Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

Upon entering the vortex, Tang Jie felt like he was descending into a bottomless abyss, his body constantly plunging downward.

All around him was red, and as his body spun and descended, he could hear Tutu's terrified shrieking.

"Yiyi!" Because the original body was outside, Tang Jie knew that Yiyi had come in with him.

"I'm here, Big Brother!" Yiyi shouted, the vine binding her to Tang Jie.

Tang Jie turned and grabbed the vine, pulling Yiyi toward him.

While still spinning along the flow of the vortex, they drew closer and closer, until Yiyi was finally pulled into Tang Jie's embrace.

"Where are we? Big Brother." Yiyi hugged Tang Jie's neck.

"We should have entered the passage to the Blood River Domain," Tang Jie said as he looked around.

His body was still rapidly falling, and he couldn't even use spiritual energy to stop. The powerful pull rendered him almost immobile, and the distant crimson was like an open maw about to swallow him up.

"What do we do now?" Yiyi asked.

"We can't go over like this. That Blood River Ancestor will definitely be waiting on the other side for us." Tang Jie looked up. "The bag!"

Yiyi raised her head and saw a Mustard Seed Bag coming from above. She reached out a hand, and another vine flew out to wrap around the bag and pull it down.

Tang Jie took the Mustard Seed Bag, and while he was rapidly spinning around, he shouted, "We only have one chance!"

He took out the Mountain River State Diagram and asked, "Tutu, can you use the Space Crystal to teleport us out of here?"

Tutu was curled up in Tang Jie's chest, clutching tightly to him with its paws. Upon hearing this, it perked up its ears, bobbing them around like they were antennas. It replied, "The distance is too great. The Space Crystal doesn't have enough energy to make the teleportation."

The Space Crystal had an energy reserve, and it needed to have enough energy before each use. Only people with an understanding of the appropriate Dao could recharge it. Tang Jie had limited understanding of the Dao of Space, and while he had comprehended that Dao to some extent, it primarily manifested in formations and in the Chaoswind Step. He basically never used it directly, so he couldn't recharge the Space Crystal.

Thus, the only way to recharge the Space Crystal was for it to regenerate the energy on its own.

In the last year, the Space Crystal truly had gained back a little energy, but it was far from enough to teleport between domains.

Domain-boundary-crossing teleportation for the Space Crystal was like stopping time for the Time Crystal, something only possible when the crystal was completely charged.

"Then pick another place!" Tang Jie wasn't surprised by the answer. He just wanted to be sure that teleportation was possible. He reached into the Mountain River State Diagram and took the Space Crystal from within.

This item was the support for the miniature world within the diagram, and the moment it was removed, the space within the diagram was thrown into chaos and began to show signs of collapse. The creatures inside wailed in terror and shock, as if the world was about to fall apart.

But Tang Jie had no time to worry about them. The Space Crystal glowed, enveloping Tang Jie and Yiyi in a starry light. But Tang Jie did not activate this power, instead staring at the bloody exit.

They rapidly descended, the bloody exit getting closer and closer.

He could vaguely see a world of raging waves of blood beyond it.

A large hand tore open the fissure and reached inside.

The Lord of the Blood River couldn't wait for Tang Jie to drop down, choosing to flagrantly reach in to grab him.

"Is it true that you're at Immortal Platform?" Tang Jie coldly said.

He held the Space Crystal with his left hand and the Sovereign Blade in his right hand.

Staring at that large hand, he suddenly leaned forward. The golden Sovereign Blade lengthened into a particularly long saber that cut at that giant hand of blood.

The golden blade sliced through the blood hand, opening a path for its wielder and cleaving the hand in half.

"Raa!" A furious roar came from outside the bloody fissure, apparently in anger over the resistance of this puny ant.

The blood hand that had been cleaved in two transformed into two hands and chased Tang Jie. It was clear that Tang Jie's Sovereign Blade could not truly harm the Lord of the Blood River, only displease and anger him.

Tang Jie spun, and as he turned his back to the fissure, the Sovereign Blade unleashed a dazzling wave of light at the two hands.

Blood rained down and began to transform. The bloody passage quickly became flooded with tingers, wolves, and lions, all of them roaring as they chased after Tang Jie.

This was the might of the Lord of the Blood River.

It was said that the Lord of the Blood River was a manifestation of the Blood River Domain's Blood River. So long as the Blood River existed, it would be immortal. Being attacked in any fashion would only make it more and more powerful.

