After Bixiao sliced off a mountain peak from Treasure Cliff with the Golden Flood-Dragon Scissors, Luxuan did not blame her.
Penglai lacked everything except mountains.
Moreover, the Golden Flood-Dragon Scissors had only just acknowledged her as its master. Its spirituality was naturally immense, and it was Bixiao's first time wielding it. Making a little commotion was perfectly normal.
Thus, Luxuan quickly arranged for the three sisters to go separately to the places most suitable for refining spiritual treasures.
Yunxiao went to the shore of the Three Lights Divine Water Lake.
Qiongxiao entered the Primordial Sword Valley beneath Treasure Cliff.
Luxuan brought Bixiao to a Void Cliff where space was exceptionally active.
The three locations were tens of millions of miles apart, yet all lay within Luxuan's control over the Penglai Origin. If anything went wrong, he could arrive with a single thought.
Yunxiao sat cross-legged by the lake, the Primordial Unity Golden Dipper floating before her. As strands of her mana flowed into it, the dormant innate divine patterns on its surface gradually began to light up.
One layer.
Two layers.
Three layers.
For an ordinary Golden Immortal, refining the internal restrictions of a Supreme-grade Innate Spirit Treasure was extraordinarily difficult. It often took thousands or even tens of thousands of years, and even then, they might not gain much true control over it.
But the Primordial Unity Golden Dipper was simply too compatible with Yunxiao's Great Dao.
Coupled with the surrounding Three Lights Divine Water and Penglai's absurdly dense Innate Spiritual Energy, she had preliminarily refined the first core restriction in only a few decades.
Boom!
A Primordial Unity aura surged from the golden dipper.
The formerly calm lake around Yunxiao suddenly erupted with countless columns of water. As they crossed one another, they spontaneously formed a simple formation.
The golden dipper served as the formation eye.
Water and clouds served as the formation foundation.
A realization struck Yunxiao, and the insights into the Array Dao she had gained on Enlightenment Cliff swiftly fused into it at that moment.
The formation, which had still been somewhat awkward in its operation, became several times smoother in the blink of an eye.
Almost simultaneously.
Luxuan, who was sitting beneath the Enlightenment Ancient Tree studying the feedback from three Great Daos, slightly furrowed his brow.
The hundredfold return descended once more.
This time, it was not merely a simple insight into the Array Dao.
Part of the innate Dao rhythm of the Primordial Unity Golden Dipper.
Yunxiao's understanding of the Water-Cloud Great Dao.
As well as her experience of successfully combining a spiritual treasure with a formation—all of it was amplified a hundredfold before flooding into Luxuan's Primordial Spirit.
The world before Luxuan's eyes instantly changed.
The spiritual qi of heaven and earth, formless and intangible in ordinary people's eyes, now resembled clear rivers.
Where formations could be established.
Where nodes could be placed.
Where Innate Spiritual Energy could be gathered.
He could see through it all with a single glance.
"At this level, the Dao of formations no longer needs to be bound by formation flags and formation disks."
Luxuan fell into thought.
"Heaven and earth, all things, mountains, rivers, grasses, and trees can all serve as formations."
Elsewhere.
Primordial Sword Valley likewise erupted with astonishing activity.
Qiongxiao held the Mystic Origin Immortal-Slaying Sword and swung it again and again. At first, she merely circulated her mana according to the Mystic Origin Sword Codex, but as the first restriction within the spiritual treasure was gradually refined, the pure Slaughter true intent within the sword began nourishing her Great Dao in return.
One slash.
A hundred-zhang sword light.
The second slash.
A thousand-zhang sword qi split the sea of clouds before her in two.
By the third slash, Qiongxiao simply closed her eyes, completely abandoning all flashy techniques and stabbing forward with the simplest thrust.
There was no grand spectacle.
Yet a strand of sharp law, nearly condensed into substance, flashed from the sword tip.
Luxuan's Primordial Spirit rumbled again.
A hundredfold return of the Sword Dao.
That strand of newly sprouted sharp law directly transformed into an incomparably clear Great Dao framework once it reached him.
Luxuan raised two fingers.
He did not use any spiritual treasure.
He merely brought his fingers together and lightly slashed toward the distance.
Screech!
The clouds stretched across hundreds of millions of miles silently split apart.
A sword mark so thin it was nearly invisible extended directly to the end of the horizon.
"Not bad."
Satisfaction appeared in Luxuan's eyes.
His two disciples, Yunxiao and Qiongxiao, had begun producing stable returns.
As for Bixiao...
He swept out with his divine sense.
The corners of his mouth immediately twitched.
On Void Cliff, the young girl was not sitting obediently and refining her treasure at all.
She was running all over the mountain, wielding the Golden Flood-Dragon Scissors as she chased one spatial rift after another.
Every time the Golden Flood-Dragon Scissors cut through space, new changes appeared in the surrounding void. Bixiao was gradually exploring the Space Great Dao amid those constant changes.
She looked as though she was playing herself crazy.
Yet the results were exceptionally good.
"Here!"
Bixiao's eyes lit up as she suddenly activated the Golden Flood-Dragon Scissors.
Two golden flood dragons crossed through one another.
A spatial rift ahead of her was directly cut into two.
