Supreme Taming Authority

Chapter 84: The Spirit Sage Eye Technique

Xian Tiandi walked the northern trail with steady, unhurried steps. The path wound through dense pine forest, climbing gradually into the outer mountain range. Sunlight filtered through the canopy in scattered beams, painting the forest floor in patches of light and shadow.

The sect’s protective formations had long since faded behind him. Out here, the spiritual energy was thinner but wilder, flowing in unpredictable currents through the natural terrain. It carried the untamed essence of the wilderness, unrefined by human hands.

He breathed it in and let his mind settle into the rhythm of the walk.

Two hours passed. The forest began to change. The trees grew sparser. Rocky outcroppings appeared more frequently. The path became steeper, cutting between stone cliffs and narrow ravines.

Xian Tiandi paused at a small clearing where a stream crossed the trail. He knelt beside the water and filled his water flask, then took a long drink. The water was cold and clean, carrying faint traces of mineral spiritual energy from the mountain depths.

He sat on a flat rock beside the stream and allowed himself a moment of rest.

Not because he was tired. His body cultivation could sustain him for days without serious fatigue. But rushing through unfamiliar terrain was how careless disciples ended up dead. Better to move deliberately and observe everything.

Besides, this was an opportunity.

Xian Tiandi closed his eyes and turned his attention inward.

In his past life, he had cultivated hundreds of techniques across countless years. Some were combat methods designed to destroy enemies. Others were defensive arts meant to preserve life. But among the most valuable were the auxiliary techniques, the skills that didn’t kill or defend but enabled everything else.

The Spirit Sage Eye was one of those.

It was an observational technique, a method of perceiving the world beyond what normal senses could detect. At its peak mastery, the Spirit Sage Eye could see through illusions, identify hidden formations, read the flow of spiritual energy in living beings, and even glimpse fragments of a person’s cultivation insights just by observing their techniques.

Xian Tiandi had learned it in his past life during the middle stages of his journey. Back then, it had taken him three years to reach the first threshold of mastery. Three years of painstaking practice, fumbling through errors, and piecing together incomplete understanding.

This time would be different.

This time, he knew exactly how the technique worked. He understood its principles, its structure, its pitfalls. His current body lacked the muscle memory, but his mind remembered everything. Relearning was infinitely faster than learning from scratch.

The Spirit Sage Eye had seven stages of mastery.

The first stage was called Spiritual Sight. It allowed the user to perceive spiritual energy as visible light, seeing the flows and concentrations that normal eyes missed. Useful for identifying cultivation levels, detecting formations, and noticing disturbances in the natural energy of an area.

The second stage was Essence Perception. It went deeper, revealing the quality and nature of spiritual energy rather than just its presence. Fire element versus water element. Pure spiritual energy versus corrupted energy. Natural accumulation versus artificial manipulation.

The third stage was Pattern Recognition. The eye began to see not just energy but the structures it formed. Formation arrays became visible as geometric patterns. Cultivation techniques left traces in the spiritual energy around a person, traces that could be read and analyzed.

The higher stages went further still, but those were far beyond what Xian Tiandi could attempt at his current cultivation level. Even in his past life at the peak of the universe, he had only reached the fifth stage. The sixth and seventh stages required insights he had never fully grasped.

But the first stage? That was well within reach.

Xian Tiandi opened his eyes and focused on the stream in front of him.

Normal vision showed water flowing over rocks, clear and cold. Sunlight glinted off the surface. Small fish darted between the stones.

He activated the technique.

It started with a specific circulation pattern of spiritual energy through the meridians connected to his eyes. The pathways were delicate, requiring precise control. Too much energy and the meridians would burn. Too little and nothing would happen.

Xian Tiandi channeled his spiritual energy with practiced precision. The flow moved from his dantian, up through his chest, branching at his throat, and splitting into two thin streams that traveled to each eye.

The world shifted.

Colors became slightly more vivid. Edges sharpened. And then, slowly, he began to see the spiritual energy.

The stream glowed faintly, a soft blue light that followed the water’s flow. The spiritual energy it carried was thin but present, drawn from deep underground sources and brought to the surface. Small concentrations of metal element energy clustered around certain rocks, deposited over centuries of water erosion.

The fish swimming in the stream had their own tiny sparks of spiritual energy, barely visible pinpricks of light inside their small bodies. Spirit fish in the earliest stages of development, decades away from becoming true spirit beasts.

Xian Tiandi held the technique for thirty seconds, then released it.

His eyes ached slightly. The meridians weren’t accustomed to this kind of use yet. Forcing it too hard too fast would cause damage and set back his progress.

But it had worked. First attempt, successful activation.

In his past life, it had taken him two months of daily practice just to activate Spiritual Sight for the first time. The difference between knowing the path and stumbling through darkness was immeasurable.

He rested for a few minutes, allowing the eye meridians to recover. Then he tried again.

This time the activation was smoother. The spiritual energy flowed more naturally through the pathways. The world took on that enhanced clarity faster, and the spiritual energy of the stream appeared more distinctly.

He held it for forty-five seconds before releasing.

Better. Progress already.

Xian Tiandi stood and continued walking. As he moved through the forest, he practiced activating and deactivating the technique in short bursts. Each repetition strengthened the meridian pathways slightly. Each activation became a fraction easier.

This was how auxiliary techniques were mastered. Not through sudden breakthroughs or desperate battles, but through patient, consistent practice. Hundreds of small repetitions until the pathways became second nature.