Chapter 287 – Dual-Pupil
The eyeball was illuminating in a light golden color. It seemed extremely astonishing as energy swirled about. Could it be that it still possessed some incredible life force?
Shi Hao was considerably surprised. Numerous years had passed since the ancient times, yet it still had not withered? The power it was exerting was indeed astonishing.
He began to carefully activate it. The eyeball’s faint golden color began to change; the light it produced was now even stronger, and there were even more colors. The entire room was covered in a hazy radiance, as if one could see everything through this eyeball.
Shi Hao felt a strange force surging within him. When he shone the light from the eyeball in his palm in different directions, he felt a unique feeling. The scenery all around him appeared within his mind with incredible clarity.
All of these things were seen through the eyeball in his palm and not his naked eyes, so it shocked him greatly. Was this a reflection of the Dual-pupil’s power?
It was a rare treasure after all. It was just a mere second, but Shi Hao already understood its value. It could actually see through walls and observe this entire courtyard clearly.
“See through the fabricated, penetrate the superficial, and directly reach the essence.” Shi Hao was incredibly moved. This eyeball was too powerful, as if everything he experienced just now wasn’t real.
He looked down and stared at it. While holding it carefully in his hand, he observed it closely before trying to look into the distance through it again. The vivid view once more recurred within his head.
The image was even more clear this time. He could see through the walls and observe the world outside. It all looked so real and clear.
“What an incredible divine ability!” Shi Hao exclaimed with admiration. Dual-pupiled individuals were indeed blessed. He had merely activated the eyeball, yet it could already exerted such power.
He then used all of his efforts to forcefully activate the eyeball by providing it with spiritual essence. The empty air trembled abruptly, and a beam of primarily pale golden light shot out of the eyeball. It broke right through the wall.
Shi Hao was taken by surprise, since it was so sudden. Luckily, he was not facing the pupil himself, or else he would have been in danger
He aimed at the bronze arrow head and activated the eyeball again. With a metallic sound, the Dual-pupil illuminated and the pale golden beam turned completely golden. It crushed the arrow head, turning it into dust.
“That was incredible! A single glance from the pupil could destroy a treasured artifact!” Shi Hao was rather amazed. The eyeball had already been separated from the natural born deity and was only being activated in his hand, yet it could still exert such power. Just how terrifying was it originally?!
He could imagine how the natural born deity stood above the world and commanded all other experts. When he opened his eyes, streaks of golden lights would surge, destroying heavenly artifacts and sweeping through everything!
One could imagine what a scene like this would look like: With the opening of the dual-pupils, streak after streak of light would pierce through heaven and earth and shatter precious artifacts all around it. Tens of thousands of experts would be killed; just the thought was already frightening.
Shi Hao turned it over and over in his hand and noticed that as long as the eyeball was not activated, it would appear dim and devoid of vitality. Only by inserting life force into it could it exert such power.
“Has it turned into a precious artifact, or is it still not completely withered? Are there still some imprint of life left?” He was a bit doubtful.
It was reasonable to assume that the eyeball had already transformed into a treasured artifact. After all, it had existed for such a long time. However, the real dual-pupil should not merely have these functions.
“It might be that after being sealed up inside the stone bead, it was isolated from the rest of the world. As a result, it didn’t suffer any damage throughout the years, and its life source has not dissipated.” He realized that this was a possibility.
This was because according to some ancient records, similar incidents had happened. These types of stone possessed special qualities that could seal life and isolate it from the erosion of heaven and earth.
He grabbed the stone fragments. The longer he looked at them, the more he thought of them as some sort of divine stone instead of common objects. Otherwise, how could it have been stained by demonic god blood and surround the divine bronze arrowhead artifact?
“In that case, just like the Flood Dragon shears back then, if I nourish the eyeball with vital essence, it might come back to life again?” Shi Hao said to himself.
That year, he had fought a great battle outside of Stone Village in the great wastelands against the guardian spirit pangolin. The opposing party already had a serious injury, because it was trying to nourish the precious artifact left behind by its ancestors within its own flesh. This was done in an effort to revive the precious bone.
It was simply a heaven defying object. If word got out that he had the eyeball of a natural born divine being, mighty experts of the Capital would fight head over heels for it, and countless other competitors would also join in.
What should he do with it? Shi Hao felt rather conflicted, but he wasn’t willing to use his own body to nourish it. He still felt that this wasn’t his own, and that it was incompatible to host something alien like this inside of him.
However, the eyeball was too powerful. If he was able to completely revive it and let it exert all its formidable power, the result would be extraordinary!
“What should I do?” Holding the eyeball in his palm, he frowned and began to ponder.
Should he replace his own eyeball with it? That would be impossible! Insert it into the center of his forehead where the heavenly eye was supposed to emerge? That did not seem a good idea either. If he was ready to create his own heavenly eye one day, there would be no place left for it.
