On the bank where red and blue met, a great black stone stood, its back to the dividing line.
At the very center of its top sat a small white flower, leafless and shaped like a peony.
A streak of vivid red brushed across its porcelain-white petals, breathtaking to behold.
This was one of the Dragon Emperor's reasons for coming here:
The Goddess of Love wept, and her tears fell to the mortal world.
—Lovesick Heartbreak Red.
A twelfth-grade... divine herb.
Above the ordinary grades:
Tenth-grade herbs had special methods of consumption;
Eleventh-grade herbs had varied requirements for picking;
Twelfth-grade herbs grew only under harsh conditions.
For example, Lovesick Heartbreak Red needed to be nourished by the purest love in the world before it could grow and mature.
Moreover, every twelfth-grade divine herb represented a divine legacy.
According to myth,
once a Lovesick Heartbreak Red passed through the spiritual illusion and crossed the "barrier in its heart," gathering sentience and independent intelligence, it became eligible to trigger the Goddess of Love's divine trial.
Just like another weed growing on a god's grave: the Thunderous Hell-Prison Vine.
After enduring the tempering of countless bolts of lightning, competing with tribulations for the world's fortune, reaching a hundred thousand years of cultivation, and developing a clear consciousness, it too became eligible to draw upon the power of the God of Thunder.
There were similar myths about the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, which could attract the Evil God King's attention after reaching a hundred thousand years of cultivation.
And so on and so forth, the list went on and on...
The Dragon Emperor leaned forward slightly, studying the tiny white flower streaked with red. Compared to the surrounding garden, bursting with countless beauties in full bloom, it seemed so unassuming.
He let out a long breath. "Thank goodness there really is one here. Otherwise, this trip would've been for nothing."
Just as the Dragon Emperor was about to touch the flower bud...
A ring of red-gold light slowly rose behind him.
The beautiful woman in ancient red-and-white robes—the Goddess of Love—
appeared without being summoned.
"I never imagined one of my tears had fallen here, too. I suppose..."
She gazed up at the sky, enclosed by a barrier of seven-colored poison, and sighed. "This must be where I fell from the heavens."
Looking down at the Lovesick Heartbreak Red, she murmured sadly, "This was my first tear of blood."
To his surprise, after hearing this, the Dragon Emperor picked up the face-sized Crow-Absolute Stone and held it out to the Goddess of Love. "Here. Give it a try."
"Let's see whether your love is still as pure as it once was."
The Goddess of Love smiled sadly and shook her head gently. "In life and after death, I learned how to hate, but love..."
"Love is still my gift to this world. So how could I betray the tears I shed in the past?"
The Goddess of Love rested her hand on the little flower.
The entire face of the Lovesick Heartbreak Red shrank, then expanded again, slowly unfurling like a flower bud.
At the same time,
the Crow-Absolute Stone in the Dragon Emperor's hands grew lighter, then suddenly heavier, as if the divine-grade mineral had tried to hold on to the divine herb, only to let go because the herb loved someone else.
Under the gaze of three pairs of eyes, a circle of vermilion slowly traced itself across the Lovesick Heartbreak Red's white jade-like petals.
Then, a golden bud quickly emerged from the flower's heart, swaying in the water-and-fire dragon energy like a Flower Immortal lost in a beautiful dream.
As the Dragon Emperor's body was also made of Lovesick Heartbreak Red, he could clearly sense that the flower's lost sentience had finally found its home within the illusion.
The dream that had trapped the Lovesick Heartbreak Red was the question the Goddess of Love had asked about true love as she wept before her death.
Thus, the twelfth grade corresponded to a Second-Level God's cultivation at level 120.
Now that the Goddess of Love had finally untangled the clear divide between love and hate with the Dragon Emperor's guidance, the one who tied the bell had to untie it. The confusion she had left behind could naturally be resolved by her.
The Lovesick Heartbreak Red's hazy, unopened sentience flew from the flower's heart like a fledgling returning to its nest, and the Goddess of Love guided it back into her body with her slender hand.
