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That said, the Seven Blood Eyes spell formation lowered the cultivation level of everything on the island that was in the Foundation Establishment level or higher, and that included this tower and its shield. Therefore, though the force of his blow was dispersed, it wasn’t negated entirely, and ripples flowed across the shield.

Seeing that, Xu Qing’s eyes glittered. Not wanting to waste any time, he quickly performed a right-handed incantation gesture, causing his dharmaboat to shift directions and bash into the shield.

His dharmaboat was already almost at the level of Foundation Establishment. In fact, other than lacking the proper power source, it was a Foundation Establishment dharmaskiff. When his boat slammed into the tower, cracks spread through the shield, then it shattered. It also punched a hole in the wall.

Xu Qing put his dharmaboat away, then leapt through the hole and into the tower. Once inside, the light of the Spirit Breath Lamp cast his shadow onto the wall.

Not pausing for a moment, he leapt toward the lamp to grab it. However, that was when the young merman opened his eyes. Expression that of anxiety and fury, he was about to say something, but then coughed up a massive mouthful of blood. His cultivation base power was thrown into chaos, yet he still managed to grit his teeth and point his finger at Xu Qing. As a result, the projected image of a merman appeared and viciously attacked Xu Qing.

With no time to spare, Xu Qing clenched his right hand into a fist and thrust it at the incoming merman.

The projected image collapsed, and more blood sprayed out of the mouth of the young merman as he was thrown back against the opposite wall. Without the defenses to bolster them, the walls were ordinary, and thus, the young merman crashed through and fell to the ground. It was impossible to tell whether he lived or died, and Xu Qing wasn’t going to waste time checking. He strode up to the lamp and reached out to grab it.

However, at that exact moment, his shadow suddenly twitched, and, completely without Xu Qing doing a thing to control it, started moving!

Before Xu Qing could grab the lamp, his shadow’s pitch-black hand reached past him and, seemingly in revulsion of the burning flame, it... extinguished the lamp!

A tremor passed through Xu Qing and he looked over his shoulder at the wall. However, now that the lamp was out, his shadow wasn’t visible.

That said, Xu Qing could sense that his shadow had stretched back to its original shape, and was now ordinary in nature.

Expression unsightly, he picked up the Spirit Breath Lamp. Now that it had been extinguished, the lamp didn’t seem very special, other than its unique craftsmanship.

However, Xu Qing didn’t care about the lamp by now. Looking coldly at the spot where his shadow lay in the darkness, his expression turned grim. The shadow wasn’t doing anything unusual now, but he couldn’t help but think back to what the Mute had written in the jade slip.

“It’s asleep.”

All of a sudden, Xu Qing realized that what had occurred just now was like when a sleeping person was annoyed by a flickering lamp, and reached out to turn it off.

Eyes glittering, he sent some spirit power into the Spirit Breath Lamp, and after a few attempts, managed to ignite it. Light spread out everywhere, and his shadow was once again cast onto the wall. The moment that happened, his shadow twisted and distorted. Then, it yet again sent out that pitch black hand to the Spirit Breath Lamp to extinguish it.

Snorting coldly, Xu Qing sent his will out to seize control of his shadow. As a result, the shadow’s hand stopped short of the lamp, then started to struggle against him to close the distance.

“Are you sleeping?” Xu Qing asked coldly. “Or just pretending to sleep?”

At the same time, he activated the violet crystal and used its power to viciously suppress the struggling shadow. Xu Qing was very familiar with how to do this. In the past, he’d done it on a daily basis, usually performing the same process five or six times. But this time, he performed the process thirteen times.

Only then did the shadow tremble and then fade a bit.

Not pausing for even a moment, he went through the suppressing process another twelve times. At that point, the twitching shadow finally stopped fighting back. Xu Qing still wasn’t happy though. Looking coldly at his shadow, he held the Spirit Breath Lamp up to it, then slowly relinquished control.

Despite being free, the shadow didn’t try to extinguish the lamp. It trembled, but did nothing more.

Expression cold, Xu Qing then put the lamp directly onto the shadow. When he did, the light of the lamp changed the color of the shadow, turning it from amber to a light green color. It looked extremely bizarre. Despite its intense trembling, the shadow didn’t do anything to resist.

Xu Qing narrowed his eyes and was about to say something when his expression flickered and he looked at the Spirit Breath Lamp.

Back when he had picked up the lamp, and even when he lit it, he didn’t sense anything unusual about it. But when he put it into his shadow, he felt faint fluctuations.

At the same time, he sensed fluctuations coming from somewhere underground, almost as if something down there was calling out to the lamp. He quickly pulled the lamp away from the shadow, and the fluctuations ceased. Also, the lamp reverted to its ordinary state.

Then he put the lamp back, and the fluctuations rose up again, this time more clearly. They were essentially pointing in a specific direction.

“This...” he muttered, narrowing his eyes. Suddenly thinking back to the jade slip from Huang Yan, he recalled the legend about the clues leading to the Temple of Meegah, which were supposedly hidden in this very lamp. He couldn’t help but wonder if what was happening with his shadow had anything to do with that.

Glancing coldly at his shadow again, he said, “You can go back to sleep.”

