Cultivating for a hundred lifetimes to ascension

"This... huh, wait a minute! Could this be the legendary Mountain Dragon?!"

In the Mountain Dragon Cave, Zhao Jijian ignored the tree roots filling the cave, his gaze completely fixed on the Mountain Dragon Remains, as enormous as a mountain, his expression utterly shocked.

He rushed over eagerly, touching the petrified and rough true skin with his hands, his expression instantly filled with immense regret.

"What a pity! If only it were still alive, how great would that be!"

Standing nearby, upon hearing these words, Zhao Sheng couldn't help but sneer internally, thinking: "If the Mountain Dragon were still alive, the three of us would have been doomed a long time ago."

However, Zhao Xuanjing wasn't too concerned with the Mountain Dragon since he was young and had not heard of its formidable reputation. Instead, he found the spirit worms burrowing in and out very interesting.

He scurried over gleefully, picking up one as thick as an arm, holding it in his hand to fiddle and stroke, playing with it joyfully.

"Seventh Uncle, what's this? It looks like a giant earthworm! Also, the Spiritual Energy here is so rich! It's so much more than on Taifu Mountain."

Zhao Sheng explained: "Xuanjing, this is a spirit worm, somewhat related to earthworms."

Spirit worms are mild by nature and not aggressive. No matter how Zhao Xuanjing played with them, they seemed not to mind and even grew closer to him.

Zhao Sheng found this curious and secretly thought it might be due to having similar attributes.

Zhao Xuanjing had three spirit roots of earth, metal, and wood, and he primarily cultivated the "Infinite Earth Technique," his Earth Element Spiritual Power was exceptionally pure.

Zhao Jijian only realized the high density of the Spiritual Energy in the cave after being reminded by Zhao Xuanjing, it was almost on par with a Second Order Spiritual Vein.

His expression - ecstatic; he couldn't help but excitedly say, "Bless the Ancestors! There's hope for the rise of the Zhao family!"

Although Taifu Mountain was good, it could, at best, support the cultivation of Foundation Establishment Cultivators. But this cave could allow cultivators to continue cultivating all the way to the Golden Core Realm.

More importantly, this spirit cave was the Zhao family's alone, unlike Taifu Mountain which was a leased Spirit Vein. Now they didn't have to worry about being evicted every hundred years.

What did this represent?

Zhao Jijian knew very clearly in his heart.

This was the Zhao family's last refuge, symbolizing that even if the family declined or even fell to the brink of extinction, as long as this spirit cave remains undiscovered, the Zhao Family could one day rise again.

It was only now that he suddenly understood why, in recent years, the elder made various irrational decisions.

"Elder, you... you did well!"

In the face of Zhao Jijian's almost incoherent excitement, Zhao Sheng simply smiled and said nothing.

On the day he discovered the Mountain Dragon Cave, he had decided to make it the Zhao's secret mansion and also the core secret base of the Dark Department.

And Zhao Xuanjing had been selected by him as the head of the current generation's Dark Department after ten years of scrutiny.

Over the past few years, he had made countless preparations just for this day.

At that moment, Zhao Jijian suddenly asked with a fervent look, "Elder, do you still have the mountain dragon's Dragon Ball in your possession?"

"Hm?!" Zhao Sheng's face showed a hint of embarrassment,

The Dragon Ball? It seemed he had forgotten to dig for it.

…

Three days later,

Zhao Jijian grabbed a handful of spirit soil, carefully and evenly spreading it over the Medicine Field.

Half of this spirit soil was the excrement of the spirit worms, and the other half came from the Mountain Dragon Remains that had been crushed into small pieces.

After Zhao Jijian brought it to his attention three days ago, Zhao Sheng and the other two spent two whole days using Spirit Swords as tools to carve out a passage within the Mountain Dragon's body, ultimately finding a stone sphere as tall as a person in its belly.

The stone sphere was the Dragon Ball, a pity the vast majority of it had petrified.

Handling the Dragon Ball carefully, Zhao Sheng peeled it layer by layer, eventually obtaining a Yellow Jade Bead the size of a human head.

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The bead still had diffuse yellow light surging and flowing, indicating that the last bit of the Mountain Dragon's essence still remained inside.

Boom boom!

