Jolted awake in anger, Wei Yuan realized he was still within the grand formation, where the colossal ring was slowly sinking.
Wei Yuan immediately manipulated the threadless fishing line to wrap around it and continued hoisting it upward. He then separated a strand of divine sense to inspect himself and his surroundings. Seeing nothing amiss, he expended three million points of mortal karmic luck, gaining a glimmer of insight.
Whether a sudden impulse of the heart or a divine ability's warning, it was an omen from the unseen: a tremendous danger was drawing near.
Where would the unruly rabble come from? Wei Yuan wondered instinctively. But he immediately realized this framing was off, so he adjusted it: From where will the enemy come?
Upon deeper thought, Wei Yuan realized he had far too many enemies—there were simply too many to count, leaving him no basis to guess. In truth, it mattered little if he could not guess. By his usual habits, he only needed to proceed step by step and strengthen himself. Let the enemy employ ten thousand transformations; he would remain unmoved like a mountain.
Wei Yuan checked his seventh grotto-heaven. It was a swimming dragon with an azure back and pale underside, moving leisurely as it circled the central continent.
The seventh orbit, which Wei Yuan had been utterly unable to deduce through calculation, had been chipped away and conquered by the dragon bit by bit over a few years, seemingly guided purely by instinct. Now that the orbit had stabilized, the seventh grotto-heaven was officially established.
At this moment, the azure-backed dragon still shimmered with faint light, though its accumulated spiritual power had completely run dry. It was its reactive surge just now that had induced that strange dream.
The little dragon was quite bizarre: after truly achieving the grotto-heaven, it possessed not the slightest bit of sentience. No matter how Wei Yuan tried to command it, it gave no response whatsoever.
Yet its very presence had elevated the tier of the entire mindscape world by a whole rank, meaning it was definitely no mere ornament. Having now witnessed its first activation, Wei Yuan understood that he had simply lacked the right method in the past, and that the grotto-heaven's accumulation had been insufficient. Moreover, nurturing this grotto-heaven to maturity would likely require a bottomless expenditure.
The shimmering light on the little dragon gave Wei Yuan an inexplicable sense of familiarity, carrying a faint aura of time and years. Could its activation just now mean it had sensed changes that might unfold in the future?
Wei Yuan pondered this thoughtfully, then sent a message to Yu Zhizhuo, summoning him to discuss major affairs. Afterward, he adjusted the grand formation's priorities, directing all its power toward hauling the ring, which measured several hundred zhang in diameter.
Like the immortal remains, this ring was imperishable and indestructible, clearly an immortal artifact. With danger looming, acquiring an immortal artifact would undoubtedly play a massive role in turning the tide. Furthermore, powerful immortal artifacts generally defied divination; even within an immortal's grand schemes, one would serve as an unpredictable variable.
The ring's ascent visibly quickened. But at that moment, countless wisps of black qi welled up from the depths of Ancestral Mountain, coiling around the ring in an attempt to drag it back to its original resting place. Faint roars echoed from deep underground.
Wei Yuan's hands suddenly grew heavy as the ring plummeted, almost pulled all the way back down. Yet far from being alarmed, Wei Yuan smiled with delight. "Caught you at last!"
Several sets of immortal remains lay piled together, accompanied by the immortal artifacts they had wielded in life. Even though all spirituality had been wiped out upon their demise and all karmic ties severed, over a long span of time, an evil spirit would inevitably gestate here. Were it to escape into the outside world, it would immediately become a catastrophic scourge.
Wei Yuan had excavated here for several years without the slightest underground stir, proving the creature was extremely cunning and unwilling to expose itself. But now that the ring was being dug up, it could no longer hold back and began fighting Wei Yuan for it.
Wei Yuan gauged the weight in his hands: it was roughly equivalent to the pulling force of two or three peak Scenery Command cultivators on the opposite end. This evil creature had decent strength and held considerable... value.
While locked in the tug-of-war, Wei Yuan swiftly browsed through relevant archives, only to find with regret that in the history of the Palace of Grand Beginning, there seemed to be no good methods for developing or utilizing evil spirits.
Unwilling to give up, Wei Yuan believed that just because predecessors failed did not mean people today could not succeed. He let his thoughts branch out slightly, generating numerous tasks, and distributed them.
Once the tasks were dispatched, Splendor of the Many Realms yielded an available option in the blink of an eye: an immortal pill-refining art, the Precious Mirror of Primordial Myriad Transformations and Heavenly Refining. This pill art originated from the Xu family of Eastern Jin, and Xu Youyi happened to be a grand master of it.
Immortal arts prized mystery upon mystery above all else. This pill classic had "Primordial," "Myriad Transformations," and "Heavenly Refining" in its title; in reality, it meant anything could serve as pill ingredients, and all myriad creatures could be refined. As for what would come out, it depended firstly on heaven's will and secondly on one's personal fortune.
Whether it was heaven's will or personal fortune, Wei Yuan lacked confidence in both. Still, at least he now had a feasible refinement method.
However, this pill art was divided into four parts, and even Xu Henshui had only learned the first two. Only when he returned to the Xu family and took the reins of power would he be qualified to read the remaining two parts.
For now, there was no rush. This evil spirit was not something that could be casually annihilated anyway; it required a gradual struggle.
Nonetheless, the pill art's general outline gave Wei Yuan great inspiration: all things and living beings were useful; it merely depended on how one exploited them. Reading this outline, Wei Yuan felt an instant kinship, as if he had found a kindred spirit.
Now that he had tested the evil spirit's weight, Wei Yuan wasted no more words. With a wave of his hand, ten million points of mortal karmic luck cascaded down, channeled through the fishing line straight into the depths of Ancestral Mountain.
