Chapter 21: Diligent Practice

Pang Jian's body was frozen in shock. The bizarre scene before him caused his imagination to go wild.

The bone of the Celestial Phoenix had pierced through the head of the giant serpent. Its head was pressed against the rocky bottom of the pond, and despite its efforts, it could only writhe like a centipede, refusing to succumb to death's grip.

He did not know how long the serpent had been struggling, but regardless, it remained unable to free itself from the bone of the Celestial Phoenix, leading to the loss of flesh on parts of its body.

Even mysterious beings like the giant serpent were utterly helpless when faced with the bone of the Celestial Phoenix.

For a long time, Pang Jian gazed at the giant serpent.

Is the giant serpent the reason why Father designated Blackwater Pond a forbidden zone?

His mind was shaken. It felt like a door to a completely new world had slowly opened up to him. It seemed the Solitary Mountain Range was not so simple after all.

He wondered whether every forbidden zone his father designated hid a terrifying being akin to the giant serpent.

Doubts surfaced in Pang Jian's mind.

Did Father know of the existence of such beings, and intentionally concealed them from me? Or was he also unaware?

After some time, Pang Jian continued to inspect the abnormalities at the bottom of the pond.

The scaly giant serpent lay at the center of the pond, surrounded by skeletons that extended as far as his eyes could see.

Some skeletons belonged to wild beasts from the Solitary Mountain Range, while others were unmistakably human skeletons.

There was no way to know how many wild beasts and humans the giant serpent had devoured. The only trace of them that remained was their spat-out bones.

Pang Jian could not help but feel a hint of fear.

If I hadn't listened to Father's warnings and ventured into Blackwater Pond, would I also have ended up as a skeleton at the bottom of the pond?

Pang Jian slowly retreated, hoping to put some distance between himself, the bone of the Celestial Phoenix, and the giant serpent.

From afar, he noticed that a third of the giant serpent's body had deteriorated from thick, rough scales into ivory-white bones.

The connection between the serpent's body and head was still covered in flesh and scales. However, it looked like a mysterious force had been consuming its flesh, starting from the end of its tail and slowly moving toward its head.

Pang Jian glanced at the bone of the Celestial Phoenix pinning the giant serpent.

It's the bone of the Celestial Phoenix!

After the bone of the Celestial Phoenix fell from the upper worlds and impaled the head of the giant serpent, it started to devour its flesh.

Throughout the ages, survival of the fittest remained an unchanging and eternal truth in natural selection.

The giant serpent in Blackwater Pond had previously devoured the wild beasts and humans in the mountain. Now, it was destined to meet the same end, suppressed and consumed by the bone of the Celestial Phoenix.

Pang Jian recalled the abnormalities that occurred with the previous bone of the Celestial Phoenix.

Following the trembling, the ground around the bone of the Celestial Phoenix cracked, and bloodthirsty vines emerged to devour the members of the Blood Moon Sect and the Shangguan Clan.

After that, a cluster of gleaming faint light wandered the bone of the Celestial Phoenix.

Pang Jian came to a realization. The bone of the Celestial Phoenix was likely killing and devouring the giant serpent's body to collect essence from its flesh and blood. After that, a second cluster of faint light would likely be born!

Boom!

As Pang Jian was in deep thought, the giant serpent struck the ground again, causing the ground around Blackwater Pond to quake.

However, the tremors this time were slightly weaker than before.

It's not dead yet.

Pang Jian's eyebrows twitched. He then abruptly realized the skin around his arms and ribcage had continued to absorb the air in the water even after he stopped cultivating the Qi Nurturing Divine Cauldron Art.

His body had instinctively continued to do it.

The tension in his body loosened as a sense of ease filled him. With this ability, he could stay at the bottom of the pond for a long time. He would not have to worry about the Shadow Specter Sect for a while.

Let's take a closer look.

Driven by curiosity, Pang Jian sank closer to the floor of the pond. He soon found the Dragonwood Spear he had previously thrown.

Swimming over to grab the spear, he then used its weight to anchor himself to the bottom of the floor

Emboldened by the presence of the Dragonwood Spear, Pang Jian walked over to the front of the giant serpent's head.

The giant serpent's head was larger than Pang Jian's house. It was covered in olive-green scales, which were layered like wrinkles on an old man's face. Its slightly agape maw revealed the deadly bone of the Celestial Phoenix lodged behind its sharp fangs.

Inky black lines streamed from its fangs and floated up toward the surface.

When he saw these black lines, Pang Jian realized the giant serpent's venom was the reason behind the abnormal blackness of the pond.

The pupils of the giant serpent contracted into tight slits as it appeared to endure immense pain. The giant serpent was alive but in agony, and did not notice Pang Jian's arrival, thus allowing him to explore freely.

𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Once the bone of the Celestial Phoenix devoured the giant serpent's body, it would go on to consume its head, and the giant serpent would truly die.

Perhaps, after that, a faint light would emerge in the bone of the Celestial Phoenix.

Finished with his speculations, Pang Jian wanted to thoroughly explore the bottom of the pond and so he moved further away.

Two clusters of dark red bloody lights caught his eyes!

Drawn by the bloody light, he tightened his grip on his Dragonwood Spear and approached the target. He wondered if there was another being at the bottom of this pool apart from the giant serpent.

For them to survive in such a harsh environment, they would have to be savage beasts of the same rank as the giant serpent!

Pang Jian's worry deepened.

Members of the Shadow Specter Sect patrolled the surface of the pond. If a new threat showed up now, he feared his escape would truly be impossible.

