Chapter 21: Nascent Soul Transformation

Inside the spirit ark, Han Li was seated with his legs crossed and his eyes closed with his back leaning against a wall, while Liu Le'er was seated obediently beside him, inspecting her surroundings with an intrigued expression while also occasionally taking glances at the rapidly receding scenery outside.

Gu Yunyue was standing outside, controlling the spirit ark while also speaking with Yu Menghan in a low voice.

After an indeterminate period of time, Han Li gently exhaled as he slowly opened his eyes, and his expression was rather grim.

Following his awakening, he discovered that he was no longer able to absorb the world's origin qi into his body, so it was impossible for him to recover his meditation through cultivation. He had only recently awakened, and he was stunned by the revelation of his memory loss, so he didn't get a chance to examine this matter.

He had just attempted to absorb the world's origin qi, and he discovered that it was still to no avail.

After a moment of contemplation, Han Li flipped a hand over to produce a white jade vial, and as soon as it was opened, he was immediately greeted by an extremely rich medicinal scent that struck him with a sense of reinvigoration.

He tipped out an azure pill from the vial, holding it up to his eye between two of his fingers for closer examination.

"So this is a Sharp Watch Pill. I hope it'll actually do something," Han Li murmured to himself, then swallowed the pill before closing his eyes to meditate.

Liu Le'er knew that Han Li wasn't to be interrupted during this process. She could see that Yu Menghan had already finished her conversation with Gu Yunyue and was making her way toward her, so she stood up and made her way over to another corner of the ark before taking a seat to speak with Yu Menghan.

Moments later, the pill gradually began to take effect, and Han Li's eyebrows suddenly twitched slightly as a gentle surge of warmth slowly emerged from his dantian, then made its way throughout his body along his meridians.

After circulating the energy throughout his body once, he immediately felt far more comfortable, and the sense of emptiness in his body was also beginning to fade. At the same time, a slight hint of magic power was generated in his dantian, and even though it was only a tiny amount, it was still a very encouraging turn of events.

Han Li slowly opened his eyes as he examined what was taking place inside his body, then flipped a hand over to produce around a dozen more pills.

Aside from the ones that he had taken from Daoist Master White Stone, there were also some pills that had been left behind by Qi Minghao and the gray-robed man. Almost all of them had the effect of treating injuries and recovering magic power, but there was a great variance in the quality of the pills, most of them were far inferior to that Sharp Watch Pill.

Han Li picked up one of the pills before swallowing it, then slowly closed his eyes again.

However, moments later, his eyes suddenly sprang open, and a perplexed look appeared on his face. He then picked up another pill before swallowing it as well.

Once again, he reopened his eyes only a brief moment later with a rather uncertain gaze.

The two pills that he had just taken had failed to produce any effect. He was unable to sense any changes taking place in his body, nor was he able to generate any more magic power.

A grim look appeared on his face as he swallowed the pills in his hand one after another.

Soon, all that was left was a thumb-sized pill of a dark golden color.

This was a pill of quite a high caliber, comparable to the Sharp Watch Pill, and it was presumably the pill that Qi Minghao had been reserving for life-threatening situations.

Han Li took an expressionless glance at the pill, then tossed it into his own mouth.

This time, he wasn't disappointed. The golden pill quickly took effect after being devoured, transforming into a wisp of spiritual power that flowed into his dantian, increasing his magic power slightly once again.

Only then did Han Li's expression ease slightly.

As long as his body was still receptive to pills, it wouldn't be a difficult task for him to recover his magic power. As for why the other pills hadn't yielded any effect, that was most likely because they were of too low a caliber to make any difference in his body.

Right at this moment, a voice suddenly rang out in his head.

"Congratulations, Fellow Daoist Han. It looks like there's hope yet for you to recover your magic power."

"It hardly matters if I can't produce any magic power of my own," Han Li replied with his spiritual sense.

"It's still better than nothing. With each shred of magic power that you recover, you and I will be closer to returning to the Immortal Realm," Mo Guang said.

"That's true, but I'm afraid it's most likely not going to be so easy," Han Li replied.

"If pills work, then what about spirit stones?" Mo Guang asked.

"I was just about to try that," Han Li replied with a smile.

He flipped a hand over to produce several azure spirit stones of different sizes, and as he closed his hands around them, they immediately began to give off azure light.

