Chapter 534: The Wind Blows Past, a Contest of Celestial Secrets

Chapter 534: Chapter 497: The Wind Blows Past, a Contest of Celestial Secrets

A gentle breeze brushed past Song Ciwan.

But it wasn’t a real breeze. It was a subtle, almost imperceptible power.

Song Ciwan walked under the Mountain and River Mirror, her expression impassive. The changes wrought by her Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting were an invisible presence within her body.

Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting was an incredibly strange Transformation Technique, different from almost any other in the world—

Common Transformation Techniques in the world usually fall into several categories:

The first is the Illusion Technique category. To put it bluntly, these are a type of Blinding Technique that only visually alters a creature’s appearance, like draping a curtain of light and shadow over your face and body.

No matter how much the curtain changes, you yourself remain completely unchanged.

It’s fine as long as the illusion isn’t seen through, but if it is, the backlash can be severe.

Furthermore, an Illusion Technique is a type of Magic that always emits fluctuations. Many places even have Magical Artifacts and Magical Treasures set up to detect them. Thus, while Illusion Techniques have a wide range of uses, few people in the major cities of the Nine Provinces use them to alter their faces.

Besides Illusion Techniques, another type of Transformation Technique uses methods like Bone and Muscle Transformation to change the body’s shape and appearance.

This method is more sophisticated than Illusion Techniques and, on the surface, bears some resemblance to Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting.

Transformation Techniques based on Bone and Muscle Transformation have several distinct advantages over illusions.

First, they don’t have illusory fluctuations, making them hard to detect. Second, they genuinely alter the body’s physical form, making them difficult to break. Even if forcefully dispelled, the user simply reverts to their original form without suffering any backlash.

But there’s an old saying in this world: What’s fake will always be fake; it can never become real.

Transformation Techniques of the Bone and Muscle Transformation type also have two fundamental, hard-to-solve problems: one is aura, and the other is one’s fundamental nature.

Every living being in the world has its own unique aura and fundamental nature.

One’s appearance can be changed, but the fluctuations of their aura and soul are difficult to alter.

Even if the aura can be concealed and the soul’s fluctuations disguised, what about one’s fundamental nature?

That involves the Celestial Secret itself!

Unless a Transformation Technique is powerful enough to conceal the Celestial Secret, it may deceive the people of the world, but it can hardly deceive a celestial divination.

Of course, reaching the level of obscuring the Celestial Secret is a contest between top-tier experts. Not just anyone in this world possesses the ability to divine celestial secrets.

But I digress. Let’s return to Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting.

Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting is different from both of the above. Its changes aren’t just to the face or the body’s shape. It fundamentally alters everything from the meridians and internal organs to the very bones.

To use a simple analogy: Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting is like allowing a person to return to the womb and undergo a true physical reconstruction!

With this kind of fundamental change, if you turn into a man, you are a man. If you turn into a woman, you are a woman. Even changing into a demon, a monster, or an object… is no problem.

Currently, Song Ciwan had only ever changed between male and female forms. As for changing species… it was embarrassing to admit, but she hadn’t learned how.

Even with her Primordial Spirit Dao Body, excellent comprehension, and vast amounts of time for Cultivation, she still couldn’t get past the hurdle of changing species. If she couldn’t learn it, she couldn’t learn it. There was nothing to be done.

So later, Song Ciwan focused her practice of Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting on obscuring the Celestial Secret.

This too was a subject worthy of endless, deep study. Whether or not she could change species wasn’t the point. If the changes to her aura and fundamental nature weren’t perfect, then no matter how much her appearance varied, it would all be meaningless.

By now, when Song Ciwan used Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting, she could truly become a different person from the inside out.

As for obscuring the Celestial Secret, that was now a routine matter for her, as natural as breathing.

Now, it all depended on whether this Six-star Level Mountain and River Mirror, with its power of insight, could break through the concealment of the Celestial Secret provided by her Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting.

As the “gentle breeze” swept over her, Song Ciwan felt her heart clench. In her Sea of Consciousness, her Divine Power was being consumed at an incredible rate.

She had cultivated to the Late-stage Divinity Transformation Realm. Her divinity was strong and sat enthroned upon her Spirit Platform. The part of Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting that obscured the Celestial Secret required the use of Divine Power to cloak the heavens and earth and twist reality.

In the unseen world, countless threads seemed to extend from Song Ciwan’s body, crisscrossing the heavens and earth, and they felt as if they were about to be plucked.

Within Song Ciwan’s Sea of Consciousness, the Samadhi True Fire burned faintly as her Divine Power surged out frantically.

BOOM!

The wind passed.

There was no sound, yet there was a sound that only Song Ciwan could hear. The frantic surge of Divine Power enveloped those outward-stretching threads, holding them perfectly still.

She passed under the Mountain and River Mirror. In the end, the mirror did not reveal her true form, but in that instant, her Divine Power was almost completely depleted!

The entire process sounds thrilling and perhaps endlessly long, but in reality, the contest between them happened in a mere instant.

It didn’t even take a single breath. Song Ciwan did her best to calm her racing heart, walked past the Mountain and River Mirror, and began to regulate her True Qi to restore her Divine Power.

Of course, she hid it all perfectly on the surface. Even General Yu, an Acupoint Fusion Realm expert, didn’t notice that her Divine Power had fallen into a state of extreme weakness at that moment.

If General Yu had reached out to grab Song Ciwan right then, she might not have been able to dodge.

This was the importance of Divine Power. The divinity commanded one’s Essence Qi. Once Divine Power weakened, even if her True Qi consumption was low, Song Ciwan’s combat ability would plummet.

Tempestuous waves crashed in Song Ciwan’s heart. ‘The power of the Mountain and River Mirror truly lives up to its reputation.’

She secretly retrieved a Soul Cleansing Pill from her Heaven and Earth Scale and swallowed it. On the surface, no one noticed her taking a pill to recover.

All the Medical Cultivators had passed under the Mountain and River Mirror. The mirror’s surface remained as calm as a jade-green lake, without a single ripple.

Song Ciwan looked back and saw Zhou Mu and the others in the crowd behind, craning their necks to watch her go. When she turned, Liu Qingqing waved frantically at her.

Song Ciwan’s gaze fell upon Zhou Mu, Liu Qingqing, and the others, and she gave them a slight nod from a distance.

This response immediately caused the other Cultivators under the city wall to stir. Inside the gate tunnel, the Medical Cultivators walked on, while some of the many enthusiastic gazes from below the wall shifted toward Zhou Mu’s group.

An acquaintance standing nearby quickly greeted Zhou Mu and his companions. “Brother Zhou, are you well acquainted with that Medical Immortal from just now?”

Zhou Mu hurriedly replied, “Xing Lan Fairy helped us a great deal. We are extremely grateful.”

His words were neither a denial nor a confirmation, but the enthusiasm of the surrounding crowd immediately surged. Some people even left the line, pushing their way over to ask Zhou Mu about his experience with “that Medical Immortal.”

The West Wind Army led the group of Medical Cultivators through the gate tunnel. Cai An sent out a Communication Talisman, and a large Puppet Carriage immediately came speeding from the other end of the long street.

From a distance, a person on the carriage was shouting, “General Yu, I heard you’ve recruited a Five-star Medical Cultivator at the city gate! Where is this esteemed senior? My hall master ordered me to come and invite them at once!”