Return to Buzhou Mountain

Countless streams of Merit of Heaven and Earth gathered from the void, transforming into a golden river that poured into Qing Xuan's body.

Since leaving Buzhou Mountain, he had slain over a hundred Fierce Beasts in succession. Now that he had destroyed a beast tide led by a late-stage Taiyi Fierce Beast, the merit he had accumulated was already considerable.

Qing Xuan did not refine it immediately.

He glanced northward, where several Great Luo auras had risen one after another. The decisive battle between the Beast Dynasty and the Primordial World's many Innate Divine Beings was about to erupt.

Hongjun possessed the Creation Jade Disc, while Shen Ni possessed the Godslayer Spear.

Those powerhouses standing at the pinnacle of the Primordial World today almost all had spirit treasures to safeguard their paths.

In contrast, ever since taking form, Qing Xuan had not possessed even a single true Innate Spirit Treasure.

The World Great Dao could indeed suppress enemies, attack, and protect him, but the Great Dao was the foundation of cultivation, while spirit treasures were the means to safeguard that Great Dao as one continued forward.

Against ordinary Fierce Beasts, Qing Xuan had no need to rely on external objects. But if he one day faced an Innate Divine Being of the same realm wielding a powerful spirit treasure, he would naturally be at a disadvantage.

During this journey east, he had already seen the lands of the Primordial World and discussed the Dao with Hongjun for three thousand years. He now had a sufficient understanding of the current situation in the Primordial World.

There was no meaning in continuing east without purpose.

Qing Xuan quickly set his next goal.

He would return to Buzhou Mountain and seek a spirit treasure that matched his own Great Dao and could safeguard his path.

Buzhou Mountain had been formed from Pangu's spine and retained the densest aura of the world's creation. Countless Innate Grand Formations lay within it, while no one could say how many spiritual roots and spirit treasures it had nurtured.

Besides, Qing Xuan himself had been born from Buzhou Mountain.

When he had first left, he had only followed one direction out of the region shrouded by Pangu's pressure.

Compared to the entire Buzhou Mountain, the territory he had truly set foot in amounted to no more than a single line.

Qing Xuan did not linger. He put away the Merit of Heaven and Earth, turned, and headed for Buzhou Mountain.

On his return journey, whenever Fierce Beasts occasionally blocked his path, he casually eliminated them, but no longer allowed them to divert him from his course.

Several Epoch Cycles later, the towering divine mountain that supported heaven and earth appeared before Qing Xuan once more.

Buzhou Mountain still pierced through the Primordial World's starry sky. Its peak stretched endlessly upward, while countless stars circled around it. Pangu's vast pressure blanketed boundless territory, making even the surrounding Great Dao laws incomparably heavy.

Qing Xuan stepped inside.

He was an Innate Divine Being nurtured beneath Pangu's pressure.

To other living beings, that terrifying pressure was enough to crush their Dao bodies and scatter their primordial spirits. Yet when it fell upon him, it merely caused the World Dao Resonance around him to tremble slightly.

Qing Xuan continued deeper until he returned to the Innate Grand Formation where he had been nurtured and taken form.

Everything within the formation remained as it had been.

The residual Origin of the Chaos Pearl had yet to disperse, isolating the pressure of Pangu outside.

Qing Xuan designated this place as his temporary Dao field within Buzhou Mountain. After staying only a few days, he began exploring the surrounding mountain regions he had never entered.

Most Innate Spirit Treasures were concealed by Innate Grand Formations. Before they truly emerged into the world, even a Great Luo Golden Immortal passing nearby might not discover them.

Qing Xuan did not assume beforehand that he would surely find anything. Taking his birthplace as the center, he gradually ventured deeper into Buzhou Mountain.

Over the course of an Epoch Cycle, he encountered several Innate Grand Formations.

Some formations contained immature innate spiritual roots, while others held only divine materials left behind from the creation of the world.

Any one of them, if placed in later ages, would have been enough to provoke countless cultivators into fighting over it.

Yet Qing Xuan did not stop for any of them.

They might have been precious, but not one truly suited his World Great Dao.

Until an Epoch Cycle later, Qing Xuan entered a mountain region he had never visited before.

There was no treasure light soaring into the sky, nor were there any astonishing Great Dao phenomena. There were only ancient mountain peaks, silent beneath Pangu's pressure for countless years.

When Qing Xuan reached the depths of the mountain region, the Origin of the Chaos Pearl within him suddenly produced an extremely faint ripple.

That sensation was nearby.

Following the fluctuation of the origin, Qing Xuan eventually stopped outside an ordinary-looking valley.

The World Great Dao manifested behind him, with mountains, rivers, sun, and moon reflecting ahead.

The previously empty valley gradually blurred. Ancient formation patterns emerged from the void, intertwining with one another and forming a naturally perfect Innate Grand Formation.

An incomparably pure aura of creation seeped out from the formation.

Nourished by that aura of creation, the surrounding grass and trees sprouted branches and buds in an instant. The once-silent valley was filled with vigorous life.

Qing Xuan sat cross-legged outside the valley. A phantom of a world silently unfolded, enveloping the entire formation within it.

