"Heavens above, could a demon have emerged?" "Could that figure in green have been a shapeshifting demon beast cultivating here?" "Th-there's a possibility! We should flee!"

The three or four miners were paralyzed by the sight, their teeth chattering. They recalled legends of exceptionally powerful, wicked demons whose arrival was heralded by lightning strikes, darkening skies, and all manner of strange phenomena. The cultivator in green, having plunged into the lava river, transformed into molten rock, wreathed in flames—a spectacle so unnatural it could hardly belong to a regular cultivator.

The miners knew instantly that this place was beyond their jurisdiction. They panicked, desperate to leave, but their legs were numb with terror, making escape nearly impossible.

Their location was precisely where Ye Qin was in seclusion: nestled within a fissure on the lava river's bank, nearly ten zhang high. Fire vented upward, and the scorching true energy was suffocatingly intense. Even a low-tier Qi Refining cultivator would struggle to linger here; one had to climb slowly along the rock face, unable to use Wind Evasion techniques lest the chaotic air currents sweep them into the lava.

As they lamented their misfortune and scrambled upward in fright, a tremendous CRASH! erupted from behind them. A surging torrent of molten mud erupted from the lava river, shooting toward the heavens.

Within the fiery deluge, a Magma Stonefire Beast, towering ten zhang high, churned the river into a frenzy with countless sparks and flames, letting out deep roars and bellows.

"Mother of all things!"

The miners screamed in terror, scrambling frantically on all fours, mud streaking their escape. The strange fire they had witnessed earlier, while deeply unsettling, hadn't presented an immediate threat. But this beast before them was undoubtedly a high-tier demon beast, Tier Four or Five at least. Slaying them would be instantaneous; hesitation was impossible.

It glanced disdainfully at the miners, uninterested, then turned its gaze toward the fire chrysalis floating in the lava river. A flicker of confusion crossed its features—what was this thing? It had never seen anything like it. As a mighty Tier Five demon beast, it harbored no fear of a peculiar fire cocoon and flew directly toward it.

The Boundless Void. Within the floating island. Silence.

Ye Qin’s thumbnail-sized white Nascent Soul slept with its eyes closed, seated upright beside his Natal Nascent Soul Stele, enveloped by a faint halo of light. Upon reaching the ninth layer of Qi Refining, the soul gradually condensed from gaseous to liquid form. Ye Qin’s Nascent Soul was now a thick, white liquid mass, yet he could not take that final step toward Foundation Establishment.

The floating island teemed with vitality. White light nearly saturated the air everywhere, illuminating the entire island with brilliant radiance. The thorny shrubs in the island's fields bloomed and bore fruit almost periodically. Even the Thorn Bees in the insectoid wooden houses were overworked.

This was entirely the effect of the Zuo Wang Jing manual and the Foundation Establishment Pill.

Though Ye Qin was asleep, the Zuo Wang Jing within him still operated instinctively, generating slivers of true energy that entered the Zifu and converted into white light. Over the past three years, the Foundation Establishment Pill had slowly permeated his meridians, also entering the Zifu and transforming into vast quantities of white light, bathing the entire island in its glow.

Regrettably, only a minuscule portion of this white light penetrated the protective barrier and was absorbed by Ye Qin’s dormant soul.

The vast majority remained suspended in the air. Furthermore, a considerable amount was absorbed by the spiritual herbs and shrubs in the island's fields, causing the fruits they bore to litter the ground.

If Ye Qin were awake now, he would surely be heartbroken, lamenting such a colossal waste of energy.

But he remained inert, seated day after day.

Vast, boundless gray mist; time seemed frozen.

Ye Qin’s thumbnail-sized, dense liquid Nascent Soul slowly increased its strength through sporadic additions of white light, gradually becoming plumper and more expanded, awaiting the breakthrough to Foundation Establishment. Though slow, this process was relentless.

He knew not how long he slept.

