On that day, the Great Asura Lord arrived with the might to destroy the world, while the Crimson Fire Dragon Venerable appeared.
Crimson fire blazed across the sky, drowning the Three Rivers and Sixteen Regions. Flames scorched the heavens, and dragon might rolled without end. With his own power, he suppressed every evil and heretical force.
"That was the Great Asura Lord! A being whose power nearly reached the third rank. He only needed to find the Foundation of Dao Attainment to become a Buddha and Ancestor. Perhaps he went to Dragon-Raising Temple this time to seek the Foundation of Dao Attainment."
"Too bad the True Dragon casually wiped him out."
Xuan Ye sighed again and again.
Su Qingqiu rolled his eyes. This guy had sure managed to wash his hands completely of the blame.
The Great Asura Lord had gone to Dragon-Raising Temple because you people had tricked him into it.
Su Qingqiu pretended to sigh and said, "Who would have thought such a powerful being was hidden in Dragon-Raising Temple? Whether or not that was truly a True Dragon, I can no longer obtain the Foundation of Dao Attainment."
"What am I to do now?"
A glint flashed through Xuan Ye's eyes. He feigned concern as he asked, "May I ask what connection your Foundation of Dao Attainment has to that True Dragon? If it's a secret and inconvenient to explain, you needn't say. But Zhaoyang Country is vast and rich in resources. Perhaps what you need can be found somewhere other than Dragon-Raising Temple?"
At last, Xuan Ye's fox tail had shown. He wanted to use this opportunity to recruit the Qingqiu Daoist before him.
Su Qingqiu furrowed his brow and fell silent for a moment. At last, he sighed and said, "Very well. It's no important secret. I need True Dragon bones—the more, the better... Well, spirit bones or devil bones that are over ten thousand years old will do, too. Ideally, they should possess an elemental attribute. It doesn't have to be a True Dragon's bones."
Spirit bones or devil bones over ten thousand years old?
You might as well say you wanted the bones of an Earthly Immortal. Everyone wanted those.
Xuan Ye paused, then said, "What a coincidence. The Zhaoyang Imperial Court does enshrine a set of dragon bones... It's just that..."
A troubled look crossed his face. Then, gritting his teeth, he said, "Very well. If these True Dragon bones can help our Human Race gain another Earthly Immortal, then even if I have to swallow my pride, I'll secure them for you."
He was referring to the enormous serpentine skeleton excavated at Fushan all those years ago. It was at least tens of thousands of years old.
But its marrow contained powerful demonic energy, making it impossible to use effectively, so it had long been left in storage at the Imperial Court.
Of course, he wasn't going to tell Su Qingqiu the whole story.
Xuan Ye didn't know that this was exactly what Su Qingqiu was after. Back at Dragon-Raising Temple, the moment he saw Xuan Ye's rare books recording the secret history of the dragon race, he had already set his sights on those dragon bones.
Back then, he had no Devil Pill and couldn't manipulate Xuan Ye. But if he couldn't trick Xuan Ye into being thoroughly bamboozled today, he wasn't a man!
"Is that really true?" Su Qingqiu did his best to conjure an excited expression.
"It is!" Xuan Ye nodded with a broad smile.
"This... This is wonderful." Su Qingqiu excitedly rose to his feet and paced back and forth. Only after a while did he manage to sit down. He continued, "If I obtain the dragon bones, I will serve at your command for a hundred years. What's more, I will protect your descendants as well."
An Earthly Immortal could live for three hundred years. A promise to serve for a hundred of them was already more than generous.
"Excellent! Excellent!"
Xuan Ye nodded repeatedly, his heart filled with joy.
After that, they treated each other like honored guests, raising cups and exchanging pleasantries. Unfortunately, no one present knew that Su Qingqiu hadn't touched a drop from beginning to end.
It was all just a Shape-Shifting Illusion.
Back in the Snake Abyss, after reclaiming the Devil Pill, Su Qingqiu's enormous snake face split into a grin.
