A majestic waterfall hung in the air like a white dragon, plunging straight down like ten thousand unbridled horses galloping wild.
Before such natural heavenly might, people easily felt the insignificance of themselves. Yet the more so it was, the more some people wished to surpass the control of that unseen heavenly power.
To control their own life and death... their fate!
Luo Bei stood far away, watching the waterfall. He could see the deep pool beneath it exploding with earth-shaking spray, like a gaping maw ready to swallow people whole at any moment. Yet where he stood was even more perilous than the waterfall's summit!
For he stood at the edge of a cliff not far from the waterfall. Before him lay a bottomless abyss!
To people, the most terrifying things were not those they could see, but those they could neither see nor touch.
The abyss before Luo Bei was precisely such a thing!
The pitch-black night made it impossible for Luo Bei to tell how high the cliff was. This abyss, shrouded in darkness deep within the desolate mountains, resembled a lurking monster. More chilling still, thick, yellow-green, viscous fog pervaded the abyss ahead.
That was Luofu's distinctive poisonous miasma!
Thus, Luo Bei not only had no idea how deep the abyss before him was, but also had no idea what lay at its bottom.
The mountain wind made Luo Bei's thin clothes flap loudly, and his entire body trembled uncontrollably.
Partly from uncontrollable fear, and partly because Yuan Tianyi had completely crippled his cultivation!
The Golden Liquid Condensing Pill Luo Bei had cultivated through trials of life and death had vanished without a trace. Even the medicinal power of that Zhanxikezha Grass had dissipated into nothingness. The current Luo Bei was practically an ordinary youth without the strength to truss a chicken. Even Luofu's mountain wind was already more than he could withstand.
Yet Yuan Tianyi seemed utterly unaffected. Standing at the very edge of the cliff, he softly asked Luo Bei, "Luo Bei, do you know why there are countless cultivators in the world, yet so few can reach my height?"
Had anyone else said those words, they would certainly have been taken as boasting. But the words "boasting" had never had anything to do with Yuan Tianyi. Luo Bei, shivering uncontrollably, answered, "Because of cultivation methods and fortunate opportunities?"
"No." Yuan Tianyi shook his head amid the biting night wind. "Because some people never dare challenge the boundary between life and death. The path of cultivation is, by nature, an act against heaven. If one does not dare challenge the boundary of life and death time and again, how can one truly comprehend the Dao? How can one wield truly powerful strength? How could those who covet Luofu's magical treasures and cultivation methods understand how Luofu stands above them!"
Yuan Tianyi slowly handed the slender-necked bottle in his hand to Luo Bei. "Drink the medicine in this bottle, then jump from here."
Luo Bei met Yuan Tianyi's gaze. After nodding, without the slightest hesitation, he tipped back his head and drank the red-green medicinal liquid, thick as glue and giving off a powerful strange stench. Then he leaped toward the unknown abyss!
At that moment, Luo Bei's eyes held natural fear, but even more than that, steadfast determination. There was not a trace of doubt.
Only someone like that was qualified to become a true Luofu inheritor!
"Old Zhao Nan, perhaps he truly may surpass me." As he watched Luo Bei fall into the thick miasma, a proud look flashed through Yuan Tianyi's eyes again. Yet when he looked down once more upon the desolate Luofu blanketed by night, Yuan Tianyi quietly sighed in his heart. He knew that from now on, Luo Bei would suffer pains beyond ordinary imagination. It could truly be called nine deaths and one life.
Luo Bei plummeted rapidly through the air. The violent sensation of weightlessness made it feel as though his soul would fly out through the crown of his head, and his entire body was filled with instinctive terror. Yet before he even hit the ground, the instant he came into contact with the multicolored miasma, searing pain had already erupted inside and outside his body.
The farther down he fell, the denser the miasma became!
That was deathly energy that had never dissipated since antiquity!
This was the Forbidden Death Abyss, Luofu's most polluted place, yet also the location of Luofu's most abundant spiritual vein.
Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy nourished all things. The dense spiritual energy, combined with the absence of human traces, had caused spiritual medicines to grow everywhere upon the mountain cliffs and precipices around this abyss. Over thousands of years, countless herbs that would drive any gatherer mad with desire had grown here in loneliness, withered, and rotted away. Anywhere else, this would surely have become the legendary paradise where spiritual medicines carpeted the ground. But Luofu itself lay in a humid, sweltering region, while the abyss was sealed tight on all sides. The rotten deathly energy therefore accumulated within, unable to escape. Some of those herbs, like Zhanxikezha Grass, possessed many wondrous effects. Others, however, were fiercely poisonous, causing flesh and blood to rot upon contact. The poisonous vapors released through their decay alone had already wiped out all human habitation here, made it impossible even for birds to cross, and turned the place into a true land of death!
Dense Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy and foul deathly energy—these two utterly opposing things were tangled together, inseparable from one another, forming Luofu's most distinctive and singular feature.
At the very bottom of the abyss lay a swamp-like deep pool formed from medicinal herbs that had decayed over countless years! This bog, created from the rot of every kind of herb, surrounding trees, and living creatures that had died there unjustly, could be called a medicinal vat containing the power of innumerable spiritual medicines. Yet too much was as bad as too little. Even Ginseng Vermilion Fruit became deadly poison to the human body once its medicinal power reached a certain degree, if one lacked the ability to refine it. Much less this place, which already contained the medicinal power of countless poisonous herbs and flowers comparable to the works of the world's greatest poison masters.
Thus, the black, viscous swamp beneath, resembling boiling porridge as it constantly gurgled up blue-red bubbles and emitted thick miasma, was incomparably poisonous!
Even Luo Bei, whose temperament was exceptionally steadfast, could not help letting out an earth-shaking scream the instant he fell from above and touched the black sludge in the swamp.
His legs, which first came into contact with the viscous filth, nearly instantly rotted away, exposing stark white bone. Luo Bei's entire body then plunged heavily into the porridge-like swamp. Black muddy liquid reeking of foul stench and filth surged into Luo Bei's mouth and nose in an instant.
In that instant, Luo Bei's skin, flesh, and even the inside of his body began to rot and collapse. Yet at the same time, the medicinal power of the red-green liquid he had swallowed began to spread!
Shangyang Horn, the single leg of an ancient divine beast—just a trace of its powder could cure all poisons and regenerate blood and flesh.
Sea King Blood Jade, the spinal marrow of a blood flood dragon from the sea—just a trace could prolong life and grant the flesh a terrifying ability to heal.
Now, an entire Shangyang Horn and a complete piece of Sea King Blood Jade had all been fused into that small bottle of medicinal liquid.
Beyond that, the bottle also contained countless Miao Jiang secret medicines unknown to the world, passed down for a thousand years and possessing immense efficacy.
As the deadly poison and deathly energy of the Forbidden Death Abyss caused Luo Bei's bones to rot and collapse, these ancient heaven-defying secret medicines began madly driving out the poison and foul deathly energy invading his body. They removed useless medicinal power, transformed beneficial medicinal power for his own use, and at a visible speed remolded Luo Bei's bones, blood vessels, and skin!
It was an incomparably miserable sight, one that could not be seen even in an imagined hell.
Amid skin that rotted and collapsed at an astonishing speed, muscles and meridians grew like fresh flesh buds. Yet the newly formed muscles and meridians were often invaded by medicinal power the moment they finished growing, immediately festering and rotting once more.
It was like a person struggling bitterly in a boundless sea of suffering!
This was true hellish pain!
Why had he chosen to endure such pain? And having made this choice, he might have to endure even more of this pain in the future.
No one knew what this inwardly unyielding youth was thinking.
Perhaps it was simply so he would not live like a stray dog, would not need to beg for anyone's pity, and could seize hold of his own fate!
No one knew the answer.
After a scream that was instantly swallowed by the thick, foul-smelling black mud, Luo Bei finally lost consciousness, unable to hold on any longer.
Yet within the embrace of dense miasma and the truly dead-silent swamp, the two medicinal powers continued to... entwine!
Few people in the world could find materials like Shangyang Horn and Sea King Blood Jade as Yuan Tianyi could. Thus, this ancient Miao clan witchcraft secret medicine had not appeared in the world for a thousand years. According to the unique written records of the Miao tribes, this secret medicine was merely a catalyst. After preparing it, one still needed to soak it in herbal liquids. The more herbs containing immense medicinal power one could find, the stronger the medicinal liquid would become, and the more heaven-defying the transformation of one's meridians would be!
