Nine Rings Return to the Origin · Immortal Physique First Formed

The day after Gu Yuena's letter was delivered, Nan Feng realized that he could no longer leave.

That morning, he walked out of the Tower Spirit Space. Shifang had already set up the grill for grilling fish at the door. Bibi Dong stood next to the Ancient Tree of Life, waving a bamboo skewer at him.

It means to go early and return early.

As Nan Feng took his first step out of the Tower Spirit Space, the moment his soles touched the stone pavement of Heaven Dou City, the nine Golden Soul Ring in his dantian trembled simultaneously.

A muffled thud came from his stomach, like he'd been kicked from the inside. His knees buckled, and he almost collapsed onto the temple threshold.

"Brother Nan?"

Shifang turned his head and saw that his face was as white as paper. He threw the fish grill on the ground and ran over to help him up.

What's wrong with you?

Nan Feng gripped the doorframe for three breaths, then focused his senses on sinking into his dantian.

The nine Soul Ring were arranged in a circle in the sea of Immortal Power. Normally they would rotate independently, but now they were colliding with each other. Golden light fragments fell from the surface of the rings, one layer falling and another growing back, the new ones being thicker than the ones that fell.

He stared at it for a while, and a sentence that Old Huai had once said popped into his mind.

"Old Huai."

"Come out and take a look. Are my nine rings going to break?"

The Old Huai emerged from the immortal wood, squinting as it scanned Nan Feng's dantian. Its bark-like face first wrinkled up, then relaxed, and finally grinned.

"What happened? Good news. All nine of your Soul Ring have accumulated enough cultivation over a million years, and now you're going to Nine Rings as One."

Nan Feng was taken aback for a moment.

"Now?"

"Now, it's just a matter of the next day or two, don't go anywhere."

The Old Huai slid down from the sacred tree, put its hands behind its back, and walked around him twice.

"After the Nine Rings as One, your physique will evolve from the Douluo Plane physique to the Primordial World Immortal Dao Physique. At that time, you won't be able to withstand anything, not even a God King God King, just based on your physique."

"But at this critical juncture, you must go into seclusion and not wander around. If you are interrupted during the fusion process, at best your Soul Ring will shatter and your cultivation will regress, at worst your dantian will explode, and you'll have to go back to the Blacksmith Village to be reborn."

Shifang was listening nearby, turned green with rage.

What about Dragon God Lake?

"Let Gu Yuena wait."

Nan Feng took a deep breath and tried to suppress the chaotic power of the Soul Ring surging in his dantian, managing to hold it down.

"Shifang, go to Dragon God Lake and tell them I have an urgent matter to attend to, and I'll be there within three to five days."

"If she asks anything, just say 'Nine Rings as One '."

Shifang nodded, carried the grill rack outside, but turned back after a couple of steps.

"Leave the fish grill rack here? In Bibi Dong gets hungry while you're in seclusion—"

"Roll."

Shifang chuckled and ran off.

Bibi Dong peeked half her head out from behind the Ancient Tree of Life. She had just heard everything, her face expressionless, but the grip on the bamboo skewer in her hand was tighter than usual.

"A few days?"

"Three days inside the tower is roughly equivalent to seven hours outside."

Nan Feng had already walked cross-legged towards the Space-Time Bubble. Before going in, she glanced back at her.

"Keep an eye on the tree, don't let the Old Huai be lazy and neglect watering it."

I didn't slack off!

Old Huai cursed behind his back and shrank back into the fairy tree.

The Space-Time Bubble closed, and the Tower Spirit Space fell silent.

Nan Feng sat cross-legged in the center of the bubble. The Nine Heavens Treasure Pearl spun above his head, and drops of the Three Lights Divine Water dripped from the pearl, flowing into his dantian through the Immortal Power channel.

He took a deep breath and arranged the nine chaotic Golden Soul Ring in his dantian in order.

The first ring Bloodthirsty Demon Wolf, the second ring Ghost-Faced Spider King, the third ring Earth Fierce Bear King, and the fourth ring Shadow Leopard Emperor.

The fifth ring Frost Giant Dragon, the Sixth Soul Ring Golden-Eyed Peng King, the seventh ring is the Nine Netherworlds Dark Python, the eighth ring is the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, and the ninth ring is the Deep Sea Demonic Whale King.

The nine rings were filled with the golden light of Primordial Origin. Each one was so full it was almost overflowing, and when they collided with each other, they vibrated with a buzzing sound.

"Old Huai, how do we combine them?"

"Pour in your Immortal Power and let them squeeze it out themselves."

Old Huai's voice came from the direction of Xianmu.

