Chapter 538 - 51: Tripod Furnace, Demon Skill, Nature

After Zhuang Daojing and Fang Cheng agreed to meet at the Chu Shao Plateau in ten days, she and Elder Qingqiu departed gracefully.

Fang Cheng, meanwhile, split his time between running his stall in the Stone Garden and exploring the Spirit Immortal Pavilion. He continued to lead the Qiu Sisters, scouring the area for High-Tier Taichu Divine Stones and clues about the Demon-Suppressing Immortal Cicada.

Unfortunately, the sisters had already examined nearly all the High-Tier Taichu Divine Stones in the Spirit Immortal Pavilion. Their subsequent purchases of Divine Stones yielded very little.

They did manage to cut open another three Tier Five Taichu Divine Stones, but there were no more cultivators in the pavilion willing to trade Tier Five Flying Swords for them.

As a result, Fang Cheng had almost no gains in the following days. Instead, he passed the time by listening to the many anecdotes and interesting tales about Extreme Jade Heaven being shared in the pavilion.

Another discovery also surprised him quite a bit: this realm actually had no Dao Pattern Spirit Jade!

He had the Qiu Sisters ask around everywhere in the pavilion, but they found no trace of Dao Pattern Spirit Jade.

Apparently, the Spirit Stone Deposits in this realm were exceptionally pure and didn’t produce this kind of accompanying Spirit Jade.

On the seventh day, Fang Cheng decided it was time to leave. He and the Qiu Sisters exited the Spirit Immortal Pavilion, summoned the Golden Radiance Tower Ship, and headed northwest.

Within the Spirit Immortal Pavilion, quite a few pairs of eyes had been secretly watching Fang Cheng’s movements.

Seeing Fang Cheng depart, several groups of cultivators immediately and quietly left the pavilion, giving chase.

Among them was the Pavilion Master of the Profound Jade Pavilion, Luo Yuniang.

These cultivators were all arrogant Dharma Realm masters. Some, like Luo Yuniang, had arranged backup plans in advance.

Others had formed groups of two or three, hoping to take down their target with lightning speed and overwhelming force.

Bizarrely, however, not long after they gave chase, the Golden Radiance Tower Ship silently vanished into a sea of clouds. No matter what methods they used to search for it, they came up empty-handed.

Luo Yuniang stood atop a bloody glow, her beautiful eyes fixed on the clear, blue sky, her dark brows tightly furrowed.

’Strange!’

She glanced back into the distance. The few auras that had been hiding in the shadows had also retreated far away. It seemed they had completely given up on hunting him down.

A flash of unwillingness crossed her eyes. Just as she was about to return to the Immortal Pavilion, a seven-colored spiritual light appeared in the sky not far away.

A tall Stone Person emerged from the dazzling radiance. It looked heroic and spirited, its muscles bulging. Full of valor and vigor, it wore Cloud Shoes and a Flying Scarf, its bearing immensely majestic.

If not for the stony texture still visible on its body, this Stone Person would have been virtually indistinguishable from a living, breathing person of flesh and blood.

’A Primordial Profound Embryo!’

Upon seeing the Stone Person, Luo Yuniang’s heart inexplicably tightened. She hurriedly curtsied and said, "Yu Niang pays her respects to Master."

The Stone Person was wreathed in spiritual light, its aura vast and surging, filling the heavens and the earth. The tyrannical presence, comparable to that of a Tribulation Realm Great Power, pressed down on Luo Yuniang, making her spirit tense.

Although she was at the Peak of Dharma Form and roamed Cangwu Continent freely with few rivals, whenever she witnessed the methods of a Tribulation Realm Great Power, she was still struck by an indescribable sense of powerlessness at her own "weakness."

The Stone Person looked at Luo Yuniang indifferently and asked, "Where is the man?"

Luo Yuniang didn’t dare to hide anything and reported truthfully, "I was incompetent and lost him. However, I dare to speculate that he must possess a supreme treasure that conceals his aura. Otherwise, there is no way he could have escaped my tracking arts."

A cold glint appeared in the Stone Person’s eyes. It scanned the surroundings and said slowly, "This Seat has now gathered seven Profound Embryo Incarnations, but I still lack ten types of Four Pillar Divine Fiends. If that man truly possesses a Stone Appreciation Technique, then for your negligence today, not even a hundred deaths would be enough to atone for your crime."

Luo Yuniang was about to defend herself but was silenced by a single glare from the Stone Person.

Just as the Stone Person was about to reprimand Luo Yuniang, a circle of sword light suddenly materialized a hundred zhang away, encircling both of them.

