Yu Chen looked up at Daoist Taiyi. The other man wore a smile at the corners of his lips, his face suffused with compassion. The various phenomena that had originally surrounded him dissipated one after another, while the several ninth-rank divine artifacts on his person and in his hand dimmed.
His every movement no longer stirred any Dao principles or laws, making Yu Chen even more wary.
"Who are you, Fellow Daoist?"
"Fellow Daoist Yu Chen may call me Qinghua, or Taiyi."
Though he did not understand why Savior Heavenly Venerable had manifested after Taiyi abandoned the Heavenly Craft spirituality, since the other party had revealed his identity, Yu Chen could only bow slightly. "Greetings, Heavenly Venerable!"
"Are you wondering why I appeared?"
The Heavenly Venerable seemed to see through Yu Chen's doubts and chuckled. "Though Daoist Tiangong was rather gifted and opened up a separate branch within the immortal Dao system—one could even say he formed a school of his own—his system also had no small flaws. He specialized in artifacts while neglecting himself. Even if he condensed ninth-rank divine artifacts, most of his power remained within those artifacts, while his own strength underwent no fundamental transformation."
"In this universe, the likes of Ksitigarbha and Taiyi surpass the other wielders of ninth-rank divine artifacts. On one hand, it is because they possess Heavenly Craft spirituality, thereby gaining the favor of fortune and mastering some of the mysteries of reincarnation. On the other hand, the other cultivators in this universe generally lack sufficient foundations themselves and can only slowly improve through the power of divine artifacts over long ages. Compared to those few, they are naturally far inferior."
"Yet Ksitigarbha and Taiyi's superiority over others through Heavenly Craft spirituality inevitably meant they were influenced by it as well. When Taiyi