In the end, Tianyi didn’t finish creating an artificial spirit stone condensing technique. He would need at least a few more years and not days. If he really could devise such a technique within such a period of time, who knew how many predecessors would curse him out of envy?
Tianyi’s intent of creating a condensed form of qi or an artificial spirit stone wasn’t something unique to him. Numerous predecessors had failed, some of who were far stronger than him and were true immortals. But what Tianyi did not know was that seamless immortal monarchs and extremity immortal emperors did not even bother to research this technique because this was a domain that the Heavenly Dao did not allow any cultivator to infringe upon.
Even if Tianyi did know, there wouldn’t be any sparks of hesitation. He already attained the Heavenly Dao’s power of tribulation and even managed to manipulate the heavenly tribulation of his clones. What did replicating spirit stones matter?
For now, Tianyi could only slowly continue to research this technique.
There was another matter that caught Tianyi’s eyes, which was the monks’ sudden appearance. Like the vassal sects that were placed in a monastery on Rites Peak instead of a palace. The sudden revelation that the Rites Peak had a monastery surprised quite a number of guests and the disciples themselves.
The vassal sects marveled at the Buzhou Immortal Sect’s meticulous preparation and foundation, having even prepared for the arrival of the Buddhists with a monastery despite it having gone unused for thousands of years, if not millions. For the Buzhou Immortal Sect disciples, their views of the sect were refreshed once they learned that their sect had relations with the illusionary Buddhists of legends.
And Tianyi himself was among those. He would have asked his mother, but she was current in seclusion, so he chose not to bother her. Recalling the murals he had seen in the pagoda in the ruin of the Immortal Court, and with his knowledge of Chinese mythology from Earth, Tianyi deduced that the Buddhist Sect and the Immortal Court had an intricate relationship.
The primordial era was split into the Ancient Era and antiquity eras. The primordial era was full of mysteries, so only legends were left. In contrast, the antiquity era was split into three phases: the Axial Antiquity Era, the Classical Antiquity Era, and the Late Antiquity Era, and were recorded with more details.
According to the history recorded by the Buzhou Immortal Sect, the Ancient Era was when the first divinities, such as the Three Pure Ones, Pangu, and Nuwa, existed. After the end of the Ancient Era, these divinities disappeared and were replaced by new divinities such as the Jade Emperor, Queen Mother of the West, King Duke of the East, etc.
There were even records of mortals rising up to become immortals before rising to the status of divinities. Among them were the Three Sovereigns: Suiren, Fuxi, Shennong, and the Five Emperors: the Yellow Emperor, Shaohao, Zhuanxu, Emperor Yao, and Emperor Shun. Among them, the Yellow Emperor was considered equal to the Three Sovereigns.
Naturally, the Buddha, Tathagata, was considered among the divinities of this era. Even the Heaven Equalling Great Sage, a demon born of a rock Nuwa used to fix the Heavenly Pillar, was considered a divinity on the side of humanity.
Humans were created in the primordia era, but they only truly rose to prominence in the antiquity eras.
However, all of that changed with the end of the Late Antiquity Era. The Immortal Court was destroyed, all the divinities vanished, and even the world they resided in shattered into the three thousand realms that made up the Three Thousand Immortal Realm System. It was as if the universe had been reset.
The vanishment of the established power and divinities became the greatest mystery of the Contemporary Era.
Three million years. That was the current period of time that the Contemporary Era existed for.
How could the Contemporary Era compare to the glory days of the antiquity eras?
Even after all these years, the strongest expert was at most a half-origin immortal sovereign. Not a single divinity had yet to reach the cusp of divinity and undergo apotheosis.
Tianyi had also thought deeply on this matter. He categorized the Ancient Era as the first generation and the antiquity eras as the second generation. The first generation consisted of gods like Pangu, Nuwa, the Three Pure Ones, Chronos, Ymir. In other words, the progenitors and creators of the world.
The second generation would consist of the Jade Emperor, Odin, Zeus, and the like. The children or inheritors of the progenitor gods.
Then the third era would be considered the third generation. Only Tianyi didn’t know what that entailed. If he were to compare it to Earth’s history, it would be the destabilization of myths and legends, the Middle Ages, but he knew that he couldn’t correlate Earth to the history of the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System.
For one, the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System only accounted for their side of the history. What about the Greeks, the Hindus, and other pantheons he witnessed in the murals? Did their gods still exist, or did they disappear too?
Furthermore, Tianyi didn’t know where to classify God, the creator from the Bible, in all of this. He had a distinct history of generations. If Tianyi really were to force something, then it would be the Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
All this was far too distant to the current Tianyi. Retrieving the information from his memory, he recalled that the Buddhist Sect and the Immortal Court had a close relationship back then. It was to the point that they participated in the Journey to the West by sending one of their marshals to accompany Xuanzang.
Tianyi actually quite pitied that marshal.
