Nie Tian immediately stopped absorbing flame power from the Flame Crystals in his hand and talking to Dong Li.
Instead, he closed his eyes to examine the green aura with his mind.
This wasn’t the first time the green aura had behaved this way.
In fact, the green aura, which carried the profound truths of life, had already transcended two times before, giving Nie Tian the Life Transfer and the Life Stealth bloodline talents.
However, both those times, the green aura had gone through long dormant periods before exploding with a new bloodline talent.
As for this time, Nie Tian had expected that the green aura would need a long time to digest the copious amount of life power it had absorbed from a Fruit of Life in the magical dimension.
He could still vividly remember the green aura lying dormant for a very long time after accumulating enough flesh power. Only then did the transcendence finally happen.
But perhaps because the life power the green aura had absorbed from the Fruit of Life this time was incomparably rich, the digestion process turned out to be unprecedentedly smooth and short. Therefore, the transcendence was achieved earlier this time.
“The transcendence of my bloodline will mean the awakening of a new bloodline talent!”
After a wisp of his psychic awareness swam to his heart and saw that the crystal-like chains within the green aura were emanating dazzling light, Nie Tian was convinced that his speculation was correct.
An ancient and mysterious aura of life suddenly burst forth from within the green aura, which was now glittering with dazzling, green light.
New crystal-like chains that were as fine as hairs seemed to be born under the inducing effect of the explosive aura of life.
As soon as new crystal-like chains came to form, they mangled with the old ones, aligning into profound, ever-changing formations.
As that happened, the strong aura of life that burst forth from within the green aura suddenly seemed to spread to the nine Heaven Eyes Nie Tian had scattered in the vicinity. An even more profound connection was established between them and the green aura in his heart.
Immediately afterwards, the image of every living creature within a 500 kilometer range was reflected in Nie Tian’s mind.
It felt as if his soul had split into nine parts, which were infused into each Heaven Eye that was floating high in the sky.
The perception of his Heaven Eyes had also greatly improved over an incredibly short time.
Before, each of his Heaven Eyes was only able to perceive life within a few kilometers’ range.
However, at this moment, thanks to the new-born, crystal-like chains and the stimulation of the strong aura of life, their perception range and sensitivity had increased by almost a hundred times.
Now, Nie Tian was even able to accurately detect the smallest insects in the depths of the earth within a 500 kilometer radius.
The location he was currently in was a desolate and uninhabited corner. Every inch of land was barren and lifeless.
The Realm of Unbounded Desolation was a strange place where not a single blade of grass grew. Even insects couldn’t survive its horrible climate. Powerful spirit beasts only roamed the volcanic areas where flame power was rich.
However, Nie Tian was able to detect four clusters of life aura aside from theirs within his perception range.
Three of them were constantly moving about and floating in the air.
Thus, Nie Tian was convinced that they belonged to powerful experts from the Tool Sect.
Only one cluster of life aura was hiding in the depths of the earth behind numerous isolation wards.
Even though the perception of his Heaven Eyes had skyrocketed, he was only barely able to catch a few wisps of the aura of that life.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
At this moment, Dong Li, Li Jing, and the others who were practicing cultivation in the same mountain valley as Nie Tian suddenly experienced abnormally accelerated heartbeats.
They all opened their eyes and glanced around. They knew something was causing the anomaly, yet couldn’t identify it.
At the same time...
The three Profound realm Tool Sect experts who were searching in the vicinity also experienced accelerated heartbeats.
They were Zhu Bin, Zhen Huilan, who had returned from the Bone Sect’s ruins empty-handed, and Qin Yi.
As soon as they experienced the anomaly in three different locations, they all stopped in midair and started scanning their surroundings with their immense, sea-like soul awarenesses.
Even so, they couldn’t identify what was causing their abnormal heartbeat.
Aside from them, confusion also appeared in the eyes of the fourth person - Zhao Shanling, who was holed up under the bottom of an enormous crater in the Bonebrutes’ ruins.
At this moment, he was manipulating the Death Reign with his secret magics to fight Qi Bailu, even though the two of them were separated from each other by a tremendous distance.
