Hearing this, Yuan Qi instantly felt a pressing sense of crisis. If not for Xu Ying's guidance, he certainly would never have become a demon king. Yet these two bulls had achieved demon kingship purely through their own wits and talent, and had thus been enfeoffed as demon gods by the Nether Court.
Didn't that mean they were much smarter than him?
If so, wouldn't Lord Niu Qi's standing be in jeopardy?
"We all share the surname Niu, so they ought to give me some face—face, my ass! The moment they see me, they'll give me a thrashing with a whip, as if I'm the ox tilling the fields," Yuan Qi thought to himself, feeling the crisis grow even more dire.
Xu Ying taught Niu Zhen and Niu Gan how to cultivate divine sense and how to open the Realm of Xiyi.
These two bull demons had originally been bull demon kings who, through a stroke of fortune, obtained an inheritance from ancient Qi Refiners. Although it only contained techniques for the Qi Harvesting stage, the fact that they had achieved demon kingship in such a short time meant their innate aptitude and comprehension were already extraordinary.
Xu Ying was also skilled at teaching; any technique in his hands could be explained simply and clearly from profound principles. Consequently, the two bull demons quickly grasped the techniques of cultivating divine sense, faint glows of divine light flickering intermittently in their eyes.
At this rate of cultivation, it would take merely a few days for them to open the Realm of Xiyi and regulate their five qi.
Once Xu Ying finished instructing them, Yuan Qi also slithered forward, asking Xu Ying how to cultivate swordsmanship.
Xu Ying explained it at length, but seeing that he still hadn't grasped it, he strapped Yuan Tiangang's sword casket onto Yuan Qi's body and said, "First, sense the sword concealed within the casket. Once you can perceive the sword qi inside and resonate with it, you will be able to wield that sword qi. The sword qi will teach you sword stances, and in time, you will be able to command the sword."
Yuan Qi shrank down until his size was just right to carry the sword casket, then closed his eyes, focused his spirit, and concentrated on sensing the sword qi.
It was rare for him to become so earnest and devoted to contemplation, so Xu Ying was naturally glad to humor him. Telling the bronze bell not to disturb him, Xu Ying asked, "Lord Bell, what did you discover in Qinyan Cave?"
The bronze bell replied, "Nothing at all. The foolish snake thought that since that subterranean behemoth dwelt in the deep waters, the ascension site had to be there. So he dragged me along to dig open the collapsed Qinyan Cave and dive all the way down. But once we reached the bottom, there was no ascension site whatsoever."
Back then, Xu Ying, Yuan Qi, and the bell had followed the vitality within Qinyan Cave down to the water's depths, accidentally disturbing the subterranean behemoth and getting chased by it. Because that creature was concealed deep underwater, Yuan Qi had guessed that the bottom of the water was the ascension site.
Xu Ying pondered and said, "The only true ascension site we have seen so far is the Palace of Heavenly Gods at Guizailing. It only appears and can only be entered at a specific time. If Mount Wuwang truly has an ascension site, entering it must also require a specific time."
The bronze bell said, "Mount Wuwang is so vast. For one, you don't know when it will open, and you also don't know where the ascension site is. How are you going to search for it? I think the ascension site mentioned by the female ghost in the coffin definitely wasn't referring to Qinyan Cave, but to Mount Jiuyi."
Xu Ying's eyes gleamed, and he chuckled. "We may not know where the ascension site is, but someone from three thousand years ago will. Don't we have a three-thousand-year-old female ghost in the mirror right here?"
The bronze bell suddenly realized and laughed. "Mount Wuwang had originally been Mount Wuwang written with the character Wu as in the State of Wu; only when the Netherworld's invasion lifted the seal did it become Mount Wuwang of 'No Falsehood,' and this ruin finally came to light. Since this female ghost has been trapped in the mirror for three thousand years, she must know many things about this place. If there is an ascension site here, she must have heard of it!"
