Before making immortal skirts for Xihe and Changxi, Beichen had made a divination. The Golden Crow and the Moon Maidens would not be born anytime soon.
He estimated that the offspring of the sun and the moon would be born during Old Ancestor Hongjun's first lecture, or after it ended.
He planned to take his two stars and four disciples, along with the Three Immortal Islands' three guardians, to Zixiao Palace to listen to Hongjun's lecture. So he was making defensive immortal skirts in advance for pregnant Xihe and Changxi, to help them safely cross the Great Desolate Gale Domain and the Chaos Fragment Domain without harming the children in their wombs.
Beichen spent every day in his cave abode making the skirts. Mo Yuan and Yan Lie were delighted, practically beaming; nearly every day, they would sneak into the cave abode to peek before the day was over.
Time passed without notice in the Great Desolate. A hundred years went by in the blink of an eye. Having gained experience making immortal clothes for Ling Cair, Beichen worked much faster this time. He completed both skirts in just a hundred years.
Next, it was Mo Yuan and Yan Lie's turn to be crushed.
When they saw the immortal clothes were finished, the two rushed happily into the cave abode and hurriedly bowed in thanks. "Thank you, Master, for making immortal clothes for us!"
"I made immortal clothes for you?" Beichen paused, then held up the skirts. "You mean these two?"
"Skirts? Dresses?" Mo Yuan and Yan Lie stared at them in a daze. "Master, you didn't make these for us?"
"You want to wear these two immortal skirts?" Beichen quietly made a divination, then asked calmly, "If you do, I'll give them to you."
"Cough, cough!" Mo Yuan looked terribly awkward. "Master, immortal skirts are for women. I'm a black dragon. Why would I wear a skirt? I don't want one!"
"This is an immortal maiden's skirt. It's very beautiful!" Yan Lie's eyes shone, but then filled with regret. "Unfortunately, a Fire Qilin is male. If I wore this skirt outside, all the creatures in the Great Desolate would laugh at me."
"I... I don't want one either!"
Seeing their reaction, Beichen was secretly amused. He hadn't made the skirts for them in the first place, so he simply went along with it. "All right, then. Since I made these skirts for you and you don't want them, I'll just put them away."
With that, Beichen packed the two skirts into the storage pouch he had made earlier.
"Oh, if you have nothing else to do, go back and focus on your cultivation. There's no need to keep searching for treasures and materials for now. Mo Yuan, you don't have to patrol the Three Immortal Islands either. You can pick the islands' Heavenly Spirit Fruits and brew them. Drink plenty to improve your cultivation!"
"Huh? We don't have to work?" Mo Yuan and Yan Lie were both astonished, their faces lighting up with joy. "And we can drink the fruit wine from the islands?"
"What? Have you never had any of the fruit wine from these islands?"
"Never!" Yan Lie replied. "Master, the fruit wine here is made from the fruits of top-grade spiritual roots of the Great Desolate. Without your permission, we wouldn't dare touch it!"
"Honestly..." Beichen was speechless. These two fools had gone nearly two thousand years without tasting the spiritual-root fruit wine from the Three Immortal Islands.
Beichen had once investigated the Three Immortal Islands. Among the three islands were all ten of the Great Desolate's great spiritual roots. But they were only seedlings, and had not grown for a long time, much less borne fruit.
The top-grade spiritual roots Mo Yuan and the others mentioned were not among those ten. Beichen didn't care about fruits like that.
Besides, he was now a late-stage Grand Unity Golden Immortal, on the verge of reaching the peak. Unless they were fruits from one of the ten great spiritual roots, he wouldn't use them.
"What a waste! You two are wasting far too much!" Beichen frowned. "I'm ordering you now: eat all the fruit wine on the Three Immortal Islands you want. Eat as much as you can!"
"If you can digest it and use it to cultivate, then eat it!"
"Master, do you really mean it?" Mo Yuan asked, still unsure.
"Of course I do! Tell Ling Cair too. Eat the Heavenly Spirit Fruits and Earthly Treasures on these islands. If you don't, you'll be wasting heaven's gifts!"