One day, as a stray thread of white light accidentally pierced the halo and touched Ye Qin’s Nascent Soul, his soul finally reached its critical point. BOOM! It erupted violently, swelling and expanding from the size of a thumbnail to that of an egg, transforming once more from a liquid soul back into a gaseous one.

Though only a change in the soul's physical size, it signified that Ye Qin had finally advanced from the Qi Refining stage to the Foundation Establishment stage. A larger soul volume meant it could accommodate a vastly greater and more profound reservoir of vital energy.

The moment Foundation Establishment was achieved, Ye Qin snapped awake from his slumber, his eyes flying open. An ineffable sense of marvelous sweetness flooded his heart.

He had no time to feel joy before he heard a sound like “CRACK, RUMBLE—!” A terrifying thunderclap.

At some unknown point, stray threads of purple lightning within the Boundless Void had converged hundreds of li away, forming an incredibly dazzling, colossal pillar of purple lightning.

The gray mist of the Boundless Void was agitated by the lightning, forming a massive vortex spanning tens of li. The purple pillar roared within the vortex, surging with earth-shattering noise.

This sight shocked Ye Qin greatly.

Hundreds of li distant, a pillar composed of tens of thousands of purple lightning bolts was entangled within a vast gray mist vortex, its power horrifying.

Ye Qin watched in shock. He had witnessed this exact phenomenon once before, standing on Eagle Cliff in Zhuqi County when he was only at the first layer of Qi Refining. After the purple lightning and gray mist clashed then, his current wooden Zifu had formed.

If his guess was correct, after the purple lightning and gray mist finished battling now, a new Zifu would likely manifest.

Ye Qin’s heart swelled with uncontrollable excitement. A single wooden Zifu had already benefited him immeasurably; he could only wonder what this new Zifu would bring.

However, Ye Qin suddenly heard a series of crackling sounds nearby.

Ye Qin turned his head curiously, his expression hardening in alarm.

Although the vast majority of the purple lightning was hundreds of li away, far from his floating island, a few stray tendrils had drifted close to his vicinity, wandering about and wreaking havoc.

He saw more than ten strands of purple lightning moving across his floating island. Wherever a strand went—a wooden house, the spiritual herbs and shrubs in the fields—if touched, it was instantly incinerated to ash by the lightning.

Ye Qin felt no heartache over this destruction; these plants and trees were external possessions; if burned, he could grow them again later. Even if every spiritual herb on the island was destroyed, he could replace it.

What truly chilled and terrified him was that a tendril of purple lightning had drifted close to his protective light barrier, seemingly taking an interest in it, meandering casually nearby.

An uncontrollable dread surged within Ye Qin. His Nascent Soul possessed an instinctive fear of purple lightning and dared not approach it. Even now, as a Foundation Establishment cultivator, this fact remained unchanged.

He swiftly activated the Object Manipulation Technique, summoning a piece of purple ore from the mining shed on the island to hover beside him, preparing to defend against the lightning.

The Object Manipulation Technique learned from the Azure Pill Sect allowed him to effortlessly control all spiritual objects within his Zifu—except the purple lightning, which remained beyond his command.

The hardest spiritual material on the floating island was the purple fire-element ore. He planned to use it as a shield. He had spent several arduous days using his Purple Saber artifact to excavate even this small piece from the edge of the lava river.

This small fragment of purple ore was sufficient to refine high-tier artifacts; common magical tools could not scratch it. If this fire-element ore could not block the purple lightning, Ye Qin could not imagine what else could.

Ye Qin’s Nascent Soul recoiled fearfully within the light barrier surrounding the Natal Stele, clinging to a faint hope that the lightning strand would not approach.

But that hope was destined to be dashed.

Suddenly, the purple lightning strand paused, as if sensing something. It sharply veered and rushed toward the light barrier.

Ye Qin was horrified. With a mental command, he propelled the purple fire-element ore directly toward the lightning strand to intercept it.

"CRACK!"

That small piece of fire-element ore was utterly pulverized by the single bolt of purple lightning.

