Chapter 228: The Skeleton of Perfected Jinli

Jiuyou stood before the stone door and observed it for a moment. Once he confirmed there were no hidden restrictions inside, he stepped through.

A dark, square tunnel appeared before him. Cramped and narrow, it was only wide enough for two people to walk side by side. After passing through the tunnel, his field of vision suddenly opened up. A quiet room lay hidden deep within the mountain's belly. The stone walls on all four sides were rough yet uniform, bearing the traces of being polished by time.

"It seems this is Perfected Jinli."

Jiuyou flipped his palm. A cluster of golden flames surged from his hand, illuminating the entire quiet room.

In the center of the room, a skeleton sat cross-legged. Its posture was as proper as ever, its spine perfectly straight. Its tattered robes had long since rotted away, covered in a thick layer of dust that obscured their original color. The skeleton's right hand rested on its knee, bearing a long, narrow groove across the palm—as if it had gripped a sword for an entire lifetime, so deeply that even the bone remembered the curve.

"So this is that junior of mine," Xuan Zhenzi's voice rang out from the Heaven and Earth Ring.

The small golden figure drifted out and hovered in midair. His gaze fell upon the skeleton. After a moment of silence, he spoke slowly.

"In Linghu Shou's memories, even in his youth, this man was the greatest Sword Dao talent our Daoyang Sect had seen in thousands of years. With a metal-attribute heavenly spiritual root, he advanced to Nascent Soul in just over two hundred years. He roamed freely across Southern Frost, his sword techniques reaching the realm of gods and ghosts, earning him the title Dao Lord One Sword. Our Daoyang Sect was able to survive those turbulent years largely due to his efforts. It's just a pity he was born at the wrong time, caught in an era when the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was in decline. Had he been born earlier, his achievements might not have been beneath my own."

Jiuyou didn't speak. His gaze lingered on the skeleton for a moment, his thoughts unknown.

Xuan Zhenzi withdrew his gaze and looked at Jiuyou, his tone a bit heavier than before.

"Boy, don't let me down."

Jiuyou didn't answer. He stood before the skeleton, staring into its hollow eye sockets, as if gazing across the long span of time to meet the eyes of a man he had never met.

After a moment, he gave a slight nod, his voice neither high nor low.

"This disciple will do his best."

He turned around, found a flat spot in the center of the quiet room, and sat down cross-legged. He summoned the Five Elements Heaven and Earth Ring from his dantian, suspending it above his head. The five halos rotated slowly, casting flickering light and shadow across the room. The halos swayed gently against the stone walls, like an old lamp being repeatedly nudged.

"Has it finally come to this?" he murmured.

From the dying old man nearing the end of his lifespan back then, to standing here in a quiet room deep within the Ancient Battlefield, he had walked too long a road. Every step had been a tightrope between calculation and life and death, and he had never looked back. The Ten-Thousand-Year Longevity-Increasing Fruit had extended his lifespan by eight hundred years, yet now less than half of that remained, while that Deity Transformation Cultivator continued to hound him like a lingering ghost.

In the end, it was simply because he was too weak. Deity Transformation was his burning obsession, and it was his only path forward.

After a moment of silence, Xuan Zhenzi spoke, his tone carrying a rare, serious solemnity.

"We have no way back now. Although you're a cunning, slippery brat who runs faster than anyone else at the first sign of trouble, you happen to be the last hope of our Daoyang Sect. Let alone now, even in my era, those who could reach this step were as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns."

He paused, his gaze sweeping across the four walls of the quiet room.

"An extremely well-hidden concealment array is buried here, though it has fallen into disrepair over the years. I will reactivate it shortly. Combined with the Universal Pivot's ability to manipulate spiritual energy, even if that Deity Transformation Cultivator comes in person, he shouldn't dream of easily discovering our existence. And even if he does, he'll have to get past me first."

He turned around, meeting Jiuyou's gaze.

"Qing You, you little brat full of wicked ideas, you absolutely must succeed."

Meeting that gaze, Jiuyou nodded solemnly.

Having said all he needed to say, Xuan Zhenzi suddenly turned away awkwardly and waved his hand.

