Cultivation Begins From The Desert-Chapter 757 - 740: Returning Full!
Although the Kunxu Realm has many prohibited areas, there are only six or seven that have Tier Six Demon Kings stationed there.
Zhouyang spent around three months slaying four Tier Six Demon Kings in their prohibited areas, collecting all the treasures from these demon king nests.
However, when he headed toward the fifth demon king, he discovered that another Nascent Soul Stage cultivator had already engaged with it, so he had to turn away and head toward where the sixth demon king resided.
Yet, the sixth demon king seemed to have gotten some wind of things beforehand. When Zhouyang arrived, its nest was already deserted, its whereabouts unknown.
The Kunxu Realm might not be too big or too small, but if a Tier Six Demon King deliberately conceals itself and escapes, even Lan Daoist would lack the ability to find it.
Thus, Zhouyang had to temporarily abandon his plans to slay the demons and started exploring and plundering some treasure sites guarded by arrays and puppets.
There are dozens of treasure sites within the Kunxu Realm. Some, like the "Ten Thousand Treasures Tower" Zhouyang visited last time, even Lan Daoist has no access to.
Last time at the "Ten Thousand Treasures Tower," Zhouyang gained the Heaven and Earth Spirit Fruit, the Enlightenment Profound Truth Fruit, and the cultivation technique for the divine technique, the Profound Celestial Fire Thunder Pearl, both of which greatly aided his cultivation. This time, he came to this place first.
By the time Zhouyang and Qin Yue'Er arrived at the "Ten Thousand Treasures Tower," many cultivators were already there for treasure hunting. Instead of rushing inside immediately, Zhouyang glanced at Qin Yue'Er and asked, "Yue'Er, you've been cultivating in the Kunxu Realm for eight hundred years, you must have been here before. Do you know where any valuable treasures are hidden?"
In response, Qin Yue'Er looked troubled and said, "Master, you must be discerning. Although I've been here a few times and taken some treasures, I'm not really sure where the valuable ones are hidden. Even Elder Lan might not know."
"I see..."
Contemplating the extensive building complex among the mountains ahead, Zhouyang nodded slightly and said, "It's alright if you don't know, Yue'Er. Just follow me closely and protect yourself. I'll take care of treasure hunting."
With those words, he led the way toward the complex.
Flight is prohibited in the "Ten Thousand Treasures Tower" area, but that applies to Golden Core Stage cultivators. As a Nascent Soul Sixth Stage cultivator, Zhouyang could entirely resist the Anti-Sky Array's power and fly through it.
However, not adhering to these rules may provoke attacks from other arrays, causing trouble for himself.
Unless absolutely necessary, he wouldn't risk great loss for minor gain by breaking such regulations.
So, accompanied by Qin Yue'Er, he ventured deep into the area, quickly bypassing the zones intended for exploration by Golden Core Stage cultivators, and entered the inner treasure zones.
The danger in this inner zone far exceeded that of the outer areas. As soon as Zhouyang entered, a squad of five Stone Warrior Puppets suddenly charged out from within the mountain, launching an attack at him.
The aura exuded by these Stone Warrior Puppets ranged from the Early Stage of Golden Core to the Late Stage Golden Core. When five of them cooperatively engage, even a Ninth-Layer Golden Core cultivator would struggle to handle them.
However, this time they chose the wrong opponent.
Zhouyang didn't even need to use any magical artifact. With a series of punches, he unleashed dragon-shaped fist strength, reducing those Stone Warrior Puppets to dust.
Stone Warrior Puppet, Stone Puppet Demon Beast, Stone Warrior Knight...
The interiors of the mountains in the inner zones seemed like the burial grounds of a king's mausoleum. With every progression, Zhouyang faced assaults from these lifeless puppets.
These Stone Warrior Puppets were clearly crafted by ancient cultivators using special techniques, possessing individual strength far inferior to cultivators and demon beasts of the same level, or even modern puppets crafted by current cultivators.
But they were overwhelming in number!
To create a Tier Five Puppet these days, the materials alone cost at least five to six hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones, and that's merely the material cost. The upper-grade spirit stones consumed during the puppet's use are immeasurable.
Yet these Stone Warrior Puppets Zhouyang destroyed so easily were made from ordinary stones, driven not by spirit stones but by intricately carved jade heart cores bearing enigmatic and complex spirit patterns.
The jade heart cores, in conjunction with the spirit patterns engraved on the Stone Warrior Puppets, absorbed and stored Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi for their movement and combat, self-destructing along with the puppet upon destruction.