The lightning thread was delayed by the ore and dimmed considerably, seemingly having expended much of its power. It flickered unsteadily near the light barrier for a moment, but ultimately failed to penetrate the shield and slowly drifted away.

Ye Qin stared dumbfounded, his scalp tingling. "What in the world is this purple lightning in the Void? It can't even withstand a single strike from purple fire-element ore, which was forged over millennia under the earth's fire."

BOOM!

Another loud noise echoed from the floating island.

Ye Qin jumped in alarm and spun around to look. A strand of purple lightning had accidentally struck the island’s gray rock, letting out a loud bang that startled him badly. Fortunately, the lightning seemed to cause no damage to the gray rock; the strand left not even a faint trace upon it.

This too made Ye Qin gasp in admiration.

After a long while, everything in the Void finally subsided. The purple lightning pillar disintegrated, dispersing into countless fine strands that vanished into the dim, endless gray expanse. Hundreds of li away, a brand-new floating island hovered, shrouded in gray mist, making it unclear.

The island Ye Qin was on was also a mess following the lightning's chaotic intrusion.

Ye Qin, having weathered a close call, only breathed a sigh of relief once the last trace of purple lightning disappeared from his sight. His white Nascent Soul floated out from the protective light barrier, eager to inspect the appearance of this new Zifu.

His soul flashed, and in a short while, he arrived above the newly formed floating island.

This island, too, was composed of various sizes of gray rock fragments, spanning about one li in size. What astonished Ye Qin was that this island was perfectly spherical, riddled with many holes leading into its interior; it was hollow inside.

In the center of the island stood an ancient stone stele, about one zhang tall and three chi wide. This stele had materialized the moment the island formed, becoming one with the entire structure. The stele was encircled by a faint light halo.

The surface of the stele was covered in many fine, intricate crack lines.

Ye Qin stared intently at the minute cracks on the stele, remaining motionless for nearly half an hour before murmuring softly, "Natal Nascent Soul Stele, Fire Palace. Initial lifespan eighty-one years, increased by one hundred years, totaling one hundred and eighty-one years!"

The fine lines across the stele showed that his period of deep slumber had lasted approximately three years.

Ye Qin fell silent for a long time.

Although he knew this floating island was intimately connected to him, he still could not grasp why this void had appeared within him after consuming a gray egg.

And why this strange void contained so much purple lightning and gray mist. What puzzled him most was that after the purple lightning and gray mist clashed and struggled, they actually gave birth to these floating islands, one after another.

Between the Fire Palace and the Wood Palace, he still didn't clearly understand the difference between the floating islands.

However, Ye Qin was unsurprised that he could decipher the meaning etched into the stone stele.

He was no newcomer to the cultivation world. In the years spent at the Azure Pill Sect, he had learned that a very small minority of cultivators understood certain esoteric arts. Like the cultivators of the Heavenly Gate, who burned Spiritual Tortoise shells with fire to reveal cracks, using those fissures to divine fate, destiny, lifespan, calamities, and so forth. Furthermore, only the practitioner themselves could interpret the meaning held within those cracks.

The cracks on the Natal Nascent Soul Stele were likely similar to those on tortoise shells; only the owner could recognize them; others would see nothing of consequence.

Ye Qin could not figure out the mysteries of the Zifu in the short term; it seemed beyond his current comprehension.

He pondered for a moment, then withdrew his spiritual sense from the Zifu, returning it to his physical body.

On the surface of the lava river, inside a completely sealed cocoon of red, blazing lava, a cultivator in green lay flat. The detached expression on his face gradually faded, replaced by a gentler look.

He had awakened from several years of deep sleep, simply savoring the surging magic power within his body within the confines of the sealed cocoon, unwilling to open his eyes yet. He had once been sealed atop Eagle Cliff in Xiuxian County, and now he was enveloped by the lava cocoon; he felt no particular concern.

Suddenly, he sensed a dangerous aura approaching outside the lava fire cocoon.

