After leaving the Luo Family's rear mountain, Luo Yue disturbed no one. With somewhat conflicted feelings, she returned to her courtyard alone.
"Sigh..."
Luo Yue lay on her bed, looking at the Divine Source in her hand, and let out a conflicted sigh.
This gift was not so easy to accept.
She could well imagine that, the moment the Luo Family's patriarch reached the end of his life and fell, responsibility for the entire Luo Family would land on her shoulders.
"Fine, fine! When the Dark Turmoil comes, I'll just take the Luo Family into hiding and weather that calamity!"
Luo Yue gritted her teeth and thought fiercely.
Though even she was unsure whether she would be like a clay bodhisattva crossing a river, unable to save herself.
"With my supreme wisdom and my heaven-defying perseverance! Legendary Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu, Divine King Body-you two had better pull your weight."
As she spoke,
Luo Yue opened her hand to reveal the fist-sized piece of Divine Source and began carefully examining this treasure that had every holy land and Desolate Ancient Family fighting until their heads split.
Thinking of the future Heavenly Emperor Ye's miserable days of scurrying east and hiding west to dig up Divine Source, surviving one brush with death after another, Luo Yue clicked her tongue. This was probably the advantage of having a mighty great-grandfather.
"How do I use this thing again? I haven't even opened my Bitter Sea yet. And using Divine Source to open it is a little too extravagant. If word got out, people would die of envy."
At that thought, Luo Yue grew a little troubled.
She currently possessed two cultivation methods: the Dao Scripture: Sea of Bitterness Volume and the Divine King Scripture: Upper Volume.
Both volumes of ancient scripture had been painstakingly collected by Old Master Luo for the original owner of her body. He had also frequently expounded on them to her in person, all to lay a foundation for her Divine Body.
Now that she had publicly adopted the surname Jiang, barring any mishaps, she would also have a chance to study the Jiang Family's Hengyu Scripture in the future.
"No more waiting. I'm opening my Bitter Sea today!" Luo Yue gritted her teeth.
Luo City had already become the gathering point for the Northern Region's gathering storms. With her sense of security sorely lacking, she was desperate to embark on the path of cultivation.
Even gaining the tiniest scrap of power of her own would at least offer some reassurance.
Luo Yue sat cross-legged on her bed and placed the fist-sized Divine Source, its inner radiance as brilliant as a river of stars, before her. Her ice-blue eyes grew still as water, and her consciousness sank into the deepest reaches of her sea of consciousness.
"But the Dao Scripture: Sea of Bitterness Volume... the Divine King Scripture: Upper Volume... which should I cultivate first?"
She could not help pondering the question.
The Dao Scripture was hailed as the strongest foundation-building method in Shrouding the Heavens. It expounded the ultimate truths of the Great Dao, balanced and harmonious, encompassing all things-the beginning of the Sea of Bitterness for all creation, with boundless potential.
The Divine King Scripture, meanwhile, was tailored specifically to the Divine King Body. It sought to unearth the Divine Body's potential to the utmost, enabling swift progress in the early stages and providing special tempering effects for the Divine King Body's divine blood and bones.
After considering it, an idea suddenly stirred in her mind.
Why not cultivate both at once?
She wasn't a child who had to choose one or the other. Adults took them all!
The Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu floating at the center of her sea of consciousness suddenly lit up.
With supreme treasures of deduction like the Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu in her possession, not using them to perfect her foundation would be a criminal waste!
"Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu, let me see what you can do!" Luo Yue murmured.
The next instant, Luo Yue's consciousness seemed to stand within a boundless universe of stars. She watched as the Great Dao Runes and the mysteries of her Divine Body underwent an unprecedentedly intricate process of deduction under the guidance of the Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu.
Ancient tortoiseshell patterns and a mystical chart of stellar points shone upon one another, radiating an ancient aura that transcended time and space.
Countless fine points of black and white light and mysterious trigram patterns began flowing like living things. An invisible power of deduction enveloped every fragment of Luo Yue's memories concerning the two ancient scriptures.
The two charts slowly revolved within her sea of consciousness, colliding and merging as they dismantled, analyzed, and reconstructed the profound principles of the two ancient scriptures.
With the Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu assisting her, the once obscure and incomprehensible passages became clearly ordered in Luo Yue's eyes, every thread fitting seamlessly into place.
The Divine Source visibly shrank!
The Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu were helping her refine the Divine Source!
The essence of both ancient scriptures was extracted, the dross discarded and the finest parts preserved. Then, within the unfathomable web of laws woven by the Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu, it became a "Divine King: Dao Foundation Sea of Bitterness Chapter" that belonged to her alone, perfectly matching the Divine King Body's origin and the ultimate truths of the Dao Scripture.
"You can even deduce and integrate the Dao Scripture! Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu, you're truly my gods!"
Wild joy surged through Luo Yue's heart.
This brand-new scripture might not be the strongest, but it was certainly the most perfect match for Luo Yue's current constitution!
"This is exactly how the Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu should be used!"
