Nurturing Spiritual Roots, Entering the Taiyi Realm

Zhenyuanzi's eyes brightened slightly as he recalled the life-brimming sweet rain from before. It truly had been extraordinary.

After a brief thought, he readily agreed. "Since you possess such a divine ability, please give it a try, little friend. I too would like to see whether my spiritual root can cultivate new growth."

The two immediately saw eye to eye, and Zhenyuanzi led Yellow Dragon to the rear courtyard of Wuzhuang Temple.

Pushing open the courtyard gate and stepping inside, Yellow Dragon felt a dense wave of spiritual energy mingled with life essence rush toward him. In the garden stood a great tree overflowing with flowing radiance. Though it stood only ninety-nine zhang tall, its canopy was immense, with Dao patterns naturally forming across it.

Amid its dense leaves hung thirty fist-sized fruits, half-hidden from sight. They were the unripe Ginseng Fruits, their facial features still indistinct and their limbs faintly visible. Their spiritual light was restrained, making them seem like ordinary spiritual fruits.

The entire Ginseng Fruit Tree was connected to the earth veins of the whole Longevity Mountain range. With every breath, it gathered spiritual energy and the laws of the Great Dao.

Standing before the Ginseng Fruit Tree, Yellow Dragon calmed his mind and focused his spirit. He circulated his mana and unleashed his divine ability, drawing upon the water-element aura between heaven and earth and resonating with the Great Dao of heaven and earth.

Moments later, a vibrant cloud brimming with life condensed above the Ginseng Fruit Tree, and a fine sweet rain began to drift down.

The sweet rain fell upon the Ginseng Fruit Tree's branches and leaves and was absorbed in an instant.

After the shower passed, the Ginseng Fruit Tree visibly gained a trace more vitality, its branches and leaves becoming even greener. Even the thirty small fruits on the tree had grown ever so slightly.

Zhenyuanzi had watched from the side all along. Seeing that Yellow Dragon's sweet-rain divine ability truly worked, he clapped his hands in praise. "What a marvelous divine ability, little friend! This sweet rain can truly nourish an innate spiritual root and even hasten its gestation!"

Finally at ease, Zhenyuanzi did not hesitate in the slightest. With a sweep of his whisk—

Three soft cracks rang out. A verdant main branch roughly three chi long, wreathed in dense essence of the yi-wood element, along with two somewhat thinner side branches, were severed.

Once the main branch was cut, the Ginseng Fruit Tree shuddered faintly, and its aura dropped by a measure. Clearly, removing one main branch and two side branches at once had harmed its origin!

"Senior, this..."

Yellow Dragon was greatly startled. He had never expected Zhenyuanzi to be so decisive as to cut off even a section of the main branch!

Yet Zhenyuanzi did not mind in the least. Handing the three sections of spiritual branches to Yellow Dragon, he smiled. "Since you possess this divine ability, I shall give you these branches. Perhaps you can truly cultivate them to life and fulfill one of this poor Daoist's wishes."

"It is but a trifling loss. So long as you remain at my Wuzhuang Temple for a few more years and send down sweet rain a few more times, it will recover."

Yellow Dragon was deeply moved, knowing that Zhenyuanzi had done this only because he feared Yellow Dragon might fail.

Seeing spiritual energy faintly leaking from the mother tree's broken branches, Yellow Dragon could not bear it. After some thought, he took three drops of Three Lights Divine Water from the Creation Gourd.

"Senior, I am ashamed to accept such a generous gift. These three drops of Three Lights Divine Water can swiftly restore the Ginseng Fruit Tree's lost origin. Please do not refuse." Yellow Dragon handed the Three Lights Divine Water to Zhenyuanzi.

At the sight of the Three Lights Divine Water, Zhenyuanzi was moved as well. Back then, Hongyun and he had searched throughout the primordial wilderness before finding only a few drops, yet this Sage's disciple had produced three drops at once.

He gave Yellow Dragon a long, deep look, then did not refuse. Taking the divine water, he merged one drop into the mother tree's broken wound.

Divine light flowed, and the damaged area healed at a visible speed. The mother tree's aura quickly rose again; before long, it would surely be fully restored.

Afterward, beneath the mother Ginseng Fruit Tree, Yellow Dragon took out three jade basins filled with Breathing Soil.

He planted the three branch cuttings separately in the basins, carefully watering them each day with diluted Three Lights Divine Water mixed with spiritual rain condensed through his sweet-rain divine ability.

