Cultivation: When you take things to the extreme

Could it be that he bypassed the Ascension Platform, smuggled himself into the Earth Immortal Realm, and quietly cultivated to great completion?

How was this possible!

The ascended cultivators of Wandao School have been in the Upper Realm for just over seventeen hundred years!

In that ancient realm, wasn’t the Yuan Spirit dormant, the Five Turbidities Evil Age, where the highest one could reach was the Nascent Soul?

A mere Nascent Soul from the Lower Realm, even if he ascended, hiding for seventeen hundred years, couldn’t possibly have reached the Mahayana Realm, correct?

Seventeen hundred years, from Nascent Soul to Mahayana – such a person, with such talent, were extremely few even in the Earth Immortal Realm.

How could he possibly, possibly!

That’s right, it must be that treasure, he must possess an earth-shattering treasure, otherwise none of this could be explained!

But if that was the case…

In an instant of thought, his mind was in turmoil, and his complexion became even paler.

Xu Yang paid no attention, only looking at Qingluan in front of him, his heart filled with sighs.

Fairy Qingluan of Fengwu Mountain, True Monarch Changrong of White Cloud Taoist Temple, since the times of North City Academy, they had been his closest friends, his left and right-hand men, with whom he created Wandao School, and afterward, due to the limitations of their lifespan, they had no choice but to ascend to the Upper Realm.

The affection between fellow Taoists, the comradeship between cultivators, needs no further explanation.

Now, Fairy Qingluan was still here, but True Monarch Changrong…

According to the memories of Xiao Qingyun, True Monarch Changrong had already passed away a millennium ago.

After all, when he ascended, his lifespan was already nearly at its end. After arriving in the Earth Immortal Realm, he was forcibly employed by the Heavenly Court. Although he avoided battlefield slaughter by relying on his alchemy skills, he was also overworked, which severely delayed his cultivation. He never managed to break through the Nascent Soul, and after the extended lifespan in the Earth Immortal Realm was exhausted, he tragically died.

By comparison, Fairy Qingluan was both fortunate and unfortunate.

Fortunate, of course, that she survived and even advanced her cultivation to the Return to Void Realm.

Unfortunate…

Xu Yang turned his head back and looked at the Divine Spirit True Monarch.

“!!!!!!!!”

This gaze alone caused him to break out in a cold sweat, back away in terror, and then he shouted in quick succession.

“This this this… Senior, please be informed, the matter of Wandao School has nothing to do with me!”

“I am under the Eastern Pole Great Emperor of the Heavenly Court, the matter of Wandao School is the doing of the Western Extreme Great Emperor, I merely took in this Qingluan as a mount… but I also treated it with sincerity, there was no mistreatment at all.”

“Even when the Western Extreme Great Emperor sent people to forcefully conduct a soul search, I fought against them with all due reasons, barely avoiding physical confrontation. All of these, all of these… Qingluan can attest to that!”

Panicstricken voices, one plea after another.

However, Xu Yang simply did not heed him, and with a lift of his hand, he exerted a force from afar.

“Bang!!!”

A powerful force came into play, pressing the man to the ground, forcing him to kneel smoothly before Xu Yang.

Then, under his horrified gaze, Xu Yang pressed down with one hand, landing on his Heavenly Spirit cover.

“A soul search?”

“No, you can’t!”

He let out a cry, attempting to resist, but it was futile. He could only watch helplessly as the other party performed the soul search technique on him.

Instantly, a strong divine consciousness forcefully invaded his mind, making his head feel like splitting and his Primordial Spirit ache.

A soul search is something extremely terrifying and humiliating for cultivators.

The terror needs no explanation – whenever a soul search is conducted, regardless of the skillfulness of the technique, the soul and spirit of the searched will be damaged, it only varies in severity. Since the soul and spirit are the foundation of life, any damage would certainly affect one’s path.

When the Western Extreme Great Emperor sent people to search Qingluan’s soul and spirit back then, he was very heartbroken, because it was very likely to affect Qingluan’s cultivation, even reducing the chances of ‘returning to ancestry to become a phoenix’. As her master, he naturally did not agree, but what could he do when one’s arm couldn’t twist a thigh? In the end, he had to let the other party proceed.

