Chapter 576: Again This Bug

After Ji Luo completed all the array formations, Ding Huan implanted four supreme immortal spirit veins and one and a half semi-divine vein.

Training in a place everyone knows about became much safer due to the protective array.

But there was one drawback: everyone knew he was here, making him a living target.

Ding Huan's first priority was to heal Ji Xing.

Ji Xing's injuries were severe, but to Ding Huan, as long as the physical body and Primordial Spirit remained intact, it wasn't truly injured.

Under the recovery of the Great Cosmos Art, Ji Xing opened his eyes in just half an hour.

He was about to refuse to reveal the divine technique when he spotted Ding Huan.

Ji Xing's eyes immediately lit up with joy: "Teacher, I didn't bring you shame…"

Ding Huan nodded: "Good. You held on."

Seeing Ji Xing speak, Ding Huan praised him.

In fact, Ding Huan didn't care at all whether the divine techniques he taught Ji Xing and others would be leaked.

But if Ji Xing had broken under Pu's torture and revealed the Ten Thousand Sands Sword Dao technique to the Pu Immortal Clan, Ji Xing would have been silenced long ago.

Because Ji Xing never spoke out, he kept his life.

"Hao Yi, Qingsi…" Ji Xing was about to say more when he immediately saw Director Qian Xun Hao Yi and Fan Qingsi standing beside him.

Though his cultivation was ruined, he could clearly sense that both Director Qian Xun Hao Yi and Fan Qingsi had also lost their cultivation.

"Senior Ji, don't worry—Teacher has already avenged you," said Director Qian Xun Hao Yi.

Compared to Ji Xing, he and Fan Qingsi were actually lucky.

They were taken in by Vice Dean Gu Min, so no one dared force them to hand over the divine techniques Ding Huan had taught them.

Ji Xing fell silent; he didn't know what Director Qian Xun Hao Yi meant by "revenge"—perhaps he had reported it to the Immortal Surveillance Office, which then punished the Pu Immortal Clan.

For the major immortal clans, the Immortal Surveillance Office's punishment was probably just confiscating a bit of immortal crystal.

Ji Xing had no idea that the "revenge" Director Qian Xun Hao Yi spoke of meant the complete annihilation of the Pu Immortal Clan.

Ding Huan's voice interrupted their thoughts: "Next, you need to restore your meridians, consciousness sea, and dantian."

"Remember, once your cultivation and body are fully restored, just keep training…"

"Teacher, can we really recover?" Fan Qingsi, who had been gloomy all along, asked in surprise.

"Don't worry—my students aren't so easily destroyed," Ding Huan smiled.

"Yes, thank you, Teacher…"

At that moment, not only Director Qian Xun Hao Yi and Fan Qingsi, but even Ji Xing became excited.

Though the Great Dao Corridor was safe, without cultivation, training was impossible—no different from being dead.

When Ding Huan began training, the three were still stunned.

Teacher didn't say how to restore the meridians and injuries—how were they supposed to do it?

At that moment, they could only follow Ding Huan's instructions and begin training.

What shocked them was that their previously shattered meridians and broken dantian began slowly repairing the moment they started training.

The Zhou Tian that had once been impossible to complete could now run—and with each cycle, their meridians recovered a little more.

It was as if a dense stream of immortal spirit energy guided them through the Zhou Tian, while also urging them to repair their broken bodies.

All three suppressed their inner excitement and focused intently on circulating the Zhou Tian to heal their injuries.

They had never imagined training could heal wounds.

This was certainly not due to their own cultivation arts—it was Teacher's guidance.

In just a few days, Director Qian Xun Hao Yi and Fan Qingsi's injuries vanished completely.

When they began training, they discovered the immortal spirit energy they absorbed was not only unimaginably dense, but the clear Dao principles were something they had never encountered before.

It seemed slightly higher in rank than immortal spirit energy.

Combined with training within Ding Huan's cultivation range, their cultivation advanced at an astonishing pace.

On the fifth day, Ji Xing's injuries vanished entirely; he too felt the extreme speed of his progress—how could he waste even a moment?

Over the past one or two years, they had experienced the coldness of human relationships.

Only by strengthening one's own power was there true truth.

Ding Huan was also very satisfied—this semi-divine vein was indeed superior to immortal spirit veins.

Even supreme immortal spirit veins couldn't match a semi-divine vein.

Even the fragmented divine crystals were inferior in cultivation effect to the semi-divine vein.

In just over ten days, he surged into Immortal Sovereign Seventh Layer realm.

If he had still used supreme immortal spirit veins, even with his Great Cosmos Art, it would have taken at least two years.

Ding Huan silently thanked his own decisiveness—he was glad he had swiftly extracted the semi-divine veins from the Xi Xu Dao Law Academy, or his progress would have fallen far behind Zuo Shanwei.

Forty days later, Ding Huan's cultivation reached Immortal Sovereign Eighth Layer.

Ding Huan stopped training, as he had unknowingly spent over a month trying to break into Immortal Sovereign Eighth Layer.

He scanned with his divine sense—after one and a half months, Ji Xing had reached Grand Yi Immortal Seventh Layer.

Director Qian Xun Hao Yi and Fan Qingsi were both at Grand Yi Immortal Eighth Layer.

All three advanced at breakneck speed; becoming a Great Luo Immortal was merely a matter of time.

