Chapter 112: The Toad That Wanted to Swallow Qingming

Compared to the methods used by the Tai Chu Palace to hide its secrets, the Lan Shen Palace was utterly crude.

Wei Yuan grumbled as he stepped into the secret passage. At its end stood a stone door—finally free of traps—and with a push, it opened to reveal a chamber beyond.

The underground hall was small, its center dominated by a stone the size of a water vat; at the far end stood three statues. The central statue depicted a male cultivator, his face gentle and strikingly handsome. To the left was a female cultivator, naturally alluring; to the right, a little girl no older than five or six, delicate and adorable, clutching a white snake in her hand.

The entire stone chamber was filled with incense and devotional energy, so thick it had coalesced into swirling gray mist that endlessly churned.

According to the records, the male statue was surely Yun Xihé, the founding patriarch of the Lan Shen Palace; the two figures on either side were unmentioned in any texts, and Wei Yuan guessed they might have been his family.

So Yun Xihé had founded a sect, made himself a god, and forced his disciples and vassal commoners to worship him as a deity?

Wei Yuan thought: Is Yun Xihé insane? Still trying to achieve godhood through physical cultivation?

The incense god path had many wonders, but achieving godhood through the physical body was overwhelmingly disadvantageous—and once embarked upon, there was no turning back. This point had been elaborated from multiple angles in classes on Qi Destiny Theory, Dao Foundation Theory, and Technique Theory; any Tai Chu Palace disciple who had attended those classes would never dream of pursuing such a path.

Yun Xihé was supposedly a Tai Chu Palace disciple himself—how could he have done this? Had he not paid attention in class, instead secretly reading novels under his desk? That couldn’t be right. In Tai Chu Palace classes, not even holding a novel openly was allowed, let alone imagining one in one’s spiritual sense—teachers would instantly drag you out. Their spiritual senses were vastly stronger than the students’.

Teachers had many ways to discipline students—for instance, Senior Sister Ji would lash the Primordial Spirit directly; no matter how strong your physical body, you’d writhe in agony, yet suffer no actual injury. That’s why the muscle-headed fools in the Ming Wang Hall feared Ji Liuli the most.

But Wei Yuan’s deep understanding of the incense god path came entirely from the centralized instruction classes—classes that had only just begun for his cohort. Previously, each hall taught independently, and most students learned only from their own masters, with ancestral elders occasionally giving grand lectures on major occasions, regardless of whether students could understand a word.

But human knowledge has limits—even the most brilliant teachers couldn’t know everything. Take Zhang Sheng: he mastered history from ancient to modern times, revolutionized sword arts, and might even forge a new Dao path. Yet his feng shui was mediocre, his poison and curse arts barely superficial, and he couldn’t fathom the orbits of great stars at all.

Now Wei Yuan realized how immensely beneficial centralized instruction truly was.

After mocking Yun Xihé, the founding patriarch, Wei Yuan scanned the chamber again. He saw nothing else. The incense tables before the three statues were ordinary, lacking any peculiar features. On the shelves flanking the walls lay several books; Wei Yuan picked them up and flipped through them—each was a manual on the incense god path. The techniques contained numerous blood sacrifices and animal offerings, gruesome and eerie to behold.

Wei Yuan’s gaze finally settled on the large stone. It appeared utterly ordinary, save for countless microscopic pores on its surface, worn away by centuries of incense and devotional energy. Instinctively, he wanted to sidestep it and check elsewhere—but suddenly, a thought struck him: “Why do I always avoid looking at it?”

Wei Yuan’s mind snapped alert. These past two days, he’d been fishing daily and outwitting Yun Feifei, making him highly attuned to destiny and devotional energy. Such a massive stone sat right there, yet he’d repeatedly overlooked it—clearly influenced by something, just as Yun Feifei’s senior and junior brothers had unconsciously ignored Wei Yuan.

Instantly, Wei Yuan activated the Heaven’s Rebellious Disciple technique, infusing himself with a thread of destiny. He had already passed the stone, but with destiny’s enhancement, he halted and turned. In his vision, the stone had transformed utterly.

