Great Wall Prefecture, behind the Dao Academy's main peak.
[Dao Repository Pavilion].
Cultivation knew no passage of time; summers and winters slipped by uncounted.
Ever since Chu Bai pushed open that dust-sealed wooden door, time seemed to have stopped within the ancient pavilion and its ocean of books.
Outside, the world quietly passed from the golden splendor of late autumn into the killing chill of deep winter.
Goose-feather snow drifted down in thick flurries, cloaking the Great Wall Prefecture Dao Academy's rolling sweep of upturned eaves in a heavy mantle of silver.
Yet on the Dao Repository Pavilion's top floor, a tiny lamp still burned, and the faint fragrance of sandalwood incense lingered.
Chu Bai sat cross-legged on an ancient meditation cushion, as motionless as a stone statue weathered by the ages.
Even his hair and his once-spotless blue-green official robe had gathered a thin layer of dust.
For these past several months, he had neither eaten nor drunk, nor concerned himself with worldly affairs.
He had even deliberately reduced the activity of his [Glazed Flawless Bone], which drew in the spiritual qi of heaven and earth, and his vast [Cosmic Cycle Wheel] Dao foundation to their lowest ebb.
He immersed himself entirely in Qingzhou's thousand years of ancient cultivation principles, the strict codes of the Great Zhou Immortal Dynasty, and the countless insights left behind by mighty sages.
"The five phases are the pivot of heaven and earth."
Chu Bai's cracked lips parted slightly, releasing a whisper so faint it was barely audible, yet seemed to resonate with heaven and earth.
Deep within his sea of consciousness, the Great Five-Phase Annihilation Light, once brimming with utter destruction, savagery, and annihilation, was undergoing a transformation that overturned heaven and earth.
In the past, when Chu Bai wielded this killing art,