"That scent!"
At that moment, the Spirit Stone Ape Jiang Ming had transformed into twitched his nose. That was right—he could be certain that the area surrounding the Desolate Forbidden Land had produced quite a few heavenly treasures. It would not be long before that kid Ye Fan arrived.
He needed to stockpile some heavenly treasures in preparation for cultivating the Shrouding Method.
With his current physique, only the methods of this world could unlock the true potential of this physical shell.
As long as he did not enter the Desolate Forbidden Land itself, the outer regions should be safe, right?
Besides, one had to keep one's word. He had promised Madman that he would help him cry once, so he had to follow through.
With a thought!
Jiang Ming used the incomplete Nine Secrets: Xing to catch up. He had studied it all the way here, and by now he had gotten the hang of it and learned this profound secret technique.
The Spirit-Bright Divine Ape was one of the cleverest primordial ferocious beasts of the Immortal Ancient Era. It was famous for learning anything quickly and understanding at a touch. Its intelligence was unmatched; it understood transformations, recognized the timing of heaven, knew the advantages of the land, and could shift stars and swap dippers.
Why was it called the Spirit-Bright Divine Ape? Its innate divine abilities alone—recognizing the timing of heaven and knowing the advantages of the land—were like the ancients' saying: knowing astronomy above and geography below. They were symbols of unparalleled intelligence.
Star-Shifting and Dipper-Swapping was a divine ability that allowed the Spirit-Bright Divine Ape to use an opponent's methods against them, rapidly learn others' divine abilities and treasured arts, and even redirect those abilities back at them. It was especially compatible with the Seventy-Two Transformations. After transforming into other ferocious beasts, it could pass for the real thing, even touching upon the mysteries of time and space.
It could also alter celestial phenomena, change time, change fate, and more.
Combined with Fiery Golden Eyes, Jiang Ming had followed Madman for a hundred thousand li and had long since learned his profound movement technique.
"Roar..."
Within the Primordial Mountain Range, the roars of Archaic Desolate Species rang out from time to time. There were many ferocious beasts and demonic birds at the Dao Palace Secret Realm and above here. Its danger level already surpassed that of the Primordial Ruins.
The Primordial Ruins had merely been created by a battle after Azure Emperor disappeared.
That had only been a few thousand years ago.
But the Desolate Forbidden Land had existed since long ago, traceable all the way back to the early Desolate Ancient Era. It had been the territory where the first Great Accomplished Sacred Body suppressed himself. Later, the Ruthless Empress forcefully occupied this place and even helped the first Great Accomplished Sacred Body suppress the strangeness and ominousness within him.
Thus, the primordial mountain range around the Desolate Forbidden Land was more than a hundred thousand years old. Many powerful Primordial Species lived within it. With the Desolate Forbidden Land at its back, few people dared approach this place, sparing the ferocious birds and savage beasts much trouble.
As time passed, the deeper one ventured into the primordial forest, the more powerful the ferocious beasts and demonic birds one might encounter became.
"Wuwuwu—"
After entering the Primordial Mountain Range, Madman's emotions became increasingly repressed, sorrowful, and dazed. His clouded eyes stared toward the depths of the Desolate Forbidden Land as he trudged forward blankly, as though his soul had left him.
Jiang Ming, meanwhile, restrained his aura as much as possible and rapidly pushed deeper into the ancient forest. Whenever he scented something good along the way, he immediately transformed into the species guarding it and secretly picked the spirit medicine.
Here, the guardians of spirit medicines over five or six hundred years old were, at the very weakest, savage beasts or exotic birds comparable to Other Shore cultivators. But now, these heavenly treasures belonged to him.
"This is a thousand-year-old Golden Ginseng."
Jiang Ming transformed into a grub and tunneled underground to get there. Using a spatial divine ability, he directly dug the Golden Ginseng out from below, leaving behind a pit three chi deep.
"Yoo yoo—"
A Five-Colored Deer as large as a dump truck blinked its clear yet foolish eyes. The precious medicine its parents had told it to guard was gone, and it had not even noticed where the thief had gone.
Could it have accidentally eaten that Golden Ginseng itself?
Just then, two majestic Five-Colored Deer, each as large as a semi-trailer, returned. They had given birth to three fawns, but the primordial forest held too many dangers. In the end, they had only managed to preserve the fawn with the purest bloodline. Despite its young age, it already possessed cultivation comparable to a Divine Bridge cultivator.
