Monster?

That showed just how important the Spirit Terrace stage was! Tang Changsheng had felt that the period of rapid growth after he began cultivating and stepped into the Heavenly Heart had passed, leaving him at a bottleneck.

But when he returned to this "Immortal Realm" to cultivate, he quickly discovered that the so-called bottleneck had been an illusion.

As he cultivated in this world, gathering and refining qi each day, his progress was so swift it could only be described as covering a thousand miles in a single day.

It seemed cultivation was simply difficult in his own bustling mortal world, where spiritual energy was too thin. It had nothing to do with any bottleneck...

While Tang Changsheng cultivated in this "Immortal Realm," three men knelt before a thin, wizened old man aboard a boat on the Lower River. "Zuo Xingfa and Zhang Dacheng have gone too far," they said indignantly.

"They can take their broad road, and we'll take our narrow bridge. We tomb raiders have never crossed paths with local strongmen like them. But now they're searching for us everywhere like madmen. Da Xiang..."

The old man sat in his chair with his eyes closed, looking as though his soul had wandered beyond the heavens. It was impossible to tell whether he was listening.

Yet as soon as the three finished speaking, Da Xiang opened his eyes and said something that seemed to come out of nowhere. "My Necklace has been broken!"

"What?" The three stared at him in confusion. This was an elder famed for his vast powers, his ability to divine the future, and his command of all manner of feng shui arts. They had no idea why he had suddenly brought that up.

"You've kicked a hornet's nest. I warned you from the start that although there was a great tomb beneath Yin-Yang Mountain, it was terribly dangerous. One look at the General's Temple showed it was part of an arrangement meant to suppress something... But you wouldn't listen. Greed blinded you... Ah!"

Da Xiang let out a long sigh. "This time, you've offended someone you can't afford to offend, haven't you? From what I can see, Zuo Xingfa and Zhang Dacheng are nothing but the General's Temple's lackeys!

"You set your sights on the General's Temple. No wonder they won't let you go! I told you long ago: some money can be earned, and some must never be touched!"

The three cried out again, hardly able to believe him.

Da Xiang offered no further explanation. Instead, he gave a cold chuckle. "The General's Temple. So, the General's Temple dares to ruin my plans!"

"What?" The sudden change in Da Xiang's tone caught them off guard. A moment ago, he had clearly seemed unwilling to get involved.

Why was he saying this now?

"How many people in the Lower River region are capable of breaking my spell?" Da Xiang sneered. "In this Age of Dharma's Decline, perhaps only the General's Temple! Heh... I'd like to see just what the General's Temple is truly capa—"

Before he could get the last word out, he suddenly sensed danger. He had no time to warn anyone...

Out on the river, a flat-bottomed Dredger abruptly surged forward at full power, heading straight for their cargo boat.

The vessels were already too close. There was no way to dodge.

The three men and Da Xiang all went pale. However they looked at it, this was no accident. It was deliberate!

Unfortunately, by the time they realized that, it was too late.

Boom! The Dredger slammed into them. The violent impact knocked all four off their feet and sent them rolling across the deck like gourds.

A kilometer away, Zhang Dacheng watched the collision on the river with a cold smile, accompanied by Ruan Wenhua and several subordinates.

"Heh. They had a little cunning after all, hiding out on the river. No wonder we couldn't find any trace of them!"

Song Da's voice came over the radio, tinged with excitement. "Don't worry, boss. I'll take these fellows alive and bring them to the General's Temple!"

From the reeds along the riverbank,

two motorboats sped out toward the middle of the river. "Be careful!" Zhang Dacheng called. For some reason, a faint unease stirred in his heart.

"What's there to fear? I don't believe these tomb raiders have any earth-shaking tricks up their sleeves—"

Before he could finish, a line appeared on the river's surface, racing as fast as a torpedo. It slammed into one of the motorboats.

The boat, a good two or three meters long, flew into the air. Screams rang out as it flipped over...

Zhang Dacheng's pupils contracted.

Beneath the long white wake, he caught a glimpse of a black back the color of iron, several meters in length...

What kind of monster was that?

At that moment, Tang Changsheng was cultivating on Fuyang Mountain.

He had learned that the mountain where he was staying was called Fuyang Mountain, several dozen li from Suxu City.

For the first time, Tang Changsheng also knew for certain that this was not the world he had known. Neither its place names nor its history bore any relation to his original world—or to any world he knew.

He was in a place called Wu Hou State, and Suxu City was its capital...

The herb gatherer who had come up the mountain could not explain much more than that.

In ancient times, limited means of communication often left people cut off from news. Villagers in the mountains might not even know that a dynasty had fallen and another had ruled for decades...

Because the herb gatherer sometimes went to Suxu City to sell medicinal herbs, he knew a little more than most.

In any case, the herb gatherer stayed only one night before leaving. The vague scraps of information he left behind were enough to convince Tang Changsheng that he had not traveled back to ancient times, but to another world.

Tang Changsheng gave the matter little thought. After listening in passing, he put it out of his mind.

Whatever this world was like, it had little to do with him.

He was only cultivating in seclusion in an unremarkable corner of it.

Deep down, Tang Changsheng had already decided to regard this place as the "Immortal Realm." Why should anything else matter?

He remained in seclusion there for more than ten days. Only when his mind and body were exhausted and his supplies could no longer sustain him did he return to the General's Temple.

Had he looked in a mirror then, he would probably have seen a wild man with tangled hair and a filthy face...

After returning to the General's Temple, Tang Changsheng went straight to its kitchen.

The kitchen might not have looked like much, but beside it was a cellar.

Anyone who went down there would have been startled, wondering whether they had taken a wrong turn and stumbled into a hotel's cold-storage room for ingredients.