He had only meant to test how well he could control the Devil Pill, never expecting such an unexpected windfall.
The dragon bones in the Imperial Court aside, the most valuable thing was using his Qingqiu Daoist identity to secretly connect with Xuan Ye.
After all, no matter how wealthy Dragon-Raising Temple was, it couldn't compare with the imperial family that ruled a country. As Su Qingqiu grew stronger, he would inevitably need other treasures and resources.
And he could obtain them all through Xuan Ye, using his Qingqiu Daoist identity.
"I agreed to meet Xuan Ye in Chiyang City on the fifteenth, three months from now. I also asked him to search for more rare books and manuals about the dragon race... I hope they'll help me find a way to transform into a dragon."
Su Qingqiu gazed at his massive body and sighed.
Even now, he showed no sign of shedding his skin. Though he had acquired the Crimson Fire Dragon Spine and the Crimson Fire Horn, in essence, he was still a Spiritual Python.
Without shedding his skin, he couldn't evolve toward a higher form of life. His dream of becoming a dragon would naturally die with it.
So he had to find a way for a Spiritual Python to continue evolving.
For this purpose, he had not only redoubled his exploration of the Second Layer Serpent Pit Abyss, but had also assigned Lingfa to secretly consult Dragon-Raising Temple's records, hoping he might discover something.
But so far, he had come up empty.
Lingfa had, however, uncovered a piece of unofficial history. It claimed that more than three hundred years ago, a senior monk had studied the cultivation path of Spiritual Serpents with several thousand-year-old Spirit Lords in the Spiritual Market of the Snake Abyss. For some unknown reason, the research had later been forced to stop.
The site where they had conducted their research had ultimately been sealed away within the Spiritual Market.
"The Spiritual Market?"
Su Qingqiu furrowed his brow.
After the bloody incident at Dragon-Raising Temple, the Snake Abyss had been sealed off instead of remaining open.
The one said to have done it was the missing Bodhisattva.
Three hundred years had passed in the blink of an eye, the world had changed beyond recognition, and the Snake Abyss had not only grown a new layer—the layer it had now had also undergone a world-shaking transformation.
There was no way to find the Spiritual Market.
In fact, after gaining the memories Puzhi had left behind, Su Qingqiu had already searched for the Spiritual Market in secret, but he hadn't found it.
He had discovered several Spirit Ruins nodes, though. At the time, he hadn't felt strong enough to explore them.
Now that he had devoured the Great Asura Lord, Su Qingqiu had not only acquired more powerful equipment—the Crimson Fire Dragon Spine—but had also increased his spiritual energy to the equivalent of fifteen thousand years of Daoism Cultivation.
His spiritual energy spread out, driving back all evil. And with his body reinforced by layer upon layer of armor, he was the equal of a third-rank Arhat.
So...
"Should I take a look at the Spirit Ruins?"
The thought crossed Su Qingqiu's mind and vanished just as quickly.
He did what he pleased. Picking a direction, he burrowed along the Dragon Bone's Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
He pressed onward, the only sound the soft rustle of his slithering. Now and then, chaotic demons appeared nearby, but the moment they saw him, they fled in terror.
To Su Qingqiu, these demons were barely worth bothering with, so he couldn't be bothered to pursue them.
A little over an hour later
He crawled to the edge of a vast, pitch-black spring.
The spring churned with red blood. Pale, phantom faces flickered through it from time to time. Two Eight Extraordinary Meridians ran through the area, and their nodes lay right inside the Water Pool.
That blood-red liquid was flowing out of the nodes, filling the pool and beginning to spread outward.
The surrounding rock walls were stained crimson. Lumpy growths, like tumors, covered them, an unusually ghastly sight.
This was one of the Spirit Ruins in the Snake Abyss.
Su Qingqiu named it the Blood Spirit Ruins.
Su Qingqiu had no idea what the blood was, nor why the Eight Extraordinary Meridians were bleeding.
The only way to find out was to enter the Water Pool and investigate.
Before you continue