Chapter 183: Two Purple Mansions

“Success!”

Jiang Yi was ecstatic. Once the Purple Mansion was condensed, it meant that he had stepped into the martial artists’ hall. He didn’t have to worry about the situation where he might run out of essence force. He now had the opportunity to advance towards the pinnacle of the martial dao and stand proud!

Jiang Yi’s overall combat strength might be insane and was able to incinerate Hong Lao who was at the third stage of Soul Travel Realm using the Earth Fire, but it was using the assistance of an external strength!

On the path of martial dao, an external force might be able to temporarily increase a martial artist’s strength; but it didn’t belong to the way of a true expert. In addition, if one was to rely on external strength all the time, it would easily lead a martial artist astray to a side path.

Take Jiang Bieli as an example. When his strength was at the Vajra Realm, he didn’t use any more artifacts and bestowed his most formidable artifact to Jiang Yiliu—when he was at 15 years of age. He had given the Man-Ruler Seal to Jiang Yiliu because he didn’t want to let any external strength to affect his heart for the martial dao.

The Earth Fire was dreadful; if his own strength wasn’t able to keep up, then it would just be a waste of resources.

For instance, if the Earth Fire could incinerate a martial artist at the fifth stage of Soul Travel Realm, could Jiang Yi truly kill a martial artist at the fifth stage of Soul Travel Realm? The reason why he was able to kill Hong Lao was entirely because of luck. Hong Lao didn’t have any place to borrow strength from at the bottom of the volcano; otherwise—with Hong Lao’s speed, he would be able to easily dodge it and carry on to kill Jiang Yi.

Jiang Yi knew of this very clearly; hence, he wasn’t negligent about his cultivation. He knew that improving his own strength was the true path, and it was a cumulative process. There was basically no other way to achieve it with street smarts.

Don’t overthink this. I better refine the Fire Lingzhi first; if not, it will be wasted!

Jiang Yi withdrew his thoughts and immersed his mind into the Purple Mansion as he prepared to channel some blue essence force to continue refining the Fire Lingzhi.

The essence forces in the dantian might have condensed into the Purple Mansion, but it didn’t mean that the essence forces have vanished. It meant that the essence forces went into the Purple Mansion and turned into a liquid form of essence force.

If he wanted to channel some essence force, he just had to bring out the liquid essence from the Purple Mansion; and the Purple Mansion would automatically transmute the liquid essence into the gaseous essence force. Of course, now that his cultivation realm had been upgraded, the power of the essence force would increase, too.

“Eh?”

As he sank his mind into the Purple Mansion, he got another shock—which caused his entire body to tremble. His eyes suddenly widened as he exclaimed, “Goddammit! To hell with it!”

Qian Wanguan and Zhan Wushuang had been watching Jiang Yi attentively, and they knew that he had just condensed the Purple Mansion. Right now, as Qian Wanguan saw the change of expression from Jiang Yi, he asked anxiously, “What happened, Boss? Did you fail in the condensing of the Purple Mansion? This isn’t logical!”

When a martial artist reached the peak stage of the Cast Tripod Realm, there would normally be no problem if they used the proper method to condense the Purple Mansion. Of course, there were unfortunate events where the essence forces would be depleted when the condensing of the Purple Mansion was a failure. The unluckiest ones might even have their dantian explode. Jiang Yi’s method of condensing the Purple Mansion originated from Mt. Spirit Beast College, and it was definitely correct. With Jiang Yi’s exceptional instincts, it was absolutely impossible for him to fail the condensation.

Jiang Yi didn’t answer Qian Wanguan’s question and quickly closed his eyes instead. He used his inner vision to look into the Purple Mansion in his dantian again, but he still got a surprise. There was supposed to be some liquid blue essence force within the Purple Mansion, but right now, there wasn’t even a single drop of the liquid essence. Instead, in the center of the Purple Mansion—a black Purple Mansion appeared!

He actually condensed two Purple Mansions!

Or perhaps when he condensed the Purple Mansion, it transformed because there were traces of black essence force—which in turn formed two Purple Mansions that were different in sizes?

Goddammit, this black essence force is going to be the cause of my death!

Jiang Yi was so angry that he kept on cursing. What was a Purple Mansion? It was something that a martial artist couldn’t afford to make any mistake when condensing it. There wasn’t just a problem now; it had transformed completely! In the millions of years of the Stellarsky Continent’s history, no one had mentioned having a smaller Purple Mansion inside of their Purple Mansion!