Xu Ying entered the room, took down the bronze mirror from the dressing table, and said, "Lady in the mirror, we aren't bad people. We just want to ask you something."
In the bronze mirror, the female ghost caught sight of the bronze bell and panicked, hastily hiding beneath a window inside the mirror, not daring to show her face. Xu Ying frowned slightly and asked the bronze bell, "What did you two do to her?"
The bronze bell mumbled awkwardly, "I didn't do anything. Yuan Qi just looked into the mirror, and seeing a monster frightened her out of her wits. I thought Yuan Qi was in the wrong, so I went into the mirror to comfort her, but who knew she would misunderstand?"
It added dejectedly, "She thought I was a bell monster."
Having understood the cause and effect, Xu Ying tried to adopt as gentle a tone as possible and said, "Miss, we are not wicked people. We only want to ask whether there is an ascension site within Mount Wuwang. If you speak honestly, we will help break your seal. But if you refuse, don't blame the Bell Demon for being ruthless!"
The bronze bell grunted sourly.
The female ghost in the mirror remained terrified, not daring to crawl out from beneath the bed. Xu Ying said, "Lord Bell—"
The female ghost hastily scrambled out from under the bed and waved her hands at them, indicating that she didn't know what an ascension site was.
Xu Ying explained what an ascension site was. Suddenly, the female ghost's eyes lit up. She drew upon the mirror's surface, sketching out a map of Mount Wuwang's geography, and pointed to a particular spot.
Xu Ying shook his head. "Mount Wuwang has already collapsed. The geography has changed drastically."
The female ghost paced back and forth within the mirror. After pondering for a moment, her eyes lit up again, and she pointed her finger in a certain direction.
Xu Ying's heart stirred. Following the direction she pointed, he walked out of the house to look outside. The female ghost was pointing into the interior of Mount Wuwang.
"Xiao Qi, do you want to come look for the ascension site?" Xu Ying asked.
Yuan Qi was engrossed in contemplating the sword qi and did not hear him.
Xu Ying inwardly praised Lord Qi for his diligence, then walked alongside the bronze bell in the direction indicated by the ghost in the mirror.
The rust-mottled bronze mirror drifted ahead as though carried by unseen hands. Xu Ying and the bronze bell followed it all the way to where Mount Wuwang had snapped. The ghost in the mirror drifted about, searching for a long time before suddenly coming to a halt.
Xu Ying hurried over and saw a cave entrance at the mountain's fracture. However, it had fractured along with Mount Wuwang's collapse, making it difficult to detect with the naked eye.
"So the ascension site isn't in Qinyan Cave, but within the mountain's interior. The maiden in the coffin entered Qinyan Cave merely to reminisce about the master of the Mud Pill Palace," Xu Ying deduced. Continuing to ponder, he added, "However, if she was an old acquaintance of the master of the Mud Pill Palace, why wouldn't he see her?"
The bronze bell did not understand the reason either and remained silent.
The bronze mirror moved along the shattered passage into the mountain. On both sides, the fractured cliffs stood like blades and halberds—sharp and chilling. Without the ghost in the mirror leading the way, they never could have discovered that a passage had once existed here.
They ventured deeper and deeper. Upon penetrating about a third of the way into the mountain, they saw the tunnel bend and head downward into the heart of the mountain.
Ahead, the surface of the bronze mirror cast a dim, eerie glow across the inner walls of the tunnel, illuminating a series of murals. Xu Ying slowed his pace. The murals depicted primitive ancestors hunting and offering sacrifices to the heavens.
This must have once been a cave where primitive ancestors settled, which accounted for these murals.
He looked at them intermittently as he walked, noticing that the scenes grew increasingly bizarre. The primitive ancestors in the murals were originally clad very simply, mostly in animal skins, and their weapons were simple wooden clubs and stone spears.
Their faces were painted with strange patterns in black ink, and their nasal bridges were pierced with several holes through which slender bones were inserted as ornaments.
