Chapter 609: The Supreme Treasure of the Post-Origin Epoch

"The Grand Void Mirror?"

Five Dragon Immortal gave a slight start. "Seems I have some impression of it?"

"You… well, you were still very young back then, so you probably don't remember."

The Bronze Coffin Spirit reminded him: "Back when you held your hundred-day banquet, all the myriad races came to offer congratulations. At that time, a Border Marquis presented a scroll of the 'True Form Map of the Crimson Flame Star River,' along with all the divine patterns it required. Do you still remember?"

"True Form Map of the Crimson Flame Star River? Oh, you mean 'Divine Wind Marquis'?"

Five Dragon Immortal seemed to recall: "Great-Great-Uncle seemed to like that True Form Map very much. After accepting it, he bestowed a treasure upon him, didn't he?"

"Exactly — the Grand Void Mirror!"

The Bronze Coffin Spirit's voice grew heavier: "This mirror is said to have been the clan-protecting treasure of a small race during the thirty-ninth epoch of Origin. Later it was seized by the Divine Dynasty…"

"The Grand Void Mirror…"

Five Dragon Immortal was still searching his memory, but had no impression of it at all.

"This mirror has the ability to draw upon incense offerings to strengthen itself. Though it was severely damaged back then, it actually repaired itself by relying on the incense offerings within the Divine Treasury…"

The Bronze Coffin Spirit casually recounted the cause and effect: "My lord held it and toyed with it for many years, until at your hundred-day banquet he used it as a pretext to bestow it upon that Divine Wind Marquis — supposedly to help that man quell the border unrest…"

"Was the border already in turmoil back then?"

Five Dragon Immortal seemed somewhat dazed, as though searching some memory. Only after a long while did he lower his head in dejection:

"Yes, the Divine Dynasty was already in upheaval by then, and I knew nothing at all…"

"You were still very young back then…"

The Bronze Coffin Spirit sighed somewhat. Seeing his own master fall into melancholy again, he hastened to change the subject:

"This boy has a sense of propriety — he didn't beg you to resolve the crisis of the Eight Directions Temple. Since that's the case, you might as well do him this small favor; sending an envoy afterward will also be more convenient."

Five Dragon Immortal was indeed diverted. "What do you want to do?"

"This matter is not difficult. In years past, I and that mirror coexisted within the 'Origin Divine Treasury,' so we have some acquaintance. If this boy wants the mirror to acknowledge a master, that would naturally be impossible, but if he merely wishes to enter the Grand Void Illusory Realm…"

The Bronze Coffin Spirit cast a glance at the dark-robed youth outside the darkness, meek and submissive:

"What a bargain for him!"

……

'Looks like there's no hope…'

Li Yuan's peripheral vision swept over the vague, half-visible outline in the darkness before him. Even after switching his Wan Xing Ru Xue and pushing his five senses to their absolute limit, he still could not see through the darkness ahead.

"Senior…"

After another moment, just as Li Yuan was wondering whether he should take his leave, he suddenly heard a trembling chime.

The sound was like a great bell tolling — a deep 'buzz' exploded in his ears and heart. Caught off guard, he felt the light and shadow before his eyes shift, and he had already been kicked out of this dark place.

"Not even a word of warning…"

On the gray Dingxin Dingxin Shitai, Li Yuan drifted in a daze for quite a while before he recovered, feeling as though even his perception had grown unsteady. That trembling chime had nearly shattered his consciousness:

"So utterly rude."

In the room, Li Yuan slowly opened his eyes. Though he was grumbling inwardly, a smile could not help but spread across his face:

"Good thing the trip wasn't for nothing!"

Before his eyes, light and shadow shifted as various lines of text flowed down into view.

【Tongshi Orb (Seven-Tier)】

【…A sub-body separated from the 'Grand Void Mirror'… Holding it allows one to dream-walk through the 'Grand Void Divine Realm'…】

【Wan Xing Ru Xue Requirement: None】

【Wan Xing Ru Xue Effect: Access to the Grand Void Divine Realm】

Success!

Pinching that dark-red iron orb covered in intricate patterns, even with Li Yuan's current state of mind, he could not help but feel a hot, throbbing excitement.

He had long coveted this creation — the one the little mother dragon could never forget, claimed to be powerful enough to cover all realms.

"As expected, when it comes to things related to the Origin Divine Dynasty, this one can help!"

By now the sky was already bright. Li Yuan, who had once again gone a whole day without sleep, was in high spirits. He focused his attention and began examining this Tongshi Orb, hailed by Chi He Lian as 'the greatest creation of the post-Divine-Dynasty epoch.'

