After leaving Mount Buzhou, Tianlu transformed into a dazzling golden rainbow and headed straight for his abode, Penglai Immortal Island, in the East Sea.
Along the way, his golden body streaked through the clouds. As he flew, wisps of mysterious yellow merit qi kept spilling uncontrollably from the corners of his mouth.
Seeing this, Tianlu slowed his flight and raised a glittering golden claw to touch the corner of his mouth, muttering to himself.
Had he eaten too many Huangzhong Plums?
Back then, to build up merit and satisfy his appetite, he had stuffed himself with quite a few.
Now it seemed his body was having trouble digesting them, so all that merit qi simply wouldn't stay inside him. It kept spilling out.
Besides that, Tianlu could clearly feel the vast, ocean-like magic power within him.
It surged and roared through every limb and bone, like countless furious dragons racing through his meridians. Each time it circulated, it stirred faint ripples in the surrounding space.
Even with such terrifying reserves of magic power, he could feel that his cultivation was still firmly stuck at the threshold of the Daluo Golden Immortal realm. He had not truly taken that final step to become a Primordial Origin Golden Immortal.
This brought to mind the claims he remembered from his previous life, back in the later Journey to the West era, when gods and demons would casually boast of having ten thousand years' worth of magic power, or even a hundred thousand.
Now he could see that it was pure nonsense.
Accumulating magic power was certainly important, but without comprehending the origin of the Great Dao Laws, even if you amassed magic power over countless Yuanhui, you would still be a Daluo Golden Immortal, unable to touch the threshold of the Primordial Origin