"A Sword Array?"

The Stone Person’s gaze was like a torch; it saw through the situation in a single glance.

In an instant, their vision was filled with azure Sword Qi as fine as gossamer threads. Countless sword lights shifted, swirled, and intertwined, rotating like the spokes of a wheel and emitting a constant hum like a swarm of bees.

Outside the Sword Array, a colossal, hundred-zhang-tall Mystic Iron Giant had appeared at some unknown time. It resembled a majestic Daoist, its two enormous sleeves trailing down like clouds obscuring the sky. It was wreathed in lightning, like a Divine Spirit in charge of all thunder between heaven and earth, the master of a billion bolts, and it radiated a terrifyingly powerful aura.

In Luo Yuniang’s eyes, the aura of her master Venerable Red Hair’s Profound Embryo Incarnation was more than ten times inferior to that of this Mystic Iron Giant!

’This is bad!’ She thought, but before she could even react, a flash of Sword Aura filled her vision, and she lost consciousness.

The Stone Person didn’t fare any better. The power of the Great Inference Celestial Net Sword Array had increased by an unknown amount, and Fang Cheng’s control over the Sword Array was now effortless, as natural as breathing.

With a flash of sword light, the Stone Person was sliced into a pile of fragments by the incomparably sharp Sword Aura. Then, dark-red Taishi Demon Qi rolled down, enveloping the Profound Embryo fragments and causing them to evaporate into an even denser and more turbulent cloud of Demonic Qi.

「A short while later.」

The Sword Array retracted, and the dark-red Demonic Qi flowed back into the Profound Sky Giant’s chest. Its massive form then vanished into thin air.

The sky returned to its previous calm.

In the distance, the Golden Radiance Tower Ship hovered in the void. The Qiu Sisters watched curiously as Fang Cheng returned from the sky.

"My Lord, who were those people tracking us?"

Qiuyu Tan had only faintly sensed an extremely intense but very brief fluctuation of aura from behind them, which made her quite curious.

Fang Cheng smiled faintly. "Just a few clowns. Nothing to worry about."

With that, he urged the tower ship onward, flying toward the Chu Shao Plateau.

*

*

*

「Spirit Immortal Pavilion, Profound Jade Pavilion.」

In the corner of a magnificent and luxurious room stood a water vat.

Just then, a white Spirit Flower emerged from the water and slowly bloomed.

The flower bloomed to an enormous size, and from the center of its petals, a young woman with a stunning figure and snow-white skin walked out.

The young woman strongly resembled Luo Yuniang, only she looked purer and younger.

She stepped onto the floor barefoot, a look of lingering fear on her face. She then summoned some clothes, dressed herself, and sat cross-legged on the Jade Couch to begin cultivating.

Her body exuded a mysterious and tyrannical spiritual essence. Her aura was abundant, comparable to that of a Dharma Cultivator.

’Thankfully, I was prepared. I forcibly split off a wisp of my divine soul to cultivate this incarnation. Otherwise, I would have been utterly destroyed today...’

Luo Yuniang muttered to herself.

The memory of being trapped in the Sword Array moments ago, her life force extinguished without any chance to resist, sent a shiver down her spine.

This incarnation had been refined from a Tier Four, high-grade Spiritual Object that she had cut from a Taichu Divine Stone after many years of operating in the Spirit Immortal Pavilion.

Although its cultivation base wasn’t as stable or profound as her original body’s, its advantage was that its foundation was "clean" and extremely malleable.

’Even if I can never recover my original body’s strength and have no hope of reaching the Tribulation Realm in this life, it wouldn’t be too difficult to return to the Late-stage Dharma Phase Realm.’

’To have survived to enjoy life is already a monumental stroke of luck. Why ask for anything more...’

’I need to find a few male cultivators to use as Tripod Furnaces as soon as possible...’

Luo Yuniang’s eyes glinted, and she called out sharply, "Someone, come!"

A youth in green robes walked in from outside. He had fair skin and was incomparably handsome. It was Cui Bailing, who had been serving Luo Yuniang all this time.

"What are your orders, My Lady?"

The youth bowed, and though his eyes noticed something was off about Luo Yuniang, he showed no sign of it.

Luo Yuniang looked him up and down and thought with a touch of regret.

’Such good looks, but his Cultivation is too low. Unsuitable for plundering...’

She said slowly, "There is a thousand-year-old Blood Ginseng in the pavilion. Take my token and go retrieve it."

With that, she reached out and sketched a Blood Talisman in the air, which then flew toward the youth.

