Cultivation Breakthrough

"Why are you back again? Go on, tell me what of your senior brother's you have taken a fancy to. Take whatever you want."

Seeing Mother Wu Dang return again, Hong Ze could not help but feel that something was off.

Although these girls often came here to mooch off him, they had never come back again so soon.

Moreover, there was none of her usual easy smile on Mother Wu Dang's face. Instead, she looked utterly solemn.

Hearing Hong Ze say this, Mother Wu Dang simply shook her head.

With a wave of her hand, three books appeared before Hong Ze. They were precisely the three volumes of Investiture of the Gods he had written before.

"Eldest Senior Brother, you should be familiar with these three books, shouldn't you?"

The moment Mother Wu Dang produced the three volumes of Investiture of the Gods, Hong Ze understood why she had wanted to learn writing from him.

He could not help but inwardly cry out that this was bad, but by now, it was already too late for regret.

When Hong Ze had written Investiture of the Gods, the Great Dao System had not yet been uninstalled.

Moreover, this had been a task issued by the Great Dao System, which was why Hong Ze had written Investiture of the Gods.

Although the Great Dao System had successfully been uninstalled before he finished writing Investiture of the Gods,

a voice in the depths of his mind had continued telling Hong Ze that he had to finish Investiture of the Gods.

Thus, Hong Ze had not abandoned the task simply because the Great Dao System had been uninstalled.

Because Hong Ze had always believed that the task was still ongoing. Otherwise, the first volume of Investiture of the Gods he had completed would never have vanished for no reason.

And when Hong Ze finished the second volume, it too disappeared without explanation.

This had always made Hong Ze think that the Great Dao System had reclaimed them as task items.

It further confirmed his belief that the task was still ongoing, and that the Investiture of the Gods he had written had definitely been reclaimed as task items.

After all, the Great Dao System had reclaimed plenty of task items before. To Hong Ze, this was nothing new.

But what Hong Ze had never expected was that these three volumes of Investiture of the Gods would end up in Mother Wu Dang's hands.

And just as Hong Ze was caught completely off guard, something within his body seemed to shatter at that very moment.

His cultivation, which had not changed for tens of thousands of years, finally rose at this moment.

He directly broke through the Heavenly Immortal Peak and reached the True Immortal Initial Stage.

At the same time, Hong Ze could clearly sense that his body was now able to absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

This left Hong Ze utterly shocked. Could this be the reward for completing the task?

Could finishing Investiture of the Gods not truly count as completing the task? Did it only count once it had readers?

This left Hong Ze standing there in a daze, but Mother Wu Dang knew nothing of any of this.

She thought Hong Ze wore such an expression because she had secretly read Investiture of the Gods.

This gave Mother Wu Dang a trace of worry, and her gaze toward Hong Ze gained a flicker of unease.

Hong Ze finally calmed the excitement in his heart and began thinking of a way to muddle through this.

In the end, he decided he could only make an issue of his cultivation, and so he said to Mother Wu Dang,

"You asked your senior brother to teach you how to read because you wanted to understand these three books you stole from me?"

Now that things had come to this, Mother Wu Dang naturally had no reason to beat around the bush. She immediately nodded at Hong Ze.

"Yes."

That simple, certain answer made Hong Ze sigh helplessly.

"Then you must understand the contents of the books by now. Do you think what is written in them will truly happen?"

At this moment, Hong Ze was desperately trying to make the appearance of Investiture of the Gods seem more reasonable.

Mother Wu Dang first nodded at Hong Ze, then immediately shook her head.

"Eldest Senior Brother, that is exactly what I wished to ask you. Could our Jie Sect truly end up in such a state?"

Hong Ze nodded. "Do you know why your senior brother's cultivation had been unable to break through for so long?"

Mother Wu Dang shook her head, while the look in her eyes toward Hong Ze changed as well.

"Eldest Senior Brother, you broke through. You even crossed an entire major realm and reached the True Immortal realm."

Looking at the shocked Mother Wu Dang, Hong Ze sighed once more and said,

"Back then, I accidentally touched upon the River of Fate of the Jie Sect. Within that River of Fate, I glimpsed this heavenly secret.

"It was precisely because I glimpsed this heavenly secret that my cultivation was sealed at the Heavenly Immortal realm.

"For tens of thousands of years, no matter how diligently I cultivated, my cultivation could not advance even an inch. Perhaps this was the heavenly punishment I received for revealing heavenly secrets.

"And while I glimpsed this heavenly secret, I also obtained the writing that I taught you.

"In the unseen realm, there was also a voice telling me to write the heavenly secret I had glimpsed into Investiture of the Gods.

"There was only one purpose in writing Investiture of the Gods: for others to see its contents.

"When that happened, the seal on my cultivation would break. But anyone who saw Investiture of the Gods would inevitably become part of the game.

"Originally, I thought these three books had been lost and would not drag anyone else into this dead end.

"But I never imagined that you, Junior Sister Wu Dang, would become the first person to read Investiture of the Gods."

Upon hearing this, Mother Wu Dang said to Hong Ze with a face full of shock,

"Eldest Senior Brother, could it really be because I read Investiture of the Gods that your cultivation was able to break through?

"If that is truly the case, wouldn't that mean the more people who read Investiture of the Gods, the faster Eldest Senior Brother's cultivation will rise?"

No matter what, Hong Ze had never expected this girl to come up with such an idea.

If she actually puts that into action, I'll probably really have to suffer heavenly punishment.

He immediately shook his head at Mother Wu Dang. "Junior Sister Wu Dang, have you noticed that this book contains no trace of your senior brother?"

Mother Wu Dang had been about to ask Hong Ze why, throughout the hundreds of thousands of words in Investiture of the Gods, this Eldest Senior Brother alone never appeared.

Now that Hong Ze brought it up, she naturally nodded without hesitation. "I was wondering about that as well."

Hong Ze looked in the direction of Biyou Palace and sighed. "Because I am one outside the fate of the Jie Sect, I was able to glimpse this heavenly secret.

"And you are the only Direct Disciple of the Jie Sect to emerge unscathed from the Investiture Tribulation, which makes you one blessed with profound fortune.

"Perhaps this was destined in the unseen realm. I fear that only you and I can prevent the Jie Sect from being destroyed in the Investiture Tribulation.

"Master must have seen this as well. Otherwise, how could Master have gone against all objections back then and allowed a good-for-nothing like me to become the Eldest Senior Brother of the Jie Sect?"

Hong Ze directly shifted the blame, making Master Tongtian into the mastermind behind it all.

Most importantly, Mother Wu Dang actually found Hong Ze's explanation entirely reasonable.