Chapter 1680 — The Whereabouts of That Yi One

The Cook of those years had been in an even more wretched state than Shen Mu was now. Back then, the Cook had been severed at the waist, leaving only his upper half; Shen Mu still had his waist — it was merely that his thighs had not fully grown out.

He had used Primordial Qi to reconstruct his fleshly body, but alas, the Qi had been exhausted, and there was no way to restore it.

"Now there are only two paths. One is to cultivate honestly, raise my cultivation, and as it rises, my body will gradually regrow.

" Shen Mu "stood" upon the door plank, raised a hand to scratch his head, and thought: "The other path is to search out Chaos Qi and learn from Lan Yutian how to transform Chaos Qi into Primordial Qi. There are Chaos ore veins in the Ancestral Court. Though the Chaos Godstones and raw stones are gone, there is enough Chaos Qi for me to absorb and refine. " Of the two paths, the former was the safer, relying on his own cultivation step by step — only, when his body might actually regrow was far from certain.

The latter was faster, but the spirit-energy transit bridge leading to the Ancestral Court had been completely destroyed. Even if he asked the Moon Heavenly Venerable to send him to the Ancestral Court, it would take one or two months.

Add to that the cost of learning — learning how to convert Chaos Qi into Primordial Qi would likely take another four or five years. This encounter could be called a blessing in disguise.

He had gained complete mastery of Primordial Qi, reconstructing his fleshly body and his primordial spirit with it. In sheer physical strength alone, he had absolutely surpassed the fleshly body of the Taichu Ancient God!

His present body could well be called the finest body under heaven — though, of course, it was not quite complete.

If his primordial spirit were also cultivated back to its former level, then his primordial spirit too would be the finest under heaven! And his Qi would likewise reach the long-dreamed-of height of Primordial Purple Qi.

The benefits were so immense they could be called unprecedented!

If he recovered to his peak state, ordinary Dao-attainers would be unable to breach his body and spirit or leave him with Dao wounds.

Yet as to when he might recover to his peak, Shen Mu was genuinely troubled.

He looked down and could not help but start. Below there was no world of the Myriad Heavens, no stars or galaxies — only a vast void.

This place was like the pure dark blank region of the cosmos, utterly devoid of matter. Shen Mu had long since established a star map of the great cosmos, clearly marking the geography of the primordial universe. Jingping's masters of divination had even calculated the total quantity of matter in this cosmos.

To him, the universe held few secrets anymore. The starry sky within the cosmos, viewed macroscopically, had matter distributed essentially evenly — this was the doing of the rules. Because of the function of the thirty-six voids, space was ceaselessly stretched, and matter drew away from matter, from galaxies and rivers and planets down to every single particle.

Yet in the cosmos below, a vast expanse of space was utterly dark, devoid of any matter — this was almost impossible! Shen Mu was stunned for a moment, then thought of that abandoned place in the Ultimate Void where even the filth it could not digest was dumped — that abandoned place seemed to correspond to this one. "Perhaps from this void realm, I can find the abandoned place of the Ultimate Void.

" Shen Mu stood on the door plank, drifting aimlessly, searching for a reference point by which to determine his position.

"The writing on this door plank seems to be a kind of seal. " Controlling the plank against the cold and silent wind even as he observed the writing on it, he saw that the characters were exceedingly ancient, a script formed in the prehistoric cosmos, wholly different from any writing of the present day.

To fathom their meaning from the characters alone, one could only begin with the most fundamental runes that composed them. The runes making up the script were exceedingly numerous, but by deciphering the Dao-words within the runes, one could infer the basic meaning of the characters from those Dao-words.

This was the method for interpreting prehistoric writing. This void realm was unimaginably vast; finding a familiar world of the Myriad Heavens would not be easy.

Shen Mu chose to "stand" on the door plank and drift against the cold and silent wind.

The cold and silent wind of the Ultimate Void could not dissolve him or the plank, so its direction was clearly meant to send him back to that abandoned place.

As long as he traveled against the wind, he could leave this void realm and find the familiar Myriad Heavens.

Then he could determine his position in the cosmos, leave the Ultimate Void, and return to the Yuan Realm.

His primordial spirit entered the vertical eye at the center of his brow, preparing to inspect the ecology within the Gourd Heaven Bottle to see whether the hundreds of millions of Jingping folk and gods and demons inside could still survive. Lan Yutian looked at his bean-sized primordial spirit, his expression strange. Previously, Shen Mu's primordial spirit had been so vast — and now, reconstructed from Primordial Qi, it was only the size of a bean sprout, exceedingly miniature.

Shen Mu inspected it and found that within the Gourd Heaven Bottle, besides the Jingping folk, there were also the demon clans and demon gods of the Dutian World, vast in number, as many as several billion. The demon clans developed at an extreme rate, and their consumption of resources was terrifying; the ecological structure within the bottle was in great peril.

Mere creation divine abilities were not enough to relieve the ecological pressure.

"It can probably hold out another two months. " Shen Mu's vertical eye opened, finely parsing the runes within these prehistoric characters.

He listed the internal runes one by one, deciphered their meanings one by one, and then read them out in sequence as Dao-words. After several days, Shen Mu finally made clear the writing on the door plank. His expression turned strange.

The writing on the plank roughly meant that the Eldest Young Master of the Miluo Palace had sealed a mortal enemy of the Miluo Palace, forever suppressing him in the Ultimate Void, so that this enemy could never escape through all eternity.

"A mortal enemy of the Miluo Palace? Sealed by the Eldest Young Master of the Miluo Palace himself?

" Shen Mu was slightly startled.

The Second Young Master of the Miluo Palace was the Goddess of the Returning Ruins, whose strength was so great that even the great kalpa of cosmic birth and destruction could not erase her.

This Eldest Young Master's strength was likely even greater — a being approaching the Miluo Palace's Master!

For him to act personally to seal and suppress — just what sort of person was this mortal enemy of the Miluo Palace? "Could it be Taiyi?

Or some other terrifying existence?

" His thoughts grew lively.

In the past cosmos, there had been no few powerful beings who had not joined the Miluo Palace — the Honored Spirit Jade was one of them.

Of course, the Honored Spirit Jade's strength was not especially high; he could not compare to the Young Masters of the Miluo Palace. But he too had means to survive the great kalpa of birth and destruction. Beyond the Honored Spirit Jade, there should be other, stronger beings!

Judging from the writing the Eldest Young Master of the Miluo Palace had left on the door plank, the prehistoric cosmos had contained not only the Miluo Palace but another towering force no inferior to it!

The being sealed by the Eldest Young Master might be Taiyi — or might be some other prehistoric powerhouse of that force! Shen Mu frowned, examining the door plank.

The plank was so hard, indestructible, the strongest treasure he had ever seen, better even than his Tribulation Sword.