Chapter 364: Because of You

After absorbing the memories of the iron finger ring, the ring lost all its divinity and became an ordinary iron ring.

Little Wei Yuan put this matter aside first and picked up the statue fragments one by one, putting them into the Myriad Miles of Rivers and Mountains.

Even if the memories in the ring were true, that was something from a very, very long time ago, and there might have been many changes in between. That Liao tribe youth might have already turned to dust.

And the greater possibility was that the so-called memory was an illusion, or perhaps even a scam.

Without more clues, Little Wei Yuan did not intend to dwell on it too much, putting the statue away first. The blood mud that formed the statue had astonishing spirituality; the Red Lotus Bodhi, the Ice Glass Divine Wood, and that water-born immortal plant all revived their vitality, and the Dao Foundation spirituality increased accordingly, allowing the Dao power that could be used to also increase exponentially.

At this moment, more than half of the flying swords in Little Wei Yuan's hand had been used up, and after obtaining the statue, the harvest of this exploration was already sufficiently huge. And standing here, he could already faintly feel the terrifying aura from deeper within, which had already far surpassed the Dharma Form.

Little Wei Yuan did not take risks anymore, preparing to return to the ground first, replenish the flying swords, and then decide on the next step. The aura deep underground was far from something Little Wei Yuan could contend with now; he only intended to sweep the surroundings, harvest more ordinary undead monsters, and raise the spirituality of his Dao Foundation.

There was a clear standard for spiritual revival; if the born spirituality only stayed at the Dao Foundation level, then there was basically no hope for Dharma Form. When spirituality reached the Dharma Form level, one could successfully nurture a Dharma Form. As the saying goes, a phoenix cannot be hatched from an egg; if the rank and quantity of spirituality are not enough, it is difficult to give birth to a Dharma Form.

In reality, only a few Immortal Foundations could generate Dharma Form-level spirituality, and the vast majority of cultivators were between Dao Foundation and Dharma Form. Whether one could achieve Dharma Form also depended on luck and timing.

These three Dao Foundation warriors of Little Wei Yuan should have been classified as Dao Foundation-level spirituality, but it was not one, but three, and there would definitely be more in the future. The quantity of spirituality was also a quite important factor; generally, the Primeval Palace believed that ten Dao Foundation-level spiritualities could roughly equal the entry level of Dharma Form. It was just that although there were cultivators in history who achieved Dharma Form purely by piling up the quantity of Dao Foundation spirituality, it was quite rare.

But these Dao Foundation warriors of Little Wei Yuan were not ordinary spirituality; they had already opened their wisdom, and there was no precedent to follow, nor was it known how to calculate it.

After obtaining the statue blood mud and the revival of the immortal plants, Little Wei Yuan's Dao power recovery ability also increased significantly, and he could store five hundred flying swords every day. Coupled with the three Dao Foundation puppets with opened wisdom, Little Wei Yuan now possessed four firepower points simultaneously, and his combat power surged. It was just that combat power now depended on the quantity of flying swords; once the flying swords were used up, it would be halved directly.

Walking out of the temple, Little Wei Yuan sensed that there was an abnormality in the village again. This time there was no thick smoke, but there was residual massive magic power over the village, and the laws of heaven and earth were also disturbed. All of this indicated that there had been a battle between Dharma Form cultivators here just now.

Little Wei Yuan sent a warrior to sneak and observe the village from a high place, while he himself walked back slowly. With the concealment ability of the Treasure Tree, plus the fact that the Dao Foundation warrior did not have the reactions that a flesh-and-blood living being should have, its sneaking ability was quite formidable, even stronger than Little Wei Yuan's own body.

In the field of vision of this Dao Foundation warrior, the villagers were carrying stones to repair the collapsed houses, and it would not take long before they could repair them as before.

Little Wei Yuan returned to his residence, where the woman was cutting wooden poles and making more crossbow bolts. Seeing Little Wei Yuan, she immediately tensed up, with a posture ready to fight at any time.

