Xiang Shaoyun did not use any flux goldthorn energy to help the taurus with his breakthrough. The taurus was different from the turtle and the toad. The two had lived in the golden lake for countless years, and their bodies had gained some flux goldthorn energy without them realizing it.

  As for the taurus, he had never gotten in contact with such power before. If they forced him to absorb the flux goldthorn energy, it would be the same as torturing him to death. Xiang Shaoyun first had the turtle and the toad take care of the taurus. It wouldn't be too late for the taurus to first train under them before breaking through into the Demon Saint realm.

  Next, Xiang Shaoyun went to see the angels. They had been at the sect for several days. Although they were living comfortably, they had still decided that it was time for them to return to their race.

  Xiang Shaoyun reminded Pudi to invite the high priest to the sect. He wanted to see if he could form a connection between the sect and the angels, creating a situation where the two parties could assist each other. Pudi agreed and promised to deliver the message to the high priest.

  Xiang Shaoyun wanted to send someone to see them off, but he found that he had no one he could send. Thus, he had no choice but to have First Gold of the Four Guardians see them off. Although the six angels were strong, they lacked experience. Xiang Shaoyun was worried that they would encounter some mishaps. With First Gold escorting them, he would feel much more comfortable letting them travel.

  After the angels left, Xiang Shaoyun returned to the abyss. He started disguising the abyss and used numerous formations to completely isolate the place from the outside world, turning the abyss into his personal cultivation zone.

  When he was done with all his preparations, he started cultivating. Seated in the abyss, he adjusted his condition before sending the greenleaf juice to the little tree of life in his astral cosmos sea. The moment the greenleaf juice appeared, the little tree of life seemed to come alive, and it unleashed a powerful suction force toward the greenleaf juice.

  The greenleaf juice was a natural spiritual dew formed of the essence of saint-grade trees, and it contained endless vitality. The little tree of life devoured the entire pot of greenleaf juice, not leaving a single drop for Xiang Shaoyun.

  Whoosh! Whoosh!

  After devouring the greenleaf juice, the little tree of life grew rapidly, its branches and leaves growing at a speed visible to the naked eye. The tree started emanating a vigorous life force.

  Xiang Shaoyun could clearly feel the extraordinary life force. It was as though the most primordial life force was coming into existence and influencing everything in his astral cosmos sea. Just as the life force was about to fuse with the primal inception energy, Xiang Shaoyun had a flash of inspiration and hurriedly circulated the life force into his wood star.

  When the energy entered the wood star, it was as though the star had devoured the most precious natural treasure. It filled up at an incredible speed surpassing all of Xiang Shaoyun's expectations. He had only channeled a portion of the little tree of life's life essence into the wood star. It was rather surprising that it actually contained so much power.

  It was a pity that he only had a limited amount of greenleaf juice. Even after the little tree of life devoured the entire pot of greenleaf juice, it had only grown a little. Nothing else happened.

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  This was a tree that Xiang Shaoyun had discovered when he was searching for gleamstar water. He guessed that it was the tree of life depicted in the legends, and it had indeed displayed qualities greatly resembling the legendary tree of life.

  However, Xiang Shaoyun had a feeling that nurturing the tree would be extremely hard regardless of whether it was actually the tree of life. For the tree to grow, it needed the irrigation of more spiritual spring water.

  The pot of greenleaf juice was purchased after spending two million high-grade spirit crystals, and it was gone instantly. It was understandable why Xiang Shaoyun's heart was aching.

  Fortunately, the life essence energy released by the tree was able to fully fill his wood star and greatly increase his own life force. In a way, he had been compensated for what he spent on the greenleaf juice.

  Xiang Shaoyun's gaze landed on the gold tree sapling. It was growing healthily and was much taller than before. This was all thanks to the unique environment in his astral cosmos sea. If the tree was growing in the outside world, it wouldn't have grown so fast.

  After the gold tree sapling matures, I will plant it outside the sect to make it a sect guardian, thought Xiang Shaoyun inwardly. As for the little tree of life, before he had absolute strength, he wouldn't reveal it. His gaze then landed on the goldblood stones. The stones had been with him for a while. The time had come for him to use them.

  As something capable of increasing a gold cultivator's combat strength, each goldblood stone was high in value. After refining a piece of goldblood stone, Xiang Shaoyun found that he hadn't even grown much at all. He was disappointed.

  "Since I already have the flux goldthorn energy, this goldblood stone is no longer useful for me," muttered Xiang Shaoyun with deep disappointment.