Luminescent bones hung around their necks—trophies of their hunts.
Yet the subsequent pictures grew stranger and stranger. Among them appeared a woman whose nose and eyes were only sketched with simple lines, leaving her facial features unrecognizable. Yet she was dressed in magnificent, intricate garments, leading those primitive ancestors on hunts.
The ancestors' weapons had changed as well, turning into flying knives and flying swords; even their large bone clubs could fly through the air.
The prey they hunted were no longer ordinary beasts, but primordial behemoths of ever-increasing size.
They piled up the carcasses of the behemoths and presented them to the woman. She appeared to be practicing some sinister art, for the carcasses soon turned into bare white bones.
In the next illustration, even the white bones crumbled to dust.
The subsequent cave murals continued to depict scenes of slaughter, but gradually, it ceased to be hunts of behemoths and became warfare—the massacre of humans from other nations.
The woman held grand sacrificial rites on the battlefield. Judging from the scenes depicted, it was exceedingly gory and cruel.
The primitive ancestors had merely drawn mountains with several dead humans atop the peaks and at the foot, but Xu Ying could tell that these were mountains of corpses!
These primitive ancestors had piled corpses into mountains to offer as sacrifices so that the woman in resplendent attire could cultivate her evil arts!
Xu Ying felt his heart pound in shock and apprehension. He whispered, "Lord Bell, when do you think the events on these murals took place?"
"Given the presence of primitive ancestors, it must be an extraordinarily ancient epoch, far earlier than the era of my master and me."
The bronze bell continued, "That period was likely when Qi Refiners were still at their absolute peak. It could have been ten thousand years ago, or perhaps a hundred thousand, or even a million years ago."
Xu Ying clicked his tongue in wonder, not expecting this ascension site could be traced back to such ancient times.
The final few murals depicted that woman in splendid clothes undergoing her tribulation. The Heavenly Tribulation formed a colossal tribulation cloud above her head, and an unimaginably thick bolt of lightning shot out from the cloud, striking down toward the crown of her head.
There was something else bizarre in the mural: just above the tribulation cloud hovered a weapon shaped like a pitchfork.
Xu Ying examined it for a moment, but before he could guess what the weapon was, the bronze bell had already said, "A Heavenly Dao divine artifact."
Xu Ying asked in confusion, "Aren't Heavenly Dao divine artifacts in the Heavenly Dao world? Why would one appear in the mortal realm?"
The bronze bell was utterly baffled as well.
In the next scene, the Heavenly Tribulation had ended, and the woman had succeeded in transcending it. Ascension rosy glow descended from the heavens, yet the Heavenly Dao divine artifact fell and pierced her heart, pinning her to the ground.
In the one after that, the primitive ancestors sealed the woman away along with the Heavenly Dao divine artifact. They placed her into a coffin and planted various Dharma treasures they had previously refined all around it.
Then, outside the coffin, they constructed a stone sarcophagus, carving all manner of sealing patterns onto it.
Leaving the woman behind at the place of her ascension, they dispersed and departed.
At this point, the path ahead came to an end, blocked by a stone gate. The gate was tall and massive, marked with blood-stained patterns and gloomy moisture stains, exuding an immense sense of oppression.
The ghost in the bronze mirror stopped advancing, hiding behind Xu Ying.
"Is the ascension site of Mount Wuwang behind this door?" Xu Ying asked.
The female ghost in the mirror nodded repeatedly.
Xu Ying steadied his mind and pushed with all his might. The stone gate creaked and slowly swung open, revealing brilliant light before his eyes.
Behind the stone gate, it was not evil and sinister as Xu Ying had anticipated. Instead, it was bright and radiant, brimming with flourishing flowers and lush greenery.
Behind the stone gate lay a conical, bucket-shaped space, wide below and narrow above. Even though the sky opening was narrow, it covered more than ten mu, while the floor below spanned roughly a thousand mu.
