Anchor

"As it turns out, it's feasible."

Zhang Fusheng leaned back in his chair, half-paralyzed, his lips twitching incessantly.

"But isn't this price a bit too high?"

He refined ten Immortal Thought in one go.

That's not a big deal, but to be honest, materializing the High Heaven Token was incredibly taxing; he almost collapsed.

Fortunately, the Immortal Thought residing in the immortal wooden tablet can indeed be sensed and manipulated remotely, and can even be used to complete transactions.

It's a bit too much to handle, but I can understand. At worst, it'll take ten or eight days to recover.

The biggest problem is the Contract Book.

"So, buying the Six Ding Divine Fire made you suddenly so listless?"

Zhang Fusheng had a slight toothache. He knew that the cooling-off period for Contract Book was determined by the nature of the transaction.

Buying Chen Nuanyu's mother's strange illness, with a cooldown period of up to one hundred days—that's one thing, it only costs two ounces of Star Beast Meat.

But here's the problem: after buying the Six Ding Divine Fire, the cooldown period for this Contract Book skyrockets to 36,500 days!!

Exactly one hundred years, no more, no less.

Zhang Fusheng had reason to suspect that one hundred years was not the upper limit of the Six Ding Divine Fire, but rather the upper limit of the Contract Book's cooling-off period.

"More than 30,000 days! Even if the effects of the Unicorn Giant Rhinoceros Meat don't diminish, you'd still have to eat more than 30 kilograms!"

His lips twitched. Where was he supposed to get so much Star Beast Meat in such a short time?

The four pounds of Unicorn Giant Rhinoceros Meat had once filled his pockets, which were once incredibly abundant, suddenly became pitifully meager.

The only thing Zhang Fusheng could think of was the news that Lu Mingzhu had reported.

In a certain Large City, the Star Beast Meat called 'Brave Lion' was sold and purchased by Wang Yuan, the governor of Longzhou City.

That is, Old Shi.

"This is a headache. I'd better check out the Six Ding Divine Fire first."

He couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement. He had allowed the cooldown time to reach its maximum, meaning he would have to wait a full hundred years before he could use the Contract Book again. This was all in exchange for the Six Ding Divine Fire!

Taishang Laojun's Fire!

The fire of the Taishang Daode Tianzun!

Zhang Fusheng glanced at the setting sun outside the window, then called Lu Mingzhu over and instructed her not to let anyone approach the room or disturb him.

After giving his instructions, he closed the door and then pondered the matter, his thoughts drifting into the extremely dark Contract Book, inside which floated three transaction results.

One is [ten years of Contemplation Time], another is [the Yin World Wood Marrow], and the third is [the Six Ding Divine Fire].

"This Yin World Wood Marrow is the root cause of Chen Nuanyu's mother's illness. It doesn't sound like a strange disease."

After being extracted, the Yin World Wood Marrow is a dark, inky fluid, cold and eerie.

As for the Six Ding Divine Fire?

A small flame, seemingly nothing special.

But this was the fire that almost killed the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, the fire that forged treasures like the Golden Cudgel and the Nine-Toothed Rake!

"Integrate it into my body, say my heart, and transform it into Unquenchable Heart?"

"Or should we leave it safely in the divine realm?"

"If it's the former, the transformation and tempering of the body by the Six Ding Divine Fire must be extremely slow—I simply cannot withstand its tempering."

Zhang Fusheng had reason to suspect that Chen Nuanyu's heart had never been tempered by the Six Ding Divine Fire.

The flame merely existed in her heart, and its lingering afterglow, after being released, made her skin as smooth as jade and her eyes sparkling with divine light.

It is suspected that one or two special physical constitutions have been developed.

"Try anchoring first."

He opened his divine realm, his thoughts triggering the Contract Book, and a tiny spark descended from the Contract Book.

The Six Ding Divine Fire appears to be crimson purple.

It was described as flame, but its form was more like a small, flowing Rosy Clouds, within which flickering, enigmatic Bagua symbols appeared, constantly arising and ceasing.

Furthermore, a deep, loud, and continuous humming sound can be heard when the flames are burning.

But it is not violent; on the contrary, it appears quite gentle.

The fire that Laozi used to refine elixirs and forge weapons was originally a 'gentle fire'.

Fortunately, this was the case; otherwise, Zhang Fusheng would not have dared to let the Six Ding Divine Fire appear directly in his divine realm.

I'm afraid it will destroy his inner world!

However, he also noticed that the divine fire had only just appeared, and even though it hadn't directly tempered the divine realm,

One's own spiritual world is still undergoing a transformation, extremely slow, yet very real.

"Now, let's begin to connect."

