Chapter 1816: Breakthrough of the Seven-Step Saint Kinghood

Zhang Ruochen’s fingers clenched the golden brocade ribbon tightly as he stood by the shore of the Luoshui, watching as the rosewood boat flew up and disappeared into the clouds.

Qiu Yichi had taken away Qi Sheng and Ying Huo. Zhang Ruochen did not stop her.

Right now, Zhang Ruochen was on pins and needles.

The appearance of this brocade ribbon had stirred her emotions. He was anticipatory as well as fearful.

He knew what he was afraid of.

“Endless Abyss… Who? Could it be her?” Zhang Ruochen mumbled to himself.

Meanwhile, Ji Fanxin was standing on the side, as if she had blended in with the surroundings.

She did not ask Zhang Ruochen who the person on the rosewood boat was. She just had a gut feeling that he was in trouble—pretty big trouble.

Endless Abyss was an inauspicious place. Even a powerful figure like Yan Liren, the Tenth Emperor, went to the place and never returned.

With Zhang Ruochen’s current level of cultivation base, it would be too reckless and dangerous to go there.

He would be in deep shit if that was a trap.

He needed to be at least a Nine-step Saint King and fully master Yanshen’s Leg, only then he had a higher probability of survival.

After thinking long and hard, Zhang Ruochen tucked away the golden brocade ribbon. “After killing Qi Xiaotian, did you find any Godstone on his body, Fairy?”

Qi Xiaotian was the earliest being who found the ancient vein. He would have most likely taken the materialized Godstones from the vein.

Ji Fanxin took out a box and handed it to him.

When he opened it, a bright divine light shone out of it. The intense divine Qi surged out like dragons.

There were three Godstones inside the box.

“I found these inside the Sacred Cauldron of Blood Sacrifice. Qi Xiaotian must be thinking of adding some Godstone powder to the Thousand Age Blood Pill, supposedly to enhance the efficacy of the pill.”

He quickly closed the box back, chuckling. “Great. With these three Godstones, I would attain the Seven-step Saint Kinghood in no time. Since it was you who killed Qi Xiaotian, these three Godstones should rightfully belong to you. Offer me a price and I will buy them up.”

“I promised to give you three Godstones when you brought me to see the Divine Sky-connecting Tree. Have you forgotten?”

“Okay. But thanks for it anyway.”

Zhang Ruochen kept the Godstones and invited Ji Fanxi to Royal Mountain.

“I am planning to scout out Luoshui again. I don’t think I can go to Royal Mountain with you.”

Ji Fanxin gazed out at the fog-covered Luoshui, seemingly fascinated by it. Her beautiful body flew up in the air like a white petal, landed on the water, and then walked into the depth of the fog. She looked very much like Fairy Lingbo.

Fairy of a Hundred Flowers is really gutsy. She dares go to Luoshui without needing to wait for the night with stars, but no moon.

Zhang Ruochen knew how thoughtful Fairy of a Hundred Flowers was. She had an unfathomably high level of cultivation. So he did not stop her.

Ji Fanxin was probably looking for an opportunity to find a breakthrough in her current cultivation base.

If not for having a time device like the Sundial, he would have also gone to explore Luoshui, collect sacred herbs, and toughen himself in the process to elevate his cultivation base.

When thinking of the high cultivation base of Ji Fanxin, he could not help but feel the pressure.

Every cultivator in the Kunlun Realm was working very hard on and trying to find the opportunity to elevate their cultivation base. If he failed to catch up with them, he would be left behind.

Back on Royal Mountain, Zhang Ruochen went to see Awesome, the Little Taoist.

Awesome’s attainment in the Path of Array was phenomenal. He had successfully set up the prototype of the Nine Stratum Array in just a short span of a few days.

Zhang Ruochen did a little test on the array. With his current cultivation base, he could hardly withstand the attack from the Nine Stratum Array.

This array, named Luotian Evil Purging Array, covered the entire Royal Mountain.

Awesome, the Little Taoist was thrilled with his little creation. “I am not exaggerating. Once a complete Luotian Evil Purging Array is finished, it will cover an area of fifty-thousand-mile across, putting the entire Yunwu Commandery within its protection. By then, even the Supreme Saints would be forced to retreat, let alone those Eight-step Saint Kings or Nine-step Saint Kings.”

Zhang Ruochen was thrilled. “How much materials are needed to set up a fully functional Luotian Evil Purging Array?”

“Not much, just a hundred times more than what this prototype needs.”

Zhang Ruochen was struck dumb.

He had spent a large part of his wealth in buying the materials for this prototype.

He would not have afforded a hundred times more materials. Even if he could, he might not find enough materials in the Kunlun Realm.

Besides, Awesome, the Little Taoist might have high attainment in arrays, but he had yet achieved the Dishi-level and could not have possibly created a full-version Luotian Evil Purging Array.

“Let’s go! I have got a few more Godstones. We can activate the Sundial again. Will you be able to attain Nine-step Saint Kinghood in the closed-door cultivation this time?” asked Zhang

Awesome, the Little Taoist first appeared excited, then sighed. “After attaining Seven-step Saint Kinghood, every subsequent step requires the understanding of millions of Precepts. It is not that easy to ascend to Nine-step Saint Kinghood in such a short time.”

When the number of Precepts reached around one million, he would have a chance to achieve Seven-step Saint Kinghood.

But going from Seven-step to Eight-step Saint Kinghood, he needed three to four million Precepts.