Now he saw it: the stone was crawling with gray-black energy, like swarms of insects scuttling across its surface. Every microscopic pore pulsed with gray-black energy flowing in and out.

The originally gray-white incense and devotional energy on the three statues had also turned thick, murky gray-black, flowing like water toward the stone, circling it several times before returning to the statues.

Through the Spirit-Viewing Art, the gray-black devotional energy indicated that the worshippers were mostly in states of sorrow and despair, their bodies depleted, their prayers saturated with decay, annihilation, cruelty, and hatred.

“This array…” Wei Yuan’s mind stirred. He studied the flow of the gray-black energy, and a suspicion slowly formed: “It’s using decayed devotional energy to erode and polish. Is he trying to wear away the markings on this stone?”

Wei Yuan stepped to the stone and pressed his hand against it. The gray-black energy immediately boiled, fiercely resisting his touch. He pushed harder—and the final upgraded thread of destiny in his spiritual sea vanished. A torrent of pure qi erupted from his palm, completely blowing away the gray-black energy entwining the stone.

Wei Yuan’s hand finally touched the stone. His vision blurred—and an entire world crashed into his spiritual sense!

A scream erupted in Wei Yuan’s spiritual sea—agonizing, insane. Simultaneously, a flood of chaotic information scattered across his spiritual sea. The scream’s range spanned a hundred li; stones on the ground shattered, and even Mount Yu cracked with fine fissures!

Thud. Wei Yuan collapsed to his knees, clutching his head, writhing in agony on the floor.

Another scream rang out in his spiritual sea—more fissures appeared on Mount Yu. But Wei Yuan now identified its source: a gray figure, bound to something, emitting piercing, unbearable shrieks.

In desperation, Wei Yuan didn’t hesitate—he unleashed all his strength to flip his Dao Foundation, preparing to crush the gray figure with the power of his continent.

The continent remained utterly still.

How could human will move something like that? Wei Yuan was the first in history unable to command his own Dao Foundation.

Yet as Wei Yuan willed it, a furious wind surged from the edges of his continent, sweeping in from all directions, and in an instant became a wind-wall stretching from earth to sky!

These winds were the full force of Wei Yuan’s Dao Foundation, all pressing down upon the gray figure. The figure struggled desperately, but the invisible ropes binding it were even stronger, preventing escape. The last remnants of Wei Yuan’s destiny fused into the wind-wall, amplifying its power. Countless gales wrapped the figure, compressing it layer upon layer until it became a gray sphere, settling beside Mount Yu.

Wei Yuan slowly rose, wiping sweat from his brow, heart pounding with dread. Now he understood what the incense devotional energy had been eroding: within the stone lay a divine thought of extremely high rank. From the scattered information, he learned the thought’s original body had perished thirty thousand years ago. Dead for thirty millennia, further eroded by Yun Xihé’s incense energy for centuries, this single scream still damaged Wei Yuan’s Dao Foundation—proof of its exalted rank.

Wei Yuan endured the lingering pain in his Primordial Spirit, gathering the fragments of information scattered by the divine thought’s scream, and finally realized: the thought’s original owner had been a Xian!

This Xian had perished for unknown reasons, leaving only a single divine thought trapped within the stone. That thought overflowed with the Xian’s final agony and madness—any ordinary cultivator who approached would perish. Had Wei Yuan not possessed an unparalleled Dao Foundation, a mighty Primordial Spirit, and the protection of celestial destiny, those two screams alone would have shattered his spiritual sea.

Now the stone revealed its true form: translucent, pale green, its interior swirling with countless miniature landscapes, as if containing countless concrete, microcosmic worlds.

From the scattered information, Wei Yuan also learned the stone’s origin.

Ancient World Stone: Qingming!

In the current era, the Tai Chu Palace and other immortal sects issue World Stones carved and refined from solid Kong Ming Stone, typically capable of ascending to third rank. Premium World Stones, forged from special Kong Ming Stone, possess unique marvels and can ascend to fifth rank. But Qingming was forged from a single piece of Kong Ming Stone, refined by the hands of a Xian—capable of ascending to seventh rank.

