Five Immortal Sects
Chapter 131: Investigation

Li Yan seemed long prepared. He smiled slightly and spoke aloud:

"This is also a question I've been pondering all along. Perhaps it can only be confirmed after some testing. I believe the key lies in the blue prism crystals.

You all saw it earlier, those two Foundation Establishment cultivators were still holding their blue prism crystals when they died. This could imply that the way their two sects merged forces required constant support from the blue prism crystals.

Perhaps they used the blue prism crystals to borrow some kind of power and deceive the rules within the yellow sphere. Once put away, they would lose their function. So the key must be the blue prism crystals. The answer to Senior Sister's question should lie within them but this needs to be tested!"

At this, Li Yan turned to look at Gong Chenying.

Gong Chenying understood clearly, Li Yan needed time. And right now, time was extremely precious to them. Giving Li Yan time was tantamount to giving up the opportunity to reach the ten-li point ahead of time, and was a gamble with everyone’s life.

She gritted her teeth and stared at Li Yan, uttering each word with utmost seriousness:

"One incense stick’s time, including what was just used!"

This was the first time Li Yan felt such earnestness from Gong Chenying, and he could sense the anxiety in her heart. He too gazed at this beautiful Sixth Senior Sister and replied just as seriously:

"I still need a few things, specifically, the storage pouches you collected from all the Foundation Establishment cultivators earlier."

"Alright!"

Gong Chenying did not hesitate. With a wave of her hand, four storage pouches flew toward Li Yan.

Their exchange was swift. In just a short moment, a decision had already been made. Many others were still mulling over Li Yan’s words.

Li Yan, without delay, turned and walked a few steps away. Then he sat down cross-legged.

"You all, recover your spiritual power!"

Gong Chenying looked at Li Yan’s back and left behind this one instruction.

Some people, hearing this, hesitated briefly before also sitting cross-legged in the swirling snowstorm. Though the last stage hadn’t drained them much, with nothing else to do, some indeed began restoring their spiritual power.

Others sat on the snowy ground, deep in thought. A few stood several zhang away from Li Yan, watching to see what he was doing.

Li Yan reached out for one storage pouch and swept his divine sense through it. The marks of divine sense on the pouches had already been removed when Gong Chenying tossed them over.

This wasn’t because Gong Chenying’s divine sense was stronger than those three men and one demon beast, it was because they were all dead. For cultivators of the same level, erasing the divine imprint was easy once the owner had died.

With a single sweep of divine sense, Li Yan was momentarily stunned. The storage pouches of Foundation Establishment cultivators were indeed extraordinary, the internal space was at least ten times larger than his own pouch, and the contents within instantly stirred a sense of greed in his heart.

In the first pouch he picked up, there were nearly a thousand low-grade spirit stones alone. In one corner, there were even three mid-grade spirit stones, surging with spiritual energy. Just a touch with his divine sense gave Li Yan a tingling urge to groan with pleasure.

Li Yan forcefully suppressed his greed. He couldn’t allow himself to target these pouches directly, they would have to be returned to Gong Chenying afterward.

Even so, his divine sense swept rapidly through the pouch, his heart still agitated. There wasn’t a single low-grade magical tool, but there were over ten mid- to high level spiritual tools and treasures, none of them ordinary. One flying sword treasure couldn’t even be ranked, and there was also a green-colored gourd.

Seeing these items, Li Yan thought to himself:

"This must be the pouch of that sword cultivator from Ten-Step Court."

His judgment wasn’t based on the flying sword treasure, whose grade he couldn’t discern, but on some other accessories bearing the distinct markings of Ten-Step Court.

This was an inner sword cultivator. His entire cultivation was concentrated in the flying sword within his Niwan Palace. When he died, the Niwan Palace shattered, and the sword orb was destroyed with it. The flying sword treasure in the storage pouch was merely a spare.

After scanning through the contents of this pouch, Li Yan did not hesitate further. He set it down and swiftly picked up the next…

Very soon, Li Yan had inspected the contents of all four storage pouches.

At this moment, his eyes lit up. He had always believed the blue prism crystal to be the biggest point of suspicion among the three sects. Beyond that, there might also be other magical treasures involved in controlling the strange phenomena.

Whichever the case, there was one prerequisite: all involved parties had to be holding the same item, either in appearance or aura. Clearly, the blue prism crystals were the only items that met those conditions.

