Eternal Swordmaster
Chapter 247 - 240: Foundation Establishment - Part 2

Chapter 247: Chapter 240: Foundation Establishment - Part 2

"Dao Foundation is the comprehensive transformation of one’s body, allowing the physical form to transform its talents, achieving the purpose of continuing to enhance cultivation practice. This is the necessary path from a mortal flesh to that of a Daoist Master. After the transformation, the body is then known as a Dao Foundation. Although I am currently lacking other materials, my body, due to its attributes, is far more formidable than that of average cultivators; perhaps I can forcefully turn the situation around and succeed. After all, those materials are only there to increase the success rate. Many have succeeded without them."

The red mist between Lin Xin and the Red Flower Sword had long since thinned to the point of being imperceptible, but his physical attributes were still not at a saturated stage.

"As long as I absorb this, my talents will definitely improve. As for how much they will improve, that will depend on the actual effects...."

Talent had always been his greatest difficulty; because of his talent, he could only enter the realm of cultivation through the Blood Pill Method. Because of his talent, even with the assistance of Formation Talismans, his speed of improvement was still far behind those top-tier geniuses.

Because of his talent, he had no choice but to enter the shadowy mansion, slaughter crazily, in order to gain room for further improvement.

Because of his talent, he encountered one bottleneck after another, and each breakthrough was a difficult ordeal.

But now, finally, a treasure that could improve his talents had emerged.

"How should I consume it?" Lin Xin carefully recalled all the information he had read.

"The Dragon Bone belongs to the blood and flesh essence category and can be used with two methods: ingestion and transplantation. To maintain its maximum activity, transplantation would be better."

He recalled various secret techniques, and gradually grasped the entire process in his mind.

First, he checked his current attributes.

Slaughter—18, Defense—17, Evasion—3, Constitution—11.

The average had increased by another point. This was the effect of the massive amount of bug essence he had absorbed earlier; after all, for just ordinary low-level bugs, achieving this level was already quite good.

"Let’s start."

Steadying his mind, Lin Xin extended his forefinger, gently touching the surface of the Dragon Bone.

Clang.

He hadn’t used any force, yet the Dragon Bone emitted a clear, bell-like sound.

Its entire white-gold surface suddenly lit up with a faint white light, soft and warm.

Buzz!

The Red Flower Sword also buzzed again, a dense sorrow emanating from the blade, heading towards the Dragon Bone. It transformed into narrow dark red lines, linking the two together.

Lin Xin’s expression was solemn as he slowly closed his eyes, his will merging with the Red Flower Sword Intent, beginning to contact the will within the Dragon Bone through the Sword Intent.

As soon as he made contact, he felt a sudden jolt through his entire body.

An evil, domineering, boundlessly terrifying will lay entrenched within the Dragon Bone, filled with extreme greed and hunger. As soon as it touched him, it frantically devoured and nibbled away at a portion of Lin Xin’s consciousness.

Sss.

The Red Flower Sword suddenly pierced into the Dragon Bone, disrupting the digestion process it was about to start, and began to vibrate intensely.

Blood trickled from Lin Xin’s nostrils. Enduring a splitting headache, he gritted his teeth and continued. Once again, he extended a strand of consciousness towards the Dragon Bone.

This was the method of consciousness feeding. Consciousness, a thing continuously produced by the physical body, could be fed to the Dragon Bone with the same special imprint repeatedly. Through accumulation over time, the mark of accepted consciousness would become more and more, while denying it time to digest. This constant disruption of its digestion wore down its will.

Finally, it would explode in a concentrated burst at once, destroying all the will inside, and then replace it with one’s own.

This was the consciousness feeding method.

As time passed day by day, Lin Xin neither ate nor drank. His body became slightly gaunt, but his eyes, on the contrary, became increasingly piercing and captivating.

His will was fed to the Dragon Bone time after time, yet continuously prevented it from digesting.

Finally, the Dragon Bone, no longer white-gold, turned into a faint blood-red. Blood-vessel-like tracings emerged on its surface, giving him an illusion of being connected by flesh and blood.

"Almost there," Lin Xin exhaled wearily.

In his hand, he swiftly formed dozens of Hand Decisions, their transformations so fast they left afterimages.

"Burst!"

Suddenly, his Hand Decision stopped, and the myriad finger afterimages, like overlapping wings, merged into one.

With a boom, the Dragon Bone let out a low roar, unwillingly exploded, and turned into a mass of golden-red fragments, shooting towards Lin Xin.

He immediately opened his mouth, inhaling all the fragments.

Hiss...

The last segment of red fragments fully entered Lin Xin’s mouth, as he slowly closed it, a flush appearing on his face.

Spurt!

Suddenly, the blood vessels on his arm burst open, and Lin Xin’s face turned pale.

Then, bang bang bang bang!

Amidst the continuous, faint sounds of explosions, holes burst all over Lin Xin’s body, with vast amounts of blood spurting out.

The blood was strange; it didn’t fly about chaotically but circled in mid-air, directly converging onto the floating Red Flower Sword, which rapidly absorbed it.

’Roar!’

A distant and ancient beastly roar began to resonate, accompanied by the blood explosions. Lin Xin began bleeding from his nose, mouth, ears, and eyes.

