Early the next morning. Qingming Peak, Dueling Platform.
“Greetings, Martial Uncle Chen.”
The graceful female cultivator gave an elegant salute, respect showing on her face.
“I want to rent the Dueling Platform for one day. Remember to activate the Fourth-Tier defensive restrictions.”
After speaking, Chen Beiwu took out a High-Grade Spirit Stone and handed it to the female cultivator.
The True Venerable Changqing of Dongming lineage did not lack disciples, but most had no opportunity to enter Master’s tutelage. Eldest Senior Brother, on the other hand, had accepted many disciples.
The graceful female cultivator before Chen Beiwu was Eldest Senior Brother’s ninth disciple, Chai Ya. She was responsible for guarding the Dueling Platform on Qingming Peak and possessed an early-stage Golden Core cultivation base.
Hearing this, Chai Ya accepted the Spirit Stone and took the initiative to activate the Dueling Platform’s restrictions.
“Buzz!”
In an instant, the Fourth-Tier Mystic Formation on the Dueling Platform activated, and an invisible ripple immediately spread outward.
Seeing this, Chen Beiwu nodded inwardly.
Ten thousand Spirit Stones was neither a particularly large nor small sum, but it was nowhere near enough to sustain a Fourth-Tier Mystic Formation for an entire day.
If Chen Beiwu had not possessed sufficiently high seniority to receive a certain degree of discount and exemption, along with his status as Chief Disciple of the Immortal Sect, he probably would not have been able to enjoy such a price.
“It’s your turn.”
Chen Beiwu turned his head and glanced at Golden Egg and the Five Qi Vine.
“Nah.”
The Five Qi Vine took a deep breath and jumped onto the Dueling Platform. Five-colored radiance flowed across the leaves of its vines, releasing tremendously vast vitality and Five Elements Qi.
Golden Egg was not willing to show weakness either. His dragon claws stepped through the air, instantly shifting him to the other side of the Dueling Platform. At the same time, he raised his three dragon heads and erupted with an overwhelmingly powerful, vast Dragon Might sufficient to make ten thousand beasts kneel.
The two auras confronted and collided with each other, causing the Spiritual Mechanism of Heaven and Earth above the Dueling Platform to suddenly fall into disorder and produce rumbling sounds.
Chai Ya, standing to one side, repeatedly showed amazement, her eyes fixed firmly on the Five Qi Vine.
Although she was a cultivator assigned to rotate duty at the Dueling Platform and could often see powerhouses of the True Venerable Changqing of Dongming lineage temper and train their Companion Beasts’ techniques, Profound Abilities, and combat capabilities there, she had rarely seen a titled Heavenly-Gang Mystic Beast like the Five Qi Vine, which ranked extremely high on the Heavenly-Gang Rankings at fifth place.
‘Martial Uncle Chen’s Companion Beasts truly are extraordinary. Is this the renowned Three-Phase Mystic Flood Dragon from the Yuqing official website?’
Chai Ya shifted her gaze toward the exotic flood dragon on the other side whose aura faintly held the upper hand, admiration difficult to conceal in her eyes.
The fifth-ranked Thousand Changes Five Qi Vine had not earned its reputation for nothing. Its fame throughout the Immortal Alliance had been established through genuine battle records.
But this Three-Phase Mystic Flood Dragon was likewise extraordinary. It could actually wield three mutually restraining Five Elements attributes simultaneously, giving her a feeling that it was impossible to match.
Unfortunately, exotic flood dragons of this kind were almost always produced through bloodline mutations and evolution, with no stable Heavenly-Gang evolution path.
Otherwise, the Three-Phase Mystic Flood Dragon race would probably have entered the ranks of titled Heavenly-Gang Mystic Beasts and become something countless Immortal Alliance cultivators pursued.
“This contention is only sparring. Neither of you is allowed to use lethal force. Do you understand?”
Chen Beiwu reminded them through thought, afraid that the two little fellows might truly become enraged during the fight and strike too heavily.
“No problem.”
Golden Egg extended a dragon claw and made an OK gesture.
“Nah.”
The Five Qi Vine nodded, indicating that it was ready and that the Dao Combat could begin at any time.
“Let the contention begin!”
As Chen Beiwu swept his right hand downward, the battle instantly erupted.
“Rumble!”
Golden Egg had no intention of holding back. At the first possible moment, he unleashed Three-Aspected Manifestation, intending to seize the initiative with an overwhelming opening and take control of the rhythm of the Dao Combat.
The Five Qi Vine’s heart tightened. It saw Tri-Colored Divine Light circulating over Golden Egg’s body as three special Dharma Body phantoms, neither metal nor jade, neither spirit nor flesh, emerged from the void behind him.
