Entering the divine temple again today, Wei Yuan felt it even more distinctly. In the depths of the temple, something truly had been calling out to him all along. When the three-eyed bird had sent him here back then, was it connected to whatever lay hidden underground?
Wei Yuan took out his newly crafted equipment and said, "If an undead monster appears, tell me its direction and distance."
The woman brandished the hand crossbow Wei Yuan had made for her and said, "At midday, even inside the cave, it'll still be sluggish. If I spot it, I'll loose an arrow first. Just aim for wherever the sound hits."
The two ventured deeper, taking their time. Past the four murals, there was actually no fifth mural; farther ahead lay a natural passage, and that was where the undead monster had emerged from.
Hearing the commotion outside, the undead monster indeed came walking out of the passage once more.
The woman shot a bolt, hitting it squarely in the body. But despite the formidable power of the hand crossbow, it failed to pierce clean through; the quarrel sank deeply into the flesh with a metallic clatter.
Hearing the sound, Wei Yuan immediately triggered his weapon with Dao power. Amidst thunderous roars, several flying swords shot out in rapid succession from the mechanism in his hands. Propelled by explosive blasts and driven by their own kinetic force, the flying swords instantly tore the undead monster to shreds!
Yet more footsteps echoed within the passage. The woman darted over to look and cried in alarm, "So many monsters! Run!" But she didn't get to run—Wei Yuan pulled her back and positioned himself at the mouth of the passage.
The heavy footsteps in the passage had already indicated their direction to Wei Yuan. Then, with booming roars, Wei Yuan emptied all the flying swords from his cauldron magazine in a single breath. The narrow corridor was instantly strewn with mangled monster corpses.
After all, each flying sword was equivalent to a Dao Foundation artifact, possessing power far beyond that of a hand crossbow. No matter where a sword struck, it would blow that part clean away. But the cavern walls began to tremble, and countless footsteps echoed from the depths of the passage. There was no telling how many monsters had awakened and were now striding this way!
Wei Yuan dared not push his luck now. "Run!" he said, scooping up the woman and fleeing out of the temple.
Only when he felt the sunlight pouring down from the sky did Wei Yuan breathe a sigh of relief. Just then, wisps and strands of yin qi converged upon Wei Yuan and entered his Sea of Consciousness. Beneath the spot where Maiden Yin-Yang stood, a small patch of fertile soil had appeared, and the vitality here was somewhat restored.
Wei Yuan realized that the source of this yin qi was those undead monsters. Could it be that, like the youth of the Xu family back then, they were unable to attain release for some reason and had ended up purified by Wei Yuan's Transmigration Across the Myriad Realms?
The fertile soil generated this time was different from before; not only did it possess vitality, but it also spontaneously birthed a speck of spirituality. This development filled Wei Yuan with both surprise and delight. In the mid-Dao Foundation Revival stage, the most crucial aspect was not the accumulation of spiritual energy, but the birth of spirituality. The presence or absence of spirituality was the key to achieving a dharma idol, while the nature of that spirituality determined the dharma idol's quality.
Now that spirituality had sprouted within his Dao Foundation, it meant Wei Yuan had cleared the first hurdle. What remained was to nourish it and enhance its quality.
Wei Yuan's Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains was unprecedented, leaving him with no prior experience to follow in his cultivation. At the moment, this first speck of spirituality was born from the earth, which seemed quite fine and possessed considerable status; he just didn't know how it would develop in the future.
Having discovered that reincarnating the yin qi of the undead monsters could foster spirituality in his Dao Foundation, Wei Yuan naturally couldn't just leave. Blocking the entrance of the temple, he fired off flying swords one after another, mowing down all the undead monsters rushing out.
In the blink of an eye, the flying swords were depleted, and only then did Wei Yuan flee with the woman. Undead monsters surged out from the temple, only to screech and collapse beneath the sun. Those behind dared not venture further, roaring in vain at Wei Yuan's retreating back.
The ambush at the temple entrance had claimed at least several dozen undead monsters. The yin qi expanded the fertile soil beneath Maiden Yin-Yang's feet to ten zhang across. Moreover, the area covered by the fertile soil was completely unaffected by Kenming; items could be manifested, and it could provide Dao power normally.
Upon returning to their dwelling, Wei Yuan resumed crafting flying swords. The flying swords made in the previous batch had exhausted their Dao power upon killing the undead monsters and dissipated into nothingness.
This time, Wei Yuan worked methodically, forging one flying sword after another, spending the entire afternoon producing two hundred flying swords in one go. As for cauldron magazines, he fashioned ten of them. With nothing to do, the woman sat beside him watching him make swords, watching him like that for the whole afternoon.
After dinner, Wei Yuan casually made a dozen or so new bolts for the woman and then fashioned a short blade for her. However, she seemed more interested in those flying swords, so Wei Yuan reshaped the short blade to match the style of a flying sword.
Wei Yuan spent the entire night crafting flying swords until the dead of night, only then nestling against the woman to sleep.
With that patch of fertile soil, Wei Yuan's Dao Foundation had come back to life and could once again generate spiritual energy on its own. Though the area of the fertile soil wasn't large, the daily recovery of Dao power was enough for Wei Yuan to forge two to three hundred flying swords.
At midday the next day, Wei Yuan and the woman ventured deep into the temple, fighting their way a hundred zhang down the corridor and slaying over a hundred undead monsters. Only after running out of flying swords did they withdraw from the temple.
The yin qi obtained that day expanded the fertile soil to twelve zhang, but the details on Maiden Yin-Yang became even richer, making her practically indistinguishable from a living person. Had Wei Yuan not looked closely, he might even have mistaken her for flesh and blood.
