Chapter 608: Fragment

"Senior Martial Brother Gao!"

Seeing this, the short, stout young man was greatly alarmed, and in his terror, he immediately thought of retreat.

Han Li let out a cold laugh, his figure shooting toward the short, stout young man like lightning, with a crystalline light flickering at his brow.

Seeing Han Li rushing toward him, the short, stout young man activated his escape light, transforming into a crimson rainbow that soared into the sky and shot into the distance, abandoning even his pair of hook immortal artifacts.

The crimson rainbow moved at an extremely fast speed, vanishing into the distant horizon in a flash.

Seeing this, Han Li halted his forward charge, did not pursue, and slowly descended to the ground.

As soon as his feet touched the ground, his face suddenly turned deathly pale, and he gasped for breath.

The immortal spiritual power remaining in this corpse was already scarce; it had been almost entirely used up when he suddenly struck down the tall old man. If that short, stout young man had attacked, he would have had no power to resist.

Fortunately, this man was as timid as a mouse and seemed to have been frightened out of his wits during the earlier battle, so he was scared off by Han Li's bluff.

Han Li flipped his hand and took out an immortal essence stone, holding it in his hand to absorb its immortal spiritual power for recovery. At the same time, he barely mustered the last trace of immortal spiritual power within him and flicked his finger.

A streak of black light shot out from between his brows, piercing through the tall old man's head in a flash.

A dull thud sounded!

The old man's head burst apart, and his headless body fell to the ground with a thud.

After doing all this, Han Li could no longer hold on and collapsed directly to the ground, sitting down.

But at this moment, he also relaxed, absorbing the immortal spiritual power from the immortal essence stones while looking around.

This yellow desert looked somewhat like the image seen in the earlier water droplet light orb.

Han Li was silent for a moment, then looked up toward the sky.

A blurry golden wheel phantom hovered there, with seven hundred and twenty clusters of time dao patterns on it, only a few of which had just extinguished.

He closed his eyes, carefully sensing the operation of the vast divine sense power in his mind, experiencing the feeling of the fifth level of the Divine Refining Art, while also probing the memory fragments in his mind.

This black-robed man was named Lu Renjia, a Son of Reincarnation of the Reincarnation Hall.

Unlike Han Li, this person was a true Son of Reincarnation, enjoying a large amount of cultivation resources from the Reincarnation Hall, but correspondingly, he was also greatly restricted, having to complete tasks assigned by the Reincarnation Hall at regular intervals.

This time, Lu Renjia was executing a mission for the Reincarnation Hall when he came to a celestial domain called 'Kaiyuan' in the southeastern region of the Immortal Realm. As a result, he fell into an ambush by five Heavenly Court监察仙使 and perished.

Han Li was very eager to learn about the Reincarnation Hall and carefully examined these memory fragments.

After a long while, he raised his head, frowning slightly.

Most of Lu Renjia's memory fragments contained cultivation information useless to him; useful ones were few, and information about the Reincarnation Hall was even scarcer.

Lu Renjia had been a Son of Reincarnation for over two million years, but he was a cultivation maniac, spending years in seclusion in his cave dwelling, wholeheartedly devoted to bitter cultivation, rarely going out.

Although he was a Son of Reincarnation, he had no intention of deeply engaging with the Reincarnation Hall. Though he executed many missions for the Hall, he had seen few high-ranking members. The one he had the most contact with was a Reincarnation Envoy, the liaison between Lu Renjia and the Hall, who occasionally appeared when assigning him tasks.

Apart from these, there was no other information about the Reincarnation Hall.

Han Li shook his head, then looked up again at the golden wheel phantom in midair.

The time dao patterns on it had dimmed by more than a quarter.

He pondered for a moment, then stood up, walked to the corpse of the tall old man, fumbled around, and picked up his storage artifact.

He then walked to the other three corpses in the distance and also took their storage artifacts.

Only then did Han Li sit down again, remove Lu Renjia's storage ring, place the five storage artifacts in a row before him, and quickly inspect them one by one.

All five were Taiyi-stage cultivators, and their storage artifacts were richly stocked, containing not only a large amount of immortal essence stones but also many high-quality immortal artifacts, various precious materials, elixirs, and so on.

Han Li was greatly tempted, but these things could not possibly be taken back. He reluctantly withdrew his divine sense and searched for other useful items.

After a moment, a small pile of items appeared on the ground before him.

Most were scriptures and jade slips; besides these, there was also an openwork golden disc, a golden token, and a white compass.

Han Li picked up the openwork golden disc and the white compass, glanced at them, then set them aside and picked up the golden token.

He had seen these two items in Gongsun Jiu's storage artifact. The golden disc was used by the监察仙使 to communicate with each other, and the white compass was for sensing the aura of the Soul-Refining Art, so there was no need to examine them carefully.

The golden token seemed to be an identity token; each of the four, including the tall old man, had one.

The edges of the token were carved with exquisite dragon patterns. One side bore the character 'prison,' and the other side had a serial number.

Han Li examined the token up and down for a moment, then quickly set it aside and picked up the scriptures and jade slips, flipping through them rapidly.

