Chapter 317

Yan Buji tore off his own left arm, and blood spurted out instantly.

Immediately, Yan Buji condensed True Essence into a blade, severing everything on his body covered in star markings.

The star markings seemed to sense Yan Buji's action, instantly bursting with light to block his movement.

The Grand Priest looked at the seemingly mad Yan Buji, closed his eyes, and said, "Why bother? For you cultivators, merely contacting them is already a great fortune."

"I will seize the fortune myself! I need no one's grant!"

It's hard to imagine someone feeling the star markings' excruciating pain while personally chopping off his limbs and cutting his body, but even that alone proves nothing.

But the Grand Priest heard Yan Buji's roar; that clear rationality was not madness-led—precisely because he wanted to do this, he became so mad.

He did not want, while losing everything, to also have his will controlled by others.

This is the weak's resistance!

Yet to the Grand Priest, who is accustomed to watching time flow, this is a tremendous spiritual shock.

So he closed his eyes, not because he couldn't bear to watch, but because he didn't want to see a cultivator obviously weaker than him—so weak even his fingernails couldn't compare—achieve this for the sake of free will.

Looking at them, the stronger they are, the more they revere and fear their own fate.

"Even if you do this, everything of yours is already arranged; everything in this world is arranged."

"How could there be so many arrangements? I only believe that the hardships I've endured are due to my insufficient strength, but absolutely not due to insufficient will! Since birth, I have lived to survive in this world, to walk the path of cultivation, but never to bow down and admit defeat!"

Yan Buji gruesomely severed his previously restored limbs, gritted his teeth, and swallowed the Human Dragon Transformation Pill.

A massive medicinal power surged, Yan Buji's consciousness gradually fell into confusion, yet he firmly stared at the Grand Priest before him.

"Grand Priest, you're too old! Older than me! Hahaha!"

In the midst of speaking, Yan Buji took out a stone ball, unfolded the Heavenly Gate, and slammed the Fissure Void Stone into it.

The Grand Priest watched as Yan Buji turned into an egg-like shape, then vanished with the Heavenly Gate.

And just then!

Yan Buji's torn flesh suddenly twitched; a Gu Worm frenziedly devoured the flesh and blood, gradually growing into a human shape.

"Hiss.... Are all human cultivators nowadays this insane?"

"Perhaps just an isolated case, Lord of the Starry Sky." The Grand Priest said helplessly.

He waved his hand: "I am not the Lord of the Starry Sky; I am merely his Grand Priest. Since he is unwilling, I will take his place. From today on, I am the Grand Priest of the Lord of the Starry Sky, Huang Hao." Huang Hao chuckled.

"Then please, Daoist Friend Huang, stay here for a while."

Huang Hao oddly glanced at the Grand Priest: "You've been waiting for me? Did you calculate that Yan Buji would do this?"

"Yan Buji?" The Grand Priest pondered, then laughed in realization: "What a Yan Buji, what a Yan Buji!"

"I merely made two preparations, but I never expected such a smart person to choose the stupidest method." The Grand Priest laughed.

"Stupid? Haha, yes, too stupid, too stupid. He simply doesn't know what a life without favor is like; even after letting him experience it, he remains the same. Perhaps he's grown accustomed to wallowing in the mire, like domesticated livestock feeling safe only in his own dung heap." Huang Hao laughed.

"Just a lamb awaiting slaughter." The Grand Priest said lightly, then turned to Huang Hao: "Discussing this is now meaningless."

"Yeah, we ultimately have to fight."

"I won't let you leave."

"Do you think it's possible?"

"Who knows?"

Cultivation has never been simple; Yan Buji never believed that pies would fall from the sky, just as he, as a child, also hoped heaven would give him a pie, but it never did.

From then on, he could only rely on his frail body to scavenge food with wild dogs, steal sweet potatoes from fields, then be beaten and thrown into a mass grave; sometimes waking up to see dogs gnawing his hands, frightening him into fleeing.

Just scrape by in this world.

Later, after becoming wealthy, he learned that immortals still existed in the world, so he painstakingly aimed upward, staking everything on it.

Naturally, there were aspects of this process that Yan Buji overlooked—for instance, he didn't know why his identity would be exposed, inviting pursuit.

If not for the exposure of his identity, he wouldn't have needed to forcibly kill Zhang Xungui to draw the Kun Dao Dynasty's attention; then he could have simply used Beichen Wanqing's token to join her sect and cultivate in peace, without a tumultuous life.

So, Yan Buji believed that nothing in the world could be pre‑calculated or predicted.

But hearing someone claim that his whole life had been arranged and manipulated, that even his desires could be tugged by others' strings to serve their wishes, was something he could not accept.

Repeated injuries and repeated games made Yan Buji distrust everyone, yet he held the so-called rules in great respect.

Since rules embody the majority, when he cannot trust others, he knows that using rules to set rules is the only way to guarantee he can cultivate in peace.

But things never develop as he imagines; failure is inevitable.

Yet to him, this was not unacceptable.

Because failure has run through his life, he has long since become indifferent to it.

Crack!

A sharp claw tore through some obstruction, and as a figure resembling Yan Buji appeared, it became clear that this was not the original Yan Buji.

Now, by swallowing the Fivefold Transformation Spirit Pill and the Human-Dragon Transformation Pill, he forcibly remade himself into a half‑dragon, half‑human form.

His lost body was covered in azure scale armor; his thick left arm and the huge left hand turned into a dragon claw did not match his right side at all, indeed appearing quite bizarre.

Moreover, due to the draconic transformation, the wrinkles on Yan Buji's cheeks turned into fine scales extending to his neck, his ears became long and pointed, and two horns sprouted from his head.

He looked like a monster.

"Kid, uh, no, fellow Daoist, you're awake? You're really tough." The Dragon Pattern Furnace's tone was much more respectful; perhaps it, too, had been frightened by Yan Buji's earlier mad actions.

"If I weren't tough, I'd be dead." Yan Buji chuckled, but then frowned at his left arm: "Senior, my draconic transformation seems off; do you know how to fix it?"

"You took the Human-Dragon Transformation Pill to assume human form; logically, that pill should be enough to turn someone into a dragon-person, but because it had to repair your body, its medicinal power proved insufficient, resulting in this disharmony."

The Dragon Pattern Furnace continued: "The solution is simple—either take another Human-Dragon Transformation Pill, or seek out a dragon bloodline to devour, thereby perfecting your draconic transformation."

Yan Buji chuckled: "Sounds anything but simple... but where is this?"

"The Dongxing Sea Region. You kid, your luck's decent this time; in this vast sea, dragon clans are not uncommon."

"That's right; then I'll trouble you, senior, to lend me a hand."