Chapter 345: The Incident Occurs

White clouds drift, the air is fresh, and the mountains are filled with spiritual clarity.

The main sect of the Falling Feather Immortal Gate remains as peaceful as ever today, appearing isolated from the world, standing aloof, and completely distanced from all manner of worldly disputes.

"It really is quiet!"

Having sent the people away and lingered for a while, Meng Changqing, now back at his Fifth Peak, cannot help but shake his head and squint his eyes as he sighs with such emotion.

Because, at long last, there is no longer that dense, clattering noise ringing in his ears.

Because Du En has, at this very moment, already gone to the two fifth-tier cultivation grounds he selected to carry out his further cultivation.

The first fifth-tier ground selected is the Floating Barrier Plateau.

It is a yellowish-brown plateau, excavated in its entirety and then shrunk and woven into a black steel building in the Central Capital that looks completely unremarkable from the outside.

It looks desolate and devoid of life, nothing but a dim yellow; when the wind blows even slightly, sand fills the air, and since the wind blows here constantly in various ways, it is filled with sandstorms at every moment, making it truly difficult for the living to enter.

At the same time, within that sandstorm, there are floating mountain barriers constantly swimming and moving about; to those with poor eyesight or no magical arts, it looks as if there are clusters of pitch-black, oppressive shadows within the sand, like silent giants patrolling the sky, or perhaps giant whales of the void swimming by.

The second fifth-tier ground selected is the Deep Profound Primeval Forest.

It was likewise excavated in its entirety and woven into a building in the Central Capital.

By comparison, it appears much calmer, looking like nothing more than a deep green primeval forest, profound and tranquil; that touch of green even darkens into a gloomy hue because of this, and stepping into it feels like being swallowed whole, making one feel a chill run down their spine.

Such a place can be called a treasure land, and it can be called a land of peril!

Those with insufficient cultivation who wander into it by mistake have basically no way to escape on their own.

Only great cultivators can enter and exit at will, borrowing the various mysteries contained within to assist in their own cultivation.

Du En has selected these two grounds and had a preliminary experience with each; he is very satisfied.

——If one practices here, one can even reduce the grinding time for top-grade spells of the corresponding attribute to one-third of the original!

It is no wonder that the completely heartless Immortal Gate would control such places; as a major consumer of merit points, it is indeed extremely cost-effective.

And now, regarding top-grade spells, there are already rules for grinding such as key realm influence, halved requirements, and mutual promotion between peers, which already make the difficulty much lower; now, adding this ground bonus, it can truly be called fast upon fast!

Naturally, after Du En copied the grounds to the Kongsang Mountain Blessed Land, he did not stop for a single moment, wasting no time at all, and began to immerse himself in the grind, unable to extricate himself.

The focus is mainly on grinding spells.

The daily cultivation amount is first halved, and the daily practice amount is directly increased to five thousand times!

With such exceptionally intense, day-and-night, non-stop effort, the results are naturally quite obvious.

And so.

Two hundred and three days later, Meteor Rock Art broke through to the Perfection Extreme.

Another two hundred and eight days later, Sandstorm Art broke through to the Perfection Extreme.

In the meantime, he promoted and pulled along the Profound Armor Giant Statue, causing it to break through to Small Accomplishment.

Then after that.

Another one hundred and fifty-eight days later, the Profound Armor Giant Statue broke through to the Perfection Extreme.

The three earth-attribute spells were thus finished grinding, and he turned to the wood-attribute ones.

Another two hundred and sixty-five days later, Grass and Trees Become a Forest broke through to the Perfection Extreme.

In the meantime, he promoted and pulled along the Spell-Devouring Spirit-Cutting, causing it to break through to Familiarity.

Immediately after, another two hundred and twenty-six days passed, and Spell-Cutting Spirit-Devouring broke through to the Perfection Extreme.

The five top-grade earth and wood spells that previously made Du En feel somewhat troubled were now all fully ground, with a total time consumption of one thousand and fifty-one days.

During this period, he was also simultaneously practicing another spell, namely the Phoenix Red True Flame.

However, the Phoenix Red True Flame did not logically break through to Great Accomplishment.

Because after Du En calculated it, he discovered that this breakthrough would bring a boost to his cultivation method, allowing the method to jump directly to the level of Thorough Mastery.

Theoretically, this is a very good thing, but in the current situation, it is not all that appropriate.

Because on the side of the spiritual body, there is still a lack of sufficient filling elements; even if he were to break through now, he would be able to undergo a transformation, but it would appear imperfect.

If possible, it is better to strive for perfection! Moreover, by keeping this card up his sleeve for now, if he encounters any crisis later, he can achieve an on-the-spot breakthrough to shock the enemy and take the opportunity to counter-kill.

