Chapter 8: Early Stage of Leaving the Body

Qu Yi and the others flew across half of the Tianhua Continent from its eastern coast, finally arriving at the edge of the Heavenly Punishment Mountains.
It took a full three months—proof of how vast the Tianhua Continent was.
At this moment, Qu Yi, Qing Wu Gui, Wu Yuan, Bai Man, and Mu Han landed on a mountain peak, looking around.
“Qing Wu Gui, sense it—this Heavenly Punishment Mountains is indeed a realm free for monsters. There isn’t a single human cultivator here,” Qu Yi said with a smile.
All cultivators in the Tianhua Continent knew that only the Heavenly Punishment Mountains harbored monsters on land. The strongest monsters there had long established a rule: any human cultivator who entered would be killed.
Naturally, no human cultivator dared set foot in the mountains. However, some cultivators in the Divided Spirit stage, driven by urgent matters, dared to sneak in, as they had ways to escape.
Qing Wu Gui sensed it and said lightly, “Qu Yi, I know. You came to the Heavenly Punishment Mountains mainly to find a place for me to cultivate. Good. Without interference from human cultivators, I’ll hunt some powerful monsters here.”
“Woof, woof! Qu Yi, Qing Wu Gui, I want to fight here too!” Wu Yuan wouldn’t miss such an opportunity and immediately chimed in.
Qu Yi patted Wu Yuan’s dragon head and laughed, “Wu Yuan, why not compete with Qing Wu Gui to see who can kill the most monsters?”
Wu Yuan was delighted. He shook his dragon head vigorously and laughed, “Woof, woof! Qing Wu Gui, just watch how I kill those monsters!”
For Wu Yuan, killing cultivators or monsters—since he himself was a monster—was the same thing: it was all about draining life force.
“Alright, Wu Yuan. I accept,” Qing Wu Gui said with a smile in his eyes.
Eager, Wu Yuan immediately expanded his body to 100 meters in size to show off his strength and intimidate Qing Wu Gui.
The four of them laughed.
Qu Yi looked at Qing Wu Gui and suddenly said, “Qing Wu Gui, you and Wu Yuan go hunt monsters here. I’ll enter the Inch Realm Sphere first to cultivate for a few days. Bai Man and Mu Han can stay outside with you two and also gain experience in the Heavenly Punishment Mountains.”
Qing Wu Gui was momentarily stunned before smiling lightly, “Qu Yi, are you trying to reach the early stage of leaving the body?”
Qu Yi nodded.
……
Qing Wu Gui, Wu Yuan, Bai Man, and Mu Han flew into the Heavenly Punishment Mountains, searching for monsters and practicing their various spells.

Qu Yi entered the Tiny Realm Ball, which was attached to Qing Wu Gui. Inside the Tiny Realm Ball, Qu Yi had been sitting by the lake for three days, fully immersed in practicing his cultivation techniques to remove all foreign impurities from his body, thereby bringing it to its optimal state. In front of him, a jade platform was set up, with five Yuan Ying at the intermediate stage of leaving the body placed on it. These Yuan Ying were obtained by Qu Yi on Tianfeng Star after he led the cultivators to attack four cultivation sects and killed their sect leaders at that stage—one for each of the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. Suddenly, Qu Yi opened his eyes, smiled, and appeared energized. “Five Yuan Ying, enter my body and push me to leave the body!” With a calm utterance, the five Yuan Ying on the jade platform flew into his mouth and soon entered his dantian. At that moment, the five cultivation techniques he was practicing—“Gorgeous Splendor,” “Revival of All Plants,” “Unity of Water and Sky,” “Spreading Starfire,” and “Majestic Imperial Land”—accelerated rapidly. The combined Yuan Ying in his dantian began to break down the five Yuan Ying, releasing their immense energy. Faster and faster, to the extreme. The five techniques poured the energy of the five elements into each Yuan Ying within his internal organs in a frantic manner. Meanwhile, six faint spiritual energy vortices formed outside Qu Yi’s body at corresponding locations: his head, lungs, liver, kidneys, heart, and spleen. Six strands of his spiritual consciousness entered each vortex. The purpose of allowing Yuan Ying to leave the body was to enable them to connect more directly with natural energy and better understand its properties. Now, Qu Yi’s six spiritual consciousnesses were like building nests for the six Yuan Ying after they left the body, cultivating spiritual energy “nests.” Unknown time passed, and the energy flow within Qu Yi reached a turbulent yet controllable level. “Energy converges—help my Yuan Ying leave the body!” Qu Yi shouted and immediately used the excess energy in his body to propel the six Yuan Ying out of his body into the spiritual energy vortices already prepared outside. Obstacles, severe pain, difficulty. It was already extremely painful for a single Yuan Ying to leave the body, so imagine the difficulty of having six at once. Qu Yi’s entire body trembled, as if it were about to explode.

The Artifact God watched from the side, still with his hands folded, looking quite relaxed. But upon seeing Qu Yi’s pained expression, he immediately raised his hand, and soon the Gold-Eating Rat and the two Turtle Dragons appeared. The Gold-Eating Rat was caught by Qu Yi in the Misty Demon Mountains, while the two Turtle Dragons were caught by him in Fanglu Mountain. Now, they all had the strength of early Yuan Ying stage.

“You three, immediately take the hundred Yuan Ying at the later stage nearby and arrange them into a ‘True Essence Vortex’ formation according to the pattern I’ve given you.”

