He was invincible from the beginning of the Heaven-Covering Era.

"Ancestors, Divine Lord, please come in." The Qin Clan leader stood at the door and gestured for the two to enter.

Chapter 292 Encountering Immortals in the Mortal World

They entered the Qin Clan and received a very warm welcome. The Qin Clan leader invited them to the main hall and personally brought out a thousand-year-old vintage wine, pouring a cup for the two of them.

At the sect leader's signal, the guards in the hall left, leaving the entire hall to the three of them.

The hall was empty and silent; no one spoke first, everyone remained silent.

Zhou Qing remained silent because he wasn't the main character here; he was merely accompanying the third-generation patriarch to see if he could resolve his inner conflict.

The Cai family ancestor and the Qin Clan leader remained silent because they didn't know what to say; their hearts were filled with complex emotions.

After an unknown amount of time, the Qin Clan leader finally spoke.

“Back then, we followed your instructions and searched for the Great Dragon in the Qinling Mountains, but we could never find it and were unable to dissect your body.”

"Thirty thousand years ago, an ancestor entered the Immortal Transformation Pool by chance and retrieved a piece of green copper using the 'Soldier's Secret Technique. However, regarding the ancient dragon's lair, that ancestor's expression turned solemn, and he ultimately dared not step into it."

The Qin Clan leader slowly recounted the events related to the Cai family ancestor after his death.

"Alas, his choice not to enter was the right one. At that time, my Source Technique had undergone forty thousand years of evolution, and even a saint might not be able to suppress me. Even if he had entered, he would have only died." The Cai family ancestor looked sorrowful.

"If we had found the ancient dragon's lair within a few decades of your death, we would have been absolutely certain of fulfilling your request, but in the end, we missed it." The Qin Clan leader's voice was somewhat low.

"Has your Cai clan produced another Great Sage in the last ten thousand years?" Zhou Qing asked for the first time.

The Qin Clan leader glanced at him and replied, "It seems that the God Lord has already made contact with that elder of my clan. Indeed, that elder has always been unique. In his youth, he was carefree and detached from worldly affairs, not yearning for the immortal realm, and wandered in the mortal world. In his later years, he saw through everything, comprehended the true meaning of life, and then went into seclusion somewhere, no longer caring about worldly affairs. Now, even I do not know where that elder is."

"That senior's state of mind can be described as the closest thing to the immortal state of mind in this world!" Zhou Qing exclaimed.

In this world, some souls are born close to immortality, such as the heart of a child. Such souls are not tainted by the mortal world and remain pure and flawless. They can make rapid progress in cultivation and are an extremely rare talent.

In Zhou Qing's view, the state of mind of that Cai clan's Great Sage was a kind of acquired near-immortal heart, just like the state described in a certain natural Daoist manual.

That state of mind is extremely profound. Unless one is an immortal who is detached from worldly affairs, how can a person, who has seven emotions and six desires, elevate their state of mind to that level?

But that great sage of the Cai clan actually did it.

"How many descendants of the Cai clan are left today?" the Cai family patriarch asked.

"Now there are only about 10,000 people in our clan, scattered in the nearby small mountain villages. We have kept a low profile for the past 10,000 years, and our clan members are spread out, thinking that even if you emerge from the dragon's lair again one day, this way of dispersing will allow more clan members to escape the bloodshed." The Qin Clan leader had a complicated expression.

"The future of the family will still depend on you, the living, to manage it well. There will be no more bloodshed, and one day the Cai clan will flourish once more," sighed the Cai family patriarch.

Rest.

"Ancestor, won't you stay behind in the future?" The Qin Clan leader was taken aback.

"I was saved by this young man, and my life is now intertwined with his. I will leave with him and will not stay in the Qin Clan. This is not my era after all," the Cai family patriarch sighed.

Looking back, he was once full of vigor and ambition, commanding respect and fame throughout the land. He became the Source Master before he was even a hundred years old, which was truly amazing. He was unparalleled in his talent and was known as a remarkable person of his generation.

In his lifetime, he also made a huge gamble in the divine city, traveled all over the world, dug up countless mountain and dragon veins, and even entered four of the seven forbidden zones. He cut open too many strange stones, stole all the secrets of heaven, and brought many prehistoric truths back to the world.

It was precisely because of this that his later years were destined to be ominous and difficult to resist. Even though he hid in the ancient dragon's lair, he was still found by the curse, turned into a monster, and was driven by the underworld.

His current state is peculiar; he is somewhere between "living" and "dying," a state described as "dying."

He's dying! Is he dead? He's dying! Is he really dead? He's dying! Is he dead or not? He's dying!

As long as Zhou Qing removes the red-haired curse from him, this state will instantly turn into "death," leaving only a physical body that has been dead for 70,000 years.

