Especially when both Ancient Scriptures circulated at once, his entire body blazed like a true sun, his blood and vitality growing ever more vigorous, like a furnace in human form.
His divine power surged like an ocean, boiling to its utmost.
The combat strength he could unleash became even more astonishing.
Even a mighty expert like Danyangzi could not help marveling.
He declared outright that the Primordial Origin Holy Light Technique was practically tailor-made for a Sun Body like Taiyi's. If Taiyi cultivated it to great completion, the combat strength he could unleash one day would be unimaginable.
Over these days, under his guidance, Taiyi had done everything he could to suppress his cultivation level.
He had even settled down to carefully hone the Bitter Sea and Life Spring realms, making up for every small flaw and shortcoming left by his earlier attempts to cultivate alone, striving for perfection.
Yet in less than a year,
he had naturally and smoothly broken through to the peak of the Divine Bridge Realm.
He was only a hair's breadth from the Other Shore, and his foundations were so solid that even Danyangzi was left utterly dumbfounded.
Above his golden Bitter Sea, a dazzling seven-colored Divine Bridge stretched across the heavens, disappearing into the boundless mist.
That day, Taiyi sat cross-legged inside the cave as usual, quietly contemplating.
As time passed, he noticed something strange. At some unknown point, everything before his eyes had grown hazy. He could no longer see anything, as though he had lost his way.
There were no fluctuations of divine power. Everything around him was silent.
Even when he extended his divine sense, all he saw was hazy mist, with nothing else beyond it.
His five senses, his spiritual perception... all had become indistinct.
"Hmm?" Not far away,
a hunched figure sat cross-legged, motionless, as though he had already passed away in meditation.
Danyangzi, aged and increasingly near the end of his days, with faint traces of decay emanating from his body, suddenly sensed something. He opened his clouded eyes, and a piercing gleam flashed through them.
Keeping watch over his disciple, Danyangzi's gaze sharpened. "Has he reached this trial so soon?"
However, he had no intention of intervening.
Instead, he hoped his disciple would overcome this trial himself, and he had complete confidence in him.
Over the past year, Taiyi had already proven himself through his astonishing talent.
This made Danyangzi glad that he had met Taiyi before passing away in meditation and taken him as his Personal Disciple.
Had such a prodigy joined another great sect, it would hardly have been good news for the Yaoguang Holy Land.
Is this the Calamity of Lostness?
Meanwhile,
Taiyi, having lost all five senses and his spiritual perception,
quickly realized what was happening, but did not panic.
The human body held endless mysteries. Cultivators who wished to escape confinement in the Bitter Sea and explore other human body secret realms had to force their way across it.
Only by cultivating a heavenly meridian that stretched above the Bitter Sea toward the Other Shore could they lay the foundation for escaping this predicament. This was the Divine Bridge Realm, an extremely crucial threshold.
But as the heavenly meridian grew and stretched across the void, where exactly did it have to extend to reach the Other Shore? Some people spent their entire lives unable to see through illusion, trapped at this end of the Divine Bridge, unable to cross the Bitter Sea. This was the Calamity of Lostness.
At its worst, it could even strip away the five senses and all spiritual perception, leaving one an insensible cripple. That was the most terrifying outcome.
Most people encountered mist blocking their path when forming their heavenly meridians, leaving them unsure of where to go. Usually, however, it was not severe. By calming their minds, they could pass through it unhindered.
Yet ever since Taiyi had opened his Bitter Sea and begun cultivating,
everything had gone smoothly. He had suffered no setbacks at all, encountering neither obstacles nor restrictions before reaching the pinnacle of the Divine Bridge Realm.
Only now had it fully erupted. Endless mist surged forth, illusions obscuring his spiritual perception and blocking his path ahead. This was a severe Calamity of Lostness.
Across the sea lay the Other Shore, where he would rise to greater heights.
Taiyi had no intention of borrowing help from anything external. He wanted to face this trial truly and directly, leaving himself nothing to lean on.
Powerful cultivators needed to overcome this trial themselves and experience it firsthand. Otherwise, a shadow would fall over their later cultivation, and their spiritual perception would lose its keenness.
The Bitter Sea is boundless; turn back, and there lies the shore? This was a journey of questioning the heart, not a process of relying on external things.
In a sense, although the Calamity of Lostness was an ordeal, overcoming it would cleanse both body and mind, awaken one's instinctive intuition, strengthen the subconscious, and allow one to pierce illusion and reach straight toward the origin.
"The Other Shore lies before me. Why should I turn back..."
Three days later,
Taiyi stood in the darkness.
His gaze was utterly calm, without the slightest worry or confusion.
"Every path beneath my feet is clear. Why should I search?"
His mind was clear and serene, like an ancient well without a ripple.
These were not forced words, but something that came from the depths of his heart.
Amid silence and darkness, he truly comprehended the meaning of the Other Shore and saw through illusion.
