A hundred thousand years.
Lin Tian had spent a full hundred thousand years refining the Innate Grand Array on Penglai Immortal Island before finally earning this chance to evolve, as though sweetness had at last followed bitterness.
Only he knew the hardship, like a fish drinking water knowing its warmth or chill.
"Your racial form has changed." "Your race name has been updated to: Primordial Azure Vine! Your cultivation has advanced to the early Golden Immortal stage!"
System notifications kept ringing in his mind.
As Lin Tian listened, his vines and leaves swayed incessantly, his excitement surging.
Primordial Azure Vine.
Lin Tian pondered the name.
After refining the Space Origin of the Sea-Calming Divine Pearl, his racial form had evolved into a primordial green leaf.
Now, after absorbing the life origin, he had advanced directly from a primordial green leaf to a Primordial Azure Vine.
Whether a green leaf or an azure vine, both names bore the word "Hongmeng."
And "Hongmeng" was, in fact, another name for chaos.
An inexplicable flicker of delight rose in Lin Tian's heart.
In other words, he was taking great strides, step by step, toward innate roots.
To him, this development was indeed extremely intriguing.
Still, a name alone proved nothing. After all, the system had offered little explanation of the word "Hongmeng."
But however he looked at it, Lin Tian believed that many secrets concerning the evolution of his race and roots lay hidden within that word.
He even vaguely sensed that, with "primordial" attached to his race, he might eventually stand alongside the highest being in the Primordial World: Hongjun.
Still, Lin Tian would not dwell too much on Hongjun, who already enjoyed the favor of the Heavenly Dao.
With his cultivation only at the initial Golden Immortal stage, even thinking about Hongjun before he merged with the Dao posed a risk. The Heavenly Dao of the Primordial World had already taken shape, and the more Lin Tian thought about him, the more likely this bug-like existence of his was to be detected unseen.
Meanwhile.
Lin Tian felt tremendous vitality bursting forth within him.
He secretly looked forward to discovering what form he would take after evolving.
In an instant, streaks of azure light flashed across him.
His race was rapidly evolving, azure lights covering his entire body like a constellation of stars.
For a time, he discovered that the Purple Mansion within him, which he had treated as nothing more than storage space, had begun brimming with vitality. The Purple Mansion Space was unfolding the true essence of life.
Azure radiance flickered continuously.
Lin Tian's physique changed once again.
Before his eyes:
His leaves grew much larger as they transformed, and his stem, previously just over thirty feet tall, grew several times taller, reaching over a hundred feet! Meanwhile, the leaves along his stalk transformed to acquire the art of twelve transformations, each leaf capable of manifesting a space of its own!
The leaves retained their former razor-sharp edges, but now also contained incomparably vast vitality!
Lin Tian shook his twelve azure leaves. In an instant, those sharp leaves, capable of cleaving through almost anything, stirred up a flurry of Wind Blades!
The Wind Blades howled across a hundred-mile radius, making the void tremble without cease.
"This time, it won't just be wild punches beating an old master to death."
Lin Tian secretly rejoiced.
With his current strength, he believed he could utterly crush ten of his former selves.
His roots had also improved enormously.
Aside from that thought-provoking word "primordial," his roots, as they outwardly stood now, could already be considered first-rate in the current Primordial World.
Gradually, the azure light flickering around his body and within his Purple Mansion space dimmed.
His evolution was complete.
With a thought, Lin Tian opened the system's attribute panel:
"Name: Lin Tian Race: Primordial Azure Vine Cultivation: Divine sense projection Divine abilities: Bloodthirst, Spatial Traversal, Undying. Personal space, personal life origin items: none Evolution progress: 3200/999999. Evolution mission: obtain evolution points. Once the evolution bar is full, fuse three origins to unlock the next stage before undergoing racial evolution."
Seeing how many points this evolution required, Lin Tian quietly drew in a breath.
An evolution bar of one million points, plus three origins, was required for the next stage of racial evolution.
What the hell...
Finding a single origin had already taken Lin Tian a full hundred thousand years before he could obtain this evolution. Now he actually needed three origins. This really wasn't treating him like a person.
And the nearly one million evolution points left Lin Tian speechless.
At that moment, the system's notification sounded in Lin Tian's mind. "Host, you have no cultivation art to practice, so your progress is slow."
Hearing the system's explanation, Lin Tian gained some understanding and asked, "So, if I have a cultivation art to practice, the higher its grade, the faster I'll advance?"
The system's notification sounded. "That is correct."
So that was it.
Lin Tian calmed down.
At the same time, a clear goal emerged in his mind.
After all, the points and origins needed for this upgrade really did give him a headache.
In that case, he would have to travel around the Primordial World and see whether he could get his hands on the Primordial Mystic Art.
The Primordial Mystic Art was, in fact, a method for cultivating both the body and magical power. Here in the Primordial World, it was one of the supreme cultivation arts.
The reason Lin Tian had immediately thought of this art was not that it was the very best, but that it bore the word "Hongmeng." He felt that some unseen thread of fate connected it to him.
As for where he could obtain this art, Lin Tian had no idea.
For now, of course, he first needed to gather all the resources on Penglai Immortal Island into the Purple Mansion grotto-heaven within his body.
Having finished his deliberations, Lin Tian gathered his thoughts and wandered around Penglai Island, truly getting entangled with every flower and blade of grass, leaving nothing uncollected.
As Lin Tian roamed, practically all the heavenly materials and earthly treasures on Penglai Island ended up in his Purple Mansion grotto-heaven.
"According to legend, Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou are three interconnected islands, inseparable as a balance and its counterweight. Since I'm already on Penglai Island, Fangzhang and Yingzhou should be nearby."
Thinking this over, Lin Tian adopted the simple philosophy that a thief never leaves empty-handed and began searching for immortal islands in every direction, with Penglai at the center.
A hundred years of exploration passed.
At last, he found Fangzhang Island, a full ten thousand miles from Penglai Immortal Island.
However, this great island was still shrouded by an Innate Grand Array. Even though Lin Tian had found it, he would need to spend time refining that array before he could enter.
But Lin Tian was now a Golden Immortal, worlds apart from a Mystic Immortal.
Previously, refining Penglai Island's Grand Formation had taken Lin Tian a full hundred thousand years.
Now, refining the Innate Grand Array on Fangzhang Immortal Island took him only thirty to forty thousand years.
His progress was more than twice as fast.
During the thirty to forty thousand years spent refining the Grand Formation, Lin Tian's evolution points kept rising as time passed.
His cultivation also improved considerably.
The moment the Grand Formation was fully refined.
Lin Tian felt refreshed, his spirits wonderfully lifted.
No matter how little the Primordial World cared about the passage of time.
Lin Tian still measured time according to the methods of his previous life.
Nearly forty thousand years had remained dull and tedious.
His figure flashed, and he entered Fangzhang Immortal Island.
Upon entering, he set foot in a secluded valley.
With a stirring of his thoughts, Lin Tian's attention was drawn to a lush tree in the valley, thirty feet tall and thick with branches and leaves.
Huh?!
Looking at this tree, which brimmed with a childlike aura and incredibly dense spiritual energy, Lin Tian extended his slender roots and pressed them against its trunk.
In an instant, Lin Tian was overjoyed: this was the Fangcun Dao Tree!
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