Chapter 592: Golden Hall

The leaf had clear veins and distinct textures; it was quite beautiful. The most crucial point was that the moment He Lingchuan touched this leaf, his lapel began to heat up.

Was the Divine Bone Necklace feeling greedy again?

Old Ge said, "I'll go back and help you ask around."

"Thanks." He Lingchuan hid the golden-red leaf in his bosom. "Didn't you say there was a suspected cave dwelling that had never been found?"

"Oh, right, that's this Deep Pool of Roots." Old Ge pointed to the deep pool under the banyan tree. "Legend has it that the Immortal of the First Shore from the Great Return Sect opened a cave dwelling here, and the entrance was this pool of clear water. He eventually passed away in meditation inside the dwelling, and the dwelling vanished along with him, never to appear again."

"Immortal of the First Shore?" He Lingchuan asked curiously, "Wasn't Ruin Mountain formerly called First Shore Mountain?"

Wasn't the half-broken sword tip that sold for a sky-high price at the Dun Garden auction a few days ago snapped off from the Immortal of the First Shore's natal magic treasure? Famous people are truly remarkable; even objects that have the slightest connection to them can sell for astronomical prices.

"Indeed, it was only renamed after Beijia was founded," Old Ge said. "To bear the title of 'First Shore' is a great honor. This person was a mighty figure who leveled a grotto with a single sword strike and left a path of survival for the Questioning Tree."

He Lingchuan reached out to brush the pool water; it was clear, cold, and chilling.

"I'll take a wild guess: people have jumped in to look for it, right?"

"That's a given; it happens every year." Old Ge laughed. "I heard that for the first three hundred years, people went into the water to look every few days—it was quite the spectacle. Not only did they go into the water, but busybodies wandered all over Heavenly Pivot Peak, searching every crack in the rocks. They even looked for light and shadow, angles, and all sorts of legends to ponder. Later, Heavenly Pivot Peak strictly forbade everyone from entering the water, and the number of people dropped sharply."

The number of people who had dived down was at least several thousand, if not ten thousand, yet no lucky soul had ever found that lost cave dwelling. He Lingchuan felt he could save himself the trouble.

He guessed that Spirit Void City had previously tacitly allowed everyone to jump in because they wanted to utilize the power of the masses. Since everyone had tried for three hundred years and failed, that was that—everyone should stop looking.

The group followed the flow of visitors forward. It was only after finally leaving Heavenly Pivot Peak that the road immediately became spacious.

"The next main peak is Heavenly Spin," Old Ge pointed to a mountain peak towering into the clouds not far away. "Then, we will reach Heavenly Pivot Peak, where the Tiangong is located—which is also the final stop of our journey today!"

The group felt a little excited again, except for the guy who had obtained the red leaf, who had found an excuse to go down the mountain early.

The scenery of Heavenly Spin Peak was excellent, but everyone's thoughts were fixed on Heavenly Pivot.

The mountain road became higher and higher, the temperature became lower and lower, the flowers by the roadside became fewer, and frost began to hang on the grass leaves.

The cold wind blowing in their faces gradually became biting. He Lingchuan actually found a sense of walking on Wind Demon Mountain.

Heavenly Pivot Peak, the first highest peak in the suburbs of Spirit Void City.

Jiang Tao puffed out white steam while climbing the mountain: "The envoys of the Tiangong don't have to go through such trouble to go up and down Ruin Mountain, right? And the Emperor, I heard he often comes up here."

"Of course they don't have to." Old Ge grinned. "They have teleportation arrays that go from the foot of the mountain straight to the Tiangong; there's no need to climb at all. When high-ranking foreign dignitaries arrive, they also ascend straight into the clouds!"

At this moment, the clouds parted and the sun came out, and the rolling sea of clouds temporarily retreated.

He Lingchuan turned his head to look and could just catch a glimpse of the floating island above Spirit Void City.

Looking at the floating island from this angle had a unique charm. Because the highest floating island looked lower than the altitude where the Tiangong was located.

He Lingchuan could now look down on the other floating islands from his current angle.

They were lush and green, true hanging gardens, with mountains, water, and pavilions hidden among them.

He Lingchuan reached out to compare; his palm could block out the distant floating island.

The mirror in his bosom asked him, "What are you doing?"

"It's only this big." He said playfully, "It's like the world in the palm of one's hand."

Gao Jilin asked casually, "Whose palm?"

He Lingchuan smiled without answering.

Naturally, it was the Heavenly God's.

Although it was freezing cold, the number of tourists climbing Heavenly Pivot Peak had increased significantly; everyone wanted to find the feeling of looking down on the floating islands.

Usually, it was the floating islands looking down on all living beings.

Heavenly Pivot Peak actually had six companion peaks of various sizes, guarding it in the center like stars surrounding the moon.

Almost every mountaintop had buildings, shrouded in clouds and mist, full of immortal aura.

Old Ge pointed to them and said, "These are the residences of the Cloud Envoys, Divine Attendants, and Lamp-Guarding Envoys—oh, right, and the Tiangong guards!"

They had walked all the way from Rock Light Peak to Heavenly Spin Peak, and the guards along the road were all Ruin Mountain guards; they were not qualified to reside on Heavenly Pivot Peak.

At the end of the road, the magnificent main hall became increasingly clear.

For some reason, He Lingchuan felt his heart skip a beat as he walked here, as if a fierce giant beast were perched on the mountaintop, mouth agape, waiting for him to walk into the trap.

This dangerous spiritual sense, he didn't know if it came from his sixth sense or the Divine Bone Necklace.

Above the mountaintop was the pinnacle of human power.

He took a deep breath and strode up.

At this time, the sun was already slanting west, and the flying clouds and evening mist on the mountaintop were all reflected into flowing fire.

