Five Years

As time passed and the sun and moon changed, the turmoil of the Empress Secret Realm spread throughout the Tianyuan Realm. Everyone had heard about the Ancient Empress's division of geniuses into "six realms" and knew that the prodigies of various forces had been defeated in the Empress Secret Realm. Under these circumstances, Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong from the Lin family obtained the Empress Inheritance.

The Empress Inheritance is no small matter. Even if the major powers have the will to seize it, they are helpless. After the Empress Trial ends, they can't even get in the door.

As for the Lin family, they had already severed ties with Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong long ago, so it would be unwise to provoke them.

And so, spring turned to autumn, and gradually, fewer and fewer Lineage were concerned about the Empress Secret Realm. Only the Shentu Family remained, constantly sending their Lineage elders to patrol the surface of the Undying Sea, hoping to find traces of Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong.

However, Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong simply disappeared without a trace. Many people believe that they will remain in seclusion in the Empress Secret Realm for at least several decades, and it is unknown to what level their strength will have improved when they emerge.

Year after year, five years have passed since the Empress Secret Realm Trial ended.

For a martial artist, five years is not a long time, but it is enough for a person to gradually forget some things, such as the huge Eye of Destruction that suddenly appeared in the Eternal Vortex. It was an eye that seemed to cause one's soul to collapse just by facing it.

However, as time went by, the fear of that eye among the many powerful forces in the Tianyuan Realm gradually lessened.

After all, the God Burying Abyss was originally synonymous with mystery, so the sudden appearance of some kind of strange phenomenon within it shouldn't be something unacceptable. At least for now, it seems unlikely that the eye will emerge from the Eternal Vortex, and naturally, it won't affect their foundation in the Tianyuan Realm.

But for Yi Yun, five years is a long time.

He is young after all, and his life has just begun. For a young talent, five years is enough for them to make significant progress in their abilities.

That year, Yi Yun was twenty-one years old. After five years of arduous cultivation, Yi Yun's progress in cultivation was actually not very fast.

His current cultivation level has reached the peak of the mid-stage of the Dao Seed realm, just one step away from entering the late-stage of the Dao Seed realm.

Yi Yun's slow progress in cultivation was not due to his desire to solidify his foundation or strengthen his base.

Yi Yun was confident that even though he had reached the peak of the Dao Seed at the young age of twenty-one, he was confident that he could make his foundation flawless.

Yi Yun's cultivation progressed slowly because he spent most of his time comprehending the Empress Heart Sutra and Lord Qingyang's swordsmanship.

The Empress Heart Sutra, after all, is a supreme method derived from the Yang God Scripture and the Nine Nether Sacred Canon. To master the Empress Heart Sutra, one needs to achieve a balance of Yin and Yang, cultivating the vital Nine Yang Spirit Energy. Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong, with their perfectly compatible physiques, quickly mastered the first level of the Empress Heart Sutra. However, starting to cultivate the second level proved to be far more difficult.

To imbue life with vital energy, to transform Pure Yang Energy into the Nine Yang Spirit Energy, and to transform Pure Yin Energy into the Marrow Spirit Energy, requires not only a high degree of compatibility between the body and the energy, but also enlightenment and the right opportunity.

In terms of comprehension, both Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong are quite capable, but finding the right opportunity is not easy.

This requires one's own energy to acquire a trace of spirituality, which is rare and hard to come by. After Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong possessed the Nine Yang Spirit Energy and the Marrow Spirit Energy, they could begin cultivating the third level of the Empress Heart Sutra. The third level of the Empress Heart Sutra is even more difficult to cultivate, and it may even require Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong to make a real union.

The two individuals are naturally drawn to each other, and the longer they cultivate, the more spiritual energy they gain within their bodies. Therefore, the greater the benefits they will receive when they take that final step.

At this moment, Yi Yun's body was suspended in mid-air above the magma pool. He sat cross-legged on one knee, his toes lightly touching the red lotus in the magma pool, breathing in Pure Yang Energy.

Lin Xin Tong sat cross-legged on the ice bed, echoing Yi Yun and yang energies flowing between their bodies.

Yi Yun stretched out his arms, and two orbs of primordial energy, one golden and one blue, unfolded in countless variations around him. These were pure Yin and Pure Yang Energy. Isolated Yin cannot grow, and isolated Yang cannot be born. In the past five years, Yi Yun has been able to Dual Cultivation Yin and Yang.

The two primordial energies shifted, with the Pure Yang Energy clearly more abundant than the Pure Yin Energy. It transformed at times into a golden crow, at others into a dragon, or even Black Tortoise, Teng Snake, a fierce tiger, or a soaring eagle...

These various creatures that appear are actually manifestations of life; the transformation of primordial energy into form is the first step in the formation of life.

Over the past five years, the Radiant Sun True Qi cultivated by Yi Yun through the Tai'a Sacred Law has been completely absorbed and transformed by the Pure Yang Energy of the Empress Heart Sutra, becoming the foundation for cultivating the Nine Yang Spirit Energy...

However, Yi Yun never managed to take that final step.

By now, Yi Yun had lost count of how many times he had tried.

When faced with this kind of bottleneck, going out to gain experience is usually a good option.

Martial artists, especially young talents, cannot be content with a secluded place. If they remain in seclusion for too long, they will eventually encounter a bottleneck.

At this point, a journey or an adventure into a secret realm may lead to a serendipitous discovery, a sudden enlightenment, and a breakthrough.

Now, after five years of seclusion, this phenomenon has already begun to appear.

Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong cannot leave the Empress Secret Realm so quickly; at the very least, they need to master the second level of the Empress Heart Sutra.

Unable to travel outside, Yi Yun could only explore the interior of the God Descending Tower.

With the Qingyang Token, Yi Yun can also access the Great Wilderness World on the second floor of the God Descending Tower, or the Extreme Cold Ice Plain on the fourth floor.

He and Lin Xin Tong explored the two worlds multiple times, but didn't find much of a result.

Today, they arrived at the third floor of the God Descending Tower, which was simply a large hall filled with cultivation techniques Secret Manual.

Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong had chosen cultivation techniques in this hall and had seen its scenery.

Today, the two of them stopped here by chance.

"Hmm? This is..."

Before the two men, on the walls of the main hall, hung a portrait of each of them.

Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong had both seen the two portraits.

One is a portrait of Ancient Empress. The woman in the portrait is dressed in plain clothes, only her back is visible. Her long hair is flowing, her clothes are dancing in the wind, she is barefoot, tiptoeing, and walking in the air.

Beneath her feet lay a vast, icy snowfield. With each step the woman in white took, she left behind an Ice Lotus.

The other one is a portrait of Lord Qingyang.

Lord Qingyang sat on the ground, leaning against a large tree, holding a wine gourd in one hand and drinking heavily. Beside him, a sword was stuck diagonally in the ground, its blade still stained with blood.

The two portraits, one beautiful and the other unrestrained, placed together evoke a strange feeling.

Upon seeing these two paintings, both Yi Yun and Lin Xin Tong were stirred; they felt a unique emotion... (To be continued~^~)