Chapter 3660

Ye Chen walked alone through the pristine ancient city streets, and the more he saw, the more startled he became.

Given the size of this city, it could easily accommodate tens of thousands of people living here; it is unimaginable that this single place once housed tens of thousands of cultivators, after all, nowadays finding even a few hundred cultivators would be difficult.

As Ye Chen wandered through the city, he felt both shock and regret, for aside from the utterly immovable pill furnace, there were none of the inexhaustible cultivation resources that Wu Bolin had imagined.

There were no pills, no magical artifacts, no cultivation techniques—aside from the spiritual energy contained within the city itself, nothing else could be found to aid in cultivation.

Ye Chen couldn't help but wonder: these cultivators possessed such formidable cultivation, why did they leave behind no resources for cultivation? Did they take everything with them when they left? But that seems unlikely—such a vast city and the spiritual energy sustaining its operation far exceed personal material needs; they didn't take the city, nor dismantle its formations, so why would they care about such trivial personal belongings?

As Ye Chen puzzled over this, a term suddenly flashed in his mind—a word that had been widely pursued for a long time after the Cold War: utopia.

At that time, people believed utopia was the best conceivable social form for humanity—beautiful, equal, without oppression or crime, like a perfect paradise beyond the world.

In reality, such a society is nearly impossible to exist; more often, cults exploit this concept to brainwash their followers.

Yet Ye Chen realized that, for those cultivators of the past, the place he now inhabited should have been a typical utopia society.

In this society, the abundant spiritual energy was completely shared; living here meant possessing the finest quota of spiritual pills, so naturally, no additional supplements were needed.

As for pills with other effects, they were likely concentratedly produced and distributed by the cultivators here; each household might not have taken theirs home, but instead consumed them directly upon allocation, so naturally, no pills would have been left behind.

Moreover, the cultivators here should have all been working together toward the goal of ascension; since they could build such a society, they surely could have shared cultivation resources, making private hoarding of techniques unnecessary.

As for magical artifacts, it goes without saying—tens of thousands of high-level cultivators, in today's society, would be nearly invincible; in ancient times, there would have been no enemies, especially in this barren Antarctic, where besides penguins, few other beings exist, making danger for cultivators approach zero. As long as they achieved internal utopia—no external enemies, no internal conflict—magical artifacts would naturally become utterly useless; even the administrators might have issued decrees banning private ownership of offensive artifacts to further prevent internal issues.

The more Ye Chen analyzed, the more convinced he became that this was indeed the case, so he completely abandoned from his heart any hope of finding cultivation resources here.

Afterwards, Ye Chen arrived outside a Daoist temple; the temple's archway was magnificently built, entirely carved from Han white jade, with three gilded large characters in the center reading "Sanqing Guan."

Sanqing Guan, as the name suggests, is a Daoist temple dedicated to the Three Pure Ones; and the Daoist Three Pure Ones are the highest revered deities of Daoism, also the ancestral founders who established the sect. These cultivators journeyed to Antarctica and still did not forget to build Sanqing Guan, suggesting they inherited the Daoist lineage, yet this also made Ye Chen doubtful: the Four Directions Treasure Pagoda and the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda were jointly built by the monk Xuanzang and Daoist cultivators, and what he received under the aurora was the inheritance of the Mahavairocana Buddha's hand seal—Buddhism and Daoism seem deeply intertwined in this matter.

Yet he still cannot clarify what similarities exist between Buddhism and Daoism in the matter of cultivation.

Ye Chen entered the Sanqing Hall, where three lifelike sculptures stood: respectively, the Jade Pure Celestial Venerable, the Supreme Pure Virtue Venerable, and the Upper Pure Numinous Treasure Venerable.

He had visited many Daoist temples before, but had never seen sculptures with such perfect lifelikeness—the features, limbs, and expressions appeared more real than actual humans, yet within their majesty lay a hint of approachability, as if the three True Ones stood before him, smiling and examining him.

