What Was Inside the Cauldron

Zhang Xuezhou was once awestruck by the enormous Yuzhou Cauldron, believing it to be a testament to the wisdom and profound mystery of the ancient cultivators, inspiring awe in later generations.

But when he deciphered the Qingzhou Cauldron, he found it incredibly easy and effortless.

He chose a position as the starting point and then unleashed his Law Power clockwise. This method of manipulating the Qingzhou Cauldron caused the Venerable One to be pulled by a tremendous force, and the rate at which his Law Power was lost from his body nearly doubled.

This led him to choose the opposite direction when he took control a second time.

He marked the order in which he had previously injected Law Power into the Qingzhou Cauldron as one, two, three, four, and the second time he manipulated it, he used the method of four, three, two, one.

"They survived!"

A sudden feeling of relaxation washed over him. The Venerable One felt the pulling force of the Qingzhou Cauldron subside significantly, and the Law Power in his body's various acupoints was no longer activated.

He exhaled a breath of purple qi mist, feeling as if he had barely survived.

Without the extreme pulling force of the Azure Cauldron, he was now able to slowly move his massive body.

"Is this cauldron really that easy to control?" Zhang Xuezhou complained. "I can't even distinguish between Yin and Yang!"

"If this is the Yang Cauldron, your first method of control was Yin, while your second method of control was Yang," the Venerable One said.

"Is it really that simple to distinguish between Yin and Yang?" Zhang Xuezhou asked in surprise.

"You can't expect too much complexity from people thousands of years ago when they created Law Artifact. If the operation of such Law Artifact was so complex that no one knew how to use them, the Emperor Qin would have simply placed this cauldron out in the open!"

The Venerable One, with his dragon body unfurled, slowly swam down beneath the cauldron. The eyes in his dragon head were vertical pupils. The terracotta warrior, which had been relentlessly attacking him, trembled, and the phosphorescent light in its eyes flickered.

Damn it!

His Excellency cursed under his breath.

He rarely used the power of his vertical pupils; it was his most treasured skill.

But even after using his ultimate technique, he was unable to instantly annihilate the souls of the two leaping and jumping terracotta warriors.

During the several hours he was locked in the Qingzhou Cauldron, his physical strength was clearly greatly reduced.

"Give me back my cultivation!"

He roared, and his dragon body, covered in red scales, swiftly coiled around the immobilized terracotta warrior.

Amidst the resounding 'bangs' of the entanglement and crushing, the Venerable One roared repeatedly at the Qingzhou Cauldron with extreme resentment.

If the physical weakness is only temporary, everything can be recovered through rest. However, the Venerable One felt as if something had been stripped from his body by the Qingzhou Cauldron, and the missing abilities would not recover over time.

Even with continuous cultivation, this deficiency is difficult to make up for.

Before escaping the Qingzhou Cauldron, the Venerable One was only thinking about how to survive, but after gaining his physical freedom, he couldn't help but want to reclaim the power that belonged to him.

"Heaven, Earth, Yin, Yang, open!"

He let out a deep, muffled shout.

As it swam around the Qingzhou Cauldron, the Venerable One also channeled his four Law Power into the cauldron.

Compared to Zhang Xuezhou, who could only use one or two percent of his Law Power, the Venerable One's Law Power was many times greater.

Zhang Xuezhou only had time to urge the terracotta warriors to pull the bronze chariot back a few steps before he saw gray mist rise from the Qingzhou Cauldron, pouring down like an overflowing stream of water.

"Law Power, Qi and Blood, Demon Power —they're all mine!"

His Majesty roared, feeling as if everything that had been taken from him was flowing back.

He opened his mouth and frantically swallowed the churning gray mist, his body instantly growing larger.

Its body, which was over thirty feet long, stretched to forty feet long in a short time, and continued to expand.

No matter how fast the Venerable One swallowed it, the gray mist still fell to the ground amidst the spreading, then exploded and drifted in all directions.

A thin layer of gray mist approached, and Zhang Xuezhou felt a stinging sensation on his skin. His Demon Power, which had not yet fully recovered, surged up rapidly as if it had received some kind of elixir.

