Though Yellow Dragon had been born from a dragon vein within the Earth Veins, he was a latecomer here. He knew nothing about clearing and repairing the Earth Veins and could only feel his way forward, bit by bit, through instinct.
The work remained fraught with difficulty. It took him a great deal of time to repair even a short stretch of the Earth Veins.
Once he had set the Earth Veins in that area right, Yellow Dragon formed a hand seal and cast the Sweet Dew Technique, which he had learned from the Azure Dragon Patriarch to nurture Spiritual Roots and immortal plants. He channeled Magic Power into the sky, where clouds brimming with vitality gradually gathered.
Thunder cracked again and again. Above the mountain range Yellow Dragon had chosen, rain poured down like a waterfall. Each drop was rich in spiritual energy and carried a trace of life force. Where the rain met the baleful and turbid Qi on the ground, some of it seeped back into the earth, while the rest dissipated into nothingness.
When his Magic Power ran out, Yellow Dragon sat cross-legged in midair. He drew in spiritual energy from all directions to recover while pondering how to restore the island's vitality more quickly.
As soon as his Magic Power had recovered somewhat, he cast the rain technique again, sending down spiritual rain to wash away the baleful and turbid Qi and nourish the land.
Yellow Dragon's cultivation rose step by step as well.
One year, ten years, a hundred years...
It took several hundred years to wash every trace of baleful and foul Qi from the mountain range's surface. As the rainwater seeped deep into the earth and flowed into the sea, the Primordial World gradually absorbed and purified it.
Once the mountain range's surface was clean, Yellow Dragon gathered countless seeds of innate plants from parts of the island untouched by the great battle. He scattered them across the area, then used his technique to call down spiritual rain, nourishing them and urging them to take root, sprout, and grow.
Within months, the mountain range Yellow Dragon had restored was lush with life again. Wisps of spiritual energy began to form. It was still far less abundant than on the neighboring islands spared by the battle, but this was no longer a land devoid of spiritual energy.
One day, while cultivating, Yellow Dragon suddenly sensed a change in himself.
As his cultivation improved, it was only natural for his body and Primordial Spirit to grow stronger.
Yet when he examined himself closely, he discovered something deeply unusual—his innate foundation and origin had improved by a full tenth!
That was anything but ordinary.
One's innate foundation and origin were fixed at birth. Without an extraordinary stroke of fortune, they could never improve on their own.
And yet his had undeniably changed.
Yellow Dragon was bewildered. Why has my innate foundation and origin improved? Did the soul of a transmigrator affect this body? Or is some unknown force at work?
Frowning, he checked every part of his body again and again, but found no explanation.
Something's wrong... This is definitely wrong!
In the Primordial World, strengthening the body and Primordial Spirit was no great challenge. Diligent cultivation or pills made from Spiritual Roots could accomplish that.
For innate beings, however, their foundation and origin were set from the moment of birth. Nothing short of the most exceptional innate spiritual treasures in the Primordial World could change them.
But after carefully searching his memory, Yellow Dragon was certain he had encountered no such treasure. Surely there could not be an exceptional divine treasure hidden on Penglai Immortal Island.
Starting from that mountain range, Yellow Dragon followed its course toward the main peak of Penglai Immortal Island. Area by area, he cleared away foul and baleful Qi, set the Earth Veins right, gathered the earth's Qi, sowed innate plant seeds, and restored life to the island. All the while, he searched for the treasure that had changed his foundation and origin.
As Yellow Dragon cleared more foul and baleful Qi and expanded the restored area, he grew steadily more practiced. He worked dozens of times faster than he had at first, and his understanding of the spiritual rain technique deepened until he could cast it with ease.
Throughout the process, Yellow Dragon kept searching for the cause of his improved foundation. At last, he found it.
As life gradually returned to Penglai Immortal Island, Yellow Dragon noticed something remarkable: whenever an area revived, motes of light containing a special origin emerged from the earth.
The motes silently seeped into his body, slowly but steadily strengthening his flesh, tempering his Primordial Spirit, and even improving his innate foundation. The process was so subtle that he would scarcely have noticed it without deliberately looking for it.
Those mysterious motes, capable of improving his innate foundation and origin, held immense power of creation. After careful thought, Yellow Dragon named them Creation Origin.
On closer observation, Yellow Dragon found that the island produced very little Creation Origin. Since he could only absorb it passively, the amount he could refine in a short time was limited. Most of what he failed to absorb promptly dissipated into the world.
Realizing this, Yellow Dragon began trying different ways to preserve the Creation Origin he could not immediately absorb.
After thousands of years of exploration and repeated trials, he finally created a unique art—the Creation Origin Condensation Technique.
With this new art, Yellow Dragon could gather and preserve the Creation Origin that would otherwise have dissipated.
By the time he cleared the last trace of baleful and foul Qi from Penglai Immortal Island, nearly a hundred thousand years had passed.
Standing atop the highest peak of Penglai Island, Yellow Dragon watched the spiritual rain nourish the final area. Plants grew rapidly in great swathes, clothing the island's last barren mountain range in green. A faint spiritual energy began to radiate from the entire island.
Strengthened by Creation Origin, his body was nearly ten times tougher than it had been at the start. His Primordial Spirit had grown stronger and more substantial under its tempering, faintly giving off an aura of immortality. His innate foundation now rivaled that of beings born of heaven and earth.
If he wished, he could step into the realm of an immortal Golden Immortal at once.
During the first thirty thousand years, before he had perfected the Creation Origin Condensation Technique, most of the Creation Origin had escaped. Even so, he had gathered a little over nine peanut-sized drops in all. Yellow Dragon had absorbed and refined five, leaving four and a half.
As he looked at the island, once barren and lifeless but now covered in trees and teeming with creatures, an indescribable sense of accomplishment welled up in him.
Then, without warning!
Waves of Dao Music sounded from deep within the void.
The Dao Music rang across Penglai Immortal Island. Dark-gold lotus flowers appeared one after another from the void, soon gathering into a Merit Auspicious Cloud that hovered above Yellow Dragon's head.
As Yellow Dragon gazed up at the Merit Auspicious Cloud, knowledge of Heavenly Dao merit appeared within his Primordial Spirit.
"Heavenly Dao merit is a reward from the Heavenly Dao for beings who maintain the workings of the Primordial World and help it develop toward completeness. Yellow Dragon has restored Penglai Immortal Island and reduced the drain on the Primordial World's origin, so the Heavenly Dao has responded by bestowing merit upon him."
"Heavenly Dao merit can be absorbed directly to improve cultivation. It can also be used to refine a Merit Spiritual Treasure or nurture an Innate Spiritual Root."
Infusing merit into a Spirit Treasure would turn it into a Merit Spiritual Treasure, allowing its wielder to kill without incurring karmic consequences. Alternatively, merit could be gathered within the Primordial Spirit to form a Merit Golden Wheel. In times of danger, revealing the wheel would generally be enough to avert disaster. Anyone who dared kill a being protected by merit would be beset by Karmic Hindrance from the Primordial World and suffer a run of ill fortune.
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