Like someone's cat, this curse is like that box. If the curse is not broken, he is in a state of being both alive and dead, or neither alive nor dead. But once the curse is broken, there can only be one fixed outcome.

After Zhou Qing and the Cai family patriarch were invited into the main hall, some disciples who remained on the main peak also noticed this.

Among them was a woman of ordinary appearance, but whose eyes revealed a kind of intelligence. At this moment, her gaze toward the great hall flickered with an unusual light.

"Why would the Divine Lord come to the Qin Clan? Could it also be for the Secret of the Military? But judging from the situation, it doesn't seem like it. And that figure in the black robe, who exactly is he, and why did he make the Qin Clan's leader show that kind of expression?"

She tried her best to think of all the possibilities, but she still couldn't make a decision because there was still too little information.

Suddenly, a scholar in white robes walked up to her, fanning himself with a fan. He was handsome and refined, with a refined air. He spoke up, "Yue Ling, are you pondering again? Seeing the God Lord come to Qin Gate, are you guessing his motives?"

The woman, of ordinary appearance, glanced at him and said, "Of course, aren't you curious?"

This person is Princess Yueling. She possesses a secret treasure that conceals her true appearance. Otherwise, the arrival of the second most beautiful woman in Zhongzhou would have caused too much of a stir and would have been very detrimental to her actions.

Although her plan for the Immortal Pool fell through, the plan for the "Soldier's Secret" is still underway, and it has already shown some promise since she entered the main peak.

The scholar in white is no ordinary man either. He is a prince-level figure from a divine dynasty, a hidden dragon. Otherwise, how could he dare to chase Yue Ling to the Qin Gate?

Just as they were talking, a dashing figure passed by them, and they immediately shut their mouths.

They didn't speak again until the figure left.

"Alas, this King Biluo overestimated himself, thinking himself so heroic and powerful that he could withstand the legendary Divine Transcending Technique, but..."

"What a pity, he completely submitted in less than three years, and is now the Supreme Protector of the Qin Clan. His cultivation is so profound that even the great emperors are wary of him."

"This Qin Clan truly lives up to its reputation as a reclusive sect. Experts like the Azure King are just one among them. The number of powerful figures is not small at all, no weaker than those major sects in the Central Plains. It is also suspected that there are supreme experts supporting them behind the scenes, who may have already become saints."

During their conversation, the two also expressed great apprehension towards the Qin Clan, a sect that appeared to be in decline on the surface.

After several days of conversation in the main hall, the Cai family patriarch and the Qin sect leader finally left.

And Zhou Qing's incarnation never disappeared.

This incarnation is no longer a Dao body separated from the One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones, but rather another form of incarnation technique.

The Dao body that transforms into the Three Pure Ones has a time limit. After it dissipates, Zhou Qing has to use it again, which is too troublesome to make the Dao body travel from the Eastern Wilderness to the Central Plains.

So he changed his incarnation technique to the one from the ancient scriptures of the Demon Emperor, which is the move that the Azure Emperor used to unleash his killing intent.

This incarnation can absorb the essence of heaven and earth to maintain its existence. Unless its power is exhausted or it actively dissipates, this incarnation will never perish.

Although this incarnation technique can only create one incarnation at a time compared to the One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones technique, Zhou Qing could only say that it has both advantages and disadvantages. There are countless incarnation methods in the world, and it is inherently difficult to find a truly perfect one.

After leaving the Qin Clan, Zhou Qing led the Cai family patriarch to a small Taoist temple near the Qishi Mansion.

He discovered that the small Taoist temple was still dilapidated.

Although this result was within Zhou Qing's expectations, he still couldn't help but sigh when he saw this scene.

The ancient pine, once with its strong branches and lush green leaves, is now almost dead.

That vegetable patch, once a vibrant green, is now barren; that grape trellis, once bearing grapes as red as purple agate, is now withered and dry.

What about the people in that small Taoist temple? Are they still alive? His heart sank.

Zhou Qing and the Cai family patriarch entered the small Taoist temple. When they reached the back of the temple, they saw a small grave without a tombstone. It looked like an ordinary little yellow bag, blending into the natural world without anything special about it.

"Did he still choose the path of transformation?" Zhou Qing murmured to himself.

He opened his third eye and saw the inside of the tomb through the yellow earth mound, but there was no skeleton inside, not even clothes; it was an empty tomb.

Zhou Qing was startled. If it were a transformation, the clothes should have remained where they were, but now there were none at all.

Suddenly, he felt a familiar fluctuation. He walked towards the ancient pine tree, where there was a blue stone at the base of the tree, no more than 1.67 meters long.

The marks emerged from the bluestone, as if they were alive, possessing an indescribable charm.