That was the terror, and as for the humiliation…

Why need to speak more about the humiliation of a soul search?

Imagine it, your memories laid open, your thoughts and considerations, every little detail exposed for someone else to peruse at will.

The feeling of such a thing is probably a thousand, even ten thousand times more humiliating than being stripped naked in front of people, something ordinary people may not bear, let alone cultivators who highly value their privacy?

Therefore, he could not afford to care much about the situation any longer, and hastily urged his secret arts to try to resist the opponent’s soul searching, while shouting threats repeatedly.

“Senior must not do this!”

“This Beast Taming Mana Point was granted to my master by the Eastern Pole Great Emperor, and it has protection from Immortal Spirits along with Primordial Spirit restrictions. Your soul searching technique will certainly fail and only lead to mutual destruction!”

“Qingluan is my Spirit Beast, bound by a life-and-death blood pact, inseparable. We share triumphs and failures alike. If senior forcibly proceeds, you will only bring about a joint demise for both Qingluan and myself.”

“Senior, I’m willing to dissolve the spirit beast blood pact, please spare me… Ah!!!”

A scream broke the speech.

Xu Yang was expressionless, as still as an ancient well, as he unleashed his soul searching technique.

Many things are best prepared for in advance. Ever since his ascension to the Earth Immortal Realm, Xu Yang had considered this possibility. Thus, the two avatars in the World of Dao and Law and the Divine Martial World had spent these years not only contemplating various divine techniques but also delving into all kinds of soul searching methods.

As of today, his skill in soul searching had reached an extraordinary realm. Unless it was a Primordial Spirit restriction personally set by a Calamity Immortal, nothing could block him.

Did this person have the handiwork of a Calamity Immortal within his Primordial Spirit?

Clearly not.

A mere Integration junior, not a son of the Heavenly Emperor, which Calamity Immortal could be so idle to lay Primordial Spirit restrictions on him? Would there even be Immortal Tribulations left to pass?

Therefore, within his Primordial Spirit, at best, there were a few Mahayana prohibitions, which posed no obstacle to Xu Yang whatsoever.

In that case…

“Ah!!!”

With a series of agonizing screams, the Primordial Spirit restrictions shattered, revealing every piece of memory and information to Xu Yang without omission.

Moments later, Xu Yang withdrew his hand, and the man collapsed to the ground like a clump of mud, his complexion deathly pale and his body trembling—indicative of the extreme pain and torture he had suffered.

Although Xu Yang’s soul searching technique had been refined to a very high level, forcibly breaking through Primordial Spirit restrictions was inevitably damaging. Had he not advanced to Integration and obtained the Innate Mechanism, any cultivator at the Return to Void Realm would have surely dissipated their soul.

Xu Yang paid him no mind, turned around, and looked at Fairy Qingluan, who still maintained the form of a bird: “Fellow daoist, are you willing to give up this achievement?”

“Screech! Screech!”

Qingluan let out a cry, eyes filled with hatred and determination.

“Good!”

Xu Yang nodded, waved his sleeve, and the Five Colors Divine Light shone, enveloping her within.

Star Lord Yuling had a Beast Taming technique that could purify the bloodline of Spirit Beasts, allowing them to return to their origins and ascend to higher tiers.

However, this Beast Taming method required one to completely refine away their human form, maintaining a purely avian or bestial state—even the transverse bones in the throat had to be reformed so one could no longer speak human words. In the end, even one’s spirit consciousness had to be taken, leaving only the most primitive animal nature, akin to the Primordial Colossal Beasts in the Thatch Continent of Beiju.

Thus, even upon seeing him, Fairy Qingluan still maintained the form of a bird, because she could no longer revert to human form.

For Spirit Beasts, although this method is quite malicious, it does have its merits, especially in terms of bloodline purification where it has achieved quite a unique breakthrough.

Unfortunately, Xu Yang had only just come into contact with it and had not studied it deeply, unable to retain the bloodline effects while removing the restrictive effects of the method.

