Chapter 0859: Law Soil

“Wait….” Ning Cheng, who was in a hurry, got stopped by two cultivators, a man and a woman, both at the late-stage Eternal Realm.

Seeing Ning Cheng stop, the male cultivator cupped his fists towards Ning Cheng and asked, “Is this dao friend coming from the Grand Essence Seven Bridges?”

Ning Cheng looked at the two people in front of him in confusion and asked, “Why do you want to ask?”

The male cultivator explained, “The Grand Essence Seven Bridges collapsed. Almost everyone who received the news rushed to the Grand Essence Seven Bridges to look for opportunities. But since this dao friend is moving in the opposite direction of the Grand Essence Bridge, I wanted to ask if dao friend went to the Grand Essence Seven Bridges and then left?”

Ning Cheng immediately understood from this conversation that these two people must have just heard about the Grand Essence Seven Bridges collapse. They immediately wanted to go to the Grand Essence Seven Bridges. But with their speed, it would still take then about two days to reach it from here. If they went to the Grand Essence Bridge and didn’t find anything, wouldn’t they have made the trip in vain?

“Grand Essence Seven Bridges collapsed?” Ning Cheng asked with a surprised look, “When did this happen?”

The two cultivators, a man and a woman, saw Ning Cheng’s expression and understood that Ning Cheng had no idea about the collapse, and felt a little disappointed. But the male cultivator still kept a polite tone and explained whatever they heard to Ning Cheng.

After listening to the male cultivator, Ning Cheng frowned slightly. “Even if I went all out, it would still take me several days to get to the Grand Essence Seven Bridges. Since you said that the Grand Essence Seven Bridges collapsed two days ago, I’m afraid that even if there was anything good in there, I can’t get it now.”

The male cultivator also very much agreed to Ning Cheng’s words, “I think so too. That’s why I couldn’t make up my mind.”

After speaking, he turned to the female cultivator next to him and said, “Yu Ling, let’s not join in on the fun. Let’s head to the Broken Land to find Law Soil. With some luck, we might just find one or two clumps.”

Ning Cheng quickly asked when he heard this, “May I ask what is this Law Soil?”

The male cultivator looked at Ning Cheng with a confused look and only spoke after a while, “This dao friend, you’re in the Grand Essence Ruins, how could you not know about Law Soil?”

Ning Cheng gave an immediate reply, “I just arrived at the Grand Essence Ruins, but went straight to Grand Essence Ruins’ Defying Ice Mound on arrival. I’m not too clear about the Grand Essence Ruins, so I request some advice on it.”

The male cultivator didn’t doubt Ning Cheng’s words. Many first-time cultivators rarely had complete knowledge of the Grand Essence Ruins before coming here. Therefore, he took out a jade strip and handed it to Ning Cheng, “This contains an introduction to the Broken Land. This dao friend can keep it with you. We’ll be taking our leave first.”

He didn’t seem willing to join forces with some as ignorant as Ning Cheng. Therefore, after passing the jade strip to Ning Cheng, he immediately said goodbye and left.

Ning Cheng didn’t care about it either, and let his spiritual consciousness scan through the jade strip.

After a few moments, Ning Cheng got a good idea about ‘Law Soil’.

Broken Ground was a special place within the Grand Essence Ruins, and just like its name, was mostly broken and in ruins. The war from back then destroyed most of the heaven and earth laws in that place. However, this place was also somewhat different from other areas in the ruin. Nobody knew why, but countless years after the war, Law Soil started to condense in this place, a place with destroyed heaven and earth laws.

The most significant use of Law Soil was to cultivate Dao Raising Fruits.

The universe contained numerous, almost infinite, kinds of Dao Fruits holding law-related dao charm from all kinds of heaven and earth laws. Moreover, different Dao Fruits had different law-related dao charms. Some even contained wisps of Grand Dao Laws, while a few also contained law-related spiritual techniques. One could even go so far as to say that no two Dao Fruits were alike, even if they came from the same source or even the same tree.

Because of this, Dao Fruits could help people sense the different dao charms contained within it to step into the Dao Confirming Realm successfully. Moreover, if refined into a Dao Pill, you would have an even higher chance of entering the Dao Confirming Realm.

