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Chapter 78: Chapter 78: Diverting Trouble Eastward (Please Follow)
Night falls.
On the Chen Bell Platform.
Li Qian, who had just finished cultivating, picked up a piece of tanned cowhide parchment.
He carefully controlled his True Qi, etching lines onto the cowhide.
Whoosh whoosh....
With Li Qian’s exhale, specks of dust dispersed, and the map’s lines became clear on the cowhide—a map indeed.
Li Qian touched the uneven lines on the cowhide map with his fingers, a smile unwittingly spreading across his face.
The map was quite complex; it had taken him two whole days to complete.
Fortunately, if he had nothing else, he had time in abundance.
Holding the map on cowhide, Li Qian’s fingers glided across it, splitting it neatly into four even sections of smaller maps.
Looking at his work, he smiled contentedly and immediately left the bell tower.
In the room, rhythmic snoring sounds arose.
Liu Ming was asleep.
Li Qian walked into the small storage room next door.
He lifted the cellar door and descended; although not spacious, it stored quite valuable items.
Clang!
He opened a wooden chest, which was filled with many more cowhide parchment maps of the same size.
Tossing the newly made cowhide map into the chest, Li Qian’s expression turned solemn, and he moved to the other side, opening a cloth bag and pulling out a black cloak.
This black cloak was obtained from a Grandmaster he had killed previously.
It was also a Divine Refining Device.
Unlike Divine Swords and other devices of similar refinement, its use was unrestricted.
Anyone wearing it could achieve a significant effect in concealing breath and hiding.
Its black color made it especially effective in the cover of night.
"It’s time to shift their focus."
Li Qian murmured to himself.
Then he donned the black cloak, and as he covered his head with its hood, he seemed to vanish into the shadows.
He stuffed all the maps in the wooden chest into the cloth bag.
Slung over his shoulder, the bag in tow, he left the cellar.
This night, the moon was absent.
Darkness enveloped the world.
Swoosh!
Shortly after, a figure silently soared out of the Chen Bell Platform and disappeared into the night.
...
Several days later.
Li Qian returned to the Chen Bell Platform.
However, the copious cowhide maps that were originally with him were now nowhere to be found.
The only thing in the cloth bag he carried was the black cloak.
He had scattered the cowhide maps across the various states of the Tai Xing imperial borderland, using the grid-like approach. Three versions of the map were real and unaltered; they aligned with maps he had obtained from a half-demon.
Only the fourth map... had been intricately modified by him.
Moreover, he had deliberately released only three.
The main reason he didn’t directly head to the treasure site was due to the substantial risks involved.
The site might have connections with the former Taiping Sect.
Who knew what lay within that treasure site?
Currently weak, he was not yet self-sufficient in protecting himself.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have needed to resort to spreading so many copies of the four cowhide treasure maps, an action aimed at diverting the attention of that power.
He believed that power could not be sure whether the three maps were in his possession.
Now, with so many cowhide treasure maps suddenly surfacing, that power would likely be greatly perplexed upon learning this.
.....
Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, over a year has passed.
The outside world was not calm.
The Divine Sword Sect and the Xuanming Sect had engaged in numerous conflicts.
But both sides had exercised a certain level of restraint; conflicts only occurred among the disciples, preventing the elder-level masters from getting involved.
In contrast, inside the Chen Bell Platform, Li Qian’s bell striking cultivation life was extraordinarily peaceful.
During that period, he undertook three inner sect missions.
Exceptionally smooth.
He never encountered being targeted by others again.
Of course, those buffalo hide treasure maps he had thrown out had caused an uproar outside, with various battles for treasure maps erupting one after another, with countless factions getting involved.
According to Li Qian’s knowledge, the Divine Sword Sect seemed to have gotten involved as well.
Chen Bell Platform.
After finishing the Heartless Sword Technique, Li Qian suddenly heard the cry of an eagle.
Following that, a black hawk swooped down from the sky, landing on Li Qian’s shoulder.
This was the young eagle Liu Ming had found over a year ago.
In the span of a year, the young eagle had already grown considerably.
Li Qian casually took out an elixir and threw it to the black hawk.
The hawk caught the elixir and swallowed it.
This was a Feeding Pill specially made for feeding abnormal birds, which Li Qian had acquired from the Exotic Beast Breeding Farm.
The hawk, frequently fed with Feeding Pills, already far exceeded the size of its kin... significantly larger by several sizes, looking even more graceful.
After eating the elixir, the black hawk flew back into the sky, crying out once before quickly vanishing from sight.
Li Qian didn’t need to worry that the black hawk might fly away and not return.
With Feeding Pills available, the black hawk would not leave even if chased away.
Having descended from the Bell Platform, Li Qian sat cross-legged on the bed, holding a black stone in his hand.
The demon stone’s color appeared dimmer, no longer as pitch-black as before.
This was because Li Qian had absorbed quite a bit of the Demon Essence.
Over the past year, he had escalated from absorbing once a day to thrice a day.
As a result, his Pure Holy Body made faster progress.
His rate of cultivation improvement sped up similarly.
Hu!
Some time later, Li Qian opened his eyes, feeling that the Pure Holy Body had improved by a slight margin.
Suddenly, he felt a movement in his heart and summoned the system interface.
Host: Li Qian.
Cultivation: Innate True Essence (Mid Stage 49/100).
Sacrificial Artifact: Chen Bell (Strength 3463/10000).
Martial Arts: Sword Stabbing Fist (Perfect), Heartless Sword Technique (Perfect), Pure Holy Body (Expertise 84/100), Soul Chasing Sword Skill (Perfect).
Martial Intent: Heartless Sword Intent (True Image 25/100).
Secret Skill: Ten Thousand Transformation Sword Qi, Blood Burning Technique.
....
In this past year and more, there was no doubt that his cultivation realm and overall strength had increased significantly.
His cultivation had already reached the Mid Stage of the True Essence Realm.
At the current pace of cultivation, every eight days would improve his cultivation progress by one point; another year or so would allow him to break through to the Late Stage of the True Essence Realm.
At the Late Stage of the True Essence Realm, with Illusion-level Sword Intent, he could be called a top Grandmaster.
Of course, with his current strength, even a top Grandmaster could be killed with a single strike.
So how strong he was now, even he himself did not know.
After all, he had not fought against a Great Grandmaster.
As for Heavenly People... better not think about that.
Even if he could handle a Heavenly Person now, he didn’t want to take any risks.
Unless his Sword Intent progressed further, advancing to the True Image Level and beyond, reaching the Heavenly Phenomenon Level.
Yet his current progress in the Heartless Sword Intent was only at twenty-four.
Far too slow.
This was with the aid of Chen Bell and the support of the system’s cultivation effects.
With the current rate, it would take at least another ten years or more to possibly break through.
Since the Pure Holy Body entered the expertise level, even absorbing demon stone essence thrice a day requires five days to advance one point in progress.
Li Qian looked at the demon stone between his palms, his brows slightly furrowed, thinking that much of its essence had been drained by him, its color much dimmer, and he wondered how much longer it could last?
Once this demon stone was depleted, and if he couldn’t obtain another, the practice of the Pure Holy Body might fall into stagnation.
It was an unavoidable situation.
Demon stones are extremely rare; even for a major faction like the Divine Sword Sect, when they come across such an item, they would either seal it away or destroy it directly.
...
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