As Shi Hao studied and refined it further, he suddenly discovered another divine ability of the eyeball, which made him all the more astonished.
He could saw in the courtyard a bee flapping its wings at a low frequency. It was all extremely clear.
“Yi, its speed has been slowed down. I can carefully observe everything!” Shi Hao was moved.
He had only seen still scenes before and did not pay much attention to them. Now that he was able to see living creatures like this, it brought him a completely new perspective.
He looked around carefully and saw a bird fly across the sky. It was originally rushing past, but from within the view of the eyeball, it almost seemed as if it was slowly and unhurriedly flapping its wings through the air.
He then looked through the walls and into the other courtyards where some people were practising martial arts. Their movement seemed extremely slow, as if the the movement had been broken down into individual components in front of his eyes.
“This is incredible!” Shi Hao was greatly shocked.
If he could use this ability when confronting enemies, he would be given an incredible advantage that could allow him to look down upon all those cultivators of his own level. He would be practically invincible.
The dual-pupiled man was indeed a frightening creature; such was the first thought that came to Shi Hao. He had never treated someone with such seriousness in his life, because this was too formidable.
Shi Hao’s expression became serious. That young brother of his was born with dual-pupils, and possessed a complete set of divine abilities that should be more thorough than that of just an eyeball. He never thought that those eyes would be so heaven defying.
This was a wake-up call for him. Even if the other party did not steal his supreme being bone, he would still be ridiculously powerful. With such incredible natural gifts, just how many people could compare?
Shi Hao pondered in silence. He could think of only two ways to compete with the divine ability if he was the one facing it. One method was to utilize the extreme rapidness of Kun Peng precious techniques to counteract the characteristics of the divine pupil by raising the precious technique to its top speed. The other way was to sticking to a fundamental principle. He would stay put and summon all ten heavenly passages, exhibiting the power of his flesh heavenly passage. The space around him would then be confined, trapping his opponent.
“Is there another way?” Shi Hao asked himself. Through this eyeball, he understood thoroughly now how formidable a dual-pupiled individual was. It was simply unbelievable.
“I will use my original body, but fuse it with a spiritual body instead,” Shi Hao said to himself. He would use his spiritual body to study and refine the eyeball, before eventually unifying with it.
This was because he still felt that this was a foreign object in the end and did not want to merge it with his own body. Using a spiritual body instead would solve this problem.
In fact, what he really wanted was to fuse it with his spiritual body to understand the supreme secret of the symbols hidden inside the dual-pupil. As long as he could understand the primordial symbols, the eyeball would no longer be a necessity.
“I currently have Suan Ni and Kun Peng precious techniques, so eight heavenly passages do not yet contain a specific spiritual body. I should create a human-shaped one this time.”
Shi Hao mused to himself, for he had heard before that there was a human-shaped being among the ten archaic vicious beasts. If he was lucky enough to find one in the future, a human-formed spiritual body would not clash with it.
As a matter of fact, to nourish spiritual bodies inside heavenly passages was to fundamentally endow them with imprints, as if one was creating life. However, the imprints would be retrieved eventually, which would then be used as sources of spirituality to nourish the primordial spirit of the original form. They would all be refined into a single body, and the only thing left in each heavenly passage would be a primordial symbol.
Of course, those were problems that would only bother the legendary sages and deities. Shi Hao did not need to worry about them now.
Before long, he created a human figure inside a heavenly passage and inserted the eyeball into it. He then started to nourish it and meditate with it when he was idle.
Shi Hao summoned a strand of symbol imprint and sent it into the spiritual body, immediately making it seem like it possessed life. In fact, the imprint he spared was so powerful that his own body became a bit shaky and his face became a bit pale when he brought it out.
The natural born deity’s eye was right at the center of that spiritual body’s forehead. A faint golden light circled around it, as if it was about to revive. A frightening power was spreading out from it.
“Good!” Shi Hao was quite content with the progress.
Other things aside, as long as this eyeball could come back to life, he could than understand and learn the divine abilities hidden inside.
He currently knew only three abilities. One was to see through the superficial and reach the original source, another was the ability to destroy treasured artifacts with a beam of light, and the third was the ability to greatly slow down the speed of experts.
These three abilities alone were already ridiculously powerful!
Everything he did was to strengthen himself. Shi Hao studied it tirelessly, using the spiritual body to nourish the dual-pupil of the natural born deity.
Finally, his original form stabilized, so he started to take inventory of the other items he obtained from the auction. Seeing that the little pagoda was waving around and showing interests to some ‘mud’ among the pile of things, Shi Hao handed the item to it.
He had no idea what that greyish thing was. The little pagoda only said it could be used to exchange for ‘half’ a help from it. In other words, Shi Hao would need to find more to elicit an additional instance of help.
Needless to say, such items were hard to come by, and so he could only replace it with something else.
“It is heavenly blood mud.” The little pagoda did not withhold the truth from him.