Zhang Fusheng cautiously approached the Six Ding Divine Fire.

In that instant, he could feel his thoughts undergoing an ultimate sublimation, unlike anything he had experienced with the Heaven and Earth Tablet!

This kind of sublimation is purer, more authentic, and more rapid!

Then it was burned.

After some thought, Zhang Fusheng immersed a hundred strands of his thoughts into the Heaven and Earth Tablet, transforming them all into immortal thoughts.

He once again approached the Six Ding Divine Fire with a hundred strands of immortal thoughts.

The flames flickered gently, and the firelight revealed the forms of hundreds of formless and intangible thoughts, making them appear like strands of crimson silk.

The immortal thought began to sublimate again, a sublimation that was extremely rapid. This time, the immortal thought was not destroyed, but it gave Zhang Fusheng a very bad premonition!

He felt

One's own thoughts are detaching from oneself.

Or rather, are those thoughts giving birth to self-awareness?

Dude, did you really enlighten my mind?

Zhang Fusheng was jolted awake. If this divine thought had developed self-awareness, then it was still his own!

It couldn't be retracted back into the body anyway!

He suddenly manipulated a hundred strands of thought, pouring them into the Six Ding Divine Fire, which shimmered like liquid Rosy Clouds.

In a fleeting moment, the thought imbued with the charm of immortality evaporated, but it was also at this very moment.

Zhang Fusheng felt as if he were facing the Nine-Ringed Zen Staff once again.

Everything before his eyes receded into the distance, infinitely far away, leaving only fragmented scenes flashing by rapidly, eventually settling into 365 images.

Zhang Fusheng roused himself and looked at each person one by one, his expression gradually becoming serious.

This wisp of the Six Ding Divine Fire seems to have traveled through many places, many people, and many events.

He saw that in each of the six fragmented scenes, a female deity was reflected.

It may have rabbit ears, a snake's tail, or cow horns, chicken feathers, or sheep's horizontal pupils.

Cow, rabbit, snake, sheep, chicken, pig.

Is this the Six Ding Gods?

The thought flashed through Zhang Fusheng's mind: the Six Ding and Six Jia are Daoism guardian deities, among whom the Six Ding are Underworld God goddesses and the Six Jia are Yang gods.

These six scenes cannot be anchored.

He continued looking and saw a corner of a mountain peak, on which raging flames burned, stretching for countless miles.

Flame Mountain?

If it is the Flame Mountain, then this wisp of Six Ding Divine Fire was the fire that fell to earth along with the burning bricks after the Great Sage Equal to Heaven overturned the Eight Trigrams Furnace?

Keep watching.

The remaining scenes are mostly ambiguous in their imagery, perhaps inside a gourd, or on an aged hand; one by one, they are sifted through.

Zhang Fusheng's gaze finally settled on two ruined scenes.

In the first fragment of the scene, the Six Ding Divine Fire can be seen burning in a green lamp, and behind the lamp, hanging high, is a Tai Chi diagram.

The image below shows an old Daoist priest sitting quietly in meditation, with a blue ox lying beside him.

The second scene depicts a dusty, grimy monkey huddled in a dimly lit place, scorched by the Six Ding Divine Fire, which shimmers like flowing Rosy Clouds.

Zhang Fusheng was somewhat perplexed.

"The first picture looks a lot like Laozi and the Green Ox, but the second one looks more like the forty-nine days when Monkey Brother was trained to have his Fiery Golden Eyes of Truth."

He began to have doubts. Shi Zhengyuan had said that the scenes reflected by objects and vessels are all different and will not point to the same place.

Should we choose the first one or the second one?

The second one.

Just as Zhang Fusheng was about to make his choice, he suddenly had a flash of inspiration and looked again at the first ruined scene.

In the remaining scene, the ox remained lying down, but the indistinct old Daoist priest had vanished.

Yes, it disappeared.

It was as if the Daoist priest I had seen before was just an illusion, a mirage.

But this is clearly a frozen scene from the past!

It's definitely not my own illusion or delusion!

After a long silence, the thought of venturing into the second scroll suddenly shifted, and I found myself drawn back to the first scroll.

'Buzz!'

Before us lay a vast divine realm, with Longevity Mountain and Five Villages Temple in the distance, and an endless wasteland below.

Above their heads, above the divine realm, in a place beyond the reach of sight, clearly floated an ordinary-looking Dao Palace.

Above the Dao Palace, there is a horizontal plaque.

The three characters formed by horizontal, vertical, left-falling, and right-falling strokes lack both majesty and timeless grandeur.

It's just the unremarkable three characters of "[Eight Sceneries Palace]".