He wasn’t sure if it would understand or not, but after making sure to remember the general direction where the fluctuations came from, he extinguished the lamp, put it away, and jumped out of the Foundation Establishment Tower.

After landing on the ground, he looked around for the young merman he had blasted out of the top of the tower. Having been interrupted in the middle of a Foundation Establishment breakthrough, he should either be dead or severely injured. It didn’t take long for Xu Qing to spot him a short distance away.

He looked like he was in the middle of crawling. Apparently he’d survived the fall, and had tried to crawl away, only to die from his injuries moments later.

Xu Qing didn’t want to risk him actually being alive, though, so he unleashed a few magical techniques on him, and also sprinkled some poison powder on him. After confirming that he was well and truly dead, he squatted down and searched him for his bag of holding.

He was obviously an important person, so he definitely had some Foundation Establishment Pills. I just hope he didn’t consume them all. After finding the bag of holding, he quickly opened it. The contents made him smile. Standing, he was about to leave, when all of a sudden... he heard someone clapping.

Swiveling, he saw someone walking toward him, half of a little apple in his mouth as he slowly clapped.

It was the Captain!

“Wowww. Did you kill everybody here, Deputy Captain Xu? Looks like you made out quite nicely. I guess you must have taken the Spirit Breath Lamp already?”

Remaining on guard, Xu Qing kept his face expressionless and replied, “No, I got here just a moment too late.”

Xu Qing suddenly wondered how the Captain was managing to talk with half an apple between his teeth.

The Captain didn’t look surprised at Xu Qing’s expression. He bit through the little apple, causing one section to fall, which he reached out to grab before it hit the ground. Flashing a cocky grin, he then looked around at the mangled corpses.

“Your dharmaboat did this? That punk Zhang San really put a lot of hard work into your boat. By the way, you owe me 2,000 spirit stones. When do you plan to pay up?”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Xu Qing replied, eyeing the apple in the Captain’s hand. Face completely expressionless, he pulled a large apple out of his own sack and started eating it.

The Captain stared at him blankly. He looked at Xu Qing’s large apple, then his own small apple, which suddenly didn’t look as appetizing. He cleared his throat.

“Cut the act,” the Captain said, sounding slightly irritated. “Your acting skills are subpar at best. You should take lessons from me. Why go to the trouble of pretending you didn’t take the Spirit Breath Lamp? I couldn’t care less about that thing. In fact, I wouldn’t take it if you offered it to me. It’s not like it’s a life lamp.”

Xu Qing didn’t respond to what he’d just said.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what a life lamp is?” the Captain asked, apparently surprised at Xu Qing’s lack of reaction.

Xu Qing looked at him. “What’s a life lamp?”

The Captain sighed. “Since we’re on the same unit, and you owe me 2,000 spirit stones, I guess I’ll tell you. The Spirit Breath Lamp is actually a knockoff version of a life lamp. And even as a knockoff it’s not very well made.

“You’ve heard how Foundation Establishment cultivators can enter the profound radiance state, right? It’s when they ignite the life flames within their body. And the top limit for life flames is three.

“One life flame equals early Foundation Establishment. Two is mid Foundation Establishment. And three is late Foundation Establishment. Theoretically speaking, once you reach that point, you can attempt core formation. Only people with amazing destiny can get four life flames. Now, all these things related to life flames and the profound radiance state were the same even before the broken face of the god arrived.

“However, there are some very rare people that don’t follow the normal trend. The direct bloodline descendants of the Ancient Emperors and Imperial Sovereigns follow a different path. Because of their bloodline and imperial-class techniques, they don’t just have life flames in Foundation Establishment, they have life lamps!

“One life lamp makes one life flame as powerful as two life flames!! Life flames have no foundation, but life lamps do. The former are like dandelion seeds, the latter are like boulders.

“With only one life lamp, you could fight someone with much higher cultivation than you. With two, no Foundation Establishment cultivator could match you, and you’d already be ready for core formation. And with three, you’d be the top individual among all species, at least under Gold Core. Of course, the exception would be other people with life lamps.

“In the modern era, the Ancient Emperors and Imperial Sovereigns have been gone for many epochs, so hardly anyone cultivates life lamps. The only people who do are consummate chosen experts on the Revered Ancient mainland, thanks to their spectacular background and unmatchable destiny.

“Furthermore, their life lamps are legacies passed down by deceased descendants of the Ancient Emperors and Imperial Sovereigns. When you have a life lamp, then after you die it can be removed and given to someone else to be used in their cultivation.

“Of course, you might as well not even bother hoping to get one. For all intents and purposes, life lamps are things of legend. Even just one lamp like that would cause the great sects from Revered Ancient to mobilize.

“Anyway, it’s almost not even worth talking about. If you want to reach Foundation Establishment, you need to think of a way to get some Foundation Establishment Pills. Lucky for you, I happen to know where one of the Merfolk’s big pill storehouses is. There should be quite a few Foundation Establishment Pills there. Why don’t we go together? There’s nothing else worthwhile on this island.

“The good stuff is all underground. Come on, we need to hurry. That brat Zhang San is probably already down there.”

The information about life lamps left Xu Qing feeling shaken. What was more, the fluctuations from the Spirit Breath Lamp had his heart pounding.

Life lamps?