He cautiously opened one of the crimson jade boxes.
At once, a wave of pure, searing fire essence rushed toward him.
At the center of the box lay a thumb-sized crystal, quietly burning with tiny flames all over its surface.
"Phoenix Blood Divine Gold!"
Lu Changsheng sucked in a sharp breath.
According to legend, only when a pure-blooded phoenix underwent nirvana could its heart's blood drip down and merge with Earth Vein Divine Gold. After millions of years, it might finally give birth to a tiny piece of Phoenix Blood Divine Gold!
It was an unrivaled immortal material for refining top-grade fire-attribute Post-Heaven Spiritual Treasures, or even the embryos of Innate Spirit Treasures!
He hurriedly closed the box, afraid that even the slightest trace of its essence might escape.
Then, in the other jade boxes, he found the Dragon Clan's unique Deep Sea Nether Marrow, nine-turn purple ginseng that was over ten thousand years old, and several rare spirit herbs that had long since vanished from the outskirts of the Primordial Land.
"As expected of the elites of a hegemonic clan. A little bit spilled from their pockets is a hundred times richer than the junk I've scavenged for eight thousand years."
Beaming with delight, Lu Changsheng sorted the precious spiritual materials and stowed them in his most secure Storage Jade Box.
When he had finished checking all the natural treasures, only an ancient-looking, blood-red jade slip remained on the clearing, lying all alone among several discarded ore chunks.
The jade slip had fallen from the deepest part of the Phoenix Clan elder's storage bag.
"If a mighty cultivator at the peak of the mid-stage Mystic Immortal realm kept this close at hand, could it be some earth-shattering cultivation legacy?"
Lu Changsheng's heart stirred. He dispelled the array and drew the blood-red jade slip into his hand.
It felt icy to the touch, and even its surface held a trace of extremely faint resentment.
Lu Changsheng didn't rashly probe it with his divine sense. Instead, he first filtered it with the yellow light of the Mysterious Yellow Shield. Only after confirming it was safe did he send a wisp of divine sense inside.
The next moment,
the delight on Lu Changsheng's face froze.
His pupils contracted violently, and his ruddy complexion turned paper-white in an instant.
What the jade slip recorded was neither a cultivation legacy nor a treasure map.
It was a battle report.
A classified military report detailing the current battlefield situation between the Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin clans across the Primordial Land!
Through the jade slip, Lu Changsheng felt as if he were seeing the terrifying scene beyond with his own eyes—a scene that looked like the very pits of hell.
In the western continent, the once-beautiful Mount Sumeru range, blessed with spiritual energy, had been battered by the frenzied slaughter of mighty cultivators from the three clans. Mountains collapsed, and Earth Veins snapped.
Countless lives were reduced to tribulation ash amid the collisions of divine abilities, while torrents of blood rained from the sky for ten entire eras without stopping.
On the shores of the Eastern Sea, the Dragon Clan had summoned the waters of the Four Seas to flood the inland regions, inundating countless miles.
Countless aquatic creatures, birds, and beasts fought in the turbid waves. Their blood dyed the azure Eastern Sea a glaring, dark red, and their corpses piled up like mountains, filling the deep-sea trenches to the brim.
The Immortal Volcano in the south was an even greater gathering place, drawing tens of millions of elite fighters from the three clans.
Every day, mighty cultivators at the Golden Immortal and even Primordial Unity Golden Immortal levels fell. Daluo Golden Immortals entered the fray in person, their every gesture unleashing peerless power that ripped apart the void and shattered all laws.
"This... This isn't a war. It's the destruction of the world!"
Lu Changsheng threw the jade slip to the ground and gasped for breath, as though some terrifying monster might crawl out of it.
He'd known the Dragon-Han First Tribulation was brutal, but before this, it had only been an abstract concept from the novels he'd read before transmigrating.
Only now did he truly understand what a Tribulation of Measure was!
