When Sir Inkwell saw that Xu Qing didn’t take advantage of the moment to escape, his heart sank.

The little punk is too cautious. Well, fine. I’ll have to resort to Plan B!

Snorting coldly in his heart, the old Paintedfolk continued working on the painting.

Xu Qing directed the replenishment from the golden crow toward his tenth heavenly palace, causing rumbling to echo within his sea of consciousness as the palace rapidly materialized.

After reaching the five-flame level in Foundation Establishment, I didn’t plan to add any more life lamps. I thought my limit was going to be eight palaces. Of the ten heavenly palaces I now have, three are made from life lamps. And now, I’m working on my seventh heavenly palace, which is one of the original group of eight. After I complete it, I’ll only be one palace away from being in the great circle of Gold Core! 1

As Xu Qing contemplated those details, the replenishment from the golden crow surged, and time passed. When Sir Inkwell was about seventy percent finished painting the god body, and as the sun’s remains withered up, Xu Qing’s tenth heavenly palace was more than half complete.

It won’t be long now.

Xu Qing felt keen anticipation. He was really looking forward to finding out what would happen when he used the violet crystal to finish his tenth palace. While keeping an eye on Sir Inkwell in case he fled, Xu Qing focused on the materialization. Before long, the tenth palace had reached ninety percent completion. Then, after a few dozen breaths of time passed, Sir Inkwell’s painting was complete except for the head. At that point, Xu Qing’s tenth heavenly palace was ninety-nine percent complete.

Violet crystal!

Without any hesitation, Xu Qing lifted his right hand and turned it semitransparent with the Gruegloom Daoseizing Art. Plunging it into his chest, he ignored the piercing pain as he wrapped his fingers around the violet crystal. However, instead of pulling it out, he pushed it toward his sea of consciousness.

“Fuse!” The anticipation he felt in his heart reached incredibly intense levels.

However, as the violet crystal got close to his sea of consciousness, before he could even insert it, he felt a very strong force of rejection. It wasn’t coming from one of the heavenly palaces. No, it was coming from all of his heavenly palaces. As one, they were sending out fluctuations to keep the violet crystal away.

Xu Qing’s jaw nearly dropped.

That force of rejection seemed to irritate the crystal. Seemingly offended, the crystal released a tiny fraction of the boundless and paramount force it was capable of. That stream of force contained something absolutely domineering. It was majestic and paragonic, like something that could crush anything and everything in the world. Intense rumbling filled Xu Qing’s sea of consciousness, causing his entire body to tremble.

The violet crystal seemed to transform into a heaven-shaking, earth-shattering archaean mountain, pulsing with the aura of aeons. Compared to it, Xu Qing’s sea of consciousness seemed like a tiny burlap sack. There was no way something so massive could fit into such a small sack.

Xu Qing’s sea of consciousness shook violently, and cracks started spreading through it. His ten heavenly palaces were all trembling.

The three palaces formed from life lamps, including the black umbrella, the seven-colored wind-chanting lamp, and the hellspirit bloodwing lamp, generally burned with flames that seemed like they would stay lit forever. Yet right now, they were flickering as if they might go out!

They had all been created from the blood of Ancient Emperors and Imperial Sovereigns, yet right now, they simply couldn’t stand up to a scrap of power from the violet crystal. And beyond that, they looked like they might break. This definitely surpassed anything Xu Qing could have planned for, and it caused a look of blank shock to fill his face.

Then something happened with his taboo poison core that left him completely gobsmacked. That taboo poison core originated from ancestral god power from a god domain. However, before it could even release the full extent of its power, it shrank back, becoming clearly blurry, as if it might be erased out of existence. As it struggled, it became increasingly unstable, making it seem like it might collapse at any moment. His violet moon heavenly palace came from the essence of Crimson Mother. But right now, that palace was trembling like a waif in a winter wind. Cracks spread out over the palace, and it looked like it might shatter.

Nothing like this had ever happened before!

This…. Xu Qing felt waves of shock smashing into him.

Then he realized that his heavenly dao bluegreen dragon and Ghost Emperor mountain were both shivering like mad. The bluegreen dragon was sending out fluctuations of terror, as if it was looking at some horrifying entity that could completely destroy it. And the Ghost Emperor mountain was bowing its head in subservience to the violet crystal. The golden crow was already at stage three, and had turned into a dao soul, but right now it looked extremely nervous and was whimpering. 𝙡𝒊𝓫𝙖𝙙.𝓬𝒐𝙢

In his mind and heart, Xu Qing felt like he had suddenly been thrown into the midst of a violent hurricane. He knew that his violet crystal was special. After all, it had always been the key to keeping his shadow in check. But he could never have predicted that it would be so unbelievably terrifying. What was more, he had only pushed the violet crystal toward his sea of consciousness, not into it. Yet all of his heavenly palaces were acting like little girls being approached by an evil tyrant. They didn’t even want it to be near them.

Because of the palaces’ instinctive rejection, the violet crystal’s domineering nature erupted. It was easy to guess what would happen if Xu Qing forced the violet crystal closer to his sea of consciousness. The sea of consciousness wouldn’t be able to sustain the pressure. It would collapse, and all of his heavenly palaces would shatter.

