"Rumble!"
A majestic resonance of the Dao rang out, making this world shrouded in chaotic energy all the more mysterious.
Then vast swathes of runes showered down amid surging radiant light. A grayish-brown divine ring shaped like a volcanic crater appeared, hovering three inches above the crown of her head.
Rich vital essence swirled within it and streamed down, exuding an ancient, weathered aura tinged with the breath of time.
Moreover, this cave heaven was frantically drawing in and releasing essence, seizing the blessings of heaven and earth to replenish her needs.
Then three more cave heavens appeared in succession. All four surrounded her, drawing in and releasing vital essence as red, gold, purple, and green intertwined, radiating dazzling divine splendor.
This was the Cave Heaven Realm. From this point onward, cultivators could abstain from food, as their cave heavens would refine the essence of heaven and earth on their own to replenish their divine energy.
Furthermore, cave heavens connected to the boundless void, allowing cultivators to continually refine divine power from it. The divine power of the runes within their bodies would soar, renewing itself endlessly in an unbroken stream.
Unless they experienced an exceptionally brutal battle, their strength would be difficult to exhaust.
By now, the Bronze Little Tower had returned to her sea of consciousness and fallen silent once more. The Reincarnation Seal had likewise faded from sight.
Yet Xi Yue did not awaken. She was still undergoing her transformation, and only when the sun sank in the west and moonlight spilled down did she slowly come to.
After breaking into the Cave Heaven Realm, she felt utterly refreshed, her body and mind so light that she seemed to be ascending into immortality on feathered wings.
She had not awakened immediately because she was carefully experiencing what made this realm different and consolidating her cultivation, firmly settling into it.
With a slight wave of her hand, four cave heavens of different colors surrounded her, flashing with divine light and breathing out vital essence.
Opening four cave heavens in succession was absolutely unprecedented. At the very least, it had never been heard of in this era, and it eclipsed the brilliance of every young prodigy.
At that moment, a group of unexpected visitors appeared, each with a rosy face and a smile they could not conceal.
"Father, Third Granduncle, Seventh Great-Grandfather..." She greeted them one by one, her large eyes lively. She had never expected a mere breakthrough to draw so many elders here.
Everyone burst into laughter. They had witnessed it all. Originally, they had only sensed the disturbance here and come to investigate, never imagining they would see such an astonishing scene.
Four cave heavens in succession! Even after living for tens of thousands of years, they had never experienced anything like it. She was blazing a new trail, writing herself into the annals of history!
Their seniority was frighteningly high, and they were ordinarily stern and unsmiling. Now, however, every one of them beamed, their eyes shining as they looked at Xi Yue.
They realized that she was a peerless prodigy, no weaker than Yao Yue, and perhaps even more extraordinary.
"Little Xi, your Seventh Great-Grandfather recently found some more eight treasures. If you get a craving, just say the word." A white-haired elder stepped forward, hale and hearty, and stroked his beard with a cheerful grin.
"Thank you, Seventh Great-Grandfather."
Xi Yue lifted her head, her gaze somewhat evasive. This Seventh Great-Grandfather had suffered the worst of her earlier depredations: half the eight treasures he raised had ended up in her and Yao Yue's bellies.
Although he had said nothing about it, even with her thick skin, the tips of her ears reddened, and she scarcely dared meet his eyes.
Several clan elders offered their assessments, then gave her a few words of advice before leaving.
Only after everyone departed did she have the chance to examine her own condition.
First was the elevation of her life itself. After breaking into the Cave Heaven Realm, her combat strength had soared, and her precious techniques were far more powerful than before.
Moreover, her primordial spirit had undergone another transformation. It had already transformed once earlier, then steadily improved under the nurturing of the Bronze Ancient Pagoda. With all these effects compounded, its strength was now unimaginable.
"Perhaps even those people from the Wang Family who practice the Chaos-Quelling Art can't match me at the same realm. And besides..."
