Chapter 285 - 284: Jin Family

Jin Rou bowed his head once more. "We are not too far from the borders of the Golden Diting Province. Please, Senior Lin, Lady Bai. Hop on my beast. Allow me to escort you to my family’s temple, where you may select a mount worthy of a sovereign, so you will not spend a single ounce of energy traveling to the Sacred Grounds."

Lin Yuan looked at the young Nascent Soul cultivator. He saw no deception, no political maneuvering, and no hidden agenda. He saw only the pure gratitude of a warrior honoring a life debt.

Lin Yuan glanced down at Bai Qingyue. The fatigue of her rapid breakthrough, combined with the profound physical shock of her pregnancy, was still evident in the slight paleness of her cheeks. While his True Elemental Body could carry them indefinitely, traversing fractured spatial zones would subject her to unnecessary turbulence. A Golden Immortal Beast, naturally attuned to spatial smoothing, would offer a flawlessly stable ride.

"We accept your offer, Jin Rou," Lin Yuan decreed.

Lin Yuan guided Bai Qingyue through the air, stepping effortlessly onto the broad, muscular back of the Golden Immortal Beast. The creature, usually fiercely territorial and aggressive toward strangers, immediately lowered its massive head, its silver horn dimming in a display of absolute submission to Lin Yuan’s Soul Transformation aura.

Jin Rou smiled brightly, moving to the front of the beast to take the reins of condensed light.

"Hold on to the spiritual tether, Lady Bai," Jin Rou instructed respectfully. "The spatial fold can be disorienting for the first few breaths."

"Thank you, Young Master Jin," Bai Qingyue replied warmly, sitting gracefully upon the beast’s golden scales, leaning comfortably against Lin Yuan’s chest.

"To the Golden Diting Province!" Jin Rou commanded.

Whoosh!

The silver horn of the beast flared with blinding intensity. The physical world around them did not blur; it simply folded in half. Lin Yuan felt the distinct, archaic signature of the Immortal Qi activating within the beast’s bloodline. It was a mesmerizing, high-dimensional function. The beast did not fly through the air; it stepped through the faint spaces between the air.

The journey, which would have taken hours of high-speed flight even for a Soul Transformation expert, was compressed into a matter of minutes.

When the spatial fold smoothed out, they were no longer in the freezing stratosphere of the central mountains. They were hovering above a sprawling, magnificent empire bathed in perpetual, golden twilight.

This was the Golden Diting Province.

Unlike the austere, martial architecture of the Wan Jian Sword Sect or the brutalist stone fortresses of the Chu Province, the Golden Diting Province was a masterpiece of harmonious integration with nature. Massive, ancient amber trees, their trunks as wide as palaces, stretched toward the sky. Rivers of pure, liquid-gold spiritual Qi wound through emerald valleys. And at the absolute center of the province, resting atop a massive, flat-topped mountain, was the Golden Immortal Temple.

It was a sprawling complex forged entirely from polished sun-gold and white jade. Thousands of lesser Golden Immortal Beasts—Rank 1 through Rank 3—roamed freely through the temple’s vast, open-air courtyards, their scales glittering like a terrestrial constellation.

As Jin Rou’s Rank 5 beast descended toward the grand central plaza of the temple, a massive gathering of cultivators was already waiting.

The entire Jin family hierarchy, alerted to the arrival of Lin Yuan, had assembled. They were dressed in formal, golden-yellow robes, their expressions a mixture of profound terror and absolute reverence.

At the very front of the procession stood an incredibly old man. His hair was completely white, cascading down to his waist, and his body was frail, leaning heavily upon a staff of carved dragon-wood. But the aura radiating from his withered frame was staggering, sitting firmly at the Peak of the Spirit Severing realm, just a hair’s breadth away from Soul Transformation.

This was Jin Wang, the supreme ancestor of the Jin family!

The moment Jin Rou’s beast touched the polished jade tiles of the plaza, Jin Wang dropped his staff.

The ancient patriarch immediately fell to his knees, pressing his forehead against the ground. Behind him, the hundreds of Jin Family elders and disciples who had not been present at the Grand Court for the Peerless God Tournament followed his example, kneeling in perfect, terrified synchronization.

Not a single person dared to remain standing!

"The Golden Diting Province welcomes Senior!" Jin Wang’s voice, raspy but magically amplified, echoed across the silent temple.

Lin Yuan stepped down from the beast, effortlessly lifting Bai Qingyue down beside him. He walked toward the kneeling ancestor, his deep purple eyes scanning the terrified assembly.

"Rise, Patriarch Jin," Lin Yuan commanded, his voice devoid of hostility but carrying the undeniable weight of the Origin.

Jin Wang slowly pushed himself back to his feet, his hands still trembling as he looked upon Lin Yuan’s pristine crimson and black robes. His eyes carried a mixture of awe and disbelief as his divine sense carefully brushed against Lin Yuan’s foundation.

The moment he sensed it, his pupils contracted.

"Senior Lin," Jin Wang breathed.

The honorific slipped out naturally, despite the centuries of age difference between them. At this moment, there was no trace of the ancient patriarch’s former dignity. Before an existence who had just stepped into Soul Transformation, even an old monster like him had no choice but to show respect.

"Soul Transformation... it is true."

His voice trembled slightly.

"The Heavens wept, and you emerged as a god. To witness such an ascension in my lifetime... my Dao is truly blessed."

Jin Wang took a deep breath before his gaze shifted toward Bai Qingyue.

At first, he merely glanced at her cultivation. But the moment his divine sense touched her Qi, his expression froze.

"Only at the Early Stage of Core Formation..."

His eyes widened.

"But this Qi..."

What was this?

He could clearly sense something extraordinary flowing within her spiritual energy. It was not merely pure spiritual Qi. There was a faint, profound aura intertwined with it, something that seemed to originate from Heaven and Earth themselves.

"Heaven and Earth Fortune?"

Jin Wang’s breathing became heavier.

"No... Heaven and Earth Luck!"

His heart trembled violently.

This was Heaven and Earth Luck that had been transformed and refined into Qi. It was an incredible fortune that ordinary cultivators could spend their entire lives pursuing without ever obtaining.

And now, it was flowing naturally within Bai Qingyue’s body.

Jin Wang’s divine sense continued probing carefully, and he soon discovered the faint karmic connection between her and Lin Yuan.

His expression changed again.

"So that is it..."

Through their profound karmic tether, Bai Qingyue had benefited from the Heaven and Earth Luck surrounding Lin Yuan. After Lin Yuan’s transformation and the formation of his Primordial Spirit, that fortune had flowed back along their connection and nourished her cultivation.

What kind of karmic relationship did these two possess?

Jin Wang could hardly comprehend it.

With Bai Qingyue’s current foundation, even though she was only at the Early Stage of Core Formation, her combat prowess was already extraordinary. She could stand her ground against Peak Core Formation cultivators and even fight an Early Stage Nascent Soul cultivator in a suitable battle.

And that was not even the most terrifying part.

The Heaven and Earth Luck within her Qi gave her an astonishing degree of protection against various Dao laws. Ordinary laws would find it extremely difficult to affect her, as though Heaven and Earth themselves were quietly sheltering her.

Jin Wang’s heart shook.

"Such fortune..."

He stared at Bai Qingyue in disbelief.

"Truly... Heaven and Earth’s chosen."