Born with immortal seed

Chapter 120 Desolate Tomb
The world spun around us, and darkness enveloped us.

Bai Zichen felt nothing but emptiness in all directions, unable to sense any changes in time and space, and unable to use any magic power at all.

Once the consciousness leaves the body, all sensation is lost instantly.

That kind of darkness wasn't the black of the night sky, but an endless, bottomless abyss that sent chills down one's spine and evoked the deepest fear from the bottom of one's heart.

In the face of utter desolation, one can only conjure up the image of a furnace of heaven and earth within one's sea of ​​consciousness.

Unexpectedly, in this special environment, my consciousness became exceptionally clear, and the world around me appeared even more real. The furnace's firing process made all the scenes even more condensed.

At the westernmost point of the sky, hangs a grain of five-crystal divine iron. Although it is only the size of a grain of rice, it is not to be ignored.

Once you take in the entire world, you won't miss it, like a dazzling star in the darkness.

"I wonder if it's possible to visualize the Lapis Lazuli Fire Jade at the same time..."

Bai Zichen thought of this and immediately took action.

I had this thought before, but when I tried to visualize the Glazed Fire Jade while practicing the Divine Forging Technique, it collapsed quickly and left my divine sense weak for several days.

It can only be attributed to insufficient spiritual strength, which is not high enough.

Entering this ancient secret realm and finding myself in this strange space, I instinctively thought of it.

In the eastern corner, a red light flashed, and a crystal fire jade the size of a fingernail materialized, immediately stirring up a terrifying storm.

The entire furnace of heaven and earth seemed to be struck by a cataclysmic disaster. Mountains and rivers collapsed, rivers overflowed, several large holes appeared in the sky, and even the furnace itself was overturned.

But for the first time, the visualization constructed in his mind did not collapse immediately, and it held on precariously.

Bai Zichen seized this rare opportunity and used every possible means to maintain the simultaneous existence of the three visualization objects.

He had a feeling that he could gain immense benefits by staying alive for even a single breath longer.

In the bizarre environment where time and space were unknown, Bai Zichen's spiritual power was rapidly increasing.

After an unknown amount of time, his vision suddenly brightened, and before Bai Zichen could even feel joy, he fainted.

……

When Bai Zichen woke up, he felt sore all over and his head was a complete mess. It took him a while to realize what had happened.

"This is the secret realm..."

Almost identical to the phantom that Lu Song had shown through the black jade ring, it was ten zhang in diameter, with dozens of broken weapons crookedly stuck in the ground, and a lonely, desolate tomb in the very center.

Beside him, Lu Song floated in mid-air, shrouded in a circle of black light, still unconscious.

"The cultivation world has limited understanding of secret realms. The feat of creating a small world of spiritual energy on its own has not been accomplished for many years... Among secret realms, there are those that can be entered and exited at will without any threshold, and there are also those like the Lotus Birth Secret Realm, which require a long-distance teleportation array to enter, and the starting point is the Core Formation True Person level."

Bai Zichen looked at Lu Song with a hint of envy. The black flames were seeping into his body bit by bit, which obviously brought additional benefits.

The black jade ring was refined with Lu Song's essence blood, so it can be considered a successor of the secret realm and it's normal for it to receive extra treatment.

"Of all the secret realms I've heard of, this is the smallest... There are two possibilities. One is that the creator's strength was limited, and he could only maintain such a small world. The other possibility is that this place was created too long ago, and after losing its master, it has been eroded by time, and the space is getting smaller and smaller."

According to Lu Song, the secret realm he saw in his childhood dream was over a hundred feet long and wide, with thousands of weapons on the ground.

Based on this reasoning, the second possibility is more likely.

The ancient secret realm here may have been established much earlier than they imagined.

Bai Zichen took a step forward, his fingertips moving. There was no wind or water in the air, and although there was light overhead, there were no sun, moon, or stars.

At the end of the space, it was dark and unclear, with faint signs of expanding inward.

The spiritual energy in the secret realm is at most equivalent to a first-grade high-level spiritual land, which shows how much it has degenerated over time.

Bai Zichen walked up to a broken sword and reached out to pull it out, but as soon as he touched the broken sword, it turned into a pile of fragments and slipped away from his fingertips like quicksand.

"It's been too long, and the spiritual energy here is insufficient. This situation has been formed over tens of thousands of years of erosion..."

These weapons are all of a simple, ancient style, without any patterns or decorations, completely different from what is popular today.

But whether it was halberds, axes, flying swords, broadswords, or even the hook-and-spear weapons that are now rare in the cultivation world, they all turned into powder and dust upon contact, leaving not a single intact weapon behind.

Bai Zichen quickly circled the entire secret realm and returned to the starting point.

Currently, the only place in the secret realm that remains unexplored is the desolate tomb, which is the only chance to gain anything from it.

"I hope this trip wasn't a complete waste of time, and it's just an abandoned secret realm..."

Bai Zichen glanced at Lu Song, who was still unconscious, and couldn't help but sigh that he was a lucky man.

Given Lu Song's age, nearing forty and only at the sixth level of Qi Refining, it was already clear that his path to enlightenment was over.

However, this black flame clearly has the effect of repairing the body and replenishing the essence. In a short time, it can be seen that the skin of Lu Song has a jade color showing through it. This is the appearance of the essence that is too strong to be refined in one go and floats on the outside of the body.

After this experience, there may be another opportunity to reach new heights and strive for foundation building.

Although the most common type of dungeon is the one where you get nothing.

