The Jade Tablet

But things did not go as Bai Cen had expected.

He did not see Jiang Ci die a miserable death in the lightning storm. He did not hear her death wails, nor did he see her torn to shreds by the heavenly thunder. What he saw was a phantom.

The phantom held up the heavenly thunder with a single hand, shielding her securely beneath him.

Bai Cen's eyelid twitched.

Even worse, as the heavenly tribulation dissipated, the spiritual energy from all directions surged toward Jiang Ci like rivers rushing into the sea. Under the nourishment of the spiritual energy, the wounds torn open by the lightning tribulation began to heal slowly—charred skin peeled away, fresh flesh grew, and even the scar on her back that had nearly split her in two was shrinking, scabbing, and fading.

Most fatally of all—she was about to break through.

Bai Cen's eyes widened.

Eighth stage of the Golden Core realm. Ninth stage of the Golden Core realm. Half-step Nascent Soul.

Her aura was still climbing, like a bursting dam, like a beast out of control, as if she wanted to release everything she had accumulated over the past twenty years at this very moment.

The Nascent Soul realm.

Could you believe it?

An eighth-stage Golden Core cultivator had broken through straight to the Nascent Soul realm right in the middle of a lightning tribulation. The Nascent Soul realm, damn it! It wasn't freaking Qi Condensation, it wasn't Foundation Establishment, it wasn't the Golden Core realm—it was the Nascent Soul realm! How many people were stuck at the Golden Core realm for their entire lives, never even touching its threshold, yet she crossed it just by undergoing a tribulation? Who the hell broke through like this? Who?!

Bai Cen sucked in a breath through his teeth in sheer frustration, his mouth filled with bitterness.

That was a nine-patterned Heavenly Tribulation Pill! He had barely managed to refine it after wasting three sets of materials. Even if thrown to a Soul Transformation cultivator, they might still end up in a ditch if they weren't careful. He had originally counted on this lightning tribulation to blast her half to death—to the point where her spiritual energy was depleted, her meridians shattered, and she was left with only a breath of life. Then, he would go and extract her Sword Heart with ease.

And the result?

She had survived it. And she was even using the residual energy to break through.

What kind of bullshit was this?

And what on earth was this phantom doing?

Bai Cen squinted at the phantom. He could vaguely make out that it was a young male. His build was not particularly broad, but he stood very straight, as if he was accustomed to shielding something behind him. As for his face—it was a blurry mess, his features completely indistinguishable. It looked like a painting soaked in water, the ink bled out, leaving only a vague outline.

Bai Cen's lips twitched.

“Which beginner made this? How do you even mess up a phantom's face this badly? Couldn't they find a formation master with better craftsmanship? Even if the Formation Sect is gone, it's not like there isn't a single person left who knows how to carve a jade tablet, right?”

Yet, it was this very phantom with a blurred face that had casually blocked the ninth strike of the nine-patterned Heavenly Tribulation Pill.

Bai Cen's expression turned solemn.

The heavenly tribulation had already dispersed. Spiritual energy was still pouring into Jiang Ci's body. Her aura was still climbing, her wounds were still healing, and the threshold of the Nascent Soul realm was right before her. She could cross it at any moment.

If she succeeded in her breakthrough—no, she didn't even need to succeed. As long as she recovered even a fraction of her combat power, his trip today would be in vain. An alert, guarded Azure Cloud Sword Heir with a sword in her hand was not someone easily dealt with. Moreover, there was a phantom of unknown strength standing right beside her.

This was his only chance to strike and take the Sword Heart.

He was determined to have the Glass Sword Heart.

He would test the phantom's strength first.

Looking at Jiang Ci, whose complexion was gradually improving, Bai Cen decided not to delay any longer. He raised his hand and shot out a burst of elixir fire.

