Compared to the methods the Palace of Grand Beginning used to conceal secret vaults, Lanshen Palace was utterly crude.
Wei Yuan grumbled to himself as he walked into the secret passage. At its end stood a stone door. Fortunately, it bore no mechanisms; a gentle push swung it open, revealing a hall behind it.
The underground hall was not large. In its center stood a stone the size of a water vat, and at the far end stood three divine statues. The statue in the center depicted a male cultivator with a benevolent, handsome countenance. To his left was a female cultivator possessing natural allure; to his right was a little girl, appearing only five or six years old, porcelain-skinned and adorable, though she clutched a white serpent in her hand.
The entire stone chamber was filled with incense aspiration power, so dense that it had condensed into curling gray mist that roiled incessantly.
According to the records, the male statue should be Yun Xihe, the founding patriarch of Lanshen Palace. There was no mention of the two beside him in the archives; Wei Yuan guessed they might be Yun Xihe's family members.
So Yun Xihe had established a sect, set himself up as a god, and had his disciples, grand-disciples, and vassal commoners worship him as one?
Wei Yuan wondered if Yun Xihe had lost his mind—to actually dabble in becoming a god in the flesh.
The divine way of incense possessed many wondrous traits, but becoming a god in the flesh had far more drawbacks than benefits, and once embarked upon, there was no turning back. This point had been explained from various angles in classes such as Theory of Karmic Destiny, Theory of the Dao Foundation, and Theory of Arts. In any case, no disciple of the Palace of Grand Beginning who had attended those lectures would ever dream of touching it.
Yun Xihe had hailed from the Palace of Grand Beginning, so how could he still have done this? Had the fellow slacked off in class, secretly reading storybooks under his desk? That shouldn't have been possible. In classes at the Palace of Grand Beginning, forget reading a physical storybook right in front of them—even visualizing one in one's divine sense was forbidden and would get caught on the spot by the instructors. The instructors' divine sense was vastly superior to the students'.
The instructors had plenty of ways to discipline students. For instance, Eldest Martial Sister Ji would directly whip their origin souls; no matter how formidable one's physical body was, the agony would bring them to the brink of death—though it was purely pain without causing actual harm. Thus, the muscle-brained fellows from the Hall of the Bright King feared Ji Liuli the most.
However, the reason Wei Yuan understood the divine way of incense so clearly was thanks to what he had learned in the centralized instruction classes. And centralized instruction had only begun with Wei Yuan's cohort. Previously, each hall taught its own students independently, or more often, students learned solely from their personal masters, while grandmasters only emerged on major occasions to deliver grand lectures regardless of whether the students could comprehend them.
Yet human capabilities had their limits; no matter how formidable a teacher was, it was impossible to master everything. Take Zhang Sheng, for example: in history, he was versed in the ancient and modern; in sword arts, he brought forth fresh innovations and might even forge a brand-new path. Yet in feng shui, he was mediocre; in toxicology and curses, he had only a superficial grasp; and when it came to calculating the orbits of celestial stars, he was entirely clueless.
Only now did Wei Yuan realize how boundless the benefits of centralized instruction truly were.
Having finished criticizing Lanshen Palace's founding patriarch, Wei Yuan looked around the chamber once more. Seeing nothing else, he inspected the incense altars in front of the three statues, which were entirely ordinary. The altars and shelves on either side held several tomes. Wei Yuan picked them up and flipped through them, finding them to be cultivation methods of the divine way of incense. The techniques involved numerous blood sacrifices and animal offerings, appearing bloody and bizarre.
Wei Yuan's gaze finally settled upon the large stone. It too seemed unremarkable, save for the countless tiny pores on its surface caused by day-and-night immersion in incense aspiration power. Wei Yuan subconsciously started to bypass the stone to check elsewhere, but a sudden thought struck him: *Why do I keep avoiding looking at it?*
Wei Yuan's heart tightened. Over the past two days, he had spent his time fishing and matching wits with Yun Feifei, making him exceptionally sensitive to karmic fortune and aspiration power. For such a massive stone to sit right there while he repeatedly overlooked it was clearly due to some external influence—just as Yun Feifei's Eldest Senior Brother and Little Junior Brother had subconsciously overlooked Wei Yuan earlier.
Wei Yuan immediately channeled the Outlaw of Heaven and Earth, bestowing a wisp of karmic fortune upon himself. He had already walked past the stone, but once reinforced by fortune, he halted and turned around. In his eyes, the stone was now vastly different.
