I Outworked the Entire Cultivation World

Chapter 278: Chapter 245: Xuanming Battlefield

When Jiang Yuebai arrived at the easternmost part of the ruins, she saw Tang Weimian and more than twenty others crossing over the collapsed giant stone pillars, disappearing into the moss-covered and vine-laced ruins.

There were no other Noble Family Disciples around. As expected, the Noble Family Disciples had taken the lead and entered the inner layer of the hunting ground first.

Jiang Yuebai took a deep breath, feeling mostly recovered. She placed several talismans on her body, took the Condensing Light Mirror into her arms, the Shadow Moon Mother and Child Blades circled around her, and the Golden Tiger White Dragon Seal was held tightly in her hand.

Fully prepared, Jiang Yuebai stepped into the Transmission Array.

After a bout of dizziness, she landed on her feet. Before she could see her surroundings clearly, she first heard the crisp sound of ice crystals clashing.

With a cold wind howling in, Jiang Yuebai’s eyes sharpened, and she spun around to dodge, shooting the Shadow Moon Mother and Child Blades backward.

Bam! Bam!

Two loud crashes, ice splinters scattered.

Jiang Yuebai saw two spiked ice blocks shredded by the Shadow Moon Mother and Child Blades.

Crawling out of the icy pit, an icy blue world unfolded before Jiang Yuebai, the very Xuanming Battlefield, Land of Ice Demon Ancestor detailed in the Jade Scroll given by Li Shenzhi.

Amid the austere and oppressive Ice Field, the ice surface was crystal-clear and smooth, while the deep, dull sound of cracking ice constantly echoed from underground, with deep blue ice ravines crisscrossing, their depths unfathomable.

The fierce wind howled, snow flew, and clusters of immaculate sharp ice stood like giant crystal formations on the glacier earth, crafted by the gods, exuding a dangerous aura.

Jiang Yuebai’s gaze penetrated the raging wind and snow, seeing Tang Weimian and the more than twenty others rushing across the glacier, pursued by a horde of bizarre-shaped Ice Beasts.

Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to call them Ice Demons.

Demons are born from the world’s filthy Muddy Qi, inherently shapeless, they gather energy into bizarre forms or transform based on people’s thoughts.

Only the great demons that develop independent awareness can appear before the world in their preferred fixed form.

On the Ice Field, the Heavenly Interence Sect’s sword cultivator Fang Yuxing and the Primordial Sword Sect’s female sword cultivator Chu Yunwei held the rear, their Sword Qi slicing through large groups of Ice Demons.

Tang Weimian led the others to disappear into an enormous ice cluster that resembled a city wall.

Soon, they emerged from another direction amid the ice clusters, evading a wave of pursuers and continued to race into the depths of the storm.

Jiang Yuebai vaguely sensed, in the central Ice Field afar, an ice pillar with spiky thorns piercing the sky.

That was the high ground Contested by Sects and Noble Families, the place where a life-and-death battle would occur.

When Li Shenzhi attended the Wind and Cloud Meeting during the Foundation Establishment Stage, it was at this Xuanming Battlefield he encountered, meticulously mapping all the short-distance transmission points within these ice clusters into the Jade Scroll he gave her.

This place boasts over a thousand ice clusters, leaving one to wonder how Li Shenzhi had such time to explore these during the fierce battles between Noble Families and Sects — unless he didn’t participate in the fray?

Tang Weimian, as Li Shenzhi’s junior sister, must also know the transmission locations of each ice cluster.

Thus, even though they entered later than the Noble Family Disciples, they might still arrive under the ice pillar first.

Sounds of rustling came from the surroundings as ice blocks gathered into bizarre Ice Demons in the midst of the storm, exuding deep malice as they charged toward Jiang Yuebai.

She immediately launched the White Dragon Golden Tiger Seal, surging onto the Glacier Plain.

Behind her, the Ice Demons were smashed into powder, yet that demonic qi was difficult to eradicate, swirling up the storm again to assemble ice blocks, forming even larger and stronger Ice Demons.

One after another, they emerged around Jiang Yuebai.

Jiang Yuebai controlled the Shadow Moon Mother and Child Blades and the Golden Tiger White Dragon Seal with her two lines of Divine Thought, fighting while moving, her figure flashed on the towering ice cluster not far away, and Jiang Yuebai plunged herself into the ice cluster without hesitation.

Like plunging into an icy spring in midwinter, Jiang Yuebai shivered, the force pulling her abruptly severed.

She seemed to be...stuck in the middle of the transmission!

What to do?!

Jiang Yuebai opened her eyes wide, finding herself enveloped in a halo of five-colored light, suspended in boundless darkness, surrounded by things like shards of glazed glass, emitting diverse auras, lights and images.

Countless as the stars, their numbers unknown.

