Anyone who had read the original knew that, in the world of Shrouding the Heavens, full of stubborn daredevils, Yan Ruyu was an odd flower herself.
While everyone else spent their days shouting about how great fighting felt, constantly talking about attaining the Dao as a Great Emperor and competing on the imperial path of an era, Yan Ruyu simply cultivated quietly on her own, a complete homebody.
Clearly, in terms of opportunities and background, she ranked among the very best, yet she ended up as part of the backdrop. Aside from appearing once or twice when necessary, she spent all her time cultivating in seclusion.
This stood in stark contrast to everyone else's style of campaigning along the imperial path every day and unleashing earth-shaking battles at the drop of a hat.
Her art style was seriously out of place.
This might have had something to do with her origins. After all, spirits that took human form from plants disliked fighting by nature and preferred to hole up somewhere alone to cultivate, quietly strengthening themselves.
Among the Great Emperors and ancient sovereigns who searched the world for immortals and sought to storm the immortal path, hadn't the Azure Emperor himself taken the peculiar route of creating an Immortal Domain of his own, attempting to build one in the mortal world?
As a descendant of the Azure Emperor, it was only natural for Yan Ruyu to have such a temperament.
In this respect, Chen Yu could be considered quite compatible with her.
After all, at his core, Chen Yu himself had a laid-back disposition.
In his previous life, Chen Yu had been a laid-back practitioner of lying flat. He had neither much competitive spirit nor any great desires, and all he wanted was to live his own little life well.
Had he not stumbled into tremendous luck, he would most likely still have been lying flat at home.
Now that he had reincarnated, his disposition had not changed much; at his core, he was still the same person he had been.
He only worked hard at cultivation to improve himself and live a little longer along the way. He merely wanted to become an immortal without any fuss so that he could lie flat more comfortably.
As for attaining the Dao and becoming an emperor?
Are you kidding? Is that something a normal person can play at?
Every prodigy in the universe would be competing with you, including Ye Fan, that insanely overpowered future Heavenly Emperor. Just hearing about the difficulty is terrifying, all right?
I just want to become an immortal the simple way. Why insist on competing for that thing?
Perhaps the people of this world would ask how anyone could become an immortal if they could not even attain the Dao, but Chen Yu clearly did not see it that way.
In his view, attaining the Dao was actually a negative factor when it came to the goal of becoming an immortal.
If you did not attain the Dao, you could still obediently seal yourself in divine source. You only had to wait until Heavenly Emperor Ye opened a way into the Immortal Domain, and then you could ascend along with him.
But if you attained the Dao, then, sorry, the route of sealing yourself away was completely blocked. The only path left was to live nine lives against the natural order.
As for how difficult living nine lives against the natural order was, reading the original alone made it clear: it was harder than attaining the Dao.
Chen Yu had never considered anything that difficult at all.
He considered his talent ordinary and his willpower unremarkable, and he was not the sort who reveled in battle, so all he wanted was to lie flat and become an immortal.
As for the method, that was simple too.
First, he would use the system's check-ins to collect the origins of physiques and bloodlines, then gather all the synthesis materials and produce a top-tier physique such as an innate sacred body Dao embryo or a chaos body.
With a Heavenly Emperor-level physique like a chaos body or an innate sacred body Dao embryo, one only had to cultivate diligently to attain the Dao and become an emperor. Even if one's talent and comprehension were truly lousy, the physique could provide a safety net and let one coast into becoming a Great Emperor. With a little effort, scraping into the bottom ranks of Heavenly Emperor-level combat strength should be no problem.
Once he had that combat strength, wouldn't it be easy to seal himself away, follow Heavenly Emperor Ye into the Immortal Domain in the future, and become a True Immortal?
Even if that did not work, wasn't there still the Longevity Medicine?
After entering the Immortal Domain, the Immortal Divine Medicine would most likely transform into true immortal medicine. There was also Longevity Immortal Medicine within the Immortal Domain itself. When the time came, he only had to swallow one to become an immortal.
Even the weakest True Immortal was still an immortal with an endless lifespan, many times stronger than the emperors and sovereigns of the mortal domain.
What? An invincible heart, you say?
I'm just a salted fish. What would I need that thing for?
Besides, in Chen Yu's view, that thing was not really all that useful.
The ancient sovereigns and Great Emperors throughout history had all possessed invincible hearts, yet he had not seen them become immortals. Some had severed their own cultivation, while others had passed away in meditation. In the end, their outcomes had not even been as good as those of the friends and family who had lain flat and followed Ye Fan.
Even the Four Extremes Great Emperor-the fellow said to be unable to beat the blond punk when he was the older brother-in-law, and unable to beat the older brother-in-law when he was the blond punk-had coasted into becoming a Great Emperor after joining his younger sister's husband. In the end, even the chickens and dogs rose to heaven, and they all ascended to the Immortal Domain together.
His aptitude certainly could not be called bottom-tier in that golden age, but it surely had nothing to do with the very best either. Yet his outcome had been better than most people's.
This showed that an invincible heart was like the "tall" in "tall, rich, and handsome." On its own, it was not much use; only when paired with other things could it show its effect.
If your aptitude, comprehension, and talent fell short of others', then no matter how lofty your ambitions, an invincible heart was useless.
Conversely, if you were a reincarnated Immortal King, born with an innate sacred body Dao embryo, with two supreme beings for parents, and no one in the world could last a single move against you, then even if you lacked an invincible heart, you could beat one into existence.
Trying to compete with such monsters at the same cultivation realm? In Chen Yu's view, that was simply asking for suffering.
Having read the trilogy thoroughly, he saw the so-called Great Emperors and so-called immortals as nothing more than stages along the path of cultivation. There was nothing particularly special about them in themselves.
The drive to advance represented by an invincible heart was certainly worth having, but there was no need to become too fixated on it.
Letting nature take its course and moving with the current suited Chen Yu's true heart better.
Under these circumstances, his style naturally did not match that of the prodigies of this world.
In a sense, he was rather similar to Yan Ruyu before him.
At this thought, he raised his head to glance at Yan Ruyu before him, and a hint of appreciation for a kindred spirit actually appeared in his eyes.
"I get the feeling you're thinking about something not very nice."
Yan Ruyu's voice sounded in front of him.
"No, absolutely not."
Chen Yu smiled. "Let's talk about Qing Emperor's Tomb instead."
Sure enough, the moment he mentioned Qing Emperor's Tomb, Yan Ruyu's attention was immediately drawn to it.
"Have you already found a lead, Dao brother?" she asked, looking at Chen Yu before her.
"I have a rough idea now."
Chen Yu said, "The Yan Kingdom isn't very large, and there aren't many places within it that could be connected to the Demon Emperor. I've been gathering information lately, and based on my deductions, there's only one place that's most likely."
"Where?"
"Spirit Ruins Paradise."
Chen Yu said, "There are ruins left behind by the Ancient Demon Court there, abandoned for a long time now. If the Demon Emperor's Tomb really is within the Yan Kingdom, then it's very likely to be there."
In fact, once it was confirmed that Qing Emperor's Tomb was within the Yan Kingdom, Spirit Ruins Paradise was not a difficult answer to arrive at.
After all, the Yan Kingdom had never been very large. Factoring in information such as when the Azure Emperor might have arranged his tomb, arriving at this conclusion was hardly surprising.
Yan Ruyu considered it for a moment and soon agreed with this conclusion.