His eyes snapped open. Within the depths of his dark pupils, a restrained yet profound bright light flashed. The magic power within his body surged explosively. "BANG—!" The fire cocoon, formed by the red flames and lava covering the surface of the lava river, shattered entirely, scattering into countless fragments.

The Magma Stonefire Beast, which had been nudging and examining the fire cocoon curiously nearby, was startled by the explosion. It watched in dismay as a figure clad in green flew out from the shattered cocoon and shot toward the sky.

Ye Qin burst forth from the broken cocoon, leaping a hundred zhang into the air. Then, with a sweep of his sleeve, he drifted slowly down to the bank of the lava river, gazing at the Magma Stonefire Beast still in the river.

Ye Qin displayed a faint smile.

What a coincidence, running into this fellow.

He calmly reached toward his waist, intending to draw one or two artifacts to trade blows with the creature.

Before reaching Foundation Establishment, he would never have dared provoke a Tier Five entity so easily. But now, even if he couldn't defeat it, he could certainly escape by flying on his sword. As a Foundation Establishment cultivator, he was capable of sword flight.

As Ye Qin was thinking this, his expression froze. His waist storage pouch was gone.

The miners, still climbing in terror, had just reached the lip of the riverbank cliff and hadn't caught their breath when they looked up and saw Ye Qin standing on the edge of the lava river.

The group was instantly dumbfounded. Wasn't this the cultivator in green they had thrown into the river, who had turned into a fire cocoon? Had he come seeking revenge? They exchanged glances, collapsing to the ground in terror, screaming.

"Senior, we sincerely offended you, please forgive us!" "Throwing you into the river wasn't my idea, it was all him, that bad boy's awful plan! If you want to eat someone, eat him!" "Yes, he was the one who discovered you cultivating here!"

The miners all pointed accusingly at one of their short, sturdy companions. The short miner’s face instantly turned ashen as he cried out in protest; they had all done it together, why was it suddenly all his fault?

Ye Qin glanced at them, noted the spiritual tools and artifacts they held, and said coldly, "Leave your things and get out of here." He then returned his gaze to the Magma Stonefire Beast at the river bottom, paying them little further heed.

These miners had taken his storage pouch while he was in seclusion; this irritated him. However, he didn't intend to punish these poor wretches. Those who came to mine here were mostly cultivators who couldn't make it in the major sects; he didn't want to trouble them. Furthermore, his aura had vanished during his slumber, rendering him indistinguishable from the dead—and looting the dead was common practice in the cultivation world.

"Yes, yes! Thank you for sparing our lives, Senior!"

The miners were overjoyed to have survived. They dared not ask for anything more, hastily tossing their storage pouches and everything they carried onto the ground, scrambling and rolling away. As mid-to-low-tier cultivators at the sixth or seventh layer of Qi Refining, they couldn't even draw breath under Ye Qin’s potent spiritual pressure; they had no courage to try any tricks.

Ye Qin waved his hand, gathering all the items on the ground and storing them in the pouch. He checked carefully and was relieved to find that nothing was missing, especially the extremely valuable items like the Purple Jade Ancient Scroll, the Bat King Wing, the Soul-Snatching Bell, and the Purple Saber.

There were a few extra items in the pouch; the miners had even left their mining picks and baskets.

He shook his head with a wry smile and casually tossed the few pieces of junk into the lava river.

What confused him most was an extra object in the storage pouch: a warm jade pendant, a rare spiritual jade that a few low-tier miners could never possess. Inscribed on the front of the jade were the four characters: "Tong Xin Ling Yu" (Spirit-Communicating Jade). Flipping the pendant over, the back revealed the characters: "Huangfu!"

Ye Qin stared, stunned, for a long time.

Senior Sister Huangfu had been here? When did this happen?

He clutched the spiritual jade, remaining silent for a long while.

The Magma Stonefire Beast continued to growl from the riverbed, not attacking immediately. It recognized Ye Qin.

