Merit Generator

In merely tens of thousands of years, Yuan Jie had completed the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation.

With a flick of his finger, Yuan Jie sent a condensed force of the world roaring forth, pouring directly into the formation's core and completely activating the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation.

In an instant, the Innate Earth Veins deep within the vast mountains underwent earth-shaking changes. Countless profound and unfathomable formation patterns emerged from the depths of the Earth Veins, flowing with radiant light and gleaming brilliantly.

They instantly linked Heaven and Earth, drawing upon the Great Dao's rhythms throughout this entire land and perfectly merging with the vast, surging power of the Earth Veins as one.

In that instant, the Chaos Qi pouring into this land from the Boundless Void abruptly swelled severalfold, surging in like a rushing river. The Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation rapidly refined and transformed it, while within the formation eye, a supreme vision of primordial chaos opening, Yin-Yang separating, and Heaven and Earth being born faintly appeared.

The power transformed by the formation split into three portions. One portion of the Chaos Qi continued as before, wholly transforming into Innate Spiritual Qi and Dao Rhyme Spiritual Essence. It slowly flowed along the main branches of the Earth Veins before erupting through spiritual acupoints across the land, spreading between the mountains and nourishing the plants and living beings of this world.

The overwhelming majority of the remaining Chaos Qi was transformed by the formation's supreme power into Heaven-Earth Origin Force.

One portion of this Origin Force was wholly absorbed by the damaged Earth Veins, swiftly replenishing their losses and repairing their wounds at the source, making the Earth Veins increasingly robust and stable. The other portion was properly stored within the formation eye, accumulating over time for future use.

"Good! Very good!"

His Primordial Spirit spread across the entire formation through the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation. Clearly sensing the formation's efficiency in drawing in and refining Chaos Qi, Yuan Jie revealed a satisfied expression and slowly nodded.

At this moment, he had merely activated the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation and allowed it to operate on its own, yet its speed in drawing in and transforming Chaos Qi had already surpassed that of these Earth Veins at their peak, when the Western Earth-Meridian Network still existed.

If he personally acted and pushed the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation to its limit, its power could likely increase severalfold, and its efficiency in drawing in and refining Chaos Qi would naturally increase severalfold as well.

Although he had important matters to attend to and could not remain here forever, Yuan Ling was currently cultivating experts above the Taiyi Golden Immortal realm.

Once they had cultivated enough utterly loyal Taiyi Golden Immortal cultivators, they could assign them to take turns standing guard and presiding over the formation. Even if they could not unleash the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation's full power, bringing out seventy or eighty percent of its might would be no difficult task.

This way, not only would he no longer need to worry about outside enemies intruding and seizing the Innate Spiritual Treasure serving as the formation foundation that suppressed the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation, but it would also serve an even more important purpose: drawing in and transforming more Chaos Qi to help him earn more Merit.

"Rumble!" Just as Yuan Jie was lost in thought, a roar sounded from somewhere unseen.

Yuan Jie immediately came back to his senses and looked up, his gaze piercing through the Infinite Void. He saw vast amounts of Merit gathering above the Nine Heavens and descending directly upon him, all pouring into the Merit Golden Wheel in his Sea of Consciousness. His Merit Golden Wheel expanded once more, while the Merit radiance upon it grew increasingly dense and its Great Dao aura increasingly steady.

Moreover, Yuan Jie suddenly sensed that this Merit was not a one-time reward. This initial reward was merely the Heavenly Dao's recompense for his establishment of the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation.

In the future, so long as the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation continued drawing in and transforming more Chaos Qi through the Boundless Void, he would be able to obtain Merit without end.

As for how much Merit he would gain, that depended on how much Chaos Qi the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation could draw in and transform, as well as how he used the transformed Heaven-Earth Origin Force.

If he refined it himself or used it to cultivate the experts under his command, the Merit he could gain would certainly be greatly reduced.

But if he used it to repair the flaws of Heaven and Earth, or transformed it into Innate Spiritual Qi and Dao Rhyme Spiritual Essence that dispersed throughout the world—then the Merit he gained would not be reduced.

Having grasped the key to it all, Yuan Jie nodded in satisfaction once more. Unable to suppress the joy in his heart, his delight was written plainly across his face.

This Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation truly was an endlessly producing Merit generator.

Though a single Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation could not earn much Merit in each Epoch, what about several hundred Epochs? Several thousand Epochs?

Although setting up just one Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation would not bring in much Merit, what if they set up several hundred? Several thousand?

By then, perhaps they would no longer need to work so hard. They could simply lie back and collect Merit.

After rejoicing for a while, Yuan Jie slowly reined in his surging emotions, suppressing the fantasies and aspirations in his heart and returning to his usual calm composure.

Even if he could lie back and collect Merit, that was something for who knew how far in the future. For now, he still had to work painstakingly, so that he might have the chance to lie back and collect Merit someday.

Furthermore, with their current reserves, setting up two hundred Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formations would be relatively easy. It was only a matter of time.

But several thousand? That would be immensely difficult!

The most critical problem was that they simply did not possess so many unused Innate Spiritual Treasures and Innate Spiritual Roots to serve as formation foundations.

Since the four of them had begun traveling through the Primordial World, they had encountered countless opportunities. In particular, they had gained greatly from the Yinyang Grotto-Heaven, Yingzhou Immortal Island, and the many Three Clans Battlefields.

Yet even so, the total number of Innate Spiritual Treasures and Innate Spiritual Roots in the hands of all four of them was only a little over two hundred.

What was more, their High-Grade Innate Spiritual Treasures and Supreme-Grade Innate Spiritual Treasures were the foundation of their standing, capable of vastly increasing their combat strength.

The Primordial World was inherently a world where the weak were prey to the strong and the powerful were revered. Naturally, they could not use these trump-card treasures to set up formations and needlessly weaken themselves.

After carefully calculating, the Innate Spiritual Treasures and Innate Spiritual Roots in their possession that could serve as formation foundations for the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation totaled only a little over two hundred at most.

After using them to establish more than two hundred Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formations, if they did not obtain more Innate Spiritual Treasures or Innate Spiritual Roots,

then if they wished to continue setting up Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formations, they could only settle for the next best option: expending effort to refine Postnatal Spiritual Treasures or slowly cultivate Postnatal Spiritual Roots to serve as formation foundations.

However, if Postnatal Spiritual Treasures and Postnatal Spiritual Roots were used as formation foundations, they would either need to be of higher quality, or the Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formation's power would certainly decline greatly. After all, when it came to linking with and drawing upon the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, postnatal treasures were far inferior to innate ones.

Moreover, neither refining Postnatal Spiritual Treasures nor cultivating Postnatal Spiritual Roots could be done from nothing. Both required vast resources and considerable time.

Although they possessed quite a few resources, that depended on who they were compared with. Compared to the former Primordial Three Clans, they likely did not even have a fraction of what one of those clans possessed. It was simply not enough to refine sufficient Postnatal Spiritual Treasures and cultivate sufficient Postnatal Spiritual Roots to establish several thousand Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formations.

With the resources in their hands, it would already be quite good if they could establish several hundred Heaven-Earth Origin-Returning Formations!