At that moment, the external surge of power grew even more violent.
The entire seal began to crackle with sharp splintering sounds.
In less than the time it takes for one stick of incense to burn, the restriction would be completely shattered.
Already, the overwhelming aura of a Longevity-stage cultivator was pouring into the burial chamber.
Su Ming reached out, gently stroking Su Min'er's head, and said:
"You have suffered more than enough already.
Now let us fight side by side, and see how much of my former strength this Martial General – Left Registrar of Fate can unleash."
As he spoke, a strange force surged from his body, flowing through Su Min'er's severed arm and flooding into her.
Human and Construct, their auras began to merge until the two became one.
Then, Su Ming's fleshly body gradually dissolved into a rainbow light and disappeared.
What took his place was a towering, armored general ten feet tall.
The general stretched out one massive hand, scooped Su Min'er up, and placed her securely upon his shoulder.
The flowing iron plates of his shoulder armor shifted and closed over her like liquid steel, locking her safely within.
Human and Construct became one.
Within the armor, Su Min'er felt as though she were back beneath her blanket, warm and secure.
And yet, her lifespan drained away like running water.
The armored general flipped over his copper coffin, reaching beneath to draw forth a massive spear of blue steel.
With a sweep of the shaft, blossoms of spear-light danced out, as though piercing through the fabric of the void itself.
Then, with the thrust of a dragon, the spear smashed straight through the barrier, stabbing into the mass of ghostly blue flames.
A battle with a Longevity-stage cultivator had begun!
...
The rarity of a Spiritual Construct could not be overstated.
And cultivators who succeeded in Spiritual Construct Forging were one in ten thousand true prodigies.
Though such constructs demanded a crushing burden of lifespan, these geniuses could advance step by step to the Longevity realm, where they would refine high-grade Lifespan Patterns to compensate for the loss, and thus achieve true immortality.
What's more, those who completed Construct Forging could, at the Suppressing-Spirit stage, seize and bind a second Construct, gaining an overwhelming advantage.
Thus, this rare breed of cultivators was given a title: Children of the Construct.
In Hunzhou, in the three thousand years since its founding, no such "Child of the Construct" had ever appeared.
Until this day, when Su Min'er, against all odds, succeeded and opened a new chapter.
...
The moment she fused with the Martial General – Left Registrar of Fate, far away in a great iron mansion, resonance stirred.
There, General Su Zhao, the old warlord of the Su family, Warden of the Northern Frontier for the Divine Dynasty, Commander of the Imperial Secret Guard, and a fourth-rank noble of the Heavenly Court
stood within the ancestral shrine, watching the family's extinguished Life Furnace suddenly flare anew.
Though it was only a shallow layer of White Flame Furnace, the sight brought tears to his eyes.
"Attendants! The Su family bloodline lives on! A Child of the Construct has been born!"
"Send a company of my chosen elites to take my Spirit Hound and lead my Spirit Steed. Bring them back!"
"Yes, my lord!"
...
Meanwhile, within the dimensional void, Jing Qian sped forward with full force.
Through his vision, guided by the World's Insight Pattern, he watched BlueBlood Lantern directing legions of ghostly shades, gnawing wildly at the seal.
But Jing Qian knew he had no qualification to face a Longevity-stage enemy head-on.
The struggle between Jiangzhu Island and Tsushima Island was not his fight. He had his own understanding and his own countermeasures.
Even as he ghosted through the void, he was adjusting his body and spirit, honing himself sharper and sharper.
Had one of his old coaches from his past life been here, they would have recognized it instantly: he was preparing just as he had before every major competition.
Emerging at last into the open sea, Jing Qian plunged into the waves.
A streak of light burst forth as he unleashed his full speed, racing southward.
With the power of his Tidal Wave Pattern layered over his Dragon's Swimming Technique, his swimming speed broke past twelve hundred kilometers per hour, just one step short of supersonic.
Even a seventh-rank crocodile dragon might not catch him now.
Such terrifying speed gave him absolute freedom.
He surged southward recklessly, not in a straight line, but weaving and winding, looping and pausing, threading pearls upon a string.
And at each pause, a ninth-rank White Fang sea demon met a gruesome death, its innards shredded, and another miraculous rebirth of his Tidal Wave Pattern was forged.
Unrestrained, he harvested the sea's monsters, honing his power without hesitation.
