Cultivation is just so scientific! Chapter 1551 - 822: Inner Demons

Yang Xing sensed the swift draining of spiritual energy inside the Grotto Heaven; once the spiritual energy dwindled to a specific level, the density within struck a perilously low danger threshold.

Though he had never faced a spiritual energy drop like this before, he knew the dire outcomes if the Grotto Heaven's energy plunged too deeply.

He hastily pulled out a vein-locking plate, inside which lay a spirit vein at the Peak Great Cultivator stage.

This was the spirit vein from his former home, preserved as a reserve, now turning into the key salvation for the Grotto Heaven.

Yet this merely tackled the urgent threat and failed to fix the core issue; the pace of spiritual energy loss in the Grotto Heaven slowed down but didn't halt.

With the aid of an extra Peak Great Cultivator Spirit Vein, it offered just a brief delay.

As moments ticked by, Li Shiming noticed the spiritual energy pull rate surging abruptly; it wasn't surprising, considering his Half-step Great Power rank, armed with abundant treasures, so a spiritual energy drain obviously demanded countermeasures.

He was convinced that regardless of the tricks the Half-step Great Power employed, none could outpace the spiritual energy draw from this meticulously set-up formation.

Within the Grotto Heaven, Yang Xing powerlessly felt the spiritual energy ebbing away, after exhausting all his options.

At last, when the energy density sank beneath the vital threshold, the thunderclouds over the Grotto Heaven started to thin out, hinting at their imminent fade.

"No!" Yang Xing let out a desperate cry.

He couldn't be faulted for his breakdown; the vital element in the Grotto Heaven was the Thunder Rules held in the thunderclouds, and losing them would mean the thunder's total erasure.

Since his Grotto Heaven lacked the power to stabilize rules yet, the moment thunder vanished, the Thunder Rules would dissolve as well, nullifying his millennia of toil.

And he would crumble with the Grotto Heaven, staring down certain doom.

In desperation, he poured his Spiritual Power Pattern into sustaining the thunderclouds.

Yet no matter how much spiritual power he funneled in, the thunderclouds would devour it and transform it into spiritual energy, which the outer formation promptly siphoned off.

"What exactly do you want to do?" he bellowed fiercely.

Still, his words couldn't reach beyond the Grotto Heaven on their own, and Li Shiming hadn't probed inside with Divine Sense, so no matter his volume, Li Shiming remained oblivious.

Even if he yearned to plead for mercy, to implore Li Shiming to let him go, reaching out proved impossible.

Li Shiming ignored the chaos within the Grotto Heaven, relying solely on the spiritual energy the formation harvested to gauge the inner turmoil.

Right now, the harvested energy's density had grown terribly sparse; he realized his scheme had triumphed, uncovering a way to counter the Half-step Great Power.

He had no clue what would unfold without the spiritual energy backing, but he grasped that both the Half-step Great Power and the Grotto Heaven demanded energy to function.

While the Grotto Heaven might draw energy from the void to cover its minimal needs, holding a slight buffer.

Externally, however, with formations draining energy and no replenishment, the spiritual energy would keep falling until it couldn't meet the Grotto Heaven's basic demands, spelling massive disaster.

Li Shiming had no better option, compelled into this flawed strategy.

He had barely dodged death at the Half-step Great Power's hands, so naturally, he refused to let him off.

Above all, allowing the Half-step Great Power to survive was out of the question; should he break through to Great Power, Li Shiming's peaceful times would shatter.

The Half-step Great Power harbored a mortal grudge against him, and upon reaching Great Power, his immediate move would be to track him relentlessly.

Li Shiming doubted his ability to flee from a Great Power's chase, having seen Sword Elder in action, and the Half-step Great Power's opening strike had shown him the vast gap between himself and a true Great Power.

Li Shiming kept unleashing multiple spells, boosting the formation's pull on spiritual energy.

Slowly, the drawn energy dipped below even the surrounding area's levels, still dropping further.

This spot was just a mundane zone lacking spirit veins; cultivators avoided dwelling here due to the thin spiritual energy.

Thus, the Grotto Heaven's spiritual energy state was clear: too meager to cover its needs, locked in a dire famine.

In the Grotto Heaven's depths, Yang Xing persisted in upholding the thunderclouds with his spiritual power, knowing it was like sipping venom to slake thirst; once his reserves ran dry, survival would end.

But in this moment, he and the Grotto Heaven were intertwined; they shared a single fate. As a Half-step Great Power, in this crucial phase, he had to stay linked to the Grotto Heaven; its endurance meant his, its fall would claim him too.

Therefore, despite the pointlessness, he channeled his spiritual power to bolster the core Thunder Rules foundation in the Grotto Heaven.

At present, in the Grotto Heaven, only the Thunder Rules propped up by his might lingered; other rules, starved by the scant energy, could no longer hold.

The unraveling of every rule tore at his soul with agony; each represented the fruit of his long years of labor.

These hard-earned gems, crumbling away in mere moments; even surviving this ordeal, his path to Great Power would turn desperately remote.

"I will become a Mahayana Realm cultivator; I’m the sect’s most talented cultivator in three thousand years!" he roared in frenzy.

Terror, horror, anxiety, bitterness, fury, all merged into a wild, unhinged frenzy.