Chapter 318: Chapter 64: Some people seek and do not receive; others obtain effortlessly.
Upon Li Mo’s return to True Void Hometown, the bronze giant gate of Five Temples Town was riddled with cracks, rendering the entrance and exit alarmingly unstable.
The disciples of the Five Hidden Sword Sect within the town wore faces of terror, collapsing to the ground before the gate, kowtowing desperately.
Unable to establish contact with their Mountain Gate and having lost communication with the Elders, their expressions were filled with confusion as they attempted to sacrifice themselves to stabilize the collapsing Secret Realm.
It wasn’t long before the bronze giant gate shattered into scattered fragments across the ground.
Various forces caught wind of the situation, and seeing that the Five Hidden Sword Sect was already annihilated, they withdrew one after another from the vicinity of Five Temples Town. The Four Seas Commerce retreated even faster, disappearing quietly a hundred miles away.
No one knew what truly happened within the True Word Secret Realm.
The Nascent Soul cultivators who entered all perished, their Dao dissipated without a trace, and even the Heavenly Sword Sect showed no reaction to the downfall of the Five Hidden Sword Sect, merely sending someone to retrieve Feihong.
None of the factions dared to question the Heavenly Sword Sect deeply, even as the losses from the Secret Realm left them severely wounded.
......
"The Heavenly Sword Sect feels as though it exists above the mundane world,"
Li Mo muttered to himself while standing within True Void Hometown, "That Time Sword is unfathomable—is it at the Divine Separation Stage?"
Standing amidst the dense fog, an unease lingered in his mind as he realized he had almost used the Corpse Immortal Finger. Thankfully, the Time Sword showed no hostility.
Li Mo began inspecting his Body and Soul, worried that the Time Sword might have left a hidden trick behind.
With the Creation Book present, even if someone had tampered with his body, the blank page would reveal any phantom outlines of affected organs, leaving nothing obscured.
After meticulously poring through the Creation Book for most of the day, he finally felt reassured.
"The methods of the Heavenly Sword Sect are too bizarre. The Time Sword may not reach the level of the Twelve Immortals, yet it’s utterly impossible to trace the trajectory of its strikes."
A shiver ran through Li Mo.
Recalling once again the scenes of White Bone Sect’s demon cultivators lying dead in heaps, perhaps when the Taoist Body reaches its pinnacle, it truly possesses powers beyond mortal comprehension.
"Time, Time... what kind of Taoist Body is it, really?"
Li Mo decided to head immediately to the Ancestor Platform. If he continued to suppress his injuries without replenishing his Spiritual Power, it could very well harm the foundation of his Three Nascent Souls.
As his Divine Sense inadvertently swept across the new and old skins, his expression became rigid in an instant.
Li Mo had always maintained a habit of carrying a Storage Bag for storing ordinary resources. Even if a Storage Bag were lost accidentally, it wouldn’t be a significant issue.
Yet, to his astonishment, he discovered a faint sword mark on the side of the Storage Bag.
Inside the Mustard Space, all the resources had been neatly split in half, and hovering at the center was a Buddha’s head with hollow facial features.
It was precisely the "Fake Buddha."
"Damn it, when did this even happen? The Time Sword managed to insert the Fake Buddha into my Storage Bag without me noticing at all!"
Li Mo’s back ran cold as he furrowed his brows, staring at the Fake Buddha for a long while.
The Fake Buddha also bore no traces of Spell residue. Even when he consulted the Creation Book, it imprinted as an organ, with the Raiding Page indicating that its Taoist Body information was named "Golden Jade Buddha Bone."
The Golden Jade Buddha Bone was an extinct Acquired Dao Body, something that only the Buddhist Sect in the ancient Cultivation World knew how to cultivate.
Li Mo was perplexed. "What could the Time Sword possibly mean by this?"
"The Five Hidden Sword burned through its resources refining swords, and the White Bone Sect didn’t hesitate to expose the Secret Realm to scheme for sword refinement. In the end, it was all deemed worthless in the eyes of the Heavenly Sword Sect?"
The gaze of the Time Sword toward the Fake Buddha brimmed with contempt, clearly not feigned.
"What a bunch of lunatics."
Li Mo glanced at the Corpse Mountain Mini World. "If I want answers, why not ask the person involved directly? After all, Bone Desolate Taoist is already in my hands."
Moving toward the Ancestor Platform, he placed the Fake Buddha at the center of the Twelve Immortal Statues. The Flying Sword immediately grew listless and dispirited.
