Pengxuan Grotto-Heaven

Another three hundred years passed this way. Jiang Yun had repaired the earth veins across over two thousand miles of his journey, and his cultivation had broken through to Late Golden Immortal. Only his physical body had reached a bottleneck, still difficult to break through for now.

Over these three centuries, Jiang Yun repaired earth veins while comprehending the Earth Element Law, accumulating extremely deep foundations. The power of his seal techniques had also strengthened. Thanks to his long-term practice of the Spirit Rain Technique, he had gained an entry into the Way of Creation, gradually improving this spell into a formidable divine ability. Once cast, it could cover a thousand miles in radius. By scattering Seeds of Grass and Wood Spiritual Roots and then casting the Spirit Rain Technique, he could rapidly germinate spiritual plants, making it easier for living beings to gain intelligence.

In the beginning, repairing a single small earth vein required decades. As his cultivation improved and he accumulated experience and refined his techniques, the time gradually shortened to thirty years, twenty years, ten years... Now, he could successfully repair an earth vein in just five years.

Once these earth veins were repaired, earth energy surged upward. The veins transformed earth energy, slowly reviving spiritual qi in the surrounding area. Over time, small earth veins would gradually condense into acquired spirit veins.

Every time he repaired an earth vein, Jiang Yun received a small amount of merit as a reward. Now, the merit he had accumulated could barely condense into a small half of a Merit Golden Wheel.

One day, just after finishing a vein repair, his heart suddenly trembled. Following the pull of his intuition, he used Shrink Ground to Inch to seek it out. Before long, he arrived at the foot of a mountain. Jiang Yun looked up, and ahead of him, ripples of energy flowed, revealing a grand innate formation surrounding a cave on the mountainside.

"What immortal mountain treasure is this? It reveals itself to me of its own accord—it must be fated to be mine!"

Jiang Yun calculated with his fingers, delight rising in his heart. He activated his divine ability and ascended the mountain.

At the cave entrance, the spirit mist within the formation shifted and condensed into two lotuses formed from Innate Spiritual Qi, lifting him up. Then a path opened through the formation, and the lotuses carried him straight into the cave.

Passing through a barrier, the stars shifted, and he seemed to enter another grotto-heaven. His eyes brightened.

At the entrance stood a stone tablet on the left, bearing four naturally formed Innate Divine Runes that resembled seal script but were not—the words "Pengxuan Grotto-Heaven."

Around the tablet, the light of a formation rippled.

"It seems this stone tablet is the control hub of this grotto-heaven!"

Jiang Yun thought and stepped forward, about to use his techniques to break the formation, when the formation automatically dispersed.

He could clearly feel waves of extremely joyful energy emanating from the grotto-heaven before him.

It turned out that his centuries of uninterrupted earth vein repair and life-nurturing deeds had won the favor of Western destiny. Those who contributed to heaven and earth deserved rewards, so the opportunity arose naturally, and the grotto-heaven chose its master.

It took ten years for Jiang Yun to refine the stone tablet, fully mastering the Pengxuan Grotto-Heaven and learning some of its information.

This grotto-heaven was a small world, spanning millions of miles in every direction. Countless living beings dwelled within, spiritual roots and medicinal herbs covered the land, and Innate Spiritual Qi was abundant. After refining the tablet, he became the master of this grotto-heaven. All living beings within, tainted by its aura, naturally recognized him as their lord, their lives and deaths held in a single thought of his.

Jiang Yun's mind stirred, and the stone tablet, the control hub, immediately concealed itself deep within the grotto-heaven, undetectable by others. He casually summoned, and a deer's cry rang out. A spotted deer ran out from a herd ahead and knelt before him.

Jiang Yun swung himself onto the deer's back and patted its head. The deer chirped softly, clouds forming beneath its hooves as it carried him into the air.

Along the way, white cranes accompanied them, white apes offered fruit, and golden carp leaped and darted through the clear waters. Downstream, a waterfall surged, mist filling the air, casting a seven-colored rainbow over an ancient tree. All manner of auspicious signs—too many to describe.

