Chapter 238: Gan Wujiu

Clashing with Kunyun a second time—now in the same Realm and without the interference of Fire Counter-Burning Wood—Wang Ping finally grasped his opponent's true strength.

Kunyun swept his sleeve, unleashing hundreds, thousands of tiny motes of light. They resembled pills no larger than a thumb and looked entirely unremarkable. Yet, empowered by A Single Dust Enclosing a Sea of Realms, these pills were condensed with the sheer mass of whole provinces and continents, making them devastatingly dense and fierce.

"Bang!"

In that instant, Wang Ping unleashed his divine power. The Ten Thousand Gods Terrestrial Chart conjured celestial jade palaces, colliding head-on with the scattered pills.

"What is this?"

Astonishment filled Wang Ping's eyes. The pills howled through the air, bouncing back and forth in a frenzied bombardment that his Ten Thousand Gods Terrestrial Chart couldn't contain.

The jade palaces depicted in the chart were battered with hole after hole by the immense mass of the pills, rapidly wearing down Wang Ping's mana. The pills then coalesced into a single body. Sweeping his divine sense over them, Wang Ping immediately distinguished three hundred and sixty of them—a full cosmic cycle—forming a surging, murky torrent.

"I see. It's a water qi magic treasure."

Realization dawned on Wang Ping.

"Not just a water qi treasure, either. It belongs to the Hidden Dragon Meridian-Circulating Nether-Penetrating Qi... Subterranean yin water, which happens to perfectly nurture heavenly yang wood."

The murky torrent rolled through the air and crashed down. Completely undeterred by the Ten Thousand Gods Terrestrial Chart, it bore down heavily right above Wang Ping's head.

Suddenly, the three hundred and sixty pills forming the torrent vibrated in unison. A muffled, continuous rumbling echoed like rolling thunder before the torrent burst open, stripping away all concealment. Hidden deep within the murky water was a bolt of lightning that had lain dormant, gathering its power to the absolute limit.

Mystic Empyrean Shocking Thunder Wondrous Technique!

Rumble!

A crash of thunder and a flash of lightning instantly washed the world in white. Empowered by A Single Dust Enclosing a Sea of Realms, the divine power's profound nature amplified its might even further.

By the time the blazing white light faded, Wang Ping had vanished from his original spot, and the jade palaces conjured by the Ten Thousand Gods Terrestrial Chart had been wiped out completely.

"Impressive."

A short distance away, Wang Ping's figure drifted into view. He gave a slight nod. "Using an earth-yin water treasure to conceal the lightning while steadily feeding its power."

"Suppress first, then ambush. Catching the foe completely off guard."

"Divine powers, magic treasures, and the mutual generation and restraint of the five elements—flawlessly paired, seamlessly executed, and impeccably timed... Senior Brother Kunyun truly possesses genuine skill."

Truthfully, despite Wang Ping's confidence in his own abilities, taking down Kunyun without a real struggle would have been impossible. But that was the beauty of magical combat between cultivators. Often, the deciding factor wasn't raw strength, but one's Daoist attainment and mutual understanding.

The higher one's attainment and the deeper one's understanding of the opponent, the easier victory became.

Had he faced an unfamiliar cultivator whose path was unknown to him, it might have turned into a grueling battle. But Kunyun was different.

Wang Ping understood him all too well.

In the next moment, Wang Ping put away the Ten Thousand Gods Terrestrial Chart. Divine light wreathed his hands, condensing into an exquisite, translucent hammer.

Heavenly Craft Creation Hammer!

"..."

Seeing this, Kunyun's avatar seemed to sense something amiss. He immediately shifted his hand seal, causing the murky torrent to reverse and envelop him completely.

His figure rapidly sank into the depths, his aura slipping into Latent Concealment as he vanished without a trace.

Wang Ping gave a scoff at the sight and began chanting an incantation: "Subterranean yin water, Hidden Dragon Meridian Circulation. The law lies in Latent Concealment, possessing the virtue of nourishing all things."

"Yet it fears the dominance of the three yins, where heaven and earth fail to intersect, and all things remain blocked. With nowhere to operate, how could life be spawned? The subterranean yin water cannot flow, and the hidden dragon is trapped in a pool."

"It shall perish!"

With that, he brought the hammer smashing down.

"Crack!"

Treasure light from the hammer illuminated heaven and earth, tearing through the murky torrent's concealment and dragging the hidden Kunyun forcefully back out!

After all, the Hidden Dragon Meridian-Circulating Nether-Penetrating Qi was what Wang Ping had previously cultivated the most, the qi in which his attainment ran deepest. Countering it was second nature.

The moment he broke through the torrent's veil, Wang Ping's divine sense surged, and his chant shifted, immediately swapping the restraining resonance on the Heavenly Craft Creation Hammer. The hammer's brilliant treasure light blazed into a mass of fiery light, coming down like a rising sun crashing into the mortal realm.

Fire Counter-Burning Wood!

Having personally experienced this exact sequence, Wang Ping was intimately familiar with it. Giving Kunyun's avatar no time to react, the strike landed square on his face.

Wherever the hammer passed, all arts shattered!

For a fleeting moment, Wang Ping understood Heavenly Work, the qi-ingesting practitioner from within the Ever-Suppressing Six Harmonies Cauldron. Was this how it felt to smash people with a hammer?

'Hiss... exhilarating!'

Over a month of previous attempts, his opponent had used this exact unpretentious strike, where great skill appears clumsy, to instantly kill him. Replicating it was undeniably satisfying.

How to put it? It carried the sheer thrill of a successful ambush.

