“Pfff! Hahaha! He thinks we’re tempted by the power of the perfection of the Soul Formation realm.” One elder finally seemed to understand and laughed loudly.

The other elders then also understood and, to the great confusion and bewilderment of the couple, couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

“N-Not so?!” Lei Yun’s mind was spinning. Even as a Mahayana, he seemed unable to follow the thought process of those men.

“Of course not! Strength is something fleeting, only beauty is eternal.” Elder Leopard stepped forward and patted the boy on the shoulder, leaving his wise words.

Lei Yun’s and Mu Luyin’s mouths twitched fiercely at those words. They were sure they had heard something similar before, but it was completely the opposite.

“Haah… boy, you still have much to learn. When you mature, you’ll understand these things better.” Leopard saw the boy’s speechless expression and shook his head helplessly, like an old man thinking the child would learn one day.

Now it was Lei Yun’s eye twitching, and he felt like hitting someone.

‘I’m over 800 thousand years old mentally, you’re the one spouting nonsense!’ he thought angrily, but swallowed his rage and didn’t speak further. It was already clear these crazy guys knew the consequences and would still go through with it.

Bao Wuji all the while only stroked his beard with a smile.

What the elders—or rather, Aotian—were saying was only half-truth.

Of course, he knew the disadvantages. But he had asked the system for guarantees, and to his relief, received them.

The effect of the inheritance could be expelled from the avatar by the system at any time, resulting only in the loss and destruction of the inheritance, but without affecting the avatar.

With that guarantee alone, Aotian was at ease, and thus the scene played out. The rest was just him messing with and scaring Lei Yun, something he found amusing to do.

Thus, half was true, since he knew the consequences and really valued being handsome, and half was false, since he claimed not to care about power, something he actually valued a lot.

“Well, if you’ve decided, don’t hesitate.” Bao Wuji placed his hand on the orchid’s golden sprout, where the bloodline inheritance was concentrated, and the plant began struggling frantically in his hand, seemingly afraid.

But the ancestor showed no mercy and broke the golden sprout without hesitation, tossing it upward toward Leopard, who immediately leapt and swallowed it in midair.

The mouths of everyone watching, including the other elders, twitched, as if they were seeing a dog catch something in the air.

Not even Aotian could stand what he was doing, and twitched a little with secondhand embarrassment in his main body, though he also found it funny.

Meanwhile, the orchid that had been struggling, once its sprout was broken, immediately lost its strength. Its struggles weakened greatly and it looked like it was dying.

Bao Wuji then tossed the herb toward Yang Shi, the outer elder of the Alchemy Pavilion.

“You take care of this, don’t let it die. It’s worth many spirit stones,” Ancestor Bao spoke with a serious look, leaving no room for failure.

Yang Shi simply nodded, as if it wasn’t a big deal.

Mu Luyin and Lei Yun gave up trying to follow the thought process of these people. When you thought they were insane, they went beyond and renewed your understanding.

A Silent Cadaver Orchid, when condensing a bloodline inheritance from a corpse, could only condense another if the energy in its stalk was dispersed. But if the stalk was broken for use, the plant died, and that was a rule no one could break…

They didn’t even have time to finish that thought before their eyes widened in disbelief, seeing the plant in Yang Shi’s hand sprout a new stalk within seconds, becoming full of life again, as good as new.

“Uff, that was hard work.” Yang Shi wiped a forehead that didn’t have a single drop of sweat and tossed it back to Bao Wuji, who stored it away.

Yang Shi’s storage ring simply couldn’t handle storing such treasures. Although storage rings had a higher tolerance for keeping highly energetic items, the internal space still had limits depending on the materials they were made of. And Yang Shi’s couldn’t withstand a Void-Tier plant.

As for the plant’s restoration, Yang Shi had invested the four daily uses of his accelerated plant growth skill into it. But since he was only at the Golden Core, when nourishing a Void-Tier herb, he could only ripen it to about five months of maturity.