Replenished by a fragment of her divine consciousness from life, the Goddess of Love's ethereal soul body grew much more substantial. The halo of balanced love and hate around her once again shifted to a state with more red than white.
With his other hand, the Dragon Emperor caught the golden-red peony as it slipped free of the Crow-Absolute Stone.
At last, he had the hundred-thousand-year Lovesick Heartbreak Red and the hundred-thousand-year Crow-Absolute Stone.
The Dragon Emperor glanced at the Crow-Absolute Stone and sighed. "What a lovesick thing."
If he abandoned the Crow-Absolute Stone, whether he tossed it into a volcano or buried it in the snow, it could transform into a mineral-type Ferocious Beast like the Flame Lord, thanks to its hundred thousand years of cultivation.
But the Crow-Absolute Stone had come to him of its own accord, its unopened consciousness conveying its reluctance to part.
The Dragon Emperor clenched his hand. The Crow-Absolute Stone, said to be the hardest thing in the world, immediately liquefied into black gold and flowed into his palm.
Only a handful of dirt and impurities remained, sifting through the gaps between the Dragon Emperor's fingers.
In myth, the Crow-Absolute Stone had originally been part of the Flower Immortal Body. Now that the two had reunited, they had both found completion.
Just as the Dragon Emperor raised his hand to press the Lovesick Heartbreak Red into his chest,
the Goddess of Love looked as though she wanted to say something but hesitated.
"What is it?" The Dragon Emperor turned his head and asked.
The Goddess of Love didn't hide it. "I want to use the cultivation of this hundred-thousand-year herb."
"Ever since you enlightened me and I understood the true meaning of Hatred of Emotion, my soul body has been unbalanced, with love strong and hate weak. That's also the root cause of its instability."
"Now that I've reclaimed a fragment of my divine consciousness from life, my soul body is beginning to stabilize. If you give me this hundred thousand years of cultivation, I can produce another God Ring for you."
"No problem." The Dragon Emperor agreed without a moment's hesitation.
What he lacked wasn't cultivation, but progress in the growth of the Flower Immortal Body.
After all, no matter how much cultivation those hundred thousand years amounted to, it was still far less than one percent of his soul-body cultivation.
The Goddess of Love placed her hand against his again, and the two clasped hands across the peony.
A powerful wave of Soul Power surged out from the golden-red peony.
In an instant, the Goddess of Love absorbed the hundred thousand years of cultivation. Then she turned into a Soul Spirit and returned to the Flower Immortal Body, quietly absorbing the accumulated cultivation.
Meanwhile, the Lovesick Heartbreak Red merged into the Dragon Emperor's body.
The same source fused with the same source, and the pool of Crow-Absolute Stone inside him stirred with joy.
In the blink of an eye, the Dragon Emperor's childlike body returned to the youthful appearance he'd had when he first left Tear Lake.
He raised his left wrist before his face and activated his God Rank Body Martial Soul. A red-and-white flower bud broke through the skin of his wrist, and a breathtaking golden-red peony blossomed in his palm.
Its delicate fragrance overwhelmed the scent of every medicinal herb in the valley, contending directly with the water-and-fire dragon energy.
That was right. The Dragon Emperor's Body Martial Soul had begun to bloom. It was no longer the red-and-white bud it had always been, but this golden-red peony, more beautiful than every flower around it!
Although it wasn't fully mature, it had already grown strong enough to bear a second God Rank Martial Soul.
Basking in the delicate fragrance that washed over him, joy flashed through the Holy Dragon King's eyes.
In just six short years of waiting, their Dragon Emperor had not only steadily recovered, but had even managed to speed up his own progress.
Compared with the perilous path his own son had to walk, Di Guangming couldn't help feeling fortunate about the choice he'd made.
He immediately bowed in reverence. "Congratulations, my Emperor! Double blessings have arrived, and the Dragon Clan's revival has taken another step forward!"
Before the words had even faded, at that very moment,
the Goddess of Love reappeared amid the garden's riot of flowers.
She raised her hand and sent out a ring of red-gold light, then clapped her hands. "All done."
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