Liu Le'er and Yu Menghan couldn't help but have their attention drawn to the azure light that had suddenly appeared in Han Li's direction, while Gu Yunyue displayed no reaction as she stood at the front of the ark.

Azure spiritual power began to slowly flow from the spirit stones, but after circling over Han Li's palms for some time, the spiritual power suddenly became murky and indistinct.

Moments later, the azure light gradually dissipated, vanishing into thin air.

Han Li released the spirit stones, which had become completely dull and devoid of luster, and he fell into deep thought with a perplexed look on his face.

"What's going on? It appears you're unable to absorb power from spirit stones, either." Mo Guang's voice rang out in his mind again.

Han Li was silent for a moment before replying, "Perhaps just like those pills, these spirit stones are of too low a quality and don't contain sufficiently pure spiritual power to be converted into magic power in my body."

Mo Guang was silent for a moment, then said, "In that case, you should be able to return to your former peak as long as you have sufficient high-grade pills and top-grade spirit stones."

Han Li heaved a long sigh, then replied in a rather frustrated manner, "It's not that simple. It's still yet to be seen whether top-grade spirit stones will even be effective for me. Thankfully, my body and spiritual sense foundation are decently stable, so even if I'm unable to absorb the world's origin qi, I'll still be able to recover slowly on my own."

"You're far too modest, Fellow Daoist Han. If the foundation of your body and spiritual sense can only be considered to be decently stable, then no one would be able to claim to have a strong foundation. Seeing as we've already identified a way forward, I can only wish you luck in your recovery," Mo Guang said before falling silent.

Han Li heaved another faint sigh. None of the storage bags that he had picked up contained any top-grade spirit stones. Otherwise, he would've tested them out right away.

He carefully examined the magic power in his body to find that it was only equivalent to what would be found in a mid-Nascent Soul cultivator. If he wanted to continue to make improvements in this area, he would either need to regain the ability to absorb the world's origin qi or take high-grade pills for magic power recovery.

With that in mind, Han Li's brows furrowed slightly, and he directed his spiritual sense deep into his own dantian to examine his internal condition.

His entire dantian seemed to be enshrouded within a boundless cloud of mist, and there was a layer of faint golden light at the heart of the mist, resembling a yellow lantern in the night.

Han Li projected his spiritual sense into the mist, upon which he saw a miniature golden figure that was glowing brightly. The figure was seated in the mist, and it was completely identical to Han Li in appearance. It was none other than his nascent soul.

The nascent soul wore a calm expression, and its eyes closed while its arms were hanging by its sides, seemingly in a state of slumber.

His inability to absorb the world's origin qi had to have something to do with the state of his nascent soul. Back when he first awakened, he had used his spiritual sense to examine his nascent soul, only to find that his spiritual sense was unable to enter his nascent soul, nor was he able to rouse it from its slumber.

If it weren't for the fact that there was still a faint spiritual connection between himself and the nascent soul, he would almost be led to believe that it didn't even belong to him.

A catalog of secret techniques flashed through Han Li's mind, and in the end, he made a hand seal, upon which the magic power that had just been generated in his dantian converged before forming a faint silver rune, which slowly drifted toward the nascent soul's body.

A string of dull thumps rang out, and as soon as the silver rune made contact with the nascent soul's skin, it immediately disintegrated into bursts of silver light.

Han Li's expression darkened slightly upon seeing this, but he wasn't too surprised. He immediately switched to a different secret technique, summoning a series of white threads of light that slowly converged toward the nascent soul from all directions.

Several hours later, Han Li's eyes sprang wide open, and he had to take a sharp breath to swallow back the blood that was threatening to gush out of his throat.

Just now, he had used his Spirit Refinement Technique [1] to try and forcibly inject his spiritual sense into his nascent soul, but a burst of terrifying power had suddenly emerged from the nascent soul, repelling his spiritual sense and magic power, thereby resulting in secret technique backlash.

Thankfully, his physical body and spiritual sense were sufficiently powerful for him to survive the ordeal. If an ordinary cultivator had been in his place, there was a very good chance that they would've been reduced to a true imbecile by the spiritual sense backlash.

After that series of experimentation, Han Li had used up some of the magic power that he had regained, almost dropping back down to the early-Nascent Soul Stage, and that was rather disheartening for him.

1. Refer to Chapter 1740 of RMJI for information on the Spirit Refinement Technique. ☜