He knew he had only just broken through. Though his physical body had reached a new realm, he was still new to Da Luo. His strength had surged, and he needed time to consolidate it before he could fully stabilize his cultivation at the early Da Luo stage and adapt to the even greater pressure in this region.
He suppressed the powerful urge to keep climbing at once and swept his gaze across his surroundings.
Nearby, he found a narrow, sheltered corner where the mountain's unusual shape made the pressure relatively weak. He moved over immediately, sat cross-legged once more, and turned his palms and soles toward the sky.
This time, he circulated the Wood Scripture, but not primarily to increase his magical power.
Instead, he guided the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy flooding toward him, the vast blood vitality surging through his newly transformed body, and his innate Wood Vitality together. He used all three to temper and consolidate his powerful new body, helping it adapt to the leap it had just undergone.
Every pore breathed on its own, drawing him into communion with heaven and earth as his body made a deeper adjustment to Buzhou Mountain's immense pressure.
His body's sheer strength, astonishing resilience, and fine control over its power all improved at a steady, remarkable pace, then settled firmly into place.
He did not know how much time had passed when he opened his eyes again. The surging blood vitality that had manifested around him was now completely contained, and his skin held the warm luster of jade.
He looked utterly ordinary, yet his body contained explosive strength enough to tear a star apart with his bare hands.
He stood and lightly clenched a fist. The space around him twisted with a faint hum.
He took stock of his condition. The Pangu Pressure around him was still terrifying, but it felt considerably easier to bear than before. Moving no longer brought the suffocating sense that he might be crushed at any moment.
The pressure had not weakened. The foundation of his body had undergone a fundamental leap, and what it could withstand was no longer comparable.
He resumed his climb.
Each footfall was steady, sending a slight tremor through the rock.
He moved noticeably faster than he had at the Taiyi stage. He could hardly be called swift under this dreadful pressure, but every step was firmer and came more easily.
With a Da Luo Golden Immortal's body and the near-endless vitality and recovery granted by the Wood Scripture, he had a formidable basis for resisting the immense pressure.
But the path to the summit remained long and difficult.
The pressure from above descended like layer upon layer of boundless, invisible worlds, testing his newly advanced Da Luo body while tempering his magical power at the Ultimate Taiyi stage.
That power could sustain him and fuel his divine abilities, but it still fell short of fellow cultivators whose magical power had also reached Da Luo.
Along the way, he encountered several terrifying, utterly unpredictable energy tides unique to Buzhou Mountain.
They were destructive torrents formed when Pangu Pressure mixed with residual Chaos Qi in the mountain and liquefied Innate Spiritual Qi. They erupted like geysers, then swept across the mountain like storms of annihilation, swallowing vast stretches of rock in an instant.
Each tide struck like a colossal wave of Chaos weighing hundreds of millions of tons. The chaotic, violent force of the Law Fragments within it could corrode his body and unravel his five-element magical power.
Lord Wanshouyuan had to rely chiefly on his newly advanced Da Luo body to withstand the impact. He also formed a supporting shield with his Ultimate Taiyi magical power, focusing its protection on the more vulnerable openings of his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
After each violent tide, he quickly recovered through the strength of his body.
At times, the impact rocked him and left shallow scrapes on his skin, making him look somewhat battered.
But every tide he endured honed his early Da Luo body under that extreme pressure, making it denser and purer. His control over its strength grew ever more precise.
His magical power, too, became purer and more concentrated through repeated cycles of heavy expenditure and rapid recovery.
His realm had not advanced, but he had reached the absolute limit of the Taiyi stage. Only a veil as thin as a cicada's wing now separated him from the threshold of the Da Luo Dao Fruit.
Then came a particularly fierce energy tide. It lasted so long that it almost rivaled a minor Heaven-Opening Tribulation.
Lord Wanshouyuan endured most of its impact with his formidable body, but the effort consumed a great deal of his magical power.
As the tide slowly receded, his blood vitality still churned. He was about to regulate his breathing and recover when he suddenly felt the immense strength deep within his body, only just calmed, begin to boil beyond his control once more.
It was not the loss of control that came with a cultivation deviation. A breakthrough had come naturally, at precisely the right moment!
Hum!
A faint resonance of the Great Dao rang out, not beside his ears but through every vibration of his body, echoing with the surrounding world.
His blood vitality roared through his broad, resilient vessels like heavy liquid mercury, producing a surging Dao resonance like great rivers rushing into the sea.
The naturally formed Da Luo patterns on his bones grew clearer and deeper, shining with an undying luster;
His muscle fibers seemed to twist and coil like the sinews of ancient dragons. His skin's toughness, strength, and resistance to energy impacts rose to an entirely new level!
Under this relentless succession of trials at his limits, his physical cultivation advanced again. He had entered the Middle Great Luo stage!
A flicker of joy passed through Lord Wanshouyuan's heart, but what he felt most was a calm understanding that his efforts had borne fruit.
He moved his limbs a little and quickly adjusted to his newfound physical strength. His body felt somewhat lighter, and he bore the surrounding pressure with greater ease. He raised his head and looked upward, his gaze keen.
The mist of Chaos and thick clouds of Innate Spiritual Qi that had always shrouded the heights, seemingly without end, had somehow grown much thinner.
Through shifting gaps in the thin clouds, he could faintly see... the end!
It was an expanse so broad and level that he seemed almost able to reach out and touch the blue heights of the Primordial Wilderness!
No higher, steeper rocks rose beyond it. There was only a boundless, ancient sky, vast and desolate, radiating an aura of supreme height, immensity, and Extreme Hardness.
The sky of the Primordial World seemed to lie right before him, almost within reach!
After countless hardships and dangers, and two major breakthroughs of his physical body, he was finally about to reach the summit of Buzhou Mountain!
Even Lord Wanshouyuan, whose state of mind had remained unchanged for ages, could not suppress a surge of excitement.
He drew a deep breath of air that was still immensely heavy, yet seemed to carry a trace of the summit, and gathered every ounce of his focus.
He drove his Middle Great Luo physical strength to the limit of what he could currently control, while his Ultimate Taiyi magical power stood ready. His blood vitality surged like dragons and elephants. The immense pressure kept it from soaring skyward, but it thundered through his body.
He strode into the final stretch, climbing with all his might toward the summit of Buzhou Mountain, which had supported heaven and earth since the world first opened and held endless mysteries!
He knew the pressure on this last stretch would be the most terrifying, most extreme trial of all.
Before you continue