Today, Wei Yuan forged three hundred and sixty flying swords in one sitting, ate and slept his fill, and then continued exploring the temple with the woman.
Over the next few days, Wei Yuan continued advancing deeper, slaying more undead monsters. The expanse of fertile soil grew gradually, but the changes in the maiden silhouette grew increasingly pronounced. Previously, the Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains had Jade Mountain at its core; now, having strayed too far from Qingming, Jade Mountain had fallen dormant, and the core had shifted to Maiden Yin-Yang.
After several days, Wei Yuan had explored more than three hundred zhang deep, killing hundreds of undead monsters. Delving inward along the passage, the temple transitioned into an enormous network of natural caverns. By now, Wei Yuan's perception had grown ever clearer: the summons was echoing from deep underground.
In the dead of night.
Wei Yuan found himself once more within the underground passage. This time, all the undead monsters had vanished. He walked all the way down the tunnel, feeling ever more strongly that something existed deep below the earth, where the faint sound of rushing waters could be heard.
Soon, Wei Yuan walked into a vast expanse. Inside the space, a black-robed figure whose face could not be seen spoke: "You've finally arrived."
Before Wei Yuan could even answer, he saw figures materialize behind the black-robed person one after another—Zhang Sheng, Bao Yun, Ji Liuli, Patriarch Xuanyue, Consort Yun, and many others. They smiled at Wei Yuan, then walked one by one toward the abyss before them and leapt down.
Horrified, Wei Yuan sprinted to the edge of the chasm and peered downward, only to discover that this abyss was actually an opening leading to another world. And in the center of that world was none other than the Heavenly Eye with three pupils!
Jolted with fright, Wei Yuan instantly awoke from the nightmare, only to find his clothes drenched in cold sweat.
The woman was still asleep in his embrace, her breathing even and steady, gradually calming Wei Yuan's heart. He buried his face in her hair once more and held her close. The woman stirred slightly but did not wake, and the two slept on like this until dawn.
In the morning, Wei Yuan used his newly generated Dao power to forge another hundred flying swords. After eating their fill with the woman, they entered the temple once again.
By this time, Wei Yuan's divine sense had recovered somewhat, allowing him to perceive farther and more clearly. Even so, the images returned by his divine sense remained very blurry—in the parlance of the realm beyond the heavens, it was like having a thousand degrees of nearsightedness.
Just like previous times, Wei Yuan made some noise, and an undead monster walked out of the passage, only to have its head blown apart by one of Wei Yuan's flying swords. Taking the lead, Wei Yuan stepped into the passage; several undead monsters loitering within were gunned down by his flying swords before they could even react.
Having cleared the passage of undead monsters, the two entered a spacious cavern. The woman struck a monster twenty zhang away with a crossbow bolt, and Wei Yuan immediately followed up with two flying swords, cleaving the creature right down the middle.
Working together in this manner, the woman used her crossbow bolts to guide Wei Yuan whenever they encountered open terrain, advancing steadily into the subterranean depths.
Passing through a corridor, Wei Yuan distinctly felt the space before him suddenly widen. Not far ahead, a terrifying pressure was coalescing like an impending burst of yin thunder. The woman's voice turned uncharacteristically solemn: "It seems we've provoked something we shouldn't have."
"What is it?" Wei Yuan asked.
"A twenty-foot undead monster clad in armor, with the head of a lizard—well, a lizard skull now. It's standing up!" At that moment, a terrifying aura erupted ahead. This was an opponent at the dharma idol level!
Making an instant decision, Wei Yuan scooped up the woman and retreated back into the passage they had come through. Giving her a shove, he said, "Go first! I'll deal with it!"
Not one to drag her feet, the woman said, "Then be careful yourself! Don't forget, you still owe a debt!"
"I won't forget." Wei Yuan gave her bottom a backhanded smack. Like a startled rabbit, the woman instantly fled the corridor.
Wei Yuan leveled the gun, aiming at the corridor mouth. The moment the dharma idol-level undead monster turned the bend in the passage, a volley of flying swords struck it head-on!
Wei Yuan emptied the magazine in an instant, pulled out another, and snapped it into place. Although each flying sword wasn't overwhelmingly powerful, it still carried Dao Foundation-level might; striking the creature, it inflicted real damage. Bombarded by such overwhelming numbers, the monster stumbled backward, cracks splintering across its armor!
The moment it regained its balance, Wei Yuan emptied a second magazine.
Wei Yuan immediately retreated, circling behind another corner of the passage. He reloaded a magazine and waited for the dharma idol monster. Already provoked to fury, the monster charged around the bend with a roar, only to slam face-first into an entire magazine's worth of flying swords!
Its armor had already shattered into fragments, and stark wounds appeared across its desiccated body. The moment Wei Yuan emptied the magazine, he retreated to reload, waited for the monster to poke its head around the corner, pounded it with another barrage of flying swords, and then ran off again.
Firing and falling back in this manner, by the time Wei Yuan finished discharging his sixth magazine, the dharma idol monster finally let out an unwilling roar and collapsed before him.
A dense plume of yin qi rose from the monster's carcass and entered the Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains. This mass of yin qi was greater than that of all the previous undead monsters combined, plunging straight into the fertile soil beneath Maiden Yin-Yang's feet.
At that moment, the spirituality accumulated within the Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains finally reached a critical point. With a crisp crack, the stone skin coating a warrior's body flaked away piece by piece. He slowly opened his eyes, and within them shone true sentience.
Chapter 358