She probed deeper. There, she found a speck of light, crystalline and pure white, reflecting divine radiance, sacred and transcendent.
"What is this?" Puzzled, she examined it with curiosity. "It seems... there was one in my physical body before, too."
"Just as I thought!" She touched her chest and looked within herself. There, she could see divine light spreading amid a hazy rain of radiance.
"A fleshly cave heaven?" She hesitated, finding it difficult to believe.
This was far too incredible. As she remembered it, wasn't this something that had to be nurtured through the combined power of ten cave heavens after opening them? How could it have appeared already?
But upon closer consideration, she had broken through the limits of the Blood Moving Realm, surpassing the hundred-thousand-jin threshold, and continued to improve steadily afterward. Suddenly, it all seemed reasonable.
"Perhaps... I really do have quite a gift for the path of the physical body?"
In principle, after breaking past the blood moving extreme realm, every further step was extraordinarily difficult. Yet she was an exception. Her physical strength was still rising steadily, and now even she did not know exactly how much divine strength she possessed.
"It isn't a true fleshly cave heaven, only an embryonic form. No... it doesn't even qualify as that."
After studying it carefully, she reached a conclusion. It did not yet possess the divine energy of a true cave heaven, but it had some of its characteristics and had not fully taken shape.
"Perhaps I could call it a primordial embryo?"
Then she turned her attention to her primordial spirit. That same speck of light might be the embryonic form of a primordial spirit cave heaven.
That was right. The human body held limitless potential and endless mysteries. The physical body concealed divine treasures, and the primordial spirit was no different.
Since a cave heaven could be opened within the physical body, it should be possible to open one within the primordial spirit as well.
Everything gradually became clear.
"Heh, is this forcing me to follow the Present Age Method?" Xi Yue smiled faintly, then shook her head. Becoming a supreme being through the Present Age Method would be far too difficult.
After all, the Present Age Method had merely been cobbled together by a group of supreme beings from the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths. Perhaps true immortals had participated, but it was still insufficiently developed, and its ceiling was plain to see.
The first few realms were manageable, but after attaining godhood, it became a complete muddle. One followed the Present Age Method, yet traces of the Immortal Ancient Method appeared everywhere, including cultivating immortal energy. It was far too haphazard, neither fish nor fowl.
"Why not try walking both paths?" She slapped her forehead, an idea forming in her mind.
She could not stake everything on the Present Age Method. To guard against unforeseen mishaps, she would cultivate the Immortal Ancient Method as well.
At the same time, she wanted to see what sparks would fly when the Immortal Ancient Method and the Present Age Method collided.
Perhaps, by using each to verify the other, she could forge a path and method of her own.
Although heaven and earth had changed drastically, making cultivation of the Immortal Ancient Method exceptionally difficult in the present age, it was not much of a problem for her.
There were quite a few surviving Immortal Ancient lands within the Nine Heavens.
With the influence of an everlasting family, finding one would not be difficult.
"Should I get myself a primary and secondary body or something, too?" She rubbed her chin, her gaze darkening slightly as she sank into thought.
Since she had decided to cultivate the methods of both ages, she would naturally need two bodies to cultivate them simultaneously. Practicing both methods in a single body would cause serious chaos.
However, such secret arts were very rare. Although the Xu Family had collected some, most had flaws.
Tens of thousands of years ago, an ancestor of the Xu Family had practiced such a method, only to encounter a disastrous problem... he had literally refined himself to death.
That had been a great cultivator of the Escape One Realm. If even someone like him had encountered problems practicing it, how would attempting it at her level be any different from courting death?
"I'll still have to go to the lower realm." She sighed softly.
The Immortal Palace in the Three Thousand Provinces did possess such a method, but theirs was incomplete as well, nothing but a trap.
Besides, she disliked that lineage. Sooner or later, she would settle accounts with them.
Kunpeng Son possessed the complete method, but he was still suppressed beneath Five Elements Mountain. She would have to go to the trouble of rescuing him first.