But just like the Black Tortoise's reincarnations, the undying attribute of the Blood River came with its own price—the Lord of the Blood River could not move. It was the Blood River, and the Blood River was it. For this reason, while other Immortal Platform Titans could freely roam the myriad domains, the Lord of the Blood River was forever stuck in the Blood River Domain.

Countless blood fiends converged, but Tang Jie coldly stared at them, a light shining on the center of his forehead.

Nothing was truly invincible, and even someone as powerful as the Lord of the Blood River could not be completely immune to damage. At best, it was a matter of whether one was capable of it or not. If it were only the avatar, Tang Jie might not have been strong enough for the job, but as he had the Sovereign Blade, he could deal some damage so long as he could identify the weakness.

The vertical eye slowly opened, and the moment it did, Tang Jie unleashed his Insight powers to the maximum.

Before him was a raging sea of blood, brimming with terrifying power that threatened to suffocate him.

But within this divine might, Tang Jie saw little points of red light.

Yes.

Red light.

Red lights in the middle of the sea of blood.

They were just as red, but Tang Jie found something different about them!

They were evenly distributed through the sea of blood, each one practically one with the surrounding ocean, making them practically impossible to see without Insight.

But Tang Jie had seen them.

For some reason, his instinct told him that these were the real key.

The Sovereign Blade swung again, slicing at the red dots and unleashing a wave of energy.

This wave passed through most of the points of light in the sea of blood.

A moment later, a frenzied roar erupted through the blood sea: "The audacity!"

It was like a thunderclap!

Tang Jie threw up blood.

The vertical eye disappeared.

The pursuing beasts of blood disappeared, falling down as drops of blood, and numerous points of red light flew out of the sea of blood.

Tang Jie immediately called out, "Yiyi!"

Yiyi had spent so long with him that she instantly knew what he was thinking. With a wave of her hand, all those red points of light flew into her hand, rolling around in her palm like little pieces of coral and merging together into a red gel-like substance.

Meanwhile, Tang Jie was still falling toward the blood fissure.

He dropped out of the fissure and appeared in a blood-colored sky, gravity carrying him toward a blood river that extended off into the horizon.

An elderly face appeared on the Blood River and furiously roared, "You rat, you're seeking death!"

The blood fountained into the air.

An enormous hand formed from the blood, blotting out the sky as it moved to grab Tang Jie.

Tang Jie looked at that elderly face and smiled. "Goodbye!"

The Space Crystal released a starry light that illuminated the entire Blood River Domain. Just when that giant hand was about to grab him, Tang Jie disappeared, that hand swiping through the afterimage he left behind. And then came a furious and disbelieving "NO!"

――――――――――――――――

The original Tang Jie suddenly raised his head, his eyes gleaming with a divine light.

"Out of danger," he said.

"How did you escape?" Xu Miaoran asked.

"The Space Crystal," Tang Jie replied.

Xu Miaoran sighed in relief. Rather than the avatar, she was more worried about Yiyi.

Tang Jie then said, "But the Space Crystal lacked energy, so it could only teleport me within the domain, so they're still in the Blood River Domain."

"Is there a way to get back?"

Tang Jie hesitated before nodding. "It's not impossible, but it's rather problematic."

Although the Space Crystal couldn't bring the avatar Tang Jie back, the avatar still had the Mountain River State Diagram, which could teleport the avatar to the Nine Executions Immortal Formation. After all, the formation it contained had been designed to cross domains. Thus, so long as the original body set up another teleportation formation in the Rosecloud Domain, they could use the Nine Executions Immortal Formation as a relay point.

However, there were two problems. The first was that a domain-crossing teleportation formation took a huge amount of resources. The one in the diagram was thanks to Wang Juemie, but he would need another sum like that to make another. Although he had stolen a lot in Nadir Hill, he had thrown it all to the avatar. He had been in a rush, so it wasn't like he could pick and choose before throwing the bag to the avatar. The second problem was the Mountain River Diagram itself. Pulling out the Space Crystal had damaged the diagram's internal space, and though Tang Jie had immediately put the Space Crystal back after escaping danger, restoring order, the world within had still suffered, including part of the teleportation formation. This made it temporarily inoperable, and it needed to be checked and repaired.

But regardless, getting the avatar back wasn't as difficult as imagined, so Tang Jie wasn't too anxious. Anyway, it was rare to leave this world and explore another one, and the adventure could widen his horizons. Thus, he casually said, "Relax. It's not a big deal. You'll be seeing Yiyi again soon."

