Reborn as Hong Yun

Time meant nothing in the Primordial World. In the blink of an eye, seas turned to mulberry fields.

In the Primordial World, near Buzhou Mountain, an endless sea of clouds had lingered for ages.

Beneath that boundless sea of clouds lay a place shrouded by a formation. Within it drifted a scarlet cloud.

A streak of twisted black energy suddenly appeared. When it saw the young man inside the formation, it surged toward him as if he were prey.

"Ah—!!"

But at that moment, a flash of violet light streaked past and annihilated the black energy. A Purple Ruler then drove its remaining origin into the young man's body.

The young man's Primordial Spirit was strengthened.

The dying black energy's scream jolted the young man awake. He stared blankly around, utterly clueless as to what had happened.

At that moment, the inheritance left behind in the black energy flowed directly into his consciousness.

After an unknown length of time, the young man finally calmed down. New information surfaced in his mind.

"Earth Demon God? Pangu? The Primordial World..."

"This is the Primordial World? I've actually been reborn here! Hahaha! The Great Dao has blessed me!"

The young man was so excited he could hardly contain himself.

This was the Primordial World, a place where legendary great beings were everywhere and spirit herbs grew as thick as grass.

In his previous life, the young man had been an orphan. By chance, he had obtained a special cultivation method called the Azure Lotus Righteous Qi Formula.

The Azure Lotus Righteous Qi Formula was a unique method that cultivated Heaven and Earth Righteous Energy. Without the recognition of Heaven and Earth, it was impossible to master.

At first, he had only intended to practice it for fun. Who would have thought he'd actually succeed?

After thirty years of cultivation, he had reached Mortal-Shedding Immortal Ascension—a testament to his extraordinary talent.

But the young man couldn't understand why, after shedding his mortal nature and ascending to immortality, he had come to the Primordial World.

I can't figure it out. I'll investigate the cause and effect once my cultivation is strong enough. For now, I should examine the inheritance in my Primordial Spirit, then cultivate and take form as soon as possible.

With that thought, he sank his divine sense into his Primordial Spirit and learned the inheritance granted by the Heavenly Dao.

From the inheritance, he learned his new circumstances: he had been reborn as one of the Primordial World's most tragically doomed good-natured immortals.

That's right. He was Hong Yun—the Hong Yun who had given up his Holy Seat and ultimately died a miserable death.

"From now on, I am Hong Yun."

Hong Yun swore an oath to Heaven. A weight lifted from his heart, and he felt his Primordial Spirit settle more naturally into this body.

"I wonder what era this is?"

Hong Yun silently began to calculate.

"So it's the late Ninth Tribulation of Creation—the Dragon-Han Calamity. The Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin Tribes must be nearing their final battle. In the end, all three will fall into decline."

"After the Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin Tribes leave the stage, Hong Jun and Luohou will begin their struggle over the Dao. Their battle will devastate the western lands of the Primordial World."

A sense of urgency rose in Hong Yun's heart.

After the Dao-Devil War came the Witch-Demon Tribulation. Hong Jun attained the Dao in its early-to-middle stages, then preached to all under Heaven and became the Dao Ancestor of the Primordial World.

By now, Hong Yun no longer expected to attain the Dao before Hong Jun. That was simply unrealistic.

But if he failed to attain the Dao before Hong Jun, then after the Six Sages appeared, it would be all but impossible for him to attain the Dao in the Primordial World.

The general course of events could not be changed, and Hong Jun would inevitably emerge.

Once the Six Sages took their places, the Primordial World would become their territory. They could do whatever they pleased. How could they possibly let anyone else take a share of the pie?

"That Holy Seat has to be mine!"

A trace of ruthlessness flashed in Hong Yun's eyes. Only by securing the Holy Position could he escape the calamity and attain the Dao.

"But my cultivation isn't enough to claim the Holy Seat yet. I'm not the original Hong Yun."

Hong Yun furrowed his brow. Right now, he had only just entered the immortal realm as a Primordial Spirit—in other words, he was at the Human Immortal Realm.

Because he had taken over the origin that should have belonged to Hong Yun, countless years of gestation had gone to waste.