Its body was dark red all over, with interwoven patterns. At a glance it looked no different from before, but upon focusing, one could see that the divine patterns had already begun to flow — though extremely slowly.

"The Eight Directions Temple cuts off inside from outside. To activate this Tongshi Orb, I'll have to go outside the Eight Directions Temple…"

After a brief examination, Li Yuan put away the Tongshi Orb, took out the Eight Directions Token, and with a shift of his mind had already passed from the Daoist Tianyun Daoist Tianyun Xuanbing Mi Jing into the You Jing.

Buzz~

Deep, dark, mysterious, eerie…

Li Yuan lightly pinched the Eight Directions Token. Darkness, profound beyond measure, had already filled his perception.

The You Jing, the gleaming points within it representing the twelve Daoist Tianyun Daoist Tianyun Xuanbing, the Eight Directions Temple drifting up and down in the ink-dark sea — all entered his view one by one.

Whoosh!

In the next instant, he had already seen the gateway before him — dark, deep, and mysterious — the sole portal for leaving the area shrouded by the Eight Directions Temple.

"Too bad I can't bring people out with me…"

Gazing at that gateway from afar, Li Yuan did not rush. He carefully extended his perception for a long while, and only after confirming there was no trace of any other strange beasts or people did he cautiously transmit himself across.

"That herd of Blood-Horned Bulls shouldn't be lying in ambush behind the door, right?"

Li Yuan was very cautious. He raised a hand and flicked out a drop of fresh blood. The blood rolled on the spot and transformed into a small blood-colored tiger with wings. The tiger spread its wings and let out a low, hissing cry.

As the progress of Wan Xing Ru Xue advanced, a single drop of Li Yuan's blood now contained over a hundred forms.

"Go!"

Tossing out a wisp of incense offering, Li Yuan as usual drove the little tiger into the dark gate to scout the way. After a long while, certain there was no danger, he donned his armor, took up his hammer, and slowly walked into the gateway.

The Eight Directions Temple shrouded this You Jing, cutting off inside from outside. While this indeed prevented the people of this realm from contacting the outside world, it also inadvertently made this You Jing a pure land — far safer than the Wai Fa Jie You Jing.

This point, Li Yuan, who had once gone to the outside world, knew all too well.

Within the inner You Jing of the sect, strange beasts comparable to Supreme Grandmasters were few and far between; even an entry-level Daoist Master could explore a bit or two with caution.

But outside the gate, not to mention anything else, just not far behind the gate, strange beasts comparable to the Shen Ju You Jing realm like the 'Blood-Horned Ox' roamed in herds…

Wooo~

A strange sound, like the murmur of an ancient god, rose at his ear.

Raising his head, he saw within the ink-dark sea, 'stars' rising and falling one by one, emitting a faint glow—seemingly tiny, yet in truth brimming with presence.

"Shen Ju You Jing, reflecting all realms, all realms worship…"

Li Yuan took a long look at those rising and falling stars, then lowered his head and rubbed his slightly sore eyes, while the little blood-colored tiger stood guard nearby.

The visibility in the Wai De You Jing outside the gate was relatively higher, but as far as the eye could see it was still a scene of desolation and ruin, like a battlefield where the ancient gods had slaughtered one another—mysterious and dangerous.

Li Yuan had no mind to explore mysteries. He carefully made his way around, found a gray low mountain to settle on. Over the past three years he had traveled back and forth here many times, and had figured out a few relatively safe spots.

Observing his surroundings and detecting no danger, he then woke the slumbering little she-dragon.

"What do you want to do now?!"

The little she-dragon was somewhat annoyed; being interrupted once again left it very displeased, but this displeasure instantly turned to shock upon seeing the dark-red iron ball radiating a ghostly glow in Li Yuan's hand:

"A-a Tong Shi Ball?!"

"Smack!"

Li Yuan raised his hand and grabbed the little she-dragon, which had darted up to snatch it, in his palm. The latter was still squirming: "Wh-where did you get a Tong Shi Ball?!"

"No, that's a Tong Shi Ball belonging to a disciple of that Poison Dragon Academy—you can't use it either…"

The little she-dragon quickly calmed down.

"This one is unowned."

Li Yuan toyed with the Tong Shi Ball and casually made up a reason: "I came to this You Jing to explore last night, and happened to find this thing in some ruins…"

"What? An unowned Tong Shi Ball? How could that be?!"

The little she-dragon jerked its head up, looked left and right, alarmed and uncertain: "What ruins? Could it be a strange land that's been explored? That's not right—it's possible there are strange lands nearby, but there couldn't possibly be any Seekers of the Hidden, right?