Xu Miaoran saw her boyfriend's confidence and had nothing more to say.

Cang Qingfeng was now dead, so Tang Jie helped himself to the man's Mustard Seed Bag. Opening it up, he found that there were truly a lot of nice things inside. There were various treasures and talismans, but because of his lack of resources, they were all at the art relic level. Not a single one was a divine treasure.

Even so, quantity made up for quality. If he traded in all these treasures for spirit coins, he could quickly become a millionaire.

There were also numerous herbs, many of which were quite rare. These were probably prepared for the Evercycle Rising Dragon Pill, and they were much more valuable than the art relics.

Finally, Tang Jie saw a book.

There was no name on the book, and when he flipped it open, he saw that it contained methods for refining pills.

After some thought, Tang Jie realized that these were Cang Qingfeng's insights into pill refining.

This man had lived for ten thousand years and through numerous incarnations, and in the process, he had reached an extremely high level in all manner of fields. Although this little book didn't have some heaven-shaking name, nor was it some famous work passed down through the ages, the ability of the author meant that it was probably more valuable than any other pill-refining text.

Cang Qingfeng had probably written this down because he was obsessed with refining the Evercycle Rising Dragon Pill. For this reason, while he was just as skilled in making talismans and tools, there was no book containing his knowledge. And the last part of this treatise on pill refining concerned the refining of the Evercycle Rising Dragon Pill.

According to the book, this pill was a divine medicine of High Antiquity, with miraculous and transformative effects, capable of causing one to transcend. Apparently, the person who refined this medicine had fed the pill to a small snake, and that snake instantly flew into the air and became a dragon, which was why it was called the Rising Dragon Pill. As for "Evercycle", that referred to how long it would take to refine the medicine, due to its difficulty.

While there was no lack of hyperbole in the rumors, there was also no doubt of this medicine's miraculous effects. The book noted that this medicine was a supreme medicine for the charge at Immortal Platform.

Mortal cultivation was the process of cultivating from mortal to spirit, and then from spirit to Immortal. The Three Withering Tribulations were the means by which one achieved the spiritual body, and ascending to Immortal Platform achieved the Immortal Body. The Rising Dragon Pill had transformative power, which made it a medicine for attaining Immortal Platform. If Cang Qingfeng wanted to break his shackles and ascend to Immortal Platform, he needed this pill.

But refining this pill was extremely difficult. Not only did it require numerous herbs, it also absolutely required the Myriad Immortals Cauldron and Deicide Flame, which was why Cang Qingfeng had been searching for them this whole time.

Long ago, when he was a genuine Black Tortoise, he had been a frequent honored guest to the Court of Myriad Domains, so he knew that these objects could be found within the court. Alas, when the Myriad Court perished, the Myriad Immortals Cauldron and Deicide Flame went missing. He searched the myriad domains and found countless fragments of the court before finally finding out where the fragment with the Jade Fairy Palace that had held the cauldron had ended up. Thus, he had rushed over, but he had unexpectedly run into a spatial storm that ended his life. After reincarnating and cultivating again, before he could get the treasure, he ended up stirring up trouble and was squashed to death by the Basking Moon Sect's Cloud Ancestor, forcing him to start the process all over again…

Cang Qingfeng had been through great suffering to get this Myriad Immortals Cauldron.

Countless deaths meant that what he had accumulated was as variegated and lacking in depth as his abilities.

The spirit herbs prepared for the refining of the Evercycle Rising Dragon Pill, while valuable, were far from what the pill required. Thus, even if he had succeeded, he would not have been able to immediately refine the pill. Instead, he would have had to keep searching the land for materials. And if he was so careless as to die, he would have to start all over again, just like now.

In short, the Rising Dragon Pill was a divine object that could only be gazed at from far away.

Tang Jie was no expert in pill refining, so he didn't get lost in any wild fantasies. However, he did carefully put away the book. It was a book that could compare to any pill treatise in the world.

Besides the items in the Mustard Seed Bag, Cang Qingfeng's body had something else extremely valuable: the python's corpse.

This mysterious python of unknown origins was extremely tough, and while it was no Transformation fiend, its body was as tough as diamond, and it had been brimming with strength and vigor. Constitution-wise, it didn't lose to a regular Transformation fiend. Since Cang Qingfeng could use it as a tail to manifest the Black Tortoise phantom, it must have had a drop of Black Tortoise essence blood within it. If consumed, it could serve as a powerful supplement.