Three short years had not erased its memory of the green-robed cultivator before it—the one it had encountered three years ago.

The blue-robed female cultivator who accompanied this green-robed one had struck it with something hard and icy, damaging the outermost layer of its stone armor, frightening it into hiding in the river for a long time until it dared to resurface recently.

The green-robed cultivator before it now gave off the same sense of danger.

The beast's instinct warned it against easily attacking a powerful opponent.

Ye Qin looked calmly at the Magma Stonefire Beast. Since it remained submerged, he was in no hurry. The river bottom was its domain; it could sink back into the lava with a turn. Unless it flew up from below, he would not rush to attack.

Ye Qin simply stood by the lava river, idly examining the two low-tier artifacts in his hand—the Purple Saber and the Soul-Snatching Bell—while looking down at the beast below.

He was now at the first layer of Foundation Establishment.

Foundation Establishment brought one extremely noticeable benefit: a massive strengthening of spiritual sense. At the ninth layer of Qi Refining, he could only probe the situation tens of zhang around him, but after Foundation Establishment, a casual sweep of his spiritual sense could easily detect activity within a li radius.

By his estimation, the Magma Stonefire Beast possessed power equivalent to Tier Five, which meant at least the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment—equivalent to the fourth layer of Foundation Establishment.

Based purely on cultivation level, he was likely inferior to the beast.

But what Ye Qin found amusing was that this Magma Stonefire Beast seemed exceptionally timid. Against weaker opponents, it would roar and charge immediately. Against stronger ones, however, it hesitated for a long time.

If he wasn't going to use it for target practice, who would he use?

Ye Qin thought about it, a sly grin touching his lips. He tucked away his artifacts and turned away from the river, sprinting toward the far reaches of the cavern. Since the beast was so cowardly, he would tempt it out.

Ye Qin changed into different colored clothes, covered his face with cloth, and suppressed his aura. He returned to the edge of the lava river to taunt the Magma Stonefire Beast. Indeed, the beast did not recognize Ye Qin after his simple disguise and couldn't resist his teasing, roaring out of the lava river in a fury.

Ye Qin pelted it with small water arrows while retreating toward the distance. The beast's mind was clearly not sharp enough; it failed to grasp Ye Qin’s intent. Half an hour later, without realizing it, Ye Qin had lured it more than ten li away from the riverbank.

Only then did Ye Qin tear off his simple disguise and unleash his full strength, launching a fierce assault on the Magma Stonefire Beast.

Bat King Wing!

Ye Qin soared into the air, then executed a vacuum flash, appearing directly above the Magma Stonefire Beast’s head.

The Magma Stone Fire Beast was still perplexed; where had the human gone? Before it could react, the Soul-Capturing Bell tolled a deep, resonant dong, a wave of sound washing over it. The Magma Stone Fire Beast instantly fell into a brief stupor, collapsing headlong onto the ground.

This stunning technique, Ye Qin’s foolproof stun-move, could fell even a Rank Five demonic beast.

Purple Blade!

A formidable streak of purple light, ten feet long, descended without pause, striking the head of the Magma Stone Fire Beast. "Boom—!" A large section of the beast's hard stone armor was cleaved directly open by the Purple Blade.

The beast’s daze lasted only an instant. It snapped back to awareness, spitting, "Hiss, hiss!" It expelled torrents of blazing flames that morphed into illusory flame beasts, swarming Ye Qin.

Then, with a display of utter cowardice, it rolled over and fled, rocketing toward the lava river.

"Trying to escape? Not a chance!"

Ye Qin chuckled coldly, flashing forward in a burst of speed, easily evading the illusory beasts, and continued his relentless pursuit and assault.

Swish!

A gigantic, chilling, water-element flying sword slammed violently into the Magma Stone Fire Beast’s body.

"Boom!"

A thin, blue layer of water instantly coated the beast. Its speed of escape slowed dramatically.

A moment later.

"Crack!"