Thus, he deliberately stopped at the state of being just one practice away from breaking through.

But because of this, the foundation brought by his current Thorough Mastery is not yet enough for Du En to successfully study Burn Together with the World.

This True Spirit Secret Art is unexpectedly obscure!

Correspondingly, another related eye-technique secret art, the Fiery Eyes and Golden Gaze, was studied successfully quite smoothly, and it started at the level of Small Accomplishment.

As of now, with all five top-grade earth and wood spells fully cultivated, he logically turned to learn the secret art Earth-Wood Sacred Refining, using them and the foundation of the Ten Thousand Control Art.

It also reached the level of Small Accomplishment; it can be said to be a great improvement, capable of controlling one hundred thousand magical artifacts at once, which is a direct doubling—it indeed retains the essence of the Ten Thousand Control Art!

Du En glanced at the panel.

【Age: 56/2433】

【Spiritual Root: Low-grade】

【Cultivation: Nascent Soul Early Stage (42/100)】

【Cultivation Method: Radiant Brilliance Canon (Small Accomplishment 36278/100000)】

【Spells: Meteor Rock Art (Perfection Extreme), Sandstorm Art (Perfection Extreme), Ice Soul Art (Perfection Extreme), Profound Armor Giant Statue (Perfection Extreme), Earth-Wood Sacred Refining (Small Accomplishment 0/100), Phoenix Red True Flame (Thorough Mastery 299/300), Grass and Trees Become a Forest (Perfection Extreme), Spell-Devouring Spirit-Cutting (Perfection Extreme), Fiery Eyes and Golden Gaze (Small Accomplishment 0/100)】

【Divine Ability: Burying Death, Flourishing Life (Thorough Mastery 0/300)】

【Hundred Arts: Appraisal (Great Accomplishment 0/500), Culinary Cooking (Perfection Extreme), Spirit Seeking (Great Accomplishment 0/500), Artifact Refining (Thorough Mastery 1/300)】

The changes in his spells have finally become obvious, but new problems are following one after another.

The practice of Fiery Eyes and Golden Gaze looks simple; for every ten times one peers into the Truth, one can accumulate a point of proficiency. But in reality, the object of this "peering into the Truth" cannot be something one already knows.

In other words, after looking at one thing, one must change to another, and the grade requirement cannot be lower than fifth-tier top-grade.

——Because if it breaks through again and advances further, its power will be equivalent to a Profound-grade Daoist Art, so converting it to the current alignment and grading, it is exactly fifth-tier top-grade.

"Regarding his side of the resolution, there should be a sufficient quantity of such spiritual objects; the key lies in what excuse to use... repeat the old trick, a side job?"

Du En pondered slightly, feeling this was not quite right, because whether it was part-time artifact refining or cooking, he would only be handling spiritual items in large, repetitive quantities; what he needed now was variety, not quantity, so doing it this way was actually very inefficient.

For a moment, he had no good ideas, but since he had enough for now, he was not in a hurry.

Therefore, Du En did not dwell on it too much and turned his head to look at the other side.

The grinding here for the Earth-Wood Sacred Refining was simple and plain.

Just refine it! One practice session, refining a hundred at once; after ten such sessions, he would gain a point of proficiency.

It could only be said that it was worthy of being a secret technique tailored for him; for him, it was completely effortless, and he could refine them whenever he had time to stockpile ammunition in advance.

"There is just one unavoidable point: the magical artifacts refined this way have much lower power compared to normal artifacts of the same rank. However, since I mainly use them for self-detonation, it is not a big problem. Moreover, this point should be able to be overcome later as proficiency increases."

Currently, they only have sixty percent power. Optimistically speaking, every time a level is raised, the power can increase by ten percent. Thus, by the time it reaches perfection, it will have ninety percent of the power of ordinary artifacts of the same rank, which is an acceptable range.

In any case, it wins by quantity and is renowned for self-detonation! "Then there is the other point..."

At this moment, Du En had already confirmed another situation.

Regarding the secret technique, because the power alignment is not fixed and the boundaries are clearly ambiguous, even if practiced to a deep level where it can align with higher-level Daoist techniques, it can only align with the current level until it is practiced further.

Taking Earth-Wood Sacred Refining as an example, when it has "Small Achievement," its power matches a Yellow-grade Daoist technique, so the calculation on the panel is at the threshold of a Yellow-grade Daoist technique. If it breaks through to "Mastery," it matches a Profound-grade Daoist technique, and the calculation at this time is based on a Profound-grade Daoist technique.

In other words, at "Small Achievement," it only aligns with top-grade cultivation methods, but at "Mastery," it is one level higher than the current Yaohua Canon, immediately having an immediate promoting effect!

