Five years after Ye Qingxuan’s primary consciousness returned to his main body.
Ye Qingxuan was doing what he usually did—sitting in the stone pavilion, sipping tea and taking in the view beyond it.
Though the location had never changed, the environment around it had, over the years, undergone subtle shifts.
Ye Qingxuan was a witness to these changes.
Standing within the world, yet untouched by its transformations.
Lying low in one place, watching the seas turn to mulberry fields and the world change while he remained unchanged—steadfastly pressing forward on the path of immortality.
Ye Qingxuan took a gentle sip of tea, a clear and placid calmness shining in his eyes.
Every move he made carried a faint air of leisure and detachment.
By now, his parents, his younger brother, and his younger sister had all passed away. There were indeed few people or things left in this world that could stir his heart.
His younger brother and sister had passed away about twenty years after their parents’ deaths, succumbing to the end of their lifespans.
But having already gone through the loss of his parents, Ye Qingxuan had been mentally prepared.
He faced the departure of his siblings with much greater composure.
These were things he had to go through.
Now, Ye Qingxuan had come to accept them. As long as he was still here, hope remained—and everything could still be made right in time.
Setting down his teacup, his eyes grew deep and thoughtful, lost in his own contemplations.
Just then, a long whistle rang out from afar, followed by a voice Ye Qingxuan knew all too well:
“Qingxuan, I’m back.”
A hint of a smile appeared in Ye Qingxuan’s eyes at the familiar voice.
He rose and walked to the edge of the stone pavilion, gazing in the direction of the call.
The visitor was none other than Ye Qingxiao, who had gone down to the lower realms for training nearly seventy-five years ago.
Ever since Ye Qingxiao descended, Ye Qingxuan had received no news of him—so this return came as a pleasant surprise.
Watching the figure approaching from afar, moving in a hurry,
Ye Qingxuan could sense the thick aura of the mundane world clinging to Ye Qingxiao—clearly, he had just returned from his trials.
However, Ye Qingxiao hadn’t come alone this time.
Beside him, there was now a graceful female figure accompanying him.
After the two landed, Ye Qingxiao strode forward with a laugh and gave Ye Qingxuan a bear hug:
“Hahaha, Qingxuan, I’ve missed you so much.”
Ye Qingxuan rolled his eyes, but he still hugged Ye Qingxiao back.
Then he stepped back and looked at the elegant figure behind Ye Qingxiao, a teasing tone in his voice:
“Qingxiao, aren’t you going to introduce the lady behind you?”
Hearing this, Ye Qingxiao—rarely—turned a little red.
He scratched the back of his head, reached out and took the woman’s hand, grinning sheepishly:
“Hehe, this is my Dao companion, her name is Yu Xueqing.”
Then Ye Qingxiao turned to Yu Xueqing and said:
“Xueqing, this is my elder brother, Ye Qingxuan. Just call him Big Brother.”
Ye Qingxuan was a few months older than Ye Qingxiao, so it was only natural for Yu Xueqing—as Ye Qingxiao’s Dao companion—to address him as such.
“Big Brother.”
Though they were of the same generation, meeting for the first time gave Yu Xueqing the unmistakable feeling of meeting the family. She was a little reserved, keeping a tight hold on Ye Qingxiao’s hand the whole time.
Seeing this, Ye Qingxuan couldn’t help but laugh heartily.
He took out a stack of fifth-tier talismans from his storage ring and handed them to Yu Xueqing with a smile:
“You’re Qingxiao’s Dao companion, so I’ll gladly accept that ‘Big Brother.’ This is a little greeting gift for you, my sister-in-law.”
Yu Xueqing was currently at the late Golden Core stage, so fifth-tier talismans were more than sufficient for her needs.
Seeing the stack of fifth-tier talismans Ye Qingxuan was offering, she quickly waved her hands to decline:
“Big Brother, this is too valuable. I can’t accept it.”
Yu Xueqing refused, but Ye Qingxuan didn’t pull the talismans back. He chuckled lightly:
“It’s just some talismans—not all that precious. Just take them!”
Hearing this, Yu Xueqing hesitated and glanced at Ye Qingxiao beside her.
Catching her look, Ye Qingxiao burst out laughing:
“Just take them! Qingxuan’s a wealthy man. I brought you here specifically to mooch off him, hahaha!”
