Chapter 197: Unexpected Harvest

The thought of abundant high-quality yin baleful qi filled Jie Ming with vigor.

He soared hundreds of meters into the sky.

Looking down at the flattened city ruins, the

Great Radiance Form

unfurled once more!

This time, his goal wasn’t to clear snow monsters but to… excavate.

“Maximum power! Focus on one point and blast through!”

At his command, thousands of talisman artifacts adjusted their angles, targeting the area with the densest yin baleful qi.

Using a technique from his battle against a Third-Tier lava giant, he employed the

Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror

to focus all attacks into one point.

Thousands of talisman artifacts erupted, not in a scattered barrage but concentrated into massive energy beams capable of shattering mountains, striking the frozen ground like divine punishment.

The condensed, colossal beams of destruction, with mountain-piercing force, bombarded the ruins below.

Boom!

The city trembled—no, the entire ice crater and distant plains shook under Jie Ming’s relentless bombardment!

The ferocious energy tore through the permafrost and bedrock at light speed, splitting glaciers into vast chasms. Thick ice vaporized under the heat, roaring deafeningly.

Countless shattered rocks and ice shards were hurled hundreds of meters into the air, falling like a storm.

The earth wailed, ice rivers blasted into bottomless fissures.

Jie Ming hovered, his gaze calm.

His

Great Radiance Form

operated at full power, every energy bolt striking precisely, without waste.

As the bombardment continued, a massive crater hundreds of meters wide extended downward at an astonishing rate!

The shockwave nearly emptied the surrounding air, forming a vast energy vortex.

He bombarded for nearly ten minutes, expending most of a “metal disc’s” stored energy.

When he sensed the rock layers weakening, the energy beams hitting a “hollow” resistance, he slowly retracted the

Great Radiance Form

’s fire.

A bottomless, irregular cylindrical pit appeared before him, its depth immeasurable, obscured by upturned rubble and dust.

Jie Ming took a deep breath, deactivated his magic network terminal, and stored it in his internal space to ensure it couldn’t detect external activity.

Raising his hands, his fingers deftly formed seals, silently chanting incantations.

The pure true essence of mid-Foundation Establishment surged like a flood, pouring into the seals, each glowing faintly white.

The true essence condensed into a profound “qi-drawing” talisman at his fingertips.

“Go!”

With a soft shout, Jie Ming shot the true essence-infused talisman into the pit!

The talisman streaked white, vanishing into the cold, dark depths.

This technique, from the qi-harvesting school, was designed for “primary conceptual materials” like yin baleful qi.

“Primary” referred not to grade but to “sequence,” contrasted with “secondary conceptual materials.”

If spiritual energy was “electricity,” secondary materials like refined gold, Mortal Dust Qi, or Hundred Flower Dew were like “light” or “mechanical energy” produced by it.

Their creation required spiritual energy, diversifying resources but relying on it.

“Primary conceptual materials” were akin to coal or solar energy.

Not spiritual energy themselves, they could be converted into it through various methods.

Created to address spiritual energy scarcity, they could self-generate, arising from nothing.

For yin baleful qi, meeting conceptual conditions allowed a cultivator to use a wisp of it as a primer to coalesce the rest.

Without a primer, spiritual energy could be “edited” into one—hence the qi-drawing technique.

Moments of silence followed in the pit…

Then, a chilling aura erupted from its unseen depths!

Hiss!

A dense, almost tangible surge of yin baleful qi, like a black flood, burst forth with bone-piercing cold and an indescribable stench, spraying upward like a fountain!

It filled the pit instantly, spilling over the rim, forming a gray miasma across the ice plain.

Ignoring the emptiness and slight dizziness from expending most of his true essence, Jie Ming’s eyes gleamed with joy. He summoned the

Qi-Harvesting Gourd

, a treasure for collecting baleful qi, from his internal space.

Forming seals, he inverted the gourd over the pit’s mouth.

Its opening became a bottomless vortex, buzzing as it absorbed every wisp of surging yin baleful qi.

Initially, watching the gourd’s visibly rising storage, Jie Ming was elated.

He knew he’d struck gold!

As time passed, his joy grew to ecstasy—the gourd’s absorption rate barely slowed!

But when the qi continued surging, reaching an unimaginable volume in minutes, his delight turned to horror!

As collection continued, not only did the qi not diminish, but with a low pulse from the depths, its flow accelerated!

Worse, its quality was rising at a terrifying rate!

From faint gray, it deepened to pure, abyss-like black, as if condensing all the world’s resentment and death.

By the end, it neared mysterious black, indicating top-tier quality!

The

Qi-Harvesting Gourd

, theoretically capable of holding a continent’s extinction-level baleful qi, groaned under the strain, its runes showing overload signs!

“Full… it’s full?!” Jie Ming gasped, incredulous.

The gourd was meant to handle cataclysmic amounts!

He hurriedly summoned materials from his internal space, crafting a makeshift second gourd.

Though crude, it could temporarily hold the surging qi.

Yet, even with two gourds and his

Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier

instinctively devouring the qi, the flow showed no sign of abating!

“This isn’t just an ancient battlefield…” Jie Ming’s mind raced through the wizard legion’s archives.

Per two years of wizard investigations, the known history of lava giants and snow monsters spanned just over ten thousand years!

This level of yin baleful qi couldn’t result from all the plane’s ancient battlefields combined in one spot!

“There’s a bigger problem down there!” Curiosity surged within him!

Watching the two gourds nearing their limits and the relentless mysterious black qi, Jie Ming had no choice but to use his dwindling true essence to cast a sealing technique.

Unable to collect it all, he had to temporarily seal the source.

Otherwise, the qi could affect not just the snow monsters but the wizard outposts!

He hadn’t hidden his tracks coming here; if discovered, it’d be trouble!

Fortunately, yin baleful qi was relatively “inert.”

Though terrifying when unleashed, without external drive, it spread slowly.

A standard sealing technique sufficed.

As runes glowed around the pit’s mouth, the surging qi was suppressed, reduced to faint wisps.

Such leakage was manageable, dissipating naturally before causing harm.

But sealing it indefinitely wasn’t a solution; the source needed addressing.

Jie Ming didn’t rashly descend. Sitting cross-legged, he adjusted his breathing, restoring his depleted state from expending most of his true essence.

He consumed some potions, replenishing his mental energy.

Then, with a steely gaze, he leaped into the bottomless, chilling pit!

His intuition told him a secret capable of shaking the entire plane lay below!

As he entered, dense yin baleful qi clung to him like malevolent spirits.

Protected by the

Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier

, Jie Ming wasn’t concerned about the stray qi causing harm.

In fact, this high-quality, scattered qi only nourished his barrier’s core, enhancing its defense.