There was a difference of two major realms between Void Refinement and Nascent Soul. Even a casual burst of his elixir fire possessed the power to shatter mountains and crack boulders. He did not need to defeat this phantom; he only needed to test its depth, find its weakness, and then take the Sword Heart and leave. As for whether Jiang Ci lived or died—that had never been within his scope of consideration.

Dragging a scorching trail of flame, the elixir fire tore through the air, blasting toward the phantom's face.

The phantom had long been on guard against this old codger who had suddenly appeared. From the moment Bai Cen showed himself, a portion of the phantom's attention had been focused on this man who carried the scent of elixir fire. The moment the elixir fire attacked, the phantom moved.

He did not dodge. He met it head-on.

He raised his hand, and his spiritual energy drew up the rubble shattered by the lightning tribulation, tracing lines in the air. Stone after stone, spiritual line after spiritual line, it was like weaving a net. In less than three seconds, a formation had taken shape. The rubble hovered in mid-air, strung together by the spiritual lines into a complex geometric pattern that rotated slowly.

Bai Cen was stunned for a moment.

He could not recognize what formation this was.

Although only ten years had passed since the demise of the Formation Sect, the inheritance of formations had been almost entirely severed. Those so-called "sect-protecting formations" in the Central Continent were built by forcefully piling up spirit stones; their formation lines were so crude they were painful to look at, completely incomparable to the ruins of the Formation Sect he had seen. Even the Spirit-Gathering Formation of their Sword Sect had been set up at a great expense, yet its effect was inferior to a simple Spirit-Gathering Formation the Formation Sect had casually drawn back in the day.

An alchemist like him, who was entirely devoted to refining pills, paid even less attention to formations. He only knew how to use elixir fire to refine herbs into pills. As for formation lines, formation bases, and formation eyes—what were those? Were they edible? Or could they be used to refine pills?

But he could at least tell that the materials this phantom used to set up the formation were nothing more than the rubble scattered everywhere on the ground. They were just ordinary stones blasted apart by the lightning tribulation and strewn across the Heavenly Punishment Platform, devoid of any spiritual energy fluctuations—stones that even mortals would disdain to pick up.

With just this? A look of disdain appeared on Bai Cen's face. Surely, it was no decent or high-grade formation.

The slap to his face came quickly.

The elixir fire crashed violently into the formation.

Then, the phantom of a giant tortoise emerged out of thin air.

With a dragon's head and a tortoise's body, its physique was like a mountain. Its limbs were as thick as pillars, steady and resolute, like four heavenly pillars supporting the entire formation. The patterns on its shell were ancient and rugged, as if they had weathered thousands of years of wind and frost, with each line telling an ancient tale. It carried a massive stone tablet on its back, carved with illegible characters whose strokes were vigorous and powerful, deep enough to penetrate metal and stone.

A heavy, profound aura rushed over him. It was not spiritual energy, nor was it pressure—it was a more primal, more fundamental "weight." It felt as if a mountain was pressing down on the Heavenly Punishment Platform, or as if the entire earth had sunk slightly at this moment. This was the Monument-Bearing Water-Quelling Formation, one of the core formations used by the Formation Sect to defend the Northern Border against the Ice Spirit tides. Bai Cen had never seen it, but he had heard of it.

The elixir fire exploded against the stone tablet.

Boom!

The stone tablet collapsed, and the giant tortoise dissipated. But the elixir fire was also extinguished.

Bai Cen's expression turned grim.

On the surface, he had broken the other party's formation. Trading a single burst of elixir fire for a formation seemed like his victory no matter how one looked at it. But in reality?

When the phantom made its move just now, he had sensed its cultivation level—it was only at the mid stage of the Nascent Soul realm. It was not even at the Soul Transformation realm. In the Central Continent, he could beat three mid stage Nascent Soul cultivators with one hand. Yet, this mid stage Nascent Soul phantom had used a few broken stones to block his elixir fire, which carried thirty percent of his strength.

Thirty percent of his strength.

