"Eight Directions Imprisoning Dragon Formation!"
With the scholar dragon guard's sharp cry, chains cascaded down from the sky, locking the corpse dragon firmly in place and merging into the seven-colored chains already binding it. They hoisted the corpse dragon midair, shifted it hundreds of li away, and suspended it above the open ocean.
Wei Yuan had urgently redeemed this grand formation from the Hall of Merits; it shared the same origin as Immortal Monarch Yanshi's Dragon-Binding Lock. Though Wei Yuan possessed no immortal power, the mortals within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World held spirituality without physical form, effectively acting as tiny formation spirits. Arraying a formation with them could weave together a grand formation far beyond ordinary imagination.
The first step of Wei Yuan's plan was to separate the corpse dragon from the land beneath its feet.
In Immortal Monarch Yanshi's eyes, that piece of land was the true prize, so Wei Yuan intended to examine it thoroughly. Once severed from the ground where it had grown, the corpse dragon's strength would surely plummet, making it no threat. Still, to be safe, Wei Yuan drew out a wisp of Phoenix Fire to burn slowly across the corpse dragon. Any trace of corpse qi it regenerated would immediately be fed to the Phoenix Fire as fuel.
Wei Yuan flew back down to the small island emerging from the water. Mist still shrouded the isle, so thick that divine sense could not extend beyond ten zhang.
Wei Yuan probed underground with his divine sense, searching relentlessly, yet turned up nothing. But he had a powerful intuition: something seemed hidden deep within the subterranean depths—so much so that the entire Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was tilting ever so slightly toward this land.
Wei Yuan summoned four Dao Foundation warriors and had each cast the Water Blade Art to dig into the ground. The earth here was quite soft and dug up easily. With the four water blades working in concert, a vertical shaft several feet wide steadily burrowed deep into the earth.
After digging roughly thirty li down, a surging tide of starlight suddenly erupted from the opening, transforming into an azure pillar of light that shot straight into the sky! Around the light beam, ribbon-like starlight wound and drifted, with individual stars continually forming and fading out of existence.
From this starlight, Wei Yuan sensed the purest power of new life.
He immediately leapt into the deep shaft and flew downward at full speed. When he reached the bottom, his vision was filled with starlight as thick and rich as sweet nectar! In the center of the radiance, a head-sized stone bobbed up and down.
Wei Yuan did not dare to be careless. Circulating the authentic treasure-gathering incantation of the Palace of Grand Beginning, he reined in the stone bit by bit. It took a full incense stick of time before he preliminarily refined and subdued it, drawing all the starlight back into the stone. Only then did Wei Yuan reach out and cup the stone in his hands.
When he flew out of the opening, the cultivators gathered around, gazing curiously at the stone in Wei Yuan's hands. They all knew it was an extraordinary treasure, yet none recognized its origins; even Bao Yun stated that she had never seen nor heard of such an object.
Just as Wei Yuan was preparing to search the Hall of Merits for records, a green-robed cultivator suddenly appeared before him—Immortal Monarch Yanshi.
The cultivators hurried to salute. Then Wei Yuan asked, "Is the battle over?"
Yanshi replied, "Not yet, we're still fighting. This time, a total of seven of their minor worlds were shattered. Though they were all rudimentary realms, put together, it amounts to throwing away the last fifty years of their cultivation. Having suffered such a massive loss, how could those two old fogies let it drop? This battle will drag on for a while yet."
Wei Yuan wanted to ask whether he could win, but felt it would be impolite. Knowing what Wei Yuan was thinking, Immortal Monarch Yanshi laughed heartily and said, "You saw those mindscape realms of mine; how could they possibly break through them? At most I'll suffer minor injuries that will heal in under two years."
At this point, Yanshi suddenly sighed and said, "If only I were given several more decades, there would be far more than just this few."
Wei Yuan knew the secret history behind this and could only remain silent.
Yanshi's despondency lasted only an instant. In the blink of an eye, he perked up again, pointed at the stone in Wei Yuan's hand, and said, "This item is called the Star Pivot Stone, one of the three great sources that allow a realm to grow. The Thunder Wolf clan is an exceptionally gifted warrior race; more than half of their people can cultivate to the Dao Foundation, and they start at the Earth Tier right from the outset.
"I was wondering before why such a formidable race would be placed in a dead land. It turns out that old scoundrel, the Wise King of the Left, intended to use generation after generation of dead Thunder Wolf tribesmen to nourish that realm, using resentment and karmic debt as kindling to seize the creation of heaven and earth, sparking a sliver of life within an absolute dead zone.
"In time, that revitalized realm would have developed into something second only to an Immortal Heaven. The old fellow's strength would have seen a massive leap, perhaps rivaling what your Patriarch Xuanyue possessed when he ascended to immortality.
"Only, who knows how many members of the Thunder Wolf clan would have survived by then. If there weren't enough people left, that world would have fallen into someone else's lap. Heh, but we no longer need to fret over the Thunder Wolf clan now; that realm's spark of life is already in your hands."
