Deep in the clouds and rosy mist ahead stood a spiritual root a hundred zhang tall.
Its trunk was a profound, mysterious shade of yellow and black. Clear Great Dao Patterns covered its bark, as if inscribed with the Principles of Heaven and Earth.
Flowers bloomed on its branches, shaped like lotuses. Nine fruits had already formed, each shining brilliantly, with the Dao characters "Yellow Middle" on its surface.
Donghua stepped forward and watched the ancient pine's branches and leaves sway in the breeze.
According to the memories passed down to him, he could tell for certain that this was the Yellow Middle Plum, one of the Ten Great Innate Spiritual Roots, renowned for its miraculous effects!
It was said that the tree completed a cycle every Three Yuan Cycles: it flowered in the first, bore fruit in the second, and ripened in the third, yielding only nine Dao Fruits in all.
Donghua raised his hand, plucked a Dao Fruit from a branch, and put it in his mouth.
The fruit tasted sweet and refreshing at first, with a hint of bitterness. Savored slowly, its unusual fragrance filled his mouth and lingered between his lips and teeth.
The fruit's flesh entered his stomach and, in an instant, turned into a gentle, mild current. Like a stream, it slowly permeated his limbs and bones, silently tempering his Immortal Body and strengthening his physique.
Moreover, the abundant Primordial Qi within it was enough to grant a cultivator who had yet to attain Great Luo Realm the magical power of that realm on the spot. For someone like Donghua, who had already ascended to Great Luo, eating just one was equivalent to tens of thousands of years of painstaking cultivation, saving him countless hours of slow, steady work.
Yet what moved Donghua most was not the increase in magical power or physical strength.
The instant the Dao Fruit's essence spread through him, his Spiritual Platform cleared. Many of the abstruse aspects of the Pure Yang Law that had troubled him before suddenly opened up like clouds parting to reveal the sun, bringing him many new insights.
By the looks of it, if a cultivator could eat the other eight Dao Fruits, the supreme Dao resonance they contained would be enough to bring about a qualitative transformation in their Law Comprehension and allow them to break through into Great Luo Golden Immortal in one fell swoop!
"Alas, what a pity." Donghua looked at the eight remaining fruits with regret.
Though he had not eaten them, he could sense that the remaining fruits did not all contain the Pure Yang Law.
Thinking no further about it, Donghua moved like a drifting shadow, his steps raising clouds. At last, at the convergence of the spiritual veins in this Outsider Immortal Realm, he found the hub of the Innate Great Array.
He immediately quieted his mind and focused his attention. His vast magical power flowed like trickling streams joining the sea, while his unrivaled divine sense spread like spring rain, slowly seeping into the profound array diagram formed by Heaven and Earth.
A day in the cave, a hundred years in the world.
When Donghua opened his eyes again, it seemed as though wind and water stirred in his gaze. The entire layout of Penglai Immortal Island was now clearly reflected in his mind.
From that moment on, Penglai Immortal Island belonged to him. With a thought, he could summon winds from the highest heavens; with another, he could command countless acres of blue waves.
Wind and water sustained and complemented each other here, their power boundless and irresistible. Both moved according to his will.
Having completely refined the immortal island, Donghua had everything on it within his grasp with a mere thought. And at that very moment, he instantly sensed a unique object.
Even Donghua's usually placid Dao Heart could not help but stir.
"I never imagined this opportunity would be so tremendous!"
He had thought that obtaining a Top-grade Innate Spirit Treasure was already an incredible stroke of fortune. He had never expected the island to hold this as well! If it really was...
Donghua transformed into a streak of clear, misty light and flashed across Penglai Island's ten-thousand-year-old mist, which never dispersed.
His figure flickered in and out of the void, leaving behind afterimages. In the blink of an eye, he reached the island's edge.
Donghua stood before the Innate Great Array. At the stir of his thoughts, the array protecting Penglai Immortal Island responded to him.
He lightly swept his sleeve, and a clear, misty immortal light unfolded. Like a master gently knocking on a door, it caused the complex, profound array before him to draw in its radiance layer by layer, silently opening a passage.
The array fell utterly silent. Only an ancient altar stood there, still and undisturbed.
Its entire surface was covered in mottled marks left by wind and rain, as if it had stood there bearing the loneliness of the ages ever since Heaven and Earth were first formed.
Floating quietly above the altar was a ring whose ends joined together.
It was not a physical object, but rather a miniature river formed from countless tiny, flickering stars, its ends joined as it flowed in a slow, steady loop.
Waves seemed to surge within the river, each one a fleeting image of a Yuan Cycle. Star-sand drifted and sank, each grain bearing the rise and fall of a race.
It flowed silently, yet made the surrounding space seem to fold over itself in an uncanny way, as though countless fragments of the past, present, and future were reflected all at once.
"The Time Law..."
Donghua's gaze sharpened as he stepped forward, his expression grave.
The closer he drew, the more clearly he sensed the vast, ancient, and pure Time Law emanating from the ring-shaped river.
Donghua stood before the spiritual treasure, calm and composed, with none of the fervor that usually seized cultivators when they encountered a Top-grade Spiritual Treasure.
The treasure that filled the surroundings with the Time Law was not his true target.
His deep gaze seemed to pierce the magnificent river, where stars were born and destroyed and civilizations rose and fell, falling directly upon its depths.
There, veiled by endless fragments of time and shadows of history, floated a fragment no larger than a fingernail, its edges broken and incomplete.
It was utterly unremarkable, dull gray in color and devoid of the slightest spiritual fluctuation, like the most inconspicuous pebble at the bottom of a river.
The River of Time surged onward, and anything mundane withered at its touch.
To have endured the erosion of time without changing was proof enough of its extraordinary nature.
Donghua's eyes narrowed. With a flash, he stood atop the altar.
As Donghua reached his hand into the spiritual treasure to grasp the fragment, the Time Law within it immediately collapsed into chaos.
In the Primordial Wilderness, cultivators attained immortality upon reaching the Golden Immortal realm, and from then on had no need to worry about their lifespan.
Yet the Time Turbulence created by this spiritual treasure would send the memories and experiences of countless living beings flooding wildly into his mind.
Faced with this, even a Taiyi Golden Immortal would lose himself in the Time Turbulence. Once a cultivator lost himself, he would become one with Heaven and Earth.
But as a Great Luo Golden Immortal, Donghua had long since leapt beyond the River of Time, with past, present, and future merged into one.
This Lost Calamity, which sent all living beings sinking into oblivion, was to Donghua no more than a flower in a mirror or the moon reflected in water. It could not touch his True Self Spirit, gathered into one and forever unchanging.
To him, it was no more than a gentle breeze across his face.
Without the slightest hesitation, Donghua clasped the fragment in his palm, and his vast divine sense surged into it.
In an instant, a pressure beyond comprehension entered his very being, as though the entire weight of the Chaos Era had come down upon his True Self Spirit.
Even Donghua, whose state of mind had endured countless tribulations without being destroyed, could not help but look delighted. Unsettled waves stirred in the depths of his eyes.
Throughout the Primordial Wilderness, there was likely no cultivator who could remain calm before this object. Not even Hongjun would be an exception.
Cultivators were not without emotion. Their supposed composure came from having witnessed the vicissitudes of time; ordinary joys and sorrows could no longer stir ripples in their hearts.
Only something essential to attaining their own Great Dao could move them.
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