Chapter 11: Burial Dragon Abyss Secret Record
A strong wind, carrying a salty mist, swept over Lu Qingyang as he stood on the edge of the broken cliff, overlooking the Burial Dragon Abyss. Dragon-shaped phantoms flickered within the purple mist rising from the abyss, and the qingmu spirit pearl in his Dantian hummed and trembled. The dragon blood grass in the pearl's medicinal field swayed without wind, and fine blood beads condensed on the edges of its leaves.
“Fellow Daoist, halt.” A gray-robed elder suddenly emerged from the side, a copper bell on his waist jingling with his shuffling steps. His withered, age-spotted hand pressed on Lu Qingyang’s shoulder, and his cloudy pupils shimmered with snake-like vertical slits. “The Evil Qi from the dragon bones at the bottom of this abyss is most detrimental to wood-attributed Cultivation Techniques. This old man observes a faint green glow in your Qi Sea…”
Before he finished speaking, a seven-inch green blade suddenly appeared from the elder's sleeve. Lu Qingyang spun to avoid a vital spot, but his shoulder blade was still cut, leaving a three-inch gash. Sensing the Dragon Blood Qi, the spirit pearl automatically drew the essence blood overflowing from the wound, drawing complex array patterns beneath their feet. The elder realized something was wrong and tried to retreat, but a hundred thorny vines shot out from the array patterns, coiling him into a writhing cocoon.
“Thank you, Senior, for warning me about the danger of Evil Qi.” Lu Qingyang brushed the dust from his robe and pulled a bronze waist token engraved with a taotie pattern from the elder’s embrace. The back of the waist token bore the ancient seal script characters “Taiyi Pavilion Outer Disciple Steward,” and dark red bloodstains on its edge had already seeped deep into the patterns.
A Dragon roar suddenly echoed from the abyss, and the purple mist churned like boiling water. Lu Qingyang swallowed two antidote pills and slowly descended along the cliff's vine ladder. The deeper he went, the redder the rock walls became. Occasionally, half-embedded dragon bones glowed faintly, with luminescent blue mycelium parasitizing the gaps between their scales. As the seventh horizontally growing dragon rib brushed his hair, the turtle shell map in his embrace suddenly grew hot, guiding him into a hidden cave.
“Three thousand years…” A hoarse voice made Lu Qingyang’s hair stand on end. Deep within the cave sat a skeleton clad in tattered armor, with two clusters of green flames flickering in its hollow eye sockets. The skeleton's finger bones caressed a broken sword lying across its lap, the inscriptions on the sword's body identical to the rust on the surface of the qingmu spirit pearl.
The spirit pearl flew out of his Dantian uncontrollably, hovering three inches above the skeleton's skull. The illusory hourglass inside the pearl poured down like a waterfall, completely absorbing all the black Qi surrounding the skeleton. When the last wisp of black Qi dissipated, the skeleton collapsed with a crash, revealing densely etched characters on the stone wall behind it.
“In the third year of Taichu, I led three thousand Cultivators to guard the Burial Dragon Abyss…” Lu Qingyang's fingertip traced the characters. Where the qingmu spirit pearl shone, the etchings began to seep dark gold liquid. The liquid snaked and flowed, solidifying into a Dragon-shaped Jade Slip in his palm. The moment his Divine Sense entered it, a massive amount of information flooded his Sea of Consciousness—ancient Dragon Clan script, a fragmented “Azure Emperor Everlasting Art,” and a star map coordinate marked “Remnant Jianmu Root.”
Suddenly, sounds of breaking air came from outside the cave. Three Flying Swords, arranged in a character formation, pierced into the rock wall. The tassels attached to their hilts quickly charred in the Evil Qi. Two Taiyi Pavilion Disciples arrived on their swords. The woman on the left had a cinnabar mark on her brow like blood, and the man on the right held a compass that vibrated violently, pointing directly at Lu Qingyang.
“Hand over the Dragon Clan treasure!” The woman conjured a spell, activating her Flying Sword. The sword light split into twelve illusory projections, sealing off his retreat. Lu Qingyang feigned panic and retreated, his boot heel quietly crushing a Spirit-Devouring Ant nest hidden in a rock crevice. Fist-sized blood ants swarmed out, and the Taiyi Pavilion Disciples hastily activated their protective spiritual light, only to see Lu Qingyang shake out a crumpled Earth Evasion Talisman from his sleeve.