Little Wei Yuan did not touch her, but said, "Is there anything you need to pack? We have to flee."

"You know everything?" the woman asked.

"I'm not blind... oh, I mean, the traces of the battle are so obvious, I naturally can sense them. But what I don't understand is, why does the Liao tribe only come when I enter the temple?"

"That's because only during the hour of noon is it safe in the mountains. At other times, very powerful monsters wander in the mountains, and the Liao tribe doesn't want to encounter them either."

"How could the Liao tribe suddenly appear?"

"Mostly because of you."

Little Wei Yuan nodded; he had also guessed this. The woman said that the sky was falling with blood, such a huge omen, the Liao tribe was very likely to notice it. And the Great Shamans of the Northern Border had all kinds of mysterious magic arts, and in terms of divination and calculating heavenly secrets, they had once been far ahead of the human race, until ten thousand years ago when the human race slowly caught up.

At this time, someone outside the stone house said, "Young Master, the village elder invites you."

Little Wei Yuan left the stone house; this time the woman did not follow. Little Wei Yuan followed that person all the way to the village.

Seeing Little Wei Yuan arrive, the old woman said, "The Liao tribe already knows your whereabouts, and today they have already sent a centurion. This village has been hidden for thousands of years; it seems it can finally no longer be hidden. In a few days, the Liao tribe will send more strong people, and you need to leave."

"Then what about you?"

The old woman smiled and said, "In our current state, living is just lingering on, and after death, we will not be at peace, so the sooner we die, the sooner we will be liberated. Follow me; I will take you to see the ancestral shrine in the village."

The old woman left the house and walked slowly toward the mountain. Little Wei Yuan followed behind her, walking for several miles, before arriving in front of a large rock. The old woman reached out and pointed at the rock, and the entire mountain rock dissipated like water waves, revealing a deep passage. The old woman walked into the passage, and the lamps on the two walls lit up one by one, illuminating the passage.

Passing through the passage, it was a stone hall, where a stepped high platform was built in the hall, and dense memorial tablets were placed on each step. A small incense burner was placed on the offering table, which was translucent in its entirety, with seven-colored light gas flowing inside.

The ancestral hall was filled with gloom and evil, icy and bone-chilling, with mold spots everywhere on the walls, and countless tiny white wriggling worms drilling in and out at all times.

Purple-red flesh had grown on many memorial tablets, and it was rotting, dripping yellow pus from time to time. Only a small portion of the memorial tablets were relatively clean.

Little Wei Yuan distinguished the direction of the spiritual veins in the ancestral hall with his spiritual sense, and then discovered that what was set up here was a formation with soul-detaining functions, which was actually seven or eight points similar to the formation that detained the souls of the Xu family youths back then.

"What is enshrined in here are the ancestors; you might have already seen that their state is not quite right."

Little Wei Yuan nodded.

All the memorial tablets were made of special materials, constituting a part of the overall soul-detaining formation. As long as the formation was not destroyed, then these memorial tablets were a part of the soul and flesh of the people listed, and the condition of the main body would be reflected on the memorial tablets, and one could also influence the main body through the memorial tablets.

The more Little Wei Yuan looked at this formation, the more he felt it was wrong; this was not just soul-detaining, but also manipulation. This was a formation that could manipulate everyone on the memorial tablets in the ancestral hall, even if the other party was dead, it was the same!

The old woman sensed Little Wei Yuan's shock and said, "It seems you have already seen it. The underground of the temple is extremely vast, but the Yin energy and evil energy are also heavy, and even if you enter at noon, you cannot persist for more than the time it takes to burn a stick of incense. Later, the ancestors thought of a way, which was to refine the corpses of the deceased tribesmen into puppet corpses, and then manipulate them to go deep underground. In this way, after generations of exploration, the ancestors finally made a breakthrough and found a temple hidden deep underground."

