With a thought, Li Qingshan waved his hand, and the pieces of the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell assembled into a smooth mirror. The mirror clearly reflected his figure.
However, the scenery in the mirror was not the bottom of the lake, but underground.
Li Qingshan sat in the underground cavern, constantly gathering spiritual qi to maintain the existence of the mirror clone. Suddenly, he opened his eyes and gazed over with his other pair of eyes, but he saw nothing.
Bang!
Li Qingshan lifted his hand, and his fingers pressed against the surface of the mirror. His mirror clone stood up and leapt into the air, disappearing from the underground cavern.
The reflection distorted, displaying the pitch-black bottom of the lake. Everything returned to normal.
Afterwards, Li Qingshan’s figure walked out of the mirror.
It did not take up any of Li Qingshan’s daemon qi. His clone was still the same clone. He had directly summoned it to his side from underground.
Li Qingshan smiled. After refining Moon Court lake, he gained a deeper comprehension about the changes with two of his innate abilities, mastering them further. The more he understood about them, the more he found them to be filled with profundity.
From that moment onwards, his mirror clone was no longer a shadow composed of a cluster of daemon qi. It became even more connected to his original body, tightly linked.
Suddenly, Li Qingshan waved the Dragon Seizing bident and stabbed through the hand of his clone before raising his right hand as if he was in thought. The moment his clone’s hand had been pierced, he also felt a stabbing pain. A red mark appeared on there.
In other words, if my clone is injured, my original body will be injured too? This Watermirror’s Image sure isn’t as simple as it seems.
This seemed like bad news. Li Qingshan could no longer use his clone as cannon fodder without the slightest care anymore. But in reality, this was extremely good news to Li Qingshan right now.
Ignoring everything else, he could now give his clone the god seal without worrying about anything and leave his clone with the responsibility of gathering water spiritual qi in the lake. When he required it, he could receive this water spiritual qi. If his clone encountered a powerful enemy, he could directly summon his clone to his side, so he did not have to worry about losing the god seal. Afterwards, he could rush over with his original body for revenge.
The only thing he found slightly unfortunate was only his original body could summon his clone. If his original body could move through the mirror too, then that would essentially be teleportation. It would be more useful than any escape technique or movement technique out there. It would be equivalent to an additional life.
However, this was just the beginning. Li Qingshan could feel that these were only the tip of the iceberg for the secrets of the Watermirror’s Image.
“It’s him!”
Suddenly, Li Qingshan raised his head, sensing a familiar aura above the lake.
“Fellow Northmoon, I am Hua Chengzan of the school of Legalism. I have come to visit you,” said Hua Chengzan as he arrived above the lake and admired the scenery. Then he turned around and asked Han Tieyi, who rushed after him, “What’re you coming here for?”
“Because I’m willing.”
“Fine then,” Hua Chengzan said helplessly. There should not have been any dangers with this trip of his anyway.
“You can come down!” Li Qingshan said resonantly. Suddenly, the surface of the lake parted. In the centre were a flight of water stairs that led down.
Han Tieyi became cautious. Entering the water domain under the control of a powerful water daemon was basically no different from walking into the belly of a beast. However, as he watched Hua Chengzan make his way down the stairs, all he could do was follow along. Speaking of which, he would not be Northmoon’s opponent even if he did not enter the water.
Further ahead was a long tunnel. As they walked through the tunnel, they could clearly make out the scenery under the water.
Suddenly, two specks of light lit up in the dark waters. A cluster of daemon qi gradually approached them. Hua Chengzan stopped and turned around, seeing a huge, red carp swimming straight towards them.
Han Tieyi gripped his spear, ready to strike, but Hua Chengzan stopped him.
With a splash, the huge carp leapt through the tunnel with a significant amount of water spray, brushing past them.
Han Tieyi lowered his spear, and the two of them continued forwards. Their vision abruptly opened up. The tunnel led to a great hall. There were no pillars, only an empty space, shaped like a droplet of rain that had hit the ground.
There was a tall throne in the centre. The moon demon sat there. The huge, red carp swam up from below the “floor”, gathering near him and opening its mouth.
Northmoon smiled, rubbing the huge fish’s head and feeding it a pill. “This guy sure is bold. He’s not afraid of others involuntarily killing him!”
Then he glanced at the oversized crab daemons, soft-shelled turtle daemons, and shrimp daemons and cursed, “You cowards, if you don’t get up here right now, I’ll stew you all into soup!”
They swam up in a hurry, standing in two rows. These were the underlings Li Qingshan had subdued with the Dragon Seizing bident. They were not powerful, but they were enough to keep up his appearance.
Hua Chengzan was left at quite a loss over how to react. Everyone knew about the fierceness and brutality of the moon demon, yet when he saw it for himself, he simply felt there was a slight difference.
However, as he approached the throne, he immediately sensed the power aura from him. Steadfastness, frenzy, and tranquility gathered on a single person, making it quite difficult to explain. The further he walked, the greater the pressure. When he was still ten meters away from the throne, he stopped. He actually felt like he was unable to take another step closer.
“Why have you come? Have you come to congratulate me? Or have you come to kill me?!” Li Qingshan’s eyes turned cold as he stared brightly at these two old friends from the academy. He did not want to come off as too polite, just in case he gave away any openings and damaged his reputation as the moon demon.
All Hua Chengzan felt was surging malice colliding into him like a landslide of a tsunami. Han Tieyi took a step forward and placed his spear vertically in front of Hua Chengzan.
