Ten thousand I am across the heavens

Although many questions remained unanswered, the Five Elements Mage instinctively made a choice at this moment. It wasn't a choice about battle, but a choice about his own interests. While the eldest son had acquired a great deal of knowledge, his understanding of the immortals themselves was still somewhat unclear. After all, the people in the underground base didn't have a very clear understanding of this subject either; the immortals he had captured had all been brainwashed and controlled, not their memories directly accessed. Although the immortals would answer all his questions if he wanted, the problem was that some things had to be known before they could be asked.

It's like a powerful expert at the eighth level suddenly dying. This is a major event for the entire world. When an immortal dies, there's a brief moment when their immortal apertures fall to the ground and form a blessed land. Outsiders can enter this blessed land directly, but even if they enter, they can't claim it as their own.

But this opportunity to enter is extremely important. So much so that whenever an immortal perishes, someone is always the first to slip inside. And this time, with the Five Elements Master here, he is the only one present who has the chance to enter the immortal aperture to investigate the situation.

In most cases, the blessed lands formed after the death of immortals cannot be used by others. This is because earth spirits or heaven spirits form within these blessed lands after death. They uphold the will of their original owners and will expel outsiders. Within the immortal aperture, that is, within the blessed land, they are essentially fighting on their home turf. They can prohibit the use of all Gu worms below the level of immortal Gu. Their own combat power is no weaker than that of an immortal in life. Therefore, few choose to attack head-on. Even if a head-on attack succeeds, the entire blessed land will be shattered. The earth spirits might even choose to self-destruct, ensuring the intruders gain nothing.

However, it's not impossible for an outsider to gain control of a blessed land. The key lies in the lingering attachments left behind by deceased immortals. Each person's attachments are different. The celestial and terrestrial spirits, in particular, uphold their master's attachments and strive to fulfill them. Most of the time, the celestial and terrestrial spirits alone cannot fulfill these attachments. After all, if their master could easily accomplish something while alive, it wouldn't have become their attachment.

Once someone can help them fulfill their obsessions, the earth spirit or heaven spirit will recognize a new master—the one who helped them fulfill their obsessions. In this way, the ownership of the blessed land will naturally change.

To discover the original owner's obsession, one must seize the opportunity immediately after death to enter the blessed land and inquire. At the moment of death, the entrance to the blessed land will not close. The Heavenly Spirit and Earthly Spirit have not yet immediately formed, so this is a good opportunity to infiltrate. Even if one cannot seize control of the blessed land, this is still a chance to understand the obsession held by the Heavenly Spirit and Earthly Spirit.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Five Elements Mage slipped into the blessed land of his fallen comrade. After the fall of an eighth-rank expert, the fallen immortal aperture could already be called a blessed land. It contained the accumulated wisdom of an eighth-rank expert's entire life. Even for the Five Elements Mage, this was a windfall. The only trouble was that he had to fulfill the other's obsession first.

After he entered the Immortal Aperture, the Celestial Spirit began to rapidly gather. The Celestial Spirit would gather into various forms depending on the master's mindset and personality. It could be human, beast, or even an object.

Old Ancestor Xuehu's celestial spirit was of a fairly conventional type; after coalescing, it took on a human form, bearing an 8% resemblance to the original. It showed no surprise upon seeing the Five Elements Mage appear. Although celestial spirits appear to be living beings, they are essentially a kind of artificial intelligence. Therefore, they cannot lie. Theoretically, they can choose to remain silent. But once they choose to answer a question, what they say will always be the truth.

Occasionally, some clever celestial spirits choose to lie, but they cannot lie outright. Instead, they tell only parts of the truth, concealing crucial information unless questioned, thus achieving a misleading effect. However, this is extremely rare; in the vast majority of cases, everything these celestial spirits say is true.

The Five Elements Mage wasted no time; the battle was still raging outside. He immediately voiced his question.

"What is your obsession? What must I accomplish to become your master?" After asking this, he secretly hoped that this obsession wouldn't be too difficult. Obsessions are incredibly diverse. Not all obsessions can be fulfilled. Some are simply impossible. For example, some celestial spirits' obsession is to resurrect a dead person, become a Nine-Turn Venerable, or even gain immortality. These are obsessions that are essentially impossible to achieve. To truly gain control over them, one can only try to forcibly suppress them. However, this is extremely difficult, almost impossible.

After being questioned, Tianling quickly replied, "Becoming my master is quite simple. Just help me through the next tribulation."

The Five Elements Mage nodded, finding this profession somewhat expected. Old Ancestor Xuehu would soon face his second tribulation after achieving the eighth level of cultivation. This tribulation was, as the saying goes, an irreversible ordeal. For the Eight-Clawed Immortal, this was the most perilous ordeal. After achieving the eighth level, one had to endure three tribulations. Only after surviving all three would there be a chance to advance to the ninth level. Of course, it was only a chance, not a guarantee of achieving the ninth level.

It's easy to imagine how difficult each of these tribulations is. Old Ancestor Xuehu had no confidence that he could survive the second tribulation, so he had been anxious for a long time. He had been trying to find a way to get through this calamity, but so far, he hadn't found a good solution.

