Chapter 469: An Ominous Sign Appears, Du En Exits Seclusion

Shaking his head slightly, Du En dispelled the stray thoughts in his mind.

Because there was simply no way to investigate the hidden truth behind such matters right now; after all, even Meng Changqing, a supreme Quasi-True Monarch capable of fighting against Heaven's Pride True Monarchs, had in the end inexplicably overlooked the anomaly, leaving almost no trace in the human world.

"Better not get too involved with that side."

Fortunately, the grinding requirements for the Dragon-Subduing Dharma Image didn't actually need to involve the Buddhist sect; instead, it required finding some giant creatures to subdue, which was truly as the name suggested.

"The Monument-Carrying Wraiths are actually quite suitable, so, I'll have to think of a way later to catch a few to use as punching bags?"

"No, they have too many ties to the Supreme One. In the upcoming renewed battle, if conditions permit, I can use them as disposable punching bags; if not, I'll still have to try to speed-run it."

After much deliberation, it really still had to rely on the landlord's Quasi-True Monarch.

Du En had a strong path dependency and thought of this quite naturally.

After all, this was the condition under which he would work as a subordinate and risk his life for the other party.

Having reached this point, there was only one Dao technique left for this closed-door cultivation.

Wood Domain.

Rapidly study and switch cultivation.

【Spell: First Wood True Domain (Proficient 0/50)】

The Five Elements are divided into Heavenly Stems; Jia and Yi are Wood, Jia is Yang and Yi is Yin. These are two different directional paths. Originally, Du En intended to cultivate the Yang of the Wood Domain and the Yin of the Flower-Grafting, using Yin and Yang to assist each other and Jia and Yi to combine their strength, so as to obtain higher power.

As it turned out, the Flower-Grafting had other encounters and had already changed into the Four Seasons Flower-Grafting, so the original plan could naturally only be scrapped.

"So when it comes time to advance from Earth-grade to Heaven-grade later, I can't choose the First Wood True Realm again, but must instead choose the Heaven Wood True Realm, fusing Jia and Yi, Yin and Yang, following the Heavenly Stems. It is strong, but the difficulty of grinding it then will not be small..."

In fact, even now, grinding the First Wood True Domain was not a simple matter; it was even quite troublesome, because it required Du En to absorb the Breath of First Wood.

To put it simply, it meant going to various Rank-6 Wood-element treasure lands to absorb the Wood-element breath that was born in the mist during the Yang hour. Successfully absorbing and refining ten wisps would grant one point of proficiency.

Under normal circumstances, only those True Men who cultivated Wood-element classics and possessed Wood-element spirit bodies would have similar cultivation methods. The Immortal Sect's Central Capital must also contain such Rank-6 treasure lands, but the key was that he currently did not have enough merit to exchange for a treasure land to cultivate.

"It seems that after this matter is settled, I'll have to take the opportunity to blackmail True Monarch Chengru..."

Not to mention anything else, this True Monarch was truly wealthy, and he was in charge of the Central Capital. If he were to secretly open a back door, other True Monarchs would have nothing to say, and might not even discover it.

However, it was obvious that this was not a simple matter and would require careful consideration and calculation.

After all, that True Monarch Chengru was ten thousand times harder to deal with than Meng Changqing. Once the matter of the Qingxuan Star Realm was resolved, and there was no possibility of poaching, he would likely ignore this side.

The so-called "times change," that was probably how it was.

So it required weighing.

Du En weighed it silently.

Then, after thinking, he shifted his gaze.

As this closed-door cultivation neared its end and there was nothing that could be obviously improved for the time being, his focus shifted outward again, and he left Kongsang Mountain.

Unknowingly, more than ten days had passed.

But the three people temporarily staying in the City Lord's Mansion had not undergone any visible changes; they still appeared as normal and ordinary as ever. At the same time, the spatial front and back sides beginning to merge, as previously speculated by Sheng Zhaoshui, had not shown any signs of such clues either. Overall, it looked like it would take a long time for a formal merger to occur.

Besides that, the inside and outside of Nine Clouds City had become very calm, with no signs of demonic or evil cultivator activity. After the initial enthusiasm, the cultivators' passion for seeking rewards had dimmed, because they simply had no useful or reliable clues.

After several attempts at fraud were exposed and punished by Sheng Zhaoshui, the matter officially entered a period of stagnation, visibly unable to provide any new help.

"Suddenly the whole chessboard seems to be stuck in a stalemate, completely like a pool of stagnant water... However, it should be about time for some movement, if that Supreme One has really noticed us, and if True Monarch Chengru has any other tricks up his sleeve..."

Controlling movement with stillness, hunkering down to prepare.

