Mutianyuan.
Though named a plateau atop the ridges, it was by no means a flat, unbroken expanse.
Across it, mountains rose and fell, ravines crisscrossed the land, rivers and streams flowed lazily, and perpetual snow capped the heights year-round.
Such a complex and varied landscape provided diverse growing conditions for the spiritual herbs planted within.
Their previous plan had called for the three of them to cross Mutianyuan, but not by flying straight across.
According to Taisui, the Void Refining True Monarch had planted vast quantities of spiritual herbs across Mutianyuan. To prevent them from interfering with one another's growth, formations had been tailored to the specific needs of each herb.
Moreover, a flight restriction formation blanketed the sky above all of Mutianyuan.
Here, one could skim low across the terrain, but racing through the high sky was out of the question.
For Luo Chen, having already obtained the Five Elements Lotus Platform, the Land of the Fallen Demon had lost much of its appeal.
That included the legacy grounds! According to Taisui's account and Han Zhan's deductions, the legacy grounds were almost certainly prepared for Nascent Soul True Persons; as a mere Golden Core cultivator, even if he managed to enter, he was unlikely to gain much benefit.
Thus, his current plan was simple.
In accordance with his prior promise, he would help Taisui break free, wait for the Land of the Fallen Demon's Spirit-Ingesting Formation to close, and find a teleportation formation to depart directly.
Along the way, if they came across a clash between Nascent Souls, he did not mind lending a hand to help Han Zhan seize the physical body of a human Nascent Soul cultivator.
However, now that they had arrived at this so-called True Monarch's herb garden, Luo Chen, as an alchemist, naturally had no intention of leaving empty-handed.
Harvesting a few spiritual herbs along the way—what was not to like? Especially since Taisui had mentioned that several varieties of Demon Realm spiritual herbs suitable for body refinement grew here.
That was what truly tempted him.
Ever since his body refinement reached Desolate Ancient Tier 4, Luo Chen had vaguely sensed an invisible shackle.
It felt like a bottleneck, yet also like a lock.
In this manner, it restricted him from advancing further in body refinement.
Luo Chen had departed in haste, leaving no time to analyze where the shackle originated, though he had idly pondered it while stabilizing his cultivation at Penghu Lake.
Either it was the limit of a human body, which could only reach Desolate Ancient Tier 4,
or it was an issue with his technique, as his self-created *Convergence of Myriad Paths* might be difficult to sustain once it reached Tier 4.
Yet the second point was doubtful.
After all, Luo Chen's source true fire had been greatly enhanced during their venture into the Blazing Purgatory; if used to aid his body refinement, its effects would undoubtedly be even greater.
As for the third possibility, Luo Chen attributed the cause to the blazing cloud roc essence blood he had refined in his earlier years.
When all was said and done, his desolate-beast body refinement was rooted in fire roc essence blood and gradually derived from *Heavenly Roc Transformation* as its foundation.
Compared to a Tier 4 desolate beast, the potential of a mere Tier 2 blazing cloud roc had essentially been squeezed dry.
Unless Luo Chen could replace his source blood with something belonging to the same lineage that did not conflict with the blazing cloud roc.
Finally, if Luo Chen wished to advance beyond early Desolate Ancient Tier 4, there was the most conventional route: relying on external objects.
What kind of external objects? Top-tier body-refining spiritual medicines akin to Black Emperor Paste would suffice!
Therefore, upon hearing that Demon Realm spiritual herbs suitable for body refinement grew on Mutianyuan, his interest was thoroughly piqued.
*Whoosh...*
A gentle breeze swept by.
Three silhouettes landed upon a patch of deathly pale rock.
Gazing down at the enormous crater below, Taisui's expression turned very unsightly.
"These Northern Sea cultivators have no manners at all!"
Cave Master Moyun asked in bewilderment, "What's the matter?"
Luo Chen bent down, scooping up a handful of loose soil from the rock.
"It's Azure Pouch Soil."
Cave Master Moyun remained puzzled. "Azure Pouch Soil is loose and soft in texture; it coheres without holding a shape. Isn't it a rather inferior spiritual soil?"
Luo Chen stood up and shook his head slightly.
"To artifact refiners, those properties are flaws, rendering it useless for forging. But to spiritual farmers who cultivate spiritual plants, Azure Pouch Soil is exceptional earth—soft and easy to root in, cohesive without clumping, which makes fertilizing convenient. Furthermore, when blended with other specialized soils, it can produce a high-tier spiritual soil known as Azure Immortal Pouch Soil, which envelops rare spiritual herbs to help them thrive."