Thus, Tang Jie skinned the snake and cooked it. Alas, there was no saving Zhu Yun and Shi Jingzhai, who had ended up in the snake's stomach.

He also helped himself to the Mustard Seed Bags of Ao Chihu, He Changan, and the others.

Making money off the dead was a wonderful feeling. In the end, Tang Jie had still gotten his hands on Ao Chihu's crystal core. Besides that, the deceased had possessed numerous art relics, many of which were very rare.

Tang Jie joined together with Xu Miaoran's group and began to divide the treasures. Of course, he remembered to leave some for Xi Canhen. The kid was still sleeping in the passage. He had practiced the arts of Cang Qingfeng, so that old Daoist had knocked him out cold with a single slap of his palm.

Xian Tao and Hong Yuan roused Xi Canhen, and he scratched his head as he listened to the recount of the battle.

As for Tang Jie, he stood in front of the Myriad Immortals Cauldron.

Standing in front of the bronze cauldron, Tang Jie felt its desolate and ancient aura.

The scene of myriad Immortals attending court was carved into the cauldron, and at the center was a majestic Immortal palace that floated in the clouds. The scene was vaguely similar to the one Tang Jie had seen in the Martial Mirror. Four balls of light could be seen within the Immortal palace, the silhouettes of Immortals within them. Outside the palace, countless Immortals came riding on exotic beasts with various Immortal treasures in hand as tribute, prostrating to the palace. Above the palace was a darkness, some unknown object. At the very bottom, eight characters had been carved in ancient hieroglyphs: "万仙来朝，鼎定千界", "Myriad Immortals attend court, the cauldron governs the thousand domains".

This was the origin of the Myriad Immortals Cauldron.

It was said that the Myriad Immortals Cauldron was a Dao armament forged when the Court of Myriad Domains was at its most prosperous, made from the most precious resources in the universe. It was built in accordance with nature, ruling the heavens and earth, the lord of Yin and Yang.

Dao armaments were different from divine treasures and art relics.

Art relics were primarily supportive, meant to maximize one's own power, and rarely did they have the ability to attack effectively on their own. For example, while the Heartbreak Saber had a fire attack, it was much weaker when it was away from Tang Jie. The most important thing for an art relic was to merge together with the user's power and unleash the user's strength. The better the art relic, the better it was able to fill this role.

Divine treasures were the opposite. They used Divine Connections as their standard. For example, the Supreme Mystery Bell had the Divine Connection of reversing the heavens and earth, reflecting attacks. The Herding Yang Pearl had the Three-Heads-Six-Arms ability and could boost one's physical strength.

For this reason, divine treasures didn't suddenly make everything better. For instance, even a formidable existence like He Changan still chose to use an ultimate-grade art relic over a divine treasure. The power he could exhibit with the Desolate Heavens Halberd was not one bit weaker than a Divine Connection.

Thus, the power of divine treasures hinged on their Divine Connections. While the Supreme Mystery Bell had a Divine Connection, reversing the heavens and earth was far weaker than Three-Heads-Six-Arms. After all, the Herding Yang Pearl didn't just have a powerful Divine Connection. More importantly, it granted a sliver of Dao Will, having some slight contact with the Dao.

Dao armaments had Daos as their standard. Each Dao armament was bound to have a Dao Will. For example, the Dao Will attached to Wang Juemie's Seven Inferno Heaven Treasures was Protection, and it manifested as a fortress. The power exhibited through this Dao Will was absolute, and even the Sovereign Blade was not guaranteed to break through. As for the Divine Connections the Seven Inferno Heaven Treasures had, like Heavenfire and such, they were not important. No matter how strong a Dao armament's Divine Connections were, if its Dao Will was weak, it was just trash. For this reason, the number of Dao Runes carved into a Dao armament and the depth of the carvings determined the strength of a Dao armament. The Seven Inferno Heaven Treasures were considered the worst Dao armament because they had the weakest Dao, a mere Protection, not even one of the 12 Great Daos. It was truly worthless.

The Myriad Immortals Cauldron was different. That it was the lord of Yin and Yang meant that it was associated with those Daos.

And that it was called "lord" indicated that these were deep Dao Runes, far above those of the Seven Inferno Heaven Treasures.

As a divine medicine, the Evercycle Rising Dragon Pill needed the Dao, which was why the Myriad Immortals Cauldron was needed to refine it. This was a cauldron that governed all treasures, governed the thousand domains, such was its immense power.

But Tang Jie had found a big problem.

This thing was too powerful for him to use!