With Ancestor Ziyuan gone, Qi Yuan was once again the sole occupant of the immortal's cave.
He set up all his arrays anew.
After all, he didn't want an old geezer peeping in on him anytime, anywhere.
"So that means I need to get my hands on a combat-type Creation Treasure?"
"And comprehend a Supreme Ultimate Principle?"
"Then cultivate the Ancestral Blood Art to its max layer, or cultivate from the Purple Mansion all the way to the Great Ultimate Principle, just to contend with that fellow from Taihuang Palace?"
Qi Yuan pondered this. Not a single one of those tasks sounded easy.
"I'm still way too useless. Without Black Demon Ancestral Blood, cultivating the Ancestral Blood Art to completion will take me at least seventy years."
Qi Yuan felt both self-critical and guilty.
Back on Blue Star, seventy years was long enough to collect a pension.
"What about a combat-type Creation Treasure?"
Qi Yuan mused.
"Guiyu Heaven's Ten Thousand Ghost Soul Banner has caused far too much slaughter karma. It definitely needs a proper purification—a good round of socialist reform! If even Sadako can become the people's Sadako, why can't the Ten Thousand Ghost Soul Banner become my, Qi Yuan's, Human Sovereign Banner?"
"If it were a living person, I wouldn't bother reforming them; I'd respect their free will. But with an unconscious Creation Treasure, there's no need to worry about that."
All sorts of ideas popped into Qi Yuan's head.
"My dear Human Sovereign Banner, you've suffered so much."
"It's all my fault for being too weak to rescue you from that living hell ahead of time."
"Just you wait, I'm coming to save you!"
Qi Yuan found yet another small reason to grow stronger.
"As a man of high emotional intelligence, I should first familiarize myself with my Human Sovereign Banner beforehand."
With Qi Yuan's current strength, he naturally had to swallow his pride; he couldn't just march into Guiyu Heaven and snatch the Ten Thousand Ghost Soul Banner.
However, he held Mona's replica of the Ten Thousand Soul Banner, which offered a glimpse into its workings.
Taking out the Ten Thousand Soul Banner, Qi Yuan examined it closely.
[Ten Thousand Soul Banner: Devours the souls of living beings to refine soul emissaries. Several flaws present. If all soul emissaries within are replaced with Heavenly Dao spirits, its might can increase over a hundredfold.]
[When slaughtering living beings, stimulating their desires and provoking their emotions will likewise increase its power.]
[Slaughter...]
"Stop right there. I'm a good person."
With a flick of a spell, Qi Yuan sent a stream of rain washing straight over his eyes to rinse them clean.
He even felt like washing his brain to scrub that memory away.
Yet he feared getting water in his head might impair his brilliant intellect.
Qi Yuan had always known that he was merely an ordinary, hardworking Blue Star native seeking prosperity through honest labor, steeped in five thousand years of fine tradition.
He knew he had weak self-control and feared straying onto the crooked path by refining an upgraded Ten Thousand Soul Banner.
So he washed his eyes and resolved to forget it all.
"Looks like starting today, I'll need to check the Ten Thousand Soul Banner and the Moluo Well daily to refresh the hidden information."
With each passing natural day, the hidden information his eyes revealed changed.
Of course, he could exploit a bug by traveling to a world where time flowed faster.
For now, though, Qi Yuan didn't see the need.
A month passed swiftly.
Over the course of this month, his progress in finding Black Demon Ancestral Blood had been sluggish; at the few sites he had discovered, the blood had vanished without a trace.
The Ancestral Blood Art had also stalled.
The only good news was that during this month, he had gained a deeper understanding of Creation Treasures.
He had even formed a tiny inkling of a plan to convert the Ten Thousand Soul Banner into a Human Sovereign Banner.
The Ten Thousand Soul Banner contained infinite resentful spirits. If he used profound dharmic power to deliver them, perhaps he could turn it into a Human Sovereign Banner.
"Which means once the Human Sovereign Banner is refined, whenever I slay enemies and claim their souls, I'll need to use the Great Oblivion Heart Scripture to brainwash them—no, to educate and inspire them."
After inspiring them, he would send them to a doctor for treatment—the kind of treatment where even if they were cured, they'd still be drooling.
"Cultivators of the Upper Realm... truly the white moonlight of perfection."
"Their remnant souls enter my Human Sovereign Banner to serve."
"Their corpses enter the Netherworld to become fertilizer."
"And the immortal jades and cultivation manuals in their storage bags are mine to spend freely!"