Zhouyang didn't know how much spirit stone materials ancient cultivators expended in making such a Stone Warrior Puppet, but it must have been much less than current puppets, or else they wouldn't have luxuriously crafted so many to guard their cave estates.
He even tried using divine techniques to restrain the Stone Warrior Puppets to research their crafting methods.
Unfortunately, touching the jade heart core with the divine sense caused immediate self-destruction, making it impossible to study or utilize.
After several attempts, Zhouyang abandoned this line of thought, no longer wishing to waste effort on fruitless endeavors.
After advancing for half a day in the inner zones, he finally found a worthy target.
It was a cave estate concealed and covered by a green array light curtain. From the outside, the estate seemed vast, occupying almost half a mountainside. The array's covering made everything inside indiscernible from the outside world.
After studying from outside, Zhouyang found that the array was largely intact, suggesting no past cultivators had entered, and the treasures inside might still be untouched.
He came here to acquire treasures and certainly didn't want to exhaust himself breaking through the array's defenses only to end up empty-handed.
Thus, finding a well-preserved guardian array, he decided to make his move.
The common approach for cultivators dealing with such ancient arrays is forcible breaking.
Upon deciding to strike, Zhouyang instructed Qin Yue'Er to retreat and stand guard, summoning an external incarnation to jointly assault the cave estate's guardian array with him.
Since this cave estate's array had withstood for so many years without being breached and plundered, the guardian array undoubtedly ranked top-tier.
Attacking from outside, Zhouyang triggered the array's counterattacks.
The counterattacks came unexpectedly, and as soon as Zhouyang and the external incarnation used artifacts against the array's light curtain, countless sharp wind blades shot out from the green curtain, enveloping their location in assaults.
Due to the presence of the Anti-Sky Array, Zhouyang and his external incarnation had no time to evade the attack, relying on their own methods to protect themselves as they retreated.
Fortunately, the magical artifacts in his hand were of excellent quality, and although the array's counterattacks were fierce, they did not exceed his capacity to handle. After a brief moment of chaos, he quickly stabilized the situation.
Learning from this lesson, Zhouyang became much more cautious, ensuring his defense was prepared even when attacking.
Luckily, among the treasures from Elder Lan, he refined a Tier Six Lower-Grade Defense Spiritual Artifact named Ironwood Shield for his external incarnation, made from Ten-Thousand-Year Iron Wood. This allowed the incarnation to safely hide behind the artifact while using the Wood Thunder Element Token to attack.
It's worth mentioning that during Zhouyang's century-long retreat, his external incarnation wasn't idle either. It too was secluded, researching methods to fuse the Wood God Thunder and the Wood God Thunder.
Although a viable method to fuse the two wood attribute divine thunders has yet to be found, they did develop a secret technique to enhance the power of the Wood God Thunder, increasing its potency by threefold when cast with the Wood Thunder Element Token.
Regrettably, this secret technique could only be used by this external incarnation, as other cultivators of wood attribute techniques didn't have the special conditions required.
The commotion Zhouyang's side was creating was quite significant. Even cultivators treasure hunting in the outer regions could hear the thunderous sounds and feel the mighty fluctuations of magical power emanating from within.
Before long, Nascent Soul Stage cultivators from the inner region came to investigate the situation.
However, as soon as those investigating saw him from afar, they quickly retreated as if avoiding a venomous snake, not daring to come any closer.
Clearly, those cultivators recognized him as the famous Master Qianyang and retreated of their own accord due to his fear-inducing reputation.
In the following two months, several other Nascent Soul Stage cultivators were likewise drawn to the commotion on Zhouyang's side and, like the first, retreated immediately upon recognizing his identity.
It was no joke; in the past, when he was at the Second-Layer Nascent Soul Cultivation, he managed to kill the Sixth-Layer Nascent Soul Cultivator, Blood Robe Ancestor, across realms.
Now, with his Nascent Soul Sixth Stage Cultivation laid bare, unless someone was at the Ninth-Layer Nascent Soul, a half-step True Immortal level, no Nascent Soul Stage cultivator dared to compete with him for treasures.
Rather than saying those Nascent Soul Stage cultivators were scared off by his reputation, it would be more accurate to say they were frightened by his rapid advancement in cultivation.
It hadn't been many years since the demonic calamity in Beiting Continent, and already, rumors had it that he had advanced his cultivation from the Second-Layer Nascent Soul to the Sixth-Layer.
