Primordial Era: Refusing Hongjun's path to sainthood, I attained the Dao of Hunyuan.

Chapter 119 Gap

As Tongtian's voice fell, the Heavenly Dao also bestowed merit, forming a massive golden wheel of merit behind Tongtian's head, no less than that of Yuanshi.

Two golden wheels of merit appeared, instantly drawing in the vast spiritual energy of heaven and earth, all converging towards Kunlun Mountain.

The innate spiritual energy between heaven and earth is becoming increasingly scarce, while the acquired spiritual energy continues to emerge and its proportion is becoming larger and larger.

At this moment, some powerful beings with keen senses also noticed the changes in the world. Upon seeing this, they quickly activated a grand formation to seal off the spiritual energy of the blessed land and prevent it from leaking out.

This is how the spiritual energy within the blessed land is maintained, remaining abundant. However, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth in the outside world is constantly diminishing.

Like Lao Tzu, after Yuanshi and Tongtian gained merit in establishing their religion, they also activated the merit of creation that was hidden deep within their primordial spirit.

Therefore, the two attained sainthood almost simultaneously. In an instant, countless extraordinary phenomena unfolded, and a vast and terrifying pressure swept across the heavens and earth, forcing countless beings to kneel on the ground.

At the same time, rolling purple energy also stretched across the sky. Tongtian, Yuanshi, and Laozi exchanged a glance and all three burst into laughter.

The three brothers have all attained sainthood. In the entire prehistoric world, who can compare to them?

At that very moment, on Mount Sumeru in the west, Laozi, Yuanshi, and Tongtian were seen establishing their own religions and becoming saints.

At this moment, Jieyin and Zhunti could no longer remain seated. Zhunti looked at Jieyin with a questioning gaze. After a moment of silence, Jieyin nodded and said, "Good."

Zhunti immediately breathed a sigh of relief, and a determined look appeared in his eyes.

A moment later, two golden rays of light emanated from Mount Sumeru, filling the heavens and the earth and illuminating all directions.

These two golden rays, one a relic and the other a Bodhi tree, appeared in the sky above Mount Sumeru, emitting a strange fragrance that seemed to permeate the entire world.

The closer you get to the west, the stronger the fragrance becomes, making you feel all your troubles disappear and your mind become peaceful.

Immediately afterwards, Jieyin and Zhunti also appeared, standing on twelve golden lotuses of merit, with relics on their heads, and established the Western Religion under the Bodhi tree.

Instantly, the Heavenly Dao bestowed merit upon them, placing it behind the two of them and forming a golden wheel of merit behind each of their heads.

However, it is quite obvious that the merit wheels of the two are much smaller than those of the Three Pure Ones.

Even so, as these two golden wheels of merit condensed, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth rapidly converged towards the west.

In an instant, innate spiritual energy became increasingly scarce. A top-tier expert calculated that the innate spiritual energy in the world was now 60% less than before.

Moreover, the remaining 40% is still decreasing.

You should know that there are still three great sages who have not yet achieved enlightenment; Jieyin and Zhunti have only achieved half of their enlightenment.

Why do we say they only achieved half of it? It's because after the two established the Western Religion, although their cultivation greatly improved, they were still stuck below the level of a saint and couldn't fully break through.

At this moment, Jieyin and Zhunti, without hesitation, made forty-eight great vows to the heavens.

Even Heaven acknowledged it and bestowed merit upon us once more.

After receiving this merit, the two faced no further obstacles and attained sainthood.

In an instant, two more sages appeared in the world, and at the same time, a massive amount of innate spiritual energy was devoured, reducing the innate spiritual energy in the world by another 20%.

Only the last 20% of the innate spiritual energy remained.

But just when everyone thought this was the ultimate moment, an unusual phenomenon finally appeared at the Wuzhuang Temple on Longevity Mountain.

The strange phenomenon of the ginseng fruit tree once again floated in the air above Longevity Mountain.

Zhen Yuanzi, together with Kong Xuan, established the Earth Immortal Sect. With the establishment of the Earth Immortal Sect, Heaven bestowed merit upon them.