Around him, blood-colored spiritual energy slowly undulated, forming a spiritual field and spiritual pressure that repelled everything in the vicinity, eliminating all disturbances.

A sense of unprecedented weakness surged in his heart.

Unable to breathe through his nose or mouth, his head spun with dizziness, his eyes darkened, seeing nothing, suffocating from lack of oxygen, his intense pain gradually numbing. His hearing, touch, smell, taste, everything began to gradually diminish and disappear.

Lin Xin felt himself falling into an endless, silent darkness, a domain connected to eternal death.

"Did I fail?" A strong sense of fatigue and powerlessness welled up inside him.

The Dragon Bone, capable of forming a Dragon King Dao Foundation, naturally was the most powerful treasure, but the greater the benefit, the greater the risk. It also possessed an extremely formidable backlash. If one’s will could not fully suppress and absorb the will of the dragon inside, then one could only be devoured in turn.

There was no sound, no smell, no air, no light.

Surroundings turned pitch black.

Lin Xin floated slowly, adrift in the boundless darkness.

He was still falling, plummeting toward a bottomless abyss, his consciousness growing blurrier and blurrier.

"I always thought my willpower was strong, but it turns out, even after all this time, I can’t even surpass a beast that has been dead for countless years."

He smiled helplessly.

Drifting slowly, falling...

Time kept passing, more and more of it.

Perhaps a day, perhaps two; maybe a month, two months... He couldn’t tell how long it had been anymore. Without light, he gradually lost his concept of time.

He struggled to maintain his consciousness, struggling against the gradual loss. Again and again, over and over, he began to recall his life here, memories with Xiao Lingling, and the early days with An Ying.

Relentlessly repeating until even those deep memories started to grow hazy. Still, he fought not to succumb to sleep.

He had no idea how long he had been falling.

Just as his consciousness was about to become completely fuzzy.

"Are you afraid of death?"

Suddenly a voice asked. It was a voice from the deepest recesses of his heart.

"Why should I be afraid?" Lin Xin thought for a while, then replied.

"No, you are afraid," the voice continued. "Humans are inherently reverent, if you have no reverence, you have no motivation to strive against death."

"Is that so?" Lin Xin was startled.

"To end it all so simply, are you content with that?" the voice asked again.

"It doesn’t matter whether I am content or not..." Lin Xin lowered his head, "I’ve lived a tiring life... What I want, I can’t get, and illusions still haunt me."

"Remember those tireless zombies? Do you want to become like them?" the voice asked.

"Don’t you like Xiao Lingling? Don’t you still want to find An Ying? What about your parents, your family, your children? Don’t you still owe many favors?"

Lin Xin closed his eyes in thought, and after a whil,e he slowly opened them again.

"You say so much... What is it all for...?"

The voice fell silent.

"Because I don’t want to die."

Yes... not wanting to die.

Lin Xin suddenly seemed to understand something, yet at the same time understood nothing.

That voice was actually himself.

All those reasons, all those roots, they were simply one reason—he didn’t want to die.

Before him, a light seemed to brighten, looking white, and yet also like gold.

Lin Xin reached out, violently grasping for that light.

An unprecedented will to survive surged from the depths of his heart.

"Is this... the deepest ’Life Fire’?"

He clutched the light greedily and frantically, pressing it into his chest fiercely.

The moment the light touched his chest, a silent explosion occurred.

A dazzling white light burst forth from his body, instantly filling all the darkness around him.

Lin Xin suddenly woke up, propping up his body from the floor of the room.

The Red Flower Sword lay fallen aside, dull and lightless. The room was a mess, looking as if a storm had raged through, all in disarray.

"So it turns out... that’s the kind of person I am..." He extended his hand, seeing himself now skinny as a skeleton, stripped of flesh, with skin clinging to his bones.

But his whole skin appeared jade-like, looking pure white and flawless, smooth and bright.

He clapped his hands gently.

Clang...

The clear sound was pure and free of any noise.

"Jade Clang..." Lin Xin let out a long sigh. He immediately looked at his attribute panel.

As he had expected, there had been significant changes in his attribute status.

Other attributes like damage, defense, dodge hadn’t changed, but his physique underwent a major transformation. It leaped straight from 11 points up to 20 points!!

"Twenty... truly worthy of the dragon bone," Lin Xin felt a vague sense of neither sadness nor joy inside.

After that brush with death, almost eternally sinking, it seemed as if he had gained clarity on many things. His heart was unusually calm.

’Damage—18, Defense—17, Dodge—3, Physique—20, Free Attributes—0.

Innate Divine Ability—Divine Shadow (Originated from the Daoist Foundation of the Dragon King)’

"Indeed, just as expected, once the Daoist Foundation of the Dragon King is complete, the body’s potential is flawless, and there will also be an Innate Divine Ability. Divine Shadow... I wonder what kind of ability it is."

He got up, picked up the Red Flower Sword, and fastened it back to his waist.

He walked to the room’s only copper mirror. The reflection showed a face as frightening as a skull, much like the zombies he had seen in the Lion Plains. (To be continued. If you like this work, please visit Qidian (qidian.com) to cast your recommendation votes and monthly votes. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please go to m.qidian.com to read.)