If there really were Seekers of the Hidden nearby, the Eight Directions Temple would've been discovered long ago!"

The little she-dragon was somewhat uneasy.

The You Jing was wondrous and strange; although strange lands held fortunes left by predecessors, they had always been exceedingly dangerous. The 'Seekers of the Hidden,' who made their living by 'Tan Suo You Jing' and 'searching for strange lands,' were without exception the most vicious and evil of villains. "I don't know about that."

Li Yuan merely brushed it off casually, not caring at all whether the little fellow believed him or not, and only asked it about some precautions regarding the Tong Shi Ball.

"This works too…"

The little she-dragon was shocked for quite a while. It wasn't that the Tong Shi Ball was so precious, but that picking one up on the road was a bit too outrageous—an unowned Tong Shi Ball, it had only ever seen one at the Grand Void Pavilion.

"The Tong Shi Ball's master-recognition has no particular threshold; you just need to irrigate it with essence blood, and let your divine soul merge with it…"

Steadying itself, the little she-dragon grew excited too, urging: "Quick, quick, recognize it as your master. With a Tong Shi Ball, as long as you're not in some perilous dead zone, you can find your way back to Tian Shi Yuan…"

"Essence blood irrigation, divine soul merging…"

Li Yuan flicked out a few more drops of essence blood, transforming them into blood beasts to stand guard nearby, while he himself focused his mind and, following the little she-dragon's guidance, fiddled with the Tong Shi Ball.

In less than a moment, Li Yuan felt a warm sensation in his palm, and a wisp of red light entered his eyes.

Hum~

The red light dazzled his eyes, and Li Yuan felt a momentary daze. When he focused again, the light and shadows around him seemed to shift, as if endless divine patterns were flowing and transforming.

Soon, a grand scroll with starlight as its backdrop had already appeared before his eyes, upon which various Origin Divine Texts emerged:

【Grand Void Divine Realm】

No errors, no missing chapters, no wrong first posts—content all here, read it all!

"This is…"

Surrounded by star rivers, with divine texts flowing and accompanied by divine echoes reverberating at his ears, Li Yuan's pupils contracted sharply for an instant, overcome by immense shock.

On this star chart before him, over a dozen lines of divine texts were arrayed left and right, yet only five lines could be perceived.

They were respectively: Visit Friend, Battle Hall, Grand Void Market, Wan Yu Shan Xuan Zong, Immortal's Guidance, and Grand Void Myriad Phenomena; the rest were all invisible.

"The Grand Void Illusory Realm has myriad divine abilities, but the authority of a newcomer only includes five items such as 'Visit Friend' and 'Battle Hall'…"

"Visiting friends across hundreds of millions of miles within the span of a square inch to call on close friends—this is Visit Friend…"

"In the Battle Hall, all manner of powerful experts may be accommodated to slaughter and battle one another in the void simultaneously, with images preserved for others to watch. One may also invite others through passages to spar and discuss the Dao within; debating in the void fears not life or death…"

"In Grand Void Myriad Phenomena, one may exhaustively search the affairs of all realms across the ancient and modern stars… in an instant, one may experience the changing of four seasons, or travel throughout all the star realms, unconstrained by the limits of time and space…"

……

The little she-dragon's voice also rose at his ear, introducing to Li Yuan the various functions of the Tong Shi Ball.

"This thing…"

Amid shock and excitement, Li Yuan couldn't help but raise some vigilance in his heart. The sense of déjà vu from this Tong Shi Ball was too strong, making him suspect whether the person who had created this supreme treasure might be a 'fellow traveler from a past life.'

'It should be a coincidence, right? Even if a fellow traveler, they should have died of old age long ago, right?'

Quietly following the little she-dragon's instructions, Li Yuan began to explore the various functions of the Tong Shi Ball. The speed at which he got the hang of it left even the little she-dragon somewhat dumbfounded.

'How does this native understand so fast? Back in my day I wasn't even as skilled as him…'

Watching Li Yuan get the hang of it so quickly, the little she-dragon muttered inwardly.

"These functions really are quite complete…"

Li Yuan immersed himself in the Tong Shi Ball, exploring its various functions.

The Visit Friend function was the simplest, because it was empty here; the other few weren't complicated either, but simple as the functions were…

"They all cost money…"

Li Yuan was somewhat speechless.

The various functions of this Tong Shi Ball, apart from simple introductions, required Yuan Coins to open even a single one. The cheapest, like Visit Friend, cost one Yuan Coin to open.

There were as many as the Dou Zhan Hall, and opening one actually required fifteen Yuan Coins.