"This panel is really rigid at times, and there are no reminders or explanations at all. It requires me to compare it with the actual situation to determine things, which invisibly wastes time and planning."

Du En was not very satisfied with this point.

After all, it might happen next that after the Yaohua Canon is cultivated to "Mastery," it makes further progress to reach the level of aligning with Profound-grade Daoist techniques.

"Forget it, I won't think about these for now. For now, let's focus on the conversion."

Converting the five spells into the Daoist techniques he had already chosen and obtained!

This is not something that can be done in a day or two, because the gap between the two is very large. Even now, with the foundation of perfection and various factors pushing it, it will take at least five or six days to successfully complete the conversion.

Therefore, he did not stop before, but instead went all out to grind everything to the max first.

The main reason was that he did not want to waste even a drop of the efficacy of the spiritual meals. After all, by this day and time, spiritual meals had become increasingly precious and rare, and the stock he had on him had already been mostly eaten during the process of frantically grinding spells.

If he did not find a way to solve this, the daily practice count would slide from five thousand times to less than a thousand.

"But the problem is not too big, because the proficiency bar for Daoist techniques is short, and it emphasizes the coordination of timing and location, requiring conditional repetitive grinding..."

"Du En."

The voice of Meng Changqing transmitted inside interrupted Du En's thoughts and his just-moved footsteps.

He raised his eyebrows slightly, waved his hand casually to let Kongsang Mountain return to its original state, and then walked out from it, returning to the fenced courtyard house on the Fifth Peak of the main Luoyu Sect.

Pushing open the door, he saw Meng Changqing with a grave face.

"Has something happened?"

"Yes, over at the Queguang Star Realm, our people sent back an emergency message. It is the turmoil from before that has finally brewed and taken effect; they have begun to accelerate their pace to drive the changes!"

Star Realm, Lower Star, Lower Domain, Lower World... these different names actually all point to one place: those stars in the universe, those cave-heaven stars with spiritual veins and spiritual Qi, the blessed land domains.

Being able to be crowned with the prefix of "cave-heaven and blessed land," one can imagine that it must also be a prosperous place for immortal cultivation, even if it is not as prosperous as the Zhengshu Ancestral Star, it should still be very flourishing.

If it were during the era of the immortal sect hegemony, or before the catastrophe disappeared, that would indeed be the case. But now, just by knowing the derogatory terms like "Lower Star" and "Lower Domain" that have been added to them, one knows that the glory of the past is no longer there.

Only a small number of people like Meng Changqing would use the ancient term "Star Realm" to describe them.

Du En was not surprised by this. Even slowing down his cultivation to first grind his spells to a matching level was based on this urgent status quo. But in the end, it was hard to be perfect; he was just one month short of being able to completely transform his various spells.

"What is the specific situation?"

He did not want to shirk and asked calmly.

"Because it is a sudden change, and the time spent sending people to investigate is not long, I am afraid the intelligence might be distorted or erroneous. Therefore, I can only give you some of the most basic information. Here, you can read it later, and you can decide how to act specifically yourself. As for now, take this first."

Meng Changqing stuffed a jade slip, a robe, and a fifth-grade storage bag directly into his hands.

"I refined that Wicked Dragon skin into this robe. Wearing it can block the pressure of the primordial spirit, allowing you to blend into various related strange environments so that you won't be discovered immediately due to reasons like being an outside intruder. It can be considered as filling in the gaps in your concealment."

"However, no matter how optimistically you think, it is impossible to guarantee that nothing will go wrong, so you need to pay attention to this. Alright, there is no time to say more now. You should hurry up and refine it, then set off!"

The reason he was urging him so tightly was naturally because there were people of their own side over there who might already be in imminent danger!

The earlier he arrived, the more possibility there was for a rescue!

Du En naturally did not delay, immediately refining it with True Flame and carving his mark on it; it was done in the blink of an eye. Then, the style of the Azure-Dark Dharma Robe on his body changed slightly, becoming an Azure-Dark tunic, and he put on this gray, inconspicuous Wicked Dragon Robe.

"Send me over."

As his voice fell, the door of the main house of the fenced courtyard, which had not been seen open before, suddenly opened silently and closed quietly in the next instant.

A breeze blew by.

Du En was no longer in the original place; he had already been teleported and dropped into the sky full of stars, inside that Queguang Star Realm.

"I hope everything is still in time..."

Meng Changqing also had no time to linger; his avatar disappeared in the blink of an eye to go do what he should do.

Containing the other high-level True Monarchs of the sect, the most important one being, naturally, True Monarch Huiqing! (End of chapter)