Moreover, Qingming began at second rank, immediately capable of covering a hundred li of land.

Now Wei Yuan finally grasped the full sequence of events. An ancient Xian, seeking to expand his territory, had painstakingly forged the immortal artifact Qingming—only to be ambushed and slain by powerful enemies. In his dying moments, the Xian commanded Qingming to flee beyond the heavens, eventually landing here.

After tens of thousands of years, human territory gradually expanded to this region. Yun Xihé, while wandering in cultivation, discovered Qingming—but did not report it to his sect. He intended to steal it for himself. Though Yun Xihé had already achieved the Law Body realm, this immortal treasure was far beyond his capacity to absorb; the Xian’s divine thought within rendered him utterly powerless.

Wei Yuan’s Dao Foundation was peerless, his spiritual sea boundless, his Primordial Spirit rivaling a Law Body, and he was blessed with celestial destiny. Even so, he had to expend a major thread of destiny to finally subdue a divine thought that had been worn down for centuries. Back then, Yun Xihé faced the Xian’s full-strength divine thought—just touching it would have reduced him to ash.

!.

In Yun Xihé’s era, destiny had only just begun to manifest, and those blessed with great destiny were exceedingly rare. According to Tai Chu Palace records, Yun Xihé possessed no great destiny—only a modest personal fortune. Wei Yuan now understood why Yun Xihé had suddenly turned to the incense god path—and specifically, physical godhood. He had sought to replace destiny with incense devotional energy, eroding the Xian’s divine thought until Qingming recognized him as its master.

But for reasons unknown, he died after only fifty years, leaving behind the foundation of the Lan Shen Palace and the Ancient World Stone to his successors.

Now that Wei Yuan understood everything, he placed his hand on Qingming and, following the scattered information, attempted to establish a connection. Ancient World Stones activated differently from modern ones: one had to first construct the corresponding array within the spiritual sea, then trigger the stone through the array. Merely this step alone would deter most Dao Foundations and half of the True Persons. Back then, Yun Xihé neither knew the activation array nor dared confront the Xian’s divine thought directly—he could only slowly grind away at it with incense energy.

Fortunately, though the Xian’s activation array was complex and partially damaged, its underlying principles were precisely what Wei Yuan had studied in class. Ironically, ancient array principles were taught in the History class “Immortal Path General Knowledge,” instructed by Feng Chutang. Now, drawing on that knowledge, Wei Yuan effortlessly completed the array and activated Qingming.

A flood of information surged into his spiritual sense. Wei Yuan glanced at it—and was stunned.

World Stone Qingming: Capable of ascending to seventh rank; currently at second rank.

Trait One: Unknown.

Marvel One: Unknown.

Marvel Two: Incomplete.

Marvel Three: Blank.

This Qingming possessed one entire trait and three marvels! Back in the Xun Gong Hall, Wei Yuan had seen Sheng Xuan Stone and Ying Huo Stone—Sheng Xuan Stone had only one function, Ying Huo Stone had one trait, and both could ascend only to third rank, yet each required fifty thousand merit points. But Qingming’s three descriptors used the word “marvel,” not “trait” or “function!”

In the crafting records of such priceless artifacts, terminology was precise: function, trait, marvel. A trait was a vastly amplified function; a marvel was a function multiplied manyfold, undergoing a qualitative transformation.

The trait and marvels were unknown because Qingming had not yet recognized its master—so Wei Yuan could not yet know their nature. Though he now possessed the activation array, Qingming was an immortal artifact; normally, it still required a final hurdle: recognition.

Qingming was forged by a Xian, born with innate sentience, and had coexisted with the Xian’s divine thought for tens of thousands of years—now its spirit was naturally perfected. To make it recognize a master, one must earn its approval.

Wei Yuan barely attempted—and Qingming rejected him outright, with clear disdain. The dismissal was as swift and final as a noblewoman rejecting a beggar’s marriage proposal, or a swan encountering a toad seeking alliance.

(End of Chapter)