For a Void Refinement expert, thirty percent of their strength was enough to crush any Nascent Soul cultivator. There was a difference of two major realms between the Nascent Soul and Void Refinement realms—that was a chasm, a gulf, an insurmountable gap. A Nascent Soul cultivator in front of him was like an ant before an elephant.

Yet this ant had used a few broken stones to block his footstep.

Bai Cen took a deep breath, suppressing the anxiety in his heart. This phantom's mastery of formations was terrifyingly profound. He even suspected that if this phantom were given enough materials and time, he might be able to set up a formation that even a Void Refinement cultivator could not breach.

Nascent Soul, Nascent Soul... Was he cursed to be vexed by the Nascent Soul realm today?

Bai Cen gritted his teeth. He knew that the commotion from the fight just now would definitely draw those people back. Zixiao, Qingwei, and those other old fogeys. They were not blind; the giant tortoise phantom was so massive, and the sound of the elixir fire exploding was so loud that the entire sect gates must have heard it. He had to obtain the Sword Heart before they arrived.

He had to end this quickly.

Bai Cen mobilized his dantian and began to gather his power. This time, he intended to use seventy percent of his strength. No more testing—he was playing for keeps. He would shatter this phantom, extract Jiang Ci's Sword Heart, and leave.

But just as Bai Cen was channeling his elixir fire, the phantom made another move.

This time, the material was the heavenly thunder he had blocked earlier.

Golden electricity leaped, folded, and compressed in the phantom's hands. The lightning was kneaded into a ball, like dough, and soon shaped into a palm-sized, small formation plate. The lightning flowed across the plate, sizzling and emitting a sharp hum. The plate was carved with patterns that Bai Cen could not understand; they were not traditional formation lines, but rather resembled some sort of—some sort of symbols he had never seen before.

The phantom opened his mouth and uttered a few terms that Bai Cen could not comprehend.

“Magnetic field detonation.”

A wave of energy centered on the formation plate instantly rippled across the entire Heavenly Punishment Platform. The air trembled, the rubble bounced, and even the bluestone slabs beneath Bai Cen's feet vibrated slightly. The wave swept through his body, giving him an indescribable feeling of discomfort—as if something was running wild in his meridians, or like countless ants gnawing on his bones.

“Magnetism generates electricity.”

The air above Bai Cen's head began to frictionize violently. An invisible force was churning, tearing, and compressing. There were no tribulation clouds in the sky, no dark clouds, nothing at all—yet lightning appeared out of thin air. Golden electrical arcs traced complex paths in the void, as if an invisible giant hand were drawing a massive formation.

Then, the lightning bolted down fiercely toward him.

Bai Cen's heart tightened.

He did not want to take this lightning head-on. It was not that he couldn't block it—it was just unnecessary. His goal was the Sword Heart, not to fight to the death with a mere phantom. If he consumed too much spiritual energy here and something went wrong when extracting the Sword Heart later, the loss would far outweigh the gain.

He hurriedly extinguished the elixir fire in his hand, executed a movement technique, and flashed aside, barely dodging the strike. The lightning grazed his robes and blasted into the ground, exploding into a charred crater. Rubble flew in all directions, and the air was filled with a burnt stench.

Before Bai Cen could even breathe a sigh of relief, three identical bolts of lightning locked onto him.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Dragging golden trails of light, the lightning bolted toward him from three different directions. Bai Cen was chased by the electrical arcs, forced to dash wildly all over the Heavenly Punishment Platform. He dodged left and right, his movements so fast he became a blur, his feet barely touching the ground as his robes fluttered. Yet those bolts of lightning seemed to have eyes of their own, relentlessly pursuing him, impossible to shake off.

He was getting closer and closer to the phantom and Jiang Ci.

It was not that he wanted to approach—it was that the lightning was herding him in that direction. With every dodge, he was forced to move closer to the phantom. The trajectories of those lightning bolts were not random; they were calculated.

The phantom was controlling the paths of the lightning. He was compressing Bai Cen's space to maneuver.

