Covering the Sky: I, a mortal, ascended to the throne step by step.

"What are you doing!"

Li Xian's boldness finally prompted Lin Jia to speak up:

"You rushed in without knowing if there was any danger inside?"

"I know." Li Xian continued walking. "There's no danger."

Ye Fan quickly caught up and walked alongside him at the front, with Pang Bo following behind.

The others hesitated for a moment, but still followed.

There was nowhere else to go in the desert except for this ruin.

The moment Li Xian stepped into the Great Thunderclap Temple, his attention was completely focused on his feet.

He's looking for something.

Buddhist artifacts—more accurately, sacred and forbidden artifacts crafted by eminent Buddhist monks—are scattered throughout the temple.

This thing is inconspicuous in the early stages, but it is a life-saving item. Even after the energy is exhausted, the material itself is of good quality, and the artifact is superior to ordinary king-level divine weapons.

"Found it!"

After walking down three collapsed steps, Li Xian squatted down next to the base of a broken Buddha statue.

Brushing aside the dust, I found a broken monk's knife.

The blade is bronze in color, covered in rust, the edge is bent, and the handle is broken in half, yet it still exudes a Buddhist aura and contains extraordinary power.

At the start of the game, there is no suitable weapon.

This monk's knife was the first weapon he used to protect himself in his mortal body.

When Li Xian found the ring knife, other classmates also made their own discoveries one after another.

Stone Buddha, bronze lamp, broken alms bowl, chipped ancient bell, half a vajra, cracked prayer beads, etc...

Li Xian merely glanced at it and said nothing more.

Ye Fan's bronze lamp and Li Xiaoman's stone Buddha were both important opportunities in the original story, so he naturally wouldn't try to steal them now.

His goal became clearer.

When Ye Fan obtained the Bodhi seed from the Bodhi tree that had been completely reduced to ashes, Li Xian silently collected the Bodhi ash.

He carefully collected the ashes from the Bodhi tree after its rebirth using plastic bags from his hiking backpack, leaving almost no trace behind.

This Bodhi calamity ashes—

To outsiders, it may just be ordinary ashes, but Li Xian knew its value.

This is a treasure for future alchemy, nourishing the physical body, and helping people attain enlightenment. Even if it doesn't reach the Quasi-Emperor level, it's still at the Great Saint level. It absolutely cannot be wasted.

While everyone else was making their own discoveries, some were delighted, some were puzzled, and some were still terrified, Pang Bo wandered around the ancient temple but found nothing.

His hearty face showed a hint of resentment as he muttered:

"Damn it, did I come all this way for nothing?"

Seeing this, Ye Fan pointed to the plaque hanging high at the entrance of the ancient temple, on which the four ancient characters "Da Leiyin Temple" were faintly engraved.

Pang Bo's eyes lit up, he slapped his forehead, and shouted:

"I can't have come all this way for nothing!"

He rushed forward, grabbed the rickety plaque with both hands, and with all his might, snapped it open.

"Snap!"

The ancient plaque fell to the ground with a thud, carrying a cloud of dust and debris.

The moment the plaque hit the ground, a deafening roar suddenly came from the depths of the ancient temple!

It pierced through the entire ruins and shook the surrounding area for miles.

"roar--!"

The bronze bell tolled on its own, and the Buddhist implements emitted light.

Everyone was startled.

The sound didn't come through his ears; it vibrated directly in his bones and reverberated in his blood vessels. Li Xian felt his heart clench at that frequency.

wrong.

pain.

It really hurts.

It's not the kind of dull, attenuated sensation simulated in games.

It was a real, bone-softening pain that spread from the chest to the limbs.

Li Xian looked down at his hands.

My hands are shaking.

It wasn't fear, but a physiological stress response—an involuntary tremor caused by a surge in adrenaline.

He had played the game for three years and reached a maximum depth of 89.7%, a feeling he had never experienced before.

"Is the depth of the dive maxed out?"

He muttered to himself, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation.

But a tiny thought pierced deep into his mind like a thorn—

What's the difference between a depth of over 90% and the actual depth?

A second roar exploded.

The roar, filled with boundless ferocity, shook the entire ruins.