  His next option was to accumulate more wind, light, and flame energies. As the yin wind stone was one of the materials used to forge his soul foundation, it wasn't difficult for him to increase his absorption speed of wind energy. As for flame energy, Yun Flame would help increase his energy absorption speed. Of the three, only the light energy was slightly slow for him to accumulate. Since he did not have any unique variant light energies on him, he could only rely on the profundity of light to increase his light cultivation.

  Although Xiang Shaoyun absorbed energy 10 times faster than a regular cultivator, he still needed some time to push all nine of his stars to peak first-stage Sovereign Realm level.

  In the blink of an eye, three months passed.

  After cultivating tirelessly, Xiang Shaoyun pushed all nine of his stars to the peak, stepping through the first stage and entering the second-stage Sovereign Realm. His breakthrough had been extremely smooth. After all, he had long gathered sufficient accumulation. Several of his stars were already overflowing with energy, forcing him to break through.

  After reaching the second-stage Sovereign Realm, his soul foundation gained its second layer. Numerous new and complicated soul marks appeared on his soul foundation. His soul was seated cross-legged within the foundation, allowing all the soul marks to be carved onto it. This was a long process that would result in the creation of a saint soul once completed. At that time, everything would change for him.

  Xiang Shaoyun's soul had already touched upon the powers of cultivation only available to those in the Saint Realm. His soul was so strong it left even him in disbelief. However, he also knew very well that his soul was still not a true saint soul yet. Perhaps it was now only a pseudo-saint soul, half a step away from becoming a true saint soul. He had the urge to swallow the saint soul pill to directly forge a saint soul, but he suppressed the urge.

  Sure, the pill could allow him to quickly possess a saint soul, but he always believed it would be better for him to take that step after his body caught up with his soul in strength. Otherwise, an imbalance might occur between his body and soul. If that happened, things would get troublesome.

  At this time, Xiang Shaoyun took out the Extreme Chill Curved Sword and started studying it again. He kept having a feeling that this Extreme Chill Curved Sword had an extraordinary origin. It was now time to unveil the secret behind this sword.

  Chapter 1135: Yin Yang Mother and Child Sword, Yin Mother Sword

  The Extreme Chill Curved Sword was a weapon of the dark attribute instead of frost. Its chilly aura came from its baleful yin energy, which contained a thick aura of death. This aura was a sinister power that would infect and kill anyone who touched the sword.

  Back when Xiang Shaoyun had first obtained this sword, this had nearly happened to him. If it wasn't for his dark origin energy, which could devour and assimilate the sword's energy, he wouldn't have been able to subdue this sword.

  And because his dark origin energy gave him an absolute advantage over the sword, he could freely wield the weapon. Cultivators of any other powers or whose dark power wasn't pure enough wouldn't be able to utilize the sword. Xiang Shaoyun was sure that this curved sword was an outstanding weapon with an extraordinary origin.

  In fact, although Xiang Shaoyun could wield it, he could only display a tiny bit of the sword's strength. It was still hiding its full strength. Using his dark origin energy, he once again tried to activate the sword.

  The sword's surface turned black and glossy, exuding a sharp aura that caused one's hair to rise. It was as though it could casually separate a head from a body.

  "It is impossible that nobody realized the nature of an exceptional sword like this. Perhaps those foreigners couldn't understand a human weapon like this and couldn't fully unite with this sword. That was why they had decided to put this sword up for auction. Let me try feeding it some of my blood," muttered Xiang Shaoyun as he lightly sliced the sword across his arm.

  Hiss!

  He felt a deep chill penetrate into his bones, causing him to take a deep breath from discomfort. Several drops of blood landed on the sword. Sure enough, the sword reacted to the blood, causing him to grow excited.

  An odd pattern appeared on the sword's surface as though a black dragonfish was swimming about the sword. Perhaps due to a lack of a playmate, the dragonfish seemed incredibly lonely, and it seemed to be on the verge of fading into nothingness from loneliness.

  As he looked at the black dragonfish, Xiang Shaoyun's eyes flickered as a familiar sensation rose within him. He immediately activated the yin and yang dragonfish diagram on his soul foundation.

  This was something he had obtained from the massive stele in the Spacetime Grotto. The yin and yang dragonfish were a simulation of the dao of time, while the black dragonfish on the Extreme Chill Curved Sword greatly resembled the black dragonfish in the yin yang dragonfish diagram.

  The moment Xiang Shaoyun manifested the yin yang dragonfish diagram, the lonely black dragonfish leaped out of the sword and merged with the black dragonfish in the diagram. The diagram erupted with an even more dazzling radiance, and numerous ancient characters floated out of it. The ancient characters embedded themselves into Xiang Shaoyun's soul, allowing him to instantly know the origin of the Extreme Chill Curved Sword.