Everyone knew that the more they prepared, the more secure they would be! For instance, right now, seeing that the situation was stagnant, Du En did not end his closed-door cultivation, but instead took out three Rank-6 treasure artifacts, including the Overlord Spear, intending to refine them in his own way and continue preparing in this stillness.

The reason he chose not to rush into the back side to fight the wraiths now was because his intuition told him that there were still some hazy and strange aspects to that back side, and the current situation looked very much like the calm before a storm.

In short, he felt that he was not prepared well enough.

He slightly withdrew his attention.

The Overlord Spear, the Mysterious Turtle Shield, and the Heaven-Earth Rope—these three treasure artifacts each had their own mysteries. Of course, the Overlord Spear, which would devour its master, had already been rendered devoid of spirituality, and its power was not insignificantly damaged.

Du En did not intend to fix it, because repairing was not as good as changing. Anyway, no matter how he fixed it, it could not be fully restored, so rather than wasting precious materials, it was better to use this to ponder the weapon-refining techniques within it, and then directly use Dharma treasures to make changes later.

Of course, the most basic refining and control still had to be done.

The Mysterious Turtle Shield, by comparison, had not been damaged, and its spirituality was also very honest, exuding a sense of simple, steady, and slow movement like carrying a continent.

The laws and principles of the earth were contained within it. Because it had some connection to the Northern Black Tortoise of the Four Spirits of Heaven, its affinity with Du En was actually quite high. Furthermore, because his foundation was Earth-element cultivation and he had mastered Earth-element Dao techniques deeply, the situation was actually not as True Monarch Chengru had said; after refining it, he should be able to control and exert sixty to seventy percent of its power.

"It's just that this kind of refining takes a long time; after all, one has to align with the spirituality within it, the principles within it..."

Because it was time-consuming and labor-intensive, and because he was not very fond of the fact that treasure artifacts had spirits, he had not taken it out to refine first.

After all, once a Dharma artifact reached his hands, there were only two final outcomes: one was that it could not keep up with his cultivation and was safely retired and eliminated, and the other was that he used it to self-destruct to settle accounts, unable to survive to the end.

Therefore, refining too deeply and being too closely connected was not a good thing.

So, there was no need to make it too tight; being able to exert about fifty percent of its power would suffice.

Du En thought so.

Hum~ The Mysterious Turtle Shield seemed to sense something ominous, emitting a faint, uneasy vibration.

As the treasure light was slightly dispersed, it was affected by the treasure light next to it.

It was the Heaven-Earth Rope. Although it also possessed an extraordinary spirituality, or even one could say a will, by comparison, it had no unease or worry. On the contrary, upon arriving at the Qingxuan Star Realm, this treasure, refined from Dry Iron and Earth Stone, was particularly eager to move, impatient to reshape order and bind evil!

At the same time, because of its special refining method, it did not need to be refined at all; it only required three Heaven's Pride Transformation-to-Divinity stage powerhouses to provide it with magic power as a drive to exert its own power.

Although the three were not gathered at this moment, under the urging of Du En's magic power, it seemed to come alive, twisting and swimming in the air.

While Du En familiarized himself with the flow of magic power to drive it, he analyzed, observed, and refined the Overlord Spear. The Mysterious Turtle Shield was not left behind either, because he did not seek too close a connection, so he brought it along to refine as well.

This refining took more than half a month.

The Overlord Spear was quickly finished. As expected, the Mysterious Turtle Shield was still quite far off; after all, it was not refined by himself like the Dark Crow Mirror, for which he had already laid the foundation early on, nor did it require aligning with any spirituality.

Spirituality was indeed a troublesome thing.

He couldn't help but think so.

Twang! The Heaven-Earth Rope on the side had long been familiarized. It was originally being held in his hand to observe the weapon restrictions within, when suddenly, without wind, it moved, snapping straight, its rope head pointing in one direction, and even moving toward his side, clearly indicating something.

Spirituality, this thing, is actually not that bad sometimes.

Du En immediately thought this, because following this direction, his senses condensed and extended, suddenly crossing to a place beyond his divine sense, and then vaguely capturing a movement that was different from the past and could be called a great anomaly here in the Qingxuan Star Realm.

Moreover, even the Universe Rope had a reaction, so unsurprisingly, that would be a key thread of the various matters here! Thus, he rose to his full height, retracted his divine fire, raised his hand to beckon, and the Profound Turtle Shield shrank and merged into his cuff, while the Universe Rope also quietly merged into his other cuff.

As for the Overlord Spear, it looked even more damaged now, because Du En's observation was not just looking, but also dismantling it with his hands!

Now that it was used, it was tossed aside against the wall, and at this moment, without needing to specifically beckon, it was grabbed from thin air, shrank into a small needle, and hung on his Evil Dragon Robe.