"It was just that all the puppet corpses that approached the statue lost control, but the area around the statue was the purest place for Yin energy, so the ancestors built tomb chambers around it, putting the corpses of the tribesmen inside, seeking to obtain more powerful puppet corpses to continue going deeper. In order to have enough strength, some ancestors who had not yet reached the end of their lifespan also entered the tomb chambers."

"But it was just at this time that all the puppet corpses suddenly were no longer under control; they became puppets of the statue. Since then, we have never been to the tomb chambers again."

!.

The old woman sighed and continued, "Actually, the ancestors using this method was a great injury to Yin virtue. All the people who became puppet corpses did not enter reincarnation, and their souls are actually all in this Yellow Springs Two-Part Tripod."

There was surging soul power in the small tripod, and it was unknown how many Yin souls were stored inside. It was just like the square in the Xu family's cave heaven, a container for storing detained souls.

The old woman said, "I want you to take this Yellow Springs Tripod, and after returning to the human domain, open the tripod, release the souls inside, let them disperse back to heaven and earth, and re-enter reincarnation. Only then can it be considered true liberation. This Yellow Springs Tripod can sever Yin and Yang, open a world on its own, and can be used as a treasure for the Mind-Reflection World to manifest as the foundation of a cave heaven; it is your reward."

If a Fenhai Zhenjun wants the Mind-Reflection World to manifest, he needs a foundation stone. Treasures that can be used as foundation stones are very rare, so this Yellow Springs Tripod is also a priceless treasure.

Little Wei Yuan asked, "What is hidden further down in the temple, and why were your ancestors willing to pay such a great price to explore downward?"

"The ancestors believed that every earth fortune node calculated by the Great Heavenly Master was actually an entrance to another world, just like the Gloomy Cold Realm and Great Desolate Realm of the Shaman tribe; the Golden Feather Realm of the Liao tribe, etc. You have not explored deep enough yet; if you saw the tomb chambers built by the ancestors, you would be able to sense the terrifying living beings entrenched deep below."

"The ancestors believed that those living beings were those that had seeped in from another world. If one day in the future, you have the ability to go deep into the tomb chambers, remember never to look at the statue."

Little Wei Yuan nodded solemnly, indicating that he had remembered. However, he did not say that he had already entered the tomb chambers, and that the statue had already become the nourishment for the immortal plants in his Dao Foundation.

Just as the old woman wanted to say something more, a thunderbolt suddenly sounded in the night sky, and terrifying magic power erupted in the distance; even through the formation of the ancestral hall, Little Wei Yuan felt the magic power vibration.

The magic power eruption was hundreds of miles away, yet it could reach here; it was clearly a battle at the Fenhai Zhenjun level!

The old woman's vision pierced through heavy obstacles and looked into the distance, her face suddenly changing.

She picked up the Yellow Springs Tripod and stuffed it into Little Wei Yuan's hand, then took out a bone of some unknown creature from under the offering table, stuffed it into Little Wei Yuan's hand as well, and said urgently, "The Liao tribe Great Shaman has come, and the monsters wandering in the mountains cannot block him for long. I can only delay him for one day with the spirituality accumulated in the ancestral land; you leave from the temple entrance now, where there is a secret passage leading outside the mountain; after you enter, I will close the entrance."

The situation was urgent; the old woman picked up Little Wei Yuan, and in an instant, they were at the stone house where he and the woman lived, then brought the woman along, and in another instant, they were at the temple entrance. Then she stuffed a roll of parchment into the woman's hand and said, "This is the passage map..."

*Boom*, another mass of magic power erupted in the distance, this time dozens of miles closer.

The woman acted very decisively, lit a torch, looked at the map, and pulled Little Wei Yuan to run toward a hidden passage. Behind them, there was a roar, and the passage they had entered had already collapsed.

The two ran a few steps, and Little Wei Yuan grabbed the woman and strode forward, his speed indeed increasing significantly.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 365 =====