Cultivation begins with separation.

Chapter 402 The Buddha's Eye on the Future
Rainbow Moon Continent.

Qi Qi completed the Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment in just three months.

In the past, in the Heavenly Sword Sect, those who reached the Foundation Establishment stage before the age of forty could generally become true disciples.

Now, only those who condense their Golden Core can become true disciples; those who reach the Foundation Establishment stage can only become inner disciples.

The Immortal Pill Pavilion has arrived, bringing with it a large quantity of elixirs.

Previously, even with spirit stones, one could not buy rare pills such as Foundation Establishment Pills. Now, although the pills in the Immortal Pill Pavilion are expensive, they can be bought as long as one has spirit stones.

As a result, the quality of cultivators in Tianjian Mountain and even the entire Tianjian Domain has improved significantly. Not to mention Foundation Establishment and Golden Core cultivators, even the number of Nascent Soul cultivators has increased considerably.

The arrival of the Immortal Pill Pavilion was also a good thing for Qi Qi.

Previously, he had obtained many treasures through fortuitous encounters, but he dared not exchange them in large quantities for cultivation resources, because the markets of Tianjian Mountain and even other markets within the Tianjian Domain were more or less related to the Tianjian Sect.

The Immortal Pill Pavilion can transform all sorts of shady treasures into spirit stones, which can then be used to buy the desired pills.

Just then, two young men walked over, and the taller one said to Qi Qi:

"Senior Brother Qi has also reached the Foundation Establishment stage?"

Congratulations.

By the way, Senior Brother Qi, did you know that the sect is planning to send its symbol—the Heavenly Sword—to the Immortal Pill Pavilion in exchange for spirit stones?

"what?
The Heavenly Sword also needs to be replaced. It's the symbol of our sect! Legend has it that this sword fell from the Immortal Realm. How can we replace it?

Qi Qi found it hard to believe. The Heavenly Sword Sect was said to have gotten its name from the Heavenly Sword, and the sect's founder was said to have obtained the cultivation method from the Heavenly Sword, thus embarking on the path of cultivation.

Although the Heavenly Sword has not revealed its mysteries for countless years, no one has ever been able to comprehend its techniques.

The Heavenly Sword has survived for countless years, so it is clearly not an ordinary item. How could such a treasure be exchanged for spirit stones?

It's important to know that the Immortal Pill Pavilion isn't some honest and trustworthy shop. Because of their ignorance, the Immortal Pill Pavilion will often offer a relatively low price based on the strength of the spiritual energy used to buy many treasures.

Qi Qi estimated that even if he took out the Heaven-Mending Jade Plate, the Immortal Pill Pavilion would probably buy it at the price of a decent innate spiritual treasure. This was because most cultivators on the Rainbow Moon Continent considered innate spiritual treasures to be the most powerful spiritual treasures, and the Immortal Pill Pavilion would not be kind enough to appraise them and pay the corresponding price.

Therefore, it's highly unlikely that the Heavenly Sword will be exchanged for spirit stones of its intrinsic value. Trying to exchange it now would likely result in a huge loss.

Moreover, a treasure like the Heavenly Sword is probably beyond the measure of spirit stones.

The shorter young man sighed.

"After the three Supreme Elders perished, the previous balance within the Heavenly Sword Sect was broken. Now, the one in power is not the master-disciple lineage, but a lineage composed of several powerful families."

Those powerful families would love to break up the Heavenly Sword Sect and sell it off, so that they could have another Nascent Soul ancestor in their clan.

Compared to sectarian inheritance, they value the continuation of their family bloodline more.

Qi Qi fell silent upon hearing this.

Within the Heavenly Sword Sect, there are two major factions: the master-disciple relationship and the aristocratic families.

Because human spiritual roots are rare, both in quantity and quality, aristocratic families are generally inferior to master-disciple families, since a master-disciple lineage can recruit disciples throughout the entire Heavenly Sword Domain.

The leaders of the sect throughout history have been selected from the same lineage of master and disciple.