"The nine rings originally belonged to you; they recognize each other. Use your Immortal Power as a catalyst to push them towards the center, the tighter the better. When pushed to the limit, they will melt together on their own."

Nan Feng channeled his Immortal Power from his dantian, transforming it into nine streams. Each stream wrapped around a ring and pushed it toward the very center of his dantian.

With the first push, all nine rings rebounded simultaneously, shaking his internal organs and filling his mouth with a metallic taste.

He swallowed it back and continued pushing.

The second push was a bit harder. The nine rings squeezed half an inch towards the center, and golden arcs of electricity flashed from the gaps between the rings, causing his meridians to twitch.

The third time, he directly poured the suppressing power of the Mountain Suppression Art into it. The nine rings suddenly contracted towards the center, and the ring surfaces began to deform, the originally round rings being squeezed into ovals.

The golden light fragments were squeezed and fell downwards. Before they hit the ground, they were absorbed by the golden light generated by the compression in the center.

"Scream if it hurts," Old Huai said from outside.

"It doesn't hurt."

"Stubborn to the end," Bibi Dong added from outside.

Nan Feng didn't have time for her.

The nine Soul Ring were squeezed flatter and flatter. The temperature in his dantian rose higher and higher, and he felt as if there was an erupting volcano inside his stomach.

By the fourth day (into the tower), the nine rings had squeezed together into a blurry golden ball of light.

Its shape was no longer discernible; it was just a ball of intense light churning within the dantian.

His meridians swelled from the force, and a dense layer of golden lines appeared on his skin.

It follows the same pattern as the patterns that appeared when the tower evolved.

On the fifth day, the orb of light began to shrink.

First, the outer edge shrinks towards the center, concentric circles contracting inwards. With each concentric circle, a layer of golden light is squeezed out and seeps into his flesh and bones.

The bones were bathed in golden light, making a series of cracking sounds. The meridians were widened by a finger. The old, hidden wounds and scars that had accumulated in the flesh over the years were all smoothed out after being swept over by the golden light.

Nan Feng gritted her teeth and didn't utter a sound; her teeth ached from clenching them.

On the sixth day, the ball of light shrank to the size of a fist, stopped rolling around, and hovered steadily in the center of the dantian, with a layer of bluish-gold luster on its surface.

Nan Feng sensed it. The ages of all nine Soul Ring were stacked together.

Nine hundred and twenty years plus two thousand one, plus twelve thousand, plus thirty-two thousand, plus fifty-eight thousand, plus eighty-seven thousand, plus one hundred and twenty thousand, plus two hundred and sixty thousand, plus one million.

He calculated it, and it was approximately 1.57 million years.

"Did it work?" he asked.

"Just one last step."

Old Huai's voice sounded a little tense.

"The ball of light is about to shatter. After it shatters, its essence will flow into your entire body, reshaping your physique. This step will be the most painful, so please bear with it."

How painful is it?

"It hurt ten times more than when the Earth Fierce Bear King broke five of your ribs in Sunset Forest."

Nan Feng took a deep breath.

"Bring it on."

Before he finished speaking, the ball of light in his dantian exploded.

Golden light burst forth from his dantian, flowing through his meridians and into his entire body. Wherever it passed, his bones and flesh were melted and reassembled, his meridians were torn and reconnected, and his blood was burned and regenerated.

Nan Feng arched his back and let out a muffled groan through his teeth.

His entire body shone with a layer of cyan-gold light from the inside out, his hair stood on end, and the hairbands on his left wrist were shaken up by the shockwave of Immortal Power.

It hurts. It fucking hurts. Much more than that time with the bear.

His vision blurred, and in his hazy state, he heard Old Huai shouting to hold on, and heard Bibi Dong tapping the bubble wall with a bamboo stick outside the Space-Time Bubble.

They also heard Shifang run back from Dragon God Lake, shouting at the door that the letter had been delivered and that Gu Yuena was waiting for him.

On the morning of the seventh day, the golden light dissipated.

Nan Feng lay in the Space-Time Bubble, completely soaked, his clothes drenched in sweat.

He propped himself up and looked down at his hands. There were bluish-gold patterns on the back of his hands, barely noticeable unless you looked closely, but they would light up when he clenched his fist.

He sensed his dantian again. The nine Soul Ring were gone, leaving only a ball of cyan-gold primordial power rotating in the center of his dantian, its weight thicker than the previous nine rings combined.

It's done.

The Old Huai emerged from the sacred wood, circled him three times, and grinned.

"Nine Rings as One, your essence strengthened, your physique evolved into the Primordial World Immortal Dao Physique. From this moment on, the rules of the Douluo Plane will no longer apply to you."