At this point, Luo Chen looked toward Taisui.
"If I am not mistaken, there used to be about three mu of Azure Immortal Pouch Soil here, specifically used to nurture some rare spiritual herb?"
Taisui nodded with a dark face.
"Indeed. This used to be the garden where the True Monarch specifically cultivated Dragon Saliva Grass. It would have been one thing for those foreign cultivators to harvest the Dragon Saliva Grass, but they went so far as to dig up the soil itself! Simply insane!"
Dragon Saliva Grass! That explained it.
That herb was a full Tier 4 and offered extraordinary cultivation benefits for reptilian beasts.
However, Dragon Saliva Grass was extremely demanding regarding soil quality; separated from this patch of Azure Immortal Pouch Soil, it would wither before long.
Had Luo Chen been in their place, unable to immediately refine the Dragon Saliva Grass into pills, he would almost certainly have dug three feet deep and carted off both soil and herb together.
Cave Master Moyun remarked in slight surprise, "Demonic Lord, I hadn't expected you to be so knowledgeable in the art of cultivating spiritual plants as well!"
Luo Chen smiled. "I simply happen to know a few spiritual farmer friends who excel in the craft. I've picked up a bit of common knowledge from them; it hardly counts as expertise."
He was not lying.
Be it the Yuan family—Granny Yuan and Yuan Dongsheng—whom he had met in his younger days, or Sang Jiugong, with whom he had developed ties in the Myriad Immortals Association later on, both were remarkable spiritual farmers.
Even Fu Jiusheng, the herb gatherer, was adept at identifying soil types and the growth habits of spiritual herbs.
Spending long periods around them had indeed taught Luo Chen quite a bit of relevant knowledge.
Taisui was fuming at that moment.
It felt just like a watchdog discovering that someone had stolen from the household—no, worse, someone had carted the entire house away!
He paced around the massive crater several times, muttering, "Even the cultivators of the Yuan Demon Sect understood sustainable development, harvesting the spiritual herbs at set intervals! How could they be like these barbarians, draining the pond to catch the fish and ripping everything up by the roots?!"
"Infuriating! Truly infuriating!"
From calling them ill-mannered at first to infuriating now, Taisui's rage was plain to see.
Luo Chen could actually understand the situation.
The Yuan Demon Sect had aimed to conquer the Land of the Fallen Demon, collecting opportunities while treating the ruins as a sect secret realm for regular exploration.
Perhaps they had even planned to remodel it into a trial ground specifically for training disciples!
That was a sustainable undertaking.
Yet after the Yuan Demon Sect's downfall, this new wave of arrivals—including Luo Chen—had no interest in sustainability; it was a one-off venture! Snatch and run, loot and leave! Who cared about the growth of the spiritual herbs or the ecological shifts here hundreds or thousands of years later?
However, a practical problem now lay before them.
"Fellow Daoist Taisui, the sites where those spiritual herbs grow that you mentioned—they haven't all been claimed ahead of us, have they?"
Taisui froze, his expression wavering between dark and uncertain.
After a long pause, he shook his head.
"They shouldn't have been."
"Herbs below Tier 4 were low-tier goods to the True Monarch. Though planted in great numbers, they were dispensable, kept merely for convenient harvesting."
"Herbs at Tier 4 and above, however, are rather rare. Across virtually all of their growing sites, the True Monarch specially laid down formations to prevent them from interfering with one another."
"Those formations isolate the inside from the outside, and unraveling them takes a tremendous amount of time."
"Most of the cultivators entering this place at the Nascent Soul level are after the legacy grounds. Even if they have their eyes on certain herbs, once they breach the formations, they take them and leave; they won't waste further time on other rare spiritual herbs."
"As for those below Nascent Soul..."
Here, he let out a cold laugh.
"For them to break those formations would take grueling effort, and they might even throw their lives away in the process."
"Let's go!"
"They only arrived a year or half a year ahead of us at most; they won't be that far ahead."
With that, Taisui picked a direction and shot forward, skimming low across the terrain.
Luo Chen and Moyun hurried to keep pace.
***
Within a mountain hollow.
Seven white-robed cultivators were rushing directly toward the spot.
The one in the lead wore broad robes with sweeping sleeves and a tall crown upon his head, bearing quite an ethereal, otherworldly air.
The moment he touched down, the otherworldly male cultivator unfurled a feather fan, sweeping away the mist within the hollow and instantly revealing the scene before the seven.
