Cranes cried out in the serene distance as immortal birds danced in the sky, clouds and rosy mists swirling around. Bishou Tian seemed like a fairyland beyond the seas.
Meng Qi, wearing the “Yuanshi Tianzun” mask, landed at Xianji Bazaar, retrieved the materials and items he had consigned for sale, and directly walked to the central jade pillar, choosing to convert everything entirely into merit points. He had no time to wait and exchange with other members of Xianji.
“Truly wasteful!” Qiu Jiuniang, the “Bixia Yuanjun” from afar, watched in shock, her silver teeth clenched, feeling heartache. As per her usual habit, she would have gone over to scold him a bit, but today, the “Yuanshi Tianzun” seemed less carefree and more profoundly mysterious, making people instinctively halt and dare not approach.
This batch of materials was originally worth over twenty thousand points, but now only exchanged for eleven thousand merit points. Meng Qi currently had a total of seventy-two thousand, two hundred merit points, along with a pile of auxiliary materials suitable for forging the Moral Ice Sword, worth about twenty thousand points.
Without hesitation, not even a flicker of hesitation in his mind, Meng Qi chose to redeem the remaining ten thousand merit points’ worth of auxiliary materials and paid four thousand points for the forging fee.
After placing the remaining materials, the Netherworld Ghost Gate (Yōumíng Guǐmén, Ghost Gate of the Netherworld), and the Spirit Eye of Ice (Jīngpò Bīngyǎn) into the central jade pillar, the emotionless voice of the Master of the Sixfold Samsara descended from above, resonating in Meng Qi’s mind:
“Divine Weapon Forging Exclusive Task: Gather all nine Yuanshi Seals within two years, including the time for exchanges. Success will allow forging a divine weapon of your chosen form and name; failure will deduct twenty percent of your merit points.”
Gather all nine Yuanshi Seals? Within two years, including the time for exchanges? A wry smile curled Meng Qi’s lips, his anger giving way to laughter. He felt an overwhelming absurdity—”Wuji Seal” was in Gu Xiaosang’s hands!
The Sixfold Samsara truly loved to “play”!
Still, this was something he had more or less expected!
“Hahaha.” Meng Qi raised his head and let out a long laugh.
His laughter abruptly stopped. The “Yuanshi Tianzun” mask remained eternally dignified and lofty, ageless and emotionless, as if his feelings had been swallowed by an ancient well, no longer rippling. Slowly, he placed the Blood of the Demon Sage and the Ancient Talisman for Breaking the Void into the central jade pillar.
They were of no further use to him.
The former was worth three thousand merit points, the latter five thousand, four hundred. Meng Qi’s merit points were restored to thirty thousand, six hundred.
Spending twenty-four thousand points to restore the Seven Kill Stele, and another two thousand, four hundred to add a year’s worth of time, Meng Qi glanced at the remaining four thousand, two hundred points, and casually listed them on the Xianji Bazaar, adding a line of text:
“Seeking Cycle Talismans, price negotiable!”
“Yuanshi Tianzun.”
After completing everything, Meng Qi gazed into the distant mountains, admiring the hazy beauty, silently murmuring in his heart: “From here on, there is no turning back…”
The Cycle Talisman shattered, and a hazy glow arose.
From afar, Qiu Jiuniang watched Meng Qi vanish, frowning, feeling inexplicably puzzled.
It seemed like Su Meng had changed somehow.
…
As the scene shifted, Meng Qi directly chose the palace of the King of Qi, appearing before Duke Huan of Qi, known as Xiao Bai.
Surrounded by a hazy glow, Meng Qi descended like an immortal from heaven. Inside the hall, Duke Huan of Qi had just sensed something unusual when he saw Meng Qi push open the palace doors and step inside.
Duke Huan had long realized his convenient junior nephew’s origins were mysterious and strange, but since he had gained the Yuanxin Seal inheritance and the foundational manual of the Yuanshi Jinzhang, his cultivation had advanced rapidly day by day. He had no intention of dwelling on minor details, only keeping a subtle watchfulness. Therefore, he did not ask why Meng Qi had suddenly appeared, instead laughing and chiding, “Sneaking around like a thief now?”