Unfortunately, when the Immortal Pill Pavilion descended, the Heavenly Sword Sect reacted violently, resulting in heavy casualties among the master and his disciples.

The Heavenly Sword Sect suffered not only three Nascent Soul cultivators killed by the Immortal Pill Pavilion, but also many Golden Core and Foundation Establishment cultivators.

After that incident, the master and disciple lineage suffered heavy losses, and the sect's real power was basically controlled by several powerful families. Because the cultivators of those families were afraid of death, they did not join the battle immediately.

Qi Qi was also from the same lineage as his master and disciple. When he heard that the aristocratic families wanted to exchange the sect's inherited Heavenly Sword for spirit stones, he was naturally furious.

Unfortunately, his anger was useless. Thanks to the pills from the Immortal Pill Pavilion, the aristocratic family had gained three new Nascent Soul Grandmasters during this period, and the master-disciple lineage was completely suppressed.

"By the way, Senior Brother Qi, now that you've advanced to Foundation Establishment, are you going to register as an inner disciple and receive the new disciple benefits?"

"Yes."

"Alas, senior brother, while you were in seclusion, some changes occurred in the sect. Now, disciples who are not from those few aristocratic families need to complete a trial mission to advance to the Foundation Establishment stage before they can become inner disciples."

It's alright for inner disciples, but I've heard that becoming a true disciple is even more difficult.

We came here to wait for you, Senior Brother, to complete the trial mission together.

Qi Qi couldn't believe it.

"The sect's rules have changed again so quickly. It was one thing that you couldn't become a true disciple after reaching the Foundation Establishment stage, but now even becoming an inner disciple has become more difficult?"

"There's no other way. The sect said that in the past, the sect only had the Nascent Soul inheritance, but now the sect has the Returning Void inheritance, so the rules naturally have to change. They say that the Dao is not easily passed on."

The trial missions, in essence, are about gathering resources.

"Um?

The sect exchanged for the Void Returning Inheritance.

Qi Qi was stunned. He knew that he had paid a price—a seventh-grade spirit ore, a sixth-grade spirit plant seed, and almost all of his wealth—to obtain the Void Returning Inheritance. Since embarking on the path of cultivation, Qi Qi had encountered countless opportunities, but apart from the Heaven-Mending Jade Plate, the most precious thing he had was that seventh-grade spirit ore.

It's fair to say that without a seventh-grade spirit ore, the Heavenly Book Pavilion probably wouldn't have given him the Void Returning Inheritance.

Within the Heavenly Book Pavilion, the Nascent Soul and Deity Transformation inheritances have clearly defined prices, but the Void Returning inheritance cannot be obtained with spirit stones.

It seems that after the sect acquired a new Void Returning Inheritance, the high-level spiritual items accumulated over the years were almost completely depleted. That's why they wanted to use the Heavenly Sword to exchange for a new Void Returning Inheritance. Exchanging the Heavenly Sword for spirit stones was just for the disciples.

Within the Heavenly Book Pavilion, most inheritances are of a single attribute of the Five Elements. Inheritances of the three attributes of Wind, Thunder, and Ice are extremely rare. As for the Returning to Emptiness inheritance, there are only five parts with the Five Elements attributes.

Clearly, someone within the sect wants to exchange for the second part of the Void Returning Inheritance because of incompatibility with their attributes.

Qi Qi had no say in the affairs of the Heavenly Sword Sect's higher-ups. Soon, he and his two junior brothers received their trial missions.

"The Secret Realm of Xihe City?"

That was the direction from which I sensed my opportunity being taken away.

"Perfect, I want to see who stole my opportunity."

Purple Mountain.

Yi Dong frowned. During this time, he had neither cultivated nor suppressed the spatial fragments, nor paid attention to the demon's gains in the Creation Realm.

The main reason for all this is that, as time went on, the supernatural powers of the Red Lotus Karmic Fire gradually increased, and he gained a little bit of the ability to foresee things with the Buddha's eye.

