A small flying boat lay anchored by the edge of the immortal city. Wei Yuan stepped aboard and set out on his return journey to the Palace of Grand Beginning.
Once the boat was airborne, Wei Yuan activated a karmic luck angling array that had taken him several days to lay down. He tossed in a small piece of refined desolate iron, followed by a thousand strands of mortal azure qi, and then quietly began reading a book, waiting to see who would take the bait.
In a desolate mountain on the fringes of Qingming, a boulder suddenly stirred, gazing toward the flying boat passing overhead. The rock then burst apart, and a sliver of divine intent shot from within, darting straight into the vault of heaven.
Within mere moments, several cultivators appeared at the spot, but apart from a scatter of crushed stone, they found no other clues.
In a certain secret realm, an elder's mind suddenly stirred. He opened his eyes, and a middle-aged woman materialized before him.
The woman was merely a phantom projection. She bowed and reported, "Master, Wei Yuan has just boarded a flying boat and departed for the mountain gate of the Palace of Grand Beginning. It has been verified through secret arts that Zhu Yuanjin remains in Qingming and did not accompany Wei Yuan."
The elder sprang to his feet. "Very good! You have rendered great merit this time. I will take good care of your descendants."
Tears welled in the woman's eyes. "Thank you, Master! Forgive this disciple for no longer being able to serve you!"
In the blink of an eye, her projection dissipated between heaven and earth. The elder walked out of the room, and moments later, a flying boat soared out from the secret realm, plunging into the clouds.
Wei Yuan sat in the upper cabin, watching the scenery recede past the window. Suddenly, the flying boat shuddered violently, its speed noticeably slackening.
A vessel several times larger broke through the clouds, unleashing streams of Sinking Sand Dao arts that dragged his vessel's speed down even further.
Only a middle-aged cultivator and a youth were piloting the small vessel. Both were thrown into sheer panic, desperately trying to push the boat forward to no avail. Under the Sinking Sand Dao arts, the vessel's weight multiplied several times over, leaving it barely able to hover in midair.
From the large vessel, several thousand-zhang mooring cables shot forth, anchoring firmly into the small boat. As the cables tightened, the two vessels were drawn together. Wei Yuan stepped out of the cabin, looked at a red-faced elder flying over from the large vessel, and called out in a clear voice, "Senior, are you here for wealth or for a life?"
Neither servile nor haughty, Wei Yuan completely disregarded the dozens of black-clad assassins trailing behind the elder.
The red-faced elder burst into hearty laughter. "Naturally for your life! And perhaps a little wealth on the side."
Wei Yuan looked rather bemused. "Senior, you are merely in the middle stage of Scenery Command. Whence comes such confidence? Though we are few, these subordinates of yours might as well not be here at all."
The red-faced elder flew into a rage and barked, "Cut the chatter! Let us see how long you can last within my Lava Fire Hell!"
A vision of flowing magma suddenly surged around Wei Yuan. The temperature spiked drastically, and the small flying boat instantly caught fire!
The elder's mindscape world was extraordinarily peculiar—it was a pure sea of molten lava, utterly brimming with murderous intent, devoid of any vitality or spiritual nature. An ordinary dharma idol, even at the perfection stage, could only endure a few breaths of time within such a mindscape world.
Had this been before his journey to the Desolate Realm, Wei Yuan might have needed some effort to deal with it. But now that he had been to the Desolate Realm and gained a sliver of acknowledgment from its heaven and earth, finding even the Desolate Realm's blazing sunlight gentle, he naturally paid this level of heat no mind.
Seeing that Wei Yuan was completely unfazed, the elder swept his wide sleeves. All the black-clad deathsworn sprang into the air, charging across the sea of burning magma to strike.
Wei Yuan still stood motionless. Looking leisurely at the elder, he extended a single finger and gave a slight, beckoning crook.
The red-faced elder could stomach no more. He flung both sleeves, conjuring dozens more black-clad assassins to make a full hundred. Brandishing drab short swords capable of harming mindscape worlds, they closed in on Wei Yuan from all sides. Then, high in the sky, an enormous ball of magma formed and plummeted toward Wei Yuan's head!
Wei Yuan finally nodded. "Now this is more like it."
He pointed a finger skyward. The plummeting magma sphere froze in midair instantly as the two sides clashed in Dao power. The elder pressed down with all his might, yet Wei Yuan remained firm as a boulder, immovable. Even with his Scenery Command cultivation, the elder could not overpower Wei Yuan in Dao strength.
As the assassins boarded the small boat, countless blades of seaweed abruptly materialized, their edges sharp as blades. They entwined over a dozen black-clad cultivators in a flash, slicing them to ribbons instantly. Inside the cabin, the aquatic plants in the fish tank quietly vanished.
Another dozen cultivators were suddenly coated in thick frost, freezing in place. Under the oppression of the magma's heat, water and fire clashed within them, shattering their Dao Foundations in moments. A small tea tree in a flowerpot within the cabin also disappeared.
Then a faint fragrance wafted through the air, and nearly twenty assassins dropped silently to the deck, dead without even knowing how. On the cabin flower rack, a row of orchids vanished.
The remaining assassins were abruptly ignited by magma, yet upon death, bore no outer injuries whatsoever. In the landscape painting hanging inside the cabin, a small red tree vanished, transforming into a delicate, clean-shaven youth with a shaved head.
On a shelf, a parrot suddenly arched its neck and gave voice, yet what burst forth was a rooster's dawn-breaking crow that proclaimed the sunrise to the world! That rooster's crow shattered the Lava Fire Hell mindscape world in an instant, severely injuring the red-faced elder.