Ye Qingxuan didn’t take Ye Qingxiao’s words to heart.
So what if he wanted to mooch? Ye Qingxuan could only say—that was just a drop in the bucket. His level of wealth was beyond imagination.
Seeing her husband speak so casually, Yu Xueqing accepted the stack of about thirty fifth-tier talismans with a hint of bewilderment.
She simply couldn’t figure it out—her husband’s elder brother was clearly just a Purple Mansion stage Harvest Cultivator. How could he be so loaded?
Did farming really make that much money?
Ye Qingxuan had no idea what his sister-in-law was thinking. Once she’d accepted his gift, he spoke again:
“Don’t just stand around—have a seat!”
With that, he led Ye Qingxiao and Yu Xueqing into the stone pavilion and had them sit down.
No sooner had they taken their seats than Ye Qingxiao reached out and touched the refined beast hide cushioning the stone seat, a little surprised:
“Qingxuan, this is Spirit Artifact grade, isn’t it? You sure know how to live, tsk tsk tsk.”
Hearing this, Yu Xueqing couldn’t help but touch the beast hide on her own seat as well, inwardly shocked.
Were Harvest Cultivators in the sect really this loaded? Using Spirit Artifacts as seat cushions?
Ye Qingxuan smiled faintly and nodded, then shot Ye Qingxiao a look and said with mock irritation:
“Alright, stop your tsking. I’ll give you a few Spirit Artifacts later, okay?”
Over seventy years apart, Ye Qingxiao’s cultivation had progressed from mid-Golden Core to peak Golden Core.
Giving him some Spirit Artifacts now would serve him well in the near future.
Ye Qingxiao, of course, wasn’t one to stand on ceremony with Ye Qingxuan. His eyes lit up at the words and he accepted immediately:
“You said it yourself—no backing out, alright? Hahaha!”
Ye Qingxuan gave a slight nod, summoned his Dharmic Fire, and prepared to brew a fresh pot of tea for the two of them.
As he brewed the tea, curiosity got the better of him about Ye Qingxiao’s experiences over the past seventy-some years, so he asked:
“You’ve been gone over seventy years. Tell me about what you’ve been through.”
Ye Qingxiao paused, then a trace of reminiscence flickered in his eyes as he sighed:
“These past years…”
It turned out that Ye Qingxiao hadn’t descended to the lower realm alone.
He’d gone down with Yu Xueqing, who wasn’t yet his Dao companion at the time, to adventure together.
Their relationship had been solidified during their trials in the lower realm.
They’d first gone to the Liuli Minor Realm, which hadn’t yet fallen.
The two spent about ten years wandering the Liuli Minor Realm, but they gained nothing from it—instead, it actually slowed down their cultivation progress.
The Liuli Minor Realm was also being invaded by the Qingmo.
The Qingmo’s situation there was much like Ye Qingxuan’s situation in the Demon Realm.
But even so, the Qingmo—though restricted in the Liuli Minor Realm—were still far beyond what Ye Qingxiao and the others could hunt.
Most of the Qingmo invading the Dizuan Realm’s subsidiary worlds were Nascent Soul stage powerhouses, with a smaller number at the Core Formation stage.
Although Ye Qingxiao had all kinds of talismans and nuclear explosion pills given to him by Ye Qingxuan as trump cards, he couldn’t track down those invading Qingmo, so what use were they?
For the ten years they spent in the Liuli Minor Realm, the two basically took on missions to clear out demonic plants.
The demonic plants the Qingmo grew in the Dizuan Realm’s subsidiary worlds had much the same effect as the Pure Spirit Trees the Dizuan Realm planted in the Demon Realm.
But these special demonic plants converted spiritual energy into demonic energy instead.
So the Dizuan Realm Alliance, along with the minor realms themselves, would regularly issue missions to clear out demonic plants in certain areas.
After ten years in the Liuli Minor Realm, Ye Qingxiao saw no hope of hunting Qingmo.
Eventually, he took Yu Xueqing and left, heading to the Xuanmu Minor Realm, which had already fallen.
Fallen minor realms like the Xuanmu Realm were initially the main battleground for Nascent Soul powerhouses between the Dizuan Realm and the Qingmo Realm.
Their level of danger was naturally incomparable to other minor realms.
