“What’s going on, Nie Tian?” Qiao Yunxi asked.

Eyes narrowed, Nie Tian slowly withdrew his hand from the control panel. “This teleportation portal contains two sets of coordinates. The one that leads to the Domain of the Falling Stars is usable now.” 

Now that he had set the spell formation to the coordinates that led to the Domain of the Falling Stars, he would be teleported to the Realm of Split Void by simply entering the portal.

“But I don’t know exactly where the second set of coordinate leads,” he explained, frowning. “It seems we won’t be able to use that set of coordinates for the time being.”

Tang Yong from the Divine Flame Sect sighed. “The Domain of the Falling Stars? I thought you could use it to teleport to the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace’s headquarters...”

The other Divine Flame Sect members also seemed rather disappointed.

Soon after following Yue Yanxi to this place and finding this palace, they had learned from Yue Yanxi that the person who they had been waiting for was from a domain called the Domain of the Falling Stars, which had recently been discovered by the Lei Clan.

That person was a successor chosen by the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace, but he hadn’t gotten in touch with the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace yet.

The most powerful experts in the Domain of the Falling Stars were only at the late Soul realm. They didn’t even have a single Void domain expert.

For this reason, the Lei Clan, one of their subordinate forces, had been able to do whatever they had wanted there.

Now, since this teleportation portal could only connect to the Domain of the Falling Stars for the time being, it meant that the forces in the Domain of the Falling Stars were the only ones they could turn to now.

Facing the five Void domain experts Xing Beichen had summoned here, what kind of help would the Domain of the Falling Stars be able to provide?

After a moment of pondering, Nie Tian turned to Tang Yong and said, “Let’s keep everyone in this palace for now. You’ll be safe here at the very least. 

“As for Senior Yue, considering his cultivation base, even facing five Void domain experts, he’ll probably be able to get himself to safety. We don’t need to worry too much about him.”

Tang Yong nodded. “We don’t seem to have any other options.”

“Alright. I’m going to practice cultivation now. Suit yourselves.” With these words, Nie Tian found an empty spot, sat down in the lotus position, and started practicing cultivation.

Yin Yanan from the Beast-controlling Sect had looked around for some time after entering the palace, but still failed to find anything useful to her.

She then realized that Nie Tian would be the only one who could solve the secrets of this palace.

Even so, since her safety was guaranteed, she had nothing to complain about.

Therefore, while Nie Tian was cultivating, she found a spot close to Nie Tian and also sat down in silence.

Shortly afterwards, Tang Yong and the others also spread out, sat down, and waited in silence.

Tang Yong examined the numerous stone rooms inside the palace with his soul awareness, but failed to find a single item in them.

Since this wasn’t the Divine Flame Sect’s territory, they didn’t dare to walk around to conduct a thorough examination of the palace.

Therefore, they just sat there and practiced cultivation, while waiting to see how things would go.

Eyes closed, Nie Tian thought to himself, “Advancement in cultivation requires accumulation over a long period of time. However, by refining and deriving enlightenment from the second fragmentary star mark, I sped up my advancement.”

Therefore, he channeled power from his star souls, mixed it with his soul awareness, and sent it into the second fragmentary star mark to continue to derive enlightenment of Starchain.

While his soul awareness swam within the second fragmentary star mark, peace and clarity were restored to his mind. He even felt as if he could think more thoroughly than before.

An astonished expression appeared on his face as he instantly realized that the efficiency of him deriving enlightenment inside this palace was much higher than anywhere else he had been.

The ancient magical symbols that recorded Starchain were originally very hard to understand, but this time, as he tried to derive enlightenment from them, many points he hadn’t been able to understand before suddenly became plain and clear.

“This palace is so full of wonders!”

Then, he completely ignored the things around him and focused solely on deriving enlightenment of Starchain.

In the palace, Yin Yanan and the Divine Flame Sect disciples gradually settled down and practiced cultivation in silence.

However, shortly afterwards, they opened their eyes one after another, shock filling their faces.

Even they discovered that their efficiency of channeling spiritual power into their spiritual seas had become significantly higher than before, and they would have feelings of being suddenly enlightened from time to time.

This meant that not only Nie Tian, but others could also take advantage of the unique traits of this place to cultivate and derive enlightenment more efficiently.

The Divine Flame Sect disciples were overjoyed by this shocking discovery, and they started to seize every minute to go through the profound incantations they hadn’t understood before.

