Pengxuan Grotto-Heaven

Three hundred years passed just like that. Along the way, Jiang Yun repaired the ley lines wherever he traveled, covering a journey of more than twenty million li. By then, his cultivation had broken through to the late Golden Immortal stage, but his physical body had reached a bottleneck and was still unable to break through for the time being.

Over these three hundred years, Jiang Yun repaired the ley lines while comprehending the Earth Element Law. His foundations had grown extremely solid, and the might of his seal techniques had also increased. Thanks to his long-term use of the Spirit Rain Technique, he had also gained an entry-level understanding of the Way of Creation. This spell had gradually been improved into a fairly impressive divine ability. Once cast, it could cover a radius of a thousand li. After scattering Seeds of Grass and Wood Spiritual Roots and then casting the Spirit Rain Technique, he could rapidly promote the growth of grass and wood spiritual roots, making it easier for living beings to develop intelligence.

When he had first begun repairing the ley lines, he needed several decades to restore a single small ley line. As his cultivation improved, and as he accumulated experience and refined his divine ability along the way, the time required gradually fell to thirty years, twenty years, ten years... By now, he needed only five years to successfully repair a ley line.

After these ley lines were repaired, the earth qi rose. As the ley lines transformed into earth qi, the spiritual qi around them slowly revived. Over time, Innate Spiritual Veins would gradually condense near the small ley lines.

Each time he repaired a ley line, Jiang Yun received a small amount of merit. By now, the merit he had accumulated could finally barely condense half of a Merit Golden Wheel.

One day, just after repairing a ley line, he suddenly felt a stir in his heart. Following the pull of his intuition, he cast Shrink Ground to Inch and hurried over. Before long, he arrived at the foot of a mountain. Jiang Yun looked up, and a wave of fluctuations suddenly swept across the area, revealing an innate grand formation surrounding a cave halfway up the mountain.

"What immortal mountain or blessed land is this? To think it actually revealed itself when it encountered me. I suppose we must be fated to meet!"

Jiang Yun made a quick calculation with his fingers and was delighted. He immediately activated his divine ability and ascended the mountain.

When he reached the cave entrance, the Spirit Mist within the formation shifted and transformed, actually condensing into two lotuses formed from gathered Innate Spiritual Qi. They lifted him into the air. A passage then opened within the formation, and the lotuses carried him straight into the cave.

After passing through a barrier, space and the stars shifted around him, and he seemed to have entered another grotto-heaven. His eyes suddenly brightened.

At the left side of the entrance stood a stone stele. Four innate divine runes, resembling seal script but not quite seal script, had naturally formed on it. They were the four characters "Pengxuan Grotto-Heaven."

Halos of formation light flowed around the stone stele.

"Looks like this stone stele is the control hub of this grotto-heaven!"

With that thought, Jiang Yun stepped forward. He was just about to use his methods to break the formation when, unexpectedly, the formation dispersed on its own.

He could clearly sense wave after wave of extremely joyful energy emanating from the grotto-heaven before him.

It turned out that, over the past few hundred years, he had repaired the ley lines without pause. His actions in creating life and bringing about creation had won the favor of the Western providence. Those who rendered merit to Heaven and Earth would naturally receive rewards from Heaven and Earth. Thus, an opportunity had arisen on its own, and the grotto-heaven had chosen its master.

After spending ten years, Jiang Yun refined the stone stele and completely took control of Pengxuan Grotto-Heaven. He also learned some information about the grotto-heaven.

This grotto-heaven was a small world spanning more than a million li. Countless living beings dwelled within it, spiritual roots and spiritual medicines grew everywhere, and Innate Spiritual Qi was abundant. After refining the stone stele, he became the master of this grotto-heaven. All the living beings within it were imbued with the grotto-heaven's aura and would naturally acknowledge him as their master. Their life and death were within a single thought of his.

With a thought from Jiang Yun, the stone stele serving as the control hub immediately concealed itself in the depths of the grotto-heaven, making it impossible for others to detect. When he casually summoned it, he suddenly heard a deer call. A sika deer ran out from the herd ahead and lowered itself before him.

Jiang Yun swung himself onto the sika deer's back and patted its head. The sika deer gave a soft call, clouds forming beneath its four hooves as it carried him into the air.

White cranes accompanied him along the way. White apes offered fruit by the roadside, while koi darted and leaped through the clear waters. As the current flowed downstream, waterfalls rose into the air, water vapor spread everywhere, and seven-colored rainbows hung from ancient trees. The various auspicious signs needed no further mention.

