Chapter 2218.1: The Profound Bell

Sword qi rampaged so furiously that Yun Shuige didn’t have a chance to defend himself, despite the protection of a fifth rank immortal treasure. His body was swiftly churned to pieces and a fully transmuted immortal soul sliced and diced the moment it showed itself.

....

An inexplicable void.

Numerous oil lamps flickered weakly with dim yellow glows.

Whoosh!

One of them abruptly flared with intensity, the flame gathering into a human face full of terror. It was a perfect resemblance of Yan Shuige’s features.

“Save me, dao master!” it shrieked with terror.

Puff!

The oil lamp exploded, consigning itself and the face to dust.

A desiccated elder with white hair and long eyebrows slowly opened his eyes in the middle of the void. He looked toward the terminated oil lamp.

“Cultivators protected by soul lamps have died one after another..” The elder fell silently as he stared at where the last soul lamp had been. “It’s a good thing that such a person has appeared. I hope he keeps the bigger picture in mind..”

....

Only a storage ring and a dimmed fifth rank Profound Bell was left after Yun Shuige fell to the sword pagoda’s furious barrage.

“Thank goodness Yun Shuige wasn’t an immortal and couldn’t bring even twenty percent of the treasure’s power to bear. It wouldn’t be that easy to kill him within a few days otherwise. But if he was an immortal, he wouldn’t be able to enter this land.” Lu Yun collected the immortal rank treasure and storage ring, vanishing from the premises with a few flashes of his body.

Cultivators under the Marquis Skycloud banner streamed to the location after another fifteen minutes. Everything had been leveled to flat ground through the course of Lu Yun and Yun Shuige’s battle.

....

“Who would’ve thought that the image of the sword pagoda would possess so much strength! It’s one that can both attack and defend!” Lu Yun sat down on the ground when he was two hundred and fifty kilometers away from the site of battle and sorted through his spoils.

“Paramount rank spirit crystals!” First to greet his eyes when he accessed Yun Shuige’s storage ring was ten thousand paramount spirit crystals!

What he lacked most at the moment were cultivation resources. The Nine Chapters of Dao consumed entirely way too many resources during cultivation. Since he wasn’t willing to use goodwill to enhance his strength, he had to rely on lower rank spirit crystals.

While qi within spirit crystals was pure, it was far from sufficient compared to the Hongmeng qi resulting from the Nine Chapters of Dao. Obtaining paramount spirit crystals at this time was as vital to him as a parched man in the desert receiving a drink of water.

Paramount spirit crystals also counted among the rarer resources in Great Xia.

“Oh? This is..” Lu Yun’s eyelids twitched as three purple pills entered his line of sight. The sparkled with faint hues and didn’t emanate any fragrance. Most noteworthy about them was the golden rune etched on each of them.

“Dao Rune Pills..” Lu Yun took a deep breath when he saw the pills. Such pills didn’t exist in the world of immortals—only a world on the level of Great Xia possessed them.????????????????????????????????.????????????

As Great Xia lacked immortal crystals, immortals depended on Dao Rune Pills for cultivation. The rune on them contained the harmony of dao. It aided immortals in comprehending heavenly dao, understanding nature, and was more precious than immortal crystals in some aspects.

After all, only immortal qi was present in immortal crystals, there was no harmony of dao. In the world of immortals, however, the circulation of the laws of heaven and earth were many times more forthright than in a plane like Great Xia. Immortals could comprehend the myriad facets of nature directly from heaven and earth without needing the help of the Dao Rune Pills.

The Dao Rune Pills themselves were categorized from one rune to nine. The more runes one pill contained, the more harmonies it boasted of. A nine rune Dao Rune Pill would be extremely precious even in the world of immortals.

“He’s prepared even Dao Rune Pills—looks like Yun Shuige was ready to ascend to immortality after leaving Immortal Burial Valley. Pity he had a death wish and decided to provoke me instead.” Lu Yun transferred the Dao Rune Pills into his own storage ring. Apart from the pills and spirit crystals, there was nothing particularly special about the other contents. They were the run-of-the-mill pills, medicines, ores, and ingredients.

Yun Shuige had reaped quite a harvest in the valley. He’d found a dozen immortal weapons, of which one was a seventh rank flying sword.

