Three Ancestors of Humanity

In the primordial wilderness, time held no meaning; a thousand years passed in but the flick of a finger.

The sun rose and moon set, tides ebbed and flowed.

Under Yellow Dragon's protection and guidance, the men of the human race hunted, while the women gathered wild fruits and cared for newborn children.

They multiplied and lived in peace along the shores of the Eastern Sea.

Only the turning of the sun, moon, and stars marked the passage of time.

Over those long years, the spark of human ingenuity began to burst forth amid the trials of survival.

One man watched lightning strike a dead tree and kindle a blazing fire. At last, he drilled wood by hand to make fire, bringing the spark of hope to humanity. It drove off the beasts lurking in the darkness at night, and his people reverently named him Suiren Ancestor.

One person learned from spiders weaving webs and fashioned clothing, sheltering humanity from wind and cold. The people reverently named her Ziyi Ancestor.

One person learned from birds and beasts building nests and brought humanity safe shelters. The people reverently named him Youchao Ancestor.

The moment Suiren spread the method of making fire throughout humanity, everyone learned to build homes from Youchao, and every person put on clothing, thunder exploded across the nine heavens!

Rumble—!

Three dazzling pillars of light, carrying a vast ocean of Mysterious Yellow merit, crashed down from the nine heavens like rivers pouring from the sky!

The three beams, brimming with profound mystic aura, respectively poured into the crowns of Suiren, Ziyi, and Youchao.

Surge after surge of vast yet gentle power continuously washed over their bodies.

They floated with their eyes closed amid the golden light of merit. Their muscles and bones rang in unison, while their flesh and blood were remade.

Boundless magical power surged from their bodies, and waves of undying aura filled the Primordial Spirits of the three.

When the golden light receded, Suiren, Youchao, and Ziyi slowly descended to the ground, the pressure of Zenith Heaven Golden Immortals spreading outward.

The vast golden merit light that descended one after another upon the human settlements was like a massive boulder cast into the tranquil lake of the primordial wilderness, stirring towering waves and drawing the attention of the innate sacred beings who stood at its very peak.

Its radiance pierced the boundless void of the primordial wilderness and reflected in the eyes of countless great powers.

At the summit of Kunlun, clouds and mists drifted ethereally, while immortal cranes cried clear notes.

Within the Palace of the Three Pure Ones, an elderly man in a plain Supreme Ultimate Daoist robe, his beard and hair wholly white, slowly opened his eyes from atop a meditation cushion.

Those eyes were clear and tranquil, yet in their depths seemed to lie the ultimate truths of universes being born and extinguished, of heaven and earth revolving in endless cycles.

His gaze pierced the endless void and fell upon the human tribes along the Eastern Sea. He watched those three humans upon whom merit had descended, the golden light of their merit bearing faint strands of the unique Dao rhythm of "creation."

A trace of thought, exceedingly faint yet deeply meaningful, flitted over his eternally placid face.

He did not speak. He merely lightly stroked the Supreme Ultimate Diagram before his knees, which emanated the dual qi of yin and yang. His fingertips paused almost imperceptibly where yin and yang revolved.

From the Netherworld Blood Sea, the Sun Star, Wuzhuang Temple, and Mount Sumeru, gaze after gaze crossed endless space toward the shores of the Eastern Sea.

Beneath the abyss of the Eastern Sea, within the Sea Eye.

Ancestor Dragon's enormous body coiled at the very center of the Sea Eye, suppressing its violent upheavals.

He, too, saw the golden light at the Eastern Sea's shore, and sensed even more clearly the Mysterious Yellow aura of dragon bloodline guarding it from nearby.

"Creation... creation... merit..."

Ancestor Dragon's low voice was like the trembling of earth veins in the deepest reaches of the sea, echoing through the hollow Sea Eye.

"Our race... opportunity... may lie in..." Before his words could finish, a burst of destructive aura suddenly erupted, as though it would rip this space apart.

Spiritual light flowed across that colossal body, and within moments it suppressed the tremor. The Sea Eye returned to silence, leaving only the dim fires of dragon souls atop countless dragon bones to flicker soundlessly.

Meanwhile, atop a towering mountain a hundred thousand li from human territory.