Cui Bailing took the Blood Talisman, respectfully acknowledged the order, and left the room.

After leaving the room, a strange glint flashed in his eyes. In his sea of consciousness, an aged voice cackled, "The time has come, boy!"

The youth walked forward, his expression unchanging.

In his sea of consciousness, a bald old man with a white beard and brows, dressed in a black Profound Robe, stood beside his divine soul.

His divine soul was very strange. It was a massive, dark-green tree, and on its trunk grew over a hundred hideous faces, most of which looked just like him.

The other faces resembled the bald old man.

The divine soul incarnations of the two stood beneath this great tree.

At this moment, the youth, looking cautious, asked, "Old thief, are you absolutely sure about this?"

The bald old man gave a sinister laugh. "This Luo Yuniang is all bark and no bite. The one here is just an incarnation. What’s there to be afraid of? Why not just take care of her now, refine that fortuitous encounter, and leave this place? From then on, the sky’s the limit, the world is your oyster!"

The youth said nothing, falling silent.

Outside, the youth took the Blood Talisman, retrieved the thousand-year-old Blood Ginseng from the Profound Jade Pavilion’s treasury, and returned to Luo Yuniang’s room the way he came.

"My Lady, I’ve brought the Blood Ginseng."

The youth came before the couch, holding a jade box.

Luo Yuniang, suspecting nothing, took the jade box and casually opened it.

A bloody light filled the box, and a strange ray of light shot out from it, striking Luo Yuniang right between the eyes!

"You...?!"

Luo Yuniang’s expression changed drastically. Her sea of consciousness was thrown into turmoil, as if a peerlessly savage beast had just forced its way in.

A bald old man with a white beard and brows, clad in a black robe, appeared behind Luo Yuniang’s divine soul. All ten of his fingers transformed into black tentacles that wrapped tightly around her soul.

"Who in the world are you?"

Only then did Luo Yuniang realize that the divine soul that had invaded her sea of consciousness was no weaker than her own original body!

In other words, a divine soul at the Peak of Dharma Form had ambushed her.

And the weakest part of her current incarnation was precisely its divine soul.

This divine soul was just a sliver of the one from her original body—not even a tenth of its full strength. It would take at least several hundred years of cultivation before it could hope to recover its original form.

The bald old man just sneered endlessly, offering no explanation.

「In the room.」

The youth calmly closed the door and set up a restrictive seal. Only then did he return to the couch, look at Luo Yuniang, and say flatly:

"My Lady, please forgive my rudeness."

Luo Yuniang opened her eyes, stared at him coldly, and asked, "What are you going to do?"

This body of hers was full of Magical Power, but with her divine soul suppressed, she couldn’t muster even a shred of strength.

The youth ignored her and said, as if to himself, "When I was young, I had a strange encounter. A remnant soul of a Dharma Cultivator tried to possess me, but I survived. I thought I would soar to the heavens after that, but my fate was fraught with hardship. I exhausted my innate talent just to reach the Life Talisman Realm."

"Fortunately... heaven never seals all exits!" A smug smile appeared on his face as he continued, "Twenty years ago, I bought a Divine Stone and actually cut a Tier Five Primordial Profound Embryo out of it!"

"Do you know why I came to the Profound Jade Pavilion?"

The youth looked down at Luo Yuniang.

Luo Yuniang’s mind raced, and she guessed a part of the truth. "You came for my master’s *True Demon Art of the Yin-Yang Spirit-Annihilating Treasure Talisman*?"

The youth nodded. "Correct. There aren’t many methods in this world that can refine a Primordial Profound Embryo, and fast-acting ones are as rare as a phoenix feather or a qilin’s horn. Fortunately, Venerable Red Hair’s ultimate technique is world-renowned..."

He reached out and lifted Luo Yuniang’s chin, his expression frivolous and arrogant. "Venerable Red Hair said that cultivating this art requires a Top-grade Tripod Furnace. I never expected you to have an external incarnation like this. Compared to your original body, I think I like this one much more."

His long-suppressed nature was finally unleashed.

Luo Yuniang suddenly chuckled. Her expression changed in an instant; her eyes became sultry and alluring as she adopted an intimate and fawning demeanor. "So, you want me to help you cultivate your Demon Skill and refine the Primordial Profound Embryo? Oh, I’d be more than happy to."

The youth’s expression flickered, but he quickly sneered, "Stop bluffing. Your divine soul is sealed, what tricks could you possibly have left? You’d better just obediently wait for me to plunder your essence."

With that, he gave her a push, and Luo Yuniang fell back onto the Jade Couch.

...