The First Immortal of Destiny

It’s worth mentioning that thanks to the recovery of the Teleportation Array, two of the three Dungeons of the Riverside Sect—namely the Jade Pool Dungeon and the Vacuous Realm—had been brought back under the sect’s control.

Years ago, Shen Mo had exchanged a batch of mother-stock spiritual plants from the Fairy Flower Valley and had Mi plant them in the Jade Pool Dungeon.

Due to the abnormal passage of time in the Jade Pool Realm, while only a year passed in the Outer Realm, ten years had already gone by within the Dungeon.

Therefore, many spiritual medicines had matured, possessing medicinal efficacy equivalent to over one hundred years of growth.

The Riverside Sect had redeployed an Elder to guard outside the Dungeon. This Elder was responsible for tending to and harvesting plant-based spiritual materials. After careful processing, these were sold at various immortal workshops for profit.

Ordinary spiritual medicinal materials would have been one thing, but the ones Shen Mo initially planted were Outer Zone spiritual plants painstakingly collected by the Flower Fairy clan over countless years.

Apart from the Fairy Flower Valley and the Riverside Sect’s Jade Pool Dungeon, almost no other place produced them. Even if such plants existed elsewhere, they would be in the forbidden lands of other Outer Zone creatures. Occasionally, only a few scattered plants would emerge, but neither their scale nor their quality would be significant.

Consequently, as soon as this batch of spiritual medicines appeared on the market, it sparked a mad scramble!

This allowed the Riverside Sect to earn a substantial profit, greatly improving its financial situation.

Of course, according to the original agreement Shen Mo had with Zhou Zhiwei, this batch of spiritual medicines nominally belonged to him as personal property.

However, times had changed. Shen Mo was now arguably the foremost figure in the Riverside Sect and was also preparing to become a Heavenly Monarch. All the resources and treasures within the sect were at his disposal if he needed them, so naturally, he wouldn’t quibble over such trivial profits.

Moreover, without the Jade Pool Realm serving as a unique ”medicine garden,” these spiritual medicines would have only possessed ten to twenty years of medicinal age, making them worth less than one-hundredth of their current value.

Therefore, Shen Mo kept only a portion of the Outer Zone spiritual medicines for studying their medicinal properties and researching new elixir recipes. The Riverside Sect converted the rest of the plant-based spiritual materials into Spirit Stones, cultivation resources, and other items to stock the sect’s Treasure Hall.

This outcome validated his earlier idea that this was indeed a path to generating wealth. For this reason, Shen Mo made a special trip back to the Fairy Flower Valley to request more mother-stock of rare flowers and exotic plants from the Outer Zone. He also planted mother-stock spiritual plants obtained from the Heaven Patrolling Zone and the ancient battlefield of immortals and demons into the Jade Pool Dungeon. In about another decade, these would become yet another inexhaustible source of wealth.

After exiting the Jade Pool Realm, Shen Mo departed directly from the bottom of the Dragon Fall Abyss using an escaping light technique, rather than utilizing the safer and more convenient Teleportation Array.

He had intended to confront the unknown Evil Spirit in the Dragon Fall Abyss again. If the opportunity arose, he planned to either eliminate it or imprison it in the newly renovated Demon-Suppressing Tower.

However, despite searching the abyss several times, Shen Mo didn’t encounter any disturbances from the Evil Spirit and decided to abandon the idea for the time being.

Upon further reflection, the existence of this Evil Spirit isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the Riverside Sect, he thought. Over the years, it hasn’t posed a lethal threat to the Jade Pool Realm or the Riverside Sect Elder guarding the grand hall at the bottom. Besides, the sect’s cultivators can now use the Teleportation Array to enter and leave the Jade Pool Realm. This negates the need to risk traversing the Dragon Fall Abyss and encountering the Evil Spirit lurking midway through the chasm. On the contrary, it might even serve as a deterrent. Cultivators from outside the sect who wish to enter the Jade Pool Realm can only do so by forcibly traversing the Dragon Fall Abyss, making them likely targets for its attacks. In a way, this adds a formidable, albeit unintended, barrier protecting the Jade Pool Dungeon.

「Then there was the Vacuous Realm.」

Its entrance drifted erratically beyond the Ninth Heaven.

After the world-altering upheavals and the Teleportation Array’s malfunction, Shen Mo had dispatched Demon Soul Generals to search for this Dungeon’s specific whereabouts, but all their efforts had proven futile.