But the secret realm he had been looking forward to for so many years only brought Lu Song success, while he himself gained nothing, which inevitably left him feeling somewhat disappointed.

"Everyone has their own destiny. At the very least, accidentally entering the state of simultaneous visualization of the three objects when entering the secret realm is a considerable gain..."

Bai Zichen had already sensed that the range of his divine sense should exceed eighty zhang.

Because this secret realm is too small, one cannot use one's divine sense to its fullest extent, and can only rely on intuition to make calculations, but the difference between the actual location and the actual location will not be too great.

An ordinary late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator's spiritual sense strength is only a hundred feet.

Bai Zichen had only been at the Foundation Establishment stage for a little over a year when he developed a divine sense approaching that of a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator. Even within the Naihe Sect, which had cultivators of the Divine Forging Technique, this was an astonishing achievement.

Back then, thanks to the secret technique of forging divine powers, disciples of the Naihe Sect could generally achieve a level of spiritual awareness that was superior to that of other cultivators of the same level.

However, this situation, in which the strength of divine sense can leap two realms, has never been mentioned in the inheritance of the Divine Forging Technique.

The desolate tomb in the center of the secret realm is less than ten feet high and is made of an unknown gray material.

There are no visible signs of splicing; it is a single, seamless piece, exuding an extremely ancient, even wild, aura.

Even though the desolate tomb no longer possessed any divine power due to the passage of time, one could still feel a profound and soul-stirring awe in its presence.

Bai Zichen took a deep breath and bent down to peer into the low opening.

As expected, the style remained consistent; the interior of the desolate tomb was completely undecorated, with only a few large, chaotic characters on the bare gray walls.

The meaning of the large characters is completely incomprehensible; one can only guess from their shape that they are characters older than the Flower and Bird Records.

The Flower and Bird Talisman, which was popular around 30,000 years ago, contains immense power in every character and can be regarded as a natural talisman, the source of the Way of Talismans.

However, because it was too difficult to learn and not conducive to its spread, it was gradually replaced by ordinary writing and only circulated among top-level cultivators.

Nowadays, sects with a complete lineage of flower and bird talismans are extremely rare.

The inscription on the stone tablet in the Five Sacred Mountains Temple is written in the style of flower and bird characters.

However, the characters in the Flower and Bird Records are somewhat similar to the characters used today. Although we don't understand their meaning, we can still get a general idea by guessing.

Unlike the seven large characters on the gray wall, which only have a strong emotional impact, it is a stretch to call them characters.

It looks more like a bunch of random scribbles!
Bai Zichen dared not make any move. He took out a jade slip and recorded the seven characters, hoping to find out if he could decipher their meaning in the future.

Inside the desolate tomb, there was only a stone platform, which looked like it had been casually carved with a knife or sword, and was not neat.

Three items were placed on the stone platform.

A ball of lightning, the size of a fist, calmly accumulated there, its intensity restrained to the extreme.

If it were not visible to the naked eye, one could not sense any fluctuations with divine sense alone; it was like an inanimate object.

“All the weapons outside have not escaped the passage of time. The fact that they can still show the form of lightning after tens of thousands of years means that their level must be much higher… The spiritual energy in the secret realm can no longer satisfy these treasures. Every bit of spiritual energy that leaks out is damaging the treasures’ own essence.”

In any case, the magical treasures of a Core Formation cultivator will degenerate into ordinary objects after thousands of years if no one takes care of them.

It's unimaginable what level of treasure it was that could survive for tens of thousands of years, or even longer.

The second item was a jade pendant, which already had spiderweb-like fine cracks. The jade was grayish-white and had impurities seeped into it.

Bai Zichen stretched out his hand halfway, then pulled it back.

The last item was a long box, neither gold, jade, nor wood, which was repelled the moment divine sense touched it.

"No matter what, we'll only know what use it is once we get our hands on it... You can't tell what it's for just by looking at it."

Bai Zichen first took the jade pendant in the middle, and some jade fragments fell directly down. In a panic, he immediately held the jade pendant in his palm.

Just as he was about to study the mysteries of the jade pendant, a bright white light shone forth, and a vast amount of information appeared in his mind.

"Nine Heavens Bone Forging Technique... It tempers immortal bones and is a body-refining technique!"

Bai Zichen closed his eyes and glanced through the text, clearly understanding the contents of the cultivation technique that had entered his mind.

It actually tempered the body's bones, causing them to undergo a qualitative change and transform into the legendary immortal bones.

Regardless of the number of layers, there are seven volumes in total, which can be used to refine seven bones into different immortal bones.

The contents were vast and complex, and Bai Zichen was worried that other variables might arise in the secret realm, so he only glanced at one of the volumes.

The Sun Origin Copper Bone refines the forehead bone into immortal bones, resulting in a powerful physique that is unafraid of heavenly fire...

The minimum requirements for cultivation are: entrusting one's spiritual consciousness to the formation of a golden core.

"It's good, but it's too high a level for me... What use is body refinement, which can only be practiced by a Core Formation True Person, to me now?"

The jade pendant in Bai Zichen's hand had all turned into fragments, as he exhausted his last bit of spiritual power to complete the inheritance of the cultivation technique.

As the fingers loosened, jade fragments slid off like quicksand.

"Besides, I already have the Five-Crystal Glazed Body that is extremely suitable for me. Even after I form my core, I probably won't have the energy to cultivate two body-refining techniques at the same time..."

Having acquired a top-tier body-refining technique that wasn't particularly useful, Bai Zichen turned his attention to the remaining two items.

(End of this chapter)