Shi Hao was dumbstruck. With a name as astonishing as that, it had to be a rare treasure. It could be considered as a sacred artifact no matter being used in refinement or as a medicine.
“You are so powerful and understand almost everything. You could have just directly ransacked the auction house,” Shi Hao muttered.
“This is a world of balance. You are unable to understand how I ended up in this state. To obtain something, one must pay an equal price. The current exchange of equal value is by my own choice.” The little pagoda spoke out this mysterious sentence.
“Does that count as an exchange of equal value? Are you trying to transfer some of that karma to me?” Shi Hao felt suspicious.
He turned it over in his mind for quite a while but could not come up with an answer. He decided to drop the idea. The most important thing for him now was to strengthen himself with all of his effort.
Finally, he took out the tortoise shell and studied the precious techniques on it. This was a treasured text he obtained from the auction.
Back then, a Black Turtle rose in revolt in the western frontier of Stone Country, and two noblemen were killed while trying to suppress it. The turtle was not killed until a mysterious mighty expert joined the battle.
The turtle was a top-level archaic descendant and the precious techniques it left behind was a remarkable wonder. It was the descendant of the Black Tortoise, a race that was considered to be the one with the strongest defensive power.
Shi Hao began his comprehension. Within seconds, an earthy-colored glow started to appear over his skin, as if a layer of mist was circulating around him. It looked heavy and solid, with symbols flickering about from time to time.
His cultivation level had been greatly elevated compared to before, especially after he reached the peak of the Spirit Transformation realm. The path of his cultivation was significantly widened, as opposed to other cultivators, who were facing narrowing prospects. He was constantly breaking through his limitations and did not suffer from such troubles.
A long time passed before Shi Hao stopped activating the symbols. He had by now roughly understood this great divine ability and could not help but feel amazed. It was indeed an exceptional item and definitely a major technique. It was was truly worthwhile to win the bid.
He then took out the praying mat and sat on it with his legs crossed. At first, nothing happened. When he held the shell in his hand and meditated seriously, everything changed.
Waves of spiritual light erupted from the praying mat, which was then accompanied by streaks of auspicious energy. One moment, purple qi seemed to come from the east, the next moment, the energy began to surge down like immortal energy. Misty light filled the space and divine light flickered, creating an extraordinary scene.
The praying mat was definitely an extremely valuable treasure. This was left behind by the Kun Peng who even used it while meditating, and also interweaved from elder wood, which was known to connect the mortal with the divine realm. In this era, it was difficult to find even a few other praying mats like this.
Even back then, treasures like this were held by those with great divine abilities.
Shi Hao sat cross-legged on the praying mat. His entire body looked translucent and sparkling. Symbols emerged one after another as the the techniques of the Black Turtle were utilized. Shi Hao was able to comprehend the techniques, and the symbols started to appear and circulate.
Over the surface of his body, earthy-colored light flickered and turned into plaques. Metallic sounds rang out, as if an armor was illuminating and making noise. It sounded like metal colliding with stones, thumping at one’s eardrums.
Just like that, he continued to study the technique. The light circulated around his body and continuously changed from time to time. Streaks of multicolored clouds erupted, giving him a mysterious and powerful appearance.
In the end, the earthen color disappeared and turned black. Symbols surged like tidal waves, forming an indistinct Black Tortoise. Its massive body towered in the air.
For several days in a row, Shi Hao immersed himself in a wondrous state. He meditated in silence and studied the techniques, learning a lot during this time.
Now that he had reached such a level that he no longer had to tread cautiously wherever he went. As long as he had an intact divine ability at hand, he could throw himself in immediately and figured it out slowly on his own.
It had only been a few days, yet he had already briefly grasped and mastered most of this divine ability. He was now able to use it.
Of course, it was impossible to learn the core imprint thoroughly in such a short period. To do that required a lot of time and endless effort.
Even so, he had still made quite an achievement. He had mastered most of the divine abilities of the Black Turtle and could use them in battles against enemies.
Shi Hao stood up and put away the praying mat. He stopped right there, for he knew that rushing would not bring success. He had learned everything he could for now, and the rest would require a long period of bitter research. He had been cultivating for quite some time, and now was not a good time.
Moreover, the gathering was getting near. He did not want to be interrupted during his meditation.
Two days later, a girl of 14 or 15 years old found Shi Hao there. She was incredibly pretty and had several snowy fox tails behind her. She walked with a willowy motion, and despite of her young age, there was already a natural charm about her.
“Her ladyship has invited you to the gathering.” The young girl said with a grin. Her big eyes glanced him over. “My lady says that she does not like a ‘chaste fairy’ and wants to find her a husband. Are you brave enough to take that fairy if my lady sells her to you?”
“Is there a ‘buy one get one free’ deal? Your lady looks nice, too.” Shi Hao replied without any hesitation, which left the young girl speechless.