A Fellow Daoist Devoted to the Western Lands, Willing to Travel Far and Wide-Truly a Person of Great Vows and Great Virtue

Zhunti's actions did not earn him ridicule. On the contrary, they won the respect of quite a few great powers.

Everyone knew the Western Lands were barren. Beyond Mount Sumeru, there were scarcely any resources left. For Zhunti to travel throughout the eastern lands and make friends everywhere for the sake of the Western Lands was no easy task.

Taiqing Daoist personally raised his cup.

"Fellow Daoist, you hold the Western Lands in your heart and are willing to travel far and wide. You are truly a person of great vows and great virtue."

Though everyone came from wealthy backgrounds and could hardly empathize with him, they could not help but admire Zhunti's courage.

Shangqing Daoist glanced at Zhu Yin and said with a smile,

"Fellow Daoist Zhunti, you have taken in a fine disciple. As expected of the same lineage—both of you are people with heart and ambition."

Zhu Yin's face reddened slightly upon hearing this.

He knew that he was far inferior to his master in terms of great aspirations. He preferred to keep to himself and disliked drawing attention.

His master, however, was willing to travel the world for the Western Lands. Even if misunderstood, he never regretted it, even turning himself into a "joke" in the eyes of others.

That courage and bearing were what Zhu Yin admired.

After the banquet ended, Zhunti and Jieyin returned to Mount Sumeru with Zhu Yin.

The moment they set foot there, a thunderous roar came from the horizon...

Blood-red clouds filled the sky, and baleful aura surged heavenward.

Though the Heavenly Court had been established, the storms of the Primordial Wilderness had only just begun!

Rumble...!

Above the Nine Heavens, deafening thunder resounded through heaven and earth as an aura of slaughter swept forth.

The great war between the Witch Clan and the Demon Clan had finally erupted.

The Heavenly Court's once-glorious, immortal-realm-like palaces had long since become ruins. Immortal mountains collapsed, spiritual qi scattered, and broken walls lay everywhere.

Looking into the distance through the Water Mirror, Zhu Yin saw Zhunti sighing quietly in secret. Clearly, he too felt deep heartache.

In the sky, the four rulers of the Heavenly Court were engaged in a fierce battle against the twelve Ancestral Witches.

The Demon Clan's divine abilities clashed against the Witch Clan's laws. Every strike shook heaven and earth and twisted the void.

With the River Diagram and Luo Scripture suspended above his head, Dijun evolved mountains, rivers, and stars. A Solar Golden Wheel illuminated the four directions as he fought Dijiang without pause.

Taiyi wielded the Eastern Sovereign Bell. Its chimes shattered heaven and earth, sending space and time churning. Fighting one against six, he showed no sign of losing ground, his might overwhelming.

Nuwa transformed into radiant clouds, Heavenly Blade in hand. Reversing the laws of creation, her divine abilities were astonishing as she alone held off three Ancestral Witches, proving herself no less formidable than any man.

Fuxi played the qin, its lingering notes like the manifestation of the Dao's sound. He trapped two Ancestral Witches, and the scene was incomparably magnificent.

Zhu Yin stared in stunned disbelief.

Though he had not personally entered the battlefield and only watched through the Water Mirror, he felt as though he were there, his soul profoundly shaken.

Through divination, many great powers also came to understand the cause of the conflict...

The Witch Clan saw themselves as descendants of Pangu's bloodline and had never submitted to anyone.

Now that the Demon Clan had established the Heavenly Court and sought to control the Mandate of Heaven, they had struck directly at the Witch Clan's sore spot.

This time, they would no longer hold back. Their entire clan marched against the heavens!

"The Primordial Wilderness was opened by Pangu! Only my Witch Clan is fit to rule it—the Demon Clan must perish!" The Ancestral Witches roared like thunder, shattering stars.

The Witch Clan had been born for battle. The more fiercely they fought, the braver they became, driving the Demon Clan back step by step.

Seeing the situation turn unfavorable, Dijun decisively activated the Primordial River-Luo Grand Formation, hoping to stabilize the battle.

Who would have thought that the Ancestral Witches would refuse to be outdone, bringing forth the Twelve Heavenly Gods Baleful Fiend Grand Formation.

As the formation activated, a phantom of Pangu appeared between heaven and earth...

He stood between heaven and earth, his eyes like the sun and moon, his spine like Buzhou Mountain. Holding a phantom Pangu Axe, he swung it down, and the Demon Clan's grand formation instantly collapsed!

Nearly the entire Heavenly Court was destroyed in one blow. Monster Gods at the level of Great Principle Golden Immortals fell in droves, while Dijun and the others suffered severe injuries and coughed up blood!

Just as life and death hung in the balance, Dao Ancestor Hongjun appeared!

With a single pointed finger, the Three Thousand Great Daos manifested and collided with Pangu's phantom, shattering it. He then left behind the decree, "The demons shall govern heaven, and the witches shall govern earth," before turning and departing. He came and went like the wind, mysterious and unfathomable.

Within Mount Sumeru.

Zhu Yin watched the first half of this earth-shaking battle through the Water Mirror from beginning to end.

In particular, the power Nuwa displayed in reversing creation struck him like lightning, bringing him sudden enlightenment.

Though the image became blurred and impossible to see clearly after Pangu's phantom appeared, it was already enough.

