Hongjun's Test?

"Ah! That hurts... Wait, I'm not dead?"

High in the air, Gonggong was traveling along an arc when a stabbing pain in his head jolted him awake. He looked down at the vast sea beneath him and froze.

"I'm not dead! I'm still alive!"

Gonggong excitedly felt his body. For the first time in his life, he felt the sunlight on his skin, warm and so very comfortable.

"Wait, my cultivation... How did I break through?" Gonggong finally came to his senses amid the joy of having survived.

Sensing that his Ancestral Witch body was now as different from before as heaven was from earth, he looked somewhat dazed, unable to believe it.

Although he was supremely confident in the Pangu inheritance within his race and believed they would find a cultivation inheritance for breaking through the Daluo Golden Immortal realm sooner or later,

Hongjun's second lecture was only a thousand years away, and he would speak about the path to breaking through the Daluo realm and becoming a Quasi-Sage.

If they failed to find an inheritance that would let them break through to the Quasi-Sage level before then...

Even though he didn't much like using his brain, he could understand that if their two great enemies, Dijun and Eastern Emperor Taiyi, broke through to the Quasi-Sage realm, they would definitely come looking for trouble.

Even if the Witch Race had the foundations to fear neither of them, they would still be suppressed for quite some time.

It could even affect the Witch Race's development.

But now... he could feel that his strength was as different from before as heaven was from earth.

Gonggong had already begun plotting how to make trouble for those two three-legged crows.

As he indulged in these thoughts, Gonggong, who had forgotten to fly the whole time, traced a perfect arc and plunged into the sea.

"Right, how did I break through..."

The seawater jolted Gonggong to his senses. He began recalling what had happened to him, and then...

His face instantly went deathly pale.

"Was that senior not trying to torment me or kill me to silence me, but teaching me how to cultivate?"

At that thought, the color gradually began returning to Gonggong's pale face.

After all, if it meant breaking through to the Quasi-Sage realm, let alone suffering a tiny bit, even if there were a hundred million tiny bits more, he, Ancestral Witch Gonggong, would surely submit to it gladly.

Well... probably!

Gonggong didn't quite dare be certain.

"Come to think of it, that senior was very likely the fellow Daoist the Dao Ancestor spoke of."

"Someone who could become friends with a mighty figure like the Dao Ancestor, who spreads the Dao throughout the Primordial World, must also be a mighty figure who enjoys guiding his juniors."

"Even if I accidentally offended that mighty senior, how could he possibly be so petty as to want to torment me, or even kill me to silence me, over such a trivial matter?"

At that thought, Gonggong was suddenly overcome with shame. He had cursed and slandered that senior plenty in his heart.

He leaped out of the sea and stood in midair, turning toward Ao Changsheng's cultivation ground. His eyes couldn't help reddening.

What a wonderful senior!

He had clearly offended that senior.

Yet not only had the senior let bygones be bygones, he had even guided and tempered him. That guidance had surely saved him hundreds of millions of years of arduous cultivation.

And after his breakthrough, the senior had sent him away, clearly without the slightest intention of asking for anything in return.

Yet he had suspected that the senior meant to kill him to silence him while tempering him. Such a thought was utterly depraved, worse than a pig or a dog.

"No, the senior was magnanimous and asked for nothing in return, but the grace of imparting the Dao is greater than heaven. How could I, Gonggong, really be so ungrateful?"

Gonggong's eyes were full of resolve. He then turned and flew toward the Witch Race's base.

He, Gonggong, and the Witch Race still had considerable wealth to their name.

Meanwhile.

Beyond Heaven, amid the boundless Chaos, stood the Purple Firmament Palace.

Hongjun, whose eyes had been closed as he connected with the Heavenly Dao, emerged from that state and opened them. A cold look flashed through his eyes, followed once more by a flicker of emotion.

"In a mere hundred years, you guided Gonggong to a breakthrough to the Quasi-Sage realm, and on the path best suited to the Witch Race at that. Fellow Daoist Changsheng, did I underestimate you after all?"

A complicated look flashed through Hongjun's usually placid eyes.

The East Sea was immeasurably vast. Gonggong finding Ao Changsheng's cultivation ground in just a few thousand years was naturally no coincidence.

Hongjun had been secretly guiding Gonggong all along.