It was very consuming to try to derive enlightenment of Starchain. Only after a short while, Nie Tian started to experience a strong sense of depletion.

He thus withdrew his soul awareness, and discovered that the nine star souls over his sea of awareness had lost quite some power, and had become noticeably dimmer.

It would take a long time for him to recover soul power on his own.

However, he currently had a large number of soul crystals in his possession.

A soul crystal flew out from within his ring of holding into his palm.

As soon as it did, his nine star souls started to madly channel pure soul power from it, like dried sponges that had finally found water.

The star souls gradually shone brighter and brighter again.

As he gradually recovered the soul power he had consumed, he soon felt enlivened and full of vigor again.

After the soul crystal was drained of its power and crumbled, he once again summoned his soul awareness to derive enlightenment of Starchain.

After an unknown period of time, the mysterious magical symbols that carried the profound knowledge of Starchain gradually vanished.

This indicated that Nie Tian had learned everything there was to learn about Starchain, and had completely mastered it.

“Starchain allows me to use my true soul to summon power from my star souls, and forge it into chains that can bind or seal souls.”

As a thought entered his mind, the Spirit Pearl flew out of his ring of holding.

Immediately afterwards, he sent a wisp of his soul awareness into it, and saw that the Phantasm soul, which had been purged and turned into a pure soul, had somehow become much stronger than before.

The soul had already been erased of its old memories and branded with Nie Tian’s unique origin marks.

As soon as the wisp of his soul awareness entered, he heard what sounded like cheers.

Like a cluster of mist, the soul took the initiative to approach him like a child skipping towards their father.

Nie Tian was taken by surprise. “This is...”

He hadn’t expected that it had grown so much over the past two months, and it seemed to have already established a firm foothold within the Spirit Pearl.

All of the discarnate souls, which had been in the Spirit Pearl long before it had come along, seemed to be afraid of it, as they all stayed far away from it.

The aura the soul was exuding was stronger than that of any discarnate soul within the Spirit Pearl.

Nie Tian’s wisp of soul awareness didn’t spend too much time examining it, but rather found a random discarnate soul to test out his newly-acquired knowledge about Starchain.

SHEW! SHEW! SHEW!

As a thought entered his mind, bits of starlight flew out of his mind into the Spirit Pearl.

Pure soul power rapidly came together, forming a glowing chain of many links.

Immediately afterwards, the Starchain shot towards a discarnate soul.

As it did, the blurry discarnate soul that looked like a cluster of smoke trembled with great fear.

Even so, the Starchain caught and wrapped around it in the blink of an eye. Unable to move in the slightest, the discarnate soul rapidly shrank down and became increasingly illusory. Eventually, it turned into a puff of smoke and vanished completely.

“It can actually refine the soul after binding it!”

Expression flickering, Nie Tian noticed that the Starchain still had power left within it, even after the discarnate soul had vanished completely.

This proved that it hadn’t consumed much power to refine that discarnate soul, and it might be able to refine other discarnate souls.

The other discarnate souls that were gathered around the perimeter instantly scattered like birds that were startled by the twang of a bow-string.

“I finally have my own soul magic now!”

A hearty smile appeared at the corner of his mouth as he withdrew his soul awareness from the Spirit Pearl.

He didn’t go on to learn the new magical symbols that came to appear in his second fragmentary star mark.

Instead, after a moment of pondering, he unleashed his Heaven Eyes.

Like nine invisible lanterns, his Heaven Eyes floated in midair in the middle of the great hall.

With his Heaven Eyes’ keen perception, wisps of Nie Tian’s soul awareness spread like water towards the palace walls and infused into the countless profound star formations that were carved in them.

Immediately afterwards, a sea of information left the palace walls and surged towards the nine Heaven Eyes from all directions.

This information seemed to carry a profound method to summon and use the power of the palace.

“This whole palace is a grand spell formation!”

Eyes lighting up, Nie Tian suddenly recalled the time when he had activated the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace’s spell formation with his fragmentary star marks in the Realm of Mystic Heaven, and destroyed the ancient Phantasm starship, along with Basto, with a single strike.

“This palace is meant for me, along with everything here. It’s only natural that I can use this grand spell formation!”

With these thoughts, he focused on gathering information with his nine Heaven Eyes, sorting through and realigning it in his mind, until every detail of the spell formation was fully displayed in his mind.