"Spiritual connection begins..."

  It could be seen that at the moment when the summoning started, the green flames that had been continuously surging out towards the dark space suddenly stagnated and then rushed back, and the speed was several times faster than when they were surging out. Soon, all the life force returned to the life source and began to face the test of the first impact in the best state.

  A lot of life force was extracted to form the body of the summoned beast outside. This process was extremely painful. Fortunately, Chen Yue wasn't in his body at this time, avoiding that painful experience.

  When the life force in the life source stopped decreasing, Chen Yue's heart suddenly tightened. Next, it was the most crucial moment.

  "... The life core in the Spirit Realm is peeled off... The channel is opened..."

  "The first impact, activated."

  Although he was in a conscious state, Chen Yue could still feel the huge pressure. Everything around seemed to freeze.

  Suddenly, a ray of light shot over from the darkness that had existed since ancient times outside the origin space. It was like a bolt of lightning cutting through the darkness, rumbling and carrying incomparable power as it crashed over and accurately hit the life source.

  "Crack." After only resisting for a moment, the surface of the life source immediately cracked open, and countless life forces gushed out and collided with the light.

  "How could this be?" At the moment when the life source cracked, Chen Yue felt that his heart had stopped beating.

  Although the first impact was powerful, generally speaking, it didn't have the power to break through the life source. At most, it would just weaken and reduce its size. However...

  Looking at the scene in front of him, Chen Yue was greatly shocked in his mind, but there was no room for regret anymore.

  "Even if I die, I don't believe that my judgment was wrong." A resolute look flashed in his eyes. Chen Yue looked on coldly, putting life and death aside.

  As if sensing Chen Yue's psychological change, more and more life force rushed up, offsetting the light on the upper layer. And on the lower layer, a considerable amount of life force gathered again and actually showed a tendency to form a new life source.

  The moon beside it seemed to also sense the crisis. It emitted intense silver-white light, which intertwined with the life force, forming more and more smoky substances. These smokes gradually gathered together, forming a long strip, connecting the two.

  "Breaking through and then establishing anew. So that's how it is. I understand now." The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. The original worry was swept away, and Chen Yue showed a relaxed smile.

  The life source had become larger and thinner, so it was broken by the energy of the first impact. But originally, most of the energy had gathered at the bottom and hadn't been fatally affected. After abandoning the thin upper space, it actually condensed into a new life source again.

  Everything that followed went in a favorable direction.

  Under the huge pressure, the new life source condensed at a very fast speed. Moreover, its color was a bit brighter than before, looking even more vivid and alluring. It seemed that instead of having an unstable foundation, Chen Yue had unexpectedly benefited from the misfortune and his foundation had become even more solid, which he had been longing for.

  If others knew about all this, they would surely be extremely jealous. But who would dare to try like this?

  Finally, the light, which had consumed a small part of its energy, broke through the obstruction of the life force and heavily hit the newly formed life source below.

  To Chen Yue's excitement, this time the life source didn't break. It just slowly became smaller and darker under the impact of the light. When the energy of the light was completely offset, the life source had shrunk to one-tenth of its original size.

  "Finally, it's over. Although the losses were heavy, I managed to get through it after all." It wasn't as miserable as he had imagined, which made Chen Yue breathe a sigh of relief. Moreover, he had summoned a second summoned beast, which could also be regarded as a blessing in disguise.

  Next came a long recovery period.

  "Huh? What's that?"

  After the first impact ended, there seemed to be other changes in the origin space.

  The smoke between the moon and the life source gradually solidified into a channel. Silver-white energy gushed out from the moon and flowed along the channel to the life source. At the beginning, the energy was silver-white, but its color gradually changed. When it passed through the middle of the channel, the energy had completely transformed into life force. Similarly, the life force on the life source also underwent the same transformation and was transmitted to the moon as silver-white energy.

  Both sides were growing at an extremely slow speed.

  At the moment when he saw this channel, Chen Yue understood. This should be the energy channel that Vinia had mentioned. No wonder so many people were envious. This way of growing all the time was much faster than that of ordinary apostles.

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  With the same starting point, it was estimated that only about one-tenth of the time would be needed to reach the bottleneck compared to others, and this was on the premise that the others were cultivating desperately. It could be seen how great the advantage was.

  "From now on, there will be no need to frequently perceive the origin space." Chen Yue knew that compared with the energy channel, the perception method was too inefficient. This time could be saved in the future.

  After exiting the origin space, his consciousness returned to his body.

  All kinds of sensations came one after another.

  "Cough, cough..." Just as he wanted to stretch his limbs, the cold lake water flowed into his stomach along with his breathing movement. His whole internal organs were shocked, and Chen Yue suddenly woke up, only to find that he was at the bottom of the lake.

  It turned out that during the time when his body lost consciousness, his hands and feet stopped paddling, so he naturally sank. Fortunately, his body instinctively held its breath. Otherwise, he didn't know if he would become the first apostle to be drowned.