Zhou Qing had a flash of inspiration and activated the "Soldier" secret technique. In an instant, the traces began to rotate, decompose, and then recombine, transforming into a line of characters.

"Seeing immortals in the mortal world."

Zhou Qing stared at the words, his heart filled with unease.

"What principle did he realize? Why would he leave behind such a line of words?" Zhou Qing muttered to himself.

He didn't understand this person back then, and he still doesn't understand him now. He doesn't know what kind of state of mind this person has; he is truly too detached.

At Qin Gate those few

In the end, he learned a lot about the deeds of this Great Sage of the Cai Clan from the Qin Clan leader.

This person was quite different from others when he was young. While others were eager to become immortals, he remained calm and seemed to care nothing about the so-called immortality.

While others were fighting and killing, he was cultivating alone, traveling through the five realms, playing various roles, being a farmer, a great scholar, weaving mats and selling shoes, and also acting as a chivalrous knight. He experienced all kinds of lives and understood the vicissitudes of life.

He endured countless tribulations in this mortal world, and finally achieved enlightenment in an instant. His entire being was rapidly elevated, severing the Dao and becoming a saint. All obstacles seemed to disappear, unlike others who were stuck for thousands of years. In the end, he achieved an extremely heaven-defying realm in the post-ancient era.

The cultivation achievements of such individuals are due to various complex reasons, which are quite unique. If it were an era when the Great Dao was not suppressed, they might have gone even further.

The Cai family patriarch walked over from behind Zhou Qing, stared at the inscription on the bluestone, and said, "It seems that this extraordinary descendant has already left this place and may have disappeared into the vast mortal world again."

After observing the situation, the two of them found no trace of the Dao here, but they did see this line of writing. Therefore, the Cai family patriarch believed that this person had simply left this place, but whether he was alive or dead was now unknown.

"brush"

An elderly man with gray hair appeared beside them. He looked ordinary, but his sudden appearance beside Zhou Qing and the others indicated that he was not an ordinary person.

"That fellow left here five years ago. He came without a trace and he left without a trace. He left and he came at the same time. No one knows what kind of path he took."

Zhou Qing didn't move, but he already knew who the visitor was. He asked, "Has the old lord had any conversation with this senior?"

The old master of Qishi Mansion showed a look of reminiscence and said, "I had a conversation with him before he left. I thought he would choose to die quietly and unknown, but he smiled and said that he had changed his mind and did not intend to die that way."

"He said that a few years ago he met a very peculiar young man. When he stood in front of him, he felt as if the Dao was personally present. The appearance of this person made him suddenly understand something: the Dao can come down to the mortal world, so why must the immortals be ethereal and distant? Then he left."

"Now it seems that the person he was talking about must be you, right? Sometimes when you can't see the way forward, it's just a little bit short, and your appearance just happened to point out that little bit in his heart, so he realized something and decided to go and test this path."

A gust of wind blew, swirling up the yellow leaves scattered on the ground, and Zhou Qing's robes fluttered in the wind. He said, "Then we can only hope that this senior can make his way."

The old manor lord nodded, then smiled and said, "Speaking of which, in another half month it will be time for your avatar to come to Qishi Mansion to preach again. You, as the honorary manor lord, are much more popular than me, the official manor lord. Every time your avatar comes, those young people are overjoyed and full of anticipation."

He had promised the old master two years ago to preach, and he eventually decided to preach once every six months for seven days each time. Although the frequency was very low, it was extremely popular among the disciples of Qishi Mansion.

It has even subtly evolved into a representative opportunity of the Qishi Mansion, with more and more young talents scrambling to enter the Qishi Mansion, but without enough talent, they can only sigh in vain.

"That's because the Lord of the Mansion never manages affairs or preaches. I'm the only sage in the entire Qishi Mansion who preaches, so of course they're looking forward to it." Zhou Qing ruthlessly exposed the old Lord of the Mansion's idle nature.

The old manor chuckled and let it go, feeling no embarrassment whatsoever, only a sense of ease and comfort.

Chapter 293 From now on, I will have a quasi-emperor as my backer

After a brief exchange, Zhou Qing led the Cai family patriarch back to the Eastern Wilderness.

A voice echoed throughout the Zhou family's magnificent hall.

“Lingzhou today covers an area of ​​more than 10,000 li, which is quite large, but it is sparsely populated, with a population of no more than 100 million. Vast areas of beautiful mountains and land have not been utilized.”

"It is necessary to cultivate the land, and cultivation is nothing more than planting and raising animals. Planting fruit trees, grains, herbs and so on in that beautiful and spiritual land, or raising delicious and easy-to-breed spiritual beasts, or raising ferocious beasts and birds of prey, can all bring rich benefits."