Yi Dong has little ambition, low expectations for himself, and no lofty aspirations, so he basically doesn't care about what will happen in the future.

In general, even if he foresaw the destruction of the Heavenly Capital Spirit Realm or even the Vast Ocean Spirit Realm, and the death of billions of humans, he would only feel slightly sad for a short while, and then he would continue as before.

However, it's different when the foreseen future is related to oneself.

"In the future vision, I will fall into a void calamity."

But how could that be? I don't go into the void. Could it be that when Mu Mu teleported me, I fell into the void?

After much deliberation, Yi Dong concluded that this was the only possibility.

He simply didn't believe that a powerful enemy could knock him into the void.

Putting aside the power of the Thirteen True Spirit Longswords, even considering the years since, with the Floating Pagoda, strengthened beyond imagination by the Causal Puppet, Yi Dong doesn't feel that any force or enemy can harm him in the slightest.

Even if the invaders from the Immortal Realm had tens of thousands of Dao-Merging True Immortals plus all the True Dragons of the Dragon Clan besieging them, they could at most repel them; it would be impossible for them to knock them down into the void.

The more than one thousand causal puppets, each of which is about to advance to the causal bodhisattva level, have combat power that is absolutely no weaker than that of ordinary returning to the void cultivators. They can even fight against the Dao-merging true immortals.

With such defensive capabilities, Yi Dong couldn't believe he would end up in the Void Calamity in the future.

However, the future scenes that Yi Dong saw with his sometimes-unreliable Buddha Eyes were not static, and there was a very small probability that he would not fall into the Void Calamity.

However, in those futures where he doesn't fall into the void calamity, it seems he won't be able to advance to the Great Dao Golden Core stage.

Because as he sent demons to plunder resources in the Creation Realm to expand the layers of demonic space, the foundation of his Great Dao became too profound.

In the future, before he falls into the void calamity, he seems to have no way to unify the power of the myriad layers of demonic space to condense the Great Dao Golden Core.

However, in the void calamity, he saw the scene of himself advancing to the Golden Core stage of the Great Dao.

This made Yi Dong feel somewhat uncomfortable.

He already felt that by placing the foundation of the Great Dao outside the space of magical power, he had gone astray on the path of cultivation. This foresight of the future made him even more uneasy, fearing that there might really be a problem with his cultivation.

He thought he only had two more steps to immortality, but who would have thought that he might actually fall at the Foundation Establishment stage? This was something Yi Dong found hard to accept.

Of course, Yi Dong also disagreed with the ridiculous saying "If I hear the Dao in the morning, I will die content in the evening," so he didn't want to risk going into the Void Calamity just for the possibility of advancing to the Golden Core stage of the Great Dao.

The Void Calamity is so dangerous that even a true spirit can perish within it, and he might not be safe there either.

He can live for three to five thousand years now. If he doesn't consider the future, and puts a lot of effort into his psionic technology, living for a little over ten thousand years shouldn't be a problem.

In other words, Yi Dong was unwilling to gamble his ten-thousand-year life on the possibility of achieving Core Formation, a feat that could only be obtained by risking his life.

However, things were not something Yi Dong could avoid simply by wanting to.

Because if he wants to escape, he needs Mu Mu's starlight teleportation, but if he teleports, he might end up in the Void Calamity.

If they don't run away, they are more likely to end up in the most probable future.

This has made it impossible for Yi Dong to calm down during this period.

Fortunately, no matter what the future held, he did not see himself die, which gave Yi Dong some slight comfort.

"My current protective power is stronger than that of a true spirit. Theoretically, the void calamity that can kill a true spirit may not necessarily be able to kill me."

Well, the Great Awakening Puppet has basically advanced to the Guanyin realm. Although its individual combat strength is not as good as the Causal Puppet, its combat methods and creativity are unmatched by the Causal Puppet. Let all these puppets return to Purple Gold Mountain to protect me.

I refuse to believe that with such defensive capabilities, we could still be plunged into the Void Calamity.

(End of this chapter)