Spiritual Treasure Restored

Huang Long rose to his feet and looked over the flourishing cave abode, which Ziling had kept in pristine order with her swarm of Purple Jade Bees. A faint smile appeared on his face.

He turned to look at Ziling, whom he had captured to serve as free labor. She was a rare talent, both a capable steward and able to brew spiritual honey that nourished the flesh. Her cultivation, however, was still too low. The spiritual honey she brewed had little effect on a Golden Immortal like him, though it was still a fine resource.

After a brief moment of thought, Huang Long took a tea leaf from his sleeve. It was produced by the postnatal spiritual root, the Enlightenment Tea Tree, in his courtyard.

"Ziling, you have led your clan in keeping this cave abode in perfect order. Your contributions cannot go unrecognized."

"I bestow this Enlightenment Tea leaf upon you. I hope you will soon break through the Heavenly Immortal bottleneck."

Huang Long handed the verdant tea leaf to her.

Ziling froze at first. She was quite familiar with that leaf; after all, there was a tea tree in Huang Long's courtyard, and she had long coveted the taste of the Enlightenment Tea leaves.

Unfortunately, that tea tree only ripened one leaf every few years. Its yield was limited, not even enough for Huang Long's own consumption.

Ziling could only sneak into the courtyard while Huang Long was away and cultivate amid the fragrance of the Enlightenment Tea. That was why her cultivation had advanced so quickly.

Now that she could receive a single tea leaf, Ziling's body trembled faintly with excitement, and joy filled her lovely face. "Thank you, Master!"

Only then did Ziling carefully extend both hands and accept the Enlightenment Tea leaf from Huang Long. The leaf felt warm and smooth in her palm, its Dao aura flowing naturally. Its familiar fragrance made her very spirit leap with delight.

"Cultivate well. Once your cultivation improves and you can brew better spiritual honey, I will have further rewards for you."

Huang Long spoke softly, offering Ziling encouragement.

Hearing Huang Long's words, Ziling declared loudly, "Master, Ziling will certainly cultivate diligently and brew even better spiritual honey."

Huang Long paced through the air to the center of the grotto-heaven, gazing down upon his vibrant Daoist grounds. The spiritual qi here was abundant, no less than that of Senior Brother Nanji's Jade Pillar Grotto-Heaven.

Calming his mind and focusing his spirit, he formed hand seals and circulated the mana throughout his body, his Primordial Spirit connecting with the laws of water and life between heaven and earth.

In an instant, faint bluish-white clouds gradually gathered in the skies spanning a thousand li within the Five Elements Grotto-Heaven, condensing into dark clouds brimming with vitality and spirituality.

As the dark clouds amassed, they gradually blanketed the entire grotto-heaven.

"Pitter-patter—"

Drops of rain containing pure creative vitality silently drifted down from the clouds, joining into strands of rain that shimmered with a faint azure glow. The many spiritual roots and immortal plants within the grotto-heaven swayed their branches and leaves, greedily absorbing the spiritual rain falling from the sky.

Under Huang Long's deliberate care, key areas such as the Blood Date orchard, lotus pond, Enlightenment Peak, and Spirit Herb Peak received the most sweet dew for the longest duration.

As Huang Long maintained the divine ability, he also contemplated the Great Dao laws within it.

This sweet dew, brimming with creative vitality, fell continuously for several days.

Only when every spiritual root and spiritual plant in the grotto-heaven had accumulated an ocean of vital energy within and could no longer absorb even a single drop of sweet dew did Huang Long withdraw his divine ability.

After this rain of sweet dew, every stalk of spiritual medicine would grow rapidly for a long time to come, its spiritual qi and medicinal potency several times greater than that of spiritual medicine naturally grown in the wild.

As the divine ability receded, the sweet dew ceased. The clouds parted and the mist dispersed, and a great sun rose. A wisp of violet qi fell upon Spirit Herb Peak with the morning sunlight. Stalk after stalk of spiritual medicine faced the dawn, drawing in those threads of violet qi, while several among them absorbed far more violet qi than the rest.

Huang Long placed a mark on each of those spiritual medicines. Should anything change, he would know at once.

With a flash, Huang Long returned to the courtyard on Enlightenment Peak. Though the affairs of the cave abode had been settled, an even more important matter awaited him.