Xu Ying looked around and saw that the surrounding walls were solid cliffs composed entirely of jade stone, completely different from the ordinary rock outside. Stepping closer, he caught a faint fragrance, distinct from any floral scent he had ever known.
This fragrance could seep into one's soul, leaving it utterly entranced.
"It's Myriad-Year Hollow Azure."
Hearing his description, the bronze bell was filled with envy and said, "The interior of Mount Wuwang has already turned to jade. The larger a piece of jade is, the easier it gathers the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. The jade inside Mount Wuwang is simply too immense; nurtured by the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, the core of the entire mass slowly liquefied. This liquefied jade is called Myriad-Year Hollow Azure, and consuming it grants longevity. That female demon in the murals must have consumed the Myriad-Year Hollow Azure before weathering the Heavenly Tribulation and ascending here. Too bad she committed countless atrocities and was struck down by the Heavenly Dao divine artifact behind the tribulation."
Xu Ying looked around. In such a vast space, how much Myriad-Year Hollow Azure had there been? Unfortunately, it had already been consumed completely.
Just as he felt a pang of regret, he noticed a beam of ascension rosy glow trailing down from the vault of the sky, dazzling with splendid colors. Faintly, bursts of celestial music could be heard—wondrous notes of the Dao from beyond the highest heavens that made one feel as if floating up to become an immortal upon hearing them.
Beneath the rosy glow stood a thatched cottage, its straw still golden.
Beneath the cottage rested a stone sarcophagus, wrapped in chains and inscribed with crimson blood curses. Strangely, beside it was a table, upon which sat a teapot and a teacup.
A wisp of white steam was already rising from the teacup. Xu Ying stepped forward and held the teacup; the water inside was still warm.
"Someone has been here?"
He looked around, yet saw no sign of anyone. His heart skipped a beat, and looking hastily toward the stone sarcophagus, he felt a creeping chill: "Could it be that she climbed out to drink tea?"
"Ah Ying, this is most likely a cup of tea from three thousand years ago."
The bronze bell said, "I have heard that in an ascension site, heaven-and-earth yuan qi is so dense that it transforms into spiritual energy. With an excess of spiritual energy in an ascension site, other objects cannot dissipate their energy, which causes tea water to remain at the exact same temperature indefinitely. Look, doesn't the steam from the tea merely rise without dispersing?"
Xu Ying looked closely and saw that it was indeed so. He laughed, "I was only scaring myself. But then, who was drinking tea here three thousand years ago?"
The bronze bell said, "Naturally, it was that small sect outside. I suspect that nameless little sect was formed by the descendants of those primitive ancestors. Generation after generation, they maintained the suppression over this place to keep that ascended female demon from escaping and wreaking havoc upon the mortal world."
Xu Ying nodded and smiled. "It seems those primitive ancestors had a conscience after all. After all these years, the female demon must be dead by now, right?"
"Once someone transcends the tribulation, they are considered an immortal. How could they die so easily?" The bronze bell urged, "Ah Ying, if you cultivate here, you will surely achieve twice the result with half the effort—perhaps it is even better than Chaozhen Taixu Cave-Heaven!"
Xu Ying immediately mobilized the Taiyi Guiding Technique while circulating the Eight Sounds of Primordial Nurturing. Sure enough, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth here was unimaginably abundant, quietly soothing and healing the agonizing headache brought on by his chaotic memories without him even realizing it!
Xu Ying was overjoyed, but then he suddenly remembered something and felt that something was amiss: "The map of Mount Wuwang drawn by the female ghost just now seemed to be a bird's-eye view. To draw such a map, wouldn't one have to fly high into the sky to view the full layout of Mount Wuwang?"
Cold sweat gradually beaded on his forehead. "Then why was this female ghost sealed inside a bronze mirror? And why would she know of such a hidden ascension site?"
Xu Ying hastily stopped his cultivation, spun around to snatch the bronze mirror, and barked, "Lord Bell, cover the stone sarcophagus!"
Chapter 82