And because he feared Ao Changsheng might discover him, he had even used the Jade Disc of Creation to connect with the Heavenly Dao the entire time, guiding Gonggong there solely with the Heavenly Dao's power.

He had also observed from the Heavenly Dao's perspective, hoping to probe the depths of Ao Changsheng, a Hunyuan whose name was little known in the Primordial World.

After all, even after becoming a Dao-Merging Sage and connecting with the power of the Heavenly Dao, he had been unable to find out what was happening inside Ao Changsheng's cultivation ground.

But when he saw Gonggong emerge after spending no more than a hundred years inside the cultivation ground, already having broken through to the Quasi-Sage realm,

and not on the Dao of Hunyuan, but on a Quasi-Sage path perfectly suited to the Witch Race, whose members were born with mastery over a Principle of a Great Dao,

Hongjun was still shocked.

Even he could not have accomplished such a thing within a hundred years.

It made Hongjun wonder just how unfathomably far Ao Changsheng had cultivated.

"Fellow Daoist Changsheng, let this old Daoist see which of us can take the next step sooner!" A rare hint of competitiveness arose in Hongjun's heart.

Although he had harbored some designs and intended to test Ao Changsheng when he guided Gonggong there, Hongjun no longer had such thoughts.

After all, Hongjun had only wanted to test Ao Changsheng because his identity and methods were too mysterious.

Even the power of the Heavenly Dao could not observe the world within that cultivation ground.

But Hongjun had not expected Ao Changsheng to casually reveal his identity as a member of the Dragon Race a hundred years ago, as if it were child's play.

Although the particulars of Ao Changsheng's circumstances remained a mystery,

Hongjun had confirmed through the Heavenly Dao that Ao Changsheng belonged to the Dragon Race, and that put him considerably at ease.

At the very least, he could be certain that Ao Changsheng, a Hunyuan Daluo, was a living being of the Primordial World, rather than a Chaos Demon God who had revived within it, like Yangmei.

At the thought of Yangmei, Hongjun's mood couldn't help darkening.

Several thousand years ago, just after becoming a Sage, he had left the Primordial World and intercepted Great Immortal Yangmei in Chaos.

He had intended to make sure the Chaos Demon God, who had learned of the Primordial World, would never leave.

But he had not expected Yangmei to have attained the Dao of Hunyuan before him.

Yangmei had also retrieved the Dao Fruit he had possessed before his fall as the Chaos Demon God of Space from within Chaos.

In the battle that followed, Hongjun had been unable to stop him from leaving, even after bringing out all his supreme treasures.

Fortunately, Yangmei had only recently attained the Dao and had just retrieved his Dao Fruit, so his mastery of the Great Dao of Space had yet to return to the level he had possessed as a Chaos Demon God.

Hongjun's Jade Disc of Creation, meanwhile, had been fully restored. Although they were some distance from the Primordial World, he had managed to draw on the power of the Heavenly Dao.

He had forced Yangmei to swear a Great Dao Oath to stay away from the Primordial World and not divulge any information about it.

But a shadow still lingered over Hongjun's heart.

He was a native of the Primordial World and had never traveled through Chaos in his life. Although the Great Dao Oath was tremendously binding,

he did not know whether there was a way to circumvent or nullify a Great Dao Oath in Chaos.

After all, when it came to the Heavenly Dao Oaths of the Primordial World, ordinary immortals absolutely could not break them.

But for Heavenly Dao Sages, nullifying the Heavenly Dao Oaths of some Daluo was not difficult. If they were even willing to pay the price,

they could erase Heavenly Dao Oaths sworn by those at the Quasi-Sage level.

Whether there were means of erasing a Great Dao Oath in Chaos was what worried Hongjun.

"Chaos..."

Hongjun gazed silently through the doors of the Purple Firmament Palace at the churning Chaos in the distance. There was wariness in his eyes, as well as yearning and regret.

The Primordial World was a world the great god Pangu had exhausted his life to create. It was vast and boundless, but... Chaos was vaster still!

"Sadly, this old Daoist will probably never have a chance to enter Chaos in this lifetime!" Hongjun let out a deep sigh.

Then he swept his sleeve, sending a stream of Law Power flying toward the Dao bell outside the Purple Firmament Palace.