The Jade Bone Heart Sutra’s Trial

The moment they departed, Jiaofeng emerged, addressing Luo Yingkong.

“Quickly, bring out those bottles of medicine,” he urged. “I have a feeling they’ll be incredibly useful to me.”

Luo Yingkong had initially not intended to keep the mysterious liquids found at the top of the manor. However, at Jiaofeng’s insistence, she had foregone the magical artifacts in favor of taking the bottles.

“If Brother Jiao needs them, then take them,” she offered.

Jiaofeng took the bottles, sniffing them intently. The scent felt profoundly familiar, yet he couldn’t quite recall what it was.

Meanwhile, Luo Yingkong retrieved the Jade Bone Heart Sutra, which she had found on the skeleton, and sat on the bed to peruse it. The instant she turned to the first page, a flash of white light erupted.

Luo Yingkong’s eyes became vacant, as if her soul had been stripped away. Jiaofeng, observing the anomaly, quickly moved closer.

“Fellow Daoist Luo? Master?” he called out, his voice filled with urgency.

No matter how he tried to rouse her, she remained unresponsive.

Luo Yingkong felt as though she had been drawn into the book itself. The area she now occupied was shrouded in a hazy mist, yet her inherent rationality allowed her to regain her composure quickly.

The surrounding fog was too dense, obscuring her vision entirely. Her spiritual sense, too, was suppressed, unable to extend beyond her body. Beneath her feet, the crimson earth lay barren, devoid of even a single blade of grass.

Unable to discern any direction, she began marking the ground before proceeding straight ahead. Suddenly, a pile of colossal bones materialized before her, appearing immeasurably vast.

Luo Yingkong cautiously reached out to touch them. A sudden surge of qi and blood coursed through her, and her heart pounded with an inexplicable rhythm.

“Little girl, you are quite extraordinary, possessing two souls that, remarkably, do not conflict.”

An ethereal voice resonated, its origin unknown, yet it sounded like a middle-aged man.

“Which senior is here? And where is this place?” Luo Yingkong tentatively inquired, addressing the sky.

“There’s no need to be alarmed. You’ve opened the Jade Bone Heart Sutra I left behind, haven’t you? I placed a restriction on the first page; you’ve merely fallen under a hallucination. As for me, I am but a wisp of my true self’s soul,” the man’s voice continued.

“Then, Senior, having set this restriction to guide me here, what instructions do you have for me?” Luo Yingkong understood that with such formidable divine abilities, annihilating her soul would be effortless for him. There was no need for her to endure this ordeal otherwise.

“You are only at the thirteenth layer of Qi Condensation. Normally, I would have directly extinguished your soul, but observing your unique nature, I believe you wish to learn my divine abilities. However, you must first pass a trial.”

A chill of apprehension ran through Luo Yingkong. If anyone else had opened that book, they might have perished instantly. From now on, she resolved not only to be wary of people but also of unknown objects.

“What if I don’t wish to learn? Can I then be released?”

“That’s truly amusing. This spell, if taken outside, would cause Nascent Soul cultivators to fight tooth and nail for it. Since you’ve opened my book, you must pass the trial. Afterward, whether you choose to learn it or not is entirely up to you.”

****

As soon as he finished speaking, numerous skeletons emerged from the mist. They were mere frameworks of bone, yet they could walk, and they swiftly encircled Luo Yingkong.

“Considering your Qi Condensation cultivation, the trial will be somewhat simpler. This is the first stage: you only need to eliminate the skeletons. If you die, your soul will also vanish.”

The mist suddenly dispersed, revealing an endless expanse of humanoid skeletons before Luo Yingkong. She had prepared herself, but her eyelids still twitched.

‘I might die from exhaustion before I’m even killed. Is this what they call simpler?’ she mused.

As the trial commenced, Luo Yingkong initiated a probing attack, unleashing a punch infused with spiritual energy at a nearby skeleton. Though the skeleton shattered into pieces, her fist throbbed with pain; she had struck bone. The sensation of pain and the drain on her stamina were identical to those experienced by her true body.

She instinctively reached for her waist. Her storage bag was still there, and a wave of relief washed over her. This would make things considerably easier.

Drawing out her flying shield, she ascended into the air. The skeletons, clustered together, began to climb, their speed surprisingly swift. In mere moments, they had formed a human ladder three zhang high.

However, Luo Yingkong could move freely in the air, rendering her untouchable by the skeletons. She retrieved a box of grenades, infused them with spiritual energy, and began tossing them down.

Like a bomber aircraft, she manually dropped the explosives. Each spiritual energy-infused grenade possessed a destructive power spanning hundreds of zhang. Even scattered bones could crush many of the creatures.