The deer, like a spirit, turned left and right until it stopped at the center of the grotto-heaven, letting out a few soft calls. Jiang Yun dismounted, took a drop of Three Lights Divine Water from his Water Spirit Pearl, and infused it into the deer's body, helping it refine the essence. He patted its head and smiled, "Go on!"

The deer absorbed the drop of Three Lights Divine Water, gaining immense benefits to its origin. Its entire being radiated spiritual charm. It nuzzled Jiang Yun's hand affectionately, then clouds bloomed beneath its hooves as it bounded joyfully back along the path to rejoin its herd.

Jiang Yun watched the deer leave before turning his attention to what lay before him. This was where the grotto-heaven's treasure resided.

What met his eyes was a large pool, about ten acres in size, its surface shimmering with ripples. In the center of the pool, over a hundred white lotuses bloomed. Most were three-grade flowers, with only a few reaching six grades. As for nine-grade lotuses, there were merely five. And at the very center, surrounded by them all, was a dazzling twelve-grade white lotus, its gentle purifying divine light cascading down. Clear energy radiated from it, calming the mind and banishing stray thoughts.

"A Twelve-grade Pure World White Lotus! To think it's this treasure—what a great fortune..." Jiang Yun exclaimed, joy surging in his heart.

Legend held that in chaos, there was a chaos treasure, the thirty-six-grade Creation Green Lotus, whose heart nurtured five lotus seeds. Later, when the Great God Pangu split heaven, the Creation Green Lotus was severely damaged by demon gods during the Great Tribulation of Heaven Opening. As heaven and earth first formed, violent Earth, Wind, Water, Fire raged, and the pressure of heaven and earth crushed the Creation Green Lotus, interrupting the seeds' gestation.

Only one of the five seeds matured, falling into the primordial wilderness and transforming into the Twenty-four grade Creation Green Lotus at Buzhou Mountain. The other four seeds, still immature, became the Twelve-grade Karmic Fire Red Lotus, the Twelve-grade Merit Golden Lotus, the Twelve-grade Pure World White Lotus, and the Twelve-grade World Destroying Black Lotus.

Among them, the Karmic Fire Red Lotus was the companion treasure of the River Styx, the World Destroying Black Lotus was taken by Luohou, the Merit Golden Lotus was later bestowed by Old Ancestor Hongjun to Daoist Jieyin, while the Pure World White Lotus was extremely mysterious, never having appeared in the world. He never expected to encounter it here in this grotto-heaven.

Like the other four lotus thrones, this Twelve-grade Pure World White Lotus was a top-grade Innate Spiritual Root. Refined into a spiritual treasure, it was also a Top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure, and among the finest of its kind. It contained forty-eight Innate Restrictions, its defensive power immense—with sufficient personal mana, only a saint could break it. It could also suppress destiny, and its Pure World Divine Light was the bane of all evil beings.

Jiang Yun used his mana to pluck the Pure World White Lotus, imprinting his Primordial Spirit mark upon it. After a preliminary refinement, he absorbed it into his body. He then turned his gaze to the pool water. The water that nurtured the Pure World White Lotus was no ordinary thing—it was the Three Lights Divine Water he had seen before. He hadn't expected this grotto-heaven to hold a ten-acre pool of it. No wonder the seeds of the Twelve-grade Pure World White Lotus had given rise to so many white lotuses.

Leaving aside the twelve-grade lotus as a Top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure, the three-grade lotuses could be refined into low-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures, six-grade into mid-grade, and nine-grade could even yield top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures. He didn't pluck the other lotuses; having one twelve-grade white lotus was enough. What he still lacked were offensive spiritual treasures. As for the Earth Spirit Pearl and Water Spirit Pearl, their attack power wasn't formidable—they were more for support.

After collecting the white lotus, Jiang Yun took several cubic measures of Three Lights Divine Water for himself, set up a protective formation around the spirit pool, and sat cross-legged by its edge. He then took out the Twelve-grade Pure World White Lotus and began to refine it.

The refinement process was slow. After all, it was a Top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure. Even with the aid of the Dao Derivation Disk and his Late Golden Immortal cultivation, it took nearly a hundred years to refine just twelve Innate Restrictions.

Feeling the refinement speed grow ever slower, Jiang Yun decisively stopped.