Lu Changsheng gritted his teeth and continued circulating his magic power, refusing to believe it.
In the Primordial Land, time passed without notice; in the mountains, no one knew the years.
This time, he went into seclusion, and another full two thousand years slipped quietly by.
Over those two thousand years, the Primordial Land outside had undergone earth-shaking changes.
The clashes between the Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin Clans had escalated completely, shifting from small-scale probing to open competition for territory.
Countless weaker races had vanished into smoke and ashes in the struggle for supremacy among the three clans.
Yet deep inside a cave dwelling in the Nameless Low Mountain, all remained deathly still.
"Phew..."
A breath of murky air left Lu Changsheng's mouth, turning into an air arrow that struck a small hole in a stone slab on the ground.
He slowly opened his eyes, weariness and helplessness filling them.
"Two thousand years. A full two thousand years of bitter cultivation."
Lu Changsheng lowered his head and felt the fluctuations of magic power within him.
Peak early-stage Heavenly Immortal.
He hadn't even touched the threshold of the middle stage.
"I knew it! With this lousy constitution, sitting in meditation was never going to work!"
Lu Changsheng had completely given up hope.
If the spiritual energy he had absorbed over those two thousand years had gone into an ordinary black bear spirit, it would have broken through to the True Immortal realm long ago. It might even have claimed some mountain peak and set itself up as king.
But in his body, that spiritual energy was like sand in a sieve—it simply wouldn't stay.
Now he finally understood. His origin as an incarnation of Great Dao Merit had given him the absolute defense that was the strongest in the Primordial Land, but it had also locked off the path to advancement through ordinary means.
If he wanted to grow stronger, he had only one choice: go all in and search for merit.
"Looks like I really have no choice but to leave this time."
Lu Changsheng stood up and shook his slightly dull golden feathers.
He had been in seclusion for two thousand years. His cultivation hadn't improved much, but at least he had gotten himself into the best possible state of mind.
He walked to a corner of the cave and moved aside a massive boulder.
A hidden compartment lay beneath it.
Lu Changsheng reached in with a claw and carefully lifted out a palm-sized compass covered in cracks.
It was an array disk.
About five thousand years ago, he had been patrolling his territory under cover of night, within a hundred li of the low mountain, when he dug it out of a stinking mud pit.
From the ruined array patterns on it, Lu Changsheng had judged that it was probably a small Inverted Five Elements Illusion Array.
"Out there, I have to make sure my den is absolutely safe. A thousand eight hundred and sixty-two layers of arrays sounds like a lot, but it still doesn't feel quite secure."
Lu Changsheng set the damaged array disk on the ground and took a deep breath.
"I'll fix this and add it on. Then I'll have a nice round number."
In the days that followed, Lu Changsheng once again displayed his infuriating patience.
Using his meager magic power, he painstakingly traced the broken patterns on the array disk, bit by bit.
When he lacked materials, he melted down the useless scraps of magic treasures he had collected and forcibly patched them in.
It was an utterly tedious and delicate task.
If his magic power wavered even slightly, the entire array disk would be ruined.
One hundred years.
Three hundred years.
Five hundred years.
Another five hundred years passed.
"Click."
The last bit of material in Lu Changsheng's hand fused into the array disk.
The compass, once dull and covered in cracks, suddenly flashed with a faint, five-colored light.
The array patterns on it seemed to come alive, joining end to end to form a perfect loop.
"Done!"
Lu Changsheng dropped onto the ground and panted heavily.
Repairing the array disk had taken a great deal of effort, but his eyes were now unusually bright.
He grabbed the repaired Inverted Five Elements Illusion Array disk, rushed out of the inner chamber, and made his way to the stone gate at the very edge of the cave dwelling.
He fitted the disk precisely into a slot prepared above the stone gate, then opened his mouth and spat out a breath of his own magic power.
"Vmmm—"
The entire cave dwelling shuddered violently.
Then a five-colored ripple, invisible to the naked eye, spread rapidly outward from the stone gate, enveloping the whole Nameless Low Mountain.
From the outside, the already unremarkable mountain seemed to warp strangely before blending completely into the surrounding landscape.
Even when scanned with spiritual sense, it felt like an ordinary stretch of flat ground, without so much as a bump.
"Phew... The eighteen hundred and sixty-third layer of defense. Perfect."
Lu Changsheng contentedly patted his wings.
Now, his home could truly be called impregnable.
Unless some Quasi-Saint bigwig at the pinnacle of the Primordial Land got bored and came here to plow the earth, no one would ever find his den.
"Everything at home is taken care of."
Lu Changsheng turned around and looked at the empty cave dwelling. To his surprise, a trace of reluctance welled up in him.
He had lived like a hermit here for so many years. Now he was suddenly going to step out of his comfort zone and face the perilous, brutal Primordial Land, where the slightest misstep could mean death and the destruction of his very soul.
It would be a lie to say he wasn't afraid.
But he had no other choice.
If he didn't go out and look for merit, sooner or later he would die in the aftershocks of a Tribulation of Measure.
Lu Changsheng raised his head, his gaze gradually sharpening.
He touched the Red Sun Fruit hidden beneath his feathers and checked the damaged magic treasures hanging from his body once more.
Finally, he took a deep breath and pressed one claw against the heavy stone door's switch.
With a low rumble, the stone door, sealed for several thousand years, slowly swung open.
The sky outside was somewhat dim. It wasn't the kind of gloom that came with thick storm clouds; rather, a thin layer of dark-red tribulation energy still hung in the air.
As far as the eye could see stretched a desolate, shadowy forest. Towering trees blotted out the sky, and the ground was riddled with deep pits and broken rocks, bearing witness to the devastation this place had endured.
Lu Changsheng held out his right claw, leaving it suspended in midair.
He could even hear the faint roars of beasts in the distance, their voices steeped in primal savagery and madness.
Time seemed to stop at that moment.
Ten whole breaths passed.
Whoosh!
Lu Changsheng abruptly pulled back his outstretched claw and beat both wings with all his might.
"Bang!"
The heavy stone door, which had just opened a crack, slammed shut again at the fastest speed of his life, leaving not the tiniest gap.
"No, no, no! The stench of blood out there is way too strong. How many living things must have died just now for it to smell like that?"
"If I rush out now, I might run straight into some vicious fiend who's just finished killing someone!"
Lu Changsheng pressed his whole body against the cold stone door, gasping for breath as his chest heaved violently.
Going out to seek opportunities, searching for merit—what a load of nonsense.
The moment the door opened, he had felt the raw brutality and wildness of the Primordial Land, as real as the earth beneath his feet.
The pitiful scrap of courage Lu Changsheng had painstakingly built up vanished in an instant, melting away like snow beneath the blazing sun.
In the end, he was just a transmigrator with the soul of a modern person.
He could live like a hermit in his cave, grow some crops, and study arrays, all with a mind as calm as still water.
But if he really had to face those ferocious beasts of the Primordial Land, who swallowed their prey whole and fought until heaven and earth split apart, the instinctive terror rising from the depths of his soul would not be so easy to overcome.
"The waters out there are too deep. I haven't even reached the middle stage of Heavenly Immortal. Going out would just make me someone else's dinner..."
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