Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit

Inside the black ball of ice, Lu Ping carefully studied the power of the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist through his aegis energy. To his surprise, its bone-chilling breath was actually able to penetrate his aegis energy and reach him.

It was worthy of being a powerful peculiar ice. If any ice-element cultivator absorbed it in their aegis energy, their aegis energy would be extraordinary!

But, this level of Mystical Ice Ominous Mist was no longer a threat to Lu Ping. With a mere shrug, the thick and tough black ice shattered into shards of ice.

Unfortunately, Lu Ping's pure water-element cultivation meant that the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist was not suitable for him. However, he could still let the Seven Elemental Lightning Gourd absorb it. At present, the gourd had only absorbed one peculiar ice; its power was definitely going to improve after absorbing the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist.

However, the current amount of Mystical Ice Ominous Mist was slightly less than expected. So, Lu Ping looked at the end of the ice cave and gritted his teeth. After fully activating his aegis energy, he used the Golden Scale Sword to create a huge crack on the ice cave.

Immediately, a huge wave of Mystical Ice Ominous Mist flooded out towards Lu Ping.

Although he knew that the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist couldn't threaten him, he also couldn't absorb all of it within a short period of time. Hence, he quickly pointed his finger and sealed the ice cave with an ice wall. This way, the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist would not be able to leak out to the surface and expose them.

After that, Lu Ping raised the Seven Elemental Lightning Gourd and let the gourd absorb as much Mystical Ice Ominous Mist as it possibly could. As this happened, the gourd's golden surface started to glow faintly with a black tint.

This tint indicated that the gourd had stored a large amount of Mystical Ice Ominous Mist that it couldn't digest just yet. The gourd would require Lu Ping's true energy to help it refine the peculiar items before its power could be improved.

Initially, Lu Ping didn't value the Seven Elemental Lightning Gourd. After all, he already had his nascent weapons that he needed to take care of, so he didn't want to be distracted further by the Seven Elemental Lightning Gourd.

He only kept the Seven Elemental Lightning Gourd because of its rarity, and had never actively used his true energy to refine the mystic treasure or search for peculiar items to improve its power. This changed after he advanced to the Mid Core Forging Realm using the Mystical Heavy Water; he finally had some extra true energy that he could spare to refine the Seven Elemental Lightning Gourd.

Now that he had found a peculiar ice that could be used to improve the Seven Elemental Lightning Gourd, he naturally wouldn't let the chance slip by. After the Seven Elemental Lightning Gourd reached its limit and stopped its absorption, Lu Ping kept it away and mulled.

Then, he took out a jade bottle, fortified it with his true energy, and cast a spell to store additional Mystical Ice Ominous Mist inside of it. Even after completely filling the jade bottle, two-thirds of the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist was still remaining in the now enclosed ice cave.

Lu Ping murmured to himself, "Fine. It's not that I didn't take enough, it's that there's too much of it. I will submit the rest to the sect. There is definitely another spirit material mine here and it's impossible for me to have it myself. In that case, why don't I proactively tell the sect about it... Hmm, I wonder which Great Ancestor will be present."

Lu Ping realized that he had already met six of the eight Zhen Ling Sect Great Ancestors. The only ones he had yet to meet were Great Ancestor Tian-Fan's wife, Great Ancestor Tian-Xue, and Great Ancestor Tian-Kang.

After making up his mind, Lu Ping looked at the deep crack where the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist had spewed out from, and smiled, "Let's see what's so special about this place that allows it to trap the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist so well inside of it."

Then, he walked through the crack and arrived at a ball of ice. The ice ball was made from thousand-year mutated ice, which were equivalent to top-grade spirit materials. The ball was only slightly bigger than the size of a man.

Besides the mutated ice that glowed faintly with dark blue light, as well as the thick Mystical Ice Ominous Mist inside of it, nothing else was special about it.

Lu Ping sighed, casually picking up an ice shard to inspect it. He suddenly noticed Dabao in the corner of his eyes, furiously collecting the ice shards around him.

Lu Ping was startled, finally realizing that he had forgotten to keep Dabao back in the spirit pet pouch. Fortunately, Dabao hadn’t left his side, remaining within his aegis energy at all times. If not for that, the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist would have frozen him into an ice statue already.