Such an astonishing rate of cultivation advancement shocked those also at the Nascent Soul Stage to the core.
Were it not impossible, these cultivators who witnessed his current level would suspect he had been possessed, as no cultivation could advance so quickly otherwise!
Zhouyang, now with a Nascent Soul Sixth Stage Cultivation and rumored to wield the Tier Seven Immortal Artifact, Vermilion Bird Fan, made any Nascent Soul Stage cultivator wise enough to avoid conflict upon seeing him.
Unbeknownst to him, Zhouyang's standing within the Spirit Realm had been elevated by many of his peers to an extremely high degree, inspiring awe and fear in most Nascent Soul Stage cultivators who laid eyes on him.
After spending approximately five and a half months, Zhouyang finally breached the Guardian Array protecting his target's cave mansion without any interference and entered the actual abode.
The hard work of over five months rewarded Zhouyang generously.
What he had thought to be half of a cave was actually a luscious Spirit Garden medicine field, teeming with Spiritual Qi.
Due to long periods of neglect, most of the spiritual herbs initially planted there had withered and died, but the few remaining were all Tier Six spirit medicines with over ten thousand years of age.
Ten-thousand-year-old Vermilion Fruit, over ten-thousand-year-old Purple Star Grass, Ten Thousand Year Golden Jade Ginseng, Ten-thousand-year-old Longevity Vine, Ten-thousand-year-old Wind Spirit Grass...
Each of these extremely rare Tier Six spirit medicines lay before Zhouyang, waiting to be harvested.
Even though he had seen many rare spiritual herbs in Elder Lan's private Spirit Garden, he was still dazzled and unsure where to begin.
Whew!
Zhouyang took a deep breath, suppressing his joy and excitement, then carefully began harvesting the precious herbs one by one.
Given the differing natures and properties of these herbs, the instruments used for storage needed to be differentiated accordingly. Some required storage in a Warm Yang Attribute Jade Box, others in a High-tier Spirit Wood Medicine Box, and still others needed to be sealed in an Ice Cold Attribute Jade Box.
Fortunately, Zhouyang always carried these instruments with him, so he needn't worry about a lack of suitable tools leading to a loss in the efficacy of the herbs.
After harvesting the ripe herbs that could be picked on the spot, Zhouyang chose to transplant the rest, which, although not yet reaching the requirements for refining Tier Six spirit pills, already had several thousand years of age.
The medicine field within his Dongxuan Pearl was also ready for planting, ensuring these herbs wouldn't face any issues soon. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺
After several days of tireless work, Zhouyang finally completed the entire Spirit Garden's harvest. After thoroughly confirming there was nothing left to gain here, he moved on to the next treasure location.
Two years later, Zhouyang returned to Holy Infant Valley after reaping considerable rewards throughout the Kunxu Realm.
By then, Elder Lan had nearly finished refining the puppet, and preparations for departure could commence.
After another two months of busy work, Elder Lan had tuned the puppet, ensuring it could replace him in opening and closing the Kunxu Realm, then personally assisted Zhouyang in transplanting the Holy Infant Fruit tree into Dongxuan Pearl.
To ensure the Holy Infant Fruit tree's survival and the proper growth of the five unripe Holy Infant Fruits on it, Zhouyang even crushed an Earth Attribute Top-grade Spirit Stone and buried it under the tree roots, providing them with ample Spiritual Qi nourishment.
"All right, with three days until the Kunxu Realm closes, I've set the puppet to activate the array and send you out when the time comes. Now, I must enter dormancy," Elder Lan said.
In Holy Infant Valley, after tidying everything up, Elder Lan nodded at Zhouyang and then lay inside the Netherworld Profound Coffin, which Zhouyang had traded him eight hundred years prior.
As an external incarnation specially refined by Celestial Immortals to guard the Kunxu Realm, even though Elder Lan had developed an independent consciousness through serendipity, leaving the Kunxu Realm wasn't straightforward.
He couldn't use the Kunxu Order to leave, nor could he be taken away by ordinary storage rings or Pocket World Spiritual Artifacts. Only a secret treasure like the Netherworld Profound Coffin, made from special Spiritual Materials like Netherworld Iron Wood, could entirely sever internal and external connections, avoiding the restraints of the Kunxu Realm's array.
This was the primary reason he had made that trade with Zhouyang in the past.
At that moment, after seeing Elder Lan hide inside the Netherworld Profound Coffin, Zhouyang waved his hand and stored it in his storage ring. Then, with Qin Yue'Er, he patiently awaited the moment of departure.