But the present-day Primordial World was unusual. Its lowest cultivation realm was the Heavenly Immortal Realm. The Ancestor of Earth Immortals, Zhen Yuanzi, had yet to appear, and the Earth Immortal realm beneath the Heavenly Immortal Realm had not been established.

The Leader of the Human Sect, Laozi, had not appeared either. He had not yet preached to the Human Race and attained the Dao, nor had he founded the Human Immortal realm beneath the Earth Immortal realm. The cultivation system in the Primordial World was still incomplete.

That made it even harder for living beings to attain the Dao.

With that in mind, Hong Yun hurriedly examined the cultivation method in the Heavenly Dao Inheritance, hoping to cultivate as quickly as possible and take physical form.

"Found it—the Red Cloud Immortal Scripture?"

Hong Yun examined the Heavenly Dao cultivation method he had received. It was an unparalleled method for cultivating the Primordial Spirit and magical power, and it could take him all the way to the Daluo Golden Immortal Realm.

"No body-tempering method, no divine abilities, and no inheritance in alchemy, artifacts, or formations. Am I supposed to create them myself?"

"I've inherited Ancestor Hong Yun's roots and fortune, along with a cultivation method from the Heavenly Dao and the Earth Demon God's Inheritance. Creating my own methods shouldn't be too difficult, right?"

"Wait. With Hong Yun's roots, won't I take form as a top-tier Innate Divine Being?"

Hong Yun's thoughts wandered, turning to his own roots. In the Primordial World, roots and origins carried great weight.

They determined the great beings' fortune, opportunities, talent, comprehension, and much more.

All living beings in the Primordial World were either postnatal or innate.

Postnatal beings had distinct male and female forms, and were born through postnatal reproduction.

Innate Beings had no fixed sex. Their appearance followed their hearts: they were neither male nor female, but could be either. They were beings in whom Yin and Yang remained undivided, a single whole of chaos.

For Innate Beings, their roots also determined the cultivation and strength they possessed when they took form and entered the world.

Innate Beings were divided into two categories: ordinary Innate Beings and Innate Divine Beings. The difference was that Innate Divine Beings were born knowing, with an inheritance from the Heavenly Dao.

Ordinary Innate Beings took form at a cultivation level no lower than the Heavenly Immortal Realm and no higher than the Mysterious Immortal Realm, and had no inheritance from the Heavenly Dao.

In the Primordial World, this referred to beings who had not received the creation of an Innate Origin, but had been born of Heaven and Earth and attained the Dao by absorbing the essence of the sun, moon, and stars, along with spiritual energy.

As for Innate Divine Beings, their origins could be traced back to chaos. After Pangu created Heaven and Earth, some Innate Origins gave rise to them. But the amount of origin each received varied, so they too were divided into ranks.

Some top-tier Innate Divine Beings, such as the Three Pure Ones, Di Jun and Tai Yi, the Twelve Ancestral Witches, and Nuwa and Fuxi, had powerful roots and emerged with the strength of Daluo Golden Immortals.

Most Innate Divine Beings emerged only as Primordial Unity Golden Immortals. After all, not everyone was one of the Three Pure Ones.

The Golden Immortal Realm was a watershed: a divide between Heaven and Earth that separated Innate Beings from Innate Divine Beings.

There was another kind: Innate Demon Gods, whose origins could be traced back to the Three Thousand Chaos Demon Gods slain by Pangu.

"Ancestor Hong Yun came from Pangu Heart Blood combined with one origin each of water, fire, and wind among the Four Symbols. He was the first scarlet cloud born after the creation of Heaven and Earth. By roots and origin, he's a top-tier Innate Divine Being. He should need at least the Daluo Golden Immortal Realm to take form."

"Thank goodness I was reborn as Ancestor Hong Yun. With the Heavenly Dao Inheritance and the unexpected inheritance from the Earth Demon God, I have a chance to attain the Dao someday."

A trace of relief rose in Hong Yun's heart.

Next, Hong Yun continued sorting through the inheritance, focusing mainly on what remained of the Earth Demon God's legacy.