Beneath the clouds, the mountains embraced one another from north and south, clustering into a ring that lacked only one side and so fell short of completeness.
Through their midst, a vast torrent of muddy yellow water surged between heaven and earth, dividing north from south.
Countless fish and shrimp crowded the turbid water, too densely packed to number.
Several groups of water spirits and wild monsters with slanted brows and crooked eyes rode the waves and drove the currents, shouting and hollering, startling the woodland birds into hurried flight and twittering cries.
Looking out from atop the clouds, one saw only tranquil green mountains, their verdant peaks rising tier upon tier like billows rolling across a vast sea, with a momentum that pierced the clouds and reached the firmament.
The way they vied for grandeur and beauty was quite a marvel!
This region was called Wing-Gazing Mountain and lay within the Jiao Kingdom, one of the Twenty-Four Great States of the Eastern Territory.
And the very reason Chen Heng had come here was the Mysterious Chamber Water within Wing-Gazing Mountain!
Before departing on the campaign against the Yuyang Kingdom, he had met Zhang Taichu in the Mysterious Pearl Blessed Land.
At the time, Zhang Taichu had given him an illustrated scroll.
The scroll recorded several places where Mysterious Chamber Water lay hidden.
This water was one of the Thirteen Great Medicines needed to form a Golden Core. Condensed from the essence of the earth's lungs, it brought forth truth from dense obscurity and spirit from empty qi, drawing divine consciousness into the palace of the six qi and guiding the hidden embryo up to the realm of Supreme Clarity.
For any cultivator who wished to form a core of the upper three ranks and forge a road to heaven,