But quickly, Lu Ping was attracted by Dabao's action of collecting the ice shards. As a Spirit Seeking Mouse, Dabao wouldn't collect ordinary ice shards.

Sure enough, after squeezing the ice shard in his hand, Lu Ping was surprised to find that it didn't shatter and only cracked slightly. As he was very excited after seeing the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist, he didn't notice how tough the mutated shards of ice were when he created a crack on them. 24062

Suddenly, an exciting realization struck him. Lu Ping quickly looked at the ice shard again using the [Tri-Pristine True Vision] and smiled ear-to-ear.

These mutated pieces of ice were actually a type of mutated top-grade spirit material!

The Mystical Ice Ominous Mist was a peculiar ice, taking more than just Grade 1 ordinary spirit material to trap it without letting any leak out. Hence, these mutated ices had to be at least Grade 2 top-grade spirit materials. However, Grade 2 spirit materials would only emerge after they were subjected to a foreign force – for instance, the leaked energies of wonder items!

This was why Lu Ping was so excited; the likelihood of a wonder item somewhere in this ice ball was incredibly high!

Lu Ping quickly proceeded to break the ice ball, checking every piece of ice shard.. Finally, he found an ice shard that looked exactly the same as the others but felt different when touched.

Frost Bone! Who would've thought.

Lu Ping smiled happily, taking out a jade box and sealing the Mystic-class mid-grade wonder item inside of it. At his current cultivation stage, Lu Ping was able to easily draw a seal charm using his true energy alone without the use of a medium, and attach it to the jade box.

Lu Ping then looked at the remaining ice shards and decided to keep them all. After all, if he left them lying around, someone might later find them and arrive at the same conclusion that he did.. At that time, they would realize that he had obtained a wonder item. Although the sect wouldn't force him to hand it over, it was still better to save himself from future troubles.

Just as he was about to continue the exploration, he suddenly felt the surface rumbling above him and was startled. The thick ice layer had suppressed his divine revelation from reaching the surface. But if the tremor could reach so deep into the ice layer, it had to either be an earthquake, or a massive battle between Enlightened Masters.

Right away, Lu Ping stopped his exploration and decided to head back up. After all, he was the only one who discovered this place so far, so he still had time to come back afterwards.

So, Lu Ping returned to the ice cave and used his true energy to push back the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist away from the ice wall. Then, he quickly raised another ice wall to trap the Mystical Ice Ominous Mist on the other side, before breaking the one behind him so that he could leave.

As soon as he reached the surface, he immediately heard the sounds of spells and attacks rumbling across the sky. The spiritual energy on the island was in turmoil and the entire island was quaking nonstop from the attacks.

This wasn’t possible from the actions of just a few Enlightened Masters; there had to be a bunch of them fighting right now!

Lu Ping was shocked, but this was not the time to think. He immediately rushed out while casting the [Sea Crossing Concealment Art] to conceal his tracks.

...

At the ice cliff, the North Ocean’s top ten sects were engaged in a chaotic battle against each other.

When Lu Ping arrived, the Zhen Ling Sect Enlightened Masters were under siege by Xuan Ling Sect, Shui Yan Pavilion, and Hai Yan Sect's Enlightened Masters. Furthermore, the Late Core Forging Realm representatives from the top ten sects were in a stalemate in the center of the battle.

Although Lu Ping didn't know what had happened, he didn't slow down to intervene and help. The Golden Scale Sword struck out with the full force of the [True Origin One Essence Sword Art]. The giant golden light sword cleaved down from the sky and separated the crowd.

Given Lu Ping's almost Late Core Forging Realm prowess, his full power was almost unparalleled in this battlefield; even Late Core Forging Realm representatives looked solemn facing this attack.

"No!"

"Not good!"

"Stop!"

To Lu Ping's surprise, every Enlightened Master in the battlefield, friend or foe, shouted at him to stop his attack. But it was too late; not even Lu Ping could retract his full power attack.

The giant light sword cut right into the ice layer, and a moment later, an explosion occurred followed by a loud rumbling noise. A few shooting lights flew out from the explosion, leaving the island in different directions.

The ten Late Core Forging Realm Enlightened Masters that were in a stalemate also swiftly moved into action. They lashed out a round of attacks at each other, and then immediately turned around in unison, rushing towards the shooting lights.