Stellar Transformations

B5C7: 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 much 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.

Because Xiuyaoists usually spend time practicing, they are very bored, and therefore many of them are very eager to chase some Xiuxianist.

“8 Xiuyaoists.” Qin Yu considers the probability of killing these 8 Xiuyaoists. After a while, he slowly shakes his head: “No, I can’t handle these 8 guys quickly. Also, when Sang Mo sent his clan’s members out, he must’ve given them a method for transmitting messages. Even if I could kill these 8 quickly, they’d send a message and so many Xiuyaoists would gather in this area, which would be very bad.”

“The 8 of you are very lucky.”

Without activating the stellar energy in his body, Qin Yu pierces through the water like an arrow using his physical power. The principle of the body-maneuvering skill he practiced in the past is to turn water resistance into assistance. With Qin Yu’s body and his water-piercing body-maneuvering skill, his speed is still very fast.

In a short while he has already gone very far from those 8 Xiuyaoists.

“Using physical power alone to go through the water is still slower than using stellar energy.” There are no Xiuyaoists in his surroundings according to his holy sense so he begins to activate his stellar energy, preparing to go forwards extremely fast from now on. However --

Qin Yu’s face changes color abruptly.

There are unexpectedly 2 Xiuyaoists up ahead. Even worse, judging from the fact that they are searching with their expanded holy senses, they are probably also Qin Yu’s pursuers.

“It’s been only 10-odd li but I’ve encountered other pursuers again.” Qin Yu finally knows how densely distributed his pursuers are, especially within this area of 100,000 in radius, where almost all Xiuyaoists conveniently expand their holy senses to search when they are free.

These 2 Xiuyaoists looks very muscular. One of them is bald and wearing armor. The other is even more muscular. His whole body’s skin has a dark blue color and there is a pitch-black stick in his hand.

“Hey, bro, today is really boring. Recently you haven’t surfaced to hunt, have you?” The armor-clad bald man says to the blue large man casually.

The blue large man says with a mysterious smile: “Of course I have. When I came to the waters near the continent to hunt last time, I was very lucky to run into a fishing boat. There were 10-odd people on the boat, including even some women. At that time I turned into my true form and ate half of them up at a gulp. Then I sucked the rest in my storage bracelet. Ha-ha, when those people saw my true form they all yelled ‘sea monster’.”

“Then could you let me also ...” The bald man signals to the blue large man with a look.

The blue large man says laughingly: “All right, all ...” Before the blue large man can finish saying, a fist penetrates his chest and, moreover, it lands exactly where his heart is located. This man’s heart is immediately shattered.

“Go to hell!”

There is a hint of ruthlessness in Qin Yu’s eyes. When he heard what these 2 men said to each other, he became determined to kill them.

As soon as the bald man takes a look at Qin Yu, he is greatly shocked: “Who are you?” This bald man is horrified by the fact that before he could feel an aura Qin Yu already killed his friend directly with a punch. This speed was really terrifyingly fast.

With a faint smile on the corners of his mouth, Qin Yu stares at the bald man: “You’re going to be the target of my Soul Examination!”

“Soul Examination, what does it mean?” The bald man is astounded in his heart.

The Soul Examination can only be used when the opponent’s soul still exists. If a person’s body dies, his soul will quickly leave the body to enter the cycle of reincarnation. Therefore, there are 2 ways to perform the Soul Examination on a person. The 1st is to examine his soul directly when he is alive. The 2nd is to kill him then immediately examine his soul, taking advantage of the time when the soul is yet to leave the body.

However, because that blue large man has been dead for a while, his soul has already left, and therefore Qin Yu can only consider this armor-clad bald man the target of his Soul Examination.

“You’re ... a Xiuxianist, that Xiuxianist who killed Sang Mo’s son?” The bald man suddenly says.

Qin Yu slightly raises his eyebrows because the opponent has quickly recognized him.

“You’ve unexpectedly recognized me. Tell me, how did you do that?” He asks while staring at the bald man, who secretly lets out a breath because the opponent did not attack him immediately, which also gives him a slim chance of escaping.

He has no intention of fighting Qin Yu. After seeing how Qin Yu killed his friend with a blow just now, he has made a judgement about Qin Yu’s power.

The bald man says with a flattering smile: “This is really very simple. Your body doesn’t have a Xiuyao aura. Your aura is different from ours. Also, a Xiuxianist who dares to go deep into the ocean is either an extremely powerful expert or a completely ignorant rookie, but in the upper part of this area, there is no ...”

Before the bald man can finishes saying, he suddenly sees Qin Yu’s body, which is 10 m away from him, make a swaying movement and arrive at his face in an instant.

“Ah!”

The bald man immediately reacts, wanting to resist. However, when has just thrown a punch ...

Bang!

With a series of noises of bones being smashed Qin Yu’s fist directly shatters the bald man’s fist then, while he is shocked, proceeds to pierce through his chest and break his heart into pieces. At the same time, Qin Yu’s left hand makes a violent grab at the bald man’s head.

Xiumo -- Soul Examination!

After a while, Qin Yu pulls back his hands. Concurrently with this, he gets the jindans of these 2 Xiuyaoists, both of whom are at the middle phase of the Jindan stage.

He gave the bald man a chance to talk because he did not want any mistakes to happen. If he had tried to kill the bald man right after killing the blue large man, that bald man would definitely have defended with all his might.

If the bald man had self-destructed, he would have had to run away to avoid the explosion, which would have given the opponent’s soul enough time to float off. Therefore, Qin Yu allowed the bald man to talk, but when the opponent had just said half of what he intended to say, he sprang into action.

“Let’s get rid of the corpses to remove all traces.”

He sucks the 2 Xiuyaoists’ dead bodies, weapons and armor in his spatial ring. Ordinary Xiuzhenists have storage bracelets with small spaces so they would have to deal with some useless things before doing this, but Qin Yu just does not care.

Sucking the bodies in the spatial ring is absolutely the best way to remove all the traces of what happened.

Having absorbed the memories of that Xiuyaoist, now Qin Yu understands everything about the entire underwater world of Xiuyaoists. All of his doubts have disappeared in an instant. He cannot help giving a faint confident smile: “I see!”

End of b5c7.