Bai Cen gritted his teeth. This phantom was far more troublesome than he had anticipated.

The phantom clearly noticed this as well. He frowned slightly—although Bai Cen could not see his face clearly, he could sense the change in the phantom's emotions. The lightning could not hit Bai Cen at all; this old Void Refinement codger's movement technique was simply too fast, allowing him to barely dodge every single time the lightning was about to strike.

Thus, he switched to another method.

“Electricity generates magnetism.”

The shackles binding Jiang Ci suddenly unlocked with a click. Guided by an invisible force, the black iron shackles flew toward Bai Cen at a speed barely discernible to the naked eye. It was not just one—it was both. The two shackles flew like cannonballs, dragging afterimages and tearing through the air as they smashed toward Bai Cen's face.

Bai Cen cursed inwardly. The extremely sharp dynamic vision provided by his Void Refinement cultivation allowed him to barely capture the trajectory of the streaks of light—but capturing it did not mean he could dodge it. This thing was too fast, far faster than he had anticipated, faster than any hidden weapon he had ever seen. That was not the speed of spiritual energy; that was—that was some kind of force he could not comprehend.

He hurriedly conjured a spiritual energy shield. Spiritual energy condensed on the surface of his body, forming a translucent barrier that was thick, solid, and seemingly impenetrable.

The shield did not even last a second. It was pierced straight through, shattering into a sky full of light specks that drifted through the air like fireflies.

Bai Cen's expression changed drastically. Without time to think, he hurriedly summoned his protective cauldron—a high-grade magic treasure that had accompanied him for centuries and blocked countless fatal attacks. The cauldron's body was pitch-black, carved with defensive formation lines, and was virtually indestructible.

The vibration of metal clashing reverberated through the entire sect, making the air buzz and causing the rubble on the Heavenly Punishment Platform to bounce. A sharp pain shot through Bai Cen's eardrums, and his vision went black.

A large crater was blasted into the cauldron, and its body cracked, nearly pierced through. Smoke rose from the edges of the crater, and cracks spread outward like a spiderweb. If this thing had hit his body directly—Bai Cen did not dare to imagine the consequences.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced into the distance. Two streaks of light were flying toward them. One was purple, and the other was green. The purple was deep, while the green was piercingly bright. Especially the purple light, which carried a fierce sword intent that was impossible to ignore.

Zixiao. Qingwei.

Bai Cen gritted his teeth. Despite all his meticulous calculations, he had overlooked this. He had calculated the strength of the lightning tribulation, calculated Jiang Ci's limit of endurance, calculated that Zixiao would come, and calculated that Qingwei would remain silent. But he had not calculated this jade tablet. He had not calculated this phantom. He had not calculated that a beginner who couldn't even carve a face properly could push him to such a corner.

Bai Cen looked at the phantom confronting him.

Then he froze.

The phantom seemed to have dimmed. His originally solid figure now had even blurrier edges, as if he could fall apart at any moment. The light on him was weakening, and his aura was also declining—dropping from the mid stage of the Nascent Soul realm to the early stage, and then from the early stage to the peak of the Golden Core realm. He was weakening, dissipating, disappearing from this world bit by bit.

Wild joy flooded Bai Cen's heart.

He no longer hid his strength, nor did he test the waters anymore. One hundred percent of his power.

His dantian spun wildly, and spiritual energy surged through his meridians like a bursting dam, like an out-of-control beast. He raised his hand, and a ball of blazing white elixir fire condensed in his palm—more violent and ferocious than any before. The elixir fire was not red, nor was it golden; it was white, a blinding, scorching white that seemed capable of burning through space itself.

He struck out with his palm.

The phantom raised his arm, attempting to set up a formation to block it. But there was not enough spiritual energy left. He was too weak. Before the formation lines could unfold, they shattered; before the spiritual lines could connect, they snapped. The rubble fell from the air, scattering all over the ground.

The elixir fire pierced through his chest.

The phantom shattered.