Most of these scriptures and jade slips recorded cultivation techniques or secret arts.

Being something a cultivator of the Taiyi realm would carry on his person, it was naturally no ordinary item, and it truly broadened his horizons.

Although there was still time, Han Li clearly did not want to spend too much of it here.

Han Li hurriedly scanned through one book after another, without delving into details, and even less did he bother to memorize the contents.

Suddenly, he let out a soft exclamation of surprise and looked at a gray jade slip in his hand.

What was recorded inside was not a cultivation technique or secret art, but a pill formula, and moreover a Dao pill formula, named the "Vajra Iron Bone Pill."

This pill contained the Law of Metal; besides aiding in comprehending the Law of Metal, it also had the effect of strengthening the physical body.

Han Li raised his head and glanced at the golden wheel in the air, on which the fading time patterns were less than half remaining.

He withdrew his gaze, spent a moment memorizing the formula for the "Vajra Iron Bone Pill," then immediately tossed it aside and continued examining other items.

Han Li quickly finished reviewing all the books and jade slips, waved his hand to put them away again, then took the five storage magic tools and immediately shot into the air, flying swiftly into the distance.

After a few breaths, he landed.

Below, an oasis appeared in the desert, and within the oasis was a small lake.

Han Li waved his hand, sending out a stream of black light that enveloped the several storage magic tools, sending them to the bottom of the lake and burying them.

Having done this, he immediately sat down cross-legged by the oasis, contemplating the mysteries of the fifth layer of the Spirit Refining Art in his mind.

The reason he had not carefully examined the contents of the storage magic tools was to save time for comprehending the Spirit Refining Art.

Time passed bit by bit, and the time patterns on the golden wheel dimmed one after another.

Finally, the last time pattern also faded away.

A whistling sound, like "woo woo," came from the air.

The golden wheel in the sky suddenly turned black, and then with a "boom," it transformed into a black vortex.

A powerful suction force surged out from it, enveloping Han Li's body.

Han Li's soul, utterly powerless to resist, was sucked into it with a "whoosh."

His vision went black again, and his consciousness blurred, losing all awareness.

After an unknown amount of time, Han Li's consciousness gradually cleared, and he slowly opened his eyes, finding himself back in his previous cave dwelling.

The Heavenholding Vial was still suspended in midair, but the green light it emitted rapidly dimmed and finally vanished completely.

The small bottle also returned to its original size and fell down.

He reached out and caught it, a gleam of light flashing in his eyes as he looked at the Heavenholding Vial. Then his spiritual sense plunged into it, attempting to communicate with the bottle spirit he had glimpsed earlier.

But no matter how Han Li called out or used various means to touch the bottle, the bottle spirit showed no reaction, as if it had fallen asleep again.

Han Li sighed helplessly, put away the Heavenholding Vial, and shook his head.

Then he flipped his hand and took out a jade slip, recording the formula for the "Vajra Iron Bone Pill" he had memorized earlier, so as not to forget it.

After putting away the jade slip, Han Li took a deep breath and closed his eyes again.

This time, his soul had traveled into that mysterious space and seen the mysterious river carrying scenes of bizarre images, which both shocked him and raised many doubts.

It seemed that those scenes belonged to some past histories of certain people?

For now, these people appeared to be either dying or already dead. His soul attached itself to them, allowing him to probe some remaining memory fragments of the other party, discover some things, or do some things.

As for whether he could truly choose to travel into them, he would have to wait for the next opportunity to explore thoroughly.

However, each soul travel would completely drain the time patterns on his True Word Wheel. Although his recovery speed was now much faster than before, it still took considerable time to recover, making the cost of exploration not insignificant.

Apart from that, the greatest gain this time was obtaining the cultivation insights for the fifth layer of the Spirit Refining Art from that Lu Renjia.

With this experience, he was confident he could greatly increase the cultivation speed of the fifth layer of the Spirit Refining Art.

Just as he was about to begin cultivation, he suddenly opened his eyes and looked outward.

A ball of white light flew in from outside the cave mansion gate, circled and danced in the secret chamber for a moment, then suddenly shattered.

Han Li frowned slightly, but still stood up, lifted the surrounding restrictions, and walked toward the cave mansion gate.

With a rumble, the cave mansion gate opened, revealing a figure standing outside—a gray-robed old man with a goatee, looking somewhat sly and shifty-eyed.

"So it's Fellow Daoist Lu. Long time no see." Han Li was slightly startled when he saw the man, then smiled.

This goatee old man was Lu Guanzi, who lived in nearby Xiangyang Valley. He shared similar temperaments with Jingyang Shangren, Rehe Xianzun, and others, often visiting Wild Crane Valley, so Han Li was quite familiar with him.

"Fellow Daoist Li, I apologize for the intrusion." Lu Guanzi cupped his hands and smiled.

"What brings you to my humble abode today? Please, come in." Han Li laughed and invited him inside for a chat.

"I won't come in; I'll just say it here." Lu Guanzi waved his hand and said with a faint smile.