"Everyone is so frugal and hardworking, just like me."
Qi Yuan mused.
After thinking it over, he sent Jin Li a few messages.
"Are you going to the Ultimate Principle Dao Discussion Conference this time?"
The conference was about to begin, and Qi Yuan would soon depart.
During this period, he had obtained access to the Creation Treasure through Ancestor Ziyuan, allowing him to chat with Jin Li.
"I'm in the Demon Abyss, so I can't go," Jin Li replied, her tone laced with disappointment.
"Will your Heavenly Venerable Yuehua be there?" Qi Yuan asked.
Last time, Heavenly Venerable Longyue of the Moon Goddess Palace had told Qi Yuan that Heavenly Venerable Yuehua would attend the Ultimate Principle Dao Discussion Conference.
The Moon Token left to Qi Yuan by his master, Ruan Yixi, was tied to the previous generation's Moon Goddess Yuanjun.
To learn news of his master, his only options were to ask Heavenly Venerable Yuehua or the current Moon Goddess Yuanjun.
"She will. She has already departed," Jin Li answered, then added, "Your identity... do not expose it."
She meant his identity as the Ten Suns Heavenly Venerable.
"Don't worry, I won't."
Ending the conversation, Qi Yuan turned his gaze to the game jade slip.
"Sure enough, the stronger I get, the longer it takes for a new game to load."
Fortunately, it was already more than halfway loaded; before long, he should be able to enter.
Qi Yuan looked forward to the new game.
And to that strange entity who never spoke, producing only a voiceless sound.
Could it be... blind?
Otherwise, why did it act like a mute?
Speak of the devil: Qi Yuan heard that voiceless sound once more.
Within it, he sensed a wave of joyous emotion.
"I've got good news for you. In a little while, I'll come play your game. When the time comes, let's see if we can get Emperors Shu and Hu to carve open a few sensory apertures for you!"
The moment the words left his mouth, Qi Yuan regretted it.
That sounded a bit ominous—carving apertures into Chaos had ended with its death, after all.
"Never mind the nonsense, bye-bye for now."
It was time for him to pack up and head to Black Demon Heaven to assemble for the Ultimate Principle Dao Discussion Conference.
***
Inside the grand hall of Black Demon Heaven.
The boundary between inner and outer was distinct.
Only fifteen disciples were gathered outside—the fifteen most gifted disciples in the entire Black Demon Abyss.
Clad in blue robes, Bing Jian looked toward the inner hall, his eyes surging with fighting spirit. "I hope that next time, I'll be sitting in the inner hall instead of out here."
Seated within the inner hall were Yang Gods, including the prodigy Hei Jian.
"If only this Ultimate Principle Dao Discussion Conference were held a bit later, Big Sis might be sitting inside right now," Ziyuan Daxue said.
Among the fifteen disciples, only two hailed from Ziyuan Heaven: Qi Yuan and Ziyuan Daxue.
"All people are created equal, Horned Sis. If you want to go in and sit down, just go right ahead. It's your right to sit wherever you please," Qi Yuan couldn't resist chiming in.
"Big Sis wants to plant her big butt right on your head—how about that?" Ziyuan Daxue's words were as grating as ever.
Qi Yuan glanced at her firm, perky rear, decided not to answer, and made a mental note of it.
"Also, stop calling me Horned Sis from now on!"
"Why?"
"I changed my name. I'm going to call myself Black Robe, or maybe Blood Sword. Which one do you think is better?"
"Huh?" Qi Yuan was a bit stunned, entirely unable to follow Horned Sis's train of thought.
"Look, the younger generation of our Black Demon Abyss has two peerless prodigies named Hei Jian and Blood Robe, plus one filler named Bing Jian. Do you notice anything?" Ziyuan Daxue asked.
Not far away, Bing Jian shot Ziyuan Daxue a gloomy look, hesitated, and ultimately chose to act as though nothing had happened.
Ziyuan Daxue and Blood Robe were of the same breed: get entangled with either, and you'd end up losing all face.
"What common trait?" Qi Yuan hadn't realized he had anything in common with Hei Jian.
"Black and red are both colors. Sword and robe are both objects."
"Could it be that your names were chosen so well that it boosted your talent?"
Hence, Ziyuan Daxue wanted to go by Black Robe or Blood Sword.
"..." Qi Yuan decided to ignore her; her thoughts were getting a bit too absurd.
Yet Ziyuan Daxue remained enthusiastic. "Blood Robe, how on earth did you get enough merits to attend the conference? You didn't slip in through the back door, did you?"
