Chapter 195: Turbid Earth and Darkened Heavens, Magical Power Perfected!

Time flowed on, and soon another month passed.

Inside the Ever-Suppressing Six Harmonies Cauldron, the Old Emperor stood up in deep satisfaction. A smile spread across his face as he gazed at the flawlessly refined Ten-Thousand-Year Ageless Pill.

A moment later, he couldn't help but send out a probe of spiritual sense. "Lord Treasure Cauldron?"

Silence answered him.

The Old Emperor wasn't surprised. Ever since this treasure cauldron had fallen into the imperial family's hands, it had remained impossibly aloof, never once offering a reply.

For countless years, the Dashun Imperial Family had nourished the cauldron with their national destiny. Since he began refining the Ten-Thousand-Year Ageless Pill, he had constantly fed it priceless spiritual materials. Yet, the treasure cauldron remained utterly indifferent. No matter how much he fawned over it, it stayed completely silent.

'It truly is a Heavenly Work Spiritual Treasure,' he mused.

The Old Emperor sighed inwardly but quickly consoled himself: sincerity could crack even the hardest stone. As long as he persisted, he would definitely move its spirit.

With that in mind, he retracted his spiritual sense.

Stepping out of the treasure cauldron, the Old Emperor shifted his gaze and spotted the young Daoist not far away. Compared to a month ago, the young man's glabella had darkened with a sickly pallor.

The Old Emperor knew perfectly well that this was a sign of severe damage to the boy's Destiny Pattern and fortune. But he did not care; the youth was just a useful tool for refining pills. Speaking of which, the inner treasury had recently reported that this young Daoist had embezzled a significant portion of the spiritual materials sent for the refinement process.

Naturally, the Old Emperor had no intention of pursuing the matter.

He still needed the boy to refine his pills. A few stolen materials weren't worth tearing up their arrangement. After all, Great Shun sat on mountains of gold and silver—wealth that could never be exhausted!

"Bang!"

The Old Emperor strode away. Only after he left did Wang Ping finally lift his head. A moment later, the slightly joyful voice of the Treasure Cauldron Spirit echoed in his ears:

"That Great Shun emperor is finally gone."

"He is so annoying. You are much better, Great Rebellion."

"That pill he refines uses national destiny as fire. It's a heinous sin. Unfortunately, I lack the power to stop him. Thankfully you are here; only because of you has the situation taken a turn for the better."

Over the past month, the Treasure Cauldron Spirit had grown much closer to Wang Ping. The Old Emperor's pill refinement naturally played a crucial role in this shift. After all, the Old Emperor was ravaging the national destiny and harming the common people, while Wang Ping had taken all the resulting backlash and damage onto himself.

Because of this, the Treasure Cauldron Spirit had even begun to feel sorry for him.

Without Wang Ping even having to ask, the Treasure Cauldron Spirit had volunteered to help him refine pills. As a result, his cultivation over this period had progressed with unbelievable smoothness.

Wang Ping reached into his sleeve and retrieved a round pill.

This pill was the Earth Yin Dragon-Riding Elixir, a medicine specifically crafted to boost Gui-water magical power. Wang Ping had ordered You Xuexin to specially gather it for him within the Immortal Gate.

With the treasure cauldron's assistance and the spiritual materials he had embezzled from the Old Emperor to line his own pockets, Wang Ping had basically been eating these elixirs like candy for the past month.

The results were immediate and striking.

In just one short month, his magical power had experienced a massive quantitative leap. It pooled heavily in his dantian and filled his magical body, clearly bringing him to a critical tipping point.

"It's about time," Wang Ping murmured.

His eyes burned bright. Strictly speaking, there was no bottleneck between the Tribulation Transcending First Layer and the Tribulation Transcending Second Layer. A cultivator could attempt the breakthrough whenever they wished.

The only catch was that failure meant being struck dead by the heavenly tribulation.

Condensing Divine Powers was like cultivating a towering tree. You nurtured it until it blossomed and bore fruit, and the final result was a perfected Divine Power.

'So the first step is to plant the seed of the Divine Power into the dantian,' he thought.

