The surface of the water was so calm that it was like a mirror. Even the raging waterfall was unable to create a single ripple in it.
Li Qingshan lowered his head. The reflection in the mirror suddenly smiled at him, but it was much more flagrant than his own smile.
When he bent over, extended his hand, and touched the surface of the water with the tip of his finger, ripples spread out in all directions. They went from the very centre to the edge of the pool, with no signs of stopping.
The spirit turtle’s daemon core constantly flashed as daemon qi surged steadily, rapidly being drained away until it was almost depleted.
Xiao An was drawn away by this sight too. At the centre of the ripples, a real and a fake hand actually held one another.
A hand extended from the surface of the water, followed by a wrist, an arm, and an equally handsome face. Droplets of water rippled down like pearls.
Li Qingshan slowly pulled another Li Qingshan out from the reflection of the water. They seemed exactly the same, without the slightest difference at all.
Xiao An was amazed as well. Her eyes could see through falsehoods, but she was unable to spot anything wrong with him at all. He seemed like Li Qingshan’s twin brother.
Innate ability: Watermirror’s Image.
This was the name Li Qingshan had given it—an attempt to pluck the flower in the mirror, to scoop the moon in the water.
It was a so-called clone technique. Among the water element techniques, there were so-called water clones, but they were just condensed from a ball of water. They were made to seem like a real person through the use of some water transformations. However, when it came to actual battle, they were not particularly useful at all apart from drawing away the enemy’s attention and serving as a sandbag.
However, the Watermirror’s Image seemed fake, but it was real, and it was all under Li Qingshan’s control.
Li Qingshan felt like his mind had split into two, currently viewing the world from two perspectives. It was quite a strange feeling to be able to see himself, and he was rather unaccustomed to controlling two people at the same time.
Xiao An’s expression became even stranger as she watched on. The two Li Qingshans stood in front of one another and extended their hands at the same time, touching “their own” faces. It was like a mirror.
Li Qingshan raised his hand. Every bit of texture seemed so real. He could even feel a beating heart and flowing blood.
This was not a fake person moulded from water or earth, but an actual clone. Everyone said clones lacked power, but his clone truly possessed power. However, he was more willing to call it a mirror image.
However, separating the mirror image from his original body was difficult. He would always treat them as a single body and control them like that, moving forwards or backwards together.
Xiao An hid her smile as she snickered to herself. Where was the power and bearing of a Daemon General?
Li Qingshan ended up shooting a glance at her, so she raised her face and shot a glance back at him.
Li Qingshan was helpless against her. He closed his eyes and tried his best to comprehend the feeling of drawing a circle with his left hand while drawing a square with his right.
Stopping a while later, Li Qingshan circulated his daemon qi, bending his knee and stepping on the water, but only his clone shot off into the air.
He arrived in the sky, overlooking the many mountains and gazing at the clouds in the distance.
On the ground, ridges and peaks rose and fell furiously like waves, giving off a sense of boundlessness.
Suddenly, he saw an insignificantly small hump at the end of the boundlessness, like a crouching ox.
To the side of the crouching ox sat a peaceful little village. Many farmers worked near the village. It was so peaceful and quiet that it seemed like a tiny drawing. All of Li Qingshan’s memories suddenly awakened.
So his homeland was not far away at all!
For a moment, he forgot about the difficulties of depending on others. He forgot about the pain from the combination of hunger and cold. Perhaps his memories had beautified everything, or perhaps these matters no longer bothered him anymore. All that was left in his mind was a child playing a reed flute on a large, black ox, walking through the mountain path unhurriedly. Yes, this was his only piece of wealth.
Suddenly, he felt an intense urge to go back and take a look, to have a look at the place he had called home for all these years.
However, he immediately dismissed this thought.
Must you be buried in your place of home? Sufficient are the green mountains overgrown. This was the oath he had sworn to himself!
That place no longer had anything tying him to it.
If there were things he was unable to let go of, then one would be underground, one would be in the academy, and one would be in the heavens.
He gazed at the sky and smiled. A sensation of utmost freedom was imprinted deeply in his heart back on the ground.
On the ground, Li Qingshan walked out of the pool and arrived before Xiao An. He crouched down on one knee and firmly embraced the only person he shared happiness with, his eternal supporter. “Xiao An, do you see? I’ve become so powerful. From today onwards, no one can just harass us anymore. I’ll definitely make them all pay the price if they do.”
Xiao An could feel that the current Li Qingshan was slightly different. It was not due to the change in his appearance. Instead, his personality was slightly different too. Compared to when he was in human form, he would always give off a fearless sense of flagrance in daemon form.
She preferred him like this more, as he always seemed a little happier in that state. However, no matter who he was, he was always her Li Qingshan.
A Li Qingshan stood on the ground, embracing the most important person to him.
Another Li Qingshan flew into the blue sky, unfolding his arms at the sky.
I want freedom! Freedom to do anything! Limitless Freedom!
Nine provinces, I’m coming! The Nine Heavens, wait for me!
“Can you wait for me?” Xiao An turned her head and smiled.
Li Qingshan pecked her cheek viciously. “As long as you need!”