Nan Feng emerged from the Space-Time Bubble. Bibi Dong was waiting at the door with a bowl of spiritual spring water in her hand. When she saw him come out, she shoved the bowl into his hands and stared at him for a couple of moments.

Your hair isn't gray.

"It was already half-white, so you couldn't tell."

Nan Feng took two sips of water, then squatted down next to the Ancient Tree of Life.

The ancient tree had grown taller, and a sixth leaf had sprouted, its bluish-gold veins shimmering under the fairy lamp.

He reached out and touched the tree trunk, sensing that the tree roots had penetrated deeper into the earth's veins within the Tower Spirit Space.

"Brother Nan! What about Gu Yuena's side—"

Shifang peeked his head in from the doorway.

"Okay. I'll go tomorrow."

Nan Feng stood up and stretched his shoulders. His joints cracked for a moment, completely different from before; they felt light yet heavy, quite strange.

"Put the grill on first, I'll eat something before I leave."

Bibi Dong squatted back down next to the tree and continued loosening the soil. After loosening it a couple of times, she suddenly asked...

"After the Nine Rings as One, will you still be able to use your old Soul Skill?"

Nan Feng tried them all: Tower Suppression - Mountain Suppression, Tower Suppression - Spirit Binding, Tower Realm - Creation, Tower Shadow - Return to Origin. He tried them one by one, and they were all still there.

When used, it consumed less Soul Power than before.

When he unleashed his ninth Soul Skill, "Immortal Town - Investiture of the Gods," a flash of golden light appeared in the Tower Spirit Space, startling even himself.

"They're all there."

He withdrew his Soul Skill and nodded to Bibi Dong.

"And it's more powerful than before."

Bibi Dong lowered her head and continued loosening the soil, a slight smile curving her lips.

Old Huai watched this scene from the side, stroked his beard, and winked at Shifang.

Shifang Fang chuckled as he added firewood to the fire, and the oil from the roasting fish dripped onto the charcoal, sending up a plume of white smoke.

The next morning, Nan Feng left Heaven Dou City and headed towards Dragon God Lake in the direction of Star Dou Great Forest.

After the Nine Rings as One, his speed increased significantly. He used the Shrinking the Ground to an Inch to cover a hundred steps in one step, and in less than half an hour, he saw the silver light of Dragon God Lake shimmering among the treetops.

Gu Yuena stood in her usual spot by the lake, her silver hair fluttering in the lake breeze. Seeing him approach, she looked him up and down, her silver eyes narrowing.

"The Nine Rings as One?"

"You actually recognize him."

"I can't recognize you, but those lapis lazuli patterns on your body are too eye-catching."

Gu Yuena turned and walked towards a blue stone by the lake.

"Come take a look at this. It's a soul-guided image left by the Abyss Sect at their stronghold Dragon God Lake. I found it the day before yesterday."

Nan Feng followed. On the bluestone was a palm-sized soul guide stone. After Gu Yuena infused it with Soul Power, an image appeared on the stone's surface.

The image shows a person in a gray robe standing in a stone chamber, speaking with their back to the recording stone. The voice has been processed, making it impossible to tell if it is male or female, but the content is very clear.

"Ning Yuan has been exposed. The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect School's connection has been severed. Nan Feng has the activation method, but he doesn't know the complete ritual."

"Next, we'll remove the seals from the three fissures in the northern part of the Star Dou Great Forest, and use his Immortal Power to plug them up. We'll open one fissure at a time."

The video has finished playing.

Gu Yuena put away the Soul Guidance Stone and looked at Nan Feng.

"They'll use the time it takes for you to seal the cracks to create new cracks elsewhere."

Nan Feng stared at the empty bluestone for a few moments, then chuckled.

"Then let them drive."

Gu Yuena raised a silver eyebrow.

"What's the meaning?"

"After I Nine Rings as One, my Immortal Power nearly doubled, making it much faster to seal the cracks than before."

Nan Feng picked up the soul-guiding stone from the bluestone and weighed it in his hand.

"They thought it would take me three days to block one crack, but actually it only takes me half a day to block one. They open one crack, I block one, and once they've opened all the cracks, I can trace back along the Soul Power fluctuations from when they opened them."

"Who opened it, where it came from, we can find out immediately."

Gu Yuena looked at him, a hint of a smile appearing in her silver eyes.

"You're quite the shrewd one."

"You can't be an expert without being a connoisseur."

Nan Feng put the Soul Guide Stone into his pocket and glanced towards the Dragon God Lake.

"Let's go check out those three cracks they mentioned, Shifang."

A response came from the Shifang in the distance.

"Brother Nan! The fish's grilling, you go ahead and come back when it's ready to eat!"