Acquired Spiritual Treasures were not only needed by Golden Immortals—even Mystic Immortals and True Immortals yearned to obtain one!
Once news from Fire Artifact Mountain spread, which cultivator within hundreds of thousands of miles would not be tempted?
It was not as if they were being asked to take risks. They merely had to find disciples of the Innate Fire God.
Whether by robbing, deceiving, or luring them, even Earth Immortals and Celestial Immortals might have ways to find a disciple for Fire Artifact Mountain!
Luo Qing's Spiritual Treasure bait was indeed highly effective.
In barely a century, it had brought Fire Artifact Mountain fifty new disciples of the Innate Fire God.
They had passed the halfway mark!
As for the Acquired Spiritual Treasures he had given away as rewards, they were nothing worth mentioning to Luo Qing.
The Spiritual Treasures he awarded had not been meticulously refined by him. Calling them crude would not have been an exaggeration.
Even so, they were enough to send the assembled immortals into a frenzy.
Fifty Acquired Spiritual Treasures had made quite a few immortals and gods turn green with envy.
"The Earth Immortal next door really struck it lucky. He tricked an Earth Immortal Fire God into coming here and got a Spiritual Treasure as a reward!"
"No, we have to go out and look around more too. If we're lucky enough to discover an Innate Fire God, we'll make a fortune!"
"Exactly. Let's go farther south. I heard there are more Rogue Cultivators over there."
A group of Mystic Immortals chatted excitedly as they left the mountain gate and headed south.
The effect of throwing out genuine Spiritual Treasures was obvious, and Luo Qing was quite satisfied.
Now all he had to do was wait for the Innate Fire Gods to keep coming to him.
To be honest, accumulating half the required number of Innate Fire Gods in less than ten thousand years had surprised Luo Qing as well.
However, this was also one of the reasons Luo Qing had chosen to settle down at Wind Spirit Mountain.
Wind Spirit Mountain was currently the core of the Western Continent, and the number of Innate Gods gathered there was also the densest and greatest in the entire Western Continent.
In any other place, it would have been absolutely impossible to gather more than two hundred Innate Fire Gods so quickly.
"From here on, I only need to slowly gather Innate Fire Gods by exchanging Acquired Spiritual Treasures for them!"
"But the subsequent evolution of the Chi Wang Dharma Form and Chi Wang Divine Body needs to be prepared for first."
At this thought, Luo Qing temporarily handed external matters over to Luo Yi and Luo Er.
He began secluded cultivation, preparing to design the subsequent path of evolution.
According to legend, Ancestor God Pangu had been born from the thirty-sixth-grade Chaos Green Lotus.
He had innately claimed the Dao Fruit of the Chaos Great Dao of Strength.
Another legend concerning Ancestor God Pangu stated that he possessed eighty-one Dharma Forms of Innate Positions.
Every Innate Dharma Form had at least a Hunyuan Position. Five core Dharma Forms had even reached the Hunyuan Wuji Position—the Sage Position.
Among them were the Hunyuan-positioned Fire Element Emperor Dharma Form and the Sage-positioned Primordial Yang Emperor Dharma Form.
Luo Qing's Divine Dao was aimed directly at the two Innate Positions of the Fire Element Emperor and the Primordial Yang Emperor.
According to Luo Qing's three-step plan, he intended to become a top-level Innate God in one leap during this second evolution.
The next step for the Chi Wang Dharma Form was the Chi Huang Dharma Form.
Its Position would likewise rise from Chi Wang to Chi Huang, evolving from the early-Taiyi Position to either the Peak Taiyi or early Great Luo level.
Five thousand leisurely years flashed by.
Fire Artifact Mountain, White Spirit Mountain, and Sweet Forest Mountain joined forces, suppressing the area within hundreds of thousands of miles.
Nearly twenty Golden Immortals had gathered there.
No one came looking for trouble with Fire Artifact Mountain.
As for the Grand Unity Golden Immortals who had the ability to target Fire Artifact Mountain, they were all still fighting over the opportunities in Wind Spirit Mountain's core region!
They had no time to make things difficult for a small artifact-refining mountain.
Under their excellent reputation, the exchanges of Acquired Spiritual Treasures for disciples of the Innate Fire God proceeded smoothly.
By now, more than a thousand Innate Fire Gods had gathered throughout Fire Artifact Mountain.
It would not have been an exaggeration to say that Fire Artifact Mountain had scoured all the low-level Innate Fire Gods within tens of millions of miles.
There were even nine mid-level Innate Fire Gods among them.
This was because Luo Qing had accumulated a large amount of spiritual materials capable of refining Spiritual Treasures over the past tens of thousands of years.
On top of that, refining Acquired Spiritual Treasures was as easy as drinking water for him.
