Chapter 384: Thousand-Mile Soul Lock

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

The buildings were in a state of ruin, and it was unclear how many years they had been abandoned.

Chen Fei stood nearby, looking at the structures as if a strong wind could blow them all down.

Standing in place, Chen Fei cautiously observed for a moment to ensure there was no danger. Only then did he slowly enter. At first glance, he noticed the inscriptions on the walls.

They were still cultivation techniques, but they were severely damaged, so much so that a single line of text could have four or five breaks.

Chen Fei didn’t mind and meticulously read every character on the walls, one by one. After finishing with one building, he moved on to the next, continuing to examine the words inscribed on the walls.

In these buildings, apart from the text on the walls, there was nothing else left; the interiors were virtually empty. Additionally, some of the buildings had completely collapsed, leaving only bricks and tiles scattered on the ground.

After a building had completely collapsed, the inscriptions on the bricks vanished and, with a light touch, turned into ashes. This time, these bricks didn’t recover.

Chen Fei had visited all the dozen or so buildings. He stood at a high point, overlooking this group of structures. In the past, this place should have been extremely prosperous, but now all that remained were these broken walls.

Cultivation Technique: Heart Technique (Miscellaneous)

Seeing the information on the panel, a faint smile appeared on Chen Fei’s face. That was the reason why he had carefully examined every wall.

Chen Fei couldn’t personally cultivate these damaged Cultivation Techniques, but the panel could organize and condense them, just as in Pingyin County when an almost randomly compiled Thunderbolt Sword Technique was refined into the Astonishing Symbol Art.

And these Cultivation Techniques on the walls clearly have a lineage; it wouldn’t make sense if nothing could be organized from them.

“Discover Cultivation Technique, spend thirty elemental stones to simplify Heart Technique (Miscellaneous)?”

“Heart Technique (Miscellaneous) simplification in progress… Simplification successful… Heart Technique (Miscellaneous) -> Star Gazing Art!”

The simplification cost was higher than expected, but fortunately, Chen Fei had enough elemental stones on the panel to cover this expenditure. Chen Fei checked Star Gazing Art with some curiosity since it cost a whole thirty elemental stones.

After a moment, Chen Fei’s attention shifted away from the panel.

Star Gazing Art wasn’t about gazing at stars in the distance but rather observing someone’s aura from a great distance. It was somewhat similar to Aura Gazing, but even more mysterious.

In the concept of Star Gazing Art, every person was like a star. If you remembered someone’s aura, you could even observe them from an incredibly long distance.

Of course, the specific distance one could reach was closely related to their level of understanding of the Cultivation Technique and the strength of their own core soul energy.

“You can practically use this for finding people, chasing them down, and surveillance.”

Chen Fei’s eyes held some astonishment. Thousand-Mile Soul Lock and Thousand-Mile Pursuit, most of the time, relied on placing a core soul mark on the target, making it difficult for the target to remove it quickly, and then chasing them down.

With this Star Gazing Art, you could directly see where someone was and then pursue them.

“According to the description at the end of this Star Gazing Art, it seems like you can even assassinate from a distance. But the Cultivation Technique is still incomplete!”

Chen Fei looked at the ruined buildings before him with a hint of regret in his eyes. The lineage of this cultivation art was undoubtedly specialized in mental attacks.

The combination of Star Gazing Art and remote assassination was incredibly powerful. As long as one’s core soul energy was strong enough, ordinary people wouldn’t be able to withstand it, and they wouldn’t even know where the attacks were coming from, forcing them to passively endure the onslaught.

Unfortunately, what the panel could do was to refine Cultivation Techniques based on existing information and couldn’t directly deduce new abilities. Therefore, the part of Star Gazing Art’s description referring to remote assassination was beyond what Chen Fei’s current version of the technique could achieve.

However, even in its current state, Star Gazing Art was already a very potent ability.

If it weren’t for the panel, trying to organize such a powerful Cultivation Technique from these fragmented texts would be nothing short of a pipe dream.

“Discover Cultivation Technique, spend forty elemental stones to simplify Star Gazing Art?”

“Star Gazing Art simplification in progress… Simplification successful… Star Gazing Art -> Star Gazing!”

Star Gazing? As in looking up at the stars?

Chen Fei looked up at the sky, which was shrouded in gray. There were no stars in the Strange Heart Realm. It seemed that he would have to wait until he returned to reality to practice this technique.

After moving around the area and finding no other discoveries, Chen Fei pondered for a moment, then turned and left this region.

The reason for this mysterious inheritance’s decline to such a state was unknown. If there were enemies within the Strange Heart Realm, staying here might lead to further dangers.

Because there were no other written records, Chen Fei didn’t even know the name of this inheritance from back then. All the inscriptions on the walls were about Cultivation Techniques, with not a single piece of information about their origins.

He retreated to a sufficient distance until the cluster of buildings was no longer visible before he finally came to a halt.

Chen Fei glanced around, sensing the presence, and slowly walked towards the left front. In Chen Fei’s perception, that direction held a crazed and chaotic aura.

This was an eerie creature unique to the Strange Heart Realm.

As he drew closer, the sensation of madness became increasingly pronounced. Eventually, Chen Fei saw a faint figure standing within a black mist.