In truth, Kunyun was hardly weaker than him. Yet, against the Heavenly Craft Creation Hammer, the specific counter-elemental property engineered an instant kill. That crisp crunch as the opponent was smashed to death with a face full of total bewilderment was as pleasant to the ears as wind chimes!

"Clang."

As Kunyun's avatar burst apart, two items clattered to the ground, instantly catching Wang Ping's eye. A look of surprise crossed his face.

They were two magic treasures!

One was the Profound Nether Pearl, the earth-yin water treasure Kunyun had used earlier. The other was a strange, ferocious-looking ghost mask.

"An unexpected harvest!"

Weighing the two treasures in his hands, Wang Ping realized: 'I see. A cultivator can leave magic treasures behind for their imprint avatar to use?'

It seemed Dao Proving Mountain could replicate only cultivators, not their magic treasures.

To bolster their avatars' strength, wealthier cultivators would leave treasures for them, allowing the avatars to harvest qi destiny on their behalf.

This had both advantages and drawbacks.

The upside was that an imprint avatar's strength was dramatically increased, coming close to the original body. The downside was that once the avatar was destroyed, the treasures dropped along with it.

At that thought, Wang Ping shifted his gaze.

"This mask..."

He already understood the properties of the Profound Nether Pearl. But as his divine sense swept across the ghost mask, his expression turned odd.

'Concealing aura, distorting the wearer's form, evading karma, and moving through the torrent of destiny without leaving a trace... This doesn't look like anything upright.'

After turning it over in his mind, Wang Ping couldn't help muttering:

"...A bandit cultivator?"

Indeed, no matter how one looked at it, this was a magic treasure tailor-made for a bandit cultivator, designed primarily to prevent anyone from identifying the user.

Good grief!

Wang Ping stroked his chin. Who would have thought? It was one thing for inner sect disciples, but for Kunyun, a True Transmission disciple, to secretly act as a bandit cultivator!

Wait, why did I say "also"?

Never mind, not important.

Wang Ping decisively stowed the ghost mask away. It was a fine treasure. He had a small matter to attend to shortly, and it might well come in handy.

Then, he looked up at the stone stele rising before him.

[You have cleared the 999th tier and earned the right to engrave your name upon Dao Proving Mountain. Do you wish to engrave your name? Doing so will leave behind an imprint avatar.]

"No."

Wang Ping shook his head without hesitation. Inscribing his name on the 999th tier would announce to the entire Immortal Gate that he was already a cultivator of Major Divine Ability. He had no desire to draw that kind of attention.

"I'm not one to vie for the limelight."

Besides, the most crucial benefit of the 999th tier—the third qualitative transformation of his mana—was already being handled with You Xuexin's help. It would just mean putting himself through a bit more hardship.

"Speaking of which... Dao Proving Mountain goes beyond nine hundred and ninety-nine tiers, doesn't it?" Wang Ping looked up at the firmament above. The sky descended abruptly, as though only cultivators who had secured a foothold on the 999th tier were qualified to behold it—and there, faintly visible at the edge of the sky...

Wang Ping saw a person.

More precisely, it was merely a silhouette viewed from behind, plain and giving off no aura, yet perfectly harmonized with the surrounding heaven and earth, carrying an entirely distinct Daoist resonance.

It looked somewhat like...

'A trigram image?!'

Wang Ping's pupils constricted. He had seen the Xun Trigram before—the trigram image Mingyou had arranged by manipulating heaven and earth, using Kunyun and himself as pawns.

Yet that lone silhouette merely stood there, naturally giving off an aura and Daoist resonance strikingly similar to the Xun Trigram!

Who was that?

The moment that thought arose, Dao Proving Mountain resonated as well. A stone stele rose smoothly, bearing three large characters:

[Gan Wujiu].

"The arena master of the thousandth tier of Dao Proving Mountain—to date, the one and only. Do you wish to challenge him?" Wang Ping blinked, but did not step forward.

For no other reason than:

'Somehow, he feels familiar.'

For some reason, the silhouette standing on the thousandth tier gave Wang Ping an uneasy feeling—not a perception from his divine sense, but pure instinct.

'Could it be someone I know?'

His martial artist's Divine Intent stirred faintly. Instinct told Wang Ping that he had better not challenge this person. It wasn't a matter of winning or losing; something bad would happen.

At that thought, far from stepping forward, Wang Ping took several steps back, retreating all the way to the edge of the 999th tier before steadying himself.

Then, he formed a hand seal.

Nine Mysterious Demon-Subduing Transformations, Six-Eared Spiritual Monkey, Sound Perception!

In an instant, six ears unfurled on the sides of Wang Ping's head, and the ears symbolizing the "Past" and "Man" turned toward the thousandth tier in the distance.

'Let me listen...'

Wang Ping believed that among the tens of thousands of cultivators who had reached the 999th tier to date, someone must have challenged this Gan Wujiu.

Before stepping into the challenge himself, he intended to hear the outcome of past battles. Knowing oneself and the enemy would at least give him some ground to stand on.

Yet in the very next second, A deafening voice rang in Wang Ping's ears, resounding like clashing iron and steel:

"I never expected the thousandth tier of Dao Proving Mountain to hold such profound wonders. No wonder you can remain inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace, Wujiu, and still know all the affairs of the Immortal Gate."

Who was that?

Before Wang Ping could react, a voice he knew all too well echoed in his ears: "What does Senior Tianxing wish to see me for?"

Wang Ping nearly leapt out of his skin, his expression changing drastically.

'It's the Heaven-Stealing Thief!'

'Gan Wujiu is the Heaven-Stealing Thief?!'