the Sang octopus clan. These 8 members have joined forces and been doing their job together. In fact, they have been doing this because of their laziness. After all, if each of them went to a different area, their overall searching speed would be m
uch faster.

  “Damn it! Where’d this Xiuxianist sod off to? There’s not a Xiuxian island within 100,000 li of this place, we’ve been searching for so long, Patriarch has also offered a reward, and almost every 100 li is being searched by someone but unexpectedly not even a bloody shadow has been seen.” Sang Tan says angrily too.

  The face of Qin Yu, who is observing using his holy sense from a distance, immediately changes.

  He knew that the reward offer would cause many Xiuyaoists to look for him, but did not think there would be a Xiuxianist in every 100 li on average. It should be known that a 100 li distance is not considered far at all by a Xiuyaoist.

  Qin Yu however does not know that the pursuing Xiuyaoists are being concentrated mainly in this area of 100,000 li in radius. After all, most Xiuyaoists think that he is in this area. As for further areas, there are much fewer pursuing Xiuyaoists present in them. Most pursuing Xiuyaoists search these areas only once conveniently.