Looking at it now, the stone was crawling with grayish-black mist, resembling swarms of insects scurrying back and forth. From every tiny pore on the stone, grayish-black vapor drifted in and out.
The previously grayish-white incense aspiration power upon the three statues had also transformed into dense grayish-black vapors, which flowed like a stream toward the stone, circled it several times, and then flowed back to the statues.
Observed through the Qi-Gazing Technique, incense aspiration power taking on a grayish-black hue indicated that most of the petitioners were in states of grief and despair, their bodies depleted, and the aspiration power was fraught with decay, annihilation, brutality, and hatred.
"This formation..." Wei Yuan thought, carefully observing the flow of the grayish-black aspiration power. A deduction gradually formed in his mind: *This uses decaying aspiration power to wear down and scour it away. Is he trying to erode a mark left on this stone?*
Wei Yuan walked up to the stone and pressed down his hand. The grayish-black aspiration power instantly boiled, resisting his palm with all its might. Wei Yuan exerted more force; the last streak of advanced karmic fortune in his sea of consciousness suddenly vanished, and countless plumes of clear qi burst from his hand, thoroughly scattering the grayish-black mist entwined around the stone.
Wei Yuan's hand finally made contact with the stone. His vision blurred, and an entire world abruptly stormed into his divine sense!
A shriek suddenly erupted within Wei Yuan's sea of consciousness—exceedingly agonizing and incomparably mad. As it rang out, countless chaotic fragments of information were flung throughout his sea of consciousness. The screech spanned an area of a full hundred li; within its range, countless stones on the ground shattered, and even the Jade Mountain developed faint fissures!
With a thud, Wei Yuan dropped to his knees, clutching his head with both hands, writhing on the ground in agony.
Another shriek sounded in his sea of consciousness, and more cracks spiderwebbed across the Jade Mountain. However, Wei Yuan had already located the source of the screams—a gray figure, seemingly bound to something, unleashing shriek after agonizing shriek.
In the urgent crisis, Wei Yuan had no time to think. He poured all his strength into overturning his Dao Foundation, intending to suppress the gray figure with the might of an entire continent.
The continent did not budge in the slightest.
How could mortal strength possibly move it? Wei Yuan was the first person in history unable to command his own Dao Foundation.
Yet wherever Wei Yuan's intent reached, wild winds arose from the edges of the continent, sweeping inward from all directions. In the blink of an eye, they reached the Jade Mountain, transforming into a wall of wind that connected heaven and earth!
These howling gales embodied the full power of Wei Yuan's Dao Foundation, bearing down upon the gray figure with crushing force. The figure struggled frantically, but the invisible bonds holding it seemed even stronger, making escape impossible. The few remnants of karmic fortune left in his sea of consciousness merged entirely into the wind wall, causing its might to surge. Countless gales enveloped the figure, compressing it layer upon layer until it finally condensed into a gray sphere that came to rest beside the Jade Mountain.
Wei Yuan slowly climbed to his feet, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and felt a lingering dread.
Now he understood what that incense aspiration power had been eroding. Within this stone resided a divine intent of extraordinarily exalted status. From the scattered fragments of information, Wei Yuan learned that the original owner of this divine intent had actually fallen thirty thousand years ago. Dead for thirty thousand years and worn down by Yun Xihe's incense aspiration power for centuries, a single shriek from that divine intent had still managed to damage Wei Yuan's Dao Foundation—testament to how exalted its status was.
Bearing the residual throbbing in his origin soul, Wei Yuan sorted through the information scattered across his sea of consciousness by the shriek, finally realizing that the original possessor had actually been an immortal in life!
For unknown reasons, this immortal had fallen, leaving behind only a wisp of divine intent inside the stone. This divine intent was steeped in the agony and madness prior to the immortal's demise; ordinary cultivators would perish simply by approaching it. Had Wei Yuan not possessed a peerless Dao Foundation, a formidable origin soul, and the protective sacrifice of his karmic fortune, those two shrieks would have shattered his sea of consciousness.
By now, the stone had revealed its true appearance: pale azure throughout, translucent, with countless vistas floating and sinking within it, as if containing myriad miniature worlds.
From the scattered information, Wei Yuan also learned the origin of this stone.
Ancient Boundary Stone: Qingming!
In the present era, the boundary stones distributed by the Palace of Grand Beginning and other immortal sects or factions were crafted from cut slabs of kongming stone and could generally be upgraded to the third rank. Top-grade boundary stones were made from special kongming stones, endowed with various wondrous powers, and could advance to the fifth rank. Qingming, however, had been refined from an intact, uncut kongming stone by the hands of an immortal. It could be upgraded all the way to the seventh rank.