  "How careless." After reflecting for a while, Chen Yue was also a bit helpless. The improvement of compatibility was hard to come by. When he broke through, he was forcibly pulled into the origin space, and there was no way to prepare in advance.

  The Ice Rabbit was floating beside him with its eyes closed tightly. Presumably, its experience was similar to Chen Yue's. However, it didn't matter even if it didn't breathe, so there was no danger of drowning. At this time, it was gradually waking up too.

  There wasn't much strength left in his body. Chen Yue felt as if he had just gone through a serious illness and was a bit lethargic. He knew that this was because a large amount of life force had been extracted.

  "Speaking of which, where is my second summoned beast?"

  Remembering the culprit that had absorbed the life force, as soon as his physical strength recovered a little, Chen Yue immediately started looking around.

  The Blade Beast, he was really looking forward to it. What kind of a summoned beast was it?

  "It just formed its body, and I didn't put it into the subspace, so it must be nearby."

  However, the result of the search was unexpected. Chen Yue didn't see any signs of life around, and there wasn't even anything there. The bottom of the lake was unusually clean.

  If there was anything strange, it was probably a broken sword floating two meters away.

  Wait, broken sword, Blade Beast, sword, blade...

  "Could it be..." His heart suddenly skipped a beat. Chen Yue's eyes were as sharp as lightning, and he fixed his gaze on the broken sword.

  It was 1.2 meters long and two fingers wide. He didn't know what material it was made of. Its surface was rusty and it looked really dilapidated. Uh...

  However, Chen Yue still felt a faint familiar smell from it and a very subtle life fluctuation.

  Its life fluctuation was very weak. If it weren't for the contractual relationship between Chen Yue and it, he might not have been able to detect it.

  There was no doubt about it. This was his second summoned beast.

  "There's actually a weapon-type summoned beast." Chen Yue was a bit speechless. Summoned beasts had two forms in the Spirit Realm and the lower realm. So even if a contract was signed, only after summoning and forming its body would one know what type it was.

  However, it seemed to be a bit more special than Kles Nor's ship-shaped summoned beast. Thinking like this, Chen Yue immediately felt relieved.

  "Coincidentally, I still need a weapon. A summoned beast shouldn't break easily after all. After all, it's a two-star one. Considering its level, it has at least the strength of a third order. It's just a bit dilapidated..." With a smile, Chen Yue casually reached out and grasped the hilt of the Blade Beast.

  "Zing." The moment he grasped it, a thunderclap suddenly exploded in Chen Yue's mind. Immediately afterwards, the Blade Beast seemed to come to life and struggled desperately in Chen Yue's palm.

  A violent and powerful aura surged from it to Chen Yue's mind, bringing him an incomparable impact. At this moment, Chen Yue felt that what he grasped was not a sword but a prehistoric ferocious beast. What's more, unfortunately, the position he grasped was exactly its reverse scale.

  Very clearly, Chen Yue sensed its pride and its fury.

  Reluctantly, Chen Yue let go of the hilt.

  The illusion disappeared immediately. The Blade Beast was still floating in the water as before, as if everything that had just happened was just Chen Yue's illusion.

  Chen Yue's expression suddenly became solemn, and there was even a bit of murderous look in his eyes.

  At this time, the Ice Rabbit was fully awake. It swam over lazily and rubbed affectionately against Chen Yue.

  Looking at the cute Ice Rabbit, Chen Yue's eyes gradually softened.

  "It should be the compatibility." After thinking for a moment, Chen Yue understood the uncooperative state of the Blade Beast.

  In a sense, the Blade Beast was actually the first summoned beast that Chen Yue summoned. Between him and the Ice Rabbit, they started directly from "familiarity". Therefore, he wasn't familiar with the "strange" process between an apostle and a summoned beast.

  Just after being summoned, the compatibility between them was just at the level of "strangeness" and was far from the degree where he could control it as if it were an extension of his own body. So when he grasped it, he encountered the extreme resistance of the Blade Beast.

  It was like when you just met someone on a blind date and started getting too familiar with them physically. It would be strange if the other person didn't immediately slap you, scold you, splash water on you and even call the police.

  However, how could he improve the compatibility with a sword?

  Chen Yue was a bit dumbfounded. Was he supposed to melt it down and recast it? It seemed that it didn't make sense for a summoned beast.

  After staring at each other blankly for a while, Chen Yue once again felt that the compatibility thing was really tricky...

  Regardless of the uncooperative second summoned beast, after successfully advancing to the second order, Chen Yue had planned to return to the Free Capital. Although there was still more than a month left before the gambling fight, some preparatory work still needed to be done and familiarized in advance, such as the props of the Apostle Association.

  However, this plan was scrapped after Chen Yue floated up from the ice lake and walked a few steps on the land.

  The reason was simple. That damned Blade Beast actually followed him like a shadow, always keeping a distance of two meters from Chen Yue, neither more nor less, just like Chen Yue's shadow.

  But the problem was that it was floating...