Three years later, Xuande, Jieyin, and Zhunti arrived at Wuzhuang Temple on Longevity Mountain as agreed.
Zhenyuanzi and Hong Yun were ready as well.
After a brief exchange of greetings, the five wasted no time. They rose on clouds and headed straight west.
Wuzhuang Temple stood near the boundary between the eastern and western Primordial Wilderness, slightly to the east.
After only a few days of flying west, the scenery around them began to change.
The vibrant life of the eastern lands—their abundant spiritual energy and flourishing growth—gradually receded like a tide.
In its place came a somber, desolate landscape.
The mountains and rivers were still majestic.
But many peaks were unnaturally fractured or tilted, as though some immense force had twisted them apart.
Rivers and streams grew scarce. Many riverbeds were dry, while others held only muddy trickles.
The earth took on a grayish-yellow hue, and the vegetation thinned noticeably.
Most of the plants could endure drought and barren soil. The delicate spirit herbs and lush forests common in the east were rarely seen.
The spiritual energy in the air had grown thin and sluggish.
At times, faint disturbances rippled through it, like the labored breathing of someone with asthma.
"This is what the west looks like now."
Jieyin gazed down at the land below.
His voice was low, and the sorrow on his face had not faded since they entered the west.
"The poison left by Rahula's calamity runs deep."
Zhunti's smile had vanished too. Frowning, he said,
"The deeper we go, the clearer the damage to the Earth Veins becomes.
"In many places, spiritual activity has almost ceased."
Xuande observed in silence. He had prepared himself for this.
But seeing the sickness of this vast land with his own eyes still shook him.
This was more than a change in scenery. The vitality of an entire region had weakened.
He could even faintly sense something deep beneath their feet:
a silent ache, a feeling of blockage.
It was nothing like the steady, solid presence he had sensed at the eastern border.
Zhenyuanzi looked grave. He could feel it more clearly than anyone else.
As the bearer of the Earth Scroll, he felt every ailment of the land beneath them as though it reached directly into his heart.
"The Earth Qi is tangled beyond measure," he said. "Countless veins are broken, blocked, or twisted.
"At this rate, the west's vitality will only continue to fade. Fellow Daoist Hongyun, can you sense it?"
Hong Yun had set aside his usual playfulness. His face serious, he carefully felt the energy around them.
"The Earth Qi is in chaos. The moisture is out of balance, the winds can't flow freely, and even the subterranean fire seems unstable.
"The Four Symbols are out of balance. No wonder life is withering.
"It's worse than I imagined."
The five continued west. The deeper they traveled into its heartland, the more shocking the devastation became.
At times, they saw enormous chasms that seemed bottomless, spewing murky, chaotic vapors.
At others, they crossed utterly lifeless wastes where not a blade of grass grew, only bare sand and stone.
The settlements of surviving creatures they occasionally encountered looked frail, struggling to endure on the barren land.
"We can't keep surveying it at a glance."
Zhenyuanzi brought his cloud to a halt and addressed the others.
"We must carefully survey the damage to the Earth Veins across the entire west and draw a detailed map of their courses. Only then can we treat the problem at its source.
"That will take time, and I'll need to devote my full strength to sensing through the Earth Scroll. I can't afford any serious interruptions."
Xuande nodded. "You're right, Fellow Daoist Zhenyuanzi. The four of us can guard you and ensure the survey goes smoothly."
Jieyin and Zhunti had no objections. Hong Yun added, "Go ahead without worry, Brother. Leave the guarding to us."
Zhenyuanzi landed on the summit of a relatively stable, elevated barren mountain.
He sat cross-legged and nodded to the others. Then he stilled his breath and focused, raising both hands.
An ancient book rose slowly above his head. It shone with a rich earthen-yellow light, and its cover bore a map of mountains, rivers, and the veins of the land.
It was the Innate Spiritual Treasure known as the Earth Scroll, also called the Heaven and Earth Mirror.
The Earth Scroll hovered three feet above Zhenyuanzi's head and slowly opened.
Its pages turned without wind, giving off a gentle yet vast earthen-yellow glow.
The light was not dazzling, but it spread like spilled mercury.
It seeped into every opening, reaching in all directions and, above all, deep into the earth.
Zhenyuanzi closed his eyes and bound his entire mind to the Earth Scroll.
Through its unique connection to the Origin Essence of the Primordial Wilderness's land,
he began sensing the course of the Earth Veins beneath every inch of the west, the flow of spiritual energy, and each point of damage...
Xuande, Jieyin, Zhunti, and Hong Yun took positions in four directions, guarding Zhenyuanzi at the center.
Each used his own methods to set up simple wards for warning and protection,
alert for disturbances from above or below.
Time slipped quietly by as they devoted themselves to the survey.
One year, ten years, a hundred years...
For a Grand Unity Golden Immortal, once his mind was absorbed in the Great Dao or an important task,
the passage of time grew indistinct.
Zhenyuanzi did not remain seated in one place throughout.
Whenever the Earth Scroll had sensed enough of a region,
he moved under the others' protection and resumed his work elsewhere.
They traversed the west's mountains, deep valleys, plains, and deserts, visiting nearly every important Earth Qi junction.
Xuande and the other three accompanied him throughout, witnessing the devastation firsthand.
They also saw how meticulously Zhenyuanzi used the Earth Scroll to record and analyze every irregularity in the Earth Veins, never tiring of the work.
Sometimes, he would point out a tiny Spiritual Vein hidden beneath seemingly ordinary ground, one on the verge of breaking completely.
At other times, he would linger beside a violent eruption of Earth Qi, tracing the source of its turmoil.
Hong Yun did not sit idle either.
Working alongside Zhenyuanzi, he drew on his sensitivity to the energies of the Four Symbols
to distinguish and record how disturbances in the Earth Qi affected water, wind, and fire.
He found that where Earth Veins had broken, underground waterways had often become disordered or dried up.
Where Earth Qi was blocked, winds often raged without end, or the air grew stagnant.
And regions with unstable subterranean fire gave off strange waves of scorching heat or biting cold.
Jieyin and Zhunti handled basic communication with the west's surviving Earth Veins and earth spirits, helping Zhenyuanzi verify what he sensed.
When Zhenyuanzi needed to stimulate the Earth Qi at a particular spot to observe its response, they supplied him with power.
Besides standing guard, Xuande quietly watched and learned.
Zhenyuanzi's mastery of the Earth Dao was extraordinary. He did not rely on brute force.
Instead, like a master physician taking a pulse, he probed the land with the finest touch of divine sense and Dao resonance.
Hong Yun's grasp of the changes among the Four Symbols was just as precise. He saw connections in the smallest details that others would miss.
All of it deepened Xuande's understanding of how heaven and earth worked, and of how to restore balance.
Before they knew it, more than ten thousand years had passed in travel and surveying.
One day, they reached the edge of the Sea of Nirvana in the farthest reaches of the west.
Zhenyuanzi slowly withdrew the Earth Scroll's glow and opened his eyes.
His face was deeply weary.
But his eyes were exceptionally bright and clear. He now understood the overall state of the western Earth Veins.
"Thank you all for your efforts, fellow Daoists." Zhenyuanzi let out a long breath and addressed the four who had guarded him.