Inheritance

For a moment, the python was cowed by the Dragon Turtle's Aura and shrank back slightly.

This was a checkpoint reward too? Su He had no time to think. His instincts as a beast merely told him that the pill would do no harm.

Su He seized the chance to crawl forward. The third trial should be like the second—passing through the gate ahead would count as clearing it.

It seemed all three trials used gates as their dividing lines. In the first trial, he had been pursued and killed by the Black-Clad Man, and clearing the main gate meant passing. The second involved gravity and puppets, and rushing through the second gate meant passing. The third should be the same.

Su He roared and charged toward the third gate.

Yet the giant python, driven back by the Dragon Turtle, reacted as though its Reverse Scale had been touched. A flash of eerily human anger passed through its eyes. It slapped its tail against the ground and hissed, while crackling arcs of lightning flared across its wings.

Its aura grew even stronger.

Su He was forced to halt mid-stride. He suddenly raised his head to stare at the python, anger flashing in his eyes.

Couldn't you afford to lose? You were even raising the difficulty in the middle of a trial? These lightning arcs and that sudden surge in aura were clearly cheating!

In the Three Rivers Wasteland, the Slovenly Old Daoist nodded in satisfaction. That little turtle had somehow experienced a sudden surge in divine sense—it must have taken a pill. Then the old Daoist could hardly be blamed for quietly increasing the power.

He slowly set down the Wine Pot in his hand. Even though he was only making a slight adjustment to the checkpoint from across the Three Rivers Wasteland, it was already taking some effort.

At the entrance to the inner courtyard, the expressions of the three Black-Clad Men changed at once. They too sensed a pressure—cold and sinister. It felt as if they were being watched by a venomous snake.

Even they, merely watching from the sidelines, were affected by that pressure. What kind of pressure was the turtle breaking the formation under? The fact that it could hold on without retreating was truly extraordinary.

They saw the turtle roaring, struggling desperately to step forward, yet unable to advance even a single inch. It had clearly reached its limit.

The Eldest Brother among the Black-Clad Men narrowed his eyes slightly and looked towards Second Brother.

Second Brother's breathing quickened. He understood what Eldest Brother meant: Give it another Spirit Awakening Pill!

You really are insane!

He poked the Cricket Cage on his chest and began reporting to Lu Ming, only to hear an icy voice from within the Cricket Cage. "Give it to it! Give it the remaining two as well! Let it pass in one go! Block off its retreat—do not allow the Divine Turtle to take even half a step back!"

Second Brother panted heavily, his eyes filled with madness.

It was just revenge against a turtle. Did they really need to spend this much? Give me the Spirit Awakening Pills, and I'll kill it, Betray the Sect, and flee for my life from then on! The hand clutching the Spirit Awakening Pills trembled slightly.

As though he had guessed his thoughts, Lu Ming's voice from the Cricket Cage turned even colder. "Give them to it!"

As if a basin of icy water had been poured over him, Second Brother shuddered and snapped awake.

Insane! They were all insane!

He grabbed the last two Spirit Awakening Pills and Flicked Hand, tossing them into Su He's mouth.

Give them to it! Give it all of them! The three of us brothers have risked our lives for you, broken sect rules for you, yet we Didn't Know you even had Spirit Awakening Pills! And you fed a turtle three Spirit Awakening Pills in a single night!

Give them to it!!!

As the pills entered his belly, the Dragon Turtle behind Su He let out a roar. Water surged beneath his feet, swiftly becoming a river. Great waves rolled and churned, Lightning and Thunder flashed overhead, and the Dragon Turtle grew upon meeting water. In the blink of an eye, it reached thirty meters. One claw slammed the giant python down and pinned it beneath its foot, then it opened its jaws and tore off its wings.

Then it ripped the giant python to Shattered pieces, bite by bite.

Within the Special Space, the Slovenly Old Daoist felt a stab of pain between his brows and stood Stunned. The fragment of thought he had refined had been smashed apart.

The Dragon Turtle erupted, crushing the divine-sense pressure that had transformed into the giant python. Yet it did not disperse and return to Su He's body. Instead, it roared toward the heavens.

Roar after roar.

Having been fed three Spirit Awakening Pills in succession, Su He felt his mind thunder as though a bolt of lightning had split into it.

Crack!

With a deafening boom, the scene before his eyes changed completely.

He was no longer in the trial courtyard, but standing before a boundless sea. Waves rolled and surged, the sea washing against the heavens. In the endless ocean, a mountain rose skyward.

No—it was not a mountain! It was a claw! A Dragon Turtle so immense that its edges could not be seen, its back propping up the heavens and its feet treading the four seas, lay within the vast ocean. The heaven-piercing mountain in Su He's eyes was merely one of its claws.

This was... an inheritance! Having experienced Green Snake's inheritance, Su He recognized it at once. This was the Inheritance Space, and that Dragon Turtle was the inheritance that belonged to him!

Back in Green Snake's space, he had been awed by the White Snake's vastness as it stirred wind and made waves, raging through the ocean. But compared to this turtle, that snake did not even bear mentioning! This was the inheritance of the Divine Turtle! The Black-Clad Men had fed him some unknown pill just now, causing his aura to soar and his divine sense to strengthen. He had actually crashed straight into the Inheritance Space.