Even if all human effort were exhausted, even if someone of Yuan Tianyi's cultivation personally acted, the medicinal power of the spiritual herbs he could find would never compare to the accumulation of medicinal power in this swamp of Luofu's Forbidden Death Abyss over tens of thousands of years!
"So what if his aptitude is ordinary and time is short?" Standing at the cliff's edge, silently watching the abyss cloaked in thick miasma, rare blazing light flashed in Yuan Tianyi's eyes.
Ordinary sects in the world generally selected disciples whose bones and meridians suited cultivation, then first taught them Daoist Arts and formulas for tempering the body. This Foundation Establishment of strengthening the meridians through Body Tempering alone took more than ten years. Yet Yuan Tianyi directly used a secret art to transform Luo Bei's meridians, forcibly using fierce external power to establish Luo Bei's foundation!
He exhausted the power of creation itself to defy heaven! Moreover, Yuan Tianyi only knew from the records left by the Luofu Ancestor that this Miao secret medicine was not truly meant to make one's body tougher than diamond, but was a medicine for Rebirth and Metamorphosis, making the human body's meridians better suited to cultivation. Therefore, even Yuan Tianyi did not know what effects this medicine would ultimately produce, or what his transformed disciple would eventually become.
As the cycle repeated, Luo Bei remained unconscious in the Forbidden Death Abyss, yet his bones, blood vessels, and skin continued endlessly to rot and regenerate.
The black medicinal power gathered from countless spiritual medicines in the swamp formed visible streams of black air that continuously invaded Luo Bei's body. Yet a faint blue-green radiance pervaded his body.
Some things within those black currents seemed to disperse along with the decay of Luo Bei's skin, while the milky-white currents that remained seemed to continuously merge into the blue-green glow.
This was the wondrous aspect of the ancient Miao clan's secret medicine, passed down for a thousand years. Relying on its own medicinal power alone, it could not possibly contend with the heaven-defying medicinal power accumulated in this death abyss swamp. Yet this secret medicine dispersed the medicinal power poisonous and harmful to the body, while absorbing and fusing useful medicinal power into Luo Bei's body.
The poisonous, decayed aura radiating from Luo Bei grew heavier and heavier. That yellow-green poisonous aura of decay wrapped Luo Bei layer upon layer like an enormous cocoon. Soon, the yellow-green poisonous aura emanating from Luo Bei became even denser than the viscous miasma above the pool bottom that had never dissipated since antiquity. As the poisonous decayed aura spread, the miasma above the pool bottom also grew thicker and thicker, as though Luo Bei were the source of all this miasma!
Within the cocoon formed by dense, viscous yellow-green gas, the blue-red glow upon Luo Bei's body grew brighter and brighter, while the black medicinal power at the pool bottom surged toward him faster and faster.
Gradually, it was as though Luo Bei's body possessed an immense suction force. Like a great whale drawing in water, it caused the black medicinal power to form what seemed like a vast whirlpool centered on him.
Luo Bei's bones and flesh also repaired themselves faster and faster. From the miserable state of his entire body having rotted away, he slowly regained human form.
His skin still flickered with a faint blue-red radiance. Then, after several more cycles of rotting and healing, the black medicinal power continued to flood into his body at an almost frenzied speed, but his skin stopped decaying.
The miasma grew denser and denser, thicker than Luofu's night itself. Yet the black medicinal power in the swamp grew thinner and thinner, until it finally vanished into dead silence.
The faint blue-red glow flickering over Luo Bei's skin also slowly dimmed and disappeared, like dying embers.
Luo Bei seemed dead as he half-sank, half-floated in the foul black swamp. His skin had turned pale as though it had never seen sunlight, yet between his brows there seemed to be a trace of Yuan Tianyi's bearing, as though spiritual grace flowed there. If anyone saw him, they would inevitably think that, clad in luxurious brocade robes, he would surely be a handsome and graceful youth.
The thick miasma was cleaved apart down the middle. Yuan Tianyi, dressed in white, descended like a meteor, swept up Luo Bei, then shot out from the dense miasma and soared into the clouds. At that moment, a crimson sun burst forth from behind Luofu's tallest peak, bathing all of Luofu in a pale golden glow.
Before you continue