The ground in the center of the temple began to crack, and a deep crevice meandered outwards, from which a chilling aura emanated.

Ye Fan's pupils constricted, and he grabbed the swaying classmate.

Pang Bo's expression also changed.

Only Li Xian stared at the crack, his pupils reflecting golden light—it was filled with countless tiny divine crocodiles.

Emerging from the ground, they were small in size but had ferocious heads and bloodthirsty eyes. They surged towards the crowd like a tidal wave, covering the sky.

Faced with the overwhelming horde of crocodiles, Li Xian did not hesitate for a moment.

He abruptly turned and sped towards the bronze coffin, calmly issuing the following command:

"Everyone, don't linger in the fight, retreat back to the giant coffin!"

Li Xian ran in the lead, pushing his frail mortal body to its limits. His posture was unrefined, but his speed was incredibly fast.

Behind them, from the direction of the Great Thunderclap Temple, came continuous, shrill screams.

Those without Buddhist artifacts to protect them were pierced through the forehead by the dark light, their blood splattering onto the dry Martian soil and instantly absorbed.

A female student fell to the ground, crying and shouting for help.

The next second, more than a dozen divine crocodiles pounced, and in the blink of an eye, only a pool of blood and a few pieces of broken bone remained.

The tragedy unfolded before my eyes.

Li Xian didn't want to turn back; reason told him that this was just a game.

The super-generational immersive simulation that could cover the sky was amazing. The smell of blood rushed into his nostrils, the rough feeling of the wind blowing across his cheeks, and the desperate cries of his female classmate before her death were all stimulating his nerves.

If something isn't done, the Emperor of Speed's initial ideas won't be clear.

"Old Ye, please help."

Li Xian gave a low shout, beckoning Ye Fan, who was more than half a body length ahead of him, to stop and turn to face the crocodile swarm.

"Squeak!"

Several small crocodiles let out a piercing cry, opened their mouths full of fangs, and pounced on the student who was running at the back and was alone, using no fancy hunting techniques.

At the critical moment, Li Xian, holding a ring-shaped knife, with a cold gaze, swung the knife forward and slashed.

"Pfft!"

The blade flashed, stretching for several meters, and precisely severed several small divine crocodiles, splattering foul-smelling blood.

Li Xian didn't stop moving. He turned his blade again and cleaved several more divine crocodiles in two, which then fell to the ground.

The monk's knife was extraordinary, made of purple copper, possibly the same material as a vajra. It exuded Buddhist charm and played a restraining role against these ferocious objects. Each strike was unusually sharp.

"Be careful!"

Someone screamed.

A golden crocodile appeared behind Li Xian without him noticing.

It was like a divine sword attack, almost piercing the back of his head.

At the critical moment, the relic in Lin Jia's hand emitted a mysterious light, as if it were a celestial garment that protected the two of them from the divine crocodile's assassination attempt.

Li Xian's eyes turned fierce.

He killed the divine crocodile with a single blow.

At the same time, Ye Fan shook the bronze lamp.

The flame, the size of a soybean, instantly swelled into a sea of ​​crimson fire, sweeping forward.

The flames were soaring high that these tiny crocodiles, less than half a foot long, were no match for the power of the Buddhist Heart Lamp.

As the sea of ​​fire passed, crackling and popping sounds filled the air. The divine crocodiles twisted and struggled in the flames, emitting piercing hisses, before finally being burned to ashes.

A strong, burnt smell instantly filled the air.

Li Xian sniffed and muttered:

"It was a little overcooked; otherwise, a sprinkle of cumin would have made it a perfect midnight snack."

Pang Bo, carrying the bronze plaque of the Great Thunderclap Temple, rushed over and nearly stumbled and fell to the ground upon hearing this:

"Old Immortal! When did you switch careers to become a chef?! How could you even bring yourself to eat this stuff?!"

Li Xian had no time to explain, constantly brandishing his broken monk's knife, protecting several classmates as they retreated into the protective circle—because the swarm of divine crocodiles was endless, forcefully tearing a path to survival through the sea of ​​fire.

Ye Fan glanced at Li Xian without saying a word, but he couldn't hide the shock in his eyes.

