Chapter 454 - Third Rank Meat Fields, Cultivating Within a Coffins - Part 3

The next day.

When Li Yuan checked his lotus again, he now held 316 new ancestral seal seeds, a surge of strength blooming quietly within him. A faint sense of satisfaction stirred in his chest.

In the days that followed, he accompanied Zhong Kui to each of the other nine prisons where more sixth rank disciples were kept.

And, one by one, he harvested them all.

By the time half a month had passed, the work was complete. The

fields

had been stripped clean.

And the results were astonishing.

Every single one of the once-mad sixth ranks had been restored to their senses, their eyes sharp and lucid once more. Overjoyed, they whispered in awe, asking each other, “Who healed us? Who could possibly do this?”

Word spread quickly. Everyone knew Zhong Kui had escorted a mysterious stranger into the prisons. And that, after each visit, those who had lost themselves recovered miraculously.

But no matter how anyone asked, Zhong Kui’s lips remained sealed. He shook his head, refusing to say a word.

Eventually, the questioning stopped.

But people weren’t fools, especially not these sixth rank disciples.

After all, they had clawed their way up here through strength, intelligence, and relentless will. The only reason they’d ended up imprisoned as ghost cavalry candidates was bad fortune, not lack of ability.

And there was only one person in the entire Ghost Prison who could command Zhong Kui’s absolute silence, the Ghost Street Judge.

That was the conclusion everyone reached.

So, after their release, the sixth rank disciples gathered outside the Ghost Judge’s temple, burning incense, bowing deeply, chanting their gratitude.

“Praise to Yan Yu!”

“Blessings upon the Ghost Street Judge!”

Afterward, they returned to the Bladeseekers to continue their cultivation.

And with that, the Bladeseeker’s prestige soared even higher. But prestige invited scrutiny. The remnants of the Lotus Cult quickly sensed that something was wrong. They would come to investigate. They would test. And sooner or later, blood and steel would clash again.

Only this time...the Lotus Cult was already broken. This time, their defeat would be absolute.

Li Yuan didn’t intervene in the aftermath of it all. He simply watched quietly from the sidelines.

This time, his

harvest

was immense, 3,024 new seeds, bringing his total to 3,880.

He pulled up his status window and scanned it briefly. He was still fifth rank. But he wasn’t surprised nor disappointed. He had long suspected that his strange System only tracked cultivation progress for the Human Soul, while ignoring the Heaven soul and Earth Soul entirely.

What did catch his attention, though, was the numbers. His combat power had jumped from 4,530~121,663 to 4,530~129,662.

It was an increase, yes, but a modest one, considering the scale of his gains.

Still, Li Yuan wasn’t disheartened. Deep within his body, he could feel it. A vast, chaotic torrent of power was surging through him, layered and wild, each strand colliding violently with the next.

And now...faintly, subtly, he could sense a thin, icy undertone running through that storm.

“So...this is the power of the soul.” Li Yuan frowned slightly, thoughtful. “But is it enough? Is this foundation sufficient to begin cultivating the Heaven Soul?”

With that thought lingering, Li Yuan returned to a secluded spot hidden within the frozen tundra.

A moment later, a jet-black crow landed neatly on his shoulder, flapping its wings once before chirping in a crisp, childish voice:

“Papa!”

Li Yuan smiled faintly and reached up, gently stroking its small, glossy head.

“Did that

god

of yours,” he asked softly, “tell you how to determine whether one can begin cultivating the Heaven Soul technique?”

The little crow puffed up proudly. “Yup, yup! He taught me a way to test it!”

“Go on,” Li Yuan said.

And the crow began to explain.

Li Yuan listened quietly until his expression froze for a moment.

The so-called

test

was...surprisingly simple. He had to gather the power of his own soul and try to sense the earth beneath him. If a subtle connection formed, then he was qualified to begin.

As for establishing that link, there was a visualization method. He had to imagine a black fish swimming through the void, specifically, the Yin fish of the twin Yin-Yang fish hidden deep within the Deathless Tomb.

Li Yuan had seen that fish before. Visualizing it would be effortless. Without hesitation, he sat cross-legged beneath the crow’s guidance and began his first attempt.

It was a failure.

Then he suffered another, and another...

But on the fourth try, something finally stirred. It was faint, fragile, but real...a slender thread of connection reaching out between his soul and the earth itself.

The sensation was...strange.

His entire body turned cold, as though flesh and blood no longer belonged to him. The warmth of human emotion began fading rapidly, stripped away layer by layer.

In its place, a strange, overwhelming disgust rose within him, an instinctive revulsion toward life, flesh, and mortality itself.

And then, the instant he stopped visualizing the black fish and withdrew his soul power, it all vanished.

The cold, the numbness, and the rejection of life were all gone, like mist under sunlight.

“I made the connection,” Li Yuan said calmly. “So what happens next?”

The crow hesitated. Its beak opened. Then closed. Then opened again.

Li Yuan narrowed his eyes. “Spit it out.”

“Alright, Papa!” the crow squeaked quickly. “After that...you’ll need to place your body into a coffin and bury yourself somewhere absolutely drenched in pure Yang energy. The bonfire is best. It’s...um, the safest option. But if you can’t find a suitable one, then burying yourself near a high rank meat field works too!”