Bursts of roaring explosions came from within the cave in the mountain wall.

A moment later, Zhao Sheng walked out from inside, came to the edge of the broken ground, opened the Storage Bag, and dumped a huge pile of rubble into the abyss thousands of feet deep.

A day ago, the second round of large-scale renovations and upgrades began in the cave mansion. Cultivation Rooms, rest areas, quiet rooms, talisman making rooms, alchemy rooms, storage rooms, and a whole host of other structures within the cave mansion all needed to be carved out.

Zhao Sheng had calculated that to get Zhao's Secret Mansion into shape, it would take about a month.

However, he planned to entrust the heavy task of opening up the cave mansion to Zhao Xuanjing.

He and Zhao Jijian had more important things to attend to.

Zhao Sheng lightly tapped his feet, his form floated up and flew to a concave surface three zhang high on the mountain wall.

This concave area had already been dug four zhang deep into the mountain wall, the ground was clean of any broken rocks, revealing a rough, yellow-white wooden cross-section. Upon closer inspection, one could see dense, circular growth rings covering its surface.

This... was unmistakably a colossal wooden stake with a diameter of over four zhang.

"Fourth Master," Zhao Sheng called out to Zhao Jijian from afar.

After hearing him, Zhao Jijian straightened up, patted the spirit soil dust from his hands, and replied, "...I'm coming."

Having said that, Zhao Jijian leapt into the air and in the blink of an eye, flew the distance of six zhang, landing beside Zhao Sheng.

"Chonghe, do you have confidence in this?" he asked with concern.

Zhao Sheng shook his head and said, "At most a ten percent chance, but... it's enough to wager a try."

Zhao Jijian looked at the gigantic tree stump and then recalled the unimaginably thick tree roots in the cave; he fell silent.

If this success,

He dared not imagine the kind of rare and strange treasures that would be nurtured.

Zhao Sheng took out a bottle of Purple Mist Jade Dew and handed it to Zhao Jijian.

Next, he took out the Small Circulation Talisman Plate. The talisman plate radiated dazzling spirit light with multiple haloes. Seventy-two eighteen-layered Spring Breeze and Rain Talismans and nine Second Order Gan Lin True Talismans were neatly arranged on it.

Zhao Sheng took a deep breath, his expression solemn as he said, "Uncle Si, let's begin!"

Um,

Zhao Jijian nodded, flipped his hand, and a Red Rainbow Sword appeared in his grip.

The next second, a streak of red Sword Light burst forth from the Red Rainbow Sword, instantly plunging into the tree stump.

Crack!

A soft sound was heard as a tiny crack appeared on the surface of the tree stump, measuring no more than three inches in length.

Already the day before, the two had been shocked to find that this tree stump was made of an extraordinarily hard material, harder than they could have imagined.

With Zhao Sheng's cultivation at the Qi Refining Seventh Level and wielding a high-quality Magic Sword, he couldn't leave so much as a mark on it.

From this one detail alone, the two knew that the tree stump could at least be used to refine a Spiritual Artifact.

But what a shame it would be to merely use it for crafting Spiritual Artifacts–it would be a waste of its potential.

Boom,

Crack!

As the Sword Light whirled into existence and vanished just as quickly, Zhao Jijian slashed nearly a hundred times, finally splitting a crack over a foot deep in the tree stump.

"That's enough."

Zhao Sheng quickly intervened to stop Zhao Jijian.

Seeing this, Zhao Jijian stepped back to make room, while intently watching Zhao Sheng's next move.

Zhao Sheng stepped up to the crack and waved his hand to take out a segment of the Spiritual Peach Tree Branch from his Spirit Plant Bag.

In the dim environment, the Spiritual Peach Tree Branch shimmered with a lush green radiance, its vitality made all the more evident amidst its delicate beauty.

Zhao Sheng carefully inserted the lower end of the peach branch into the crack.

Quickly after, he took out another bottle of Purple Mist Jade Dew and poured it into the crack,

One bottle emptied, seeing it not yet full, he poured another half a bottle down.

Only when ripples of spiritual energy and surges of vitality appeared at the crack, forming tendrils of mist that ceaselessly ascended,

Did Zhao Sheng take a step back, his eyes intently fixed on the spot, not missing any abnormalities.