Telling time by the sun was a luxury only the people of the Xinhuo Dynasty could enjoy. It had been delicate work requiring regular maintenance, and with the fall of the Xinhuo Dynasty, the sun's time-telling function had vanished as well.
In the past, whenever Yun Zhi came to the sun, she was blocked by the Immortal Dao chains left behind by Wu Yao. This time, however, was different.
Yun Zhi turned her palm. Dao rhymes surged, setting off ripples in space as though the void itself had come alive. Lu Yang and Yun Mengmeng even heard what sounded like the Sounds of the Great Dao echoing from beyond the horizon—ethereal and crystal-clear, yet inscrutable in meaning.
An invisible power condensed within Yun Zhi's palm, gradually taking the shape of a long-stemmed key.
Sensing the presence of the Immortal Dao chains, the key flew out of its own accord, drawing close to the chains and resonating with them.
The Immortal Dao chains trembled, and Wu Yao's voice rang out. Not even the vacuum of space could stifle his booming, vigorous roar: "Fuck your m*********!"
It was a barrage of vile profanities, terribly vulgar.
So vile that had Wu Yao dared show his face before Yun Zhi, she would have punched him square in the jaw before exchanging another word.
Had she known undoing the seal would produce such a spectacle, Yun Zhi would never have brought Lu Yang and Yun Mengmeng along.
Yun Mengmeng thought people from the outside world were truly something else—his curses never even repeated. Unlike her, who even when pushed to her wits' end could only manage: "You're a rotten peach!"
Sensing that this torrent of vulgarities would not end anytime soon, Yun Zhi had no choice but to place another barrier over Lu Yang and Yun Mengmeng, preventing the Immortal Lineage's three leaders from hearing the commotion.
The cursing finally stopped. The Immortal Dao chains grew dim, then vanished completely.
The power of the sun, sealed for two hundred thousand years, gushed forth. Shockwaves rolled, flames soared skyward, and True Sunfire leaped high into the void. Even a Tribulation Transcendence cultivator would be reduced to ashes before such solar power.
Those pioneers of the Shining Sun Cult orbiting the sun, who had weathered the fire's trials for so long, ultimately failed to survive this final trial, burned until not even dust remained by the erupting power of the sun.
As the power of the sun spread, countless cultivators could feel the impact of this surge.
Yet those who felt it most deeply were cultivators who specialized in the power of the sun. They clearly perceived that the solar power released by the sun had increased and turned remarkably rich. Their cultivation methods even began running on their own, greedily absorbing this energy, expanding their meridians, and saturating their bodies.
Some cultivators seized the opportunity to attempt breakthroughs, smashing through bottlenecks in one fell swoop and advancing their realms tremendously.
Meng Jingzhou was trembling, as though on the verge of losing control of himself. Bucket after bucket of ice water transported from deep within the Far North was poured over him, finally suppressing the desires in his heart for the moment.
"What the hell is going on?!"
Meng Jingzhou could feel his Bachelor Spiritual Root greedily absorbing the power of the sun, driving his inner desires higher and higher.
"Bro, stop absorbing! Any more and I really won't be able to take it!"
Meng Jingzhou wanted to cry, but no tears came. Why hadn't he run into such bizarre misfortune at home, only for it to hit him the moment he returned to the sect?
The sun had suddenly erupted with boundless solar power, drenching his Bachelor Spiritual Root. Not a single Bachelor Spiritual Root in history had ever encountered such a thing—how did he end up being the lucky winner?
Admittedly, a stronger spiritual root was an all-around upgrade for him. His early Soul Formation stage became increasingly solid, the capacity of the spiritual energy reservoir in his dantian expanded, and his meridians, vital blood, mental energy, and primordial soul all underwent transformations...
"I don't bloody need this!"
Meng Jingzhou hurriedly sat cross-legged and silently chanted Buddhist mental mantras, viewing female beauty as pink skeletons, already beginning to display the demeanor of an eminent monk.
...