From that day onwards, Xiao An entered a state of meditation.
Li Qingshan left behind his mirror image in the pool to watch over her, without taking a single step away.
As for his main body, he travelled around everywhere. He even returned to his human form and completed a few missions, showing his face around just in case people suspected he had gone missing.
After experimenting around, he gained a more realistic understanding over the various abilities of his clone. The existence of the clone would not be affected just because his main body had returned to human form. However, its daemon qi would constantly disperse. It could be maintained through meditating and connecting with the spiritual qi of the world, but when it came to intense battles, it probably could not last too long.
And, creating a clone would deplete all of his daemon qi, and it possessed thirty percent of the battle prowess of the original body. However, this thirty percent could not be underestimated. Due to the three supernatural abilities brother ox had left to him, his strength, speed, and daemon qi had surpassed regular Daemon Generals. Combined into battle prowess, it was even more startling.
According to his estimations, it should not have been too great of a problem for his clone to deal with Foundation Establishment cultivators not suited for battle like Qiu Haitang. And, according to his past experience, the effects of his innate abilities should strengthen with his cultivation. If he could pull out even more clones from the water, just what effect could they achieve?
After completing another mission and obtaining a few more corpses, Li Qingshan used the Glazed Mirror of Invisibility to hide himself, returning to the edge of the Boundless mountains. Xiao An had yet to emerge from secluded cultivation.
With nothing else to do, he crossed his legs and sat down, pulling out the high grade spiritual artifact he had purchased below the Green Vine mountain, the Whale’s Ingestion of Water!
He currently lacked a suitable weapon. After becoming a Daemon General, he could refine human spiritual artifacts, which would become known as daemon armaments.
Ebbs of powerful daemon qi poured in. Perhaps because he had already refined this spiritual artifact in the past, but the entire process was surprisingly simple.
Gradually, the Whale’s Ingestion of Water changed in shape. It became more like a blade, but this came with a cost—it lost many of its original functions. It could not unleash Gui Water blasts and icicles anymore.
However, these two functions that had originally been very practical were completely useless to Li Qingshan in his current form. There was no need for him to keep them. He only had two requirements for his weapons—sufficient sharpness and toughness.
Li Qingshan’s artifact forging abilities might have only been on par with a beginner’s, but with his powerful control over water, he could force large quantities of water into the Whale’s Ingestion of Water, making the hilt spit out a blade inch by inch.
A few hours later, Li Qingshan raised the blade in his hand in satisfaction. The long, sharp and narrow blade reflected seven different colours under the sunlight. Standing before the pool, he swung it casually, and the waterfall was bisected. He could not help but laugh aloud.
If someone else was present here, they would have seen a naked man standing on the edge of a cliff with an extremely beautiful blade of ice on his shoulder, smiling flagrantly.
Yes, Li Qingshan was not wearing clothes. He was completely naked.
After becoming a Daemon General, he did not find wearing clothes to be particularly comfortable. He was born like this, so why did he have to wear clothes to obscure anything? As a result, he would strip every time he transformed, walking around naked.
At this moment, the smell of blood appeared. It was the smell of human blood, combined with extremely soft war cries.
He immediately looked over. His gaze passed through the forest. Although the many mountains in the distance prevented him from seeing what was going on exactly, it did manage to capture Li Qingshan’s curiosity. With a flash, he disappeared from his location, crossing over several mountains. He saw an extremely familiar hamlet, or more accurately, a village.
This was also a place he had visited in the past, the place where hunters resided, Drawn Reins village.
Only now did Li Qingshan remember that the place he cultivated was actually closer to the Drawn Reins village that resided deep within the Boundless Mountains. However, there had been many large mountains serving as obstructions back then with a difficult mountain path to cross, which was why he felt it was so far away.
Currently, Drawn Reins village was surrounded by a great group of soldiers. There were a few martial arts masters among them. If it were not for the protection of the tall walls and the dangers of bows and arrows, the village probably would have fallen already.
Hua Binghu stood on a watchtower with a great bow in his hands. The bow was rounded like the full moon as arrows shot out like comets. Every single arrow would always kill someone, heavily striking down on the enemy’s morale. However, he was closed to complete exhaustion. He frowned. Is my Drawn Reins village just going to be destroyed like this?
At this moment, a voice rang out from the sky. It was as relaxed as greeting a neighbour on a stroll after a meal. “Hunting chief Huang, long time no see!”
Huang Binghu just happened to be extremely on edge right now, so he shot an arrow over without any hesitation at all when he heard that. Only then did he find the voice to be somewhat familiar.
At this moment, the battlefield fell quiet. Everyone, both inside and outside the village, raised their heads in a daze. They saw a white cloud descend down.
Li Qingshan had returned to human form, and of course, he was dressed too. He pushed aside the incoming arrow easily and lowered the cloud to the same height as the watchtower. He smiled towards the dumbfounded Huang Binghu. “Is that how you welcome an old friend?”
This was a remote place, nothing like Clear River city where they saw cultivators frequently. Everyone here still found cultivators to be no different from immortals. Li Qingshan’s behaviour right now had only confirmed everyone’s thoughts even more.
“Y- you’re Qingshan!”