She asked so loudly and carelessly that she drew the attention of many nearby prodigies.
Blood Robe had joined the Black Demon Abyss only recently; logically, he should have missed out on this conference.
When An Xunlu learned Blood Robe had secured a spot, she had been so infuriated she couldn't sleep.
"I know you've been quite diligent lately, picking up missions every day, but even if you finished every single one... it still shouldn't be enough, right?" Ziyuan Daxue asked curiously.
She sounded genuinely baffled.
If anyone else had asked, Qi Yuan would have suspected malice—an intentional attempt to make things difficult for him.
Coming from Ziyuan Daxue, however, it seemed entirely natural.
After spending so much time in Ziyuan Heaven, Qi Yuan had discovered that he easily qualified as the person with the highest emotional intelligence in the entire realm.
"Because my Ancestral Blood Art is at a high layer," Qi Yuan replied, equally earnest.
"To rely purely on the Ancestral Blood Art, you'd need the sixth or seventh layer. Senior Brother Blood Robe only arrived in Ziyuan Heaven recently—could you really have reached the sixth or seventh layer already?" a male cultivator couldn't help asking.
After all, Blood Robe had been in Ziyuan Heaven for barely a year.
Even Hei Jian had only reached the fourth layer within his first year.
There was no way it added up.
"The sixth or seventh layer? You underestimate me far too much. I'm already on the eleventh layer," Qi Yuan said seriously.
A dead silence fell over the hall as everyone stared at Qi Yuan in utter speechlessness.
The eleventh layer?
...
He really dared to say that out loud!
Why not just claim he was at the Ultimate Principle Realm while he was at it?
In the modern Black Demon Abyss, probably fewer than twenty people had cultivated the Ancestral Blood Art to the eleventh layer.
And the weakest among those twenty was at least at the Ultimate Principle Realm.
Nobody believed him, taking it as a joke.
"You joker..." Ziyuan Daxue chuckled. "Hurry up and reach the fifteenth layer so you can deal with that person. I'll wash my butt clean every day and wait to become your concubine."
"You nasty woman, don't call yourself Blood Sword—you'll sully my surname!" Qi Yuan was at a loss for words.
He truly had no answer for someone like Ziyuan Daxue.
Right then, a rather somber voice rang out.
"For this Ultimate Principle Dao Discussion Conference, this old man, Kurong, shall serve as chief envoy, with Hei Jian as deputy envoy."
"Since everyone has arrived, follow me!"
A sinister, hunchbacked old man strode forward, his aura vast as an ocean.
"This old geezer is putting on airs. He's clearly a Heavenly Venerable, yet he still walks with a hunchback," Ziyuan Daxue sent via voice transmission to Qi Yuan.
"I think his footing is quite steady. Didn't your big butt need a place to sit? Why not sit on his back?" Qi Yuan suggested in all seriousness.
Heavenly Venerable Kurong hailed from Yinhun Heaven, which didn't have the best relationship with Ziyuan Heaven.
Yinhun Heaven was precisely the faction on good terms with Taihuang Palace and at war with the Moon Goddess Palace.
"Get lost! Why don't you go sit on it?" Ziyuan Daxue rolled her eyes at him.
"I respect my elders," Qi Yuan transmitted back.
"That's the funniest joke I've heard all day," Ziyuan Daxue shot back.
Amid the chatter, more than a dozen Yang God Heavenly Venerables and fifteen prodigies stepped together into a protective array.
This defensive formation combined defense, transit, and offensive capabilities, and could even pass directly through teleportation arrays.
The Black Demon Abyss relied on such arrays whenever traveling.
At this moment, the Yang Gods sat to one side with eyes closed, resting their spirits, keeping their distance from the young prodigies.
After all, who among them hadn't once been a prodigy?
Only Hei Jian, clad in white robes with an elegant, refined demeanor, mingled with the young prodigies to answer their questions.
"The Ultimate Principle Dao Discussion Conference is not limited to discussions on the Ultimate Principle. There are also conferences for the Heavenly Position, Yang God, and Yin God realms, all held prior to the main event."
"If you are interested, you may first visit the Mythological and Heavenly Position discussions to exchange insights," Hei Jian explained calmly, his voice as gentle as a spring breeze.
Hearing this, Qi Yuan's eyes lit up.
He had yet to figure out how to proceed from the Purple Mansion to the Yin God.
This would be the perfect chance to listen in; maybe some brilliant insight would dawn on him.