  These ancient characters were profound and difficult to understand. However, with them imprinted onto his soul, it was as though he had been enlightened. This sword was not called the Extreme Chill Curved Sword at all. Rather, it was the Yin Mother Sword of the Yin Yang Mother and Child Sword. There was also a Yang Child Sword; together with the Yin Mother Sword, they were known as the Yin Yang Mother and Child Sword. During the ancient times, these two swords were the most supreme and paramount of weapons.

  It was rumored that when one gathered both swords, one would be able to master the Yin Yang Sword Technique, master the dao of time, and dominate all lands under the sky. Xiang Shaoyun was unclear if that was the truth, but he had indeed learned the Yin Sword Technique from this sword.

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  The Yin Sword Technique utilized the power of yin. It had nine stances in total, with each stance being incomparably powerful. It was a saint-grade battle technique. In fact, it might even be a battle technique of a higher grade. The dark origin energy was a chilly energy of the extreme yin attribute. Thus, it was suited for the cultivation of this sword technique.

  However, Xiang Shaoyun's strength was still too weak. It would be somewhat hard for him to cultivate the Yin Sword Technique. Fortunately, he had a pseudo-saint soul that he could use to try cultivating the technique.

  After receiving the information from the black dragonfish, joy covered Xiang Shaoyun's face, and he muttered, "This is actually the mother sword of the Yin Yang Mother and Child Sword? This sword has too amazing of a background, right?"

  Like a buried pearl, an ancient godly sword like this had appeared yet went unnoticed. One could say that Xiang Shaoyun had profited greatly by obtaining it. If the background of this sword was known, the people in the auction would probably be willing to spend tens of millions of saint crystals for it.

  Yes, saint crystals, not regular spirit crystals. The two were at entirely different levels in terms of worth. One ought to know that this was an ancient divine weapon, not a regular saint weapon.

  Without the dark origin energy, Xiang Shaoyun wouldn't have been able to form a resonance with it. Without the yin and yang dragonfish diagram, he wouldn't have obtained the sword's inheritance. Anyone else other than him would not be able to unveil the sword's secret.

  Xiang Shaoyun met all the required conditions to utilize this sword. It was as though he carried the mandate of heaven, granting him such a fortuitous encounter.

  Xiang Shaoyun was in no rush to end his cultivation session. Using his soul clone, he started cultivating the Yin Sword Technique. He did not aim to master all nine stances, but he aimed to gain an initial understanding of all of them. Only then would he be able to properly unleash the Yin Mother Sword's strength.

  The Yin Sword Technique was boundlessly powerful, containing the dao of extreme yin. Without mastery over the corresponding energy, one would not be able to comprehend the technique's intricacies.

  While comprehending the dao of extreme yin, Xiang Shaoyun found that it was similar to the profundity of darkness. He fused his comprehension of the two, quickly obtaining mastery over the dao of extreme yin.

  He could now unleash an extremely terrifying sword strike by channeling only a tiny bit of his energy into the sword. Fortunately, he was cultivating down in the abyss. Nobody was able to sense the sharp and chilly sword energy. Anyone sensing the energy would have a hair-raising sensation because the sword was too powerful.

  Xiang Shaoyun proceeded to compress more of his strength as he cultivated. Eventually, he stopped using any energy, purely practicing the form of the sword technique. Even so, the sword continued flashing about, unleashing a formidable might.

  This was because the Yin Mother Sword had acknowledged Xiang Shaoyun as its master. He could now wield the sword as he wished, unleashing the sword's full strength. After seven days, he mastered the Yin Sword Technique's first three stances. As for the latter four stances, he could only master them after reaching the Heaven Battling Realm or higher.

  This was because, for the four stances, comprehension of the world and space was required before one could make sense of the profundities within the sword technique. Xiang Shaoyun did not force himself to continue cultivating the latter four stances. Instead, he practiced the first three stances repeatedly.

  At the same time, he also split the other half of his attention into comprehending the dao of time, doing his best to cultivate as fast as he could. Time would not wait for anyone. The dao of time was basically the dao of yin and yang. The power of time was essentially the fusion of two powers to unleash a power capable of shaking the heaven and earth, a power no other power combination could compare to. Perhaps only the primal chaos power could be a match for the power of time.

  After spending a total of four months in cultivation, Xiang Shaoyun finally left seclusion. After he went out, he received a piece of good news from Little White. A draconic land had been found where a large amount of dragon liquid was available.

  Xiang Shaoyun was overjoyed, and he said, "The heavens are blessing the Ziling Sect!"