Zhen Yuanzi, having received this merit for establishing the religion, also attained sainthood, just like the Three Pure Ones, Jieyin, and Zhunti.

However, unlike others, Zhen Yuanzi had neither created the world nor made any great vows; he attained sainthood simply by establishing a religion.

This shows his accumulated knowledge, because even though he had severed all three corpses, his knowledge was much deeper than that of the other four: Yuanshi, Tongtian, Jieyin, and Zhunti.

Only Lao Tzu, who also severed all three of his corpses and accumulated merit from the creation of the world, should be stronger than him after attaining enlightenment.

Beyond the Thirty-Three Heavens, in the Xuanhuang Heaven, Xuanhuang has always been watching over the people who establish sects and prove their Dao. Whenever a sect is born, his fortune among the human race will decrease.

Once several major religions were established, his fortune among the human race would be almost gone.

At the same time, the innate spiritual energy between heaven and earth diminished to only one-tenth after Zhen Yuanzi became a saint.

This final achievement was actually due to the fact that Xuanhuang attained enlightenment in the Zixiao Palace, rather than in the primordial world.

Otherwise, even this small fraction of innate spiritual energy would cease to exist. Then there would truly be very little innate spiritual energy left in the world.

Naturally, no one else was able to attain enlightenment. This is also why, after the Six Sages, no one else attained enlightenment.

If even a suitable environment for cultivation is gone, who can attain enlightenment?

Even so, cultivation has become much more difficult in the present prehistoric world.

At that very moment, the Heavenly Dao changed, giving rise to many new rules. From then on, every time a cultivator broke through a major realm, a Heavenly Tribulation would be formed.

Those who succeed will receive the power of creation as a reward from Heaven, but those who fail will be reduced to ashes in the Heavenly Tribulation.

This rule was clearly created to counterbalance cultivators. If a cultivator perishes in the Heavenly Tribulation, the spiritual energy they absorbed will be returned to the world.

In this way, it will be beneficial to heaven and earth.

In the present primordial world, only one-tenth of the innate spiritual energy remains. Although the membrane of heaven and earth is constantly transforming and replenishing it, it is difficult to restore it to its original state.

This also suggests that this last ten percent of innate spiritual energy can probably only produce one more saint or a Grand Luo Golden Immortal.

For now, this is probably the last chance. Some powerful beings, though desperate, were unwilling to give up, but from this moment on, they truly gritted their teeth and fought with their lives on the line.

However, these things have little to do with Xuanhuang. Firstly, he did not attain enlightenment in the world and did not absorb much innate spiritual energy. Secondly, his Daoist temple has now been moved to the Chaos.

The fact that the Heaven and Earth Society has become what it is now has nothing to do with him anymore.

"Zhen Yuanzi is quite shrewd. In fact, with the merit of establishing the sect, he could have combined the three corpses, and the merit would be equivalent to severing the three corpses. But he chose to appoint Xuan'er as the deputy sect leader. Is he hiding his true abilities?" Xuanhuang shook his head.

He was unaware that Zhen Yuanzi had obtained the Jade Tablet of Creation, a matter that Zhen Yuanzi dared not tell anyone, not even Xuanhuang.

Xuanhuang only felt that Zhen Yuanzi was a bit strange, but he didn't investigate further. Anyway, Zhen Yuanzi had already become a saint. It was okay if he was a little late in severing the three corpses and proving the Dao. He could still achieve it later.

By then, Zhen Yuanzi, with his dual certifications and two different laws, would indeed be a force to be reckoned with.

Moreover, the general difference in strength among the saints can be seen from this demonstration of their enlightenment. Among them, Taiqing is undoubtedly the strongest among the saints for the time being.

Even Nuwa and Zhen Yuanzi are inferior. After all, if Laozi hadn't been denied the authentic lineage, he might very well have used this opportunity of merit to forcefully prove the Three Corpses Dao.

Moreover, he also had the merit of creating the world and the merit of establishing a religion, which surpassed Nuwa's merit of creating humans.

(End of this chapter)