Chapter 457: Five Elements Spirit Control, Awakening Again

Inside the cave.

Standing next to Cao Mi, Wei Tu thought for a moment, then lifted the hem of his robe and sat back down cross-legged.

The two sat facing each other.

After a brief pause, Wei Tu brought his fingers together and pressed them to the center of Cao Mi’s forehead, slowly transferring a strand of his divine sense into her sea of consciousness.

Since she trusted him so much, he ought to honor their alliance and give her a hand.

He couldn’t just leave her like this.

Even taking a step back, just for the sake of the Yin-Yang Demon Corpse, a powerful secret weapon, he had no reason to abandon her now.

After all, it would be hard to find another trustworthy Nascent Soul cultivator like Cao Mi anytime soon.

Moments later, the strand of divine sense he transferred broke through the layer of frost and reached toward the space between Cao Mi’s brows.

But the instant it entered her sea of consciousness, that strand was completely cut off, vanishing without a trace.

Seeing this, Wei Tu immediately understood—Cao Mi’s sea of consciousness had instinctively fought back and destroyed the invading strand.

But here came the tricky part.

If he couldn’t sense her condition, how was he supposed to help mend her damaged soul?

“Old Demon Zhu, do you have any ideas?” Wei Tu asked after thinking it over.

Compared to himself, Ancestor Chìlóng obviously had far more experience in such matters.

But this time, Ancestor Chìlóng wasn’t as cooperative as before. He pretended not to hear. After a long silence, when he noticed Wei Tu’s growing displeasure, he reluctantly drifted out in spirit form and began to speak.

“Her injuries have already reached the Nascent Soul. Healing them won’t be easy.”

“I do have a few ways that could help you get your divine sense into her sea of consciousness for communication. But they only treat the symptoms, not the root.”

“The best way is still to wait for her to wake up on her own, then have her find a method to heal herself.”

With that, Ancestor Chìlóng flipped his palm and tossed Wei Tu a pale purple jade slip.

“Five Elements Spirit Control Technique?” Wei Tu took the slip and glanced through its contents.

Strictly speaking, this Five Elements Spirit Control Technique wasn’t a healing art. It was actually a method for controlling others—used to turn people into human puppets.

Still, in this situation, it could work.

It allowed him to awaken Cao Mi without harming her Nascent Soul or worsening her condition.

Of course, from Cao Mi’s point of view, the technique had a major downside—it left her vulnerable to being controlled by Wei Tu. After all, this was a forbidden art developed specifically for puppet refinement.

But—

Right now, her life and death were effectively in Wei Tu’s hands.

Whether or not she was under his control didn’t matter much anymore.

Wei Tu figured Cao Mi would understand that too.

Ultimately, this was just a temporary solution.

...

In the blink of an eye, several days quietly passed.

On this day, Wei Tu put down the jade slip in his hand. He gave the top of his head a light tap, and a pale cyan figure leapt out from his skull.

It was his Nascent Soul, its lips moving silently as it chanted an incantation. In the next instant, five rings the size of infant fists appeared in its hands.

The five rings glowed in yellow, black, white, red, and blue—the five elemental colors. Each was inscribed with floating runes and radiated a faint glow in the dim cave.

The pale cyan Nascent Soul kept a calm expression, its eyes gently shut. Then, at a precise moment, it shot forward and slapped its palm several times on the meditating Cao Mi.

“Swish.” “Swish.” Light noises echoed in the dark.

The five elemental rings immediately slipped from the pale cyan Nascent Soul’s hands and landed on Cao Mi’s neck, wrists, and ankles.

Then, the Nascent Soul formed another hand seal.

The five rings flickered a few times before vanishing from sight.

But as golden light flashed in the Nascent Soul’s eyes, it clearly saw the rings flying into Cao Mi’s sea of consciousness. There, they locked around her Nascent Soul’s neck, wrists, and ankles.

With that done, the hovering Nascent Soul returned to Wei Tu’s body and shut its eyes to rest. Clearly, that maneuver had consumed a good deal of effort.

Several hours later.

Wei Tu opened his eyes and looked toward Cao Mi, who was now slowly waking up as the frost around her body melted away.

“Thank you, Daoist Brother Wei, for saving me,” Cao Mi said, giving him a slight bow with gratitude in her eyes.

Though she sensed that the method Wei Tu had used to wake her wasn’t orthodox, she trusted his character. She believed he wasn’t the type to take advantage of others in a crisis.

Of course, even if she didn’t trust him, in her current condition, she wouldn’t speak carelessly. Ruining her own future before Wei Tu turned on her would be foolish.

Fortunately, Wei Tu didn’t disappoint her. He soon explained why he had used the Five Elements Spirit Control Technique and how to remove it.

“Five Elements Spirit Control Technique?”

“A forbidden art for refining human puppets?”

Cao Mi’s heart tightened for a moment as she read through the jade slip. She couldn’t help but feel lucky that it was Wei Tu standing here and not some demonic cultivator.

Otherwise, not only would her life be forfeit, she might have suffered unspeakable humiliation.

“But this forbidden art… where did Daoist Brother Wei get it?” she wondered, deeply puzzled.

After all, such high-level forbidden techniques were treasured by demonic sects. How could one end up in the hands of a righteous cultivator like Wei Tu?

“That’s right! Daoist Brother Wei once stole from that Six Desires cultivator’s cave. Maybe he found it there…”

“Or maybe… he got it from the Great Void Realm. That realm used to belong to the Stone Demon Sect, a major demonic faction…”

After a bit of thought, Cao Mi filled in the blanks herself, coming up with plausible sources for Wei Tu’s possession of the Five Elements Spirit Control Technique.

Wei Tu had no idea what she was thinking. He just assumed she was still regaining her senses after waking up, which explained her long silence.

After waiting a bit, he brought up the matter of treating her injury.

Though he was an alchemist, he’d never treated soul injuries before, nor had he refined fourth-tier pills. So when it came to healing her, he wasn’t much help.

“Please don’t worry, Daoist Brother Wei. With the spirit control rings suppressing the injury, I’ll be fine.”

“Now, I only need to rely on a secret technique from my sect to recover. Within thirty years, I’ll be fully healed.”

“Of course, until then, my strength is basically useless, so I’ll be relying on your protection.”

Cao Mi smiled as she spoke.

“A secret technique from your sect?” Wei Tu raised a brow, and in that moment, everything clicked.

That must’ve been the very reason Cao Mi had dared to go all in—despite her heavy injuries—to kill Master Hong Jing alongside him.

Maybe, even if he hadn’t awakened her and she’d stayed frozen, she could’ve recovered on her own after several decades and woken up again.

But that chance would’ve been much slimmer.

After all, if it hadn’t been absolutely necessary, she wouldn’t have used the ice seal to delay her injuries in the first place.