Otherwise, even if a Grand Unity Golden Immortal worked himself to death, he would never have been able to refine more than a thousand Acquired Spiritual Treasures in ten thousand years.
On this day, in a secluded cave dwelling in the rear mountains of Fire Artifact Mountain,
Luo Qing looked at the Fire Element Origin inside the Five Source Spirit Disk, which was about to overflow, and his eyes were filled with amusement.
Back then, after spending hundreds of years designing the Chi Huang Dharma Form and Divine Body,
he had calculated the numbers again, only to discover that
if calculated according to the foundation of a top-level Innate God, five hundred Innate Fire Gods would nowhere near suffice.
At least eight hundred would be necessary.
Luo Qing gritted his teeth and set the number at a thousand.
It was better to have a surplus than to fall short.
Now, at last, the work was complete, and he could begin the second step of his evolution plan.
"I've already been at Wind Spirit Mountain for ten thousand years!"
"The Calamity Fiend Qi in this world has risen by nearly ten percent compared to ten thousand years ago."
Looking down at the bustling Fire Artifact Mountain below, Luo Qing frowned and sighed.
Ever since the Fierce Beast Calamity, the Calamity Fiend Qi in the world had remained in decline.
Yet barely half a Kalpa Cycle had passed, and the Calamity Fiend Qi was already showing signs of rising again.
In Luo Qing's view, this meant that turmoil was about to appear in the Primordial Wilderness once more.
The three clans of the East, South, and Canghai Sea were about to begin their struggle for supremacy.
As for the Western Continent, the Divine Dao, Immortal Dao, and Mandala Path would also inevitably fight among themselves.
The Western Continent was already weak. If another great upheaval occurred,
Luo Qing would no longer find it strange that the Western Continent would later be called a barren land.
Luohou's severe damage to the Ancestral Vein of the Western Land was one reason. These two successive wars were probably another.
The Taiyi and Great Luo were about to be wiped out. If the Western Continent was not barren, what place could be?
"But all of that has nothing to do with me for now!"
Luo Qing had a feeling that this evolution would take far longer than he imagined.
It was not particularly strange, either. Setting aside the four Spirit Ancestors—Hongjun, Luohou, Qiankun, and Ancestor Dragon—who seemed to have benefited from cheats, as well as the top-level Innate Gods and Innate Sacred Beings,
most of the top-level Innate Gods and Innate Sacred Beings in the Primordial Wilderness were still being nurtured at this time!
Even if they had already developed consciousness, they still could not emerge for the time being.
One could imagine how long it took for top-level Innate Gods and Innate Sacred Beings to be nurtured.
Among the gods nurtured at the beginning of the world's creation, the stronger their foundations, the later they would theoretically be born.
Once all preparations were complete, Luo Qing no longer intended to remain at Fire Artifact Mountain.
He had only used this mountain to gather the Fire Element Origin. Now that he had enough, it had become dispensable.
After summoning all the Golden Immortals of the three mountains, Luo Qing publicly passed the position of mountain master to a newly advanced mid-stage Golden Immortal cultivator.
"I need to enter a lengthy period of secluded cultivation. I do not know when I will emerge. I have no time to attend to the sect's affairs, so from now on, you will make your own decisions."
After leaving those words, Luo Qing paid no attention to the reactions of the Golden Immortals.
He took Luo Yi and Luo Er with him, then cleared away every trace of himself from the cave dwelling in the rear mountains.
Luo Qing completely disappeared from Wind Spirit Mountain.
Without Luo Qing's suppression, Fire Artifact Mountain's Mandala naturally ceased to exist.
The Fire Element Artifact Forging Treasure Technique also faded into an ordinary method of artifact-refining cultivation.
As for what would happen to Fire Artifact Mountain from then on, it was no longer something Luo Qing cared about.
Whether it flourished or declined and perished, none of it had anything to do with Luo Qing anymore.
After leaving Fire Artifact Mountain, Luo Qing flew for nearly a hundred million miles before stopping in an ordinary mountain range.
"This place is barren and desolate, with no gods or spirits living here. It is perfect for my evolution!"
Luo Qing smiled, thoroughly satisfied.
In an instant, he transformed into a streak of Spiritual Light and plunged ten thousand zhang beneath the ground.
Leaving behind an ordinary, lightless stone pearl underground, Luo Qing disappeared without a trace.
Inside the Small Blessed Land of the Acquired Spiritual Treasure Five-Colored Divine Pearl, Luo Qing glanced at the feeble Netherworld Ghost Willow and the Netherworld Profound Tiger divine embryo beneath the tree.
Without outside assistance, they likely would not be able to emerge even after several dozen Kalpa Cycles.
"Let the second evolution begin here!"
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