It was the utter despair of heaven and earth overturning, with all living beings reduced to ants!
On a meat grinder of that scale, never mind a lowly True Immortal like him—even the four wounded Mystic Immortals would be little more than slightly larger cannon fodder, not even leaving behind a complete corpse!
"Terrifying... The Primordial Land is terrifying!"
Lu Changsheng clutched his head, his body trembling uncontrollably.
He'd thought that with the Mysterious Yellow Shield and the Three Thousand Layer Array, he had a measure of protection. He'd even secretly wondered if he might someday go scavenge a little on the outskirts.
But now, this blood-red jade slip was like a bucket of ice water, dousing him from head to toe and extinguishing that tiny spark of confidence until not even an ember remained.
"Scavenge? Scavenge my foot!"
Lu Changsheng leaped to his feet and pointed at the tightly shut stone door of his cave abode, as if a whole army were charging in from outside.
"The waters out there are deep enough to drown a Primordial Unity Golden Immortal! With a body as flimsy as mine, I'd just be fertilizer for someone else!"
"Seclusion! I have to stay in seclusion!"
"Until I reach the Daluo Golden Immortal realm, I'd rather starve to death in my cave abode than set foot beyond the mountain gate!"
The terrifying situation outside had thoroughly scared Lu Changsheng out of his wits.
He didn't dare waste a moment. He immediately set to work converting all the resources he'd acquired into defenses for his cave abode.
First, he took out several tiny, damaged spirit veins looted from the storage bags and used his merit-earned skill at tending Earth Veins
to force them into the depths beneath Nameless Low Mountain, further strengthening the spiritual energy foundation of the mountain-protecting array.
Then, he completely melted down several damaged Post-Heaven defensive treasures with Pure Yang Fire, turning them into a pool of molten metal
and mixing in precious immortal-stone powder before coating the cave abode's stone door with layer upon layer of the stuff.
For a full hundred years,
Lu Changsheng worked like a tireless bricklayer, reinforcing his cave abode from the inside out another ten times.
"Cowardly Immortal Vine, come out!"
When he'd finished, Lu Changsheng beckoned.
The emerald-green vine coiled around his wrist immediately shot out, swelling in the air until it stretched a thousand zhang long. Like countless green dragons, it burrowed deep into the rock walls around the cave abode.
After absorbing Nine Heavens Breathing Soil and Three Lights Divine Water, the Cowardly Immortal Vine had long since gained sentience.
Over the past eight thousand years, it had cultivated alongside Lu Changsheng and absorbed the spiritual energy that escaped from his cultivation. Now, it had reached the peak of the Heavenly Immortal realm.
"Listen carefully."
Lu Changsheng looked at the emerald vines appearing and disappearing among the rock walls, his expression as stern as if he were scolding a disciple.
"Starting today, shrink your detection range to within a hundred li of the mountain gate!"
"Don't investigate any auras beyond the Mystic Immortal realm. Even if a mighty cultivator passes by, play dead!"
"As long as they don't attack the array, even if they turn the heavens outside upside down, you mustn't make so much as a ripple that draws their attention!"
The Cowardly Immortal Vine's leaves trembled slightly, as if it were expressing its grievance.
"What's there to feel sorry about?"
Lu Changsheng slapped a nearby vine and earnestly lectured it.
"Look at those arrogant Dragon and Phoenix clans out there, killing each other all day. And what did it get them?"
"They turned to ash, and now their treasures have become fertilizer for our cave abode! That's karma coming back around!"
Lu Changsheng pointed to the ground beneath his feet, where he'd just buried the spirit veins.
"The essence of the Cowardly Great Dao we cultivate lies in one word: hide."
"The tallest tree catches the wind. In this Primordial Land, as long as you outlive everyone else, you'll be the last one standing, even if you sleep all day!"
"Remember, the world outside is full of schemes and slaughter. Only within this Three Thousand Layer Array is there any true sanctuary."
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