Understanding dawned on Luo Yue. Following the perfect method they had deduced, she circulated the newly born scripture with all her strength.
Her hands formed a seal. The Divine Source suspended before her brow suddenly erupted with dazzling radiance, and the purest primordial essence of heaven and earth condensed into a pillar of light that thundered into the point three inches below her navel-where her Wheel of Life lay.
Hum!
An unimaginably vast surge of energy exploded within her, instantly overwhelming the barrier of mortality!
Her Bitter Sea, the place that represented her life potential and lay shrouded in lifeless mist, was violently torn open at that moment!
Yet the process of opening it did not follow the usual path.
Guided by the perfect method deduced by the Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu, and governed by the Divine King Body's primordial Divine Blood, the rampaging Divine Source energy did not wreak havoc. Instead, it expanded with a cold, orderly precision.
The Bitter Sea is boundless. My own Divine Blood must serve as the guide. My Divine Blood leans toward ice, so ice essence shall forge the foundation, a cold river shall form of itself, and divine consciousness shall become the moon, hanging in the southern sky.
Luo Yue pondered inwardly.
She was already immersed in the process. Deep within her ice-blue pupils, the paths traced by the Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu seemed to be reflected.
The Divine King Body's primordial Divine Blood was fully awakened. An ultimate chill surged from the depths of her bloodline, cold enough to freeze the soul, and merged perfectly with the pure energy of the Divine Source and the Dao resonance of the Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu's deductions.
Riiip!
It was as though a polar glacier were spreading across eternally frozen earth.
Within Luo Yue's Bitter Sea, a terrifying scene unfolded!
When ordinary cultivators opened their Bitter Seas, they found only pitch-black, deathly stillness. Only prodigies with special constitutions would manifest extraordinary Visions.
For instance, Ye Fan's Sacred Body might produce dazzling golden light, swirling purple mist, or rippling jade-green waves.
Luo Yue's Bitter Sea, however, was an endless cold river, deathly still and icy.
It was no ordinary frozen ice, but profound, mysterious ice formed from the purest Divine Source energy and the Divine King Body's primordial Divine Blood under the Dao laws deduced by the Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu.
The surface of her Bitter Sea was smooth as a mirror
yet radiated a terrifying chill that could freeze all things. Its magnificent colors interwove spectral blue and silvery white, approaching absolute zero, like a sea of ten-thousand-year-old Mystic Ice that had never thawed in the depths of the polar regions.
Moreover, above this deathly still, freezing Cold River, there was not only darkness. A bright, cold moon hung high in the void over her Bitter Sea.
This "cold moon" was not a true celestial body either, but a projection within her Bitter Sea of the core Dao resonance of the Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu in her sea of consciousness.
It radiated a hazy, mysterious glow. Within its halo, the Yellow River Chart's stellar paths could faintly be seen flowing, while the Lo Shu's tortoiseshell trigram patterns flickered in and out of sight.
The cool moonlight spilled down, not only illuminating this deathly still Cold River of ice, but also seeming to carry a supreme power that could perceive all things and deduce heaven's secrets. It froze and analyzed every trace of chaos and impurity within her Bitter Sea, bringing them into order. Moonlight and ice reflected one another, forming a strange balance and harmony.
A Bitter Sea Vision—Cold River Reflecting the Moon!
The moment this Vision formed, an aura of ultimate cold, seemingly capable of freezing souls yet carrying a clarity that saw through everything, spread uncontrollably from Luo Yue's small body.
Crack, crack...
At that moment, the bed beneath Luo Yue, the tables and chairs around her, and even the floor of the room instantly acquired a thick layer of Mystic Ice gleaming with a spectral blue sheen!
The temperature throughout the room plunged to freezing, and pale-blue crystalline snowflakes even began drifting through the air.
Luo Yue abruptly opened her eyes. Deep within her ice-blue pupils, rivers of stars seemed to flow and a cold moon rose and fell.
She lowered her head to look at the location of her Bitter Sea. It seemed to have become a miniature world of "Cold River Reflecting the Moon," with cold, mysterious power flowing slowly within.
"It worked..."
Feeling the vast, icy power within her Bitter Sea, which obeyed her as readily as her own limbs, Luo Yue felt a ripple stir in her heart.
"Isn't this a bit too much consumption? There's only that little bit left."
Even Luo Yue felt a pang at the expense.
And more than half of the Divine Source had gone into the bellies of the Yellow River Chart and Lo Shu!
After all, according to the law of conservation of energy, making something operate required a certain expenditure of energy.
The formerly fist-sized piece of Divine Source was now only the size of a marble.
That was equivalent to consuming several hundred thousand jin of Source!
If the future Heavenly Emperor Ye saw this, he would surely cry himself unconscious in the bathroom.
Still, it had all been worth it.
As the primordial essence of heaven and earth, Divine Source was the most refined origin substance in the world. With her Divine Body's Bitter Sea opened using Divine Source, the Dao foundation of Luo Yue's Divine King Body could absolutely be called unshakable.