Immediately around him appeared three bizarre beings with hair trailing to the ground and exquisite faces, all possessing Scenery Command cultivation. Though they were of the weakest tier of Scenery Command, Scenery Command they remained—the mirage demons, fully recuperated.
Clutching Compassion, Wei Yuan casually stepped up to the elder and asked calmly, "Any last words?"
Both frightened and furious, the red-faced elder cried, "Didn't you just say you were few in number?!"
Wei Yuan chuckled. "Indeed very few humans. Only two, and neither has even lifted a hand."
At that moment, the flying apsara statues on the prow of the small vessel came to life, revealing Bao Yun and Feng Tingyu. The two had disguised themselves as statues all along, yet even with the red-faced elder's divine sense, he hadn't noticed them in the least. Only, the battle had concluded before their turn even came.
As for the male cultivator with streamer-like feathers between his brows, the aloof young woman, the handsome bald youth, and the three sweet girls resembling the maiden next door—none of them were human.
Having shattered the elder's mindscape world with its crow, the parrot's mission was complete. With a clear conscience, it picked up a sack of spiritual rice in its beak and flew off to sleep in its nest back in the Qingming Medicine Garden. It was currently in its growth spurt and felt it had fought a brutal battle today, barely edging out a formidable foe, so it needed to eat and sleep copiously to replenish what it had spent.
To Wei Yuan's surprise, the elder showed no panic or despair. Instead, a bizarre, crazed expression surfaced on his face as he said, "...sends his regards!"
Yet during the first half of that sentence, only the elder's lips moved; not a sound escaped them.
Immediately afterward, the elder melted away like a candle, collapsing into a puddle of waxy residue. During the collapse of flesh and blood, a terrifying curse sought to cling to Wei Yuan, but it was all channeled into the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Shared evenly among the immortal plants, each received only a tiny fraction of the curse. As the immortal plants grew naturally, it wouldn't be long before the curse was fully digested.
A curse cast at the cost of a Scenery Command powerhouse's life could no longer trouble Wei Yuan.
That the elder died so decisively was equally unexpected to Wei Yuan. Stranger still, no soul fled when he died; he seemed like a hollow shell devoid of a soul. Yet he lacked neither an Origin Soul nor a mindscape world—it was exceedingly bizarre. Wei Yuan pondered carefully, his expression growing graver the more he considered it.
Wei Yuan boarded the elder's flying boat. True to expectations, it was swept clean, leaving behind not a shred of evidence.
This ambush was utterly inexplicable, possessing neither head nor tail; Wei Yuan didn't even know who wanted him dead. Judging by the reports sent back from Qingming, these people had clearly plotted for a long time and possessed a deep understanding of Qingming's surveillance methods. Yet after paying such a heavy price, was that really the end of it?
In truth, the caliber of this assassination attempt had been extraordinarily high. The Lava Fire Hell mindscape world possessed immense destructive power, capable of suppressing most Scenery Command mindscapes. The black-clad assassins were all at the Dao Foundation stage, wielding poisoned daggers capable of damaging mindscape worlds.
An ordinary Scenery Command cultivator caught off guard would see their mindscape world severely maimed right from the start. Then, when the red-faced elder unleashed the death curse at the cost of his own life, even a Scenery Command perfection cultivator would essentially be dragged down with him into mutual destruction.
Only, Wei Yuan was genuinely shameless when it came to martial ethics—he had prepared countless countermeasures long in advance to go angling. The immortal rooster shattered the Lava Fire Hell, while the curse was borne by the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. With the elder's strongest killing moves proving entirely useless against Wei Yuan, the ambush had truly kicked an iron board.
Unable to fathom the motive behind this assassination despite racking his brains, Wei Yuan could only resume his journey toward the Palace of Grand Beginning, the rest of the way passing without incident. He had originally intended to keep the red-faced elder alive, using him as bait to angle for even bigger fish.
Yet even after casting in a hundred thousand strands of azure qi all at once, it was like a clay ox plunging into the sea; until he stepped across the mountain gate of the Palace of Grand Beginning, nothing else was hooked.
Stepping past the mountain gate, Wei Yuan took on a solemn expression. A guiding cultivator had arrived long before to receive him, leading Wei Yuan toward the main hall. The first step was to pay homage to the Patriarch, after which the treasure vault would be opened for Wei Yuan to choose the foundation for his grotto-heaven.
The statue of the Patriarch remained as spirited and majestic as ever, with four immortal swords bobbing gently around it. Looking upon it now, Wei Yuan was struck by the uncanny illusion that the Patriarch was still alive.
Standing before the Patriarch's statue, Wei Yuan felt a sudden surge of emotion. The last time he formally paid homage to the Patriarch, he was only six years old and had just entered the sect, ultimately receiving the bestowal of the Patriarch's boundary stone. Back then during his cultivation, he hadn't understood the significance of that boundary stone; looking back now, the emergence of his Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains Dao Foundation likely bore traces of the Patriarch's grace.
Wei Yuan's obeisance today was no ordinary ritual either.
Once the pivot of the grotto-heaven was chosen and the third grotto-heaven sent into orbit, Wei Yuan would officially break through to Scenery Command. But before Scenery Command, there was still a trial of questioning the heart: Why cultivate immortality?
The answer to this question would directly determine the nature of the mindscape world he formed. And now, before the Patriarch, Wei Yuan was to answer it.
Chapter 945