Perhaps sensing Chen Fei’s aura, the figure, which had originally faced away from him, suddenly turned its head backward, fixing a piercing gaze upon him.

Chen Fei remained composed. This eerie creature wasn’t particularly strong. Judging by the classification, it was probably only at the first level, equivalent to the Body Refining Realm cultivators.

Most of the eerie creatures Chen Fei had encountered and slain in the Strange Heart Realm before were of this level. However, the heart essence extracted through the Slaughter Spirit Technique from these eerie creatures was chaotic and impossible to absorb.

Chen Fei glanced around the black mist but found no other eerie creatures. He took a step forward.

Sensing Chen Fei’s approach, the eerie creature suddenly vanished into the black mist as if the figure he had seen earlier had been a mere illusion.

Chen Fei halted and scanned his surroundings. Then, he suddenly looked upward. A pair of crimson eyes locked onto his, and countless murmurs echoed in his ears.

Illusions started to appear before Chen Fei’s eyes, and black splotches began to emerge in his mind. This was contamination.

Godslayer Sword!

A sword light slashed out from within Chen Fei, cleaving directly into the eerie creature. The frantic murmurs that had filled the surroundings abruptly fell silent as a crack began at the eerie creature’s head and extended all the way down, splitting it in two.

Dealing with a first-level eerie creature like this was effortless for Chen Fei with his current strength. Even though the Strange Heart Realm was polluted everywhere, these eerie creatures could amplify that contamination.

However, the gap in tiers made this eerie creature utterly defenseless against the Godslayer Sword.

Threads of black light converged in front of Chen Fei. He formed hand seals, placing his palm on the ground, and a faint glow rippled outward. A formation appeared on the ground.

The black light formed by the eerie creature was dragged by the formation to the center.

As Chen Fei had perfected the Heart Refinement Formation, Strange Heart Stones, while still needed, had evolved from consumables into something akin to activation devices.

When the Heart Refinement Formation operated, it automatically absorbed the surrounding earth’s energy to complete the final formation, without consuming Strange Heart Stones.

This particular Strange Heart Stone was obtained by Chen Fei when he had inquired about their availability from the head of the Strange Tamers Lineage, Elder Si Yuanhai, a few days ago. Si Yuanhai had managed to find a few of them in recent years and wanted to provide them all to Chen Fei. However, Chen Fei had only accepted one, wanting to pay for it. Si Yuanhai had insisted on giving it for free, and in the end, Chen Fei had no choice but to accept it with a wry smile.

As the Heart Refinement Formation was completed, Chen Fei’s hand seals didn’t end there. After a moment, two more formations appeared beneath his feet.

The difficulty of stacking the Heart Refinement Formation increased exponentially with each layer. Currently, Chen Fei’s limit was the three-layered Heart Refinement Formation.

However, this was Chen Fei’s current limit, not the limit of the Heart Refinement Formation. As long as Chen Fei continued to improve his core soul energy, the Heart Refinement Formation could be stacked further.

The stacking of these formations has no apparent limit; it depends solely on the user’s own abilities and how far they can go.

The Heart Refinement Formation, when stacked in three layers, transforms into a colossal millstone, causing the thread-like black mist to dissipate from the eerie creature source.

In the blink of an eye, the black mist vanishes, leaving behind the pure essence within the Heart Refinement Formation. Chen Fei senses this eerie creature source, and the extreme, frenzied chaos he felt before has long since disappeared.

Chen Fei places his palm on the Heart Refinement Formation, and a strand of the eerie creature source separates and blends into the palm of his hand.

Like a river merging with the sea, Chen Fei doesn’t feel any anomaly. Both the Thousand Thread Technique and the Spirit Suppression of the Suppressing Dragon Elephant Technique naturally absorb this strand into his mental realm.

However, this tiny bit of the source provides only a minimal boost to Chen Fei. Still, he can sense the nourishing effect it has on his core soul energy.

Chen Fei looks at the remaining eerie creature source within the Heart Refinement Formation, emitting a faint glow, and a smile forms at the corner of his mouth. In the next moment, this source surges into his palm.

Chen Fei’s eyes narrow slightly, and an ethereal sensation naturally arises within him. His previously stable core soul energy begins to tremble slightly, and his whole being seems to radiate light.

After a while, the unusual feeling on Chen Fei’s body disappears, and he opens his eyes, sensing the strength of his core soul energy.

If Chen Fei’s core soul energy was previously at the level of controlling nearly sixty acupoints, it has now surged to around sixty-one acupoints after absorbing this eerie creature source, directly increasing his core soul energy by nearly half an acupoint.

This was just a small, first-order eerie creature, and in the entire Strange Heart Realm, such eerie creatures were countless. Every time Chen Fei entered the Strange Heart Realm, he would encounter many of these eerie creatures.

However, Chen Fei had never killed them. Most of the time, he was searching for Strange Heart Stones.

Because killing these eerie creatures wouldn’t allow him to extract and integrate the eerie creature source into his spiritual weapons, nor would it provide any personal benefits. Thus, Chen Fei had always ignored them.

He would avoid them whenever possible, and when unavoidable, he would simply kill them and then leave, not bothering to extract the eerie creature source.

But now, in Chen Fei’s eyes, they had instantly become something different.

They were like walking pills of elixir..