Marshal Canopy, a general that commanded eighty thousand naval heavenly soldiers. In other words, he was someone who commanded over eighty thousand pathfinding true immortals! Yet, he was cast to be reborn as a pig monster because of a minor mistake, attaining an ugly appearance till the end. How could it not bring one’s pity?
If such a thing happened to Tianyi, he would have the urge to suicide immediately upon finding out. Of course, that was on the basis that he could reincarnate.
Tianyi decided to return to the main point upon discovering his thoughts had run off on a tangent.
The Buzhou Immortal Sect claimed to be the Immortal Court’s successors, so it was no big surprise if they had connections with the Buddhists. It was still shocking to Tianyi. He knew that many organizations liked to overplay their roots and origin to give them a better reputation. Upon the reveal of the sect’s relationship with Buddhism, Tianyi had to reevaluate the Buzhou Immortal Sect’s claims as the Immortal Court’s successor much more seriously.
However, Tianyi wasn’t in a hurry to investigate the Buddhist monks. Although he was interested in their cultivation method, Su Bojing investigated that their method was a martial method combined with soul-related methods.
As the Buddhist Sect was comprised of a far lower number than the cultivators, their cultivation method was also different. So they had one primary cultivation method with numerous variants that weren’t categorized into a system, unlike the cultivators’ three systems of spiritual, martial, and soul methods.
Tianyi was still interested in their methods, though. He heard the main method consisted of using the world to temper their body and hearts before severing the fetters, whatever that meant. If he could attain Buddhism’s most prized cultivation method, perhaps he could find a way to create a Unity Realm equivalent for his cultivation, like how he used the Heavenly Scriptures?
However, Tianyi knew this would be a piped dream. Even if the Buzhou Immortal Sect and the Buddhist Sect were close, why would they give their most prized method to Tianyi?
In the end, Tianyi continued to make his preparations. There was another reason that he wanted to go to the Demon Cage Realm was to cleanse the darkness in his heart. It wasn’t apparent at first, but Tianyi discovered that when he met another nascent soul grandmaster, he would unconsciously tense up and analyze them for any signs of danger. He guessed this was a trauma left behind by the Dragon Emperor.
Thinking about this, Tianyi gnashed his teeth in anger. He even had the sadistic thought of visiting Lei Jingye and torturing him to appease his heart, but he quickly ended that train of thought. He wasn’t depraved enough that he would stoop that low.
Thinking about Lei Jingye, Tianyi wondered what the information the Buzhou Immortal Sect pried from Lei Jingye’s mouth. He actually contributed a bit of information as well. Since he had experienced Xi Longyi’s life, Tianyi had obtained some future information as well, but it was all murky as if a fading dream. Only the information closely related to Xi Longyi was clear.
Even so, Tianyi did recall some information. Such as the worsening tensions between the Buzhou Immortal Sect and the vassal sects and the Jade Cauldron Sect defecting to the Anti-Heaven Alliance. As if on a script, not long after the war between the Eight Pillars Sect and the Anti-Earth Alliance broke out, war broke out on the Heaven Continent as well.
When he turned all the information he knew, Sect Master Xia considered it very deeply. Tianyi had to wonder why Sect Master Xia didn’t seem suspicious of his information. It was really vague as Xi Longyi abstained from the war on the Heaven Continent. Before Xi Longyi died, the most heated battles were just between transcending mortality sages. Immortals had yet to take action at all.
Perhaps the appearance of the Buddhist monks was a result of the ripple effect brought about by Tianyi’s or Lei Jingye’s information. Tianyi couldn’t recall any information concerning the appearance of the Buddhist monks, although he did know that Xi Longyi found an egg with the dragon bloodline and even managed to acquire it during the Demon Slaying Expedition.
That’s right, Tianyi had inside information on the Demon Cage Realm.
The Demon Cage Realm was original a realm used to imprison demons. The exact criteria were unknown, but with the disappearance of the divine beasts and most demons, the Demon Cage Realm became one of the greatest sources of demons for the Huang Realm.
Tianyi wanted to use this chance to fight all the Nascent Soul Realm equivalent demons and cleanse the shadow in his heart. He could spar against his fellow disciples, but the one time he tried it with Su Bojing, he nearly killed Su Bojing because of a jerk reaction that caused him to be unable to restrain himself. It would be no joke if he accidentally killed a fellow disciple.
So the poor demons were chosen as Tianyi’s sacrifices.
The time flow of the Demon Cage Realm was ten times faster than the Huang Realm, so ten years in the Demon Cage Realm would be one year in the Huang Realm. The Demon Slaying Expedition had a maximum time limit of fifty years and a minimum of ten.
There was not much time left as the departure date was three days after the arrival of the Buddhists. In these three days, Tianyi prepared everything he could and think of from materials, pills, artifacts, formations, etc., and soon the day of departure arrived.
“Tianyi, it’s time to go.”
Tianyi looked towards to see Daoyi and Xi Ri waiting for him. He smiled and stood up.
Unknown to Tianyi, the Demon Slaying Expedition would be the catalyst that spread his fame far and wide.