The ground suddenly collapsed, and all three plummeted towards the bottom of the abyss. As he rapidly fell, Lu Qingyang tossed out a bronze box. The moment the box lid opened, the qingmu spirit pearl resonated with the fragments inside the box, tearing open a crack in the Void Realm. As he rolled into the crack, he glimpsed a terrifying sight—the bottom of the abyss was not purple mist at all, but a vortex of resentment formed by countless entangled Dragon Souls!
After the dizzying sensation of inverted time and space faded, Lu Qingyang found himself kneeling in the center of a desolate altar. The chains on the nine coiled Dragon pillars were all broken, and the bronze cauldron in the center was filled with a layer of dark red bloodstains. The Dragon-shaped Jade Slip in his embrace suddenly floated into the air, projecting a shocking scene: twelve Soul Transformation Cultivators jointly setting up an array, impaling a five-clawed Azure Dragon on the altar, its Dragon Blood seeping along the earth's Meridians into the bronze cauldron…
“So the Burial Dragon Abyss is a place for slaying Dragons,” Lu Qingyang murmured to himself, suddenly noticing an anomaly in his Dantian. The qingmu spirit pearl had, at some point, become covered in a layer of blood scab. The medicinal field within the pearl was frantically devouring the residual Dragon Qi from the altar. The perpetually half-withered dragon blood grass instantly matured, and the fruit it bore had Dragon scale patterns on its skin.
He picked the fruit, about to consume it, when the pile of rubble in the southeast corner of the altar suddenly exploded. Su Li crawled out, covered in dust and grime, her skirt tattered by Sword Qi, but tightly clutching a Jade Casket covered in runes. She was clearly startled when she saw Lu Qingyang, then tossed him half a Jade Pendant: “Let’s work together to break the array! I’ll give you three pages of the ‘Taiyi Secret Canon’ from the Jade Casket!”
Seven streaks of sword light pursued them, and the pressure from the Taiyi Pavilion Enforcement Elder cracked the altar's stone slabs. Lu Qingyang swallowed the dragon blood fruit, and the surging medicinal power caused his Meridians to almost burst. He bit the tip of his tongue to stay conscious, injecting all his spiritual power into the qingmu spirit pearl. As the hourglass reversed, the ancient array patterns on the altar's flagstones lit up one by one. The dried bloodstains actually began to flow again, converging into a blood-colored Taiji diagram beneath their feet.
“Three steps to the Kan position!” Su Li cried out urgently, her hand seals activating the Jade Casket's brilliance. Lu Qingyang stepped into position as instructed, hearing the crisp sound of dragon bones shattering beneath his feet. When the last array pattern lit up, the entire altar rose from the ground, enveloped in a blood-colored light shield, and crashed into their pursuers. Amidst the earth-shattering roar, Lu Qingyang glimpsed the Enforcement Elder's Lifebound Treasure—a bronze compass magnified ten thousand times, its surface displaying a star map that perfectly matched the location of the Remnant Jianmu Root recorded in the Dragon-shaped Jade Slip!
When the smoke and dust cleared, the altar had turned to dust. Lu Qingyang awoke in a mountain cave a hundred miles away, finding a half-charred page of the “Taiyi Secret Canon” clutched in his hand. The yellowed page recorded a terrifying secret: “Jianmu connects to the heavens, and all things are born from it. Successive Taiyi Pavilion Masters have used the Remnant Jianmu Root as an lead, seizing Cultivator Luck to complete themselves…”
The qingmu spirit pearl suddenly hummed joyfully. At some point, a tiny, inch-tall sapling had appeared inside the pearl. The sapling's roots were entwined with the dragon blood grass, and the patterns on its leaves were identical to the Jianmu star map. Lu Qingyang caressed the newly formed wood grain on the pearl's surface when he suddenly caught the familiar scent of alcohol from outside the cave—the Old Drunkard, who should have been buried in the Eastern Wasteland tomb, was leaning against a rock, shaking his wine gourd at him.
“Good Disciple, it’s time to settle your master’s share of the dragon blood grass profits, isn’t it?”