Xu Qing’s hand trembled. All of a sudden, it didn’t feel like he was holding a violet crystal. Instead, he was holding a bolt of lightning that could destroy the world! Without the slightest hesitation, he carefully pulled the crystal away from his sea of consciousness and back to its spot in his chest.

As the violet crystal moved away, his sea of consciousness slowly stopped trembling and went back to normal.

What exactly just happened?

Xu Qing’s forehead was covered with a sheen of sweat. All of a sudden, he realized that he really didn’t know much about the violet crystal. However, what he did know was that now wasn’t the time to sit around thinking about it, so he forced himself to put the matter aside for now.

If I can’t use the violet crystal….

His eyes gleamed with determination as he took out the bamboo slips that had been infused both with D-132’s suppressing force, and also the power of the god’s finger. That collection of bamboo slips contained a record of everything Xu Qing had experienced after waking up in D-132.

They contained both the power of memory and the power of amnesia. After taking them out of his bag of holding, Xu Qing inserted them directly into the tenth heavenly palace in his sea of consciousness. The moment he did that, the bamboo slips collapsed into dust. Then that dust swirled together in the tenth heavenly palace to become… a bamboo slip that glowed with the color of blood. It was covered with lines of text, all in Xu Qing’s handwriting. The text shifted back and forth between blurry and clear. Sometimes it disappeared, but it would always return. It was extremely gruish. The strong blood-colored light it emitted turned his tenth heavenly palace a deep crimson color.

As the tenth heavenly palace changed form, it came to look like… D-132! And the blood-colored light it emitted was just like the glow cast by the god’s finger.

If you looked closely, that blood-colored light contained bits of white that crisscrossed the red. Within that heavenly palace that resembled D-132, the bamboo slip floated, casting out a glow that combined white and red. It looked profoundly sinister.

The moment the process was complete, Xu Qing’s cultivation base skyrocketed. It was completely appropriate to say that, at that moment, Xu Qing had essentially reached the ultimate possible peak in Gold Core.

From ancient times until modern, people like that had indeed existed before in the Revered Ancient mainland. However, it would be easier to find a phoenix feather or a qilin horn than to encounter one of them.

His heavenly palaces now contained the ancestral god taboo poison, the godsource of the violet moon, and the god power of misfortune. Those three alone would be enough to dominate everything near and far. And that wasn’t even to mention the heavenly dao bluegreen dragon, the Ghost Emperor mountain, or the daybreak light from the perished sun. A Gold Core cultivator like this basically didn’t even count as being in Gold Core. If Xu Qing were to encounter Chu Tianqun right now, it would only take a moment to crush him.

In fact, he was already considering trying to break through to the next cultivation realm. After he left the Gold Core level, he would reach something called the Heavenfate Dao Soul level, which was also just called Nascent Soul. However, the reality was that Xu Qing still hadn’t reached his limit. Of the eight palaces formed from his original five life flames, he still had one more that wasn’t complete. With that thought on his mind, Xu Qing took a deep breath. Eyes flashing, he turned to look at Sir Inkwell.

Sir Inkwell’s painting was almost complete. The only thing it was missing was the pinky finger on the right hand and the face on the head.

When Xu Qing looked at Sir Inkwell, the Paintedfolk looked back. And then Sir Inkwell grinned gruishly, reached out with his right hand, and quickly painted the face.

It was… Xu Qing’s face!

Xu Qing’s eyes became as cold as ice. When Sir Inkwell put the eyes onto the face, the massive body he had painted suddenly trembled as if it was awakening.

“Exalted god, the body I’ve painted for you is now complete!”

With that, Sir Inkwell turned and fled at top speed.

The god’s finger thrummed with fluctuations of excitement as it flew toward the body. As it fused, the surrounding warding spell shivered and loosened.

That was when Xu Qing made his move.

Xu Qing shot away from the shriveled remains of the sun. Taking advantage of the loosening of the warding spell, he pierced through it.

Sir Inkwell did the same, and the two of them fled. The head and the stone lion also broke free.

The god’s finger wasn’t paying attention to them at all; instead, īt shrank down and fused with the painted body. It was possible to see countless tendrils of flesh snaking off of īt and latching onto the body. Then, as īt struggled, the body’s eyes fluttered as if trying to open.

Everything in the area rippled and distorted. As the final tendril of flesh connected, the painted eyes opened. However, the moment that happened, cracks exploded all over the body, spreading to cover every inch of it. Then, a heaven-shaking, earth-shattering boom echoed out as… The entire body exploded! A massive shockwave spread out in all directions. An agonized shriek rippled out, filled with madness and fury.

As it passed the head and the stone lion, they detonated with a thump. Then it hit Sir Inkwell, whose body immediately started turning blurry. It looked like he was about to disappear. That said, he didn’t seem afraid. Rather, he seemed regretful.

I guess I can’t control a god, huh? What a pity. It was a good opportunity. Ah, whatever. I guess I should flee for my life now.

While he sighed inwardly, he shouted as loud as he could.

“Don’t panic, oh exalted god! Your humble servant didn’t just prepare one body for you. There are two! One was a painting, but the other is real! But they look the same. Sir… just go try out the other body!”

1. As a brief reminder, life lamps essentially give you an extra palace. Keep that in mind if you’re trying to do the math on this part. ?

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