Past life sage: This life a dual cultivator

Zhan Chen returned to his mountain after having a fruitful conversation with Nu Quang. He took a look at Li Shu, Li Yan and Kai Min and a smile appeared on his face.

'Li Yan, Kai Min aside even Li Shu is doing her best to improve her cultivation. In that case, I shouldn't fall behind. I need to increase my spirit energy for implementing my grand plan', Zhan Chen thought to himself.

He didn't choose to enter the cave complex. Instead, he walked towards the highest point of his mountain and sat cross legged after reaching there.

He took a look at the surrounding before closing his eyes. He sat calmly for a while and gradually his mind became aligned with the ethereal nature of the heaven.

Essence energy and the spiritual energy were two different energies altogether. A cultivator could increase his essence energy easily but for spiritual energy, there was no easy shortcut.

Spiritual energy was a form of mental energy which could only be acquired by the connection of one's own mind and ethereal manifestation of heaven. A cultivator needed to have some understanding of heaven before he or she could harness spiritual energy from the surrounding.

This steep requirement was the sole reason for the shortage of formation masters in the Northern desert continent. Because for a formation master, harnessing the spiritual energy was most.

Zhan Chen already had a sage realm soul and a Martial ascension realm cultivation base but in terms of spiritual energy, he was still a novice. The assuring thing for him was he could establish a connection with the heaven easily due to his past life understanding as a sage.

The heaven and earth was an amalgamation of heavenly laws and heavenly elements. Each and every object in the heaven and earth was a manifestation of heavenly laws and Heavenly elements.

With this understanding, Zhan Chen opened up his spiritual perception which he had acquired while arranging the Five elements tribulation formation for his Zhan family estate in the Red cloud kingdom.

The surrounding suddenly became more colourful after he used his spiritual perception. Whereever his spiritual perception passed by, the object turned into a product of multiple stands of various colours.

The sky was full of green and bluish strands which represented all pervasive wind element and water element. There were also yellowish and purplish stands which represented earth energy and Heavenly thunder respectively.

Connecting all these strands was a omnipresent, formless energy which was the quntesse of entire heaven and earth. Zhan Chen could feel that all pervasive energy and he tried to pull that energy towards him.

All of a sudden, the diagram world which was silent untill now showed a reaction inside Zhan Chen's soul. The previous time, it was also activated on it's own when Zhan Chen was trying to form his spiritual river.

At that moment, it had showed a violent reaction and pulled an exorbitant amount of spiritual energy from the heaven and earth like a tyrant manifestation but this time, it didn't show such a violent reaction. Amidst the watch eyes of Zhan Chen, it pulled spiritual energy from nearby areas in slow pace and incresed the thickness of spiritual energy in the surrounding.

Zhan Chen breathed out in relief after seeing the act of the mysterious diagram. He chose to trust it for a moment and focused his attention on pulling the spiritual energy inside his body.

A continuous stream of spiritual energy entered his mind and Zhan Chen suppressed the energy into an energy drop. There was already a small pool of spiritual energy inside his mind. So, he didn't have to go through much trouble. The only thing he nedded to do was continue to add such spiritual energy drops inside the spiritual pool and increase its size in a slow yet steady manner.

Time started to trickle past as Zhan Chen busied himself in cultivation. He focused his attention on shaping his spiritual river and started to lose his time sense. Gradually, the movement of energy grabbed the attention of some nearby experts.

They chose not to interfere at first but the constant draining of heavenly energy picked their curiousity. The diagram world was operating as slow as it could but despite slowing down, it still attracted the attention of Xuantian sect experts.

In normal time, Zhan Chen would not have allowed such a disturbance but due to spiritual energy cultivation, he had lost his time sense. What seemed like few hours to him was actually two days in outside. It meant he was cultivating for two days and there was a constant flow of energy towards his mountain for two days straight.

Li Shu, Li Yan and Kai Min had already left the cave complex and watching Zhan Chen with worried look on their faces. They couldn't sense spiritual energy but they could feel that some kind of pure energy was concentrating where Zhan Chen had sat down for cultivation.

"Little girls, who is this brat?", an old man appeared infront of Li Shu, Li Yan and Kai Min. There was a frown on his face as he looked towards the highest point of mountain where Zhan Chen was cultivating.

"Esteemed elder, please forgive my young master. He is deep in cultivation. So, he is not aware that he has attracted your attention", Li Shu spoke. There was a nervous look on her face as she looked towards the intimidating looking old man.

"Everyone is cultivating. But how can he be so brazen? What kind of mysterious treasure he is using to attract spiritual energy?", the old man asked. There was a look of avaricity on his face as he looked towards Zhan Chen.

Li Yan, Li Shu and Kai Min could notice the greedy look on the old man's face but they felt helpless. The worry in their hearts deepened as another expert appeared in the sky.

"Big brother Shou, when did you arrive?", the newcomer asked the old man who was cornering Li Shu, Li Yan and Kai Min.

"Junior brother Zhen, why are you here? I could have easily handled this situation involving these juniors", the old man who was standing on the ground raised his eyebrows. Inwardly, he was being cautious because there was another competetor for the secret of Zhan Chen.

"Big brother Shou, please don't misunderstand. I am here to stop you because I care about your well being", the expert who was floating in the sky spoke.

"What do you mean?", the expert who had arrived first looked towards the expert in the sky with confusion on his face.

"Big brother Shou, you have been in seclusion for a while. So, you are not aware about his identity. He is the new core disciple choosen just few days ago", the expert in the sky sent a mental message to the expert who was standing on the ground. He further spoke about Zhan Chen's connection with Zhan Wu Li and a drop of sweat fell down from the forehead of the old man who was standing infront of Li Shu, Li Yan and Kai Min.

He looked towards the expert in the sky with a thankful gaze and left the mountain immediately without taking a second look towards Zhan Chen. He thought the expert who was floating in the sky would also leave but contrary to his expectation, the expert in the sky chose to observe Zhan Chen for a while.

There was no trace of greed on his face but there was a masked expression of malevolence on his face as he looked towards Zhan Chen. He observed Zhan Chen carefully with his soul consciousness and vanished from the sky thereafter.