“Right...” Li Yuan stared at the crow in silence for a moment. Then he asked flatly, “And then?”

The crow shuffled its wings awkwardly. “Then...well...you, uh...slowly...wait to die.”

“...” Li Yuan fell speechless.

The crow hurried on, its words tumbling over each other in a rush. “During this process, Papa, your soul will naturally be drawn toward the stronger source of Yang energy, whether it’s from the bonfire or the energy from the meat field. Once your soul merges with that Yang essence, it’ll start wrapping around it, gradually condensing a new body for you.”

It paused, then added with an oddly cheerful tone, “Oh, and to make it safer, you can prepare your burial ground beforehand! Make a statue of yourself and place it there. Then, have the local villagers worship you with incense offerings. That way, their collective prayers will gather around your resting place, forming a protective layer over your soul. It’ll keep you safe...while your brand-new body slowly grows.

“Oh, right—” the crow suddenly chirped, “that old man also said... even if your original body dies and rots away during the process, it doesn’t matter.”

“...” Li Yuan continued to stare,, at a loss for words.

“Alright,” he said after a pause. “Then what does the new body look like?”

The little crow hopped on his shoulder, spreading its wings proudly. “It can be anything in heaven and earth! A plant, an animal...even stone or metal! But—” Its beady black eyes blinked, “Once that thing becomes your new body, it’ll possess power far beyond your old flesh.”

Li Yuan went quiet for a moment. Strangely, his thoughts drifted back to a scene from his previous life, a movie he’d once watched about Nezha, the Third Prince.

In the story, Nezha’s original body had perished, but through incense and worship, his soul reformed and he was reborn into a lotus-root body.

This Heaven Soul cultivation technique...wasn’t all that different.

The crow, however, seemed less impressed. Its round, glassy eyes stared up at him, brimming with concern.

“Papa...I dunno,” it murmured softly. “This technique sounds...kinda unreliable. Maybe...we shouldn’t do it?”

Li Yuan smiled faintly, but his thoughts weren’t on danger. His concern lay elsewhere.

The source of Yang energy. For most people, the process required lying near a Yang bonfire or a high rank meat field, letting one’s soul wrap itself around the Yang energy released there to form a new vessel.

But his body...already housed the Yang flame. Would lying there do anything at all? Wouldn’t his own flame interfere, maybe even make it fail entirely?

Li Yuan turned the thought over and over in his mind, weighing risk against reward. In the end, he sighed. “This is a technique my daughter managed to squeeze out of a god herself. I’d be a fool not to try.”

Still...he wasn’t reckless. There was no way he’d bury himself near the ash scorched bonfires of the frozen tundra.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Half a month later.

Two coffins were quietly buried near a newly formed third rank meat field on the outskirts of Gemhill County.

This meat field had evolved from fourth rank to third rank following the expansion of the Ghost Prison. Next to it stood a freshly built temple dedicated to Yan Yu.

Inside the temple, Yan Yu’s jade statue had just been placed upon the altar. At her feet sat two smaller figures—a chubby boy with a playful, rounded face and a quiet, graceful young girl carved in serene detail.

No one knew who the boy and girl represented. But the upper ranks of the Court of Judges did. Yan Yu herself had personally ordered their inclusion.

Incense filled the air, thick and sweet, mingling with a faint mist that swirled around the three statues like drifting clouds in heaven.

Every prayer, every whispered blessing from the worshippers below gathered here, drawn into the temple’s heart.

And beneath that temple, deep under the earth, the two coffins lay silently side by side.

𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

In one lay Li Yuan. In the other...the crow.

Both were here to

test the waters

.

Days began to pass.

“Papa!” the crow’s shrill voice suddenly rang out from the other coffin. “Papa, can you hear me?”

From somewhere deep through the soil, through the heavy coffin wood, a voice answered faintly, “I hear you.”

The crow chirped excitedly. “Papa! What are you doing?”

Li Yuan’s voice was calm, steady, almost bored. “Lying down...”

“Oh...” The crow hesitated, then asked, “Papa, have you...noticed anything changing yet?”

“No,” Li Yuan said flatly.

“Oh.”

There was silence for a moment.

Then Li Yuan’s voice came again, slightly skeptical. “You’re using a crow. Does burying it in a coffin even work for you?”

The little bird puffed up indignantly, its tone half-proud, half-sheepish. “That old man said I’m a one-of-a-kind freak! Others can’t do it...but I probably can!”

“Right...”

The two coffins fell quiet again...though, only for a short while.

Inevitably, the crow started chattering again, endlessly babbling to fill the silence, rambling about nothing and everything just to fight the crushing boredom.

Li Yuan, locked away in darkness, listened without interrupting. He had nothing else to do, nothing else to see—trapped within his coffin, cut off from the world, unable to sense what was happening above ground except through the crow’s voice.

As for everywhere else, across the frozen tundra, across Gemhill County, across the abandoned territory of the Lotus Cult, he could only rely on the birds he’d placed beforehand, scattered like silent eyes across the land, each carrying back fragments of the world he couldn’t reach.

Inside the cold earth, two coffins lay in stillness.

The experiments had begun