Metal Aspect, sharp and piercing!
Water Aspect, hard and soft!
Wood Aspect, unending!
The Three Aspects united and fused into one, forming the Three-Aspected Manifestation Flood Dragon Dharma Body. A vast Dragon Might that blotted out heaven and earth instantly spread across the entire Dueling Platform.
The Five Qi Vine stood where it was, the corner of its eye twitching slightly.
There was no other reason. It had been fine when they were teammates in the past, but now that they had become opponents and it was locked onto by the Three-Aspected Manifestation Flood Dragon Dharma Body, its body stiffened. Only then did the Five Qi Vine understand that those Third-Realm Beast Generals that had previously died beneath Golden Egg’s claws had not died unjustly.
A weak Third-Realm Beast General would probably have its Divine Soul annihilated and physical body collapse the instant it was locked onto by the Dharma Body.
Beast Generals whose Cultivation Years had reached Third-Realm Great Perfection could rely on their deep cultivation to withstand it by force, but they would still lose most of their combat strength, leaving less than seventy percent of their original power.
“Take my claw!”
The Five Qi Vine’s eyes moved slightly. It saw Golden Egg activate the Three-Absolute True Gang to shatter the void as one dragon claw, wrapped in the myriad manifestations of three gangs, crashed downward, giving it the illusion that space had been sealed and there was nowhere to evade.
‘Five Qi Puppetry!’
With a thought, four puppet clones identical in appearance and aura to the Five Qi Vine’s true body instantly appeared behind it, standing in the positions of the five directions.
In the next instant, all five Five Qi Vines moved in perfect unison. Five Elements Treasure Light flowed across their vine bodies and connected together, while one vine suddenly erupted upward and transformed into a five-colored divine sword that stabbed directly toward Golden Egg’s dragon claw.
“Pfft!”
The sword light was extraordinarily fast and pierced through Golden Egg’s dragon claw in an instant, but there was not the slightest trace of joy on the Five Qi Vine’s face as it turned its head toward the rear.
Sure enough, that dragon claw was merely an afterimage. The true attack came from behind.
Relying on the speed of Spatial Shift and the concealment of flowing-water illusion arts, Golden Egg seized the opportunity and silently launched a sneak attack. His dragon claw mercilessly pierced through the left half of the Five Qi Vine’s body, only for Five Elements Treasure Light to transform into ripples and wildly disperse.
‘As expected, it’s a puppet.’
Golden Egg’s dragon body retreated explosively, only to discover that offense and defense had reversed. Five Elements Treasure Light flickered across the surface of the Dueling Platform as ancient trees as thick as vats erupted from the ground and grew at unprecedented speed, forming a primordial forest.
Golden Egg’s pupils abruptly contracted. One claw descended and smashed heavily against an ancient tree, only for Five Elements Treasure Light to circulate across its surface. The shattered trunk instantly restored itself to its original state without the slightest damage remaining.
Rumble!
When the boundless surging greenery completely engulfed Golden Egg, a Dragon-Imprisoning Cage abruptly took shape.
‘Excellent combat awareness!’ Chen Beiwu praised inwardly.
Golden Egg’s defense, speed, and offensive power were all first-rate. If the Five Qi Vine wanted to win, it had to create an appropriate domain to suppress Golden Egg’s speed and regain control of the rhythm of the Dao Combat. Otherwise, it would only suffer a one-sided beating.
“Nah!”
The Five Qi Vine brought its hands together, and amid a rumbling sound, a Five-Headed Wood Dragon large enough to obscure the sky abruptly took shape.
Learn the enemy’s superior skills to defeat the enemy.
Golden Egg possessed only three heads, while the Five-Headed Wood Dragon that it had condensed and created through the Profound Ability of Five Elements transformation possessed five heads.
‘Five against three, the advantage is mine!’
As the Five Qi Vine’s thought descended, the Five-Headed Wood Dragon, whose imposing power rivaled that of a Nascent Soul True Monarch, suddenly lowered its heads. Five enormous mouths flowing with Treasure Light immediately tore toward different parts of Golden Egg’s body.
Golden Egg’s expression remained unchanged as he activated Three-Aspect Indestructible Body.
“Clang!”
“Clang!”
“Clang!”
Just as Golden Egg expected, although this Five-Headed Wood Dragon appeared to possess an extraordinarily powerful aura capable of suppressing an ordinary Nascent Soul Early Stage True Monarch, it was not adept at killing. It could crush a Golden Core True Person, but it could not break through his defenses.
