The Elementary Spirit Sense Technique, synthesized from the volatile Liquefied Earth Vein Essence and anchored by the pure Nebula-Alloyed Copper Wire, had fundamentally redefined Lin Xuan's existence on Earth. The moment the spiritual consciousness integrated, the world of mortals—the one perceived by flesh and light—vanished. In its place unfolded a universe of energy, a complex, throbbing tapestry of Qi, stress lines, and concealed power that no mortal eye could ever hope to comprehend.
Lin Xuan, seated in the core of his Minor Qi Condensing Formation, pushed his Stage Three Qi into the new technique. The sensation was less like seeing and more like knowing. His awareness stretched, not just linearly across distance, but dimensionally, through matter and energy fields, covering the full five-kilometer radius promised by the Rank C synthesis.
The city, once a haphazard collection of buildings, was now a massive, living organism of spiritual resonance. The subtle energy of the Mortal Flow, representing the aggregated bio-signatures of millions of souls, appeared as a hazy, disorganized nebula of white light, flickering constantly with the fleeting emotions and metabolic cycles of the inhabitants. This background noise was immediately filtered out by his refined Immortal Gaze.
His attention focused on the five specific, refined energy signatures that signaled the presence of other practitioners. Three were minor, dormant, like small candles in a vast room, likely old hermits using rudimentary cultivation methods.
The other two, however, were astronomical in scale and intensity.
The first was the colossal, dark behemoth humming beneath the City University Library. This was the prize: the Rank B Spiritual Formation. To his Spirit Sense, it looked like a black hole—a deep, ancient, perfectly silent void that was actively consuming the surrounding natural Qi flow of the city, only to refine and conceal it perfectly within its boundaries. Its sheer density was awe-inspiring, a testament to the power of the ancient cultivators who had built it before the Great Exodus. Lin Xuan felt a profound spiritual hunger just observing it; this was the anchor point for his true return. The presence of such a Formation confirmed the scale of the spiritual vacuum the city represented.
The second signature was the immediate threat: the aggressive, throbbing malice of the Qi Condensation Stage Four cultivator located in the uptown district. Lin Xuan locked onto it, tracing its flow back to the Ma Feng's private compound.
The martial artist's Qi was an ugly, visceral red-orange, surging and receding with powerful, uncontrolled emotional flares. It lacked the smooth, disciplined flow of true cultivation; it was merely refined Life Force, forcibly condensed through years of brutal physical training and the ingestion of low-grade, earthbound tonics. Lin Xuan identified the style immediately: a remnant of the Iron Fist Sect, a lineage known for its focus on external hardening and bone refinement, leaving the spiritual consciousness brittle and vulnerable.
Lin Xuan watched Ma Feng pacing within his private training room. The target was a large, muscle-bound man, his movements fueled by rage and arrogance. He wasn't meditating or preparing tactically; he was waiting impatiently, like a predator denied its kill. Lin Xuan saw the remnants of the defensive Qi signature around the perimeter—a crude D-Rank Concealment Field that Ma Feng had clearly inherited rather than created, a lazy attempt to filter out the noise. The field rippled and distorted, unable to handle the martial artist's own volatile emotions, proving its amateur nature.
Lin Xuan delved deeper, examining the Qi distribution in Ma Feng's body. The Stage Four cultivation level was real, granting him superior strength and resilience. However, his Spiritual Sea—the seat of the soul and consciousness—was almost completely undefended, shielded only by the chaotic turbulence of his brute Qi. This was the critical flaw of all fragmented martial arts: they trained the shell but left the core exposed.
In contrast, Li Mo, sitting quietly in the adjacent room and practicing the Minor Body Tempering Art, appeared to Lin Xuan's gaze as a soft, steady, white light. Her Qi was weak, Stage One at best, but it was pure, following the correct, Imperial pathways Lin Xuan had given her. She was a stable, growing sapling; Ma Feng was a massive, rotting tree, strong but hollow at the center.
The continuous surveillance provided the vital piece of information Lin Xuan needed: Ma Feng's routine. The sheer arrogance of the Stage Four cultivator led him to believe no power could challenge him in the city. Every morning, he would intentionally drop his weak Concealment Field to meditate on the rooftop, believing the exposure to be necessary for absorbing the Sun's Qi, a fundamental misinterpretation of high-level spiritual physics. This hour was not a power-up; it was a scheduled period of total vulnerability.
He inherited the power, but not the wisdom, Lin Xuan concluded, his lips curving into a contemptuous smile. The strike would happen at dawn. Lin Xuan, who had mastered the cycles of the heavens, would turn the man's reliance on the sun into his executioner.