If the remnant soul could witness this, he would surely be dumbfounded. Such a powerful weapon, and she possessed an entire box of them!

After throwing a dozen or so, Luo Yingkong’s spiritual energy began to wane. The spirit stones in her storage bag were still present, so she absorbed them while simultaneously infusing spiritual energy into the grenades.

Despite her efforts, the number of skeletons showed no sign of diminishing. They seemed to emerge from nowhere, an endless, inexhaustible horde. After an entire night of bombing, the grenades in the box gradually dwindled.

From the distant mist, several bone birds, similar in size to Jiaofeng, soared forth. Luo Yingkong was startled, realizing that even the air was no longer safe. She drew out her pistol and fired a continuous volley at the bone birds. Several bullets pierced through them, but it seemed ineffective. Unless completely shattered, they simply couldn’t be killed.

She attempted to use her flying disc to slash them, and fortunately, the effect was significant; one strike could shatter a bone bird. However, there were too many of them, and her efforts to control both the flying disc and her flying shield were akin to trying to put out a forest fire with a cup of water.

A flock of bone birds closed in on her. Luo Yingkong’s flying shield moved slowly, making aerial combat highly disadvantageous.

“How can I possibly kill them all?”

Gritting her teeth, she retrieved her colossal cauldron. She affixed several Thousand-Catty Talismans to her arms, using them to smash two oncoming bone birds. Then, she leaped into the pile of skeletons below.

Electric shocks and Corrupting Butterflies proved ineffective against the skeletons; she could only rely on brute force to eliminate them. The immense power of the colossal cauldron was considerable, with a single swing capable of crushing a large swath of them.

The drawback was its immense consumption of spiritual energy. After only a few swings, her energy was nearly depleted. With skeletons swarming her, she couldn’t find a moment to replenish it, and Luo Yingkong began to feel a sense of dread.

Just as her spiritual energy hit rock bottom, the man’s voice reappeared: “If you can endure for another hour without using spiritual energy, you will pass.”

Hearing these words, a glimmer of opportunity returned. Her physical combat skills were not weak. Setting down the massive cauldron, she retrieved the rusty dagger she had purchased at the gathering.

The dagger emanated an ancient, decaying aura. The skeletons, sensing this presence, actually paused. Without hesitation, Luo Yingkong weaved through the skeletons, employing her Cloud-Treading Steps in conjunction with her martial arts. The dagger proved exceptionally sharp, cutting through bone as easily as slicing tofu.

Moreover, any skeleton struck by the dagger would fall to the ground, unable to rise. Luo Yingkong was greatly surprised, wondering if this effect would persist outside the illusion.

She lost track of time, her mind maintaining a high level of focus. A single misstep could result in a scratch from a skeleton, and her body was already covered in numerous wounds. For the first time, an hour felt incredibly long. Her stamina began to falter, and she silently recited the incantation for the Muscle Gate Art.

‘Since it’s an illusion, I shouldn’t have to endure any side effects afterward,’ Luo Yingkong thought, grabbing the colossal cauldron with her bare hands and smashing it into the nearby skeletons.

“Excellent. With your strength, dealing with Foundation Establishment cultivators should be more than enough. You are worthy of my sect’s cultivation method. You have passed the first stage.”

As the man’s voice faded, all the skeletons ceased their movements and slowly burrowed back into the ground. Luo Yingkong was drenched in sweat, her body trembling slightly from overexertion.

“To learn the Jade Bone Heart Sutra, one must possess great perseverance, fear no death, and remain unburdened by emotions. The second stage begins now.”

****

Her previously exhausted body suddenly felt much more comfortable, and the sensation of fatigue vanished entirely. The surrounding mist once again gathered, and the light dimmed. Luo Yingkong’s head grew heavy, and she drifted into sleep.

****

“Lights on!”

“Sector C pipeline has burst, all power lines are down…”

“Dr. Lin Tian.”

“Dr. Lin Tian?”

Opening his eyes, Lin Tian felt a heavy sensation throughout his body; all the previous lightness had vanished.

“This… am I back?”

Seeing the assistant before him, Lin Tian was momentarily stunned. This was clearly the laboratory. He touched his face, his glasses falling to the ground and blurring his vision. The cacophony of many voices filled the air.

‘I’m back? Am I still within the illusion, or was everything before just a dream?’ His thoughts were a tangled mess. Everything around him felt so real, yet his memories of cultivation were equally undeniable.

“Doctor, the experiment yielded no results. Don’t be disheartened. However, we achieved the fastest particle speed in history, which is enough to prove that particle collisions are useless; they simply cannot simulate a cosmic explosion.”

The assistant, who bore the exact same face as the cultivator Yan, picked up the glasses and placed them back on Lin Tian’s face.