Rumble... The clouds and mist churned, rapidly dispersing. Heaven and earth became clear, and everything lay before his eyes.
In a single instant, all the mist vanished. His five senses returned, sharper than ever before. A mysterious radiance enveloped him, as though he were undergoing a cleansing.
He had passed the trial of life and death and pierced through the Calamity of Lostness.
His "instinct" had been cleansed. His divine sense surged out like a ribbon of light, its reach growing ever broader, while his body and mind felt as though they had been tempered anew.
Taiyi immersed his consciousness in his Sea of Bitterness.
The heavenly meridian had now grown even thicker, crystalline and translucent, like a beam of purple gold spanning the sea toward an unknown place.
He ascended the Divine Bridge and stepped forward. Just as he had said, wherever he went would be the Other Shore. He crossed the sea.
The heavenly meridian shone brilliantly as he traversed the Bitter Sea and reached its end. Here lay a pure land, wreathed in drifting clouds and mist. High in the heavens, he faintly glimpsed an enormous Dao Palace.
White clouds drifted past, obscuring his view. The Dao Palace vanished, and he could no longer catch sight of it.
Having only just reached the Other Shore, he was still far from perfection. Naturally, he could not enter the legendary Dao Palace Secret Realm.
After reaching the Other Shore Realm, he felt the changes within himself. His essence, energy, and spirit had been elevated, and his divine power surged.
His Bitter Sea, already expanded to its utmost, stretched without limit. As far as the eye could see, purple waves shimmered beneath hazy mist, dazzlingly radiant.
His strength had risen to another level, becoming incomparably formidable.
Inside the vast cave, brilliant radiance blazed around him like a sun in human form, impossible to look at directly.
He slowly opened his eyes, his gaze shining, and smiled at Danyangzi opposite him. "Master... I have lived up to your expectations. I have successfully overcome the Calamity of Lostness and entered the Other Shore!"
"Good, good, good..."
Although he had never intervened from beginning to end,
Danyangzi, who had watched Taiyi closely throughout, burst into an excited laugh. "I thought that even with your talent, Taiyi, it would take at least ten days or half a month for you to gain an insight. I never imagined you would overcome the Calamity of Lostness so easily and so quickly!"
"You have cultivated for barely a year, yet already reached the Other Shore. Such an achievement may not be unprecedented, but I doubt anyone in this age can match it!"
"My disciple Taiyi truly has the makings of a Great Emperor!"
Chapter 11: Nine Transformations of the Other Shore, Reborn in Body and Soul
Rumble...
Inside the cave,
waves roared like a tsunami, and thunder boomed.
Golden light blazed, casting dazzling rays in every direction.
The entire cave grew as scorching as a furnace, waves of heat rolling through it.
Taiyi did not emerge from seclusion immediately. He obtained several fist-sized pieces of pure source from Danyangzi and began slowly refining them.
Pure and flawless, they shimmered with flowing colors and contained unimaginable reserves of essence. Taiyi spent several full days refining them before finally absorbing it all.
And after he had overcome the Calamity of Lostness and reached the Other Shore Realm,
Danyangzi, who had remained seated cross-legged there with scarcely any movement, suddenly rose and left the cave dwelling, disappearing for several days.
Only today did he reappear.
From somewhere, he had brought back a great quantity of spirit medicines and rare treasures, along with large amounts of true blood from savage beasts whose cultivation levels were unknown.
Taiyi was left rather dumbfounded.
"Master, this is..."
Looking at the rare treasures and precious medicines Danyangzi had brought back,
Taiyi was astonished, but he already had a guess, leaving him both surprised and delighted.
These things his master had prepared were clearly intended to cleanse the body of his disciple.
"My disciple, after breaking through to the Other Shore Realm, you must undergo nine transformations, each remaking your body, before reaching perfection..."
A withered hand
patted Taiyi on the shoulder.
Ancient and frail, with a weary air of approaching death, Danyangzi smiled and said, "Although you have already eaten the Sacred Fruit of the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land and undergone an earth-shaking transformation, making your flesh astonishingly strong and your blood and vitality even more abundant than an adult flood dragon's,"
"if you can cleanse your flesh again with all manner of rare treasures and precious medicines in the Other Shore Realm, you will certainly take it to even greater heights."
"At the very least, the cumulative improvement from nine transformations may well rival the effects of eating a Sacred Fruit!"
The exceedingly rare treasures and precious medicines were easy enough to obtain. Most came from his collection of bygone days.
As for the true blood of those savage beasts, although he had already refined away its murderous aura and it looked unremarkable, it had actually all come from mighty-expert-level savage beasts.
Even a living fossil like him had needed to expend considerable effort.
Because of this, with little lifespan remaining to begin with, forcibly rousing his blood and vitality to take action
had left his blood and vitality considerably depleted.
Clang...
Before you continue