"Then how is this item to be used?" Wei Yuan asked.
"There are three ways to use it. First, I can refine it personally, which will yield a boundary stone equivalent to half of Qingming. However, this method puts the cart before the horse and is somewhat of a waste of a divine object."
Half of Qingming was still considered a waste? Wei Yuan had clearly underestimated the stone's value.
Immortal Monarch Yanshi continued, "The second use is to place it within your nascent soul to nurture it, which currently appears to require several hundred years. Once successfully nurtured, it will give rise to the Great Dao of heaven and earth, recreating a living world out of nothing. It could serve as your second mindscape world. After ascending to immortality, while it might not allow you to reach the heavens in a single step, it would at least let you skip past the most difficult hurdle.
"Lastly, I can help you fuse the Star Pivot Stone into your Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. That will allow your dharma idol to break through the shackles of heaven and earth, raising its upper limit. Naturally, it will also benefit your own cultivation."
Immortal Monarch Yanshi pointed toward the distant sea once more. "Once the Star Pivot is fused, someone among those people might take a step forward ahead of time and achieve a dharma idol."
Wei Yuan looked in the direction Yanshi pointed and saw Han Li and Jun Weizhi each leading several vessels a hundred li away, searching for something in the sea.
All three methods each had their merits.
Having half of another Qingming, combined with the Spring Splendor Dao Stone in the Nether Cold Realm, would amount to a territory spanning seven commanderies in the future. Conquering one or two more commanderies would even allow them to try squeezing into the ranks of the Nine Kingdoms. Run according to Qingming's current model, these lands would generate massive amounts of human karmic luck, all of which would serve as nourishment for Wei Yuan's ascension to immortality.
The second method went without saying: skipping directly past the first hurdle after ascending to immortality. Aside from increasing the difficulty of the heavenly tribulation of ascension, the benefits were too numerous to express.
The benefits of the third method were less conspicuous, primarily bolstering immediate combat strength.
Wei Yuan pondered for a moment, weighing his choices repeatedly before saying, "Fuse it."
Immortal Monarch Yanshi offered no comment. Tapping the Star Pivot Stone directly, he caused it to instantly expand into a colossal phantom silhouette, which then merged into the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
Han Li, Jun Weizhi, and Fuyao—who was boating alone across the sea—all looked up toward the heavens at once. They felt an invisible shackle upon them dissipating.
Yet Wei Yuan himself merely felt his divine sense become slightly clearer and more vibrant; beyond that, there was nothing else.
Yanshi said, "The power of the Star Pivot lies in accelerating the rate at which you absorb worldly origin, though it contains little worldly origin itself. Over the next thirty years, your cultivation speed can increase severalfold."
Hearing this, Wei Yuan thought it wasn't bad at all—equivalent to shaving off over a century, nearly two hundred years of arduous effort.
Immortal Monarch Yanshi said finally, "You have gained much from this battle; it is time for you to shoulder heavier burdens. I'll tell you in a couple of days once I've thought it through. That fiendish creature isn't of much use; you can refine it with a formation, turning it into a puppet, or refining it into valuable materials and alchemy ingredients—whatever suits your whim. You..."
"Hmm?"
Immortal Monarch Yanshi suddenly fixed his gaze on Wei Yuan, examining him closely. Baffled, Wei Yuan could only stand obediently in place.
After staring for quite a while, Yanshi said, "Strange. How has your fate and karmic luck undergone a subtle shift all of a sudden? It's as if... someone mended it."
At present, Yanshi's true body was still fighting in the Immortal Heaven; this form was not even an avatar, but merely manifested from a wisp of immortal will, so naturally he could not see through everything.
Wei Yuan was somewhat puzzled as well. His rebirth after death had been a matter of an instant, yet Immortal Monarch Yanshi had actually failed to see it? Everyone else had been completely oblivious too. Had the karma of that fleeting moment been entirely erased?
After Immortal Monarch Yanshi departed and Wei Yuan prepared to conduct a thorough inspection of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, another thought suddenly struck him: What if he had nurtured the Star Pivot Stone into a second mindscape world? That didn't sound bad either.
Such a mindscape world would probably allow one to choose its environmental attributes, right? One should be able to freely cultivate the power of heaven and earth in it, right? One would probably be able to choose some powerful Immortal Heaven traits, right?
As for several hundred years of nurturing, that wouldn't have been an issue. There were surely plenty of ways to accelerate it, just like how Wei Yuan had swallowed a few dragon scions and achieved a dharma idol in a mere two years.
Wei Yuan suddenly felt a twinge of regret. If only he had two Star Pivot Stones, he wouldn't have had any regrets. But on second thought, if he had two, he would probably want to see what a third mindscape world looked like—and so on, without end.
Wei Yuan reined in his wandering thoughts and began considering the fate of the corpse dragon. Just then, a dragon head suddenly poked out from the clouds in the distance, its eyes meeting Wei Yuan's. The dragon extended two small claws, pressed them together, and bowed repeatedly to Wei Yuan.
Chapter 736