Chapter 726 The Way To Reach The Holy Realm

Hanson's face had turned pale except for his lips, which were now a sickly purple. His aura was suddenly very weak as well, which alarmed Darren all the more.

"I'll be fine," Hanson insisted. "It's just that the poison has taken effect."

He had been infected by the Ghost Poison of the clay figurines. Since then he'd had no means of curing himself. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been hiding in the Starry Tower for so long.

"Sir, you must have magic herbs that can help your body heal," asked Darren, confused. "How can this poison still be affecting you?"

His companion replied, "The medicine I'm using has kept it at bay for thousands of years. After all this time, though, it's becoming less and less effective. I feel the poison's effects so often now that I'm almost used to it."

Previously, Hanson had told Darren that Barnes the Holy had also suffered the effects of the Ghost Poison. In the end, however, he had survived it.

It seemed, then, that only Barnes the Holy could cure Hanson.

Darren gave his ailing fellow a sympathetic look. "Sir, if I manage to save Barnes the Holy, I'll make sure that I ask him to heal you. Until then, I'm afraid you'll have to put up with it. I'm sorry."

"Save Barnes the Holy," Hanson repeated. "So he's alive, then? Is that true?"

"Let me explain," Darren said. "I met a subordinate of his called Pasquale, the Giant Ape. He was hiding in the Purgatorial Tripod after his body had been destroyed. This ape told me repeatedly that I need to comprehend more than two kinds of true rules in order to save his master.

What's more, I saw a portrait of Barnes the Holy in his palace. He's almost like a monkey, with golden hair—very strange, but also somewhat ferocious-looking..."

He went on, relating everything else he knew about Barnes the Holy.

For his part, Hanson believed everything he heard, for he knew that Darren would not fabricate or exaggerate anything.

"So Barnes the Holy has been suppressed in the Raksa Sea?" he said when Darren had finished speaking. "That is incredible..."

Reserved though he normally was, Hanson's astonishment was plain on his face. This legendary figure from an ancient era, who had been invincible, was still alive!

"Darren," he asked, "when did the Giant Ape tell you to rescue Barnes the Holy?"

Darren looked grim. "He said I should do it within three hundred years. But to tell the truth, I don't know if I'll be powerful enough by then."

"If even Barnes the Holy could ever be suppressed, then saving him is bound to be an incredible challenge. Let's talk about it again later, when your strength has reached a higher level," Hanson said.

"Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Right now it's too early to talk about such an undertaking."

After the discussion, Hanson left, trying to suppress the poison that still wracked his body.

Darren decided then to focus on cultivating and improving his strength.

"Right now,

orm in his mind.

All too soon, however, he lost it.

With a roar, a stream of sword intent burst out of him and shot into the sky, where the maelstrom devoured it in an instant.

"It's not that my master won't allow me to learn," Darren said, trying to recover his lost idea. "What if I mastered these sword intents and then fused them together? Would I step into a new extreme?"

He thought of the nebula in his elixir field from before. It had resulted from merging the aura of the dragon blood and the demonic internal force.

It also occurred to him that when he'd been passing the test in the Starry Tower, the guardian on the third floor had combined three kinds of sword intent: ice, thunder, and fire.

That was enough to prove that the fusion of sword intents was feasible.

Just then, Darren remembered something else as well. "I got a reward from that little girl, but I kept forgetting to check it."

After defeating that girl, he'd gotten the cultivation skill which was suitable for him. This seemed like the perfect time to make use of it.

Without wasting a moment, Darren produced a scroll from his Space Ring and started to read it aloud.

"Condense your sword intent into your sword core. Then infuse a second kind of sword intent to cause the sword core to crack. Use the original sword intent to force it into the cracks, then repair the sword core. Repeat the same process as many times as desired..."

Darren carefully read the scroll multiple times to make sure he understood.

In order to integrate the aura of the dragon blood with the demonic internal force, he had first crushed the two forces in order to create a new balance.

In its essence, that method was the same as what this scroll was recommending for the fusion of sword intents.

"What will happen if I try to integrate all of these eighteen thousand sword intents?" Darren asked himself.

The very thought sent a jolt through him, and his heart surged.