The best way for Li Yan to verify this was to check the storage pouches of the Foundation Establishment cultivators, only they would possess such means of control.

As for the Qi Condensation cultivators, Li Yan had already collected some of their pouches while inside the sphere. He had examined them back then but found nothing particularly suspicious, no shared items, to put it plainly.

Yet after inspecting the pouches of these Foundation Establishment cultivators, Li Yan discovered something: three of the four pouches each contained a green gourd. The three sects they came from were Pure Land Sect, Grand Profound Sect, and Ten-Step Court. The one pouch that lacked a green gourd belonged, quite fittingly, to the second-rank demonic beast.

Li Yan set aside the demonic beast’s storage pouch, then one by one picked up the remaining three. His divine sense stirred, rays of light flashed and the three green gourds appeared in the snow before him.

Several zhang away, the cultivators observing this scene all narrowed their eyes when they saw the three nearly identical green gourds. They’d been closely watching, and at this sight, their eyes lit up.

They weren’t fools, just the fact that storage pouches from three different sects contained the same item carried great significance.

Gong Chenying had also been keeping an eye on things. When she saw this, she was stunned for a moment. Ever since she had collected these pouches, she hadn’t had a chance to look through them.

Oppressed all the way by the giant shadow, their only thoughts had been to clear the stage, again and again. She hadn’t expected that she had overlooked something so important but she did not step forward to interrupt Li Yan.

Li Yan picked up one of the green gourds and inspected it closely, but saw nothing unusual. He carefully released a wisp of divine sense toward the gourd’s surface. A breath later, his expression relaxed.

Then he waved his hand, and the stopper on the gourd's mouth flew off. Li Yan once again cautiously released his divine sense to probe inside. Before long, a strange look appeared on his face. With another wave, he resealed the gourd.

Next, he picked up the remaining two green gourds one by one. For each, he wrapped his hands in spiritual energy, studied the gourd carefully, then released divine sense to examine the surface.

Only after confirming safety would he open the gourd, and then cautiously probe inside with divine sense. Every step was taken with utmost care.

After finishing his inspection of the three green gourds, the strange expression on his face deepened. Tilting his head in thought, he patted his waist. With a flash of light, two blue prism crystals appeared in the air before him, floating in midair.

Li Yan picked up one and brought it close to his eyes. This crystal had a white core. If he remembered correctly, when Wang Lang from Ten-Step Court entered the passageway, he chose a blue prism crystal with a white core, so this one likely belonged to him.

Li Yan did not infuse it with spiritual power. In truth, he was tempted to test whether, by infusing it again, he could receive a surge of energy like he did with the previous black-core crystal. That might help him break through another stage.

But now was not the time to act recklessly. While pondering, he had already released his divine sense to scan the blue prism crystal in his hand.

What he sensed was a multicolored space, entirely different from the pure blue seen from the outside. Within were five distinct zones: white, black, green, red, and yellow. Each varied in size and radiated astonishingly dense spiritual energy.

The five zones were arranged in a circular pattern. At the center of the circle was a massive white light sphere.

Even though Li Yan’s divine sense was still far from it, he could already feel waves of pure spiritual energy washing over him. The white light sphere was continuously emitting currents of dense spiritual power outward.

Yet those currents were blocked by the surrounding multicolored zones and could not spread further, stirring up layers of spiritual turbulence.

Li Yan’s divine sense moved through the multicolored space like a fish in water, swiftly closing in on the central white sphere. When his divine sense finally stopped just outside it, the white sphere seemed to sense his presence, its turbulent energy abruptly calmed.

A gentle force brushed against Li Yan’s strand of divine sense. He was not alarmed.

Back inside the sphere earlier, he had briefly probed the blue prism crystal. Though rushed, there had been no danger. Now again, as that soft power made contact with his divine sense, it was instantly drawn into the white sphere.

His divine sense now felt even more at ease and comfortable. From deeper within the white sphere, he could faintly sense a force, like someone was constantly calling out to him. Yet there was no hint of danger.

After only a slight pause, Li Yan's divine sense plunged deeper into the white sphere. But before he had gone far, a powerful suction force suddenly enveloped him.

He felt his divine sense instantly and tightly bound by the white sphere. If anything went wrong now, it would be too late to retreat, unless he abandoned this wisp of divine sense, thereby damaging his own sea of consciousness.

(Chapter End)