Among them, thirty percent of the shards seemed drawn by something, constantly streaming into the distance within the darkness, while the rest all quietly floated in the void.

The halo of five-colored light fluctuated with her breathing, Jiang Yuebai raised her hand, and the Five-Colored Beads obtained from the Eight-Armed Vajra floated out from her Storage Bracelet.

And the vine bracelet on her left wrist, like dead wood budding in spring, gradually sprouting tender leaves and new branches.

These two items caused the previously dormant fragments to agitate, swarming toward her, Jiang Yuebai didn’t know what they were, wishing to evade them.

Yet her body was hard to move, only her head and limbs were able to, dodging a few shards before a sky fragment and an earth fragment struck her from both sides.

Jiang Yuebai shuddered, the Five-Colored Beads shone brightly, and the vine bracelet frantically grew, enveloping her completely.

An indescribable insight burst in her mind, she suddenly understood, these fragments were all broken Heaven and Earth Laws.

Before entering, her master had told her, the inner layer hunting ground had fragmented Laws, and the Xuanming Battlefield was pieced together from these broken Laws.

By the fifth day of the trial, the inner layer hunting ground would activate, and these Heaven and Earth Laws would randomly assemble into the Xuanming Battlefield, Great Wilderness Forest, or Lost Imperial City.

The formation of other Secret Realms was the same, and due to the incompleteness of the Laws, some Secret Realms lacked sun or moon, while time flowed differently in some compared to the outside, the climate, seasons, geography and temperature varied depending on which Laws were absent.

At this moment, Jiang Yuebai, through this unique method, witnessed parts of the Heaven and Earth’s Laws, feeling the transformation within an instant as if thousands of years had passed.

A divine insight came upon her, abruptly correlating this to the obscure and complex calculative arts and words of the Great Derivation Scripture’s first volume.

”Yang is the celestial fire, Yin the terrestrial water, heaven’s fire illuminates the earth’s water... The union of Heaven and Earth is the union of Yin and Yang, and the union of Yin and Yang is the union of water and fire... Up and down interexchange, cold and heat alternate, creating wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, rivers and mountains, shifting through the four seasons...”

Jiang Yuebai didn’t even know what she was saying, immersing herself in this mysterious sensation of seeming understanding yet total confusion.

In the end, how much she could retain depended on how deeply she could comprehend at that moment.

The Laws outside were a seamless whole, she had neither the opportunity nor ability to individually dissect and observe them.

More and more Law Fragments collided with Jiang Yuebai, and she absorbed everything she could hold like a sponge.

Whether early or late, regardless of her current cultivation, whether it was too early to touch these, since she encountered them, she aimed to fully comprehend them.

Opportunities wouldn’t wait for her to be ready; they were reserved for those constantly prepared.

The five-colored halo entered Jiang Yuebai’s Dantian, and amid the five Dao Platforms, a five-colored vortex gradually formed.

A Spiritual Energy Vortex marks the threshold from Mid-Stage Foundation Establishment to Late-Stage, needing a powerful Divine Soul to pull the Dao Platform’s Spiritual Energy, forming a vortex, and continually refining it to eventually condense an Elixir Pill at its center, achieving a Golden Core.

Mind into Dantian requires cultivation and enlightenment, stirring up a vortex demands the Divine Soul and Spiritual Energy reaching certain strength; some Loose Cultivators without assistance from seniors may remain stuck at Mid-Stage Foundation Establishment for decades without necessarily crossing this threshold.

And those who can break through on their own often are those with deep-rooted foundations, accumulated over many years.

The vortex was weak, yet existed genuinely. Jiang Yuebai felt she hadn’t truly reached the Late-Stage Foundation Establishment yet had firmly grasped its essence, only lacking the accumulation of Spiritual Energy to break through without barriers.

As the vortex spun and Laws evolved, her understanding of the Five Elements Path deepened, with three mutated Dao Platforms, Wood Spirit Qi flowed into the Fire Dao Platform, blazes surged atop the Fire Dao Platform, burning onto the Earth Dao Platform.

The Earth Dao Platform amassed the mighty force of Wood Generating Fire, which in turn generated Earth, compressing and concentrating it ceaselessly.

Gradually, Jiang Yuebai sensed a trace, faint as it was, of golden light about to come forth from the Earth Dao Platform.

Just a little more, yet somehow still so far...

Buzz!

The Sea of Consciousness suddenly vibrated, and Jiang Yuebai failed to grasp the earlier sensation, being pulled into another Law.

From a seed to witnessing a forest’s growth and demise, dramatically heightened her understanding of the Path of Grass and Wood, with the Little Ganoderma on her head beginning its transformation.

While comprehending, Jiang Yuebai contemplated that the three-tenths of Law Fragments she saw flying away as she entered—could those be... Anan’s?