He had already planned his itinerary: first attend the Yin God discussion to grasp the path of the Yin God, then head to the Wall of Ultimate Principle to comprehend a Great Ultimate Principle.
A packed schedule indeed.
"Senior Brother Hei Jian, the bloodline of our Black Demon Abyss is powerful, but our comprehension is rather ordinary. If one day we have the chance to stand before the Wall of Ultimate Principle and only manage to comprehend the lowest grade of principle, what should we do?" asked a burly prodigy.
One look was enough to tell he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
"Then cultivate diligently to the Great Ultimate Principle realm. Once you reach the Great Ultimate Principle realm, aside from the Supreme Ultimate Principles, the grade of your principle has almost no bearing on combat prowess," Hei Jian said placidly. "There is no real difference between Celestial grade and Yellow grade."
Beneath the Supreme Ultimate Principles, all beings were equal.
In the Lesser Ultimate Principle Realm, Yellow, Black, Earth, and Celestial grades still influenced one's fighting power.
Once at the Great Ultimate Principle realm, however, the difference became negligible. Nobody could kill anyone else; without a combat-type Creation Treasure, you couldn't even injure your opponent.
"Senior Brother Hei Jian's talent is peerless, so you will surely comprehend a Supreme Ultimate Principle. May I ask which type you intend to pursue?" a young cultivator inquired curiously.
At this, the other prodigies looked on with envy.
Even Bing Jian looked at Hei Jian with a trace of admiration.
Hei Jian was the only prodigy in the Black Demon Abyss with any hope of comprehending a Supreme Ultimate Principle.
Even Blood Robe, in their eyes, likely had the Great Ultimate Principle realm as his ceiling, unable to touch a Supreme Ultimate Principle.
"Absolute: eternal and unchanging, an everlasting law."
"Unique: unifying all creation, supreme and exalted."
"Cyclic: revolving endlessly, recurring in cycles."
"Innate: the origin of all things, the fundamental true nature."
"Innate relies too heavily on bloodline, and mine has no connection to it, so I am likely fated against it."
"Cyclic is mysterious and unfathomable. The slightest misstep in constructing it leads to death and the scattering of one's Dao; no one in the Sixth Heaven seems to have walked the path of Cyclic, leaving no precedent to draw upon."
"The paths of Unique and Absolute are the Grand Daos; I must choose between them," Hei Jian answered earnestly, keeping nothing hidden.
The few in the Sixth Heaven who had comprehended Supreme Ultimate Principles mostly walked the paths of Absolute or Unique.
That figure from Taihuang Palace wielded the Unique Great Sun.
The Moon Goddess Yuanjun possessed the rare Innate Supreme Yin.
Hearing this, a sudden whim struck Qi Yuan. "Can someone comprehend all four at once?"
The moment he asked, everyone fell silent, staring at Qi Yuan as though he were an idiot.
Did a normal person even ask such a question?
The Sixth Heaven housed countless billions of living beings, yet those who had comprehended a Supreme Ultimate Principle numbered fewer than ten.
Asking that was like a high school boy back on Blue Star asking his teacher whether he could simultaneously win an NBA championship, an Olympic gold in women's gymnastics, a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and a world championship in Go.
Hei Jian glanced at Qi Yuan, pondering seriously. "In theory... yes."
Indeed, in theory, anything was possible.
Even if there were no prior examples, one could always be the first.
"Huh? Since it's theoretically possible, that means it can be done."
"Sigh, this is so tough. How many Supreme Ultimate Principles should I comprehend this time? It's giving me a headache; my brilliant brain is going to suffer again!" Qi Yuan couldn't help sighing. "I'll need an extra dish tonight—got to eat an extra egg to replenish my nutrition."
"..."
Dead silence reigned as everyone looked on, utterly speechless.
"Why don't you have Brother Bing Jian lay an egg for you? He has the Ice Phoenix bloodline; his eggs must be packed with nutrients," Ziyuan Daxue finally broke the quiet.
"Do you have any common sense? You just called him Brother Bing Jian—how can a brother lay eggs!" Qi Yuan felt he had scored a point.
Ziyuan Daxue was truly uncultured; males couldn't lay eggs, only females could.
"That's easy enough. I know a Dao technique that makes men lay eggs!" Ziyuan Daxue declared.
Bing Jian: "..."
He had tried so hard to stay far away from these two.
And yet...
The others all turned toward Bing Jian, their expressions a mix of pity and suppressed amusement.
Chapter 439