The evil spirit let out an earth-shattering shriek and slowly sank into the subterranean depths, not daring to show its head again. Hauled by Wei Yuan's full might, the ring finally tore free of the finger bone and appeared out of thin air before him. The immortal ring, originally hundreds of zhang wide, shrank into a small band and dropped into his palm.
The ring had an unusual texture and an archaic design. Formed of white bone, it felt warm and smooth as jade to the touch yet harbored a faint, bone-chilling cold. Seven skulls were aligned across its surface. Only the central one resembled a human, featuring prominent brow ridges and a faint pearlescent gleam at the center of the forehead; an aura of upright balance surrounded it, and its facial features were the most dignified. To its left and right were three alien skulls each, lifelike and possessing distinct vitality, largely representing the primary races of this world.
Having weathered over a thousand years, the ring's primary spirit had long since vanished. The seven skulls bore varying degrees of damage, with one of them nearly destroyed entirely.
The moment Wei Yuan's divine sense made contact, Dao power poured out like flowing water, causing his overall reservoir to noticeably dip. Only then did a dense cluster of runes light up on the band. A single rune glowed faintly, signifying it had been refined, while the remaining tens of thousands of runes stayed completely inert.
Wei Yuan's total volume of Dao power was extraordinary—ordinary immortals would have to take a back seat. However, Dao power was not immortal power; being of a different tier, its miraculous efficacy fell far short.
Even so, Wei Yuan was bolstered by seven grotto-heavens and six true spirits in their proper places, which naturally gave birth to all sorts of wonders within his Dao power, making it no inferior to ordinary immortal power. How could pouring in a full ten percent of his Dao power refine only a single rune?
By that logic, wouldn't refining this entire ring take Wei Yuan hundreds of years?
Wei Yuan settled his mind and expended another ten percent of his Dao power, refining the second rune.
This time, he finally discerned the secret: every rune was an individual array. Several runes constituted a higher-tier array, and several higher-tier arrays combined to form an even higher layer, continuing upward until the entire ring became a singular grand formation.
As Wei Yuan's refining Dao power entered, it was dispersed and transformed layer by layer through the grand formation. Most of it dissolved into heaven and earth, while a small portion converted into worldly origin qi and was drawn into the ring for storage. Fully ninety-nine percent of Wei Yuan's Dao power had been absorbed by the immortal ring, which was why he could only refine one rune at a time.
Wei Yuan immediately recognized the formidable nature of this grand formation: when struck by immortal arts, the immortal array could neutralize most of the force and convert a small fraction into mana, storing it within the ring. That single function alone made it a pinnacle artifact for battles among immortal cultivators.
To crack this formation, one had to first observe the shifts of every rune and deduce the miniature arrays sealed within. Then, one had to deduce the relationships among the various tiers of arrays, reconstruct the blueprint in reverse, and subsequently unravel it. Cracking it was not truly difficult—the required attainments in formations and mathematics were merely three levels higher than Wei Yuan's current mastery.
The artifact craftsman who forged this ring possessed array skills so lofty that they likely ranked among the very best of ancient immortals.
Nevertheless, Wei Yuan relished cracking formations that were ingeniously conceived and showcased profound mathematical mastery. Simple ones offered no challenge and failed to reflect his grand stature.
Wei Yuan sat upright with solemn dignity, placed a shadow-recording orb in position, and adopted a posture of deep contemplation. After recording for a spell, Wei Yuan stopped the shadow-recording orb. Then, the brilliance of mortal karmic luck flared upon his fingertips!
Countless points of mortal karmic luck merged into a torrent of white light. Under its scouring wash, the grand formation on the immortal ring disintegrated, unraveling layer by layer.
Wei Yuan had long discovered that while mortal karmic luck had limited utility in other areas, it was exceptionally effective against immortal power. Had he scoured the formations on this immortal ring with Dao Foundation or dharma idol karmic luck, the efficacy would likely have been half that of an equivalent amount of mortal karmic luck.
Within Wei Yuan's mindscape world, the sea of clouds formed of mortal karmic luck churned continuously, shrinking and thinning at a visible rate. Unmoved, Wei Yuan pressed on with the scouring. Finally, when nearly half the sea of clouds had been consumed, the entire immortal ring blazed with brilliant light, projecting countless visions around him.
There were masses of humans driven like cattle across mountains and wilderness, fed endlessly into the battlefield only to be swallowed along the battle lines. Heavy mists of blood rose above the formations, through which countless vengeful spirits flickered. At that moment, an invisible giant hand descended from the heavens, sweeping up all the blood qi and souls in a single grasp.
There were hundreds of millions of the Shaman Clan seated upon the bare ground, circling nine grand sky-sacrificing formations at the center. As the altars activated, nine pillars of light shot into the heavens, piercing the firmament. Every single shaman died simultaneously, their souls torn from their bodies! In the center of the light pillars appeared a colossal maw, swallowing over a hundred million souls in a single gulp!
Elsewhere, deep in the sea, countless bizarre sea creatures gathered in a desperate, life-and-death war. At the center stood the Sea Li, numbering fully ten million. On the periphery were at least dozens of strange races, innumerable, laying siege to the Sea Li.
At every moment, countless corpses either drifted to the surface or sank into the depths. That tract of sea had long turned multicolored, making it impossible to tell whether there was more seawater or blood from the myriad races.
Diverse visions, different races, yet equally harrowing and shocking!
A single sentence suddenly surfaced in Wei Yuan's mind:
All living beings are as ants; the sage shepherds them.
Chapter 1229