"I'm going out to handle some business—stay here and keep training," Ding Huan told the three, then stepped out of the protective array.

He found it strange—after one and a half months of training, the Immortal Surveillance Office hadn't disturbed him at all.

Could it be that the Immortal Surveillance Office only had one Xie Kuangren?

Xie Kuangren had been severely wounded—did the Immortal Surveillance Office have no other strong experts?

Ding Huan had planned to visit the Xi Yuan Immortal Clan, but he hadn't expected that the moment he stepped out, he saw two people outside his protective array—one kneeling, one standing.

He knew both of them: the one kneeling was Chang Guafu, and the one standing was Gu Min, vice-dean of the Yonghuang Shentong Academy.

"Master Ding…"

Seeing Ding Huan emerge, both bowed in greeting.

Ding Huan looked at Chang Guafu: "Comrade Chang, you've helped me before. If you need anything, as long as it doesn't violate my inner principles, I will assist—no need for this."

"Yes." Chang Guafu rose to her feet.

"Master Ding, Zhuo Qi and Li Yunmu are unharmed. They've joined the Starlight Cultivator Army of the Great Dao Corridor and left to carry out missions beyond it."

Seeing Ding Huan, Gu Min hurried forward to report on what he had done over the past month.

Ding Huan knew of the Starlight Cultivator Army of the Great Dao Corridor; he also knew it was primarily controlled by the Great Dao Corridor's Immortal Surveillance Office and did not remain within the Corridor.

The army mainly guarded the outer edges of the Great Dao Corridor, seemingly defending against some kind of attack.

But he had never inquired deeply into the army's missions—now that he heard Zhuo Qi and Li Yunmu had joined, he wanted to ask.

"What mission?"

Gu Min explained:

"The Great Dao Corridor, with its most complete celestial laws and being a self-formed starland since the primordial opening, has attracted countless races from this universe.

The largest among them are the Insect Tribes, which repeatedly attack the Great Dao Corridor, seeking to breach its defensive array and storm inside.

Yet the Great Dao Corridor is secured by a divine artifact at its array core, and its killing array is extremely formidable. For years, not a single insect has entered the Great Dao Corridor."

"Not a single insect has entered the Great Dao Corridor?" Ding Huan thought to himself—I find that hard to believe.

Chang Guafu beside him added:

"What Dean Gu says is true. The Immortal Surveillance Office has issued regulations.

Anyone returning from killing insects beyond the Great Dao Corridor must undergo a thorough inspection before re-entering.

No insects are permitted—alive or dead, whether insect materials or insect demonic cores.

Moreover, the Great Dao Corridor forbids using insect materials to brew pills; only crafting artifacts is allowed. Artifacts made from insect materials must be used for over a hundred years before entering the Great Dao Corridor."

Ding Huan felt a certain admiration for the Immortal Surveillance Office—this system was harsh enough.

"Do you have an image of what these insects look like?"

Ding Huan thought of the Dao-Thief Insect—this thing gnawed through arrays, devoured spring sources, and consumed immortal qi.

Anything containing immortal spiritual energy, it would devour.

Gu Min raised his hand and drew an image of an insect.

Ding Huan recognized it at once—it was indeed the Dao-Thief Insect.

Inside his ring lay a massive Dao-Thief Insect—this very creature.

Ding Huan fell silent. He first encountered this insect at the cosmic vortex mouth of the Sword Storage Mountain on the Third Heaven Starland.

He encountered it a second time at the Ancient Primordial Opening Battlefield, among rows of spiritual veins.

At that time, he suspected these insects had been sealed away.

He saw them a third time at the Fourth Sea Strait Valley, and found a pile of them beside the Life-Death Mirror.

He left the Third Heaven Starland from that place and entered the Fourth Immortal Realm.

After entering the Fourth Immortal Realm, he encountered them a fourth time and learned they were Dao-Thief Insects.

These Dao-Thief Insects experience periodic, large-scale outbreaks in the Fourth and Fifth Immortal Realms.

This was now his fifth encounter with them.

"Alright, I understand. Dean Gu, go about your duties." Ding Huan nodded.

Xie Kuangren's laws, no matter how absurd, still showed some competence—he had at least helped the Great Dao Corridor hold back these Dao-Thief Insects.

Ding Huan had witnessed the horror of the Dao-Thief Insects.

They reproduced faster than replication.

Once they entered the Great Dao Corridor, everything within would slowly be destroyed.

But Ding Huan believed the Immortal Surveillance Office's method only treated symptoms, not the root cause.

Even in the Fourth and Fifth Immortal Realms, living space had been compressed within sects and protective arrays.

Elsewhere, there was no immortal spiritual energy at all.

He had not understood why before, but now he had a rough idea—it must be the Dao-Thief Insects doing this.

To resolve this problem completely, perhaps only he could do it.

That was to construct a Gene Annihilation Array.

He could not have done it before, but now he could.

Any insect carrying the Dao-Thief Insect's gene that entered the Great Dao Corridor would be instantly erased by the array.

It was similar to the array he had once set up on Earth to restrict beast evolution.

"Yes." Gu Min dared not offend Ding Huan; after receiving his response, he did not linger.

Ding Huan turned to Chang Guafu: "Why have you come here?"

She had knelt before him—she must have some difficult matter seeking his aid.

This woman had also realized he was the one who bought the entry ticket from her to attend the Wanshi Xiancheng Dao Master Exchange Fair.