“All of you piss off! Oh, I’m not talking about you!”
Li Qingshan withdrew his aura and bellowed while pointing down. As it turned out, before Hua Chengzan and Han Tieyi had even responded, the soft-shelled turtle daemons had already retracted into their shells. The crab and shrimp daemons were frightened into a mess too. Hearing the order, they immediately felt like their lives had been spared, scrambling for the deeper waters.
“I want to ask fellow Northmoon to return senior Zhou Tong’s Lightning Slaughter wooden sword.” Hua Chengzan understood he had no right to discuss a ceasefire with Northmoon given his identity. His request to return the Lightning Slaughter sword was more of a form of probing.
Before the situation had been confirmed, making rash contact with the moon demon would definitely lead to castigation from all. However, if he had come to retrieve Zhou Tong’s Lightning Slaughter sword, then it would be different.
“Zhou Tong? Who’s that?”
“The daoist priest who challenged you using lightning last time.”
“Oh, you’re talking about this!” As if he had come to a realisation, Li Qingshan fished out the Lightning Slaughter sword and tossed it gently into the air. Electricity surged as sparks flew.
“But, why should I return it to you? This is my spoil of the battle.”
“The Lightning Slaughter sword is of no use to you, sir. We can offer you something else in exchange.”
Li Qingshan leaned forward and said with raised eyebrows, “Right now, aren’t your lives and hundred treasures pouches both mine?”
“If you really do want them, feel free to take them, sir!”
Hua Chengzan spread out his arms in a free and easy manner.
However, he felt extremely nervous inside. According to his analysis, Northmoon had not even directly killed Yang Pinghu of the Daemon Suppression alliance, sparing his life, so the possibility for him to kill them was almost negligible. However, daemons were temperamental, so they could not be analysed using normal logic. No matter how clever a person was, they could not avoid accidents.
Li Qingshan laughed aloud. With a wave of his hand, the water palace collapsed loudly. Water flooded in from all directions.
Just when Hua Chengzan and Han Tieyi thought he was about to strike, Li Qingshan leapt up gently and vanished into the waves behind him.
“I heard the Academy of the Hundred Schools has a treasure called the Watermirror disc. If you want the sword back, bring the Watermirror disc for exchange!”
Li Qingshan’s interest had been piqued the first time he saw the Watermirror disc. There seemed to be a possible connection with the spirit turtle’s ability, the Watermirror’s Image. If he could obtain it, perhaps his comprehension of the Watermirror’s Image could reach an even higher level.
Then, Li Qingshan handed the Water God Seal to his mirror clone before withdrawing all of his aura and returning to the Chain mountains silently with Xiao An.
In Moon Court lake, Li Qingshan controlled his clone to swim towards a smaller lake near Moon Court lake. The quality of the Water God Seal truly was something else. Even the Moon Court lake was unable to fill the whole thing. There was still a bit left over on the edges.
However, it was not enough to accomodate the Clear river. Li Qingshan wanted to continue refining the bodies of water in the surroundings until he filled up the Water God Seal.
Arriving before the small lake, the Water God Seal shone brightly, and Li Qingshan devoted all of his attention towards it. However, he no longer used only his daemon qi, but all the spiritual qi from Moon Court lake too.
In under two hours, the qi filled the entire lake, and the Water God Seal obtained another region of water and more power.
Li Qingshan smiled. Sure enough, it was the same as what the books detailed. Once he had a larger body of water under his control, refining the smaller bodies of water around him would become extremely easy.
Afterwards, Li Qingshan continued to work diligently, refining most of the water in the surroundings. Finally, he filled the Water God Seal to the brim. The tremendous water spiritual qi seemed endless as if it wanted to leak out. It left Li Qingshan emotionally moved.
Suddenly, he experienced a flash of inspiration. The mental cultivation method of the Arts of the Boundless Ocean filled his head.
Although Moon Court lake could not rival an actual ocean, it did resemble an ocean to a certain degree. It would bring great benefits to Li Qingshan’s human cultivation too. He had truly received some unexpected results from pure accidents.
Li Qingshan believed that as long as he had some time to quietly comprehend it, he would definitely make a breakthrough with the Arts of the Boundless Ocean. It made him think that no matter how impressive the Ocean sect had been, it was impossible for them to possess their own domain of water to cultivate in.
Was this the limit? Of course not.
After all, the world was not created with god seals. They had been refined from nothing. The greatest value in this Water God Seal was that it could circumvent the blockage of the nine provincial cauldrons.
Li Qingshan arrived at the outlet of another small river that flowed into Clear Court lake, and he became slightly stern.
At the same time, Hua Chengzan had returned to the academy with Li Qingshan’s condition, calling an emergency meeting yet again. This time, Li Qingshan was not absent.
The academy sent a message, so he rushed over with Xiao An. Currently, he sat in the meeting with Xiao An, wanting to see whether he would actually achieve his objective or not.
“The Watermirror disc? Absolutely not!”
Liu Zhangqing declined straight away. The Watermirror disc was the treasure of the academy, wielded by past leaders of the school of Confucianism. Its origins were extremely ancient, said to be a relic ancient cultivators left behind. As a matter of fact, it could not even be valued with the standards of present-day spiritual artifacts and arcane artifacts.
Although it did not possess the slightest offensive or defensive ability, it managed to prove its extraordinary value just by itself.
Even Liu Zhangqing himself believed he could not unleash its full powers, so why would he be willing to hand it over to a daemon?