Golden Egg roared and activated the Three-Aspect Furnace Profound Ability. All three dragon heads simultaneously bit toward the Five-Headed Wood Dragon.
“Crunch crunch!”
Vines shattered and sap sprayed everywhere.
Under the Five Qi Vine’s incredulous gaze, Golden Egg opened his bloody maw and forcibly devoured the Five Elements creation it had constructed with tremendous Mana until nothing remained.
“Uh.”
After eating more than half of the Five-Headed Wood Dragon, Golden Egg burped, not because he was full, but because eating so much vegetarian food had become somewhat cloying.
‘Interesting!’ Chen Beiwu was also somewhat surprised.
Golden Egg’s battle instincts truly could not be underestimated. He understood that he might not outlast the Five Qi Vine in a battle of attrition, so he used the Three-Aspect Furnace Profound Ability as his foundation to recover Mana while fighting, rather than relying on his advantages in speed, offense, and defense to try to defeat the Five Qi Vine, which excelled at recovery, within a short period.
“Nah!”
Seeing this, the Five Qi Vine quickly changed its combat method.
If Golden Egg had fought recklessly and tried to win through absolute strength, it had ten thousand methods to slowly exhaust him to death.
But if Golden Egg steadily controlled the rhythm of the Dao Combat and gradually eroded and suppressed it step by step, then it truly had no way to break through the Three-Phase Mystic Flood Dragon’s defenses.
Just as Chen Beiwu expected, as time passed, the Dao Combat between Golden Egg and the Five Qi Vine gradually fell into a peculiar stalemate.
Golden Egg remained calm and unhurried, using the Three-Absolute True Gang to constantly seek opportunities to leave injuries on the Five Qi Vine, forcing the latter to continuously use Five Elements Treasure Light to heal itself.
As for Five Qi Puppetry?
After personally witnessing Golden Egg treat the Five Qi puppets as Mana replenishment packs and devour them, the Five Qi Vine had already voluntarily banned itself from using this Profound Ability.
Even so, Golden Egg only faintly held the upper hand rather than establishing a decisive advantage.
There was no other reason. Although Golden Egg could break through the Five Qi Vine’s Five Elements transformation defenses and inflict some damage, he was never able to suppress the Five Qi Vine’s astonishingly terrifying recovery ability.
After all, the Five Qi Vine was a titled Heavenly-Gang Mystic Beast that carried an entire medicinal forest on its back.
With numerous spirit plants and Treasure Herbs, and even the auras of Fourth-Tier Mystic Herbs constantly feeding back into it, when it came to endurance and recovery, the Five Qi Vine unquestionably ranked first among Heavenly-Gang Mystic Beasts.
But the reverse was also true. Because the Five Qi Heaven-Stealing Hand was too dangerous and had been forbidden by Chen Beiwu, the Five Qi Vine could not break through Golden Egg’s defenses and inflict substantial damage.
In short, one could not break the other’s defense, while the other could barely break its opponent’s defense but faced unlimited healing.
As Chen Beiwu continued watching, he could not resist taking out the little milk bottle and taking a sip.
At this rate, forget one day—even a year might not be enough to determine the winner.
“Yip.”
The Seven-Tailed Purple Fox jumped onto Chen Beiwu’s shoulder and yawned, indicating that it wanted some too.
Iron Egg said nothing and slowly closed his eyes.
Golden Egg and the Five Qi Vine were both outstanding among Heavenly-Gang Mystic Beasts. Without using killing moves, determining a winner between them would be extremely difficult.
Rather than spend this time watching the battle, he might as well refine Exotic Flames and forge the Great Heaven Pure Prison Aspect.
Iron Egg’s intuition told him that the day the Great Heaven Pure Prison Aspect was completed would be the day his Cultivation Years reached perfection and he advanced to Fourth-Realm Beast King.
The setting sun sank westward, the rosy glow orange like citrus.
“Nah!”
The Five Qi Vine retreated three steps and raised its little hand, indicating that it gave up, would stop fighting, and conceded defeat.
“Why?”
Golden Egg frowned and raised his three dragon heads, sounding somewhat dissatisfied.
He could sense that the Five Qi Vine was in excellent condition and that the Mana it had consumed during the Dao Combat had already fully recovered.
“Nah.”
The Five Qi Vine sighed.
It was not that it did not want to fight, but rather that it simply could not find any hope of victory.
Unless it was willing to fight Golden Egg for a year or half a year and forcibly drag him to exhaustion.
Golden Egg looked toward Chen Beiwu.
In his view, this contention had not determined a victor at all.
“Let’s stop here.”