"Alright, enough of this sentimentality. Hurry up and get down to business."

Before his voice could even fade, the small golden figure shot into the ground with a swish to inspect the dilapidated concealment array. The golden light submerged into a crack in the stone floor and vanished completely a moment later, leaving behind only a faint golden halo that quickly dissipated.

The quiet room returned to its dim gloom. Only Jiuyou and the skeleton remained, silently facing each other across half the room.

Jiuyou took a few steps forward and stopped in front of the skeleton. Just as he was about to reach out, a sudden gust of wind rushed in from the direction of the stone door.

The skeleton trembled slightly, then crumbled into a pile of pale gray dust. It scattered silently, swept up by the wind and blown in all directions, blending into the accumulated dust on the floor as if it had never sat there at all.

In the spot where the skeleton had been sitting cross-legged, only a tattered bag with gold patterns remained. It lay quietly on the stone surface, its mouth slightly open, as if waiting for someone to pick it up.

"This is..."

Jiuyou bent down to pick up the bag, placing it in his palm to examine it closely.

The bag was old, its gold thread patterns largely worn away by time, yet one could still tell it was made of extraordinary material. Over a thousand years, an ordinary Storage Pouch would have rotted away entirely without proper preservation. For this item to remain perfectly intact to this day, it was most likely the Qiankun Pouch.

He probed it with his Divine Sense and, sure enough, undid the remaining restrictions without any effort. With a slight shift in his thoughts, a gentle force pulled his entire body directly into the bag—a stark contrast to ordinary Storage Pouches, which only allowed entry and exit via Divine Sense.

Inside the bag was a vast, open wilderness. The sky was pale gray, devoid of sun, moon, stars, or wind. Beneath his feet was flat land that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was so quiet that it didn't seem like a place meant for the living. A solitary wooden table sat in the center of the wilderness, its surface covered in a thin layer of dust, appearing to have been left untouched for many years.

Jiuyou walked over. A jade slip rested on the wooden table. He picked it up and sent his Divine Sense inside, falling silent a moment later.

The jade slip recorded Perfected Jinli's final words. As it turned out, he had also attempted to break through to Deity Transformation back in the day, but unfortunately failed, losing any chance of ever touching that realm again in this lifetime. However, he didn't sink into despair because of it. He had spent almost his entire life living for the sect; he had never truly lived for himself.

Thus, after failing his Deity Transformation breakthrough, he left behind an inheritance within the Daoyang Sect. Claiming to the outside world that he was leaving to seek fortuitous encounters, he departed from Southern Frost. Before leaving, he left most of the fortunes he had acquired over his lifetime to the sect, hoping only that future generations would bring it glory.

After leaving Southern Frost, he traveled extensively, eventually leaving another inheritance in a mountain stream in Dayong. That must have been the Jinli Sword Formation that Jiuyou later obtained from that Nascent Soul elder of the Blood Abyss Sect.

Finally, Perfected Jinli returned once more to this Ancient Battlefield, leaving behind his final belongings here. Besides his insights into attempting Deity Transformation, the Qiankun Pouch also contained two kinds of spiritual herbs he had spent thousands of years gathering, both of which aided in breaking through to Deity Transformation.

Jiuyou searched the wilderness and, sure enough, found the two spiritual herbs.

One was suffused with flowing purple light and shaped like an exquisite pagoda, delicate and warm to the touch. This was the Violet Exquisite, which could serve a stabilizing role when a divine soul fused with a Nascent Soul. The other was a short white fruit tree bearing a single bright blue fruit on its branches. This was the Heavenly Divine Treasure; records stated it was used to stabilize the Primordial Spirit after a successful breakthrough. If one failed to break through, it would be of no use anyway.

Jiuyou carefully stored the two spiritual herbs away. He stood in the wilderness for another moment before exiting the Qiankun Pouch's space.

Back in the quiet room, the skeleton had already turned to dust. Only the tattered, gold-patterned bag weighed heavily in his palm. He tied it to his waist, not sparing another glance at the empty stone surface, and turned to walk toward the center of the quiet room.