With that in mind, Wang Ping calmed his breathing and focused his mind. His hands began forming hand seals. Surging magical power poured out, and he illuminated one spell after another.

At almost the same moment, the Ever-Suppressing Six Harmonies Cauldron beside him roused of its own accord. A cloud of auspicious vapor drifted up from the vessel's mouth and settled steadily over Wang Ping's head.

In an instant, a wave of Daoist rhyme descended from above!

This was the aura of the human-side yang-earth, the Origin-Governing Battle-Axe-Wielding Fate-Governing Qi! When cultivating Divine Powers of this attribute, it provided an unimaginable boost!

This enhancement was practically equivalent to having a Refining Practitioner of the Origin-Governing Battle-Axe-Wielding Fate-Governing Qi personally guiding him and teaching him how to cultivate!

Netherworld Communication, Spirit Dispatching, Invoking Immortals, Soul Pursuing, Soul Seizing, Averting Disasters, Relieving Calamities, and Deploying Formation... The magical light of eight full spells closely linked together at this moment. They resonated, interweaving into a net, and explosively condensed into an incredibly complex talisman!

It shouldn't have been this fast.

However, he had the blessing of the Ever-Suppressing Six Harmonies Cauldron, a Heavenly Work Spiritual Treasure of the exact same attribute, coupled with the peerless talent brought by his a promise worth a thousand gold.

Because of this, in just a single month, Wang Ping had completed a journey that would take many inner sect disciples of the Immortal Gate years, or even decades, to finish.

"...It's done!"

Wang Ping's eyes fixed on the magical talisman floating before him.

"Deploying Formation serves as the foundation. The four spells of Averting Disasters, Relieving Calamities, Netherworld Communication, and Invoking Immortals occupy the four cardinal directions. Soul Pursuing and Soul Seizing sit in the center."

This was essentially a miniature formation. Soul Pursuing and Soul Seizing were used to capture wandering ghosts and lesser spirits. Then, they were bestowed with the four basic divine functions of Averting Disasters, Relieving Calamities, Netherworld Communication, and Invoking Immortals. Finally, Spirit Dispatching acted as the finishing touch, completely altering the essence of their souls.

"This is the Divine Power seed of the Ten Thousand Gods Terrestrial Chart."

The Deity-Ordaining Talismanic Edict!

Wang Ping exhaled a long breath. Using his spiritual sense to guide it, he slowly planted this Divine Power seed into his dantian. It took root, greedily absorbing his magical power as nutrients to grow.

A moment later, the edict flickered slightly and actually split off a smaller, secondary talisman.

"The one in my dantian is the master talisman, the edict with the absolute highest status. If I truly forge an immortal domain divine nation in the future, I will be its divine lord."

"As for these split-off ones, they are sub-talismans. Their functions are similar to the master talisman, but their status is vastly inferior and they will be completely subservient to it. They are reserved for future deities... Now that the Divine Power seed is planted, my magical power provides the nutrients, but it still needs to be watered and fertilized."

Therefore, he needed to scatter the sub-talismans out into the world.

"The more deities I ordain with the sub-talismans, the more the master talisman will benefit. The Divine Power seed will flourish and grow, until it finally blossoms and bears fruit, transforming into a complete Divine Power!"

In short, this was a path of gathering the masses to cultivate immortality.

'Indeed, the imagery of such a Divine Power completely clashes with the Heavenly Yang Earth's "Sun Dwelling in the Indeterminate Dark Rainbow." It has absolutely nothing to do with rosy clouds,' he realized.

Any cultivator who truly understood the "Sun Dwelling in the Indeterminate Dark Rainbow" and the Origin-Governing Battle-Axe-Wielding Fate-Governing Qi would instantly notice something was wrong the moment they compared them.

Yet that was precisely the difficulty.

Where would an ordinary cultivator find the means to learn the imagery of the twenty-four qi? Even a true transmission disciple would, at most, only know of one or two types of qi!

Take himself, for example. If he hadn't hooked up with the Ever-Suppressing Six Harmonies Cauldron, and if this treasure cauldron hadn't just happened to be aligned with the yang-earth attribute, how could he possibly know the Daoist secret that "yang-earth manifests as rosy clouds in the sky, as mountains on the earth, and governs fate in humanity"? Let alone see through the grand scheme hidden behind the Ten Thousand Gods Terrestrial Chart.