Wu Yao's seal had only affected the power of the sun without altering its temperature. Even with the seal undone, summer would not grow hotter, nor would the glaciers of the Far North melt.
"Senior Fairy, can you sense Immortal Jiuchong from here?" Yun Zhi asked. Perhaps Immortal Jiuchong was hidden inside the sun.
"Jiuchong, are you there?!" the Immortal Fairy bellowed at the sun.
Apart from the chains left behind by Emperor Zhongtian rattling, there was no response whatsoever.
The Immortal Fairy frowned. Emperor Zhongtian's chains blocked sound, so her voice couldn't penetrate them at all.
"In that case, we will have to wait until we find Emperor Zhongtian and have him undo the first seal," Yun Zhi said. She had anticipated this outcome and had merely been trying her luck.
"By the way, Eldest Senior Sister, now that only Emperor Zhongtian's seal remains, does that mean cultivators only need to pray to Emperor Zhongtian to obtain the full power of the sun?"
Yun Zhi shook her head. "It won't work. Perhaps it is because he had already collected enough power of faith, or perhaps for some other reason, but Emperor Zhongtian stopped absorbing the power of faith and removed the method of obtaining the power of the sun through prayer.
"The chains now merely keep the sun sealed."
Yun Mengmeng hadn't spoken the entire time. She felt the topics discussed by the First-in-Command, the Second-in-Command, and Xiao Zhi were far too profound, completely over her head.
There truly was a reason she could only be the Third-in-Command—her pool of knowledge was simply too shallow.
Thinking of this, Yun Mengmeng seemed to have found a goal to strive for. She excitedly asked the Immortal Fairy, "First-in-Command, if I work really hard and study diligently, is there a chance I could become the Second-in-Command?"
The Immortal Fairy shot Yun Mengmeng a sidelong glance. "If you ever harbor such treasonous thoughts again, you'll be demoted to Fourth-in-Command."
"Oh."
...
After dropping Lu Yang and Yun Mengmeng off at Tianmen Peak, Yun Zhi told no one and traveled alone to the Imperial City to seek out Emperor Xia.
"You mean to say you want a few death-row convicts to conduct an experiment?" Emperor Xia looked at Yun Zhi in surprise. This was the first time Yun Zhi had ever made such a request of him.
"Find one first, to verify a suspicion."
Emperor Xia waved a hand and issued an edict to the Ministry of Justice, commanding them to pick a death-row convict to hand over to Yun Zhi, while also instructing that Yun Zhi could take as many death-row convicts as she wished in the future.
Yun Zhi sealed the convict's cultivation and silenced him as well, then took him away from the Imperial City to a thatched cottage on a nearby hill.
Yun Zhi set the convict down and kindly gave him a history lesson: "Do you know of the Xinhuo Dynasty?"
She spoke for about fifteen minutes. Failing to wait out the person she wanted, she had no choice but to leave the utterly bewildered convict inside the thatched cottage and depart.
Concealing her aura, she waited halfway up the mountain, waited at the foot of the mountain, and waited from far away, yet that person still did not appear.
An hour passed. When she returned to the thatched cottage, a large hole had been blasted through it. Directly beneath the gaping hole, the death-row convict had been reduced to ash, and the air was thick with the scent of death.
Yun Zhi went to the Ministry of Justice to haul out another death-row convict. Following the old method, she left him in the thatched cottage and gave him a history lesson.
After waiting for two hours in the thatched cottage without seeing anyone show up, Yun Zhi had no choice but to leave.
When Yun Zhi returned to the thatched cottage once more, a second large hole had appeared, and the second death-row convict was dead as well.
"Even concealing my aura is useless; she can still sense me lurking nearby?" Yun Zhi murmured under her breath, casually hauling back a third death-row convict from the Ministry of Justice.
To confirm her suspicion, she used the same method. After explaining the history, she hid in the shadows, but there was no activity.
Once she left the hill and returned yet again, she found the hilltop had been razed to the ground. The thatched cottage and the convict were gone without a trace, leaving behind only a slip of paper.
"Are you ever going to stop?!"
Chapter 1004