But the goal this time wasn’t to ripen the herb, but to restore it to its best state, and in that the skill had magical effects. As long as it wasn’t dead, the outer elders of the Alchemy Pavilion were top-level plant healers.

Putting that aside, Bao Wuji stored the herb under the couple’s stunned gazes, who decided, at least temporarily, to stop believing anything they thought they knew whenever they were around these strange and absurd people. And that thought, coming from Lei Yun, a former Mahayana, only made everything even crazier.

Ancestor Bao turned toward Elder Leopard, who was sitting cross-legged, and narrowed his eyes at him.

“Boy, take off your clothes and items, don’t ruin them,” he ordered seriously.

“Oh, good reminder! Thanks, ancestor!” Leopard opened his eyes from meditation, excited with the changes happening in his body, quickly stood up and began undressing so as not to waste time.

Lei Yun, beside him, twitched his mouth and covered Mu Luyin’s eyes just before she could see something she shouldn’t.

Soon, Leopard was as he had come into the world… well, he had come into the world with roughspun clothes, but that didn’t matter.

Bao Wuji suddenly kicked his white butt, sending him flying off the stone directly into the blood lake below.

“You’ll need a lot of energy for the transformation. Take advantage of the fact that there’s plenty there.”

Bao Wuji laughed, and Leopard just rolled his eyes, falling into the crimson and golden lake, disappearing within.

Back in the sect, Aotian rubbed his butt a little at the phantom pain.

‘The things I do to keep up an act,’ he thought, amused.

Back with Bao Wuji, he waved his hand, storing Leopard’s belongings, then enveloped all the elders in his spiritual energy and left the place, leaving only the avatar inside the lake of energy.

The world seemed to spin in the vision of those carried by Bao Wuji due to the high speed, and soon they found themselves outside the cave, back in the forest.

“Well, we part ways here. See you in a day. Farewell!” Ancestor Bao simply left those words and disappeared before they could react.

…

Although, due to the sensitivity of the mountain’s protective array, Bao Wuji could not tear through space to move faster, risking alerting it, his natural speed was not bad at all.

His first destination was the Third Limit.

There were plenty of herbs there, including several of Formation-Tier, about 25 in total, each guarded by a Fifth-Level beast, which was terrifying. If the beasts did not remain stuck in place beside the herbs and refused to move, no one would ever dare enter that mountain.

Bao Wuji swiftly killed all the protective beasts, who could not even resist him for a few seconds, and in just an hour and a half he had already collected the 25 herbs, which were not too far apart from one another. On top of that, he also took some Nascent-Tier herbs that were along the way.

Aotian only frowned slightly upon not seeing a single herb among them that could improve root quality. His mindset was already preparing for the mission to fail this time.

Besides the herbs, in the third limit there was also a source of Revitalizing Dew, a type of water that removed impurities from the body… but ironically, although it completely purified low-level impurities and strengthened the dantian and cultivation, the one found in this mountain also filled the body with high-level impurities, the kind that even bothered Void Refiners.

For the people of the Beiyan Continent, this was no problem at all, since they never expected to reach Void Refinement, so it was simply a free benefit.

Aotian controlled Bao Wuji to place only a small amount of Revitalizing Dew into his storage, as it wasn’t very useful to him — especially when compared to the far superior Dew of the Dragon’s Lament.

After that, he moved on to the fourth limit. There, surprisingly, there was nothing but a single thing.

A large, complex circle, full of patterns, vibrated with powerful energy, slightly distorting space even while inactive.

‘A teleportation circle.’ Aotian identified it immediately.

In the memories of the ancestors of the 12 powers there was no information about this, since none of them, nor anyone from their powers, had ever reached the fourth limit in the history of their clans… at least, none who had returned alive to tell the tale.

‘It must lead to the central continent…’ Aotian thought, after studying the circle for a while.

He may not have known anything about it before, but Lei Yun did, and therefore he knew it now as well.

‘Unfortunately, it requires energy from a sixth-level environment to function, along with several precious materials. Otherwise, I would create some in the sect.’ He sighed in disappointment, but did not dwell on it.