"Money-grubber!"

Li Yuan closed the Tongshi Orb, looked at the little she-dragon, and sighed as he asked:

"How do we deal with these Yuan Coins?"

Only then did Li Yuan understand why the threshold for this Tongshi Orb was so high—only those who had entered the Dao could possess one.

This was probably not only because only the will of a Dao-entered martial artist qualified to communicate with the Taixu Divine Realm…

"The Tongshi Orb is good, but ordinary people can't afford to use it."

The little she-dragon had long anticipated this, and replied upon hearing:

"One wisp of Yuan Fire can be exchanged for exactly ten thousand Yuan Coins."

"These Yuan Coins are worth that much?"

Li Yuan was startled.

One wisp of Yuan Fire is equivalent to one wisp of seventh-tier Incense Fire, requiring a devout believer to burn incense and pray for one hundred twenty-nine thousand six hundred years!

Yet it can only be exchanged for ten thousand Yuan Coins…

"One wisp of seventh-tier Incense Fire is only enough to open the Visit Friends function ten thousand times…"

Li Yuan's eyelids twitched wildly, and he looked at the Tongshi Orb as if he were seeing some gold-devouring monster: "What kind of country bumpkin minor god is that Thousand-Eye Bodhisattva,

this is the true titan of Incense Fire!"

Playing it like this?

Li Yuan clicked his tongue in amazement.

How difficult it was to gather Incense Fire, Li Yuan still knew—for example, the Xieshen Sect built temples in every city, with hundreds of thousands or millions of believers per city, yet obtaining one wisp of seventh-tier Incense Fire was not that simple either.

"How much Incense Fire must the master of the Taixu Divine Realm possess?"

Just thinking about it made Li Yuan involuntarily draw in a sharp breath.

Now this is a truly ruthless person!

"It is a little bit expensive, but it's useful."

The little princess of the Dragon Mirage Clan only felt it was 'a little bit expensive,' looking quite as if she had gotten her money's worth: "It radiates across all realms, bestowing all manner of divine power upon us—and you actually think it's expensive?"

"You don't know what's good for you!"

The little she-dragon gave Li Yuan a rather contemptuous glance:

"In the seventy-third Epoch of Origin, when has there ever been such a magnificent creation? If not for the mercy of the Taixu Heavenly Lord, how could people like you and I ever qualify to touch such a divine marvel?"

"…"

Li Yuan was left speechless, only now reacting.

The various functions of this Tongshi Orb, for a He Yi Jing cultivator like the little she-dragon, were no different from a divine marvel—touching a divine marvel for just a little Incense Fire was indeed extremely cost-effective.

"Taixu Heavenly Lord?"

Master Li Dao caught the key point.

"The master of the Taixu Divine Realm, the god among gods… don't ask, you'll know for yourself later. Hurry up, don't you have Yuan Fire?"

The little she-dragon urged: "Quickly exchange some Yuan Coins, open the Visit Friends function, contact my family's Laozu Sect first…"

"Shut up!"

Li Yuan put away the Tongshi Orb, Expression solemn. Without needing to cock his ear, he could already hear familiar beast roars coming from the darkness.

"Roar!"

Li Yuan focused his gaze and saw, at the end of the dim horizon, firelight soaring into the sky. One after another, bizarre beasts crimson all over, like oxen, like horses, came charging amid rolling firelight.

In an instant, a hundred li—thunderous explosions rang out in a chorus, and shockwaves rolled outward, kicking up great clouds of dust.

"That herd of Blood-Horned Oxen!"

The little she-dragon's body tensed and she coiled around Li Yuan's waist: "Run! Blood-Horned Oxen are extremely keen—you don't even have a single Dao technique for concealing your form, you can't hide!"

"No rush."

Li Yuan was startled but not flustered, simply shrinking behind the small hill and gazing intently into the distance.

Over the past three years he had dealt with this herd of Blood-Horned Oxen plenty, and the place he had detoured through this time was not within this herd's roaming grounds—this rampage must have nothing to do with him.

Moreover…

"This herd of oxen seems to be driven by something…"

Behind the low hill, Li Yuan had long since switched his control combination, holding the Eight Directions Token in hand, ready to withdraw at any moment.

Hiss!

Within a few breaths, Li Yuan clearly heard the sound of tearing silk, as if the void itself were being ripped open.

Focusing his gaze, he saw that behind the charging herd of Blood-Horned Oxen, a streak of sword-light swift as a thunder-dragon came cleaving through, slicing the firelight that filled the sky,

along with a Blood-Horned Ox that had fallen to the rear, clean in two!

(End of this chapter)