Within a simple cave abode, a figure sat cross-legged. Before him floated a fist-sized pearl, Chaos and Mysterious Yellow intertwining within it. It radiated an ancient, desolate aura—it was the innate spiritual treasure bestowed by Ancestor Dragon, the Mysterious Yellow World Pearl.

Light and shadow flickered within the pearl, where the faint outline of a vibrant land, no more than a hundred thousand li across, could be seen.

The chaotic void within the pearl seemed to be stirred by an invisible giant hand. Under Yellow Dragon's guidance, the power of five innate spiritual veins—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—began slowly colliding, merging, and cycling in endless rotation. The earth gave off deep, muffled rumbles.

With every cycle of the five elements, the space within the pearl twisted and trembled slightly, the land expanded by a fraction, and the aura of the Mysterious Yellow World Pearl grew a fraction heavier.

Suddenly, Yellow Dragon discovered that beside the original eight restrictions, five phantoms had begun gradually recovering.

"The origin of this innate spiritual treasure is slowly recovering. But how many innate five-element spiritual veins will it take before these five restrictions fully condense?"

At the thought that even the single innate metal spiritual vein had been gifted by Lady Nuwa, Yellow Dragon felt a headache coming on.

At that moment, a flash of golden light suddenly crossed Yellow Dragon's eyes. What if merit could replace the effects of innate spiritual veins?

The merit originally hidden within Yellow Dragon's Primordial Spirit slowly emerged. Under his control, it began pouring into the Mysterious Yellow World Pearl.

The chaotic heaven and earth within the pearl seemed to have been fiercely infused with a dose of origin power by the resplendent force of merit!

Boom!

Chaos within the pearl shook violently!

The earth, fire, wind, and water evolving the world within the pearl seemed to be granted life, surging and colliding with unprecedented savagery!

Within the world inside the pearl, crisscrossing mountain ranges rose, each soaring ten thousand zhang high, their grandeur majestic and magnificent;

Vast rifts were torn open by invisible giant hands, bottomless in depth, with scorching earthfire and molten lava boiling within them;

Torrential rain poured down madly. Muddy floodwaters gathered in low-lying lands, forming vast lakes and rushing rivers, while water vapor billowed and mist spread everywhere;

The world, originally no more than ten thousand li across, boomed outward amid the collisions and evolution of earth, fire, wind, and water, expanding to a million li in radius!

Yellow Dragon's eyes suddenly shot out two beams of golden light, filled with shock and wild joy!

He could clearly "see" that as the world within the pearl rapidly expanded and its origin stabilized, the innate spiritual restrictions at the core of the pearl—manifestations of the laws of heaven and earth—were being repaired, lit up, and rewoven at an unprecedented speed!

One, two, three... The five innate restrictions that had originally been dim lit up one after another like pillars of light being kindled, each one blazing brilliantly!

When the fifth spiritual restriction was fully awakened like a slumbering colossal beast, releasing a vast, weighty Dao aura, the entire pearl gave a resonant shudder!

The pearl's radiance drew inward, its color becoming ever deeper and more ancient, as though it had turned from illusion into substance. Its sense of weight surged, and a vast aura of balance and harmony, embracing all things, spread outward.

Mysterious Yellow World Pearl!

This innate spiritual treasure, whose original grade was unknown, had finally recovered part of its power and reached the rank of a mid-grade innate spiritual treasure!

Within the pearl, the newborn world spanning a million li saw its laws steadily stabilize, and spiritual qi began to circulate naturally.

Across the land, flecks of green stubbornly thrust out of the earth at a visible rate. They were the seeds of various innate spiritual plants Yellow Dragon had collected before, rapidly taking root and sprouting under the nourishment of dense spiritual qi;

Within an enormous lake, three white lotus seedlings were breathing in and out faint glimmers of light. They were lotus seeds from the Pure World White Lotus. After Yellow Dragon had cultivated them with the divine-ability-level Sweet Dew Technique and nurtured them with a little merit, three of them had long since begun to radiate faint vitality.

Under the influence of the innate spiritual treasure's transformation, having absorbed their fill of the world origin within the pearl, they swiftly took root and sprouted.

The other acquired spiritual root, the Enlightenment Tea Tree, also swelled several times in size under the nourishment of this dense origin energy, while the Dao aura of heaven-and-earth laws contained within its leaves grew ever more weighty.