"Yoo yoo yoo—"
Very soon, the Five-Colored Deer with imposing antlers discovered that its family's Golden Ginseng was gone. That spirit medicine had been meant to help the fawn advance into the Great Secret Realm.
A while later!
The cries of the fawn echoed through the primordial forest, along with the furious calls of the male and female deer.
Naturally, Jiang Ming had no idea what had happened there. He had just visited the nest of a Golden-Winged Roc, transformed into a Skyhorned Ant, and stolen a two-thousand-year-old Xun Wind Grass from the cliff where the nest rested.
If a Sea of Bitterness cultivator consumed this Xun Wind Grass, they would immediately gain the ability to fly.
If a Life Spring cultivator consumed it, their flying speed would become five times that of an ordinary Life Spring cultivator.
No matter who consumed it, they would gain the power of Xun Wind. Whether it enhanced movement speed, attack speed, or attack power, it could multiply their abilities severalfold. It was an extremely practical heavenly treasure. Only through the accumulated influence of a Golden-Winged Roc Eagle's aura had it gradually transformed into such precious medicine, capable of helping a Perfected Four Extremes Secret Realm Golden-Winged Roc Eagle break through into the Dragon Transformation Secret Realm.
But now, the precious medicine had been stolen outright.
"Shriek—"
Within the primordial forest, a massive golden bird let out a cry sharp enough to pierce gold and split stone. Its wings spread like a golden cloud, spanning a full hundred meters. Every feather was brilliant and dazzling, flowing with divine radiance. Its claws seemed cast from gold, incomparably sharp and flashing with blinding metallic coldness.
"This is a black hair from a Demon Ape. That damned old ape stole my precious medicine."
The Primordial Species Golden-Winged Roc Bird could actually speak human words. Looking toward a certain area of the mountain range, it shot straight over.
At the same time!
Within a Peach Blossom Valley, an earthshaking "Awooo!" rang out. With a gust of black wind soaring into the sky, a black Demon Ape five meters tall, with a wingspan of ten meters, roared in fury. The Silver Pan Peach it had painstakingly guarded for twenty-two hundred years had been stolen, and all that remained at the scene was a pile of Golden-Winged Roc Bird droppings.
Outrageous!
The demonic beasts and savage birds of Shrouding the Heavens had two paths of transformation. One was to choose the ancient methods within their bloodline inheritances. They lived longer than ordinary cultivators and possessed formidable combat strength, but in return, they could never take human form unless their cultivation reached a heaven-defying level beyond the laws of heaven and earth.
The other path was to cultivate the Shrouding Method created by Huang. This allowed them to embark upon a cultivation path of transforming toward the Human Race. The closer their forms came to those of humans, the greater their potential or cultivation usually became.
Many Primordial Royal Clans had evolved from powerful ferocious birds and divine beasts of Primordial Antiquity after choosing this path of evolution.
For the Human Race, they could in fact also be regarded as the Demon Race.
However, the racial name "demon" only rose to prominence during Primordial Antiquity, the era of the Primordial Royal Clans, because that era produced Demon Emperor Xue Yueqing.
In particular, many pre-Qin Qi Refiners from the Earth where Ye Fan lived traveled beyond the stars and brought the term "demon" into the starry skies, gradually giving rise to the Demon Race.
Distinguishing the Primordial Royal Clans from the Demon Race was actually simple.
The bloodlines of the Primordial Royal Clans were all powerful, having evolved from the strongest ferocious beasts and divine birds of Primordial Antiquity.
The Demon Race, on the other hand, began with Demon Emperor Xue Yueqing. Xue Yueqing had merely been an ordinary Snow Rabbit, yet she created the Demon Emperor Scripture and gradually evolved into a True Dragon, attaining the Dao as the Demon Sovereign.
This told the lowly savage beasts and exotic birds that even with ordinary bloodlines, even without being primordial ferocious beasts or divine birds, they could still become invincible beneath the starry sky.
As for the Demon Emperor, many believed he was a lotus, but they did not know his true origin. He was, properly speaking, a lotus similar to the one that emerged after Immortal King Azure Lotus perished and underwent Nirvana.
That was right, still a lotus!!!