Normally, Meng Qi might have retorted with something like, “I failed to become a petty thief, so I turned to grand larceny—the theft of an entire nation!” But today, he had no mood for banter. Looking at Duke Huan, he felt his aura had grown even deeper, subtly concealing countless eyes and hearts within its details. The Yuanxin Seal had already reached a modest level of mastery. He simply bowed and said, “Junior Uncle, do you still plan to explore Yuxu Palace again?”
“You have a way to sense Yuxu Palace again?” Duke Huan’s expression turned serious, his previous playful demeanor vanishing.
“I have some confidence,” Meng Qi replied directly. “Since Yuxu Palace’s opening will easily attract covetous eyes, I humbly request my junior uncle’s help in intercepting them. If I am fortunate enough to obtain the remaining Kai Tian Seal and Four Symbols Seal, I will certainly share them with you.”
Unlike the Dao Yi Seal, these seals are not limited to a single source of all results.
“Kai Tian Seal…” Ignoring the Four Symbols Seal, Duke Huan’s white eyebrows twitched slightly before he chuckled self-deprecatingly, “It seems my luck has finally turned. How could I not take a chance? Try sensing it.”
Already, the 3.65 chi-long Divine Striking Whip lay across his knees, while the imitation Wu Ji Amber Yellow Banner was held in his left hand, ready for action.
Meng Qi walked to face him, sat cross-legged, and slowly drew out the orange-yellow fire saber, flames rippling like an entire world contained within, the ancient and solemn characters “Spiritual Treasure” visible.
“What a fine blade!” Duke Huan, a connoisseur, couldn’t help but praise.
This divine weapon was full of potential, far superior to ordinary ones. In the future, it would likely develop its own realm!
But this kid truly had extraordinary fortune, casually acquiring a divine weapon, making other masters and grandmasters feel disheartened. Even he himself, compared to Meng Qi, felt inferior. His Divine Striking Whip was passed down from Taigong, and the imitation Yuxu Amber Yellow Banner was seemingly intentionally left by Patriarch Yunzhongzi for the Qi lineage. He had obtained them effortlessly.
Meng Qi extended his index and middle fingers, running them along the blade, feeling its scorching heat: “It was just a matter of chance—I happened to obtain an incomplete Dinghai Pearl, which allowed me to forge this divine saber.”
“An incomplete Dinghai Pearl, no wonder…” Duke Huan stroked his white beard, suddenly enlightened. In the Fengshen world, the existence of the twenty-four Dinghai Pearls was more than just legend; each had the potential to develop its own “heavenly” realm.
Reflecting on this, he sighed: “Unfortunately, you couldn’t wait for it to fully mature. Otherwise, you would have gained a legendary divine weapon with its own fairyland realm, second only to the nine-tiered heavenly realm. However, its maturation might take tens of thousands of years, and you may not live to see it. The grandeur of the Thirty-Three Heavens may not reappear until the next cosmic cycle.”
“The Thirty-Three Heavens are related to the Dinghai Pearl?” Meng Qi asked, puzzled.
Duke Huan smiled: “Of course. Since the beginning of creation, the immortal realm has only had nine tiers. It was only after the twenty-four Dinghai Pearls evolved into the Twenty-Four Heavenly Realms that the Thirty-Three Heavens were completed. This differs from the Buddhist tradition’s Twenty-Four Guardians of the Heavenly Realms, which share the name but differ in meaning.”
Twenty-four plus nine… no wonder some worlds have thirty-three heavens, like the Journey to the West world, while the primary world and most of the Cycle Worlds Meng Qi had experienced had only nine… Meng Qi nodded slightly, his partial confusion resolved.
At this point, Duke Huan suddenly paused. Just now, his convenient junior nephew had mentioned obtaining an immature Dinghai Pearl, which had now transformed into a divine fire saber. This meant he must have a powerful expert skilled in forging divine weapons behind him!
As for the main materials of divine weapons, Duke Huan, who had roamed for years, certainly wasn’t lacking. Yet he had repeatedly failed in forging attempts, again and again. Who could blame him? Jiang Shang was a Taoist without celestial fortune, lacking many true transmissions, and his descendants were similarly unskilled in this art.
Mysterious origins, formidable background… Duke Huan silently summarized with eight words.
“Junior Uncle, with the Divine Striking Whip in hand, can you sense the Fengshen Bang (Chart of Enfeoffment)?” Meng Qi suddenly inquired, feigning curiosity.
Duke Huan chuckled: “If I could sense it, I would have gone searching for it long ago!”