Sitting cross-legged on a cushion beneath the tea tree, he stirred his thoughts, and the Mysterious Yellow World Pearl slowly floated from his body, spinning round and round.

Previously, the three masters had expounded upon the Great Dao at Three Purities Peak on Kunlun Mountain, and golden flowers had rained down from the heavens.

As a disciple present to hear the Dao, Huang Long had obtained many Heavenly Flower Golden Lotuses. At the time, he had been unable to absorb and refine part of them himself. Rather than waste them, he had fused that portion into the Mysterious Yellow World Pearl to nurture and enhance the spiritual treasure's origin.

Now, his divine sense entered the Mysterious Yellow World to inspect its changes.

The moment his divine sense entered, Huang Long was stunned.

At the core of the Mysterious Yellow World, within that Chaotic region which carried the world's origin and laws, beside the thirteen innate restrictions that had originally been clearly visible, another had unexpectedly emerged!

And the Mysterious Yellow World's area had expanded by a full tenth!

The mountains stood taller, the plains had become more expansive, and the earth veins beneath the land had grown increasingly robust.

Within the Mysterious Yellow World, with the five innate Five Elements spiritual veins as its main arteries, dozens of smaller innate spiritual veins had spontaneously emerged and spread throughout the world. This made the circulation of heaven-and-earth spiritual qi smoother and the laws more complete.

The two postnatal spiritual roots transplanted into this world—the Enlightenment Tea Tree and the Blood Red Date Tree—had already fully merged with this world, becoming the spiritual roots that held up the heavens of the Mysterious Yellow World.

Benefiting from the elevation of the world's origin, the two postnatal spiritual roots now shimmered with rosy light, Dao patterns covering them densely. Their auras had clearly reached the very limit of mid-grade postnatal spiritual roots. They lacked only one final stroke of fortune to break their shackles and advance into high-grade postnatal spiritual roots!

The ninth-grade Pure World White Lotus, however, had not changed at all.

"Good! Good! Good!"

Sensing the changes in the Mysterious Yellow World, Huang Long cried out "good" three times in succession, unable to suppress the joy in his heart.

For every fraction this spiritual treasure recovered, his own strength increased by a fraction.

He entered the Mysterious Yellow World and repeated the process, once again casting the Sweet Dew Technique beneath the skies of this world.

Surging mana poured forth, and sweet dew fell within the Mysterious Yellow World for several days in succession. Its creative vitality merged with the earth, nourishing all things while accelerating the stabilization of the newly formed spiritual veins and the growth of the world's origin.

Huang Long could also clearly feel that his refinement of the Mysterious Yellow World Pearl had advanced another step. Controlling it became increasingly effortless, as natural as moving an arm or directing a finger.

Having arranged all matters in both the Five Elements Grotto-Heaven and the Mysterious Yellow World, and with the mental exhaustion caused by accepting the inheritance now completely recovered, Huang Long turned his attention elsewhere.

There were still several hundred years before the three masters would expound the Saint's Great Dao to all living beings of the primordial world at Kunlun. Huang Long intended to use this opportunity to cultivate the Dao of artifact refinement.

Once everything was prepared, Huang Long opened a temporary artifact-refining cave abode on Blood Date Peak. A vein of innate fire spiritual qi lay here, making artifact refinement twice as effective with half the effort.

He sat quietly within the cave abode and swept his sleeve. At once, treasure light flashed over the open ground before him as materials piled into a small mountain.

Among them were all kinds of translucent innate spiritual jade containing inner spiritual light, spiritual iron that gleamed with metallic luster and weighed immensely, and a small number of spiritual woods nourished by spiritual qi for ten thousand years. These were all spiritual materials he had accumulated through years of travel, along with those he had gathered from Kunlun Mountain.

Huang Long's gaze swept over these ordinary materials. He drew a deep breath and calmed his mind, and a cluster of Jade Pure True Fire, condensed to the utmost limit, already danced at his fingertips. The surrounding temperature abruptly rose, and the air warped faintly.

His mind remained immersed in that vast and complicated artifact-refining inheritance. Methods for refining spiritual artifacts and the mysteries of spiritual treasure restrictions flowed through his Primordial Spirit like scenes in a revolving lantern.