Chapter Ninety-Six: Mind Sense

“There is, but the effect is not very great,” Little Jade said after a moment of thought.

“Better to have something than nothing,” Yuan Fearless agreed at once. He was desperate now; even the most meager chance was worth cultivating.

“Very well, then I’ll pass it to you.”

A vast stream of information was sent from Little Jade’s primordial spirit directly into Yuan Fearless’s mind.

“Mind Sense?”

It was not a cultivation method for the primordial spirit, nor a divine power of the spirit. It was a rather ordinary, yet very unusual, auxiliary spell for the primordial spirit.

The might brought forth by divine power could be said to crush spells completely. Spells were more often used for support, like the stealth technique Yuan Fearless practiced, or the fireball and wind-calling spells he had learned when he first began cultivating. These all belonged to the category of spells.

The true value of spells lay in how the caster used them. The same spell, wielded by different beings, could produce entirely different effects.

Spells were also divided into many categories. What Little Jade had passed to Yuan Fearless was an auxiliary spell. But more than that, one might call it a special kind of spell. Some such spells, in combat, could be no weaker than the effects produced by divine powers.

“This is the only one,” she said.

To find even this special spell within the Great Heavenly Fox Art that Yuan Fearless could cultivate was already remarkable. There were, of course, a few minor spells as well, but Little Jade felt he would not care for them, so she did not mention them.

In her eyes, the only thing truly worthy of Yuan Fearless was this special spell called Mind Sense.

Yuan Fearless quickly read through Mind Sense once. The record contained very little on cultivation itself, and mostly described the method and its precautions.

But his primordial spirit was already at the Great Unity Golden Immortal level, so those precautions simply did not apply to him.

“Cultivate properly. I’ll stand guard for you.”

The instant Yuan Fearless opened his eyes, Little Jade knew exactly what he intended to do. Without waiting for him to explain, she had already made her preparations for him.

“Mm.”

He closed his eyes again and began to feel Mind Sense anew. Though the cultivation instructions were few, the knowledge contained within them was immense.

Mind Sense had no offensive power whatsoever, but it had one effect that would turn Yuan Fearless’s greatest weakness into his greatest advantage.

Yuan Fearless possessed a primordial spirit of Great Unity Golden Immortal strength, yet he had no cultivation art for the primordial spirit. In practice, he was not even as effective as an ordinary loose immortal. But with Mind Sense, the utility of his primordial spirit could finally be brought to its fullest.

The first effect of Mind Sense was to magnify the perceptive reach of the primordial spirit. With Great Unity Golden Immortal-level sensitivity, the results in battles of Yuan Fearless’s level would be extremely significant. There would be no repeat of that day’s battle with Flying Peng, when he had been watched by others without realizing it.

What Yuan Fearless valued even more was the second effect brought by Mind Sense: it allowed one to easily sense the strength of other beings’ primordial spirits when they were weaker than one’s own.

That might seem minor, but Yuan Fearless possessed the Ten-Thousand-Demon Golden Pill, which could stir an enemy’s seven emotions and six desires. If he could detect the strength of another being’s primordial spirit, he could easily find the point through which the enemy’s spirit would intrude. This was unquestionably a tremendous improvement for him. He would seize the initiative before battle even began, and as for what that meant in combat, no explanation was needed.

But cultivating Mind Sense was also a difficult process. It required repeatedly compressing the primordial spirit, demanding extraordinarily precise control. One careless mistake could injure the spirit. And injuries to the primordial spirit were far more serious than those to the flesh; they could be several times worse, and in some cases might not heal at all, leaving permanent damage.

Yuan Fearless followed the method for Mind Sense and began circulating his primordial spirit. This was the first time he had ever cultivated the primordial spirit itself. Compared with devouring the primordial spirits of living beings to strengthen his own, this kind of cultivation gave him an entirely different feeling.

As he cultivated, he came to understand his own primordial spirit more deeply. When he devoured the spirits of living beings, what he felt was power, his own strength continuously increasing.

But cultivation allowed him to comprehend where the spirit’s strength truly came from, to understand every part of it. The primordial spirit was part of himself, and so Yuan Fearless quickly began to grow familiar with it.

At first he was not yet fully adept, but he still completed one circulation according to the Mind Sense method very quickly.

“The second circulation.”

“The third circulation.”

“...”

During the process, he did compress his primordial spirit, but its strength was already at the Great Unity Golden Immortal level, so no matter how hard he pressed, nothing abnormal occurred.

Even so, Yuan Fearless still cultivated exactly as the instructions of Mind Sense prescribed, because the primordial spirit allowed not the slightest room for luck. He would not permit himself the least bit of carelessness.

The instant Yuan Fearless opened his eyes again, the cultivation was complete. The effect of Mind Sense allowed him to clearly sense everything nearby, all of it appearing in his mind as though before his eyes.

He could even slow everything down at will.

“How is it?”

The first person Yuan Fearless saw when he opened his eyes was Little Jade, right in front of him. A wicked smile returned to his face.

“Not bad.”

It was unclear whether she meant that Mind Sense’s effect was not bad, or whether the thing in Yuan Fearless’s hand was not bad.

“The Solar Star Lord is looking for you.”

Little Jade swatted away the monkey paw Yuan Fearless had placed against her chest, tossed out those words, and then left the hall.

“The Solar Star Lord is looking for me?”

Yuan Fearless immediately recalled that when he had seen the Five Elements Star Lords go to the Dipper Mother Palace, he had not seen the Solar Star Lord or the other four. Now that the Solar Star Lord had come looking for him, it must mean there was a reason.

“Unfettered, how are you today?”

Not long after Little Jade left, the Solar Star Lord entered from outside. It seemed he had already been waiting at the Divine Ape Grand Marshal’s Manor for some time.

“I’m all right.”

As soon as Yuan Fearless spoke, the Solar Star Lord sealed the entire hall and even set up a barrier.

“Solar Star Lord, this is...?”

Yuan Fearless did not know the man’s purpose and asked directly.

“Unfettered, do you know the Horse-Keeper, that monkey demon who came up from the lower realms?”

“I know a little.”

Hearing this, Yuan Fearless could already roughly guess the purpose of the Solar Star Lord’s visit.

At the mention of Sun Wukong, the Solar Star Lord seemed to remember something. His already decent expression instantly darkened.

“A monkey demon only at the Great Unity Loose Immortal realm, and yet he actually made me his defeated subordinate.”

The words were abrupt and disjointed, but Yuan Fearless quickly understood what he meant.

In the recorded account of the Journey to the West, after Sun Wukong caused havoc at the Peach Banquet and returned to Flower-Fruit Mountain, the Jade Emperor sent the Nine Luminaries Star Lords down to the mortal realm, only for them all to be defeated by Sun Wukong.

But from Yuan Fearless’s observation, the Solar Star Lord’s cultivation had to be at least at the level of a Solar True Immortal. How could he possibly have been defeated by Sun Wukong?

Moreover, with the Solar Star Lord’s pride, how could he possibly allow a monkey demon whose cultivation was inferior to his to defeat him, much less do so deliberately?

The pride of the other three star lords was no weaker than his. The only ones likely to obey the arrangement would be the Five Elements Star Lords.

Then the reason the Five Elements Star Lords had gone to the Dipper Mother Palace earlier must have been connected to the matter of the Journey to the West.