But how many cultivators did the vast universe have? Even the word ‘countless’ might not give justification to that question. Therefore, no matter how hard it was to enter the Dao Sculpting Realm, there were still plenty of cultivators in the universe who had reached that level. What’s more, for every step after Dao Sculpting, and even understandings related to the spirit techniques’ laws, needed some kind of help from Dao Fruits. Therefore, without relying on Dao Fruits, and just depending on one’s understanding, the chances of successfully stepping into the Dao Confirming’s three steps or moving forward remained slim to none.

Many cultivators needed Dao Fruits, but even though the universe had all sorts of Dao Fruits, it remains a limited commodity. It necessitated some experts in the Dao of Pills to start cultivating Dao Raising Fruits.

Dao Fruits usually contained all kinds of law-related dao charm, and some of the top-grade Dao Fruits even had strands of heaven and earth laws. Therefore, how could one cultivate them using ordinary means? It wasn’t just a matter of supplying it with adequate Starry Sky Spiritual Qi or even Spirit Qi[1].

The most important thing required to cultivate the Dao Raising Fruits was to infuse various law-related dao charm auras into the Dao Fruit Tree and then transfer it to the Dao Fruits. But even a cultivator proficient in laws couldn’t share their understanding of the law with Dao Fruits. Plus, the wild Dao Fruit Trees found between heaven and earth were even scarcer than the Dao Fruits raised by cultivators.

Moreover, even though Dao Fruit Trees capable of producing Dao Fruits were scarce, it was almost impossible to transplant them.

Every Dao Fruit Tree was already a rare treasure in itself. But the only reason any Dao Fruit Tree could grow and condense Dao Fruits is the area where it grew. Moreover, the laws permeating the site also needed to be highly compatible with it for its growth. It meant that once someone transplanted it, and the new area wasn’t a top-grade spiritual treasure land, then even if this Dao Fruit Tree didn’t die, it wouldn’t bear a single Dao Fruit.

Therefore, Law Soil became particularly handy and essential in such situations. Law Soil could allow Dao Fruit Trees to grow, and could also help it condense a trace of law-related dao charm aura during the growth process. Therefore, if you transplanted the Dao Fruit Tree into it, as long as you had enough Law Soil, the Dao Fruit Tree could continue to grow and bear Dao Fruits.

The Grand Essence Quest Hall also had many tasks related to the collection of Law Soils, but there were only a few places in Grand Essence Ruins that could condense it. That’s why jobs associated with Law Soil always had very high points. Even a little fingernail-sized clump meant a hundred thousand points. Therefore, the more Law Soil you can gather, the more points you can earn. If you get a lump of Law Soil as big as a fist, you might even rake in several hundred thousand points.

That’s because the larger the volume of Law Soil, the more complete the law aura contained within it, and the easier it would become for the Dao Fruit Tree to absorb it. Moreover, it was just one of its primary purposes. Law Soil’s tasks were also among the few jobs that can rake in both points and spirit crystals. More specifically, whatever points you get in exchange for the Law Soil, you would also receive the same number of high-rank spirit crystals.

It was this point that attached a high-value to the Law Soil in the eyes of the cultivators. Moreover, finding Law Soil didn’t involve much danger as long as you didn’t offend anyone. So much so that many low-level cultivators would head to the Broken Land to search for Law Soil.

But precisely because so many cultivators went looking for Law Soil, it resulted in a widespread scarcity for this item. No matter how much Law Soil would form in an area, the cultivators looking for it would wipe it clean.

After Ning Cheng learned about this Broken Land, he decided to go to this place to search for Law Soil. In the four grand starry skies, very few cultivators in the Eternal Realm could threaten him. But in this place, an Eternal cultivator was nothing more than an ant.

In any case, those who haven’t converted their celestial essence into spirit essence couldn’t threaten him. But if he met an Eternal cultivator who had already transformed their celestial essence into spirit essence, could he still take them head-on? What’s more, what about Dao Sculpting cultivators?

Ning Cheng hadn’t come in contact with any Dao Sculpting cultivators yet. Although Chuan Xinlou said that he had successfully reached the Dao Confirming Realm, it was his own words as even he had no idea about the Dao Sculpting Realm. Whether Hong Lun and that naked black-skinned man were Dao Sculpting cultivators or not, Ning Cheng had no idea.

