On next morning, there was still no movement from below the sand, and he could not sense anything via the budding connection that had begun appearing in his mind since the jar had received his blood. This meant that the process was still underway.

As for Wu Guang, his night meditation brought him the information he wanted to know.

In his previous life as Bai Qi, he had never trained his body as he was a scholar and mainly cultivator of the mind and soul. Still, his memories contained some methods useful for low-level cultivators that he had learned while traveling. He even had them practiced by a few of his most low-level servants to check the effects.

The most basic physical training could be reduced to three main categories, being strength, speed, and resistance. If Wu Guang willingly suppressed his cultivation and forcibly stopped infusing qi, he was currently only a bit stronger than a common teen. The only real difference was that he could easily resist even some weak rune weapons because of the Water essence he had used to strengthen his skin. And that was when he was suppressing all of his cultivation and qi! If the two were added to the mix, the current Wu Guang could risk resisting a slash from a Spirit weapon or an intermediate Soul realm cultivator attack without anything except superficial damage. He had even prooved such while fighting the golems.

Most of the methods he could recall required either arrays or formations, so in the end, he went with the most basic, mortal, training. Taking out the 'Gravity Slasher' saber from his storage ring, he manipulated the weigh reducing runes until it was about 20 pounds. Fine-tuning a so basic rune was almost impossible, so reaching a close approximate was enough for him right now.

Afterward, he suppressed his cultivation and began slowly using the movements from 'Sandstorm'. His speed was slow, and with a weapon that he could hardly move by using only his innate mortal body strength, he first did not manage even to assume the most basic stances. Still, after three hours of training, he managed to complete the basic slashes and punches without failing midway. Sweating rivers and gasping for air, but he still managed to.

When Wu Guang stopped suppressing his cultivation and qi began flowing along his pathways, he felt reborn. He briskly returned to the cabin and after washing in the small stream ate at least two meals worth of food.

He had decided to divide his time in two, with half of it going for training and the other half to search for the 'Lighting Attraction Trees'. He did not meet any luck in the latter again, but the former seemed to work. At least in Wu Guang's opinion, as during this night meditation, he sensed that his physique had a slight increase. So slight that it could go unnoticed, but still, it was an increase.

__________________________________________________________________________________

When morning arrived, there was still nothing coming from underground and so Wu Guang spent this day as the previous one. This day was also his 5th day in the cabin, which meant that tomorrow someone would arrive to pick him up.

While he was thinking about what to do with the spiritual being as the bind restricted the distance they could move apart from each other to only ten miles, Wu Guang's nightly meditation time arrived. This time he did not spend it to check on his body or to think of new training methods but simply allowed his consciousness to roam freely while following the qi flow inside his body.

Such a meditation was akin to rest for a cultivator. Granted, sleeping was far easier and served the same end, but Wu Guang wanted to do something during the night, and so went with such far more controllable method.

He had long wondered why there were neither Spirit nor normal beasts around. After all, the forests surround the 'Salted Lake' were considered extremely dangerous. Albeit he had no answer as to why he still wanted to find at least one beast tonight. If it was a Spirit beast over the 2nd level, then he would hunt it for its meat, as any qi infused meat was beneficial for the body. While if it was a lower one, then Wu Guang planned to use it for some extreme training. He wanted to face it without any cultivation.

Granted, he could recall his cultivation at any moment and would not face any real danger, but if he could down it, it would be both good training and a real achievement. After all, no mortal could hope to contend even with a quasi-spirit beast.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Wu Guang intended to begin his night hunt an hour after midnight, but when the time arrived, he simply could not. The reason for this being the establishment of a connection with the Spiritual Being a few minutes before.

"Has it finished?" He muttered while probing the speck of light as the connection was visualized inside his consciousness.

He had a lot of knowledge about such binding rituals, but even so, it was the first time had seen something akin to the one that appeared. Albeit some discrepancies with the ones he knew were expected as the method was different and the runes used were far more basic, Wu Guang still expected the final result to be approximated to what he considered standard.

Normally, any binding ritual would create a small image of the being itself. This image would be somewhat alive, and even represent different states like sleep, injury, unconsciousness, etc. Both for ease of understanding as well to instantly notice any changes in the condition of the connected one.

But the one that appeared inside Wu Guang's mind was nothing more than a speck of light.

In any case, there was nothing to lose and so Wu Guang used the hand seals that he had just learned to send a message to the spiritual being. In the future, as they interacted the need for seals would disappear, and using the connection would become natural.

"Are you fine?"

After waiting for a minute, Wu Guang repeated the attempt. Still, the result was the same.

"In such case, I should go myself" Deciding to do so, Wu Guang used another set of hand seals to find the location of the Spiritual Being. Well, he mainly wanted to confirm that it had not moved away.

With the confirmation received, Wu Guang covered himself with qi and slowly began burrowing into the sand by making the qi below himself oscillate. Using such a provisional technique, as he did not have any underground movement technique, Wu Guang reached the cave after about 10 minutes. Albeit the entrance had caved in and was covered with sand, there was not a single grain of it inside the sealing room itself.

