Trials of the Abyss

Chapter 320: Three Thousand Strands of Divine Sense!

Time flew by, with Pang Jian remaining unconscious as he witnessed the great upheaval in the Mystic Frost World and the fall of a God.

Though his body lay motionless, tremendous changes were happening in his dantian, spiritual sea, and sea of consciousness.

His strange transformation was also mysteriously reflected on the six towering ice pillars, with the peculiar patterns occasionally flaring brightly, and even expanding or shrinking.

"It's been so long, and he still hasn't woken up." A gaunt Ice Race elder pulled out an hourglass filled with icy sand, brows knitted in worry. "According to this timepiece, it's already been half a month."

The other elders sighed wearily.

They had to reassure the members of the Ice Race while puzzling over how to retrieve the Heart of Winter.

The burden of the Ice Race's future rested on their shoulders.

Grand Elder Bing Lan's death had left them without a leader, and despite all their discussions, they had yet to reach a conclusion they could all agree on.

"We have no other choice," Second Elder Bing Yuan said helplessly. "All we can do is wait. As long as he remains at the altar, we can wait for him to wake up and explain himself."

The gaunt elder's eyes gleamed with ruthlessness. "Can't we just use force?"

"Force? I'm afraid that would damage the Heart of Winter." Bing Yuan snorted coldly. "The Heart of Winter is a divine artifact that the Ice Demon left to us. It's disappeared into his body, and we don't know why it's inside him or what it's in. Our best option now is to wait!

"Very well."

Time passed quickly, and another ten days went by.

One day, a wrinkled elder named Bing Ying was gazing blankly at the bright stars on one of the towering ice pillars when she abruptly stood up.

Her eyes gleamed with a frosty light as an unfamiliar power coursed through her veins.

Tiny stars flickered and grew ever brighter in the depths of her heart.

Whoosh!

The stars on the ice pillar she had been staring at also flared dazzlingly.

Crack!

A mystical sound resembling the breaking of shackles or a prison cage rang out from her heart.

Whoosh!

The cold divine light of the nearby glacier that had previously shone on Pang Jian now fell on Bing Ying, flooding her with a surge of immense cold energy.

The eyes of everyone around turned to her.

"I, I—" Bing Ying kneeled, forehead pressed to the ground as she exclaimed tearfully, "I've broken through the limit of my bloodline! I'm now Rank Seven!"

She kowtowed toward the ice pillar, though it was unclear whether she worshiped the Ice Demon or the star patterns.

“Bing Ying!”

“You-you've broken through?”

“The Frozen Land restricts us to Rank Six. You shattered the restriction?”

The other elders cried out in surprise.

News of this incredible event spread like wildfire, echoing throughout the ice fortress and sweeping across the nearby snow-capped peaks. The entire Ice Race was filled with ardor as if descending into uncontrollable ecstasy.

“Heaven has opened its eyes!”

“The Ice Demon has noticed us!”

Several days later, Bing Ji, Bing Yun, and several other Ice Race warriors at the peak of Rank Five stood by the six shimmering ice pillars, gazing at the stars, moons, leaves, lightning, and scutes on them.

"I broke through to Rank Six!" they exclaimed, one after another.

Several more days passed, and the Second Elder Bing Yuan could be found gazing at the ice pillar wrapped in lightning patterns. As he stared, he eventually managed to fuse a strand of lightning into his heart and, like Bing Ying, also achieved a bloodline breakthrough.

"Rank Seven!" Bing Yuan shouted, triumphantly raising the Frost Scepter.

The Ice Race had inexplicably witnessed the rise of two Rank Seven bloodlines!

This marked a brand-new chapter in the Ice Race's history!

The six elders then instructed the other members of the Ice Race to study the strange patterns on the six towering ice pillars at the altar.

As a result, many Ice Race members experienced smooth breakthroughs in their bloodlines.

"This must be the Ice Demon's blessing!"

"Our God must've heard our prayers! He imprinted a divine miracle in the ice pillars through our honored guest to aid us in breaking through our bloodlines!"

"It must be so!"

The joyful Ice Race members had already set the matter of Grand Elder Bing Lan's death aside and no longer held Pang Jian responsible.

"We might even be able to leave the Frozen Land!" some members speculated.

With permission from the elders, the young commander of the Ice Race, Bing Yun, mounted a Spirit Avian and attempted to fly out of the sealed world.

Boom!

He hit the barrier.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

After several more failed attempts, he returned dejectedly to the altar with his Spirit Avian.

"Don't be discouraged. We're on the right path. Our esteemed guest will surely share the Ice Demon's teachings with us and tell us what to do once he awakens," Bing Yuan assured.

The hopeful Ice Race continued studying the strange patterns on the six ice pillars while patiently waiting for Pang Jian to awaken.

***

The massive ice pool in Pang Jian's dried-up spiritual sea emitted rippling waves of cold energy.