Although Ye Chen still hadn't clarified the relationship between Buddhism and Daoism in cultivation, he personally leaned toward believing he had received Daoist transmission, so he regarded the Daoist Three Pure Ones as his ancestral founders; thus, before exiting the Sanqing Hall, he knelt devoutly before each of the three venerables' statues in turn and bowed three times.

However, just as he rose to leave the Sanqing Hall, a circle suddenly appeared beneath his feet, flashing with golden flowing light and inscribed with numerous seal script characters; the circle shimmered under his feet, golden light bathing his body, growing brighter and brighter, the golden radiance reflected from his body becoming increasingly intense and dazzling—in the blink of an eye, Ye Chen could no longer see his own body, seeing only a blinding golden light when he lowered his head.

The next moment, Ye Chen suddenly felt his body as if instantly emptied, his entire being seeming to merge with that dazzling light; immediately after, a most strange phenomenon occurred: he suddenly noticed the surrounding golden light beginning to fade, and his position was no longer the former Sanqing Hall, but a mysterious space he had never been before—this space was square, each side about ten zhang, total area roughly a hundred square ping, the room from floor to beams to roof entirely wooden; looking out through the wooden windows, he could see smooth, parallel stone walls.

Ye Chen was astonished; approaching the window and looking out, he realized he had inexplicably appeared inside the Four Directions Treasure Pagoda.

Even more strangely, looking down, he seemed to be in a high position; looking up, he seemed not to be at the topmost level; looking inward, this level was a completely enclosed, independent structure, with no stairs for up and down passage.

Just as Ye Chen wondered why he had suddenly come here, the wooden floor, assembled from planks, suddenly changed its appearance; on the nearly hundred-square-ping level surface, a complete compass pattern flashed with golden light.

Unlike a feng shui compass, this compass pattern had, at its exact center and at the eight directions—Kan, Gen, Zhen, Xun, Li, Kun, Dui, Qian—each a light ring identical to the one he had just seen in the Sanqing Hall.

As Ye Chen pondered the purpose of these nine light rings, nine heart-method mantras suddenly appeared in his mind without cause; miraculously, he instinctively knew these nine heart-method mantras corresponded to the nine light rings, and activating each ring required silently reciting its corresponding mantra in his heart.

He knew these nine heart-method mantras must be some kind of revelation from this place; to verify his guess, he stepped to the center of the compass.

Standing in the central light ring of the compass, Ye Chen silently recited the corresponding heart-method mantra; immediately, the light ring burst forth with even more dazzling, intense light and began to rotate slowly, just as before—when the light became so bright he could no longer see his own body's outline, Ye Chen once again felt that sensation of being instantly emptied.

The next second, when he opened his eyes again, the surroundings were no longer the subterranean city in Antarctica, but a cave he had never been before; the cave showed signs of being artificially cut from rock, its smoothness matching that of the subterranean city, mirror-smooth, the entire cave empty except for the flashing flowing-light circle beneath his feet.

Ye Chen's heart trembled with shock; he never imagined the light ring's function was actually teleportation—evidently, the nine light rings correspond to nine different locations, though he did not know what places these rings actually teleport to.

Moreover, the incoming light ring had nine in total, but here there is only one; he guessed that the nine light rings on the compass in the Four Directions Treasure Pagoda likely correspond to nine different locations, and these nine locations are not interconnected with each other—they can only teleport to the Four Directions Treasure Pagoda.

In other words, the Four Directions Treasure Pagoda is a hub, radiating and individually connecting to nine points; it allows one to instantly teleport to any of these nine points, but if one wishes to go from one of the nine points to another, one must first teleport to the Four Directions Treasure Pagoda.

Ye Chen's heart surged with excitement; if he could figure out where these nine points lead, then he would essentially possess a passageway to instantly reach these nine locations and the subterranean city.

The spiritual energy in that subterranean city is extremely abundant; if there were a teleportation point within Huaxia territory, replenishing spiritual energy in the future would become effortlessly easy.

Thinking of this, he could not wait to find out: at this very moment, where exactly am I!