An immense purple-black curtain stretched across the horizon. Dense miasma churned within it, concealing everything on the other side. Lin Yan checked the condition of his immortal aperture before activating his killer move and entering the regional wall.
The regional wall's suppression slowed his advance, while conflicting heaven and earth qi sent tremors through Flame Sovereign Blessed Land. Lin Yan kept Fire Vein Immortal Gu active to limit the damage as he forced his way through the wall.
After crossing the miasma regional wall, Lin Yan entered the Eastern Sea's blue water regional wall. Deep-blue mist filled his vision, and he had to expend more immortal essence to sustain his killer moves as he endured another stretch of suppression.
Only after crossing both regional walls did the pressure on his body lift. He flew a little farther before stopping in midair, where a vast ocean stretched before him.
Blue-green waves rolled toward the horizon, their crests catching the light before sinking beneath the next swell. The wind carried salt and moisture against his face, while the distant roar of the sea filled his ears.
After the mountains and forests of the Southern Border, the unobstructed view felt almost unfamiliar. Lin Yan gazed across the boundless ocean, the tension in his heart gradually eased.
Thinking of the pressure brought by Heaven's Will and the Venerables, he could not help sighing. Then a strange thought crossed his mind. Only half a year had passed since Fang Yuan's rebirth. His cultivation was probably still at Rank One Middle Stage.
Southern Border, Qing Mao Mountain.
Fang Yuan stood in the arena, breathing heavily, his clothes damp with sweat. A young clansman lay before him with blood running down his face, while the youths gathered below watched him with fear.
His expression remained calm. As he looked at the familiar faces around him and recalled the events of the past few months, he could only curse his poor luck.
After awakening, he had intentionally acted drunk and dispirited, hoping to attract the Liquor Worm and find the Rank Five inheritance left behind by the Flower Wine Monk. He had hoped to rely on the inheritance to support his early cultivation, but it yielded much less than he had expected. In the end, he could only turn toward his fellow clansmen, beating them one after another and taking their primeval stones to support his cultivation.
Another opportunity arose when the Jia Family caravan arrived. Fang Yuan had planned to sell Jia Jinsheng the image wall exposing the fourth-generation clan leader's scandal in exchange for a large sum of primeval stones.
Instead, the matter unexpectedly revealed the true method of obtaining the Flower Wine Monk's inheritance and ended with Jia Jinsheng dying by his hand. Fang Yuan sighed inwardly. That death would undoubtedly bring him considerable trouble in the future.
Meanwhile, far away in the Eastern Sea, Lin Yan gathered his thoughts. There were still nine and a half years before Fang Yuan's immortal ascension, with the battle of Yi Tian Mountain and the Fate War coming afterward. He still had ample time to strengthen himself.
With that in mind, Lin Yan immediately set off for the Turbulent Flow Sea Area, intent on obtaining Incomplete Information Path Inheritance hidden within its depths.
Before long, the sea ahead grew turbulent. Powerful currents swept through its depths, their courses constantly shifting. Some flowed together before suddenly tearing apart, while others collided head-on, churning the water with enough force to crush anything caught between them.
Lin Yan summoned a miniature Divine Firmament Thunder Pool above his head and activated Thunderous Battle King. Armored in lightning, he plunged into the sea. Thunder Path suited this environment better than Flame Path and would make the search easier.
For nearly ten days and nights, Lin Yan searched through icy waters and powerful undercurrents, even passing streams of molten rock rising from cracks in the seabed. Although he clearly remembered the inheritance's location, reaching it was another matter. The currents twisted and collided throughout the depths, repeatedly blocking his path and forcing him to find another way through.
At last, he reached a point where several powerful currents converged. The currents here restrained one another, their opposing forces holding a stretch of water still amid the surrounding turmoil. Lin Yan passed through them and entered the enclosed space. A pitch-black skeleton sat at its center, untouched by the torrents raging nearby.
"Finally found it."
Lin Yan approached with satisfaction. Dense Bone Path dao marks covered the blackened bones. Even after countless years, the skeleton remained intact, and its value as an immortal material had already approached quasi-Rank Eight.
Normally, after a Gu Immortal died, most of their accumulated dao marks remained within their immortal aperture. If the aperture was destroyed as well, those dao marks would disperse and return to heaven and earth.
Preserving them required special methods.
Thunder Fire Reverse Refinement was one such method. Fire Thunder Divine Lord had used it to break down the dao marks within his grotto-heaven and refine them into immortal materials. Other methods could gather a Gu Immortal's dao marks within their corpse, turning the remains themselves into precious immortal material.
The black skeleton before him had been created in this way. It belonged to an old enemy of the Gu Immortal who had left this inheritance. After killing him, the inheritance's creator had refined his corpse into an immortal material and used it to protect the treasures hidden here.
Lin Yan knew that Fang Yuan would obtain this inheritance more than ten years later. By then, however, several mortal Gu containing important parts of the inheritance would have starved to death, and the knowledge stored within them would be lost too.
The two Immortal Gu left here had suffered as well. When Fang Yuan arrived, only one had survived—the Rank Six Perceivable Dao Immortal Gu.
Perceivable Dao Immortal Gu could inspect dao marks, allowing its user to count those within a Gu Immortal's body or an immortal material. Its ability resembled that of Flame Eye Immortal Gu, though each had its own strengths.
Flame Eye Immortal Gu was limited to Flame Path, while Perceivable Dao Immortal Gu could inspect dao marks of any path. However, examining Dao marks concealed beneath layers of other dao marks consumed considerably more immortal essence, and it could not see through Immortal Gu themselves.
Fang Yuan had little use for it when he obtained the inheritance and never devoted much effort to developing its potential. For Lin Yan, however, it was one of the reasons he had crossed two regions within half a year of his rebirth.
By arriving more than ten years early, he could obtain the inheritance while it was still largely intact. More importantly, the Immortal Gu here was crucial to Dao Without Conflict, one of the six major killer moves he had preserved from the five hundred years of his previous life.
Both were hidden within this inheritance. Lin Yan approached the black skeleton. A mass of dark-green qi surrounded its right hand, with seven Gu floating within it. Two were Immortal Gu, while the remaining five were mortal Gu. Having arrived more than ten years before Fang Yuan, he had found all seven still alive.