Rāhu Xiaoming said, “It’s a type of soil that lacks a spiritual nature and does not give off any light. As a matter of fact, it seems no different from regular soil. However, it can grow and increase endlessly, which is why it’s called Swelling Earth.”
“Then what’s the Nine Heavens about?” Li Qingshan questioned closely. Even in this empty, silent outer space, his enthusiasm was roused all of a sudden.
“Don’t you want to go beyond the Nine Heavens? That’s the first world among the myriad worlds. It’s said that the trichiliocosm was separated from there. It is not a world if it does not have earth, so the Swelling Earth is also known as the source of earth. As a result, it’s been named after a combination of the two, Swelling Earth of the Nine Heavens.” Then Rāhu Xiaoming said, “You can sense where it is? If it doesn’t deviate from our path too much, we’ll head over right now.”
“Didn’t you say we should leave this region as quickly as possible?”
“If we can obtain a piece, the risk is worth it.”
“Alright, it’s just close up ahead, less than ten thousand kilometres away from our path.” Li Qingshan shut his eyes and calculated it. As long as he restricted it to this range, he basically did not have to worry about losing their bearings.
Rāhu Xiaoming said from the bottom of his heart, “You sure are lucky, but if that’s the case, don’t go out of your way to gather the Atmospheric Wind Essence and Earthen Magnetic Poles. It would be best if we come across it on the way, but if we don’t, so be it.”
“Heh, that’s called strength.”
Li Qingshan recalculated the path and drew a long arc in outer space, which was reflected in the kunpeng’s eyes. The kunpeng swung its wings gently and glided over.
“The Profound Light Illuminates All.”
Li Qingshan swung his hand and pieces of the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell scattered, producing hundreds of images in all directions. It was not as sharp as the kunpeng’s eyes, but it could get around obstacles, making it easier to find what they were looking for.
Sure enough, they found a strange wisp of atmospheric winds before long. It did not dance wildly like regular atmospheric winds, maintaining a stable shape the entire time instead like a thin, long snake. It vaguely bore a silvery lustre. At a closer glance, it was quite easy to see that the whistling atmospheric winds in the surroundings originated from it.
“Atmospheric Wind Essence! But how do we collect it?” Gu Yanying asked. Even regular atmospheric winds were difficult to wield, let alone this Atmospheric Wind Essence. “Can sumeru rings contain it, or do I have to directly swallow it?”
Rāhu Xiaoming said in exasperation, “If you do that, then our journey ends right here. The level of your sumeru rings is too long, so they can’t hold the Atmospheric Wind Essence. If you trust me enough, you can use my cosmic pouch.”
As he said that, he patted the pouch on his waist. Its appearance was extremely normal with a red pull string at the top. It was very similar to a child’s money pouch. In Li Qingshan’s memory, he had fished out his slingshot ammunition from there.
“There’s probably quite a lot of good stuff inside there, right?”
Li Qingshan rubbed his hands as if he was about to rob him before disposing of him.
Rāhu Xiaoming downright ignored him.
“Qingshan, stop messing around. Draw the Atmospheric Wind Essence over.”
Gu Yanying urged as she made the kunpeng stop and hide within a pocket in the mountain, avoiding all of the incoming asteroids. Clearly, she was very tempted by it.
“Alrighty!”
From the mountain, Li Qingshan extended his hands towards the wind essence, and the Force Field of the Earth unleashed its wonders again.
Even the Atmospheric Wind Essence was unable to escape from the invisible pull. After flowing for a bit, like a hooked fish, it was drawn over.
It set off a domino effect. All the atmospheric winds within thousands of kilometres began to move, scraping against the mountain they hid themselves in and immediately carving off layer by layer. Originally, approaching the centre of the violent atmospheric winds was difficult. The kunpeng was only an image after all, so being able to control the atmospheric winds was already its limit. Now that they had a shield like this, they no longer had to worry about anything.
The Atmospheric Wind Essence pierced through the mountain with ease and arrived before them. It was much larger than they had imagined it to be, curling and flowing with Li Qingshan’s hands like a long dragon.
Rāhu Xiaoming opened the cosmic pouch, and Li Qingshan swung his hands violently. With that, the Atmospheric Wind Essence flowed inside, which let him sigh in relief. “Sure enough, it’s something good. Though, what does the Earthen Magnetic Poles look like?”
However, during the next part of their journey, they did not even see any Atmospheric Wind Essence, let alone Earthen Magnetic Poles, which filled him with pity. According to Rāhu Xiaoming’s explanation, the Atmospheric Wind Essence and Earthen Magnetic Poles would disperse with the destruction of the world.
Instead, there were many world fragments hovering in the surroundings, and they would not disperse in outer space. However, it was also exactly because of that fact that even the cosmic pouch could not store them. Perhaps only another world could devour and digest them.
Li Qingshan asked curiously, “You said worlds are being destroyed with each passing moment in outer space, so there should be world fragments everywhere, but why haven’t we seen even a piece along the way here? And while spiritual qi will completely disperse with a world’s destruction, there’s still so much soil. Surely it won’t just vanish without any reason. I’ve never really seen any asteroids either.”
“The things that cannot be broken down in outer space will obviously be broken down by other things.”
“Space-devouring beasts?” Gu Yanying asked.
“You’ve actually even heard of space-devouring beasts. You really are knowledgeable for your cultivation.”
Gu Yanying smiled. “I’ve even seen the eyeball of a space-devouring beast before. A Corpse King from the Hungry Ghost realm used it when he tried to invade the nine provinces. He sealed up a great region, and I was almost swallowed by the Hungry Ghost realm.”
Rāhu Xiaoming said firmly, “Then he must have obtained it through a coincidence. Even the weakest space-devouring beasts are not something a mere Corpse King can deal with.”
Li Qingshan recalled the brutality of that battle too. That was the first time he had come into contact with the six realms of sa?sāra. He smiled. “If we can butcher another two space-devouring beasts and get our hands on a few eyeballs, that’ll be even better.”
“Hopefully, you don’t jinx it. Space-devouring beasts are the scavengers and cleaners of outer space. They can devour everything. World fragments just happen to be their favourite kind of food. A lot of space-devouring beasts will be lured over before long, so we better collect the Swelling Earth of the Nine Heavens quickly and leave!”
The kunpeng flew another several tens of thousand kilometres and stopped. They stared at a small mountain over five thousand kilometres away.
Gu Yanying and Rāhu Xiaoming did not possess Li Qingshan’s ability to sense the strength of the earth, but even they were certain the Swelling Earth of the Nine Heavens was there!
There was nothing special about the small mountain at all, but there was no other mountain within five thousand kilometres of it. There was not even an asteroid. Wisps of Atmospheric Wind Essence wrapped around it, turning the space there into a sea of atmospheric wind. Both mountains and asteroids were shredded to dust.
However, the sea of wind glimmered with specks of light, moving around freely without any pattern whatsoever while completely unaffected by the atmospheric winds. However, they remained near the small mountain the entire time. Even from so far away, Li Qingshan could already sense his daemon qi collapse slightly. That was the most direct effect of the magnetic fields, so the specks of light must have been the Earthen Magnetic Poles that Rāhu Xiaoming spoke of.
They did not have to spend any effort looking for them. Whether it was the Atmospheric Wind Essence or Earthen Magnetic Poles, they were everywhere here!
