The vastness and danger of the Primordial World lay starkly before Yellow Dragon.
He had originally planned to travel through the sea in dragon form, heading straight for the Dragon Clan Ancestral Court.
But after only a few months, as he crossed a deep rift in the seafloor, a massive shadow swept past. Its mere aura left him rigid and chilled to the bone.
Fortunately, the Pure World White Lotus concealed his aura and hid him from sight. Otherwise, he would have had to call on the patriarch for help.
From then on, Yellow Dragon flew close to the sea's surface.
Back at the Dragon Court, the patriarch had casually parted the void, and the Passageway had opened onto waters near Penglai Immortal Island.
Besides, the battlefield back then could not have been too far from the Dragon Clan Ancestral Court. Otherwise, the toll of the Chaos Bell would never have injured Yellow Dragon.
Who could have imagined that the enormous immortal island was like a living thing?
Over the past hundred thousand years and more, it had passed through the void several times, shifting an unknown distance without pattern or sound!
If not for the warm Green Dragon scale in his hand, whose pull through their shared bloodline pointed unwaveringly toward the ancestral court, Yellow Dragon might well have become a lost dragon.
Following the faint pull of that token, he traveled over the ocean using an escape art he grew ever more skilled at. The journey took him several hundred years.
At last, he returned to the Dragon Clan Ancestral Court.
He had only just passed through the ancestral court's wards, his feet not yet touching the faintly warm ground, when an unseen force suddenly seized him!
The scene around him twisted and stretched into blurred streams of light.
Before Yellow Dragon could form a thought, his vision swam and he found himself somewhere else.
He stumbled, forced himself steady, and looked up.
A pair of golden eyes, vast as the sun and moon, hung beneath the dark vaulted ceiling, gazing at him without a ripple of emotion.
That gaze seemed to pierce his flesh and see straight into the depths of his Primordial Spirit.
Yellow Dragon's heart clenched, then eased.
"Patriarch."
He let out a long breath and relaxed his taut muscles. His voice carried a hint of helplessness at their reunion. "You still love startling your juniors."
A low, deep chuckle rolled through the cave abode like muffled thunder through a valley.
Light and shadow shifted. A middle-aged man in a simple green Daoist robe stood silently before Yellow Dragon.
His face was stern and sharply defined, his bearing full of authority. He was the Azure Dragon Patriarch, one of the few pillars the Dragon Race had left.
The Green Dragon's gaze swept over Yellow Dragon as though examining every inch of him.
Deep in his eyes, countless tiny, intricate golden runes flickered, constantly appearing and vanishing.
Beneath his wide sleeves, his fingers moved swiftly and silently as he calculated the changes this young dragon had undergone.
"Oh?" Surprise escaped the patriarch's lips.
In the hundred thousand years and more since they had last met, the youngster had reached the peak of the Mystic Immortal realm. That was impressive progress.
Yet the Green Dragon could see clearly that Yellow Dragon's Magic Power was exceptionally dense and refined, and his foundation solid beyond measure.
What shook the Green Dragon most was that the karmic burden that had weighed so heavily on the entire Dragon Race and left their fortune flickering like a candle in the wind had vanished completely from Yellow Dragon!
In its place, a pure, warm halo of merit, gentle as the newborn sun, shone from deep within his Primordial Spirit, keeping the Dragon Race's karmic burden at bay.
Since the Heavenly Dao had laid boundless karmic burden upon the Dragon Race after the Dragon-Han Calamity, the Green Dragon had never seen such clear, abundant merit from the Heavenly Dao on another dragon!
"Your karmic burden is gone...!"
The Green Dragon spoke slowly and quietly, yet every word rang clear through the silent cave abode.
The runes in his eyes shone brighter as he fixed his gaze on the imperishable golden light within Yellow Dragon's Primordial Spirit.
That faint glow of merit was like a ray of dawn breaking through endless night for the Dragon Race, burdened by Karmic Hindrance, their fortune scattered, without a single member advancing to Great Luo in countless Kalpas!
Since the Ancestor Dragon had led countless Dragon Race elites to suppress the Sea Eye, transforming the energy of the Primordial World's seas into spiritual energy in exchange for merit from the Heavenly Dao and the preservation of their race's fortune,
this was the first time the Green Dragon had so clearly glimpsed a chance to change his people's fate!
"I know you found this opportunity through your own fate. It cannot be forced."
The Azure Dragon Patriarch's voice regained its steadiness, but the fervor beneath it remained unmistakable. "Yet merit from the Heavenly Dao is too important to the Dragon Race now...!"
Before the Green Dragon could finish, Yellow Dragon understood what he wanted.
Without the slightest hesitation, Yellow Dragon bowed. "I developed this method after I saw Penglai Immortal Island's Earth Veins severed by the fighting between the Demon Race and the Celestial Court. Its spiritual energy had dispersed, and all life was gone."
"Your disciple was born from the Earth Veins' spirit and took dragon form, so I thought to restore Penglai Immortal Island's Earth Veins and bring it back to life."
"I used my own pure Essence and Qi to connect with the Earth Veins, cleared their blockages, and purified the foul, baleful Qi trapped within them. Once spiritual energy flowed cleanly through the broken veins again, I planted innate spirit plants and used the Sweet Dew Technique you taught me to draw in the surrounding spiritual energy and help them grow... After more than a hundred thousand years, life finally returned to Penglai Island."
"The Heavenly Dao responded by bestowing merit. I spent ninety percent of it cleansing the Karmic Hindrance I bore."
As Yellow Dragon spoke, he watched the patriarch's reaction.
The Azure Dragon Patriarch listened intently. Runes churned in the depths of his all-seeing eyes, while the fingers moving before his chest calculated so quickly that Yellow Dragon could no longer follow them.
When Yellow Dragon finished, the runes in the patriarch's eyes gradually faded, leaving deep contemplation and a trace of exhaustion he could not hide.
"Restore the Earth Veins, purify the corruption... bring life back to the land..."
The Green Dragon quietly repeated the key steps.
His calculations told him the method would work. It accorded with the Heavenly Dao's fundamental laws and reduced the loss of the Primordial World's vital essence.
But to repeat such tedious, draining work day after day for hundreds of thousands of years, with so little to show for it? A deep sense of helplessness crept over him.
Even he might not endure such lonely, painstaking labor, much less the restless younger dragons still lost in memories of their race's former glory.
"This method... could earn the Dragon Race the recognition of the Primordial World once more!"
The Green Dragon's voice was grave and firm, as though he were trying to convince himself.
Yellow Dragon read his expression and made up his mind.
He stepped forward and extended his right hand. A smooth, translucent piece of green jade hovered above his palm, countless tiny glimmers of Spirit Light seeming to flow within it.
"Patriarch."
Yellow Dragon respectfully held up the jade. "These are some lessons I learned while restoring Penglai Island's Earth Veins, purifying its corruption, and planting innate spirit plants. They are rough, but perhaps others of our race may find them useful."
The Green Dragon looked at the jade, which held the fruits of Yellow Dragon's painstaking work, his gaze deep and unreadable.
After a moment of silence, he slowly reached out, and the jade drifted into his palm.
The Green Dragon's fingers brushed its smooth surface as he sensed the countless tiny streams of information within.
Yellow Dragon waited quietly, though he could not help feeling uneasy.
By handing over what he had learned about earning merit, he gave the Dragon Race a way to ease at least a little of its karmic burden, born of his long, lonely years restoring Penglai.
At length, the Azure Dragon Patriarch raised his eyes to Yellow Dragon, his expression complex.
There was admiration in his gaze, and relief, but also a trace of resolve.
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