'In the end, it all comes down to profound Daoist attainment!'

In the Immortal Gate, having mere cultivation talent wasn't enough. You needed sufficiently high Daoist attainment; otherwise, you might be sold out by someone and still foolishly count the money for them.

'To put it bluntly, it's an information gap.'

'A gap in Daoist attainment is a gap in information. If I know certain secrets and you don't, scheming against you is as easy as tricking a fool.'

Under the Immortal Gate's system, this design stretched the already massive power disparity between cultivators to a terrifying degree—every single Realm was like an entirely different world. A high immortal was a high immortal, and a lower cultivator was a lower cultivator. Even if the difference was just a minor Realm, if they truly fought, the one with the lower Realm had absolutely no chance of turning the tables.

But precisely because of this...

Anyone who could still turn the tables under such oppressive circumstances was bound to be a world-shaking supreme genius. Therefore, on this path of immortal cultivation, the higher one climbed, the more terrifyingly powerful and unfathomable they became!

It was like raising Gu.

The one who survived to the end and reached the absolute peak would undoubtedly be the Gu King. And beneath their feet would inevitably lie the bones of countless others who were equally outstanding, yet just not outstanding enough.

Wang Ping sighed internally. But right at that moment—

"Rumble!"

An earth-shattering boom seemed to suddenly explode beside his ears. He looked up reflexively, and what met his eyes was a cataclysmic shift.

Like a pebble dropped into a calm lake, the twenty-four qi between heaven and earth rippled violently. Immediately after, the heavenly qi plummeted into the deep abyss, and the yang-attributed qi sank into silence. Meanwhile, the earthly qi surged upward to the vault of the heavens, and the yin-attributed qi saw the light of day once more. The two poles of heaven and earth had completely reversed!

All at once, the entire Eight Trigrams Furnace erupted into a frenzy.

Cultivators who primarily trained in earthly yin qi went wild with ecstasy, soaring into the sky. Conversely, cultivators who trained in heavenly yang qi went into secluded cultivation one after another, no longer bothering with the outside world.

The Dao waned and the demonic surged; Turbid Earth and Darkened Heavens!

Such a massive upheaval in the world's spiritual energy environment provided an unquestionable boost to cultivators of the matching qi. Naturally, this explosive enhancement also fell upon Wang Ping.

"Roar!"

In a trance, Wang Ping seemed to hear the majestic roar of a dragon. Boundless worldly spiritual energy actively flooded into his body, transforming into magical power and ruthlessly smashing through his bottleneck's critical point.

A moment later, he exhaled a breath. It carried no trace of divine anomaly, making him look like an ordinary Mortal. Yet, centered around him, a vast and majestic phenomenon unfurled.

Visible to the naked eye, a mist of seemingly sentient water vapor naturally converged. It formed a thick, impenetrable white fog that seeped from every brick and tile. It was as if the earth itself was breathing—exhaling the water buried deep underground, condensing it, and shaping it into a babbling brook that encircled Wang Ping.

The water began as a single thread, then swelled into a steady stream.

Its babble was clear and melodic. Wherever it flowed, all things sprang to life. It even caused dark green moss to sprout across the grand hall's tiles, and upon that moss bloomed flowers the size of rice grains.

At that exact moment, the final trace of yang energy in the world was completely concealed.

All things ceased their cycles. The brook flowing before Wang Ping stopped moving. Instead, it deeply pooled its essence, condensing into a single drop of water that came to rest on his fingertip.

The water drop didn't reflect his face, nor did it reflect the world around him. It only mirrored an expanse of boundless, deep, and perfectly still water—so profound that no bottom could be seen.

The Hidden Dragon Meridian Circulation and Netherworld Communication resonated.

"Latent Concealment, perfected!"

The gateway leading from the Tribulation Transcending First Layer to the Tribulation Transcending Second Layer met with no resistance whatsoever. Amidst the cataclysmic shift of heaven and earth, it effortlessly swung open for him!