It was not that he had no inheritance. He simply had not possessed the ability to enter before!

Su He roared and cried out in excitement. He could already be considered a giant turtle himself, yet before this Dragon Turtle, he was not even equal to a flea.

"Ang!"

Su He threw back his head and roared.

The Dragon Turtle above seemed to hear him and slightly lowered its head. In an Instant, wind and cloud shifted. The Dragon Turtle was too enormous—merely lowering its head caused the Celestial Phenomenon to undergo a tremendous change.

It lowered its head and looked down. Its turtle eyes were the entire starry sky, within which stars were born and stars perished, the starry sky cycling endlessly through Illusion Destruction.

Boom! Su He's mind thundered. This was not something he should be seeing. At his current realm, he could not withstand a Glanced from the Dragon Turtle.

The scene before him shattered, and Su He suddenly woke. He was still in the trial courtyard. The giant python before him had vanished, and everything was peaceful as before.

Behind him, one Black-Clad Man stood as usual, while the other two seemed to have lost their souls. Their eyes had lost all spirit.

The Spirit Awakening Pills... were gone...

"Ang!" Su He nodded to them in thanks.

Even if this trial failed, it had been worth it!

The dragon turtle did not bestow any inheritance upon Su He. In his current state, he could not bear the dragon turtle's inheritance—but he now knew where his path lay! That faint glance counted as a thread of guidance, tapping lightly between Su He's brows.

The dragon turtle... was not actually a dragon turtle. Its true name was simply Turtle! It had no other prefix. Just as a dragon was simply a dragon; Azure Dragon, White Dragon, and Yellow Dragon were merely prefixes.

A turtle was a turtle—a turtle of pure bloodline, supreme and boundless!

Its head was not a dragon's head either. It merely resembled one. There were countless Dao bodies in the world: dragons, phoenixes, and qilins were all Dao bodies, only none were as universally applicable as the human form.

Humans were Innate Dao Bodies, one interpretation of the Dao.

The forms of dragon heads and Dragon Tails were the same. Didn't qilins also look rather like they had dragon heads? If one insisted on naming it, dragon turtle was fine, divine turtle was fine, mysterious turtle was fine—it did not care.

Mm, Su He felt it was bragging. Perhaps it was simply a Baxia with a rebellious streak, refusing to acknowledge Dragon Dad.

And what exactly had that Inheritance Space been? Su He had yet to figure it out. Did such a turtle truly exist, pulling Su He's consciousness over there? Or was it merely an inheritance carved into his bloodline, Activated once the conditions were met? Su He had not yet met the requirements for inheritance.

Beasts possessing Divine Beast Bloodlines also had three realms of cultivation—or rather, they had to undergo three steps.

The first step: purify the bloodline and truly transform oneself into a Divine Beast.

Just Like a fish leaping the Dragon Gate: only after crossing it did it become a dragon, only then could it receive a dragon's inheritance. Before In Front of the Dragon Gate, it was merely a fish. It could not possibly receive an inheritance that belonged to dragons.

It was probably like this—if you are not even my cub, why should I pass my inheritance on to you? Thus, the first step was to Become Divine Beast's cub, even if adopted! Only by truly transforming into a dragon turtle could one obtain the dragon turtle's inheritance.

This first step had no name. Perhaps, like the first realm of human cultivation, it could be called Mortal Shedding?

Shed the mortal shell and become a divine turtle.

After Mortal Shedding, one would completely become a divine turtle, with not a trace of mixed blood remaining. Only then would one be an infant dragon turtle, able to accept the dragon turtle's inheritance.

That was a matter for later. Before that, how to "shed mortality" was what Su He most needed to consider.

Each time he fell into Deep Sleep and evolved, it was itself a process of Mortal Shedding. But it was not enough! His current body's evolution had been completed. Its color had Changed, his turtle shell had turned black, dragon scales had grown out, and even his teeth and vocal cords had emerged.

The next step should be evolving a dragon head and Dragon Tail.

Simply devouring high-quality food was no longer enough. After waking from this Deep Sleep, he had eaten quite a few good things, even two meals of improved Medicinal Cuisine, yet there was no sign at all that he was about to evolve.

Su He reckoned that his evolution might truly be very similar to a cultivator's Mortal Shedding Realm.

Ge Feng had said that cultivators' realms were modeled after Divine Beasts. It was only natural that they possessed Interconnected aspects.

Seven Steps of Mortal Shedding: heart aperture, divine treasure, then true blood, mind aperture, and bone sacrifice.

Su He was probably now equivalent to a cultivator at the Divine Treasure Realm—condensing a divine treasure within the heart aperture. His divine treasure was that Little Dragon Turtle.

Next, he should use the divine treasure to condense true blood, so that every Drop of Blood in his body became true blood imbued with Dao resonance.

If he were a cultivator, differences in attributes would show themselves This Time. The true blood condensed by a Heart Aperture Divine Treasure of fire would be utterly different from that condensed by a Heart Aperture Divine Treasure of water.

And condensing true blood was not as simple as having a divine treasure sitting in the heart aperture. Condensing true blood required a cultivation method! Su He had no cultivation method, but there was one here.

Su He Opened Eyes. The giant python had vanished, and there was no longer anything blocking the passage before the gate.

Su He crawled Step by Step toward the gate.