Lu Changsheng muttered to himself as he deftly rummaged beneath his thick feathers, pulling out a dozen or so formation plates of various sizes, all battered and broken.
They were the spoils he'd scavenged and amassed near his lair. Their grades weren't high, but they were practical.
"Lesser Five Elements Concealment Array, set up on the outermost perimeter to keep passing creatures from seeing what's going on here."
He buried a chipped jade formation plate in the soil and infused it with a strand of magical power.
A layer of distorted light, invisible to the naked eye, rose instantly, enveloping him and part of the Sha Qi Pit's edge.
"Heavenly Dipper Defensive Array, set up on the inside. If something nasty really bursts out of the pit, at least it can block one strike and buy me time to run."
"And this one, the Breath-Concealing Array, to hide the fluctuations of merit produced when I purify the baleful qi..."
Like a diligent bricklayer, Lu Changsheng laid out sixteen layers of formations around the small patch of ground where he stood.
Only after he'd wrapped himself up like an iron barrel did he let out a long breath of relief. Satisfied, he sat cross-legged on a relatively flat stone, his claws tucked beneath him.
"Preparations are complete. Time to get to work!"
Lu Changsheng closed his eyes and let his mind sink into his dantian.
He carefully stirred the mass of Great Dao Merit within him, dazzling as a blazing sun, yet held firmly in check.
He didn't dare draw too much, afraid the golden light of merit would shine too brightly and pierce the formations' concealment.
He extracted just a strand of golden fire a hundred times finer than a hair, then slowly guided it from his fingertip into the roiling dark-red baleful qi before him.
"Hiss—"
The instant that strand of pure golden light of merit touched the baleful qi, thick with destructive resentment,
it was like a red-hot iron pressed into cold, muddy water.
A grating, corrosive hiss rang out.
The dark-red baleful qi rushed toward the golden strand like sharks catching the scent of blood, trying to devour and contaminate it.
But just what kind of sacred existence was Great Dao Merit?
It was one of the purest and most yang source energies in the Primordial Land.
The baleful qi that touched the golden strand was like the last snow meeting the blazing sun. In an instant, it was purified and dissolved,
turning into wisps of immaculate Xiantian Spiritual Qi that dissipated into the world.
As that thread of baleful qi was successfully purified, calming the frenzy in this small patch of space,
a vast and impartial will cast its gaze down from the unseen depths.
The Heavenly Dao had sensed it.
"Hum—"
A tiny golden speck of light appeared from nowhere in the void.
It was so faint that the slightest breeze might have extinguished it,
yet it ignored every defensive formation Lu Changsheng had laid down, landed directly on his head, and entered his body through his Baihui acupoint.
This was a trace of Heavenly Dao Merit.
Though pitifully little—not even a ten-thousandth of the Great Dao Merit—it was genuine source energy that Lu Changsheng could absorb and refine!
"Got paid!"
Lu Changsheng's eyes flew open. Feeling that long-missed fullness in his dantian, he nearly leaped up in excitement.
Five thousand years!
He'd played it safe in that lightless cave for over five thousand years, drinking spiritual qi diluted with plain water every day, without advancing a single step in cultivation.
Today, he'd finally gotten his first payment!
Though this speck of Heavenly Dao Merit had barely loosened his vast, ocean-like bottleneck, it proved he was on the right track.
As long as he persevered and purified all the baleful qi in this pit, he'd definitely earn himself a handsome wage.
"Fantastic. This feels even better than getting a year-end bonus in my past life. And there's no risk at all—I'm getting paid for free!"
Having tasted success, Lu Changsheng finally let down his guard.
He closed his eyes again and controlled the golden strand, finer than a hair, as it slowly nibbled away at the dark-red mist in the pit.
One thread.
Two threads.
A hundred threads.
As the baleful qi was steadily purified, speck after speck of Heavenly Dao Merit began to fall into his body.
The steady income felt like hearing, "Ding! One dime has been deposited into your account." Lu Changsheng fell into a near-obsessive state.
In the Primordial Land, time was the least valuable thing.
For those Innate Divine Beings, a single retreat to deduce the heavenly secrets could easily last one kalpa—129,600 years.
And for a nobody like Lu Changsheng, a mere Heavenly Immortal, the passage of time had likewise lost its usual meaning.
Amid the monotonous, day-after-day work of teasing out the baleful qi, strand by strand,
thirty years passed in the blink of an eye.
Lu Changsheng was still sitting on that stone, without even changing his posture.
The golden feathers covering his body had grown a little brighter, continually nourished by the Heavenly Dao Merit.
Yet the dark-red mist in the Sha Qi Pit before him had faded by only the tiniest, almost imperceptible amount.
"Phew..."
Lu Changsheng slowly exhaled a breath of stale air and paused his cultivation technique for a moment.
Even a cultivator would feel a little weary in spirit after concentrating on delicate work for thirty years straight.
He opened his eyes, took a Red Sun Fruit he'd grown himself from the Storage Jade Box, and crunched it down, treating it as a way to replenish his strength and fluids.
"This really is a painstaking job where slow and steady wins the race."
Chewing on the fruit, Lu Changsheng calculated his progress.
"At this rate, even if I work nonstop until I drain away all this baleful qi, it'll probably take several hundred years. Still, at least it's safe. There isn't so much as a ghost in the vicinity."
After finishing the fruit and resting for about half a day, Lu Changsheng closed his eyes once more and returned to his great work of purification.
The years rolled on.
The stars shifted in the heavens.
The Primordial Land was in turmoil. The clashes between the three clans grew more and more fierce, with countless creatures perishing every day and new powerhouses rising in their place.
But all the clamor left this remote corner untouched.
A hundred years passed.
The Lesser Five Elements Concealment Array on the outermost perimeter, made from such poor materials, ran out of spiritual power. It gave a soft snap and crumbled apart.
The sound jolted Lu Changsheng awake, sending a cold sweat down his back.
He hurriedly stopped what he was doing and looked all around,
and only after confirming that he hadn't attracted any vicious beasts did he gingerly pull another spare formation plate from his chest and carefully replace it.
"Almost forgot. These junk formation plates have a limited lifespan. I'll have to inspect them every fifty years from now on. Can't let my guard down."
Having learned his lesson, he grew even more cautious.
Three hundred years passed.
After spending so long alone in this desolate place, doing the same mechanical motions every day, Lu Changsheng began to feel a loneliness he could hardly bear.
To keep himself from developing psychological problems, he learned to talk to himself.
"Hey, I wonder if that crooked tree I planted by my lair's entrance is still alive."
"The Heavenly Dao's a real miser. I've been doing this backbreaking work for three hundred years, and all I get each time is a tiny bit of merit. Not even a critical hit."
"Once I've drained this pit and saved up enough capital, I'll definitely get my hands on a couple of decent Post-Heaven Spiritual Treasures for protection. Wearing this pile of scrap metal makes me look so cheap..."
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