Let’s first take a look at this smaller Purple Mansion!

Jiang Yi forced himself to calm down and sink his mind into the smaller Purple Mansion. He was relieved to find out that his smaller Purple Mansion was perfectly normal, and there were three droplets of black liquid essence.

Arise!

Jiang Yi controlled the single drop of the black liquid essence, and he was dumbstruck by what happened. Once the liquid essence came out from the small Purple Mansion, it instantly turned into the blue liquid essence. The quantity turned from one drop into one hundred drops, and the color turned into blue!

Blue essence force, emerge!

Jiang Yi promptly controlled a single drop of the blue liquid essence and brought it out of the Purple Mansion. When he saw that the blue liquid essence transmuted into blue gaseous essence force and that the quantity was at 10,000 wisps, he finally let out a breath of relief.

His essence force was still here—it didn’t vanish!

The Purple Mansion might have transformed, but at least, his strength was still the same. As long as he had essence force, he was still a true martial artist that was at the first stage of Purple Mansion Realm.

I will research it later on. I better refine the Fire Lingzhi now!

Jiang Yi forced himself to not think about it. He circulated the essence force to his palms and revolved it around the Fire Lingzhi, slowly refining it.

As the Fire Lingzhi began to slowly dissolve, the fiery red energy appeared in Jiang Yi’s meridians again. Before he could transmute it using his essence force, the fiery red energy entered the Purple Mansion and instantly transformed into the liquid form of the blue essence force.

This Purple Mansion has such ability?!

Jiang Yi was let out a sigh and concentrated on refining the Fire Lingzhi. He was refining it at a much higher speed. Within 30 minutes, the Fire Lingzhi had been completely refined. Jiang Yi’s Purple Mansion had a few more dozens of droplets of blue liquid essence.

“Huuu…”

Jiang Yi opened his eyes and circulated the essence force into his palm. He used the Exploding Essence Palm to compress the essence force and made sure that it still had the formidable attack strength. He then let out a long breath.

“Boss. What is the situation?”

Qian Wanguan asked anxiously again while Jiang Yi murmured for a while and shook his head, “There was a small problem when I was condensing the Purple Mansion. I am still not clear about it yet. I will tell you guys about it later on. Of course… the Purple Mansion has been successfully condensed. You guys don’t have to worry about it.”

“Okay! Boss, you should take the time to analyze it. Rest up early, and we will be departing for the Stellarsky City early in the morning tomorrow.”

If Jiang Yi didn’t say it, the two of them didn’t want to ask either… since Jiang Yi always had many secrets on him. Since the condensation was successful, then there shouldn’t be any big issues.

After the two of them went out, Jiang Yi began to research it in detail. It was already midnight, and Jiang Yi still couldn’t get a clear understanding of it.

He did prove a few points. His Purple Mansion didn’t have any problem; neither was there any problems with the dantian either. It could still cultivate the blue essence force and the essence forces didn’t decrease. Right now, after refining the Fire Lingzhi, he was already at the second stage of the Purple Mansion Realm.

Everything was normal!

The only abnormal thing would be the small Purple Mansion in his Purple Mansion. A small Purple Mansion that didn’t seem to have any use!

That’s not right… where is my black essence force!?

Jiang Yi suddenly thought of a problem… where did his black essence force go to? Those black essence forces seemed to have vanished after the Purple Mansion was condensed. Could it be that the small black Purple Mansion was condensed by the black essence forces?

The black essence force was a mystical power, and Jiang Yi was currently reciting the Nameless Art to see if he could cultivate any black essence force.

An unusual thing happened again—!

Originally, when he recited the Nameless Art, a black essence force would appear in his dantian. But this time, it didn’t appear in the dantian; instead, a single wisp appeared in the small Purple Mansion, and it was in liquid form!

It might only be a wisp and was only a tenth of the liquid form essence force, but Jiang Yi still got a shock.

If he didn’t remember it wrongly, a single drop of black liquid essence could turn into a hundred drops of blue liquid essence. A single drop of the blue liquid essence could turn into a hundred wisps of gaseous essence force!

In other words, a single wisp of black essence force that he cultivated could turn into a thousand wisps of blue essence force?

My god…

After he got this evaluation, Jiang Yi began to tremble. Every time he cultivated the Jiang Water Art, he was only able to raise about a hundred wisps. Now with the small Purple Mansion, his cultivation speed increased by ten folds?