At the bottom of the ice pool rested the Heart of Winter, with golden bee souls buzzing around it and occasionally flashing in and out of sight.

Strands of golden divine sense emerged from the acupoints in Pang Jian's sea of consciousness. His gray divine sense also transformed into golden divine sense after entering these acupoints as if coated with golden honey.

His sea of consciousness was densely packed with golden divine sense, the number of which surged from just over a hundred strands to more than a thousand!

Pang Jian's sea of consciousness no longer had any ordinary gray strands of divine sense. Only golden divine sense imbued with divine consciousness remained!

The golden bees continued to devour the divine consciousness within the mist released from the Heart of Winter, transform it into golden honey, and deposit it in Pang Jian's sea of consciousness.

Soon, the number of golden divine sense in Pang Jian's sea of consciousness grew from one thousand strands to two thousand, then over two thousand, before finally reaching a total of three thousand strands!

The three thousand strands of golden divine sense looked like golden waterfalls in Pang Jian's endlessly expanded sea of consciousness. The sight resembled the legendary "Three Thousand Great Daos" of some mysterious world.

After reaching three thousand strands, new ones no longer formed, regardless of how much golden honey the golden bees deposited.

Pang Jian was unwilling to accept this, but despite repeated attempts, found he could not refine a single new strand.

Have I reached my limit? He asked the Bee Sovereign.

It's not that you've reached your overall limit. For the human race of the Abyss, the cap on one's divine sense before refining one's divine soul in the Profound Abode Realm is typically around three thousand.

If you want to refine more divine sense, I suspect you'll first need to refine your divine soul. Once your divine soul is formed, your foundation will undergo a transformation, and new strands of divine sense will likely emerge again.

But that's just my guess. It may not be entirely accurate, the Bee Sovereign replied, a swarm of hundreds of bees buzzing around him.

The harvest was far greater than I expected. I could never have anticipated the divine consciousness of so many Outer Gods was actually sealed in the outer layer of this artifact. The Bee Sovereign marveled.

The golden bees continued to feast on the divine consciousness surrounding the Heart of Winter. Unlike before, they no longer deposited golden honey into Pang Jian's sea of consciousness as he had already reached his limit.

The limit of the human race... Pang Jian's emotions surged as he considered the Bee Sovereign's words. If those with over a hundred strands of divine sense in the Profound Abode Realm are considered geniuses, then what should I—with my three thousand strands of divine sense—be called?

This was undeniably an era of both immense danger and opportunity. The opening of the Abyss and subsequent attention of the Outer Gods allowed Pang Jian to hunt their Outer God Puppets to increase the number of his divine sense.

And if he also caught the upcoming once-in-hundred-millennia grand event...

How does the limit of the human race in the Abyss rank against the races of other worlds? Pang Jian asked offhandedly.

The Bee Sovereign silently mulled over his question.

Pang Jian peered through the eyes of the Bee Sovereign through their connection, and a sense of wonder rose in his heart.

The beehive deep within the bizarre mist inside the Gate of the Abyss had expanded a hundredfold!

It resembled a giant mountain floating in the void, with thousands of dormant bee pupae eagerly awaiting Pang Jian's blood essence to break free from their cocoons.

Golden bees busily flew in and out, depositing golden honey within the beehive.

The deposited golden honey would then solidify, transforming into new bee pupae with the help of some strange energy within the beehive.

At that moment, Pang Jian noticed the weakness in his body. His blood essence had dwindled to just a fraction of its usual amount, less than one-tenth of what it once was.

Pang Jian had just enough blood essence to sustain his body's survival, with the pupae in the beehive absorbing the rest.

Master, would you like to hear the truth? asked the Bee Sovereign as he gazed out of the vast beehive.

He had delved into his bloodline memories to retrieve the knowledge buried deep within his soul.

Pang Jian had a bad feeling.

Yes, I would, he replied.

Every bee I nurture can be considered a strand of my divine sense or even an extension of myself. Unlike divine sense, however, they each possess independent intelligence, though it can take time to develop.

I've since nurtured over seven thousand of them from the divine consciousness contained in the mist released from the Heart of Winter.

But that's not my limit—not even close.

With enough divine consciousness, I can nurture exactly nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine bees.

My limit is just shy of ten thousand, which is more than three times your limit of three thousand strands, the Bee Sovereign revealed.

Pang Jian remained silent for a while before finally asking, Is that because of your exceptional talent? Are the Ice Race, the Flame Race, the Thunder Race, and the Ghost Race comparable?

Perhaps. The Bee Sovereign contemplated in silence before retrieving more memories. The human race doesn't have particularly high natural talent in most aspects. Your talent in soul cultivation is inferior to mine, the Ghost Race, the Nether Demon Race, and over a dozen other races.

The human race ranks even lower in physical body strength, and cannot even compete with most other races.

But for some reason, I sense many races fear the human race and regard the human race of the Abyss as dangerous and aberrant.