He also frequently drew out wisps of pure yi-wood energy leaking from the Ginseng Fruit Tree to nourish these three offshoots.

In the primordial wilderness, time was the cheapest thing of all. As the sun rose and moon fell, several decades slipped away in the blink of an eye.

Under Yellow Dragon's tireless cultivation and the mother tree's shelter, two of the three cuttings miraculously came alive. They grew new roots and sprouted tender leaves!

Though they could not compare to the mother tree's innate abilities, they brimmed with spiritual energy and possessed Dao charm of their own, ranking among postnatal spiritual roots!

Of them, the sapling cultivated from the main branch had actually reached the level of a high-grade postnatal spiritual root, while those raised from the side branches had become low-grade postnatal spiritual roots—already exceedingly rare.

This day, as Yellow Dragon watched the two Ginseng Fruit Tree saplings put forth new buds and Dao charm descend from heaven, something stirred within him. As though fortune had arrived and his heart had understood, enlightenment came naturally.

He immediately sat cross-legged. Every detail of Yuanshi's teachings on the Taiyi Realm surfaced in Yellow Dragon's mind. Yuqing qi swirled around him, while countless laws transformed and evolved into all manner of phenomena.

The laws of different Great Daos eventually condensed into figures of Yellow Dragon. Between illusion and reality, they displayed the depth of Yellow Dragon's comprehension of the laws.

One Great Dao rune after another appeared, expounding the ultimate principles of heaven and earth. The figures formed from those laws collided with one another, then gradually merged, forging Yellow Dragon's perfect foundation of the Great Dao.

With his foundation of the Great Dao complete, his essence, qi, and spirit reached their absolute peaks!

Over these several decades, Yellow Dragon had guarded the spiritual roots each day, sensing the changes in laws emitted throughout their growth. He had also cross-verified them with the Dao charm of the Ginseng Fruits he was refining within his body, sorting through the accumulations of tens of thousands of years of bitter cultivation. The Great Dao laws he comprehended grew ever more complete.

Yellow Dragon's "foundation of the Great Dao" had already, without his noticing, reached a flawless and perfect state.

In an instant, centered on Yellow Dragon, a massive spiritual-energy vortex formed and spread continuously across Longevity Mountain. The mountain's innate spiritual energy was stirred and converged toward him, pouring into Yellow Dragon's body.

It signified the ultimate sublimation of the three treasures: essence, qi, and spirit.

Zhenyuanzi had long been alerted and appeared nearby to guard him. Seeing Yellow Dragon's condition, he could not help nodding. "His foundation of the Great Dao is so complete, and his reserves so profound. He should plant a supreme-grade Dao seed."

Without hesitation, he opened Longevity Mountain's grand formation, gathering the spiritual energy of all its earth veins. He even employed the Earth Book, supplying Yellow Dragon with an endless stream of spiritual energy to aid his breakthrough.

Yellow Dragon turned his awareness inward. Above the foundation of his Great Dao, the three treasures of essence, qi, and spirit slowly condensed into three radiant "Great Dao Seeds"!

In the Taiyi Realm, one planted the seeds of the Great Dao; when the three flowers bloomed, one would achieve Great Luo.

The three seeds slowly sank into his foundation of the Great Dao, signifying that he had formally entered the realm of the Primordial Unity Golden Immortal and planted the seeds of the Great Luo realm!

This breakthrough lasted more than a hundred years. On this day, Yellow Dragon's aura suddenly changed, and a pressure belonging to the Taiyi Realm flashed into existence before vanishing.

He opened his eyes. Dao laws surged within them, as though countless Great Dao laws flowed through his gaze, before fading away. The realm of the Primordial Unity Golden Immortal had been achieved!

After stabilizing his realm, Yellow Dragon went to the front courtyard, but he did not see Zhenyuanzi. He searched all around, yet found nothing.

By chance, he encountered Qingfeng and Mingyue. From the two attendants, he learned that Great Immortal Zhenyuanzi had seemingly gained an insight while helping him break through and had entered secluded cultivation more than ten years ago.

Yellow Dragon felt both wistful and grateful. For a quasi-sage like Zhenyuanzi, secluded cultivation was measured in millennia, so he should not be disturbed.

There was no point in remaining idle at Wuzhuang Temple, so he bade Qingfeng and Mingyue farewell.