After finishing these, Du En left the secret chamber, officially coming out of seclusion, and appeared before the one person and one god who were discussing matters.

Compared to him, the Dark God had long come out of seclusion and looked to have recovered to its previous state, only the true body deep within the rhombic mirror now looked like a dark moon and a dim sun, making it difficult to intuitively see the clues of the Dark Crow.

It was just like the state Du En had seen in the Dark Capital back then.

Could this guy have secretly lured over its other backups with the help of True Monarch Chengru, merging them together to have completely turned back into that Dark God?

Du En couldn't help but suspect this.

In fact, the Dark God's emphasis earlier could not be considered wrong, because at that time, it indeed should not have been called the complete Dark God, but now it had a feeling of being as complete as before.

However, Du En did not get to the bottom of it, but directly raised his hand, and the Universe Rope flew out: "I have already mastered its activation; next, it should be your turn."

The Dark God and Sheng Zhaoshui were not surprised by his indifferent attitude toward the treasure; compared to caring about such a matter of course, it was better to care about the current restless performance of this Universe Rope.

This should be the reason for Du En coming out of seclusion.

"Haha, the evolution of the Heaven-Iron and Earth-Stone, the pivot of heaven and earth, I didn't expect to be able to come into contact with it here."

Sheng Zhaoshui was slouchy and seemed not to care about the serious business, but instead had the appreciative posture of seeing a rare treasure; if the occasion weren't wrong and he weren't afraid of being bluntly retorted, one would suspect he might pull out a bottle of wine and perform some treasure appraisal or wine tasting.

"I have also mastered the fundamentals of those two formations; this is the part you need to understand for sacrificial refining."

The Dark God did not care about Sheng Zhaoshui's performance and spoke in a calm and steady voice, its words faintly revealing a sense of vicissitudes, and its gaze was also introverted and obscure.

Accompanying these words, two jade slips recording information and two types of formation-laying base materials flew out from the rhombic mirror and were sent before the two people respectively.

"Hmm, I will get it done as soon as possible. Also, I'm afraid I'll have to let you continue guarding this place; I'm going to see what kind of drama that will be."

Du En flicked his sleeves to take the various items, and after speaking, he acted with vigor and speed, stepping his way to the City Lord's Main Hall, to the place where that Venerable Nine Clouds should be now.

Waiting for the good show to begin!

"He really is straightforward and decisive, without a hint of hesitation or doubt!"

Watching Du En's performance, Sheng Zhaoshui suddenly restrained his flippancy, appearing serious and even sighing with a certain hidden worry.

Because he had a feeling that the current Du En was in a state where even feelings could not be stirred, more firm and more settled than before! Not the type like Meng Changqing who, although having ideals and goals, seemed a bit immature, but like True Monarch Chengru, True Monarch Zhuding, and True Monarch Buyi...

After all, they were up-and-coming talents from different factions; although he was usually unreliable, he actually belonged to the camp that completely supported True Monarch Chengru, so his mood at this moment could be understood.

Of course, sighing like this suddenly at the moment was naturally not because he couldn't restrain himself.

"That is just a matter of course; compared to caring, it is better to get the serious business done first."

"Fellow Daoist Dark... it seems you have made a discovery!"

Sheng Zhaoshui narrowed his eyes slightly, looking at the current Dark God, his gaze shifting, then returning to flippancy; although his choice of words seemed heavy, his tone was quite lazy.

With a wave of his hand, he also threw the Universe Rope to the other party, and then his gaze swept over the jade slips and the array of formation-laying base materials, his movements pausing slightly, because the Dark God had actually made additional changes on the basis of the two True Monarchs.

After all, this one was also a solid, powerful prodigy; although there was still a gap compared to that peak of the human world, it was clearly not an ordinary person.

Involuntarily, there was a feeling of being left behind alone.

How long has it been, why do both of them seem to have changed beyond recognition? Sheng Zhaoshui complained in his heart.

The Dark God quietly took the Universe Rope, magic power flowing through it, familiar with the activation, and was not surprised why the person opposite handed it directly to it, but its gaze shifted and it spoke meaningfully: "Yes, I have made a small discovery."

Or should I just go back to doing odd jobs! Sheng Zhaoshui's heart suddenly jumped, and he really wanted to say that, because he always felt that the current Dark God would try to turn him, but in the end, he still followed the Dark God's rhombic mirror deep into the City Lord's Mansion.

Although things had become more troublesome, he still had to bite the bullet and try! The others in the City Lord's Mansion did not notice that the situation was subtly changing.

Du En did not wait too long at the City Lord's Main Hall.

His gaze shifted, and he turned his head to look.

"Since the two of you have come, why be so sneaky?"

(End of this chapter)