Having encountered numerous Flying Swords, Li Mo discerned that the Fake Buddha was a semi-finished product—
essentially a Magic Artifact Embryo.
Without an integrated Sword Spirit, it was essentially a Flying Sword lacking a soul.
"Could it be that I’m supposed to complete the Sword Spirit and then deliver it to the Heavenly Sword Sect?"
As Li Mo pondered, he directed his Innate Essence to nourish his blood and bones. The medicine power from the Nourishing Yuan Fruit had accumulated over five thousand years, allowing him not to be overly frugal.
His flesh and skeleton, like parched lands receiving sweet rain, frantically absorbed the nourishment.
Every Elixir bore inherent flaws, yet the purity of Innate Essence was unparalleled, capable of healing even deeply hidden internal injuries within the body.
For the first time, Li Mo indulged himself, consuming eighty years’ worth of the Nourishing Yuan Fruit’s medicine power.
Boom, boom, boom, boom...
The sound of liberation echoed through his muscles and bones, as his Three Nascent Souls autonomously replenished Spiritual Power.
The exhaustion in Li Mo’s gaze disappeared entirely.
The only regret was that True Void Hometown lacked Yang Qi, so cultivating the Great Sun Golden Core relied entirely on the Corpse Mountain Mini World, a factor that affected efficiency to some extent.
"The imprinting, almost forgot."
In the True Word Secret Realm, imprinting the Golden Core was inconvenient. Seizing the opportunity now, he used up one blank page, causing a vision to emerge within his Mud Pill Palace.
Disregarding the phenomenon of the Golden Core imprint, his consciousness entered the Corpse Mountain Mini World.
Mournful wails echoed between the mountains.
However, the wails didn’t come from Elder He Guo, who, once regaining his senses, was continually beaten by countless Plant and Tree Cultivators.
At Li Mo’s mental command, Bone Desolate Taoist, whom the Blood Soul kept bound, gradually appeared.
Bone Desolate Taoist, tortured endlessly by Dan Poison, had his Spiritual Wisdom dulled. Yet, he still muttered about the steps for refining swords.
"Just a little bit more... No one can stop the Buddha Sword from..."
"Hahaha, the sword is complete, Heavenly Sword Sect, the sword is complete!"
Bone Desolate Taoist alternated between crying and laughing, his Spiritual Power increasingly chaotic— a clear sign of deviation.
"Bone Desolate Taoist, were you hoping to use sword refinement as a means to contact the Heavenly Sword Sect?"
Li Mo tried to communicate with Bone Desolate Taoist, but the latter continued to spout mad ramblings.
Unwilling to waste more time, Li Mo exhaled lightly, pulling the Taoist out of the Corpse Mountain Mini World.
Upon arriving at True Void Hometown, Bone Desolate Taoist found himself subdued by an invisible suppression. Even moving a finger became impossible, and his voice turned feeble.
"Bone Desolate Taoist, you should recognize this, shouldn’t you?"
Li Mo gestured toward the Twelve Immortal Statues, and Bone Desolate Taoist’s gaze landed on the Fake Buddha.
His mouth gaped open wide as a sliver of clarity returned to his consciousness. His entire body trembled, and his deviation grew more severe.
"It, it, it..."
"According to that Heavenly Sword Sect disciple, this sword is called the Fake Buddha,"
Li Mo mimicked the tone of the Time Sword, speaking nonchalantly: "Too inferior. A Sword Embryo refined with mortal assistance, riddled with impurities inside and out."
"The Five Hidden Sword deserves annihilation, and so does the White Bone Sect."
Bone Desolate Taoist ceased his struggling. There was no despair on his face, only self-mockery, as if awakening from a dream, he muttered, "He bestowed it to you?"
"Yes."
"Supreme Qingtian... Do you know what it represents?"
"The eligibility to join the Heavenly Sword Sect, I suppose."
Bone Desolate Taoist forced himself to sit up, speaking passionately: "You, born of the No-Life Sect, could never understand the agony of having no road ahead."
"Five hundred years ago, I was already at the Nascent Soul Stage. And what became of me? Reduced to abandoning a body wracked with Death Disease, forced to Enter Tao using white bones."
Gazing at his trembling skeletal hands, Bone Desolate Taoist lamented, "Had I possessed a proper Cultivation Technique, I would surely be in the Divine Separation Stage by now."
"You and I are different. I had no choice but to seek the Sword Clasp Immortal Sect."
He grasped his skull with force. As the surface of the bones eroded away, the exposed skeleton was riddled with black-brown fungal marks, the ever-present accompaniment of Death Disease.
Li Mo remained silent.