Peculiar herbs, resembling kites or divine birds with tails split down the middle, were swaying gently.
Seeing this, the otherworldly male cultivator smiled faintly.
"Sure enough, Martial Uncle Fei Leng did not deceive us. A vast patch of Divine Iris grows here."
A cultivator beside him stepped forward with delight, examined them closely, and gradually let the joy fade from his face.
"Senior Brother Yu Gao, only seven or eight of the Divine Irises in here have reached Tier 4. Isn't that a bit few?"
"Few?" Yu Gao pursed his lips into a smile and flicked his feather fan. "It is already quite plenty. Junior Brother Zhengyi, you didn't think the Yuan Demon Sect held this place without harvesting the high-tier Divine Irises, did you?"
Junior Brother Zhengyi came to a sudden realization.
"In an interval of a mere three hundred years, another seven or eight Tier 4 Divine Irises have grown here. One can see how ingenious the cultivation methods inside must be."
Changing his tone, Yu Gao tucked the feather fan behind his collar and slowly rolled up his sleeves.
Such a posture was rather unrefined,
but in light of his following words, it seemed entirely fitting.
"Besides, what we are here to do is relocate this entire patch of Divine Iris, including this hollow, into the Penglai Pavilion and take it back to enrich our sect's foundation. How many high-grade Divine Irises there are isn't the key; what matters is this spiritual land!"
"Junior brothers, prepare to inspect the surroundings, break the formation, and relocate the land!"
At his command, the remaining six sprang into action.
Excited murmurs surfaced among them.
Everyone knew that for Golden Core cultivators, Divine Iris was the premier auxiliary resource for conceiving a Nascent Soul.
As Qi Refiners, their physiques were relatively frail, and Divine Iris was a renowned body-solidifying spiritual herb that could help the physical form withstand the immense infusion of worldly spiritual qi during Nascent Soul formation.
If they could secure this batch of Divine Iris and even the entire spiritual land, who knew how many Nascent Soul True Persons their Penglai Immortal Sect would produce in the future!
Digging up someone else's spiritual land might be somewhat unscrupulous,
but compared to the rise and fall of their sect, that counted for nothing.
However, when they prepared to break the formation, they clearly ran into serious trouble.
Yu Gao stood where he was, his brow furrowing slightly.
Aside from the original formation here, there was another exceptionally lethal killing formation; the styles of the two formations were entirely distinct.
"Is this an additional killing formation laid down by the Yuan Demon Sect cultivators after they harvested the Divine Iris?"
With a sigh, Yu Gao produced a compass and began pacing around the hollow.
This was going to cost them more time.
His gaze fell upon his junior brothers, and he sighed again.
In the outside world, the righteous-demonic war raged fiercely, with the Penglai Immortal Sect joining forces with the Moluo Stream to confront the Canghai Alliance.
The sect's elites were largely deployed on the battlefield.
For this journey into the Land of the Fallen Demon, although he, the second senior brother of the current generation, was leading the expedition, the remaining six junior brothers were a notch lower in both realm and capability.
Consequently, their pace in breaking formations was inevitably slowed.
*Take it slow. At the very least, the Canghai Alliance cultivators are pinned down outside. Without competition from the most powerful faction in the Northern Sea, casualties won't be too severe.*
With that thought, Yu Gao forced himself to perk up.
In a righteous-demonic war, it was cultivators who fought, but the sect's foundation that was being contested.
What he was doing now was adding to the Penglai Immortal Sect's foundation! As long as they succeeded, the sect's foundation would swell vastly upon their return. By chipping away bit by bit, they would surely drive back the disjointed Canghai Alliance.
When that time came, their Penglai Immortal Sect could replace the Yuan Demon Sect as the sovereign of the Northern Sea!
As for the Moluo Stream? He had never factored them in from the start; that faction had been incapable of great achievements since its very inception!
***
"What is this place?"
Having cracked the outermost illusion formation, Luo Chen stood puzzled before a cave entrance.
Ahead, Taisui turned back. "If I remember correctly, a Demon-Fiend Concentric Tree is planted here. Seeing that the illusion formation outside was pristine, the Yuan Demon Sect cultivators must have missed this hidden spot as well."
"A Demon-Fiend Concentric Tree?" Luo Chen looked bewildered. "How have I never heard of such a spiritual herb?"
Taisui laughed heartily. "Of course you haven't, because this tree was a new breed personally cultivated by the True Monarch—the only one in the world!"
A new breed?
Luo Chen's eyes lit up. "What tier is it?"