The void beyond the Ninth Heaven was simply too vast. Even billions of Immortal Burial Seas couldn’t fill this seemingly infinite expanse.

Of course, the entrance to the Vacuous Realm was likely not far from the Red Flame Zone; otherwise, the Riverside Sect’s Seniors would never have been able to find this Dungeon. Even so, for anyone below the Heavenly Monarch Realm, finding it again was as difficult as ascending to the heavens.

Fortunately, after the Teleportation Array was restored a few years ago, one could now use the grand formation reconstructed by the Riverside Sect to appear directly at the entrance of the Vacuous Realm.

Soon after Shen Mo returned to Chong’a Mountain, he also paid a visit to the Vacuous Realm.

Overall, it was similar to the Mountain River Realm and the Jade Pool Dungeon. Its internal space was somewhere between the two—not as expansive as the Mountain River Realm, nor as confined as the Jade Pool Realm.

However, the mountains and earth within this Dungeon seemed to be paved entirely with spirit stones and beautiful jade, appearing crystal clear and immaculate.

The nature’s spiritual energy here was even purer, with 99.9% being the breath of Primal Spirit and almost no Turbid Qi or Filthy Qi. For cultivators of any Realm, this Dungeon was a top-tier Cultivation Blessed Land.

If the low-class disciples of the Riverside Sect could reside and cultivate in the Vacuous Realm year-round, their cultivation speed would at least double.

Alas, this was not realistic.

If too many disciples entered the Vacuous Realm, even if they merely engaged in normal activities without cultivating, the Dungeon would become unbearably polluted, requiring tens or even hundreds of years to recover.

Thus, apart from Golden Core patriarchs with flawless Dao Bodies, other disciples had to accumulate immense merit for the sect to earn the opportunity—as a reward from the sect—to cultivate in the Vacuous Realm for a period.

For Shen Mo, there wasn’t much difference between cultivating in the Vacuous Realm or at his Guanyun Mansion on Chong’a Mountain.

After all, he possessed the Flawless Skill, which helped him expel all Filthy Qi and Turbid Qi, leaving only pure Primal Spirit. Therefore, cultivating in the Vacuous Realm wouldn’t offer him significant additional benefits.

However, for the other disciples of the Riverside Sect, Shen Mo choosing to cultivate on Chong’a Mountain would have a huge impact.

With Shen Mo’s current cultivation level, merely maintaining his Realm normally consumed an enormous amount of nature’s spiritual energy. If he were to actively operate his cultivation method to advance his cultivation, the consumption would be even more terrifying.

The Spirit Vein of Chong’a Mountain was not as rich as the one at the Riverside Sect’s former mountain gate location.

Once Shen Mo began operating the Chaotic Yuan and One Qi technique, the nature’s spiritual energy for hundreds of miles around would become noticeably thinner. Even the augmenting effect of his Blessed Land Skill could not compensate for this drain.

Disciples at the Spirit Sea Realm and above might manage, but for those in the Body Tempering Realm and Qi Gathering Realm, their cultivation speed would plummet by 30% to 50%.

Considering this, Shen Mo decided to spend half his time cultivating in seclusion within the Vacuous Realm and the other half at his Guanyun Mansion on Chong’a Mountain.

「As for the Mountain River Realm, the last of the three Dungeons...」

Because the Soaring Serpent and the Bizarre Dragon were still entrenched in the Linjiang Mountain Range, blocking the entrance to the Mountain River Valley, the Riverside Sect could not yet reclaim it for the trials of newly promoted inner disciples.

Using the sect’s Teleportation Array, one could not enter the Dungeon directly, only be transported to the entrance of the Mountain River Valley. This location was still within the radiative influence of the Soaring Serpent’s Essence and Qi.

Apart from Shen Mo, no one currently in the Riverside Sect could withstand this corrupting power.

Even Cao Ren, who also cultivated the Dragon Reversing Spell, would be mutated by the Soaring Serpent into a parasitic monstrous snake due to his lesser proficiency in the cultivation method compared to Shen Mo.

Unless I’m willing to personally escort the newly promoted disciples into and out of the Mountain River Realm using my Sword Zone, which would be incredibly laborious, Shen Mo mused. But that’s somewhat impractical. Besides, do I even have that kind of spare time? I’ve worked so hard to achieve my current strength, not to become a glorified errand boy!