As he approached the bloody light and distanced himself from the giant serpent and the bone of the Celestial Phoenix, he noticed the bottom of the pond became dimmer and more obscured.

Pang Jian finally caught sight of the source of the bloody light. They came from two red eyes.

A strange figure stared unwaveringly at the bone of the Celestial Phoenix as though eagerly awaiting something. The figure was as emaciated as a skeleton, with eyes that emitted a dark-red glow.

The strange figure bore a realistic tattoo of the Celestial Phoenix on its chest. The blood-red wings on the tattoo flapped as if yearning to take flight, looking so lifelike it almost appeared alive.

Pang Jian stared at the strange figure for a long time, but they seemed oblivious to his presence, engrossed with the bone of the Celestial Phoenix lodged in the giant serpent's skull.

It was as if Pang Jian did not exist.

This mysterious figure was Ouyang Duanhai. Having been underwater at the time, Pang Jian was unaware of the happenings on the surface and thus knew neither about Ouyang Duanhai's appearance nor that he had jumped into the pond with Pang Jian.

Pang Jian had not expected any other beings to be at the bottom of the pond, so encountering a mysterious figure like Ouyang Duanhai sent shivers down his spine.

Had Pang Jian not been underwater, he feared he would have broken into a cold sweat. Gripping his Dragonwood Spear tightly with both hands, he waited patiently in place for a while.

He soon realized, however, that the strange figure before him paid him no heed, and was solely fixated on the bone of the Celestial Phoenix.

Pang Jian could not discern any trace of humanity in the figure's dark red eye and started to doubt whether the creature was human at all.

After observing for a while, Pang Jian had a thought.

Is he anticipating the emergence of the mysterious light within the bone of the Celestial Phoenix?

The motionless figure before him appeared to be waiting for the bone to devour the giant serpent and release the mysterious light.

That meant Pang Jian could avoid drawing its attention as long as he refrained from confronting it.

Nervously gripping his Dragonwood Spear, Pang Jian stealthily returned to the withered bone and deliberately selected a spot where he would not be visible to the strange figure.

Pang Jian found himself at a loss. There were cultivators from the Shadow Specter Sect above him, an enigmatic strange figure lurking at the bottom of the pond, and the bone of the Celestial Phoenix gradually consuming the original inhabitant of Blackwater Pond. With no clear path forward, he could only wait uncertainly for what to do next.

Even after racking his brains for a long time, Pang Jian could not think of a way out. He eventually decided to stop overthinking and carried his Dragonwood Spear to find a suitable spot to settle down.

Forget it. I'll just continue with my cultivation.

With the bone of the Celestial Phoenix acting as a shield between himself and the strange figure, Pang Jian leaned back against the withered bone for support. The figure on the other side of the bone continued to remain oblivious to Pang Jian's presence.

Pang Jian used the Dragonwood Spear to prop himself against the body of the giant serpent, where its scales and flesh were still intact, and then steadied himself by holding the spear with both hands.

He started to cultivate.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Streams of corrosive energy were drawn into his dark-green Spirit Cauldron from the black water around him.

The venom of the giant serpent rapidly dissolved the cotton-like impurities within his navel region.

***

After some time, Pang Jian was alarmed to discover the Dragonwood Spear propped against the giant serpent's body had sunk downward.

The bone of the Celestial Phoenix had consumed the part of the giant serpent's body he had been leaning against.

Pang Jian moved toward the head of the giant serpent and once again used the Dragonwood Spear to prop himself against its head before continuing with his cultivation.

This time, as he entered the state of deep focus, Pang Jian sensed that all impurities in his navel region had been cleansed!

He started to concentrate as he slowly observed his navel region. He was like a blind person moving around an empty room. That was until he perceived a membrane-like presence that marked the end of his navel region.

Pang Jian had finally cleansed all the impurities in his navel region and had officially entered the Qi Practicing Realm!

Pang Jian ran through the key points of the nine stages of the Qi Practicing realm as he started the first wave of drawing spiritual qi into his body.

The Qi Practicing Realm consists of nine stages. Each stage requires the guidance of the spiritual qi of heaven and earth to undergo repeated refinement within the navel region.

In the first stage, one must fill the navel region with spiritual qi before refining and cleansing it into spiritual power. In the second stage, one needs to absorb spiritual qi into the navel region until it overflows, refining it until it becomes spiritual power.

As he absorbed the spiritual qi of heaven and earth, Pang Jian soon became aware that he was also absorbing the corrosive energy in the black water alongside it!

Pang Jian was startled. Now that the corrosive energy had dissolved all the impurities, he feared it would damage his navel region and leave him unable to cultivate ever again.

However, as the spiritual qi and the corrosive energy merged into his navel region, he felt no discomfort at all.

These diverse energies filled his navel region, starting the filling process of the first stage.

Seeing as his navel region was unaffected, Pang Jian decided to ignore the potential dangers of the corrosive energy for the moment and use the peculiar energies within the water to cultivate.

He focused on the dark-green Spirit Cauldron and also retrieved the cracked rock from his bamboo basket alongside the spirit stones given to him by Ning Yao.

Disregarding any concerns about conflicting energies, he held the cracked rock and a spirit stone in each hand, leaned against the bone of the Celestial Phoenix, and focused on cultivating.

Danger loomed in all directions. Above the pond were formidable cultivators from the Shadow Specter Sect. Meanwhile, the bottom of the pond housed a strange figure, a dying giant serpent, and the mysterious bone of the Celestial Phoenix.

All Pang Jian could do was to desperately increase his power, even if it meant taking risks.

He could only hope to acquire the strength to protect himself.