"Yes, Master. We understand!" Mo Yuan promptly replied.
Yan Lie couldn't help feeling suspicious. He asked, "Master, you've told us to focus on cultivation. May I ask if something has happened?"
Beichen didn't hide it. "Within a thousand years, Old Ancestor Hongjun will enter the Sage Realm and begin giving lectures at Zixiao Palace. The first lecture will cover the Dao of the Grand Unity Golden Immortal. I'll take you there to listen. You can consider it a benefit I'm giving you!"
"The Dao of the Grand Unity Golden Immortal?" Yan Lie scoffed. "Master, if it's the Dao of the Grand Unity Golden Immortal, why go? I'm already at the middle stage of the Grand Unity Golden Immortal. I don't need to listen!"
Beichen nearly blew a gasket. "Yan Lie, you fool!"
"Old Ancestor Hongjun's first lecture on the Dao of the Grand Unity Golden Immortal won't teach you how to enter that realm. It will cover the path from the initial stage of the Grand Unity Golden Immortal all the way to the peak, to the verge of Quasi-Sainthood!"
"Do you think you're already on the verge of Quasi-Sainthood? Or have you already entered the Quasi-Saint realm?"
"Huh? Is that so?" Yan Lie trembled and dropped to his knees. "Master, I was wrong!"
Nearby, Mo Yuan grew excited. "That's wonderful! If I can hear the Dao of the Grand Unity Golden Immortal, I might be able to reach the peak!"
For a while, both Mo Yuan and Yan Lie were filled with anticipation.
Beichen told the two of them to go cultivate, then went to the Yellow Middle Plum seedling.
Ever since Yan Lie had found it, it hadn't grown at all in more than a thousand years. Beichen had examined it countless times with his Divine Tortoise Eyes, but still couldn't find the reason.
Even using the Great Dao Qiankun Divine Tortoise Shell to divine the cause had yielded nothing.
"Where exactly is the problem?"
After thinking it over, Beichen reached out and tossed the Chaos Nine-Colored God-Catching Net toward the Yellow Middle Plum tree.
The divine net flashed with nine-colored light, illuminating every tiny detail of the tree. An aphid clung to its roots and stem, greedily sucking up the spiritual root's nourishment.
The aphid had an enormous appetite, yet remained in a chaotic, unawakened state. It devoured endless nourishment, keeping the Yellow Middle Plum from growing, but it didn't grow itself, either.
"So it was this tiny aphid that kept the Yellow Middle Plum seedling from growing!"
Beichen found it hard to believe. He caught the aphid and put it in his storage pouch.
The world inside the aphid was a sea of chaos. It was still sleeping soundly, with no telling when it would wake.
After he caught the pest with the Chaos Nine-Colored God-Catching Net, the Yellow Middle Plum began growing wildly. In an instant, it became a towering tree in the center of Yingzhou Island, dazzling as if it were a divine tower from the Great Desolate, towering ten million feet high.
"The other spiritual roots are hidden away and still so small that they're incredibly hard to find. Could they also be held back by aphids like this?"
Now that the Yellow Middle Plum had escaped the constraints on its growth, Beichen wanted to find the other nine great spiritual roots as well. Only then would the Three Immortal Islands' spiritual-root resources be fully developed.
But across the vast Three Islands, he had no clue how to find the others.
"Master, I knew you'd be here!"
Just as Beichen was admiring the Yellow Middle Plum tree, a sweet, playful voice came from behind him. Ling Cair approached happily, holding a white jade bottle as pure as snow, filled with Chaos Qi.
"Wow! What a beautiful tree! This is... the Yellow Middle Plum, a spiritual root!" Ling Cair exclaimed in admiration. "I saw one on Kunlun Mountain once. I never imagined our Three Islands had such a high-grade spiritual root of the Great Desolate, too!"
"Mm." Beichen's gaze fell on the white bottle. "Cair, how did you find your way here?"
Before you continue