Immediately after, the Artifact God snapped his fingers, and a method for arranging the formation appeared in the souls of the Gold-Eating Rat and the Turtle Dragons. Quickly, they gathered a hundred Yuan Ying and formed a formation around Qu Yi—precisely the ‘True Essence Vortex’ formation.

Since the cultivators who attacked the four cultivation sects had obtained around a thousand Yuan Ying at the later stage, only a hundred were used here, with a large number still remaining nearby.

Soon, the six ‘Spirit Energy Vortices’ around Qu Yi grew greatly, and the spirit energy transformed into true essence. All the true essence within the Yuan Ying flew into these vortices.

With true essence pushing from within and attracting from outside, the resistance for Qu Yi’s six Yuan Ying decreased significantly.

After some time, a rainbow of light suddenly flashed across the entire free space within the Realm Sphere. The golden Metal-type Yuan Ying, the green Wood-type Yuan Ying, the blue Water-type Yuan Ying, the red Fire-type Yuan Ying, the yellow Earth-type Yuan Ying, and the nearly transparent Mixed-type Yuan Ying all left their bodies and entered the six True Essence Vortices.

The Mixed-type Yuan Ying was above his head, the Metal-type Yuan Ying was outside his body near his lungs, the Wood-type Yuan Ying was near his liver, the Water-type Yuan Ying was near his kidneys, the Fire-type Yuan Ying was near his heart, and the Earth-type Yuan Ying was near his spleen.

Qu Yi’s entire body shone with colorful light.

……

Qing Wu Gui and Wu Yuan were in the Heavenly Punishment Mountains, happily hunting and killing monsters.

“Wu Qing, you’re really heartless! You’ve already killed fifty monsters—why do you keep killing? I’ve only killed ten,” Wu Yuan said, flapping his roc wings as he flew gloomily behind Qing Wu Gui.

It turned out that in the ten days since they entered the Heavenly Punishment Mountains, they had only encountered monsters at the Out-of-Body stage to attack. Yet, every time it was Wu Yuan who first spotted the monster, but Qing Wu Gui would kill it with a single sword strike, leaving Wu Yuan to watch helplessly.

“Five yuan, don’t be discouraged. Your strength is getting stronger by the day. Next time, you’ll surely kill even more monsters.” Bai Man called out from behind, smiling.

The monsters killed by Qing Wu Gui and Wu Yuan both benefited Wu Yuan, as he absorbed their life essence. Among them were over a dozen mid-stage Outward Emergence monsters, which allowed Wu Yuan to upgrade to the mid-stage Outward Emergence level.

“Ugh, I must surpass Qing Wu Gui!” Wu Yuan’s fighting spirit surged again, clearly easily stirred.

After saying that, Wu Yuan’s dragon head stabilized, and he said, “Ugh, I’ve found another mid-stage Outward Emergence monster. Let’s go over there.”

Soon, full of fighting spirit, Wu Yuan dashed off toward the monster target thousands of miles away.

Qing Wu Gui smiled faintly and followed right after.

On a mountain a thousand meters high, a massive waterfall cascaded down from above, breathtaking in its beauty.

Below the waterfall was a large lake, several miles long, with gentle ripples on its surface and clear, cool water.

In the middle of the lake was a mid-stage Outward Emergence monster, a Dual-Tailed Dragon Carp, basking in the sunlight and absorbing spiritual energy.

Suddenly, Wu Yuan’s enormous body, ten meters wide, descended from the sky, his four hooves aiming straight at the Dual-Tailed Dragon Carp.

The Dual-Tailed Dragon Carp was very agile. At first, it noticed Wu Yuan in the air and thought he was just another passing monster. But when it realized Wu Yuan dared to attack it, it immediately swished its tail and floated a hundred meters away to escape his trampling.

“What are you? Why do you attack me?” the Dual-Tailed Dragon Carp shouted angrily.

Wu Yuan didn’t bother to reply. He didn’t want to waste time talking; otherwise, by the time Qing Wu Gui arrived, the Dual-Tailed Dragon Carp would belong to him.

After darting away, Wu Yuan kicked off again, his dragon head already spewing a golden sword. At this stage, the golden sword he emitted was the same size as before, but it contained immense energy, likely deadly even to late-stage Outward Emergence cultivators.

The Dual-Tailed Dragon Carp had always lived a leisurely life in the Heavenly Punishment Mountains, never having faced fierce battles. Faced with Wu Yuan of the same cultivation level, it could only dodge frantically while fear began to arise within it.

After dodging for a few rounds, Qing Wu Gui arrived, immediately grasping his black sword.

“Qing Wu Gui, don’t steal my prey!” Wu Yuan called out in panic upon seeing Qing Wu Gui arrive.

Qing Wu Gui simply smiled faintly, then rushed over to the Twin-Tailed Dragon Carp. With a light thrust of his black sword, the fish froze in place, waiting obediently for Qing Wu Gui to cut off its head. The single strike, carrying an unstoppable killing intent, left the Twin-Tailed Dragon Carp utterly stunned, too slow to react and escape. At that moment, Qu Yi suddenly emerged from the Dimensional Sphere. “Qing Wu, Wu Yuan, I’ve reached the early stage of exiting the body,” Qu Yi called out with a smile. But Qing Wu Gui didn’t offer any congratulations; his expression turned cold. “There are actually four of them trying to ambush Mu Han and Bai Man.” Qu Yi stopped smiling and immediately sensed with his spiritual awareness, his expression also turning icy. “Hmph, really seeking death.”