The Magma Stone Fire Beast shrieked and fled desperately toward the lava river. Its outermost layer of thick, fiery stone armor had been completely shattered. Shedding this stone shell, the beast instantly shrank by a full half, dropping from ten feet high to just five feet.

Even its aura and strength plummeted directly from Rank Five to Rank Four. However, the breaking of the outer shell merely revealed another layer beneath; its true body remained concealed.

Ye Qin felt a surge of confusion. This wasn't a Rank Five demonic beast?

He pressed the attack.

A short time later.

The Magma Stone Fire Beast wailed, thrashing wildly, as another thick layer of fiery stone armor was stripped away, shrinking it down to only a single foot in height. Its power also crashed down from Rank Four to Rank Three.

Rank Three was only the level of the Qi Condensation stage. Yet, it was still encased in flame-stone armor. The armor closer to the interior was weaker.

Ye Qin’s doubt intensified. He resolved not to hold back; he wouldn't leave until the true body of this Magma Stone Fire Beast was exposed. Dealing with a mere Rank Three demonic beast didn't require much effort from him anymore.

A beam of purple light flashed like a startled rainbow.

Crash!

The Magma Stone Fire Beast couldn't even manage another wail before it was cleaved open. Two successive layers of flame stone armor exploded outward simultaneously, turning into a pile of smoldering, fiery rubble. There was no beast inside at all.

Ye Qin poked through the burning stones, utterly bewildered. If it wasn't a beast, could stones move on their own? Beasts could become demons, but he had never heard of something as bizarre as a rock achieving sentience.

Ye Qin’s gaze suddenly locked onto the center of one particularly blazing stone.

He reached out and snatched it up.

In his hand was a creature entirely reddish, crystal clear, resembling a silkworm, only a few inches long. When he squeezed it lightly, it let out a sharp squeak of pain and opened its mouth, spitting out a faint wisp of weak red flame. This flame was so negligible it could be entirely ignored; at best, it was merely a Rank One little bug.

Ye Qin was speechless. The Rank Five Magma Stone Fire Beast, after having several layers of shell peeled away, was this tiny worm? This little thing was far too powerful. How many hundreds of years must it have taken to encase itself in such thick layers of mud and rock to achieve such might? It shouldn't be called a Magma Stone Fire Beast; it should be called a Magma Fire Worm.

Wait!

He remembered the Basic Worm Sutra stored in his spatial pouch, acquired from the evil cultivator Old Poison Worm in the Spirit Mist Grand Canyon near Xian Yuan City. He hadn't used it much. Perhaps it held a clue.

He immediately took out the Basic Worm Sutra and flipped through the entire compendium of exotic insects.

Half an hour later, Ye Qin’s expression grew profoundly strange.

He could not find any record of this small worm in the Basic Worm Sutra, nor could he find any similar creature. This text was a secret manual of the Beast Spirit Sect, documenting hundreds of the most common exotic insects. Logically, it should have been comprehensive enough to avoid any omissions.

Ye Qin pondered for a long time, arriving at two possibilities.

First, the Basic Worm Sutra only recorded relatively common low-tier exotic insects. The Beast Spirit Sect must possess a more advanced Worm Sutra detailing rare, high-tier species—much like the Azure Pill Sect, which separated common spiritual herbs from rare ones into different records.

The second possibility was that the Beast Spirit Sect simply had no record of this worm at all.

This third layer of the Ten Thousand Decay Cave, having opened briefly thousands of years ago, had rarely seen visitors near the lava river. If this worm was unique to the underground lava river of the Ten Thousand Decay Ridge, it would be understandable that the cultivators of the Beast Spirit Sect hadn't documented it. Even the Azure Pill Sect couldn't claim to have cataloged every single spiritual herb in existence.

Both possibilities spelled good news for Ye Qin; this creature must be quite rare.

He unceremoniously tucked the worm away. (To be continued. For the next installment, please log in to m for more chapters, support the author, and support genuine reading!) First published.