"It was Tier 4 upon sprouting, and fully grown, it should be at Tier 5!"
Luo Chen paused, his expression shifting slightly.
"A Tier 5 spiritual tree should possess sentience, shouldn't it?"
Taisui waved his hand. "Not at all. This tree was not formed naturally by heaven and earth; the True Monarch fused the hearts of a Tier 5 ancient demon and a Tier 5 ancient fiend, crossbreeding them with a True Scale Tree to obtain it. Because it defies the natural order, attaining sentience is extraordinarily difficult. By the True Monarch's estimate, it could only gain sentience if it survived the Three-Nine Heavenly Tribulation and weathered the wrath of heaven and earth."
At this point, Taisui blinked.
"Demonic Lord Qingyang, you didn't think that every high-tier entity of wood and stone could achieve sentience, did you?"
Luo Chen's expression stiffened.
At least, according to the ancient texts he had read, that was how it worked.
The higher the tier, the closer it grew to a cultivator, and the more likely it was to birth sentience.
Taisui said leisurely, "It's different. The Mountain Sea Realm is different from other places. Spiritual energy is abundant in this realm, so sentient beings can be found everywhere. But for true spirits and deities, the deeper the foundation and the higher the tier, the harder it is to gain sentience. Such is the way of heavenly balance."
Luo Chen felt baffled by the explanation, unable to grasp its meaning.
Since this was hardly the time to press for answers, he redirected his attention to the spiritual tree within.
"Does this Demon-Fiend Concentric Tree truly aid in body refinement?"
"Presumably... it does." Taisui hesitated slightly.
Luo Chen's brow furrowed. "What do you mean, 'presumably'?"
Taisui shrugged. "Among the myriad major races, demons and fiends are naturally gifted with formidable physiques. A spiritual tree forged from their heart blood—would you say it aids body refinement or not?"
Fair enough! The logic seemed sound enough.
Luo Chen took a deep breath. "Then let us begin breaking the formation!"
Taisui grunted in acknowledgment and joined the formation-breaking efforts.
Throughout the process, he occasionally watched Luo Chen's methods.
At first, they seemed somewhat unpolished, inferior to Cave Master Moyun's.
Later on, however, as though growing accustomed to the True Monarch's style of laying formations, Luo Chen gradually surpassed Cave Master Moyun.
Such progress brought Taisui considerable delight.
As far as Tier 3 formation masters went, Luo Chen and Cave Master Moyun were already among the best; they should prove useful when it came time to help his true body break free later on.
This had been a test!
A month later.
Gazing at the zhang-tall young tree deep within the cavern and the hazy layer of cyan light enveloping it, Luo Chen and Cave Master Moyun exchanged glances, overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness.
"I have no idea where to even begin with this grand formation."
"Nor does this old man. I cannot find a single flaw!"
Both men spoke from the bottom of their hearts.
Luo Chen in particular: while his formation foundation was solid and his spiritual eyes could peer through formation flaws like a divine gift, his familiarity with high-tier formations was comparatively weak.
The cyan light formation before him was entirely beyond his comprehension.
To this, Taisui seemed to have anticipated their reaction.
"No matter. Leave the rest to me!"
He pursed his lips, and right before their eyes, sliced off a chunk of fat from his own body.
Refining it with magic power, he transformed it into a cloud of blood-light that fell upon the cyan formation.
Then,
something wondrous occurred.
The cyan light barrier slowly melted away, revealing an opening wide enough for a single person to pass through.
"This..." Cave Master Moyun's mouth fell open, his face filled with disbelief.
Such a marvelous grand formation had been breached so simply?
Taisui turned around, his face slightly pale, and explained softly, "When the True Monarch cultivated this tree back then, he drew upon my true body's immense vitality. As such, this formation does not guard against me."
One could guard against a thousand perils, but never a thief from within.
As he spoke, Taisui stepped through the gateway.
Luo Chen followed him inside.
Yet the instant he entered, his body abruptly stiffened as a silent roar erupted without warning inside his heart!
In a single breath, demonic and fiendish phantoms seemed to erupt violently within his sea of consciousness.
Taisui pulled back swiftly, blocking the doorway and barring Cave Master Moyun from entering.
He stared quietly at Luo Chen's back ahead, a sinister look surfacing upon his face.
"Demonic echoes, ceaseless for a millennium—none but a Nascent Soul can withstand them."
"I want to see just what kind of existence this 'third person' Old Ghost spoke of truly is."
"Show your true colors!"
Chapter 676