Bao Wuji observed it for a while longer before turning and leaving, departing the main mountain after collecting a few more herbs scattered in the second and first limits.

As for why he left? The explanation was not complicated.

[Mission: Enter the Teleportation Circle

…

Participant: Bao Wuji

Danger Level: Fatal]

—————————-

[Mission: Enter the Fifth Limit

…

Participant: Bao Wuji

Danger Level: Fatal]

Bao Wuji collected everything in about another two hours, and when he was about to leave the main mountain, something made him stop.

Turning back, he smiled slightly as he sensed a terrible aura.

ROOAARR!!

A terrifying roar echoed, sounding like a thunderclap mixed with the bellow of a giant lion.

That was the sound of the king of beasts: a dragon.

A massive bluish-gray serpentine body rose into the skies, undulating through the air with majesty and terror, to the horror of all below who laid eyes upon the beast.

The enormous body, over a thousand meters long, swam like a terrifying giant, lazily entering the clouds, its serpentine form intermittently revealing parts of itself among the dark, heavy clouds.

‘Dragons truly are terrifying beings. Even though it is only at Soul Formation Perfection, it’s not guaranteed Bao Wuji, at Void Refinement, could defeat it now. But even more importantly…’

Aotian reflected seriously, feeling for himself the power flowing through that body. Then, his expression grew heavy as he thought of what mattered most.

‘… IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL!!’

He screamed internally, eyes shining, as he fiercely flaunted himself in dragon form. He no longer cared about failing to find the herb that enhanced talent. Transforming into a dragon made up for everything.

‘So cool! So cool! Damn, it feels amazing to have a huge beast body, I feel so powerful. And this is just a dragon without horns or limbs. No matter what, I will evolve this bloodline and never throw it away,’ Aotian narrowed his eyes and promised firmly.

His heart was excited, and his inner child happy.

‘Power is fleeting, but beauty… ah, beauty is eternal!’

…

Soon, the monster in the sky that had terrified all, forcing them to their knees in fear and panic at its dragon’s roar, vanished as if it were merely an illusion.

Elsewhere, all the elders gathered once again, with Bao Wuji arriving as well.

Both the avatars and the couple fixed their eyes on a small figure flying before them.

A pretty little snake slithered through the air, head raised, looking at them.

“Elder Leopard, why don’t you assume your human form? Beasts of Fourth-Level and above, with sufficient training, can transform into humans, and you, who already were one before, should find it even easier,” Gu Jian asked, puzzled.

The little snake twisted in the air. Follow current novᴇls on novelFirｅ.net

“Uhh… let’s change the codename to Snake for now. As for transforming… well, I can… but, well, err… I don’t have any clothes.” The little snake opened its mouth and spoke human words normally, but there was a bit of shame in its tone, while its cold eyes turned toward Bao Wuji.

Bao Wuji, who was calmly stroking his beard with a smile, froze and ended up pulling out a few hairs unintentionally.

“Ahem!” He cleared his throat and looked seriously into the cold eyes of Elder Snake. “That’s not the way to ask things of your ancestor, with such indifferent and cold eyes,” he scolded angrily, now leaving the snake frozen.

The little snake then tried to smile and widen its eyes, but only managed to look like a small bloodthirsty beast.

Bao Wuji only shook his head.

“Haah… you’ll have to work harder. For now, your items are permanently confiscated for donation to the poor.”

He spoke righteously, making everyone look at Ancestor Bao’s shamelessness with new eyes.

Elder Snake could only weep bitterly, begging at least for a change of clothes.

The result: he did not get any.

…

The hunt in the mountain continued for several hours, but even in the end no herb that increased talent was found, though tons of others were collected.

Thus, with the last minute over, everyone was teleported out of the mountain by the formation, with the exception of Bao Wuji. But he also hurried to leave, as Aotian had a bad premonition that staying there would not be good.

Then, after 15 days inside the Shadowfallen Burial Mountain, once again they all saw the sun and breathed the pure air outside.

And the red gates behind them closed once more, to remain shut until ten full years had passed, when they would open again.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep