Once the death of a Chu clan member spread, Zou Liqin's fuse worked perfectly, as the Chu clan was now thrown into the fray. A large-scale chaotic battle ensued for the next two years, with Zou Liqin taking advantage of it, to kill anyone from the Zou clan. She was determined to slaughter them all.
The shy girl had turned into an insidious killer who had no bounds on the means she could use for her goal. Poison, curses, frame jobs, nothing was below her.
Her spree however soon came to an end, when her grandfather who was still at the Zou clan, accidentally died in one of her schemes, when someone from the Chu family attacked. Bereft with grief, she sought to end her life, luckily before she could Yu Mei pulled her out of the nightmare.
The whole event was seen by Yang Qing and the rest because of a special artifact made from the origin of the waterfall. Yang Qing saying he was surprised by how things turned out, was an understatement. He didn't expect Zou Liqin to have that side in her.
Had Yu Mei not intervened, Zou Liqin would have suffered elimination. With what they saw, it was already grounds to disqualify her as an unstable element, but the Order had ways to help her deal with whatever traumas and issues were buried in her heart. Therefore, Yang Qing decided to allow her to continue with the test and there was also another factor at play, Luck.
To mortals, Luck was something intangible and unassuming, but to cultivators, it was a very real thing and Zou Liqin had it going for her when she decided to invite Yu Mei who ended up being a lifeline for her.
While Luck was an ethereal concept to cultivation, it was counted as a real thing, as a fabric of the world like space, time, karma, and other major Dao that guided the functionality of the world, luck could be counted amongst them.
Every cultivator especially those who have made a name for themselves, usually had the highest amount of luck, if luck was quantifiable. The two could not be separated from each other. Suddenly stumbling into a natural herb that conveniently helps you awaken your bloodline, resting in a cave that has spirit meridian with Dao properties to it that help you gain enlightenment, walking into a ruin that has been ransacked clean but you end up picking up a broken assumed object that turns out to hold a long-lost legacy.
Every single one of these events had the thread of luck on it, and every single cultivator including Yang Qing has been touched by it, and now so has Zou Liqin. Who knows she may very well end up doing something monumental in the future, and this was the moment that triggered it for her. Yang Qing was willing to let her have that chance and find out, despite how worrying thoughts.
…
"This test sure has its share of surprises," said Yang Qing as the rest nodded along in agreement.
There was Yu Mei with the crystal-glazed heart physique. Gaining that physique was a blessing and a curse. No matter whether you were born with a powerful background or a normal setting or dire circumstances, every holder of that physique rolled a dice if the physique would be a blessing to them or a curse.
The physique itself other than not granting the user any outstanding physical abilities could be considered a top-tier physique. It imbued the owner with clarity, and this clarity didn't only translate to knowing themself, it touched even Dao.
Every owner of that physique was immune to illusion and effects that targeted their mind and hearts. They could not be beguiled easily, especially if the means involved using their deepest desires like the heart-cleansing waterfall. This was why Yu Mei remained unaffected in the waterfall and even had time to save Zou Liqin who almost lost herself in there.
In addition the more the user excavated their physique, the immunity even spread to poison and curses. However, the thing that made it a top-tier physique was its ability to sensitize its user to the Dao at an early age, as early as even birth at times.
Every owner of the crystal-glazed heart physique was guaranteed to reach the palace realm at the very least. And this was even without having any cultivation art or resources to their name. All cultivation arts in essence, their purpose was to help the cultivators to get attuned with the Dao, which was already one of the fortes of the crystal glazed heart physique.
However, despite such a heaven-defying opportunity, most users of this physique never reached their full potential. The reason for this ironically was because of the Dao advantage afforded to every user of the crystal-glazed heart physique.
Every single user had a crystal heart in them that grew more powerful, the more their cultivation base grew. That crystal heart was the reason for their deaths. Were it consumed by someone at the peak of the palace realm their chances of breaking through to the domain realm and surviving their tribulation were increased drastically due to the effect of the crystal heart allowing them to deepen and firm their understanding of their own Dao.
When news broke of the crystal heart increasing the odds of a cultivator breaking through to the domain realm, the whole continent was sent into an uproar with every known owner of the crystal glaze heart physique getting hunted.
ƥαṇdα-ηθνε|·ƈθm Sect clashed against sect, kingdom against kingdom, empire against empire soon it spiraled inwards; fellow clan members turned on each other to the point parent turned against child and vice versa. As long as you had the crystal glaze heart physique you couldn't trust your mother, father, sister, brother, master, sect master, martial siblings, or any other person with that revelation. Gaining the chance to enter the domain realm was temptation enough to blur the lines of such relationships.
Having such a physique soon became a death sentence. It didn't matter whether you were born in a rank 2 organization or some non-descript shack somewhere. Your fates could very well go down the same route considering who finds out about your physique.
As time went by even hiding the physique became difficult. You could always rely on cultivators to be creative and determined when it came to the pursuit of powerful cultivation. Cultivation arts geared towards identifying those with the crystal-glazed heart physique numbered in the thousands, with constant improvements happening every other day.
Other than that, they also improved on the various methods of correctly harvesting the crystal heart for maximum efficacy. Medicine in the cultivation world stagnated, but when it came to butchering someone perfectly, the grounds it made were light years ahead of normal medicine. As long as something had use, you can be sure there is a cultivator somewhere who has an entire in-depth legacy on how to extract that object.
Yang Qing sometimes wondered about the first cultivator to discover the ability of the crystal heart, and what exactly was he/she up to at that moment. Was it by accident, or intentional?
For now, he could only sigh at Yu Mei's luck. At least within the Order, her safety could be guaranteed and those who made it through had some level of pride in their talent. They wouldn't stoop so low as to harvest the crystal heart to break through to the domain realm. The Order wasn't alone in this. The two Holy lands and some of the old and powerful rank 1 organizations such as the One thousand battle hall palace were similar in this regard. Most of the cultivators with Crystal glaze heart physique ended up seeking refuge in these organizations.
As far as Yang Qing knew, three of the hall masters at One thousand battle hall palace had the crystal glaze heart physique, and as for the Order, the Chief Inquisitor who was in charge of all the inquisitors including even the roaming and special inquisitor had a Crystal glaze heart physique. Yang Qing has never met them though.
Other than Yu Mei, there were also other surprising figures among the participants, and one of them was a seven-year-old boy who went toe to toe with the legacies when it came to the speed at which they scaled the mountain. They were already a third of the way through.
The seven-year-old boy had a special physique too. Yang Qing didn't know which one, but he felt it was oddly familiar. From what he could tell, the physique had a primordial origin, which he could tell from the purple aura that occasionally leaked from the body of the boy whenever he fought. He was a walking body of pure unadulterated destruction. The boy didn't have a cultivation base, but as he fought and moved up the mountain, his body broke through to the qi refinement realm.
This was the advantage of those with natural physiques, they could directly skip the body refining stage if the conditions were right. Among the participants present, that seven-year-old boy was the one that stood out the most.
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