However, the Xuanmu Minor Realm had a city established by the Xuantian Sect as a foothold.
As long as the city wasn’t breached, there wasn’t much danger inside.
Ye Qingxiao decided to go to the fallen Xuanmu Realm because he wanted to use the sixth-tier supreme-grade talismans Ye Qingxuan had given him to see if he could take down an early-stage Nascent Soul Qingmo.
Unfortunately, during the first few decades in the Xuanmu Realm, Ye Qingxiao never found an opportunity to strike.
Because once the Xuantian Sect’s city had secured its foothold, no Qingmo foolishly came to attack a city guarded by layers of powerful formations.
Most of the Nascent Soul clashes happened outside the city.
With the city as a base, the Dizuan Realm Alliance naturally wasn’t going to just sit idle.
The situation in all nine fallen realms was roughly similar: after the Dizuan Realm established stable cities as footholds,
they planted Pure Spirit Trees to purify the demonic energy in these worlds while dispatching Nascent Soul powerhouses to leave the cities, destroy demonic veins in various regions, and carry away the Vein Origins.
Most of the high-tier Pure Spirit Trees collected by the Dizuan Realm were planted in the nine fallen realms.
Among them, the cities that had secured their footholds had the most, followed by the areas surrounding these cities, and finally, Pure Spirit Trees planted in other regions by Nascent Soul powerhouses.
The Qingmo had initially shifted their focus to targeting those Nascent Soul powerhouses who left the cities to cause disruption, launching encirclements and easing their pressure on the cities themselves.
So for the first few decades in the Xuanmu Realm, Ye Qingxiao and Yu Xueqing basically just took on tasks planting Pure Spirit Trees—again, with no other gains.
Although Ye Qingxiao wanted to hunt Nascent Soul Qingmo, he wasn’t foolish enough to leave the city and venture far from its safety.
But this situation didn’t last forever.
After the Dizuan Realm planted large numbers of high-tier Pure Spirit Trees in the nine fallen realms, the rate of demonic energy purification grew faster and faster.
Now, within a thousand-li radius around the nine major cities, the demonic energy had basically been converted back into spiritual energy.
In the areas where demonic energy had been purified, the nine cities took the opportunity to expand and continued planting Pure Spirit Trees to extend their influence.
Facing this situation, the Qingmo Realm’s higher-ups naturally weren’t going to sit idle.
So the Qingmo once again launched attacks on the cities in these nine realms, attempting to restrict the Dizuan Realm’s development in them.
And this time, the Qingmo went all out, expending massive resources to set up killing formations outside the nine major cities.
Using formations to counter formations, while also preventing the Dizuan Realm’s Nascent Soul powerhouses from breaking through and causing destruction in the demonic territory.
Not only that, the Qingmo Realm also relocated large numbers of Qingmo clansmen in bulk to the fallen nine realms, where they began settling in the rear areas.
Now, in the nine fallen realms, large numbers of Qingmo below the Nascent Soul stage were active, eliminating Pure Spirit Trees in other regions.
However, while the Qingmo were besieging the cities, a group of peak Nascent Soul powerhouses from the Dizuan Realm hadn’t returned to the cities.
So after the Qingmo relocated large numbers of their clansmen, those concealed Dizuan Realm Nascent Soul powerhouses struck out, inflicting enormous losses on the Qingmo.
Nascent Soul powerhouses who could remain hidden for so long in the fallen nine realms were basically the absolute peak experts among Nascent Soul cultivators.
Moreover, these individuals had been granted heavy treasures by the Dizuan Realm Alliance’s high command. If they chose to flee, they weren’t afraid of encirclement by Qingmo of the same level.
The existence of these people consumed a great deal of the Qingmo’s energy in the fallen nine realms.
This time was no different.
However, the large-scale slaughter of the Qingmo’s newly relocated clansmen by the Dizuan Realm’s Nascent Soul powerhouses infuriated the Qingmo Realm’s high command.
So the Qingmo invading other minor realms were also granted heavy treasures and began wreaking havoc in those realms, slaughtering humans below the Nascent Soul stage.
At first, the Dizuan Realm’s high command showed no signs of backing down either. They also sent powerhouses with heavy treasures to the Demon Realm to massacre Qingmo below the Nascent Soul stage.