Meng Qi said no more, closed his eyes, and subtly transformed the Eight-Nine Mystical Art into the Yuanshi Golden Scripture.
The deeper he delved into these two techniques, the more harmoniously they merged. Initially, Meng Qi had relied on the transformative and all-encompassing nature of the Eight-Nine Mystical Art to emulate the Yuanshi Golden Scripture. Now, the two had seamlessly fused, nearly indistinguishable, faintly coalescing into a unified entity—like a Taiji diagram where yin and yang intertwine, each containing traces of the other. With minor adjustments, he could effortlessly shift from the Eight-Nine Mystical Art to the Yuanshi Golden Scripture. As he cultivated, the two mutually reinforced each other—practicing one was tantamount to practicing both, and vice versa.
This made Meng Qi seriously doubt the relationship between Yuanshi Tianzun and the Holy Buddha!
Could it be an attempt to escape the greatest karmic entanglement in heaven and earth?
Meng Qi’s eyes half-closed, his Immortal Spirit seated between his brows. Some of his acupoints opened accordingly.
Golden rays of light shot forth, condensing before Meng Qi into the illusory image of a small amber-yellow flag. It emitted ten thousand golden lotuses, each lotus radiating countless rays of light, connecting into a vast expanse, unified with the earth itself!
“The Central Earth Wu Ji Amber Yellow Flag… the Wu Ji Seal…” Witnessing this extraordinary scene, Duke Huan knew that Su Mo’s Wu Ji Seal had already entered the threshold. Only thus could the corresponding illusion be formed, a part of the Yuanshi True Body’s manifestation, hence the saying: “When the nine seals are complete, Yuanshi appears.”
Then, more acupoints opened, emitting a hazy glow, illuminating Meng Qi’s right hand, within which floated an ancient, heavy-looking small seal.
Following this, Meng Qi’s other acupoints opened one by one, their light illuminating the chamber. On his left hand appeared a black-and-white mirror, its yin-yang essence in constant flux, while behind him emerged a void, unsettling to behold.
Thump! Thump! Thump! His heart acupoint opened, followed by the ancestral acupoint, radiating a magnificent purple glow that condensed in Meng Qi’s chest, resembling both a vividly beating heart and a small bell or ancient chime.
“Fan Tian Seal, Yin Yang Seal, Xu Kong Seal, Yuan Xin Seal. Five of the nine seals have been obtained…” As Duke Huan’s thoughts arose, he saw Meng Qi’s head reveal the image of the Immortal Yuanshi, dark and chaotic, indistinguishable up or down, left or right, time itself in disarray, within which seemed to sit a Daoist practitioner.
In the Daoist’s hand rested an ancient lamp without color, its flame like a tiny star, emitting boundless light in pure black and white. Each ray of light was continuously dividing, transforming—both black and white, seemingly black, seemingly white, neither black nor white—illuminating the entire chamber instantly, leaving nothing unseen, as if evolving from one to two, from two to three, from three to an infinite network of karmic threads permeating the universe.
Almost everything was both the cause of something else and the effect of another.
“The Dao Yi Seal!” Duke Huan’s eyes sharpened, nearly rising to his feet.
This illusion of the ancient lamp was the Dao Yi Seal Meng Qi had comprehended. Though he had not fully entered its threshold, he could not condense the small seal as he had previously seen. However, after integrating the essence of the “Dao pervading the universe,” based on his own understanding and mastery, he had initially forged this small lamp, which seemed capable of symbolizing the source of all causes!
With Yuanshi’s emergence, the primal cause revealed itself, the “light” illuminating heaven and earth, giving rise to karma spontaneously and comprehensively.
As the Dao Yi Seal appeared, the illusions of the Amber Yellow Flag, Fan Tian Seal, and others flew out, swirling around it. Their radiance instantly became so dazzling that Duke Huan of Qi could barely keep his eyes open.
Meng Qi held the “Ancient Lamp” in his palm, its light shining through and soaring into the heavens, his thoughts rising along with it.
Last time, I only had one seal, relying on breakthroughs and self-improvement to sense my way. Now, with six seals and “Dao Yi” illuminating the chaos, could I possibly be any weaker than before?
As the chaos before his eyes was illuminated and penetrated, Meng Qi suddenly sensed the majestic and solemn palace, along with the thirty-six ancient wells surrounding it.
The Jade Void Palace Reappears!
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