Now that he obtained five of the Grand Essence Seven Bridges’ spirit techniques, the most important thing for him was to improve his cultivation. It wasn’t too realistic to reach the late-stage Eternal Realm in just a short period. But he could at least try converting his celestial essence into spirit essence. Once his Essence Qi transformed, his strength would take another step forward.

……

The Broken Land wasn’t like what Ning Cheng had imagined. According to Ning Cheng’s initial thought, this place most likely should have been a place filled with ravines and gullies, or at least have a devastation-filled view.

But after Ning Cheng reached this place, he realised that his thoughts were just too ridiculous.

The Broken Land had no crisscrossing ravines or gullies. Even if it did have some, they looked dug-out recently. From above, this place looked more like an endless, rugged plain.

Entering the Broken Land, Ning Cheng’s swept through every crevice and shadow. But the Broken Land was just too vast; even the Striking Order Star would look like a blip if placed next to it. Moreover, there were just too many cultivators looking for Law Soil in this place. If it already looked this crowded on the surface, one could only imagine the number of cultivators searching underground.

Even with Ning Cheng’s powerful spiritual consciousness, he could only view a small part of the area around him because of this place’s restrictions on spiritual consciousness.

As Ning Cheng let his spiritual consciousness drill deeper into the ground, he started to see fewer and fewer cultivators compared to the number on the surface of the Broken Land. However, Ning Cheng understood that it was just an illusion. Feeling the fluctuations of Essence Qi coming from under his feet, it let him know that there were far too many cultivators searching underground.

Ning Cheng kept changing positions for a full day while observing the situation and eventually reached the Broken Land’s depths. There he found a secluded place to dive into the ground.

He had never previously seen Law Soil, but he knew it very well that no one would show him something as precious as Law Soil. Fortunately, the jade strip given to him by that male cultivator had enough details. Law Soil was the soil required for cultivating Dao Fruits. Since it contained the laws of heaven and earth, it would be reasonably easy to recognise.

The soil containing a trace of heaven and earth’s laws would indeed be very easy to identify. As long as a cultivator had reached the Heaven Seated Realm or even Heaven’s Mandate Realm, they could quickly identify it. However, easy to identity didn’t mean easy to find.

After Ning Cheng dived nearly 10,000 meters into the ground from his chosen location, he let his spiritual consciousness permeate through the earth around him searching for Law Soil.

If an ordinary cultivator stood on the surface and focussed their spiritual consciousness downwards, they could at most reach a depth of around a thousand meters. Therefore, Ning Cheng chose to dive nearly 10,000 meters below the surface to ensure that no cultivators’ spiritual consciousness reached him.

Three days later, Ning Cheng felt truly disappointed. He wasn’t lazy at all during these three days and carefully searched everything around him. But even after three days of searching underground, he couldn’t sense any patch of soil with law aura, despite searching almost a few hundred miles in detail.

On the fourth day, Ning Cheng still kept closely searching. However, he had decided to give up on it and retreat if he didn’t find anything after another half a day. At this rate, even if he found a patch of Law Soil the size of a nail, the gains wouldn’t be worth the loss in both time and effort.

Ning Cheng intended to look around for another half a day, and if he still couldn’t find it, he would return to the Grand Essence Ruins’ Quest Hall to look for other tasks that could earn him enough points. But just when he thought of taking up another task, Ning Cheng felt a faint trace of law fluctuations. A clear difference existed between the fluctuations of the laws of heaven and earth and the fluctuations from Law Soil. Therefore, as soon as Ning Cheng felt these fluctuations, he understood that it came from a Law Soil patch.

He immediately moved towards it, but just when he wanted to reach out and grab this clump of Law Soil, a wave of Essence Qi rushed up from somewhere ahead of Ning Cheng and swept up that clump of Law Soil.

[1] The characters used for ‘Spirit Qi’ here are ‘神灵气’, mean ‘Spirit/ God/ Deity Spiritual Qi’. Since it doesn’t make much sense, plus is also a mouthful, I decided to translate it as ‘Spirit Qi’. I will go back and check the translated chapters to make the required corrections.

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