That’s why he asked Fairy Qingluan whether she was willing to forsake her thousand-year cultivation of the Phoenix Bloodline, which had already shown signs of returning to the ancestors.

To this, Fairy Qingluan responded resolutely.

With a noble nature, the phoenix views death as a return home. Had it not been for being controlled during her ascension and subjected to the binding of the Beast Taming Law and blood pact, she would never have stooped to living to this day as a mount, enduring such humiliation beneath others.

Seeing this, Xu Yang did not say much; he directly applied his technique to break the spell.

Although the Phoenix Bloodline is extraordinary, how does it compare to the freedom of a cultivator?

Moreover, he now possessed the “Infant Transformation” Divine Power, which far surpassed that worthless bestial transformation technique. Why would he need it?

…

With the power of a Grand Cultivator’s Mahayana Immortal Spirit, undoing an Integrated Beast Taming Law wasn’t exactly effortless, but it was well within his grasp.

In just a moment, amidst the Five Colors Divine Light, a graceful silhouette emerged, replacing the avian form.

Eventually, Xu Yang, the Grand Cultivator, waved his hand, and the Divine Light receded like a tide, revealing a stunning woman wearing colorful robes and a green-feathered phoenix coronet.

“Taoist Master!!!”

Regaining her human form, Fairy Qingluan knelt on the ground, crying out with tears streaming, “Qingluan knew that the Taoist Master would come to rescue us from peril, and true enough, true enough…”

“Fellow Daoist, please get up!”

Xu Yang stepped forward, helping her up with both hands, and sighed softly, “It’s my fault for coming late and causing fellow Daoist to suffer!”

In his words, there was self-reproach and also a hint of helplessness.

Long ago, a millennium prior, after the integration of the World of Dao and Law, he had intended to send Kong Xuan, this manifestation of his, to ascend to the Upper Realm to probe its foundations and find out the whereabouts of the ascended cultivators from the Scholar’s Palace, yet he was ultimately delayed due to the trouble with demons in the Desire Realm.

Even with the strength of the Wandao School at that time, ascending to the Upper Realm and learning the situation would not enable them to do anything. Even his incarnation as the Taoist Master would have been under the control of the Heavenly Court, but after all, he was late.

Seven hundred years ago, when he first ascended to the Earth Immortal Realm, he also thought of coming to rescue them, but after pondering it again and again, he delayed until today, finally rescuing Fairy Qingluan.

There was no other way. The East Victorious Divine Continent was unlike other places, being the foundation of the Heavenly Court with the strongest rule.

Not to mention the Immortal Gods of the Heavenly Court, even among those in Earthly Tribulation, there were hidden dragons and crouching tigers, with no lack of Mahayana cultivators, even Tribulation Passing Immortals.

In addition, the Heavenly Court inherited the Tao Lineage of the Ancient Immortal Gods and practiced various Divine Powers and arts of divining Heavenly Secrets, so their monitoring of the East Victorious Divine Continent was extremely strict. Not only was it him, who was still Integrated at that time, but even grand cultivators from the demon and monster races would not dare to easily invade the East Victorious Divine Continent.

Given this, how could he come? The ability of the Escaping One could only conceal divination of Heavenly Secrets, but it was no match for other Supernatural Secret Techniques. For the Heavenly Court to scour the heavens and the earth to catch an Integrated cultivator was all too easy.

Therefore, after impersonating Xiao Qingyun and leaving the Ascension Platform, he went straight to the South Observance Continent.

“Taoist Master need not blame himself; it’s this Fake Dao Heavenly Court that wields great power and acts brutally…”

Fairy Qingluan naturally would not blame him. Recalling a critical point, she hastily reminded, “Taoist Master, within this Fake Dao Heavenly Court there are the Thousand-mile Eye and Along-wind Ear, two celestial generals who specifically oversee the East Victorious Divine Continent. If they discover that you’ve captured this person and report it to the Heavenly Court…”

“Fellow Daoist, rest assured, I have my own methods that will make it difficult for heaven and earth to detect!”

Xu Yang smiled, turned his gaze, and looked at the Star Lord Yuling who had collapsed to the ground: “Fellow Daoist, what do you think should be done with this person?”