In a single day, he would reforge the Tidal Wave Pattern thirty-seven times, pushing it directly into the Blueblood Realm.
Each hour, he would cross a thousand li, slay three sea demons, die a few times at the crocodile dragon's claws, and reforge Tidal Wave anew.
This seemingly impossible task was, for Jing Qian, a crucial form of cultivation.
He was pushing himself to the absolute limit.
Within seventeen thousand nautical miles south of Jiangzhu Island, every ninth-rank sea demon perished in a single day.
And what came of it?
Outside Tsushima Island, the lone surviving scion of the Jing clan descended, driving a tsunami from the heavens.
In the span of a single day, Jing Qian swept across seventeen thousand miles of ocean and completed his training.
Now that the Tidal Wave Pattern had fully advanced to the Blueblood rank, his mastery over the sea had entered an entirely new realm.
At this moment, he was no longer just a man; he was a god who commanded the ocean.
So long as he remained in the water, boundless vitality poured into his body.
And with only the slightest exertion of power, he could stir up towering waves, unleashing them wherever he willed.
Just like now.
He summoned all his strength, conjuring a hundred-meter wall of raging water, and hurled it straight at Tsushima Island.
Jing Qian had arrived on the battlefield of his choosing.
As the saying went: You fight your war, I'll fight mine.
While Blueblood Lantern himself had gone out to crush the resistance on Jiangzhu Island,
Jing Qian rode the tsunami to descend upon Tsushima Island, and no one could stop him.
He had studied Tsushima Island's defenses with great care.
If his judgment was correct, there would be no more than two Dragon Elephant cultivators on the island at this very moment, hardly enough to pressure him.
And indeed, when the tidal wave struck and devastated ten li of coastline,
Only the phantasmal forms of Jorōgumo and Red Tongue appeared to try to hold it back.
But Jing Qian had no interest in battle.
He slipped past them with ease, plunging straight toward the island's heart.
He intended to strike where it hurt most.
Only by making enough chaos could he hope to draw Blueblood Lantern back, easing the pressure on Su Min'er.
Flooding his World's Insight Pattern with power, Jing Qian's eyes lit with a storm of tangled lights.
And then he saw it clearly,
The entire island was covered by Blueblood Lantern's net.
A vast web of green flame blanketed Tsushima Island, woven with three hundred and sixty strange bronze lanterns.
Each lantern had a living being as its base, white bronze as its frame, and green flame as its light.
The three hundred and sixty lamps each anchored a node of spiritual energy, interlinked into a mighty ward.
Should an enemy attempt to invade, the great array would awaken, manifesting three hundred and sixty ghostly Dragon Elephant warriors to crush them.
It was, in every sense, impregnable.
But this time, the invader walked through the void itself.
The net of lanterns meant nothing to him.
Jing Qian slipped through with ease, arriving at the Kitsune Shrine, the very heart of Tsushima Island.
Here, in his World's Insight, the glow of power was at its richest
from the white gleam of the White Fang rank to the blue brilliance of Blueblood, all converging in one place.
The lantern web across the island was anchored here.
But Blueblood Lantern's cruel temper, his habit of turning people into sky lanterns at the slightest whim,
had left this shrine deserted; no one dared come close.
Jing Qian scanned the place carefully.
Finding no immediate danger, he stepped from the void and landed within the shrine.
It was less a sanctuary than a ghostly temple, heavy with the wailing of countless trapped souls.
Four great lanterns stood in the corners of the chamber, silently watching over the shrine.
Any other Longevity cultivator barging in would have triggered their wrath.
But the divine might of the Sumeru Pattern was too rare, too subtle.
Jing Qian easily found the seams between their energies, slipping through without stirring them.
His Sumeru might not shine brightest in battle, but when it came to thievery, there was none finer.
Once inside, Jing Qian wasted no time.
He was ready to unleash the trick he had been preparing all along, something big enough to shake even Blueblood Lantern.
With a flick of thought, a palm-sized black jade furnace emerged from his sea of consciousness and into his hand.
The golden-quality treasure of fate: the Tushita Furnace.
Ever since his fourth Fate-Burning on Jiangzhu Island, when he had gained this furnace,
This was the first time he would put it to use.
Its powers were many, far too many to grasp in one sitting.
But here and now, he needed only one ability.
And it would be enough.
He set the furnace upon the ground and pried it open.
Then, one by one, he began tossing in White Fang's life-essences.
With each one, the heat within the furnace climbed higher.
By the time he had thrown in more than a dozen, the little furnace radiated such searing force that no mortal could stand near it.
All around, the world's vitality began to flow inward, feeding the fire.
To awaken the Tushita Furnace, the first step was always the same: ignite the fire.
Wherever he placed the furnace, whatever fuel he chose, whatever fire he kindled, that would decide what kind of flame emerged.
Different flames had different powers.
But the greatest of all, of course, was the Fate Fire.
One day, Jing Qian would raise his own Fate Island.
When that day came, he would plant the Tushita Furnace as its core, tether it to the earth's veins, and kindle its fire.
It would stand as a true Fate Furnace.
But here, in this Kitsune Shrine, he had no claim on the island's lifeblood.
So instead, he would burn something else.
He would burn Blueblood Lantern's sky-lamps for fuel.
Every one of the three hundred and sixty lanterns bore a shard of Blueblood Lantern's seventh-rank fire.
And within every one of those flames, a Blueblood life-essence slumbered.
These lanterns were at once Tsushima Island's greatest defensive array and Blueblood Lantern's personal hoard of power, accumulated over centuries.
And now, Jing Qian was going to feed them into his furnace.
It was the greatest hoard Blue Blood Lantern had amassed in a thousand years of cultivation.
And yet today, while the master was away, a petty thief with a palm-sized furnace came to plunder it all.
Jing Qian spent twenty-seven White Fang Life-essences before he finally kindled, within the Tushita Furnace, a single flame no larger than a matchstick.
At that moment, the furnace's power truly awakened.
He carried it carefully to the northeastern corner of the shrine, where one of the sky-lamps burned.
Guided by his will, the miraculous furnace drew the green flame from the lantern, tugging it loose.
The flame slipped free, sank into the furnace, and the transfer was seamless.
The Tushita Furnace had stolen the lantern's fire, then nestled itself into the web of sky-lamps, taking the lantern's place.
Jing Qian set the furnace down, rubbing his palms together in disbelief.
That's it? I really pulled it off?
He picked up the empty lamp base, and the vast lantern-web remained utterly quiet.
With a grin, he fed the lamp-base into the furnace.
The ninth-rank white-bronze frame melted instantly in the tiny flame.
Jing Qian drew out the liquefied bronze with his small copper hammer, clanging away until he shaped a crude little sword-blank.
He held it, felt its concentrated power, and a single thought flared in his heart:
I've struck gold.
Without hesitation, he tossed the sword-blank into his mouth and crunched it down.
Moments later, a brand-new Sword Fang Pattern had been reforged within him.
"Blueblood 1.01/10!"
A perfect cycle, closed.
Elated, Jing Qian snatched up the furnace again and headed for the southeastern corner's lamp.
With the stolen seventh-rank fire burning inside, he walked the web as though he were Blue Blood Lantern himself.
The furnace touched the second lamp.
Its flame was swallowed at once.
The lamp's bronze base went into the fire.
The hammer rang.
Another sword-blank.
Another crunch of teeth.
Another new Pattern.
Jing Qian's joy soared.
And when he thought of the remaining three hundred and fifty-eight lamps, his fighting spirit ignited anew.
He dashed along the lantern-web, furnace in hand, harvesting them one by one.
Every flame was devoured by the furnace.
Every bronze lamp-base melted, hammered into a sword-blank, and consumed.
The Sword Fang Pattern advanced at lightning speed, his striking power climbing higher and higher.
The only thing limiting him now was time.
Tsushima Island stretched over a hundred li in diameter, larger than Jiangzhu Island, with more than a hundred thousand souls living upon it.
The three hundred and sixty sky-lamps were spaced a li apart, blanketing the entire island.
Jing Qian sprinted across the sakura-dotted island.
Even moving as swiftly as a galloping horse, including the time to hammer and devour each lamp-base, he could only cover seven or eight li, seven or eight lamps in an hour.
Too slow.
He had to be faster.
So he tried using the Tushita Furnace not only to devour, but to command the lantern-web itself.
At first, it resisted him.
But as more stolen fire gathered within the furnace, its pull grew stronger.
At last, after the fortieth lamp fell, the flames inside the furnace reached a critical mass.
The remaining lamps began to stir, drawn toward him.
One by one, like puppets, they hopped across the island, jerking closer and closer.
Clack!
Clack!
Clack!
The scene was eerie beyond words.
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