All of the runes had stopped glowing and so the place was submerged into darkness, but Wu Guang had thought of this and so had already taken out a luminous stone, which he had activated as soon as he stopped tunneling.

After illuminating the room and seeing that there was nothing except the now unmoving wooden puppet, some shards from the jar, and the now deactivated rune-plates, he resorted to his senses. But even by using them to the maximum, he could not find any traces of life.

Doubting himself, Wu Guang again confirmed the whereabouts of the Spiritual Being. The result was the same, it was right here.

"Hey! Are you here? Are you okay?" Without any other option, Wu Guang began calling for it.

"I am" Albeit it was a transmission using the connection and not an actual voice, there was no doubt that it was the same female voice the Spirit Being had used before.

"I can not see or sense you"

"Obviously"

Hearing such a strange answer, Wu Guang did not think of anything to ask except

"Why?"

"Because I do not exist in the space you do"

"..." Wu Guang's mind began churning, and soon he found a possible answer.

Still, he could not believe that a local cultivator had enough knowledge and most importantly means to accomplish such, so he probingly asked

"Did the person who sealed you know?"

"I don't know, I only gained the knowledge of what I am during the unsealing"

"I see... Can you materialize?"

"No"

"So the body the unsealing helped you build is only your original one?"

"Yes, albeit I don't understand how is that possible"

"I can share a theory"

"Another one?"

"Funny, but even you did not know that you are an Astral Scourge until a few hours ago. How would you expect me to guess it then?" Wu Guang rebuked

"..."

"Setting that aside, I think that you were sealed during the formation of your plane body. Now that the seal was broken, you returned to the same state. But Scourges as you can only assume a form to start their cultivation at the moment they materialize for the first time"

"So I will be not able to do it now?" Different from a qi transmission, the connection one allowed even feelings to be conveyed. Before, the voice was detached and mangled words, but now with the memories and knowledge coming to... The Spiritual being, or Astral Scourge, began to feel and talk like a normal living being.

"Normally? no"

"Normally? Is there another way?"

"Yes, but it could be considered evil"

"Evil? What is that?" The question could sound strange, but Wu Guang did not react to it. The reason being simple, even though an Astral Scourge gained sentience and a small amount of information after entering a plane, it lacked common knowledge. Especially the one related to the cultivation and mortal world laws, lifestyles, etc.

"In short, it's something that humans will see as bad. To the point of turning hostile to you"

"Oh"

"Still, I see no other way for you to gain a material body. I will share how to do it when the time comes, but in short, you will steal a living being body"

"Steal? As take possession?"

"Yes"

"Would that kill the being?"

"Yes"

"I understand now why you said that others could turn hostile to me"

__________________________________________________________________________________

As things were, Wu Guang scrapped his plans of hunting and nighttime training. And spent the remainder of the night interacting with the Astral Scourge. Even though it lacked common knowledge, it still was a living being and so after a discussion, Wu Guang decided to name it somehow. Surprisingly or not, the being itself identified as a female. How 'she' came to that conclusion was a mystery, but Wu Guang decided to simply ignore the fact. After all, what would it change if the Scourge was referred to as a male or as a female?

The connection also allowed sharing information and memories between them, and Wu Guang slowly grasped how to do it effectively. Using this method, he shared information about the plane, cultivation, politics, powers, current situation, etc. He also shared a bit about himself, albeit hiding the fact of his origin. During this process, the Scourge herself selected a name. Wu Guang did not know why, but now she called herself Chun Hua!

Curiously the name meaning was 'Spring Flower', as the team name given to him by Elder Mo.

With sunrise, before returning to the cabin to wait for the person who was supposed to pick him up Wu Guang did a few more things. The first one was to run a few experiments with Chun Hua. The objectives being to discern if she could interact with objects or affect the physical, plane, space. The results were negative. So basically, Wu Guang was granted a new weird ethereal companion that would follow him until he reached a level or found someone that could sever the connection. In any case, thanks to the experiments, Wu Guang found that he could request her to enter places where he could not be it to spy or scout.

A small plus was that he could be sure that she could not be able to share anything with anyone, as except by using the connection, Chun Hua had lost all ability to control qi and communicate. She could neither speak nor send a qi transmission to anyone, not to say tasks far more complex like controlling the puppet.

Another thing that Wu Guang wanted to do but had left for the last moment was to distill a bit of the Water Element Natural energies from the 'Salted Lake'.

They were not of use for him currently, but after he broke through to the Soul realm and learned a water element technique, it should be of use. Even if it wasn't so, he would always find some use for them or use it as a gift to a cultivator specializing in Water. Spending an hour and about a third of his overall mindpower, Wu Guang gathered four flasks of pure energy. Using essence as an equivalent, he obtained Natural energy equal to 10 drops of Water Essence. Granted, it was berserk and required refining or using Wu Guang's method of diffusion, but in any case, it was a great haul.