Furthermore, Qingming started directly at the second rank, immediately capable of covering a hundred li of heaven and earth.
Now Wei Yuan finally grasped the broad sequence of events. A past immortal had sought to expand territory, painstakingly crafting the immortal treasure Qingming, only to fall under the siege of formidable enemies. At the brink of death, the immortal sent Qingming fleeing beyond the heavens, and it ultimately landed here.
Tens of thousands of years passed before the domain of the human race gradually expanded to this region. Yun Xihe discovered Qingming while roaming the world for experience, yet instead of reporting it to his sect, he sought to swallow it for himself. But even though Yun Xihe had achieved the dharma idol realm, this immortal treasure was not something he could swallow, and the Immortal Monarch's divine intent within left him completely helpless.
Wei Yuan's Dao Foundation was peerless under heaven, his sea of consciousness boundless, and his origin soul already on par with a dharma idol; bolstered further by otherworldly fortune, facing a wisp of divine intent that had already been worn down by centuries of incense aspiration power, he still had to expend a streak of major karmic fortune to finally suppress it. Centuries ago, Yun Xihe had faced that Immortal Monarch's divine intent at its full power; daring to touch it even once would have reduced him to ashes.
In Yun Xihe's era, karmic fortune had only just begun to manifest, and individuals graced with fortune were exceedingly rare. According to the records of the Palace of Grand Beginning, Yun Xihe possessed no great fortune, only his own meager personal mortal fortune. At this point, Wei Yuan understood why Yun Xihe had abruptly chosen the divine way of incense, even becoming a god in the flesh. He must have wanted to substitute incense aspiration power for fortune to wear down the Immortal Monarch's divine intent and then make Qingming acknowledge him as master.
Yet for reasons unknown, he passed away after living only fifty more years, leaving behind the foundation of Lanshen Palace and the ancient boundary stone to his descendants.
Having thought through all this, Wei Yuan placed his hand on Qingming and attempted to establish a connection using the method from the scattered information. Activating an ancient boundary stone was completely different from modern methods: one had to first construct a corresponding formation within one's sea of consciousness and then activate it through the formation. This requirement alone was enough to bar the vast majority of Dao Foundations and a good portion of Perfected Persons. Back then, Yun Xihe neither knew the activation formation nor dared to clash head-on with the Immortal Monarch's divine intent, leaving him with no choice but to grind it down slowly with incense aspiration power.
Fortunately, while the activation formation left behind by the Immortal Monarch was intricate and somewhat incomplete, Wei Yuan had learned the underlying formation principles in his classes. Amusingly, the principles of ancient formations had mainly been taught in the history course General Knowledge of the Immortal Path, taught by Feng Chutang. Drawing upon what he had learned, Wei Yuan effortlessly completed the formation and activated Qingming.
A flood of information surged into his divine sense in an instant. A quick glance left Wei Yuan utterly astonished.
Boundary Stone Qingming: Upgradable to Seventh Rank, currently Second Rank.
Trait 1: Unknown.
Divine Marvel 1: Unknown.
Divine Marvel 2: Incomplete.
Divine Marvel 3: Blank.
This piece of Qingming possessed a full trait and three divine marvels! Back when Wei Yuan visited the Hall of Merits, the Life-Mystic Stone had only a single function, and the Infant Fire Stone had one trait; both could only advance to the third rank, yet each required five hundred thousand merit points. But the subsequent three descriptions of Qingming were termed "divine marvels"—neither traits nor functions!
In the crafting information of treasures as significant as boundary stones, terminology was remarkably strict. A function was a function, a trait was a trait, and a divine marvel was a divine marvel. A trait was a substantially amplified function, whereas a divine marvel could be considered a function multiplied many times over that underwent a qualitative transformation.
The trait and divine marvel were listed as unknown because Qingming had not yet acknowledged a master, so Wei Yuan did not know what they specifically were either. Although Wei Yuan had the activation formation, Qingming was an immortal treasure, and under normal circumstances, there was still the major hurdle of having it recognize a master.
Crafted by an immortal, Qingming possessed innate sentience upon its birth, and having spent tens of thousands of years alongside the immortal's divine intent, its divine charm was now purely sublime. To have it recognize a master, one had to win its approval.
Wei Yuan made only a slight attempt before being met with Qingming's unequivocal rejection, accompanied by undisguised disdain. That brisk, decisive snub was no different from a highborn young lady being proposed to by an impoverished pauper, or a swan being courted by a toad seeking marriage.
Chapter 112