Chen Beiwu crouched down, picked up the Five Qi Vine, and discussed with it: “How about giving the Myriad Spirits King-Transformation Pill to Golden Egg? I’ll do everything I can to find another one for you.”
“Nah.”
The Five Qi Vine nodded, then immediately shook its head.
Its concession was equivalent to relinquishing the Myriad Spirits King-Transformation Pill. That was perfectly reasonable.
But the Myriad Spirits King-Transformation Pill was too precious. With its talent and bloodline, it could advance to Fourth-Realm Beast King even by consuming a slightly inferior Fourth-Tier pill, so there was no need to insist on obtaining this one.
“How about giving it to the Five Qi Vine instead.”
Golden Egg hesitated.
He had competed for the Myriad Spirits King-Transformation Pill only to establish their ranking within the group.
Since Chen Beiwu’s attitude already leaned toward him, whether he took this Myriad Spirits King-Transformation Pill or not no longer mattered.
In any case, he possessed a Fifth-Tier Fortune-Origin Art Profound Ability like Three Realms Piercer, so advancing to Fourth-Realm Beast King in the future would not be difficult. He might as well stop competing and give the opportunity to his companion.
Chen Beiwu froze slightly, inwardly marveling.
The resources of the world could mostly never escape the word ‘struggle’.
Struggle arose from instinct, but yielding placed friendship first.
Faced with the Myriad Spirits King-Transformation Pill, Golden Egg and the Five Qi Vine could go from fighting fiercely to yielding to each other, showing that after following him all these years, the personalities of the two little fellows had matured considerably.
“Enough.” Chen Beiwu smiled and said: “There’s no point in continuing to yield. Golden Egg, how about you break through to Fourth-Realm Beast King first and set an example for everyone?”
“No problem.” Golden Egg nodded solemnly.
……
At noon the next day.
Yuqing Immortal Sect, Qingming Grotto-Heaven, Three Lights Pool.
“Heaven has Three Treasures, earth has Three Lights. Ordinary blessed lands are mostly places where the Five Elements mutually generate one another, benefiting cultivators’ cultivation and nurturing True Qi and Mana.
“But this Three Lights Pool is an extremely rare special blessed land. It is unsuitable for cultivators to cultivate in, but it can be used to temper Magical Artifacts and Mystic Treasures, nurture Flying Swords, grind metal through water, then use Wood Light to harmonize metal and water. Occasionally, it can also be used to refine special Mystic Pills.”
Su Muyu smiled as she introduced it: “However, the Three-Phase Mystic Flood Dragon contracted by Junior Brother is entirely different. Its attributes are extremely compatible with the Three Lights Pool, so it can attempt to advance to Fourth-Realm Beast King here. Perhaps it can stimulate its bloodline and obtain some opportunity, or awaken a special Profound Ability.”
“Finding this pool was all thanks to Senior Sister.”
Sensing the incomparably dense Metal, Wood, and Water Spiritual Mechanisms of Heaven and Earth here, Chen Beiwu sighed emotionally.
Although Yuqing Immortal Sect possessed many Minor Grotto-Heavens and blessed lands, not every Grotto-Heaven and blessed land was known to Immortal Sect disciples.
For example, the Three Lights Pool before Chen Beiwu belonged to this obscure category, known only to the sect’s high-level Artifact Refiners and Alchemists.
“Before advancing to Beast King, Junior Brother can let the Three-Phase Mystic Flood Dragon cultivate here for a period of time to adapt.” Su Muyu offered this reminder, then took the initiative to bid farewell.
Advancing to Beast King was difficult. Even though Little Junior Brother possessed a Myriad Spirits King-Transformation Pill that could greatly increase the Three-Phase Mystic Flood Dragon’s chances, he still had to proceed cautiously, lest something go wrong with the advantage of terrain.
After all, whether the Three Lights Pool was compatible with the Three-Phase Mystic Flood Dragon’s breakthrough had to be sensed by the beast itself rather than determined solely through an outsider’s recommendation.
“Junior Brother understands.”
Chen Beiwu nodded and watched Senior Sister leave, then swept his Divine Sense toward the peculiar pool not far away.
The water of the Three Lights Pool was mysterious black in color. It appeared completely unified and remained still at all times, yet in reality it emitted distinct streams of spiritual radiance with clear boundaries between them, making it rather strange.
Golden Egg swallowed, eager to charge into the pool and begin cultivating, only to be stopped by Chen Beiwu’s thought.
‘For safety’s sake, I should still add another layer of insurance for you.’ Chen Beiwu transmitted through Divine Sense.
Chapter 384: Evenly Matched
15 min read