Deep within the white clouds, glazed golden tiles flashed with golden light, the magnificent palace complex stood in a row, and melodious bell chimes rose and fell; when one tried to listen closely, one didn't know where they were ringing from.

Tiangong guards stood watch on the mountain stairs, two every fifty steps, holding staves in golden armor, their gazes stern.

The buildings on Heavenly Pivot Peak were all white pillars and golden tiles, with walls that were either moon-white or white-bottomed with ochre red; compared to the simple black mountain rocks beside them, there was a striking, luxurious beauty.

Starting from the first pair of ornate pavilions, the mountain road was paved with blue jade, changing to green jade after a hundred steps, and then changing to white jade after another hundred steps, all the way to the main gate of the Tiangong.

This was the famous Ladder to Heaven.

Countless people knelt here, climbing one step, kowtowing once, murmuring prayers.

The piety they revealed came from the bottom of their hearts, as if there were no greater matter in the world than this.

He Lingchuan passed by them, climbing to the summit with light steps.

The vast square before his eyes was paved with gold-sprinkled white jade, capable of holding at least two thousand people. It wasn't easy to clear such a large space on a high mountain; Old Ge said this was a platform built after reconstruction, provided for people to worship in the open air.

Heavenly Pivot Peak was the highest peak of Ruin Mountain, but the original main peak of the Great Return Sect was Heavenly Spin Peak.

"This first main hall is the Hall of Veneration!" Old Ge perked up, explaining loudly, "Its construction used 1.2 million jin of gold, 9,000 jin of pearls, 3,100 jin of agate, and over 20,000 jin of giant clam, coral, and amber!"

Looking closely at the Tiangong main hall, the style was completely different from ground-level buildings.

Human buildings emphasized carved beams and painted rafters, but Tiangong buildings preferred stone pillars over wooden ones, and stone walls over wooden ones, with exquisite carvings on the pillars and walls. The building itself was sturdy and square in shape, without the flying eaves and bracket sets found on the ground or other main peaks.

In the places He Lingchuan had been before, halls were halls and towers were towers; the two were independent of each other.

But the Tiangong halls were built with at least three stories, and they liked to top the center of the roof with a tower, either round or pointed; the style was completely different from the pagodas on the ground.

He Lingchuan followed the crowd into the hall, and suddenly golden light flashed before his eyes, shaking him back half a step.

The interior of the hall was gilded, and it was pure red gold—the pillars, beams, walls, divine statues, tables, chairs, candle stands... basically, except for the visiting tourists, everything and every corner was golden.

Even the prayer mats in front of the offering tables were woven with gold thread.

Of course, tourists shouldn't think about stealing them, otherwise the hall guards would definitely notice and immediately chop off their hands.

Truly chop off their hands.

The hall was very high, mostly using round doors and vaulted ceilings. He Lingchuan looked up and happened to see a map of the starry sky painted on the ceiling; the night sky used a single piece of natural ink jade, with a gradient color, truly as deep as the night sky. The rarest thing was that it naturally contained dense bright spots, which became the Milky Way after polishing.

As for the other shining stars, they were either pearls, crystals, or rubies and sapphires...

No wonder Old Ge had just introduced that so many treasures were used to build this main hall.

Pearls like dirt, gold like iron—it was nothing more than this.

He Lingchuan took a deep breath; what he smelled here was entirely the scent of wealth and power—

These two things were almost the ultimate dreams of all living beings, and now they were exposed here nakedly. For all tourists entering the Tiangong for the first time, the shock they felt was comprehensive.

He Lingchuan could be considered to have traveled north and south, having seen countless temples and deep mansions. Setting up furniture with a hundred jin of gold was petty, and using thousands of jin of gold was tacky, but using 1.2 million jin...

That was magnificent and grand, seen only once in the world.

Don't forget, this was the Hall of Veneration, the place where the gods were worshipped.

The hall was lined with divine statues of all sizes, either majestic, compassionate, fierce, or terrifying; the golden bodies were all carved from pure red gold, not surface-gilded.

The designer of this main hall directly linked the Heavenly Gods closely with wealth and power.

And in front of every divine statue, incense smoke curled, with humans prostrating themselves.

Without exception, the divine statues were all in the image of humans or half-human, half-demon beings.

As soon as Jiang Tao entered the hall, he was overwhelmed, regretting that he had been born with two fewer eyes, and kept exclaiming: "Unbelievable, unbelievable!"

The cost of building this main hall was unimaginable.

For their tiny little country, the expense of building this one hall could equal how many years of their national treasury income? He Lingchuan saw the expressions of him and other tourists and knew that the purpose of building the Hall of Veneration had been achieved.

This was a dimensionality-reduction display of power.

Gao Jilin was very curious: "Are the Heavenly Gods really all in this appearance?"

Standing in the Hall of Veneration, he didn't dare to reach out and point, but just tilted his head to look at the divine statue on the left:

"Like this Miao Zhantian Heavenly God, her appearance is completely different from what I saw in the Jin Guang Desert; there are also wandering tribes there who worship the Miao Zhantian Heavenly God."

This was a goddess, eyes lowered, solemn in appearance, holding a magic treasure shaped like a balance scale in her hand.

The most peculiar thing was that a yellow single eye was embedded in the tip of the balance scale, and the vertical pupil was light purple.

As soon as He Lingchuan saw this single eye, he felt it looked familiar. "In the Jin Guang Desert, what did this goddess look like?"

"The attire was different, and the magic treasure held was also different." Gao Jilin thought for a moment, "It seems she was holding a pipa."

"Oh!" He Lingchuan also remembered; he had seen this kind of eyeball in Panlong City!

Thanks to Qiandai Qixiu and several TNT classmates for their enthusiastic praise!

What's wrong with you all? O(∩_∩)O

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 593 =====