In major sects, an ordinary cultivator’s only accessible path was through the Heavenly Sword Sect, whose Affiliated Sword Sects spanned every corner of the Cultivation World.
Sects like the Ten Thousand Demon Dao were so colossal that they left no trace of their existence in everyday life.
Bone Desolate Taoist sank to his knees, lifeless as his Spiritual Power began rebelling against his Body and Soul. His vitality visibly dwindled by the moment.
"Supreme Qingtian... Why must beings like you, Heaven’s Chosen Children, exist in this world?"
"Would you tell me? I also wish to become an Immortal and achieve the Dao..."
His skeleton collapsed into a scattered pile.
From his spinal column flowed liquid bone marrow, forming a Nascent Soul.
Utterly despondent, the Bone Desolate Taoist sought no Body Seizing, allowing his Nascent Soul to slowly perish within True Void Hometown.
"If I, with my unmatched fortune, cannot achieve immortality, wouldn’t that prompt ridicule from others?"
Li Mo sighed deeply.
He absorbed the Nascent Soul into a Melting Furnace, converting it into immense Spiritual Energy to fortify the Corpse Mountain.
Li Mo did not dismantle the Bone Desolate Taoist’s remains, instead choosing to bury them intact within the Corpse Mountain Mini World, marked by a plain, unremarkable grave.
"Chao Wen Dao, one may die in the evening."
Li Mo moved on to process the numerous corpses harvested from the Secret Realm, prompting a new wave of expansion in the Mini World.
Elder He Guo observed the dramatic changes in heaven and earth in astonishment.
Spiritual Energy grew increasingly dense; mundane objects transformed into spiritual materials; Plant and Tree Cultivators began breaking through bottlenecks one after another; massive Deceit Beasts roamed the mountains unchecked...
"This isn’t a Magic Treasure. Even a High-Grade Magical Treasure doesn’t possess the power to reshape heaven and earth."
Elder He Guo struggled to find words, realizing that Qing Mountain surely had an extraordinary origin. Could it be the reincarnation of a True Immortal from the Upper Realm? The notion seemed utterly inconceivable.
Zhang Guo noticed that Elder He Guo had awakened and steered the Green Pearl to fly over.
"Wait, I want to see Elder Qing Shan! I want to see Supreme Qingtian!!!"
Before Elder He Guo finished speaking, he felt a consciousness fixate on him, carrying an undercurrent of murderous intent.
"Thirteen Immortals, this humble one meant no offense. If it pleases you, I am willing to remain forever within the Mini World to teach the Plant and Tree Spirits how to cultivate."
Desperation drenched Elder He Guo as he frantically explained, "Thirteen Immortals, you don’t know—they are innately suited to the lineage of Guodan Mountain."
"I..."
Gritting his teeth, Elder He Guo willingly dispersed all his Spiritual Power.
His Nascent Soul dissipated, and his remaining head transformed into Blood and Flesh Spiritual Material. The Plant and Tree Cultivators instinctively scratched their heads, unable to comprehend what had just occurred.
Moments ago, he was still an outsider, but suddenly he had morphed into one of their own.
"This humble one is willing to devote himself to teaching them wholeheartedly."
Elder He Guo pleaded earnestly, going so far as to swear a Heart Demon Oath, even offering up the secrets of Guodan Mountain without hesitation.
"Alright. I’ll grant you the Taoist title of He Guo; we shall see how you perform from now on."
Li Mo casually transmitted the magic of the Dan Ghost Sect into He Guo’s mind and openly fused cancer cells into his body.
He Guo offered no resistance, enthusiastically nodding his head again and again.
From his perspective, even if Li Mo wasn’t the reincarnation of an Immortal, he was destined to ascend as a Land Immortal of the Post Three Realms, taking everyone associated with him along for the ride.
Even if ties to Guodan Mountain were cut off, it didn’t matter. The sect could just as easily be rebuilt within the Mini World.
Of course, the Plant and Tree Cultivators’ natural affinity for medicinal properties made them the ideal choice for Pill Cultivation.
Li Mo had realized this long before but found the Plant and Tree Cultivators too dull. Teaching them even basic Qi Cultivation required tremendous effort. To teach them the fundamentals of Pill Cultivation might take centuries.
He Guo cheerfully trailed after Zhang Guo.
Understanding the Plant and Tree Cultivators’ language, he shamelessly began addressing Zhang Guo, a registered disciple, as "Senior Brother" at every turn.
Li Mo’s mouth twitched slightly as he redirected his focus to the newly awakened Golden Core Divine Ability.