This battle not only established the future balance of "the Heavenly Court belongs to the Demon Clan, while the Primordial Wilderness belongs to the Witch Clan," but also shook the entire cultivation world.

Countless great powers entered seclusion to comprehend the Dao. The Three Pure Ones did so, and Zhunti and Jieyin were no exception.

Naturally, Zhu Yin also took the chance to enter seclusion and cultivate in the Immaculate Hall.

A thousand years later.

Zhu Yin slowly walked out of the hall, still dressed in green robes. His aura was calm and steady, yet there was a restrained sharpness between his brows unlike before.

His cultivation had advanced once again, reaching the peak of Late Golden Immortal. He was only one step away from completion.

More importantly, through his insights, he had created a divine ability of his own—Withering-and-Blooming Life-and-Death Profound Light—greatly increasing his combat power.

Now, he was cultivating spiritual plants.

He took out the Innate fruit pits he had collected at the Heavenly Court banquet, along with the fruit pits Zhunti had gifted him, and planted them in carefully prepared spiritual soil.

He cast Vitality Divine Light into them, then watered them with Innate Spiritual Water. Even the fertilizer was made from top-grade materials he had specially prepared.

The ones he focused on most were the Starfruit pits.

They were seeds borne by the Astral Fruit Tree, Innate spiritual fruits supplied exclusively by the Heavenly Court to Quasi-Sage experts. They ripened only once every nine thousand years.

To Golden Immortals, such spiritual fruits were simply rare Heaven and Earth Treasures.

If he could cultivate an Astral Fruit Tree, then even if it did not become an Innate Spirit Root, merely reaching the level of a Post-Heaven High-Grade Spiritual Root would be enough to raise Spirit Platform Mountain's foundation by another level.

Of course, he knew in his heart that trying to grow an Innate Spirit Root from a fruit pit was little more than wishful thinking.

Even a great power like Daoist Jieyin had spent countless years nurturing that Ninth-Grade White Lotus before successfully raising it to the level of a high-grade spirit treasure.

He was merely casting a wide net and trying as much as possible. He carefully tended all the other fruit pits as well; being able to cultivate even one would count as a success.

Even if they failed, they could still be used as nourishment for spiritual herbs, so they would not go to waste.

Another hundred years passed like this.

Zhunti and Jieyin remained in seclusion, while Zhu Yin's life returned to peace.

Every day consisted of cultivation, tending grass, brewing tea, and taking walks.

But one day, as he stood before the Immaculate Hall and watched the sun rise and moon set, a faint ripple stirred in his heart.

"I have been in this world for tens of thousands of years and have been apprenticed for several thousand, yet my range of activity has never extended beyond Mount Sumeru and Spirit Platform Mountain. Even my trip to the Heavenly Court was only a hurried glimpse..."

"It is time to go out and see the world."

A trace of anticipation appeared in Zhu Yin's eyes.

He decided to travel through the Western Lands.

Primordial World, Western Continent.

A figure in green emerged from Mount Sumeru.

He traveled among the mountains of the Western Lands, sometimes drenched by heavy rain, sometimes walking beneath starlight. At times he ventured deep into mountains; at others, he emerged upon the surface.

This person was Zhu Yin.

The Western Lands were terribly poor, with broken earth veins and thin spiritual qi.

Zhu Yin's travels were not merely to broaden his horizons and seek Heaven and Earth Treasures. He also repaired shattered earth veins, gathered spiritual qi, cultivated and comprehended the Dao, and accumulated merit.

For every nine hundred years he spent repairing earth veins, he would travel for one hundred years.

Whenever he repaired an earth vein, he would take a small portion of its creation from it. It was repayment of karmic cause and effect, and also ensured neither side owed the other anything.

He traveled like this for a full six thousand years.

In total, he repaired six earth veins and traveled six hundred thousand li.

Yet as he continued onward, his feelings grew increasingly complicated.

He had long known the Western Lands were poor, but he had never imagined they could be this poor.

Across six hundred thousand li of mountains and rivers, he encountered fewer than tens of thousands of cultivators. Most were postnatal lifeforms, while Innate beings could be counted on one hand. In even more places, either not a blade of grass grew and spiritual qi was completely cut off, or the land looked passable at first glance but contained pitifully few spiritual herbs and medicines.

As for spiritual lands, even low-grade ones were scarce, while middle-grade ones were rarer still. He had never seen any high-grade ones at all. Not to mention immortals or powerful clans—the entire Western Lands seemed to have been abandoned by the whole Primordial Wilderness.

He had previously heard Master Zhunti say that Golden Immortals were already considered very powerful in the Western Lands. He had only half believed it before, but now he truly did.

Over six thousand years, he had not encountered a single Golden Immortal.

There were only a handful of True Immortals, Heavenly Immortals, and Mysterious Immortals combined.

At that moment, he finally understood why his master had traveled all across the Western Lands, forming connections everywhere. He also understood why Zhunti and Jieyin could become saints, and why the Buddhist Sect could rise in the Western Lands.

Besides their good fortune and their grasp of Western Qi and the Great Dao, there was another key reason: after the Dao-Demon War, Dao Ancestor Hongjun owed the Western Lands an immense karmic debt.

To repay that debt, heaven and earth also needed Zhunti and Jieyin to repair the earth veins and restore spiritual vitality. And they truly possessed perseverance, great vows, and merit.