Preparing Again? I Give Up!

"Fellow Daoist, you possess boundless merit, making you the most adept at smoothing out earth veins and mending the flaws of heaven and earth."

"The endless Sha Qi there may be a death warrant for others, but for you, Fellow Daoist, it might just be a stroke of fortune to earn the merit of heaven and earth."

"As for whether you go or not, that is entirely for you to decide. This poor Daoist has said all that needs to be said; we part ways here."

The words fell.

Nuwa did not linger. A flash of Creation Azure Light erupted around her, and she transformed into a long rainbow, vanishing instantly into the edge of the horizon.

Inside the cave dwelling.

Lu Changsheng stared at the empty ruins reflected in the water mirror, remaining silent for a long time.

"She's gone..."

He took a deep breath and gave a sharp tug on the vine in his hand.

"Whoosh!"

The wooden box was swiftly pulled back through the gap in the formation.

In the space between the one-thousandth and the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth layers of the formation, that blinding, dark-red Pure Yang Fire surged once more.

Lu Changsheng had staked everything this time, using every ounce of strength he possessed.

He burned the Pure Yang Fire for seven full days and nights!

Even that clump of Nine Heavens Breathing Soil began to shimmer with a dark-red, glazed luster under the relentless scorching of the Pure Yang Fire.

As for the cyan jade slip, it had been baked until it was entirely translucent, appearing as if it might melt at any moment.

"One must always be on guard; one must check things given by a future saint a hundred times over."

Lu Changsheng muttered to himself.

Throughout those seven days and nights, he not only burned it with Pure Yang Fire but also drew in Earth Vein Heavy Water to wash over it repeatedly, even scanning every minute corner of the Breathing Soil and the jade slip with his divine sense, inch by inch.

Only after confirming countless times that there was absolutely no trace of Nuwa's divine sense imprint or tracking methods attached to these two items did he finally let out a long sigh of relief and carefully pull the wooden box into the core safety zone of his cave.

"Thump."

Lu Changsheng slumped to the ground, staring at the Nine Heavens Breathing Soil and the scorching jade slip resting on the White Jade Platform.

"That woman, if she was going to leave, why did she have to dangle such a massive bait before she went?"

Lu Changsheng's brows were tightly locked, his eyes filled with inner conflict.

He picked up the jade slip and pressed it against his forehead.

The information left behind by Nuwa flooded into his mind instantly.

Eighty thousand miles east of this location.

A shattered, miniature innate spiritual cave.

A massive amount of merit for mending heaven and earth.

And... an ownerless innate spiritual treasure radiating a broken, precious light!

The combination of these four conditions held a fatal attraction for a miser like Lu Changsheng, who regarded merit and defensive artifacts as his second life.

"Eighty thousand miles..."

Lu Changsheng gritted his teeth, pacing back and forth in the cave in agitation.

"Last time I went out, I only traveled ten thousand miles before some Mystic Immortal-level Old Earth Dragon crawled out from underground and nearly chewed me up as a snack."

"If I travel eighty thousand miles this time, who knows what kind of Zenith Heaven Golden Immortals or Quasi-Saint powerhouses might pop up on the road?"

"It's too dangerous! This goes against my principles as a practitioner of the Dao of Survival! The outside world is a meat grinder; I must never leave this Three Thousand Layer Turtle Shell!"

Lu Changsheng frantically tried to brainwash himself, attempting to suppress the greed for treasure hunting that stirred in his heart.

He walked to the control console, reaching out to close the formation's exit, preparing to return to his secluded cultivation.

However.

Just as his hand was about to touch the formation's hub, he stopped.

In his mind, the image of that ownerless innate spiritual treasure grew wild and rampant, as if it had taken root.

"An innate spiritual treasure..."

Lu Changsheng swallowed hard, his voice trembling.

"Everything I have on me right now is just acquired trash cobbled together from scraps. Although the formation's defense is strong, if I leave it, I'm nothing but a fragile chicken."

"If... I'm just saying, if."

"What if that broken innate spiritual treasure is a defensive-type artifact?"

Once this thought emerged, it was like opening Pandora's box; it could no longer be contained.

"Nuwa said the Sha Qi there is sky-high, and ordinary cultivators dare not approach."

"That means, besides me—the incarnation of merit who can withstand the Sha Qi and purify the earth veins—no one else will go there!"

"This is a natural, safe vacuum zone!"

Lu Changsheng's breathing gradually grew heavy.

He stood in place, weighing the pros and cons for a full three hours.

Fear and greed waged a life-or-death struggle within his mind.

In the end, the desire for ultimate security overcame his fear of the unknown.

"A horse cannot grow fat without night grass; a man cannot get rich without a windfall!"

Lu Changsheng slapped the White Jade Platform, a flash of unprecedented ruthlessness in his eyes.

"I'll do it!"

"As long as I pull this off and get that Innate Spiritual Treasure, I'll finally have the capital to protect myself in this Primordial Land!"

"At worst, once I get the treasure, I'll just flee back here and go into seclusion for a hundred thousand years without stepping outside!"

Having made up his mind, Lu Changsheng's gaze instantly became incredibly clear.

Since he had decided to head out, he naturally couldn't just rush out like a reckless fool.

He was a man who valued his life above all else; the preparations before leaving had to be done to a fanatical degree.

"No rushing. The preparations must be foolproof."

Lu Changsheng paced back and forth in his cave dwelling, muttering to himself.

A distance of eighty thousand miles would take a True Immortal cultivator only half a day to reach if they rode their escape light.

But during that half-day journey, who could guarantee he wouldn't run into some Primordial Land powerhouses locked in a fierce battle?

He had no desire to experience the agony of being grazed by the shockwaves of a Primordial Unity Golden Immortal's duel ever again.

Lu Changsheng's gaze swept across the cave dwelling and finally landed on the pile of "junk" he had spent thousands of years accumulating.

He walked to a corner and pulled a dust-covered jade box from a hidden compartment in the stone wall.

These were his true bottom-of-the-barrel treasures, containing various exotic talismans and one-time-use array disks he had crafted over the years using scraps.

"Earth Escape Talisman, take three thousand."

"Breath Concealment Talisman, take five thousand. And this Turtle Breath Pore-Closing Talisman—though it's suffocating to use, it can completely mask one's life force. Take a thousand as backup."

Like a merchant stocking up on goods, Lu Changsheng stuffed these talismans by the handful into the hidden pouches beneath his feathers without a hint of hesitation.

His originally slender Fire Crow body was forced to expand by a full circle due to the sheer volume of talismans.

After packing the talismans, he moved on to the array disk section.

"Lesser Five Elements Maze Formation, take ten sets."

"Heavenly Thunder Detonation Array Disk—the power is mediocre, but it's perfect for creating chaos while fleeing. Take twenty."

Only when every nook and cranny of his body was stuffed to the brim, and the jade box was left completely empty, did Lu Changsheng finally stop.

He looked down at his appearance, which resembled a mobile arsenal, and nodded in satisfaction.

"The means for defense and escape are sufficient. However, I'm still missing a radar for early warning."

Lu Changsheng rubbed his chin, his brows slightly furrowed.

While divine sense probing was useful, in a place like the Primordial Land where powerhouses were everywhere, spreading one's divine sense at will was no different from waving a flashlight in the dark; it was extremely easy to expose oneself.

Just as he was deep in thought, his peripheral vision caught sight of the spiritual field in the corner.