A long time passed, and slowly, the ferocious aura emanating from Meng Hao’s body faded. Finally, he opened his eyes. His pupils looked normal, but deep in their recesses was a shocking profundity. They were like deep pools of water, or an endlessly starry night sky.
Meng Hao took a long, deep breath. Within his body, his eight Dao Pillars glowed with a violet aura. They rotated, emitting spiritual power throughout his body which far, far outmatched his previous power.
“It’s still not enough,” he thought. “But it’s the best I can do for now. Eight Dao Pillars. I don’t have quite enough to pass the critical juncture for the final Dao Pillar.” It wasn’t that he didn’t have enough medicinal pills. For some reason, he had the strange feeling that there was something about the ninth Dao Pillar that didn’t have anything to do with medicinal pills.
He felt as if he were in a bottleneck, and that at some point he would reach a turning point. Once that turning point arrived, he wouldn’t need any medicinal pills whatsoever. Instead, he would be able to rely on his eight Dao Pillars to create the ninth. Then he would have completed the great circle of Foundation Establishment.
He took a deep breath, and sat there thoughtfully for a long moment. Finally, he lifted his head and looked outside of the Immortal’s Cave. It was still raining. The murmur of the rainfall filled the land. Everything looked dim and hazy.
His secluded meditation had lasted for a long time, and he had no idea of the events which had transpired during that better part of a year. He also had no idea whether or not Zhou Dekun had escaped with his life.
For the moment, Meng Hao chose not to go out. His eyes shining, he looked down at his bag of holding and then produced a Spring and Autumn tree.
Having been in secluded meditation for more than half a year already, he didn’t really care much about how much time had passed. Once he did go out, he wanted to be prepared to make up for his previous defeat at the hands of the azure-masked Cultivator. With death!
Meng Hao took a deep breath. He lifted up the Spring and Autumn tree in his right hand. A blinding violet glow appeared in his palm. He employed the full, massive power of his eight Dao Pillars to begin the catalyzing process.
The violet light grew more and more intense, and the Spring and Autumn tree sucked it in. Soon, a second sprout appeared on its surface. At the same time, Meng Hao’s left hand performed the incantation to brand the Spring and Autumn tree with the Time locking magic.
“Including the test I performed in the Black Sieve Sect, twenty years of Time are now locked within this Spring and Autumn tree.” He pulled out a jade box, within which was the Primordial Heavenly Replenishing Pill. He examined it closely, comparing it to the Spring and Autumn tree.
“Time is like a poison, a poison which can be used to refine treasures. It melts away life force….” Within Meng Hao’s mind appeared the images of what had happened to Chen Jiaxi. After some time passed, he took a deep breath, and then once again picked up the Spring and Autumn tree and began to catalyze the Time within.
Time passed, ten days, in the blink of an eye. On this particular day, a look of concentration covered Meng Hao’s face. The Spring and Autumn tree in his hand was now half gray. However, locked within was nearly fifty years of Time. The further along he went, the more of his Cultivation base he had to use to perform the catalyzation, and the slower it went.
As of now, he was completing the last ten years of a sixty year cycle. When this catalyzation was completed, the Spring and Autumn tree would look completely different than it had before.
It was dusk, and the rain outside was still falling down in sheets. Meng Hao was completely focused on the Spring and Autumn tree. He continued catalyzing without pause. Suddenly, his expression flickered; the Spring and Autumn tree had begun to wither.
It seemed as if the tree couldn’t handle the fifty years of Time. Regardless of what mystical properties the Spring and Autumn tree had, at this moment it was decaying. Soon, it turned into gray ash, which collapsed through Meng Hao’s fingers.
An unsightly expression appeared on his face. He looked down at the ash, and then back at his right hand. His hand appeared to have aged as well. It wasn’t fifty years, but obviously the failure just now had resulted in a recoil.