Upon feeling the anomaly, he spared some attention to examine his heart, but didn’t find anything.
Meanwhile, the accelerated heartbeat only lasted for a few seconds before resuming its normal state.
Therefore, Zhao Shanling didn’t burden his mind with its cause. After all, he didn’t think anyone in the Realm of Unbounded Desolation would be able to ferret him out from the depths of the earth and behind numerous isolation wards.
Even his junior martial sister, Zhen Huilan, who was also extremely skilled in spatial magics, wouldn’t be able to do so.
Therefore, he refocused on his battle against Qi Bailu.
WHOOSH!
In the silent mountain valley, Nie Tian let out a long breath as his senses returned to him.
As he did, his wondrous ability of perceiving every move of every living creature within a 500 kilometer range around him disappeared after a few seconds.
The perception range of his Heaven Eyes shrank back to their original size.
That was when he realized that his previous heightened perception had only been caused when the strong aura of life had burst forth from within the green aura, giving birth to new crystal-like chains.
At this moment, the green aura had stopped forming new crystal-like chains, and thus his heightened perception was gone.
The newly-formed crystal-like chains were interweaving with the old ones, forming various formations, the countless green spots within them shining like the stars in the sky, as if they were imprinting something into his soul.
In the next moment, he sensed the awakening of a new bloodline talent in the deepest part of this soul. “Bloodline talent: Life Drain!”
At that very moment, Li Jing took the initiative to put her cultivation on hold. She rose to her feet and asked, “Did anyone else sense any anomalies just now? For some reason, just now my heartbeat suddenly accelerated, but returned to normal after a few seconds. Did you feel anything?”
“I felt the same thing!" Shen Xiu exclaimed.
Feng Luo and Yu Tong nodded as well.
Even Dong Li, who was sitting the closest to Nie Tian, exclaimed, “You all felt it? I thought I was the only one.”
“This is odd...” Li Jing muttered, her eyebrows furrowed. “What could have caused that?”
Suspicions filled Dong Li’s mind as she jerked around to look at Nie Tian. She discovered that Nie Tian’s eyes were still closed, as if he were still practicing cultivation.
Even though she was sitting very close to Nie Tian, she didn’t discover any sign that indicated that Nie Tian was the cause of the anomaly.
Under her gaze, Nie Tian continued to focus all of his attention on his newly acquired bloodline talent.
As he pondered the mysteries behind it over and over, he finally came to an enlightenment regarding this brand-new bloodline talent.
“Life Drain! It will allow me to forcibly drain the life force of another living creature! I can clearly use this powerful bloodline talent in combat!”
If he were to use it on humans who focused solely on the cultivation of spiritual power, but didn’t possess strong physical bodies or formidable bloodline power, the life force he would drain from them might be limited, and thus the drop in their battle prowess wouldn’t be very significant.
However, if he were to use this Life Drain bloodline talent on spirit beasts that possessed tough bodies, or outsiders that emphasized the cultivation of their formidable bloodline power, the result would be stunning.
Almost all of the outsider races, including the Demons and the Phantasms, focused on the cultivation of bloodline power.
Most spirit beasts, which had developed from those outsiders’ flesh and blood, possessed immense, sea-like life force.
If Nie Tian wished to use Life Drain during fights with them, he would only need to merge his own life aura with his spiritual power, and then send it into his enemies’ bodies.
Once wisps of his life aura entered his enemies’ bodies, they would start draining their life force and using it to strengthen Nie Tian’s.
Most of the outsider races and spirit beasts shared the same source of power: their tremendous life force. However, once Nie Tian activated this new bloodline talent when facing them, not only would he greatly reduce his enemies’ life force, but he would also make himself stronger and stronger.
“It appears that this bloodline talent will work especially well on outsiders that emphasize the cultivation of their physical bodies and bloodline power.” With these thoughts, Nie Tian’s eyes snapped open as he suddenly thought of another matter.
“Zhao Shanling! The man hiding underground in the Bonebrutes’ former headquarters must be Zhao Shanling!”