Zhang Xuezhou had just had a few thoughts in his mind, but as soon as he saw the Venerable One who seemed to be going crazy, he couldn't help but quickly urge the terracotta warriors to move backward.

"I'm going back to the core of the formation to reinforce the Acupoint-Fixing Technique!"

Zhang Xuezhou made up an excuse. He called out to the Venerable One, who was wandering around with a huge demon body, indicating that he would not interfere with the Venerable One's cultivation, nor would he ruin the Venerable One's opportunity to repair his body.

"This Venerable One... this Venerable One will not mistreat you... ah~"

Zhang Xuezhou was clearly very sensible. When the superior's satisfied voice came, he was only stunned for a moment before he fell into a panicked shout.

There's something else inside this cauldron!

The Venerable One shook his enormous dragon head.

The Azure Cauldron released the aura that had been drawn from his body, and the Venerable One's cultivation continued to recover, while his body continued to grow and expand, returning to its original state.

Everything seemed normal, but His Majesty felt that the rate of growth was too fast.

Based on his current rate of recovery, and considering the gray mist currently being poured out by the Qingzhou Cauldron, the Venerable One felt that his body would not only recover to its normal length of one hundred feet, but that this length would likely double.

This is clearly not a normal situation.

His cultivation level had reached a limit, and his body had also reached a physical limit, making it impossible for it to easily double in size.

Since his body length is difficult to extend and grow, it is impossible for his Ninth Realm cultivation to become two Ninth Realm superimposed.

He wandered around, trying to get further away, but he felt his body being pulled by the power of the Azure Cauldron, making it difficult to go far. It seemed that the gray mist did not need him to actively ingest it; it would still erode into his body.

This greatly alarmed the Venerable One, who felt that he might have accidentally touched something while learning Zhang Xuezhou's manipulation techniques.

As his gaze swept across the area, he saw a black flag embroidered with the character 'Qin' appear within the Qingzhou Cauldron, and only then did the Venerable One belatedly realize what was happening.

"These auras contain not only the earth's Spiritual Qi absorbed by the Qingzhou Cauldron to suppress this place, but also the methods used by Emperor Qin Huang, Ying Zheng. What exactly did the Great Qin banner within the cauldron attract here?"

The source of Spiritual Qi varies, hence the different names it has.

The earth's Spiritual Qi is also Spiritual Qi, and after being drawn into the mountains and rivers' veins, it flowed into the Qingzhou Cauldron.

This Spiritual Qi will not cause any harm; in fact, it will have a positive effect on the recovery of the Venerable One's cultivation.

The real problem stemmed from the Qin Dynasty banner nurtured within the Qingzhou Cauldron.

Drawn by the Venerable One's Law Power, the repeated pulling also pulled out the Great Qin banner. There were some things in the gray mist that the Venerable One did not understand, which also caused the strange phenomena during the recovery.

For powerful cultivators whose bodies can withstand the strain, this might be a godsend opportunity to increase their strength, but for Venerable Ones who struggle to break through their limits, it is a death trap.

If this contamination cannot be stopped, it will be difficult to shake off the continuous invasion of the gray mist. The Venerable One felt that his body might explode after reaching a certain limit.

The fact that the Venerable One was either devoured by the Qingzhou Cauldron or burst apart by it, with each reversal leading to death, filled him with dread.

"Yang, Yin, Earth, Heaven, close!"

With a flick of his dragon claw, he unleashed four streams of Law Power.

The gray mist that the Qingzhou Cauldron was spewing stopped abruptly, but the fear in the Venerable One's heart had not yet subsided. He saw that the Qingzhou Cauldron seemed to be choked, with muffled sounds coming from inside the cauldron, and the three huge cauldron legs trembling.

It was as if something was constantly piling up in the Qingzhou Cauldron and gathering, but the outlet was closed by the Venerable One.

Before he could even entertain the thought of escaping, the Qingzhou Cauldron surged forth once more.

In the blink of an eye, countless gray, white, and black, mist-like substances boiled and spewed out.

The Venerable One had just struggled when he felt a surge of mist rushing into his body, causing his massive demonic form to expand rapidly.