The sun and moon turned.

Mountains and rivers changed.

The World Great Dao continuously deduced the formation by following the traces of its circulating patterns.

Time began accelerating at that very moment.

The Primordial World Firmament skipped over most years in which nothing changed, leaving only the formation patterns circulating again and again, along with the scene of the world behind Qing Xuan gradually resonating with them.

At the same time, three Titled Dou Practitioners arrived at the underground treasury of Blue Star's First Extraordinary Academy.

Heavy alloy doors opened layer by layer.

On the sealed platform at the very center floated a piece of azure-green metal no longer than a thumb.

It looked like a flawless piece of emerald crystal.

It emitted neither powerful Soul Power fluctuations nor any aggression.

Yet merely approaching the sealed platform allowed the three Titled Dou Practitioners responsible for escorting it to feel an incomparably dense life aura.

Living Beings' Gold.

Over the several hundred years since Blue Star connected with Douzhe Continent, it had brought back Soul Bones, immortal herbs, Soul Tools, and even inheritances left behind by god-level powerhouses.

But as for complete solid Living Beings' Gold, only a handful of pieces had ever been discovered.

According to records left behind on Douzhe Continent, Living Beings' Gold was a heavenly treasure formed when life force condensed to its ultimate limit.

Even if a Soul Beast that had lived for a million years gathered all the life force of its entire existence, it could only condense a single drop the size of a teardrop.

A pristine forest brimming with life and never damaged would need to be nurtured continuously for two hundred thousand years before it might form such a small piece of solid Living Beings' Gold.

It could not directly increase Soul Power.

However, it could temper the physique, heal injuries, nourish the origin of the spirit, and even increase a Soul Master's ability to withstand high-age Soul Rings.

For Titled Dou Practitioners nearing the end of their lifespans or suffering severe injuries, its value was even more immeasurable.

To temporarily send this piece of Living Beings' Gold into the Unknown Plane Research Center, the Transcendent Association had not only dispatched three Titled Dou Practitioners to accompany it, but also put up two Ten Thousand Year Soul Bones as collateral.

Even so, the First Extraordinary Academy had only agreed to conduct non-contact energy calibration.

No one was permitted to touch the sample.

If the Living Beings' Gold showed any loss of life force, the calibration had to be terminated immediately.

Inside the monitoring hall.

Zhou Ruolan watched the Living Beings' Gold being placed into the calibration device, then raised her head toward Qing Xuan, who was still seated cross-legged outside the Innate Grand Formation.

"Can it really be used to determine the life level of Primordial World beings?"

"It can only serve as a reference."

The elderly man in charge of the research shook his head.

"The Firmament cannot transmit pressure, but it can capture changes in energy around the anchor point. As long as a target with similar life attributes appears in the Primordial World, we can compare them through the fluctuations of their projections."

"Living Beings' Gold is the sample in our current records with the highest life energy level and the purest nature."

"If even it cannot complete the calibration, then we can only wait until we acquire a higher-level reference object in the future."

Zhou Ruolan nodded and did not ask further.

After the calibration was complete, the Living Beings' Gold was sealed away again.

The monitoring hall also returned to calm.

Time within the Primordial World Firmament continued to pass.

One thousand years.

Two thousand years.

Three thousand years.

Qing Xuan never forcibly attacked the formation.

Until the three thousand six hundredth year, the world phantom surrounding the valley suddenly stopped turning.

Qing Xuan opened his eyes.

After more than three thousand years of deduction, he had already seen through some of the formation's operating principles.

This Innate Grand Formation did not isolate the outside world through pure killing power and defense. Instead, it hid the heaven and earth within it amid layers of creation.

As long as one could not adapt to the changes of creation within it, no matter how powerful one was, one would only circle endlessly through infinite space.

Qing Xuan rose to his feet and took a step forward.

No earth-shaking power erupted.

The world phantom behind him merely changed accordingly.

Mountains and rivers parted.

The Four Seas receded.

A path that had never appeared before slowly extended from the depths of the world, overlapping with a formation pattern within the Innate Grand Formation.

Qing Xuan walked forward along that path.

The scenery around him changed without end.

At times, it was a range of endless mountains. At times, it was a boundless sea. At other times, it transformed into a vast world devoid of any living beings.

Yet Qing Xuan's footsteps did not pause in the slightest.

Whenever the formation changed once, the world behind him evolved into the same scene.

He used the world to reflect heaven and earth.

He used heaven and earth to deduce the formation.

Only after all nine changes had ended did an entrance hidden for endless years finally appear before Qing Xuan.

He stepped into it.

The path behind him closed at once.

The ordinary-looking valley outside also returned to its original state.

But inside the formation was an entirely different world.

There was no baleful aura, nor were there any Fierce Beasts.

Innate spiritual energy so dense it was nearly tangible gathered into mist and filled the entire space.

Countless innate spiritual herbs rarely seen in the outside world grew across the ground.

At the very center was an emerald Lotus Pond.

The pond water was clear.

Endless aura of creation rose from the water, transforming into specks of azure light that slowly circled the figure at the center of the Lotus Pond.

It was an azure lotus.