The sika deer turned left and right like an elf. When it reached the center of the grotto-heaven, it stopped and called softly several times. Jiang Yun dismounted, took a drop of Three Lights Divine Water from the Water Spirit Pearl, and sent it into the sika deer's body, helping it refine the water. He then patted its head and smiled. "Go on!"

After absorbing a drop of Three Lights Divine Water, the sika deer's origin received enormous benefits. Its spiritual charm seeped out from within its body. It affectionately rubbed its head against Jiang Yun's hand, then auspicious clouds formed beneath its feet. It happily bounded along the path it had taken earlier, returning to its herd.

After watching the sika deer leave, Jiang Yun shifted his attention to what lay before him. This was where the treasure of the grotto-heaven was located.

What came into view was a large pond roughly ten mu in size. Ripples of light shimmered across its surface, and more than a hundred white lotuses bloomed in the center. Most of them had bloomed to the third grade, while only a few had reached the sixth grade. As for ninth-grade lotuses, there were only five. At the very center of them all, however, was an eye-catching twelve-grade White Lotus. Faint purifying divine light spilled from it, while pure qi suffused its surroundings. Just smelling it made one's mind clear and free of distracting thoughts.

"A Twelve-grade Pure World White Lotus! To think this treasure would be here. What a great creation..." Jiang Yun said in astonishment, then rejoiced inwardly.

It was said that, within the chaos, there had been a thirty-six-grade Creation Green Lotus, a primordial treasure of chaos. Five lotus seeds had been nurtured within its lotus heart. Later, when Great God Pangu opened Heaven, the Creation Green Lotus suffered severe damage during the Great Tribulation of Heaven Opening after being attacked by demon gods. When Heaven and Earth first opened, the violent qi of Earth, Wind, Water, Fire ran rampant. On top of that, the pressure of Heaven and Earth bore down upon it, causing the Creation Green Lotus to shatter, interrupting the nurturing process of its lotus seeds.

Of the five lotus seeds, only one matured. It later fell into the Primordial World and transformed on Buzhou Mountain into the twenty-four-grade Creation Green Lotus. The other four lotus seeds failed to mature and respectively transformed into the Twelve-grade Karmic Fire Red Lotus, Twelve-grade Merit Golden Lotus, Twelve-grade Pure World White Lotus, and Twelve-grade World Destroying Black Lotus.

The Karmic Fire Red Lotus was the companion treasure of Minghe, the World Destroying Black Lotus was obtained by Luohou, and the Merit Golden Lotus was later bestowed upon Daoist Jieyin by Old Ancestor Hongjun. As for the Pure World White Lotus, it was exceptionally mysterious and had never appeared. Who would have thought Jiang Yun would encounter it in this grotto-heaven?

Like the other four lotus platforms, this Twelve-grade Pure World White Lotus was an extreme-grade Innate Spiritual Root. Once refined into a spiritual treasure, it would likewise become a Top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure—and one of the finest even among Top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures. It contained forty-eight Innate Restrictions, and its defensive power was extraordinarily formidable. As long as one possessed sufficient magic power, even a sage could not break it. It could also be used to suppress providence, while the Pure World Divine Light it emitted was the nemesis of evil and unclean things.

Jiang Yun used his magic power to pluck the Pure World White Lotus, imprinted it with his soul mark, and stored it in his body after initially refining it. He then turned his gaze toward the pond water. It turned out that the water nurturing the Pure World White Lotus was no ordinary substance. It was the Three Lights Divine Water he had seen before. He had never expected this grotto-heaven to contain a ten-mu pond of it. No wonder the seeds of the Twelve-grade Pure World White Lotus could nurture so many white lotuses.

Not to mention that the twelve-grade White Lotus was a Top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure, even a third-grade White Lotus could be refined into a low-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure. A sixth-grade one could be refined into a Mid-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure, while a ninth-grade one could be refined into a high-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure. He did not pluck the other lotuses. Having one twelve-grade White Lotus was enough for him to use. What he lacked now were offensive spiritual treasures. As for the Earth Spirit Pearl and Water Spirit Pearl, their offensive power was not especially strong; they were primarily auxiliary treasures.

After collecting the white lotus, Jiang Yun also took several portions of Three Lights Divine Water with him. He set up a protective formation around the spiritual pond, then sat cross-legged beside it. Afterward, he took out the Twelve-grade Pure World White Lotus and began refining it.

The refining process was very slow. After all, it was a Top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure. Although he had the assistance of the Dao Derivation Disk and possessed the cultivation of a late Golden Immortal, after nearly a hundred years, he had barely refined twelve Innate Restrictions.

Feeling the refining speed grow slower and slower, Jiang Yun decisively stopped.