Back then, the No. 9 Demon Realm that Ye Qingxuan’s explorer avatar had entered also experienced such incidents.
He just happened to be in a remote mountain range at the time and unintentionally avoided the chaos unfolding elsewhere in No. 9 Demon Realm.
Over the next few years, after several clashes, both the Dizuan Realm and Qingmo Realm suffered heavy losses among their clansmen below the Nascent Soul stage in the lower realms.
Nascent Soul powerhouses might not be worth much in the Dizuan Realm or the Qingmo Realm,
but in lower realms that were only at the minor realm level, they could cause devastating destruction.
If this continued, the clansmen below the Nascent Soul stage in both the human and Qingmo realms could face catastrophic losses.
After careful deliberation by both sides, the higher-ups of the Dizuan Realm and Qingmo Realm engaged in a round of negotiations, with no other choice.
In the end, both sides compromised, and the high-level leaders of the two realms each made Great Dao Oaths.
From then on, as long as those below the Nascent Soul stage in the subsidiary lower realms of both the Dizuan Realm and the Qingmo Realm didn’t actively provoke, Nascent Soul powerhouses were forbidden from attacking them.
Those who violated this would be jointly punished by both realms!
With the binding force of this Great Dao Oath, the higher-ups of both realms tacitly dispatched large numbers of cultivators below the Nascent Soul stage to the nine fallen realms,
thoroughly turning them into a battlefield for low- and mid-level cultivators of the two realms.
As a result, the minor realms of the Dizuan Realm that had not yet fallen, and the Demon Realms of the Qingmo Realm, instead ushered in a brief period of peace.
Because both sides’ focus was now on the nine fallen realms.
The human high command of the Dizuan Realm wanted to seize this chance to retake control of the nine lower realms.
The Qingmo high command wanted to stop humanity and, using the occupied nine realms’ connection to the Dizuan Realm, continue eroding its origin.
Thus, over the past few years, low- and mid-level cultivators of both sides had been locked in fierce combat within the nine realms.
Both sides wanted to hunt the other’s cultivators to offer them in sacrifice and enhance their cultivation.
Ye Qingxiao and Yu Xueqing had advanced so quickly precisely in these last few years, using the trump cards Ye Qingxuan had given them
to hunt down quite a few Golden Core stage Qingmo and three Core Formation stage Qingmo.
In the nine realms, with Nascent Soul powerhouses not making a move, using sixth-tier mid- and top-grade talismans to hunt Core Formation Qingmo was far easier than in the Demon Realm.
Still, the process was extremely perilous, since some Core Formation Qingmo might also have hidden trump cards.
So Ye Qingxiao generally used himself as bait, ambushing lone Core Formation Qingmo.
But even so, if Ye Qingxuan hadn’t given him enough backup, Ye Qingxiao might have fallen on the last hunt.
Fortunately, Ye Qingxuan had given him enough sixth-tier talismans that he managed to survive by the skin of his teeth.
This time, Ye Qingxiao had brought Yu Xueqing back precisely to find an opportunity to break through to the Core Formation stage.
To break through to Core Formation, one needed to merge part of their consciousness into their Golden Core, activating their spiritual power to allow the Golden Core to successfully transform into a Nascent Soul.
The process of merging consciousness into the Golden Core required a certain level of insight and the right opportunity.
Otherwise, one misstep could damage the Golden Core.
Ye Qingxuan didn’t have this problem—his consciousness had long since merged with his essence, qi, and spirit origin.
By the time his cultivation reached peak Golden Core, breaking through to Core Formation would simply be a natural progression.
Hearing Ye Qingxiao’s account, Ye Qingxuan hadn’t expected the lower realm situation to have changed so drastically in such a short time.
If that was truly the case, perhaps the nine fallen realms were now better suited for his avatar’s development.
The opportunity for his own cultivation to soar might just lie in the current chaos of the nine realms.
Ye Qingxuan’s mind raced with thoughts, but he didn’t interrupt Ye Qingxiao’s story.
Compared to Ye Qingxiao, who had trained in the fallen nine realms, Ye Qingxuan’s avatar—venturing through the Demon Realm—was far too slow in receiving this kind of intelligence.
As Ye Qingxiao continued his account,
Ye Qingxuan gradually formed a clear picture of the current situation in the nine realms, and his mind began to involuntarily analyze the state of affairs.