My buddy, who I usually drink and brag with, acted a bit too aggressively today.

And so, with Li Xian's fierce fighting, the group fought and retreated, returning to the giant bronze coffin, with far fewer deaths than in the original story.

"Get out of my way! I want to go in!"

Liu Yunzhi was deathly pale and trembling all over. He pushed aside several classmates who were blocking his way, scrambled into the giant coffin, and collapsed to the ground.

"You lot, hurry up and push the coffin lid open."

Leaning against the giant coffin, Li Xian's chest heaved violently, and he felt dizzy. He managed to give instructions.

Upon hearing this, several strong boys without Buddhist artifacts worked together to push the tilted coffin lid back up, attempting to close the coffin.

Zhou Yi, Wang Ziwen, and others who possessed Buddhist artifacts unleashed the power of these sacred-level forbidden artifacts, blocking the charging divine crocodiles and crushing them one by one.

"Whoosh—"

Li Xian swung his sword and killed one of the crocodiles that had escaped the net.

Correspondingly, the divine power left by the monk's knife was almost exhausted, and the blade light it released had decreased from several feet long to nearly a foot long.

"We can't go on like this. We don't know when the energy of the Five-Colored Altar will be replenished. We need to open up the Sea of ​​Bitterness first!"

Clutching the monk's knife, Li Xian's eyes reddened slightly.

After killing more than ten small crocodiles in succession, his movements suddenly stopped.

Instead of dealing with the divine crocodile, he quickly dissected the carcass of a divine crocodile he had just killed and extracted a piece of flesh essence that emitted a faint red light.

This scene stunned everyone inside and outside the giant coffin.

I don't understand what Li Xian is doing. In such a critical moment, how can he still have the leisure to dissect a corpse?

However, what happened next left everyone speechless.

Ignoring the stares of others, Li Xian didn't hesitate at all, directly stuffing the piece of flesh essence into his mouth and chewing and swallowing it vigorously.

"Gulp!"

As the essence of flesh and blood entered his mouth, a surge of violent energy exploded within his body.

Primitive and pure, carrying the ferocity and vitality of the little divine crocodile, it rampaged through Li Xian's body like a wild horse.

His mortal body felt as if it were being burned by raging fire or forged by a giant hammer. The intense pain caused the veins on Li Xian's forehead to bulge and his eyes to reveal a look of madness.

Strands of impurities seeped from every pore on his body; his mortal form was transforming at a visible pace.

The essence of the flesh and blood of the Great Sage's offspring made Li Xian vaguely sense that the sea of ​​suffering within his body was about to be forcibly opened.

This is the chakra of perception, the first and crucial step in spiritual practice: perceiving one's own sea of ​​suffering.

but!

"Not enough!"

Li Xian roared inwardly.

He struck again, swiftly killing several small crocodiles that had escaped his grasp. He skillfully dissected their corpses, extracting more of their flesh and blood essence, which he then consumed once more.

This almost barbaric method of cultivation caused the surrounding air to freeze.

The crowd stared at Li Xian as if he were a god, watching him devour him alive, and for a moment they even forgot their fear.

As more crocodile flesh and blood were devoured, the divine power of the Great Sage's bloodline gathered within his body, superimposed with the essence of the source energy that had just been integrated into his body. Li Xian felt that he was about to ascend to immortality.

The originally hazy sea of ​​suffering gradually became clear, and the insurmountable barrier to cultivation was torn apart little by little. In the dim light, a sea of ​​suffering the size of a sesame seed slowly emerged in his Sea of ​​Wheels secret realm.

"The Secret Realm of Wheels, Opening the Sea of ​​Suffering!"

Li Xian suddenly opened his eyes; those dozen or so times of covering the sky hadn't been for nothing.

By fusing the essence of source energy and consuming the flesh and blood of the divine crocodile, he directly sensed the wheel of enlightenment, opening the sea of ​​suffering in one step and becoming a true cultivator of the wheel of enlightenment, embarking on the path of cultivation!

The fragile bones crackled and popped, the stiff muscles became firm and full, the skin emitted a faint crystalline luster, the five senses became sharp, and even the physical strength previously consumed was replenished.