“I have no use for the treasures apart from the flying sword.” Lu Yun shook his head and turned to studying the Profound Bell.

“This bell seems to be a broken treasure. It shouldn’t be like this.” He could see everything about the bell with the Eye of Nullification. Its core essence was fragmented, but it was somehow still able to form a complete fifth rank immortal treasure despite its inadequacies.

“Wait!” He realized what was amiss. “This treasure is coalesced from that tattered core essence.. What did this bell look like originally?”

The young man’s eyes widened. The Profound Bell came from the partial core essence of a treasure, formed after continuously devouring the essence of heaven and earth. He found this incredulous even with his experience of three thousand lifetimes.

Instead of attempting to refine it, Lu Yun decided to see how he might repair the shattered core essence or find its other parts.

Any ordinary immortal treasure was unsalvageable if its core essence was damaged. It would never leave behind a tiny bit that could absorb the essence of heaven and earth and come back together.

A smile crossed Lu Yun’s face—he didn’t care about killing Yun Shuige. The latter was just the son of a golden immortal, so what if he died? It was entirely expected that even awakened cultivators die in Immortal Burial Valley; Marquis Skycloud would never find anything no matter how strong he was.

Having sorted through his loot, Lu Yun stood up to leave. He hadn’t forgotten what his goal here was—locating the Crimson Emperor Chapter of Inception for his grandfather.

Lu Tianling was initial awakened stage and would be consumed by the halberd when he ascended to immortality. With the Lu patriarch’s potential, becoming an immortal was all too easy for him.

There wasn’t much time left for Lu Yun.

It was unfeasible for Lu Tianling to enter the valley himself. With his current reputation, numerous immortals near Dark City kept an eye on him. If he dared set out, Great Xia immortals would be the first to stand in his way.

Lu Tianling was too strong—he would face concerted pushback from other factions if he came to Immortal Burial Valley. He would be hobbled at every turn, so Lu Yun didn’t bother telling his grandfather what his plans were. Instead, he set out under the guise of training and came here with Terra Demon.

With Terra Demon playing bodyguard, Lu Tianling was perfectly at ease letting his grandson roam around.

....

“If the Azure Emperor Chapter of Inception is held within a stick of connate spirit bamboo, then the Crimson Emperor Chapter of Inception should have something to do with fire.” Lu Yun operated the Connate Great Dao of the Five Elements as he carefully sensed the distribution of the five elements within the land.

Other than summoning the elements for his own usage, the Connate Great Dao of the Five Elements could also be deployed to search for elemental treasures. At Lu Yun’s current level of cultivation, he could sense the makeup of the elements within five hundred kilometers.

But he could only discern their composition—he didn’t know anything about their actual condition.

“There’s a powerful blast of fire energy to the east!” Lu Yun brightened and flew to the east in a surge of sword light.

The energy of fire was so intense that it indicated a fire attribute treasure. It was very likely the item that held the Crimson Emperor Chapter of Inception. Since it was his goal for this trip, the young man would follow every clue he gleaned.

An obnoxiously opulent ray of crimson sword light split through the air, completely out in the open. Lu Yun brought his speed up to his greatest capability and slowly mapped out the terrain as he flew.

“This place of burial was once a massive palace.. What a pity that it’s been completely destroyed and its former structure impossible to make out.” Although the structure was severely damaged, he could still sense that it must have been bigger than his Northern Sky palace in its heyday.

It must have belonged to someone at least a chaos immortal. Sadly, something had devoured its core essence and treasures. It was similar to what’d happened to Empress Myrtlestar’s king rank Cosmic Flag—that, too, was just an upper dao rank treasure now.

The remaining treasures were but ninth rank. They may be precious to Great Xia immortals, but Lu Yun didn’t think much of them.

The ripples of battle raised his attention as he flew toward the east.

"Spare the woman and the jade talisman they just obtained. Kill the rest!” Seven men in black outfits and vicious expressions were assembled in an eerie battle formation that trapped four cultivators.

The men were initial soul separation, but their battle formation was so incredibly strong that it firmly suppressed the four combination cultivators they faced. Those four were Ling Chu, Ling Ling, Song Yi, and Shi Jian.