Great Advancement in Cultivation

Ten years passed in the blink of an eye.

By the third year, Jiang Yun had already refined seven layers of the Earth Spirit Pearl's restrictions—the maximum a Heavenly Immortal could manage. Sensing no further progress, he realized his cultivation was still too shallow. He placed the pearl before him, channeled his Primordial Spirit to draw out the Innate Earth Element Vital Energy within, and circulated the Jianmu Tongtian True Scripture to refine it into his own mana. At the same time, his Primordial Spirit studied the Earth Element Law embedded in the spiritual treasure's innate radiance.

Lost in this cultivation, he seemed to forget time itself, wholly immersed. His cultivation naturally soared, rising swiftly from early Heavenly Immortal to mid, then late, and finally to the peak of Heavenly Immortal. With the treasure's laws to comprehend, Jiang Yun easily broke through the Heavenly Immortal bottleneck, achieving True Immortal, and in the following years pushed further to late True Immortal before temporarily ending his Closed-door Cultivation.

By then, Jiang Yun's main body—the Congenital Cloud Bamboo—had grown dozens of zhang tall. The offspring shoots it had spawned formed a bamboo grove, filling half the valley. His roots no longer spread outward but plunged deep underground, nearly reaching the earth veins.

"My cultivation has risen considerably. Time to continue refining the Earth Spirit Pearl." His Primordial Spirit sank into the pearl, and Jiang Yun launched an assault on the next restrictions.

Another seven years passed in a flash. Of the Earth Spirit Pearl's twenty-four restrictions, eleven had been refined—his current limit. As for cultivation, though his focus was on refining the treasure, his main body's breathing and absorption had still pushed him to the peak of True Immortal.

After long seclusion, stillness bred a desire for movement. Jiang Yun stretched lazily, his Primordial Spirit standing in the void, surveying the surroundings through the formation.

"Since my rebirth, over a decade has slipped by. Truly, cultivation knows no years."

"Looking out, aside from my valley, everything within sight remains as broken and barren as ever. As the saying goes: in poverty, tend to oneself; in success, aid the world. Within my power, why not mend a little?"

Gazing at the scene, Jiang Yun felt a stirring in his heart and quietly set himself a small goal: to restore life to the land beneath his feet.

Ever since the War of Immortals and Demons, when Luohou linked the Immortal Slaying Sword Formation to the Western spiritual and earth veins to contend with Hongjun, his defeat drove him to detonate the formation in fury. The blast shattered the veins, leaving most in ruins. From then on, the Western World's Innate Spiritual Qi grew ever thinner, degrading to Acquired Spiritual Qi. No wonder later generations saw the West so bereft of talent—even the two Western sages had to scrounge for resources in the East.

Consider: the East teems with spiritual veins, birthing beings with deep Root Foundations, living from birth in Innate Spiritual Qi. The West, broken and scarred, produces mostly ordinary beings from Acquired environments. How could the gap not be vast? For the West to thrive, it had no choice but to poach talent from the East!

Only by living in this environment did Jiang Yun begin to understand the actions of Zhunti and Jieyin.

Enough digression. With his goal set, Jiang Yun took a short stroll through the valley, then returned to his main body.

His current cultivation was still too low. To achieve his aim, this level wouldn't suffice, and he needed to carefully consider some Dao Protecting Arts.

To mend the land and restore life, based on what he'd observed, several issues needed resolution:

First, the lingering demonic energy and Sha Qi from the great calamity, mixed into the spiritual energy—violent and hard to refine—along with soil pollution from various Bloodline Filth.

Second, the immense resentment of countless innocent dead, needing pacification, with Vengeful Souls drifting aimlessly.

Third, the shattered spiritual and earth vein nodes from the calamity, clogging the earth veins. Without channels to release the earth fire and earth energy flowing through the nodes, they built up pressure, erupting to further ravage the environment and terrain.

For the first, a purification method was needed to cleanse Sha Qi, demonic energy, and all filth into pure spiritual energy. For the second, the Diamond Sutra and Sutra of Rebirth from his memories could handle the resentment. As for the third, the Thirty-Six Heavenly Dipper Techniques' Whip Mountain Move Stone could shift rocks and reshape terrain, aided by his Earth Spirit Pearl. The problems should be manageable.

Having thought through these key points, Jiang Yun took out the Dao Derivation Disk, channeled mana, and began to deduce...

Another hundred years passed in a flash. This cultivation session bore rich fruit.

First, leveraging his main body's spiritual root trait—able to devour all kinds of demonic energy, earth energy, and other spiritual energies, converting them into pure energy to boost cultivation—he deduced a powerful divine ability exclusive to his body: the Divine Light of Purification. Once activated, it continuously cleansed filth and restored spiritual energy.

Combining inherited knowledge and insights from the Dao Derivation Disk's formations, he also devised a Spiritual Plant Purification Array. This array relied on Innate Array Patterns derived from his own spiritual root's essence, with some spiritual plants and roots as core nodes. Once the array foundations were set, the patterns inscribed, and the array Activated, it would automatically absorb surrounding chaotic energy and filth, crushing them through the patterns to extract pure spiritual energy, finally coalescing into new spiritual energy.

For the second issue, with reincarnation not yet established and the underworld inaccessible, Jiang Yun decided to follow the later Buddha Kingdom in the Palm concept—creating a world to temporarily house and redeem the Vengeful Souls. As a Congenital Cloud Bamboo, his body was hollow, each node a space. Through deduction, he successfully opened up small spaces a hundred li across inside each node, then merged them into a single vast space ten thousand li in radius.

Though the space was formed, it wasn't stable. A flash of inspiration struck, and Jiang Yun took out the Innate Spiritual Treasure Earth Spirit Pearl, channeling its Earth Element Spiritual Energy into the space. As the energy flowed in, he guided his Primordial Spirit to transform it into earth energy, sinking it to the bottom. Gradually, a small earth vein formed, stabilizing the space, and soil emerged atop the vein.

With this operation, Jiang Yun's main body underwent a dramatic change. The entire spiritual root suddenly shot up to a hundred zhang tall, each bamboo node glowing with an Earthy Yellow light.

As spiritual energy poured in continuously, his cultivation surged. Though he'd only opened a small space, it granted him a sliver of insight into Space Law. Watching the earth vein's formation also accelerated his comprehension of the Earth Element Law. He fell into a state of enlightenment.

In just a moment, Jiang Yun's cultivation broke through to the Mystic Immortal realm. This wasn't the end. Another half year passed, and his cultivation reached the peak of Mystic Immortal—only one step away from the Golden Immortal realm, where one shares heaven's lifespan and endures the ages without decay.

Realms below Golden Immortal were mostly foundational training: strengthening the body and Primordial Spirit, preliminary observation and simulation of laws. From Golden Immortal onward, with sufficient accumulation in body and spirit, one could begin comprehending laws through the Primordial Spirit. Thus, the Primordial Spirit and body, imbued with law's essence, became eternal and ageless.

Jiang Yun's Primordial Spirit remained immersed in enlightenment. In that instant of awakening, his soul's vibration resonated with heaven and earth, connecting to the Heavenly Dao's supercomputer.

Borrowing the Dao's computational power, his thoughts accelerated millions of times over. In that moment, he truly understood the greatest benefit of spiritual treasures: ordinary cultivators must reach Golden Immortal to touch laws, as only bodies and souls at that level could withstand law's pressure. But an Innate Spiritual Treasure contained laws within; once refined, the treasure protected its owner, allowing constant comprehension of its laws without fear of pressure, rapidly elevating one's Dao attainment.