But the rift did not vanish. Instead, it formed a temporary passage before her.
Without a second thought, Bixiao stepped inside.
The next moment.
She poked her head out from behind a huge boulder hundreds of miles away.
"It worked!"
The young girl was thrilled beyond measure.
Spatial teleportation.
Although the distance was only a few hundred miles and amounted to nothing in the eyes of truly great experts, she was merely a Golden Immortal and had never specifically cultivated spatial divine abilities. Succeeding on her first attempt was already astonishing enough.
The third return followed close behind.
A hundredfold spatial insight flowed into his Primordial Spirit.
Luxuan's mana, which had already reached the peak of the Middle Daluo Immortal stage due to the earlier feedback, finally underwent another qualitative transformation at that moment.
Rumble!
All of Penglai suddenly trembled lightly.
It was not an earthquake.
Rather, the boundless Innate Spiritual Energy across the island began madly converging upon the Enlightenment Ancient Tree at its center.
To the east, the Three Lights Divine Water Lake churned with waves tens of thousands of zhang high.
To the west, ten thousand swords in Sword Valley rang in unison.
Within the Southern Spirit-Root Garden, countless immortal herbs simultaneously lowered their branches and leaves.
To the north, dozens of Innate Spiritual Veins awakened like slumbering giant dragons, continuously pouring spiritual qi into Luxuan's body.
The Three Cloud Sisters almost simultaneously stopped cultivating.
Yunxiao looked up toward the center of the island.
A figure sat cross-legged beneath the ancient tree.
Yet three illusory flowers of the Great Dao had already slowly emerged above his head.
A cloud formation evolved heaven and earth.
An immortal sword cleaved through the firmament.
Layers upon layers of space encircled his body.
Luxuan's aura began climbing at a rate the three sisters could not comprehend.
Peak Middle Daluo Immortal.
The barrier trembled.
Then—
Boom!
Late Daluo Immortal!
The vast pressure erupted for only an instant before Luxuan voluntarily drew it back into his body.
Yet all of Penglai had already undergone visible changes because of this breakthrough.
Below Enlightenment Cliff, an Innate Spiritual Vein that had originally been only ten thousand miles long suddenly trembled violently. Then, like a living creature, it began extending beneath the earth.
A hundred thousand miles.
A million miles.
It ultimately ran through nearly half of Penglai.
Wherever the spiritual vein passed, the concentration of Innate Spiritual Energy rose at a visible rate. Some spiritual herbs that had originally only been at the acquired level even began transforming on their own.
Luxuan opened his eyes. Sensing Penglai's changes, a clearer judgment immediately formed in his heart.
The returns he received did not necessarily have to be used only to strengthen himself.
Insights into the Array Dao could be integrated into Enlightenment Cliff.
Spatial insights could improve the Penglai Primordial Formation.
The massive amount of pure mana and Great Dao origin could likewise nourish this immortal island that shared the same origin as himself.
His disciples became stronger.
He received a hundredfold return.
The return strengthened Penglai in turn.
Penglai could then provide a better environment and resources for cultivating his disciples.
An utterly unreasonable positive cycle had completely taken shape.
Luxuan's mood immediately improved further.
When others raised disciples, it was called burning resources.
When he raised disciples, it was called investment management—and the Great Wilderness version of a hundredfold leverage, at that.
"Master!"
Ripples spread through the distant space.
Bixiao was the first to emerge from a spatial passage. Just as she was about to show off her newly learned ability, she discovered that Luxuan's aura had become far more unfathomable than it had been a few decades ago.
She stood there blankly for two breaths.
"You broke through again?"
Luxuan could not be bothered to explain anymore.
"A minor realm."
"Keep cultivating."
Bixiao silently turned around.
She was increasingly beginning to suspect that whenever the three of them learned even a little something, their master could draw inferences from it and conveniently break through.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard she thought about it, she could never know the real reason.
Meanwhile.
Tens of millions of miles beyond Penglai's outer perimeter.
Several cultivators wearing purple-gold immortal armor and riding auspicious clouds were patrolling above the Eastern Sea.
The leader was a Taiyi Golden Immortal, with a Purple Palace Immortal Token signifying his Celestial Court identity hanging from his waist.
When Luxuan broke through moments earlier, a vast Great Dao phenomenon had briefly pierced Penglai's outer innate restrictions.
Though it had lasted fewer than several breaths.
They had still caught sight of it.
The leading immortal general abruptly halted his escape light.
"Was there an island there just now?"
The people beside him all nodded in unison, each looking more shocked than the last.
At the point where sea and sky met.
Within the void that had originally contained nothing, a world shrouded in immortal mist, seemingly a thousand times larger than an ordinary immortal island, had flashed into view.
More importantly.
They had clearly seen two ancient, profound innate Dao characters above the island.
Penglai.
The immortal generals' breathing immediately grew rapid.
Since the creation of heaven and earth, the Three Immortal Islands beyond the sea had existed only in legend.
Each of them was said to possess countless innate opportunities.
And now, Penglai, the foremost among them, had truly appeared in the world.
"Return to Purple Palace Isle."
"Report to the Emperor immediately!"
Several streaks of immortal light abruptly changed direction and sped at top speed toward the Celestial Court in the depths of the Eastern Sea.
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