After cultivating the divine abilities for body protection and divine power eruption, Zhou Qing began cultivating the Eighteen Fiendgods of Taowu.
He first took out some immortal pills, swallowed and refined them, then began condensing the divine runes recorded in the Eighteen Fiendgods of Taowu.
Soon, as the divine runes took shape, he felt his divine soul begin to tremble incessantly.
After absorbing a large amount of the immortal pills' energy, Zhou Qing's consciousness first grew hazy. Then, seventeen rays of golden light suddenly flew out of his divine body.
As soon as the rays of golden light landed, they turned into seventeen clones identical to Zhou Qing.
However, these clones had weak presences, and their divine bodies were only a tenth as strong as his had been before.
Seeing this, Zhou Qing shook his head.
Without Chaos Spirit Liquid, the Eighteen Fiendgods of Taowu was nothing but a chicken rib.
Although he gained seventeen more clones, his strength had fallen drastically. Unless he intended to play the turtle like Shaoyan Chou, it was not worth cultivating at all.
He then opened a bottle of Chaos Spirit Liquid.
Droplets of liquid flew out of the black jade bottle and fell one by one onto Zhou Qing's eighteen clones.
In an instant, Zhou Qing felt a burst of coolness. Then he discovered that the divine power, magic power, and even the souls of each clone were rapidly recovering.
Sensing the power within the Chaos Spirit Liquid, brimming with vitality, creation, and miracles, Zhou Qing could not help but marvel.
It was indeed a treasure that only World Realm experts could obtain.
The Chaos Spirit Liquid in the jade bottle was steadily consumed. Before long, when only twenty-some drops remained, the presences of Zhou Qing's eighteen clones returned to their peak.
Seeing this, Zhou Qing nodded inwardly.
Having more than a dozen additional clones meant more to him than simply being better able to protect his life.
Because the divine bodies and souls of his seventeen clones were comparable to those of his true body, he could have his clones help him comprehend the Dao and cultivate.
Although this would not increase his cultivation efficiency seventeenfold, it would certainly improve it greatly compared to before.
It's time to head to the World Prison.
After putting away the remaining Chaos Spirit Liquid, Zhou Qing headed for the light at the edge of Chaos Space.
He passed through the light, and in the space of a daze, the scenery before his eyes was completely transformed.
Mountains and rivers, deserts and wastelands, polar glaciers... in short, the World Prison had all the scenery a complete world should have.
The only difference from the outside world was that the natural elemental Qi here was extremely thin. Let alone supporting immortal cultivators, life could not even come into being in this world.
Zhou Qing naturally knew full well what had caused this.
Although it was called the World Prison, its most important function was not actually to hold prisoners, but to produce Chaos Spirit Liquid.
The entire World Prison was covered by a great formation set up by the ruler of the Nine Directions Chaos Kingdom, specifically to extract the power of chaos and produce Chaos Spirit Liquid.
That was how the eighteen bottles of Chaos Spirit Liquid in his possession had been produced.
And because the formation drew in the power of chaos so effectively, even the power of chaos that this world itself would have converted into natural elemental Qi was taken to condense Chaos Spirit Liquid, leaving the natural elemental Qi in this world especially thin.
For the prisoners in the World Prison, this was naturally an extremely unfavorable situation.
With the exception of a very few experts who had gained some comprehension of the Chaos Heavenly Dao, most prisoners in the World Prison could not draw power from chaos.
The thin natural elemental Qi meant they could only rely on various pills to stay alive.
As a result, once their pills for restoring magic power ran out, most prisoners in the World Prison could only wait for death in despair, just like Zhou Qing's original body once had.
For Zhou Qing, however, who intended to plunder the prisoners of the World Prison, this was wonderful news.
Being unable to replenish their power from natural elemental Qi meant that every bit of divine power and magic power most prisoners used was gone for good.
That meant that as long as Zhou Qing was willing to wear them down, even the True Gods and first-tier True Immortals far stronger than him could only obediently bow their heads to him.
At this thought, Zhou Qing was full of drive and immediately sent his seventeen clones into action.
Knowing that there were several unfathomably powerful Ancestor Gods and Ancestor Immortals in the World Prison, Zhou Qing did not use Heartforce to probe freely as Ji Ning had in the original story, but dutifully searched with his own eyes instead.
However, because Zhou Qing had so many clones, his search was highly efficient, and he soon found his first unlucky target.
He was a first-tier Celestial Immortal dressed in a black robe, sitting cross-legged beside a small hill.
When he saw Zhou Qing arrive, he asked excitedly, "Are you the warden?"
"I'm the new warden." Zhou Qing lied without his face reddening or his heart skipping a beat.
"Are you here to let me out?" There was a hint of hope in the black-robed man's voice.
"I don't have the authority to let you out." Zhou Qing shook his head at his words.
"Do you think an Empyrean God like me would have the World Prison's command talisman?"
To leave the World Prison, an Ancestor God or Ancestor Immortal had to come bearing the command talisman of the ruler of the Nine Directions Chaos Kingdom.
After hearing this, the black-robed man's head immediately drooped in dejection.
"All right, enough talk. Bring out your treasures."
Having shown goodwill, Zhou Qing began to bare his fangs as well.
"I can give you my treasures, but you have to find out why my grandfather, Ancestor God Tianxing, still hasn't come to release me."
Hearing Zhou Qing's words, the black-robed man made a request.
Ancestor God Tianxing...
That name sounds familiar.
Zhou Qing fell into thought.
The next second, he suddenly realized.
Wasn't he my master Ancestor God Fantian's deputy back then?!
Zhou Qing immediately looked at the black-robed man with a hint of pity.
He remembered clearly that, before Ancestor God Fantian fell, Ancestor God Tianxing had already been killed by an expert from the Cold Mountain Chaos Kingdom.
It seemed the black-robed man had been imprisoned in the World Prison even earlier than he had, and did not even know the news.
"Fine."
Zhou Qing did not tell the black-robed man that his grandfather had fallen, but readily agreed instead.
This could also be considered looking after the family of his master's subordinate.
Without knowing the news, he could hold on for a few more years, and once Zhou Qing reached the World Realm, he would be free.
If the black-robed man learned the news now, given his Dao-heart, he might collapse and kill himself on the spot.
After all, having been imprisoned in the World Prison for several chaos cycles, his Ancestor God grandfather was probably his greatest reason for holding on.
After taking them, Zhou Qing began to count them.
There was no need to dwell on the supreme-grade pure yang magic treasures; there were more than two thousand of them.
This was quite normal. After all, the Nine Directions Chaos Kingdom had Chaos Immortals, and its Ki Refining Path methods, such as pill refining, treasure crafting, and formations, far surpassed those of the Three Realms.
The Nine Directions Chaos Kingdom had even achieved mass production of magic treasures below the pure yang level.
Thus, Celestial Immortals of the Nine Directions Chaos Kingdom would casually start out with dozens or even hundreds of pure yang magic treasures.
And the Celestial Immortals imprisoned in the World Prison were all either wealthy or noble, so it was perfectly normal for them to have a few thousand supreme-grade pure yang magic treasures.
What was rare, however, was that the black-robed man actually had an upper-grade Xiantian Spirit-Treasure.
This was beyond Zhou Qing's expectations, because the Nine Directions Chaos Kingdom had a strict hierarchy, and basically only True Gods and first-tier True Immortals used Xiantian Spirit-Treasures.
For a first-tier Celestial Immortal to possess a Xiantian Spirit-Treasure, if he had not obtained it through a fortunate encounter, it could only mean that his grandfather, Ancestor God Tianxing, doted on him greatly.