It's no surprise that this matter became his obsession. Even blessed lands must endure tribulations. Eighth-level blessed lands face terrifying calamities. If they cannot overcome these tribulations, they will vanish into nothingness. The task of Elder Xuehu is extremely difficult, even for a Five Elements Mage. It's a task that, while highly challenging, is not impossible. With sufficient help, there's a theoretical chance of success, but the difficulty is simply too high. Even if successful, significant losses are inevitable. Whether the gains will compensate for those losses is uncertain. It's definitely a matter of luck. After learning all this, Tianling chose to expel him, banishing him directly from the blessed land. Inside the blessed land, Tianling possesses the highest authority. He can move freely across the battlefield, teleport others, and even throw enemies off the battlefield. This is because they have numerous home-field advantages. Very few people can obtain a blessed land through brute force.

When the Five Elements Mage reappeared amidst the ravaged battlefield, he faced the Black City army. Their numbers hadn't increased. Clearly, the previous round of losses had been quite painful for them. Even if the eldest son had some reserves to sell, the amount of immortal essence he could obtain was limited, mainly because the total amount of circulating capital in the market was finite.

After selling so many precious treasures, there aren't many people left with enough cash on the market. There's no way to solve the eldest son's immediate crisis by buying them all at a fixed price. The items bought piecemeal, if purchased in installments, wouldn't help the current battle situation at all.

And that's indeed the case. While Black City had previously displayed unparalleled bravery, now you can only fight as cautiously as possible, constantly strengthening your attributes in the process. You can enhance your overall strength by repeatedly combining and splitting your body. It seems like a viable tactic. But even this tactic consumes immortal energy.

He certainly can't display that formidable strength again in the short term, but given time, the outcome is uncertain. After all, few people have that much liquid capital in a short time. But if given time to raise the money, perhaps just a dozen minutes would be enough to buy those Immortal Gu. At that point, Black City could launch another offensive, one that even a Five Elements Mage might not be able to withstand. As for repairing his current battlefield killing move, he can't do that either. Because it wasn't his own, he doesn't understand its operating principles. Everyone's battlefield killing move is one of their greatest trump cards. Many newcomers don't even have their own. Luck and strength are both indispensable. Not everyone has the opportunity to obtain one. And once they do, they won't share the secret. Once the information leaks, the weaknesses and flaws of their battlefield killing move will be known to the enemy. At that point, their killing move will be completely ineffective.

The Five Elements Mage can only take advantage of the opponent's brief period of weakness to unleash a rapid barrage of attacks and eliminate as many of Black City's clones as possible. He had become very adept at eliminating Black City's clones in previous battles; his strategy was to weaken the clones, then seal them while they were weakened, and finally burn them.

The tactic was very simple. With his previous experience, he didn't even need to cut up his opponent before sealing him. That would have been risky, risking that the opponent would revive before being sealed and grow into a new individual.

He now chose to directly unleash the Weakening Curse. Curses come in many forms, and he happened to possess one that could weaken opponents on a large scale. The weakening effect was quite good, making it an extremely useful move in chaotic battles—a true immortal killing move. Now, unleashed, the physical condition of many Black City members was significantly weakened. Taking advantage of this opportunity, he continuously cast the Five Elements Seal, sealing hundreds of people every second. Even so, sealing all 100,000 people would take a considerable amount of time. However, if their energy was still sufficient, they could continuously self-replicate within these few minutes. If the speed of self-replication exceeded the sealing speed, it would slowly snowball until even the Five Elements Mage couldn't eliminate them in time. Unfortunately, although they had some residual power to continue splitting, it wasn't enough. The speed of splitting was far slower than the speed of elimination. He had to find a way to delay until the next wave of immortal energy arrived.

But this is already very difficult for Black City to achieve. Even if he now has teammates who can use the ability to exchange everything to swap various attributes with the enemy, he's still struggling to make ends meet. The opponent's attributes are simply too high; the cost of swapping any one of them is something he can't afford right now.

As the situation grew increasingly critical, someone finally intervened again. Although most of the immortal Gu were being sold along with other resources in Baohuangtian to obtain the energy needed for this battle, some remained with other immortals, specifically those at the sixth rank. Normally, these immortals wouldn't be able to intervene in battles at this level. However, they now had to buy time until a new wave of energy arrived. While their immortal essence was limited, they possessed an advantage: the Gu worms on their bodies were hastily crafted by the eldest son. This meant these immortal Gu had never appeared in this world before. No one knew their abilities. Their initial encounter and information asymmetry were enough to put the Five Elements Mages in a difficult position when facing them.

From the Five Elements Mage's perspective, what happened next was utterly shocking. Just as he was focusing all his efforts on defeating his opponent, he suddenly felt a terrifying aura that sent chills down his spine and made him want to turn tail and run. A sixth-level immortal who had been completely unremarkable in the crowd was now dressed in a white robe. His white robes fluttered, and he held a three-foot-long sword, instantly displaying the aura of a peerless master. The sword in his hand gave off an aura of invincibility. In that instant, the Five Elements Mage seemed to see a legend of the past: the sword immortal Bo Qing, who had once cleaved five continents with his sword.

Although they were both at the eighth level, their strengths were worlds apart. A sub-immortal-level expert could easily kill him instantly. Yet, he was now sensing an aura of this intensity, perhaps even stronger. Despite his inner turmoil, he couldn't help but retreat uncontrollably. Once far away, all his attention was focused on his opponent.

[To be continued]

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