Legend of the Great Sage

On a desolate wasteland of the Demon domain, the barren earth was devoid of life. A few dry bushes shivered away in the cold wind. The dark, heavy clouds were like a thick, dirty cloth. Even the rocks did not have it easy, reduced to a pile of sand despite holding on for countless years.

A figure suddenly rushed through the curtain of clouds, descending from above. Before he even hit the ground, he stopped mid-air.

Whoosh! Rain poured down violently, all over Li Qingshan’s face. He clenched his fists firmly and overlooked the bleak land cautiously.

Only after confirming there were no threats did he slowly lower his fists, letting out a deep breath. He relaxed completely and spread his arms at the sky, allowing the rain to douse him. He began laughing aloud.

His laughter was like rumbling thunder. The pressure from the Sangharama God had been far too great. Coupled with Sukhāvatī’s constant attempts to assimilate with him, he remained tense at all times. Now, he had finally escaped.

Was there anything better than fighting powerful enemies and breaking out of impossible situations?

Everything flashed right before his eyes. In particular, the scarlet and golden eyes were as clear as an imprint, making his blood boil. He was unable to calm down.

“Is he a traitor? No, why would a traitor save me? Speaking of which, we’re different from those guys up in the heavens!”

You have to believe! The Wind-coursing Great Sage’s words continued to echo by his ear.

“But the fact that the Great Sages were all suppressed must have something to do with him, or they would not be so furious and so aggrieved.”

When he said “You have to believe”, it was more like he was trying to convince himself.

“And the Sangharama God called him a traitor too. He’s probably converted to buddhism. What’s all of this about?”

No matter how Li Qingshan thought, he was unable to come up with anything, so he stopped wasting his time. There would be a day when the truth would be revealed anyway.

If he was a friend, then they could pull together and face the gods and buddhas in the heavens. If he was a foe, then he would fight him to the death and move his position as the eighth brother forwards a little. Regardless of what happened, his transmigration would not have gone to waste.

“Haha, my great blade is already running out of patience!”

Unfortunately, he did not have a blade right now, only an ancient bronze sword of mysterious origins, and he could not even wield it as he pleased. He felt like there was some kind of scheme at work. If he were to discard it, he was just unable to bring himself to do that. He would be facing Qiongqi soon as well, so possessing a fitting weapon could potentially save his life when it mattered.

“So be it. I’ll decide once I resolve my bet with Qiongqi and undergo the seventh heavenly tribulation! By then, I should be able to see through the secrets of this sword.”

To regular cultivators, becoming a Human Immortal was already an arduous feat. If they wanted to become a True Immortal, their hopes were extremely slim. Even if they devoted ten millennia to the cause, they could not necessarily succeed.

The reason why Li Qingshan was so confident was because of the Nine Transformations of the Demonic and Divine. The higher his cultivation was, the more obvious its wonders became.

Unlike regular cultivators, his path was not unique or fixed. When others struggled to make progress or even reached a dead end, he only needed to change his path. He did not have to worry about reaching a dead end. He would always be able to make progress.

His great adventure in Sukhāvatī was extremely dangerous, but it allowed the Qilin Transformation to break through several times. If he only focused on meditating and secluded cultivation, who knew how much longer it would take. It all seemed like a coincidence, but in reality, it was because his path was far too rough. There was nowhere where he could not survive.

Of course, without sufficiently strong willpower, spirit, and courage, he would not be able to bear the burden of all these transformations either.

“In short, I’m a sick cunt, hahaha!”

In the pouring rain, the young man of the past was already a half-god, yet his youthful spirit and boldness only became even more flagrant.

“I wonder how that madwoman Rongzhi is doing.”

He shielded his eyes from the rain and gazed off into the distance, only to see an endless stretch of wasteland. The Demon domain was extremely large. If he wanted to find Qingqi mountain, he needed someone to show him the way. Otherwise, if he accidentally ended up running into another Demon God, there probably would not be another Great Sage to save his life.

The greatest lesson he had learnt from his battle against the Sangharama God was that he still was not any true god’s opponent. If it were not for the Sangharama God’s qualms, refusing to destroy Nālandā, he probably would have been captured already or even done for.

His fantasies were just his fantasies. He still had to maintain a clear understanding over the difference in strength. Willpower, spirit, and courage could be converted into power, but they could not directly replace power.

As a result, in his battle against Qiongqi, he had to approach it cleverly. Brute force would not work. It would be best if he just snuck his way over to Qingqi and whipped out the Mountain-moving tablet in an instant before pushing down Qingqi mountain in one fell swoop. That would be absolutely fantastic then.

He fished out a Skull Prayer Bead in an attempt to contact Xiao An so that she could help him locate Qian Rongzhi. However, even after fiddling around with it for a while, the Skull Prayer Bead did not respond, probably because this was the depths of the Demon domain. The Demon domain was not located in the six realms of saṃsāra, so the connection was broken.

However, he was not completely out of ideas either. His eyes turned dark-blue, deep like the darkness.

At that instant, the storm stopped. The droplets of rain all hovered in the middle of the air, forming a flat hexagon around Li Qingshan.

With the completion of the Spirit Turtle Transformation, it led to the development of several more innate abilities, which included ones for prophecy and divination.

The reason why he did not provide them with names was because he had already been internalising these abilities, gradually becoming a form of instinct, like an extension of his arms. There was no clear distinction between them either, where they all intersected and used a component of one another. Using them all came to a single thought.

For example, the divination he used right now basically used all of his innate abilities.

It was like how raising a hand required the brain’s control and the heart to provide blood. Even the two legs would be involved in the process. Basically all of his body parts would be used in the process. If he came up with an awesome name for it, like “Qingshan’s Dark Claw”, it would be completely useless.

His head slowly swiveled like a radar, and the hexagon formed from the droplets of rain turned as well. His deep eyes rippled slightly as if he had seen through the endless space and grasped a thread of fate.

Suddenly, he locked onto a certain direction. “I got it!”

The torrential rain continued to fall, but he had already vanished.

The sky dimmed very soon. Nights had always been much longer in the Demon domain.

This was a city shrouded in haze. The streets criss-crossed like webs as rectangular buildings pulled up from the crowd, obscured in the depths of the dark curtain of clouds, impossible to tell how tall they were. It was like a grey forest.

Round chimneys were littered at different heights, spitting out sharp-smelling, multi-coloured smoke, like the breath of a monster. It merged with the haze and turned into rain.

Looking up, the rain seemed to be black, falling on the flashing, neon lights on the corner of the streets.

Li Qingshan blinked his eyes in surprise. For an instant, he felt like he had returned to his former life.

However, he realised very soon that these were all creations of machinery and magic, not science. The tall buildings were just so that they could contain as many people as possible. It was the most natural choice.

On top of that, these buildings were all the same shape and colour, which made them seem extremely monotonous and drab. It was truly a concrete jungle. If he stayed here for too long, it was basically capable of driving any regular person mad.

He had already begun to miss Sukhāvatī. It was a beautiful place with gardens, squares, and markets everywhere, and just recently, he had seen the largest city he had ever seen in his life.

Now, his understanding was once again renewed. Not only did this grey, hazy city cover a huge area, the population it could support surpassed a hundred million.

Qian Rongzhi was one of them.