Simply put, the difficulty of going from Seven Step to Eight Step was multiple times higher than going from One Step to Seven Step combined. Naturally, the time needed would be much longer.

The higher he went, the difficulty and time needed would be multiple times higher.

Because of this, the difficulty of cross-border battle would become higher.

Zhang Ruochen might be capable of challenging a Nine-step Saint King of the Lesser Precept World by using Precepts of Truth.

However, even if he could attain Seven-step Saint Kinghood, he could only challenge the Nine-step Saint King of the Lesser Precept World. He still had a long way to go before he could go against the Nine-step Saint King of the Greater Precept World.

If he could make breakthroughs in Path of Dimension and Path of Time, he would have more cards in hand.

After gathering most of the cultivators in Royal Mountain, the Sundial was once again activated.

The closed-door cultivation would be four-year-long this time.

Zhang Ruochen’s primary goal during these four years was to attain Seven-step Saint Kinghood. He could spend most of his effort in ensuring his success. He could only realize a leapfrog improvement in his strength once he attained Seven-step Saint Kinghood.

Three years into the closed-door cultivation, the number of Precepts in Zhang Ruochen’s Sea of Qi had surpassed one million. His Heavenly Stream had grown a size larger, and his cultivation base had successfully entered Seven-step Saint Kinghood.

He had consumed and refined all the sacred pills he had taken from others. His spiritual power had risen to the middle-stage of the 58th order.

Aside from this, his sword skill had also improved, his insight of Ninth Sword at the initial phase.

He was overjoyed after getting such enormous accomplishments in just a few years.

Zhang Ruochen clapped his hands together in a sword gesture, then summoned the sword will that existed all over his body.

Gradually, the soul of the sword will condense, forming into a three-inch little figure. This little figure looked identical to Zhang Ruochen.

This was the sword soul.

Only after the Ninth Sword was at the initial stage could a cultivator form a sword soul.

Sword soul was ten times more powerful than sword qi. It was invisible yet having powerful attack capability. It could travel thousands of miles to attack the saint soul of any cultivators directly.

When the saint soul was exterminated, the enemy would die.

None-Supreme Saint cultivators could not defeat Supreme Saints. Most probably, the reason was that they could not defeat the immortal body of the Supreme Saints. Even if a Supreme Saint stood unmoved, no Saint King could have harmed him.

But when a sword cultivator attained the ultimate phase in Ninth Sword, he could bypass the immortal body and directly attack the saint soul of a Supreme Saint.

In a sense, the mastery of Ninth Sword created the possibility of challenging the Supreme Saints for the Saint Kings.

Of course, it was only a small possibility.

How could the saint soul of the Supreme Saint be weak? Even less likely was the possibility of finding a way to attack the saint souls.

Nevertheless, the formation of a sword soul meant that Zhang Ruochen had officially entered a new realm of Sword Way.

Other than the sword skill, he had also gotten a tremendous breakthrough in his palm skill. He had also crossed the threshold in his cultivation of Heavenly Dragon-Elephant, the twelfth move of Dragon-Elephant Prajna Palm Strike.

Of course, to achieve the initial phase and even the ultimate phase, he would need to attain the Supreme Saint-level dragon and elephant souls.

It was hard. Very hard.

Zhang Ruochen had refined over ten-thousand red precepts in his left leg. He could not have preliminary control of the power of Yanshen in his leg. He still walked like a cripple. But it was much better than last time where he would leave behind deep footprints on one side of his leg whenever he walked.

Achieving this meant that Yanshen’s Leg became one of the biggest trump cards of Zhang Ruochen.

He had also learned an intermediate saint technique, legwork called Nine-Heaven God’s Step as a supplement to his Yanshen’s Leg.

Zhang Ruochen had gotten vast improvements in many aspects during the four years of cultivation.

His calculation told him that with his newly improved strength, he could evenly match Shang Zhiyan, who was at the peak of Seven-step Saint Kinghood when they met back then. Probably, he could even win by a slight one to two-tenths’ margin.

The reason he could not completely crush Shang Zhiyan was that Shang Zhiyan had cultivated Way of the Three Corpses and Path of Flowing Light.

Besides, Zhang Ruochen was slightly not-up-to-par in terms of his weapons.

The Ancient Abyssal Blade, Eight-Dragon Fan, and Golden Dragon Carriage might be the weapons that many Supreme Saints coveted, but compared to what Shang Zhiyan used: Merit Stele, Tower of a Thousand Temperings supreme artifact, and Bloodbairn that fed on the blood of 8,888 babies, they still lost by a whisker.

It was a shame that Yueshen had borrowed the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron.

“Had I possessed a supreme artifact, I would have been unrivaled in the Kunlun Realm considering my current cultivation base. Supreme artifact…”

His eyes suddenly brightened up as the thought of the Azuresky Pagoda came to mind. The pagoda was currently being held in the Kunlun Realm.

The Azuresky Pagoda was a supreme artifact of the Chi Clan of the First Central Empire. It was passed down from generation to generation, having a great power of destruction. Back then, during the battle in the Lingxiao Heavenly Palace, Zhang Ruochen had leveraged on the forces of the entire Guardian Dragon Pavilion, activating the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron and suppressing it.

Back then, Zhang Ruochen’s cultivation base was too low. He could not have controlled the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron.

But now, he was eager to try it out with his Seven-step Saint Kinghood.

If he could fully master a supreme artifact, he would be free to do many things he had not dared to do last time.