Net Ritual Monk, caught in the awkward position of being caught stealing farm family reed flower chicken, stood there reluctantly. He said to Bai Yu You, “Māli Māli Hóng, that is how I, the Buddha, am. That’s all for today’s scripture recitation.”

Only then did he happily turn his head. “Junior Brother, you’re back? Hùn Shèng Shān, is it? I’ll accompany you right away.”

Flying quickly all the way, Jiang Wang, whose divine sense and hearing were fully extended, had actually heard the conversation between Net Ritual and Bai Yu Flaw long before. He deliberately slowed down, waiting for them to finish talking before returning.

At this moment, he didn’t say anything to interrupt, only ordered, “Yu Juan, you stay behind, supervise them to continue collecting clues, and conveniently look after Jí Huǒ Yù Xiù. The others will go with me.”

Even Yu Juan smoothed her killing intent-stirring twin swords and took over the handle of Urgent Fire Yu Xiu’s wheelchair.

The group said nothing more and followed Jiang Wang as they flew towards Hùn Shèng Shān.

Ever since descending to the Fú Lù world, Jiang Wang had been running around non-stop, almost never resting. Even discussions mostly happened on the road.

“Where’s that woodchopper?” Play Fate, with his steel wings unfolding behind him, soared freely in the sky, asking casually, his voice cold.

“He went to do other things. Hùn Shèng Shān doesn’t need him,” Jiang Wang replied.

Net Ritual walked side by side with Jiang Wang. Bai Yu Flaw secretly exerted himself, speeding up a bit, and walked to their side, letting his forehead hair fly. He said flatly, “Why did Dōng Fǔ send Lín Xiān to do other things and let Lián Yù Juān look after a child, yet only bring me to Hùn Shèng Shān?”

His posture was extremely casual, but the corners of his upturned mouth still showed his happiness.

He thought that he, Lín Xiān, and Lián Yù Juān were all working in Bái Yù Jīng, all practitioners at the threshold of the Heaven and Human barrier, and all heaven’s favorites of a country. Dōng Fǔ only brought him to Hùn Shèng Shān, wasn’t that enough to explain the problem? Trust or not trust aside, clearly in Dōng Fǔ’s heart, he, Bai Yu Flaw, was the most excellent one!

“Oh.” Jiang Wang said casually, “It’s too dangerous for you to stay there.”

Bai Yu Flaw suddenly wasn’t so happy. “What danger could I be in?”

Jiang Wang said, “I’m worried about them.”

Without waiting for Bai Yu Flaw to get angry, he quickly added, “Alright, alright, no more jokes. Do you have any results from your interpretations of the creation god text?”

“If I can encounter danger in the Qì Huǒ Department, then Lián Yù Juān can even less withstand it. Dōng Fǔ’s words are somewhat guilty!” Bai Yu Flaw said stubbornly, then continued, “To want results in such a short time is not even like setting off fireworks!”

But then he changed the subject. “We really did interpret one word.”

“What word?” Jiang Wang was very interested.

“That clay tablet book with ‘The World has Wèi, Wèi upon —’, do you still remember?”

“Of course.”

“The next word is ‘Qí’.”

“Not much meaning.” The pioneer of the creation god text, the Big Dōng Fǔ of the Bái Yù Jīng restaurant, Jiang Wang, commented.

Generally, after the word “Qí”, that’s the key point.

“It has great meaning.” Play Fate, who had flown very far, suddenly flew back close again, and said coldly, “You may not understand this knowledge too well. The interpretation of every ancient word sweeps away a piece of the clear puzzle within the fog of history. It helps us exclude massive errors and greatly pushes the progress of interpretation.”

“Is that so?” Jiang Wang reluctantly indicated acceptance, then shared the sights from the Qīng Shuǐ Department with them.

“It’s understandable that the Pure Water Bearers, as witch priests, hide some tribal inheritance secrets. After all, that is the foundation of a clan, and it’s impossible for them to completely let down their guard against us,” Bai Yu Flaw calmly analyzed.

“Instead, there is one very interesting thing, I wonder if you all discovered it,” Jiang Wang said. “Up to now in Fú Lù, no true totem holy spirit has appeared, and there is no record in history. Legends have them, but they are not credible. Just from the materials of each clan that we have controlled in Fú Lù, the only one truly approaching that realm is the Qì Huǒ Bamboo Book, but the Qì Huǒ Bamboo Book also hasn’t seen a breakthrough.”

Play Fate said directly, “Either this world has limitations, or the totem cultivation method has limitations.”

“You have all seen the totem cultivation methods and should have cultivated them. Do you have any insights?” Jiang Wang asked.

“Unless one cultivates to the realm of the totem spirit, refines the body, and summons the spirit to its origin, how can one truly discuss the totem holy spirit realm?” Play Fate said, “It’s impossible for any of us. No one will take it as a fundamental method, just as firewood.”

“To that step is to abandon the body. That is the reason why the lifespan of a totem spirit exceeds that of a god descent,” Bai Yu Flaw also said. “And whether it has limitations or not, just from those diagram classics, it is indeed a profound knowledge. Relying on us to understand its true meaning will take more than three years or two. These strong individuals in Fú Lù are even less likely to truly open their hearts…”

Net Ritual, who had been silent, suddenly let out an ‘yi’ sound at this moment. “It’s done!”

He stretched out his right hand flat in front of him, and a circular pattern slowly condensed above his palm heart.

Inside that circle was a tilted swastika character, interwoven with two black and white lines. It had a simple yet mysterious beauty.

The three people who saw this scene were all astonished to varying degrees.

Because this was not a simple pattern; this was a totem. A totem that truly possessed power, integrated into the supernatural system of this world, and could be cultivated.

And unlike any existing totem they had seen, collected by the royalty, it was a brand new totem!

Neither Bai Yu Flaw, nor Play Fate, nor Jiang Wang could do this.

Bai Yu Flaw thought of his own point, and his voice was somewhat strained. “This is… a karma totem?”

“Should count as one, I guess.” Net Ritual himself wasn’t very clear. He stretched out a finger and poked the totem in front of him, as if poking something with substance, pushing it back several inches.

He grinned like he had found his favorite toy. “Should be!”

Bai Yu Flaw was still in chaos. “Didn’t I ask you to make a karma totem shell? Does Little Holy Monk know what a shell is? A shell is just a facade, something to deceive people with, a fake that looks very real but has no use at all, very easy to make, does Little Holy Monk understand?”

Net Ritual blinked his eyes. “Isn’t it okay to make a real one? It’s not difficult either.”

Ah, that also makes sense. Bai Yu Flaw said nothing.

Play Fate had already pointed the blue wind totem on his left forearm. At this moment, he silently operated the totem power, examining its nature once again… probably with a bit of self-doubt.

Jiang Wang laughed as he looked at Net Ritual. “It seems your exploration of totems has surpassed all of us. Then, may I ask this Little Holy Monk of Xuán Kōng Temple, in your opinion, can the realm of the totem holy spirit be reached within this totem cultivation method?”

Net Ritual thought for a while in silence. “I still have no answer now. Looking at that realm remotely from this shore, it can be imagined, but without becoming a totem spirit and not reaching the shore, one just cannot see truly clearly.”

“Even the Little Holy Monk who created a karma totem himself temporarily has no answer, and even the Qì Huǒ Bamboo Book, which has the reputation of ‘most strong’, has not been determined to reach it,” Jiang Wang said to them. “But the witch priest of the Qīng Shuǐ Department, Pure Water Yi Yuan, who lived more than a thousand years ago, actually attempted to sublimate to a totem holy spirit after pouring down from Hùn Shèng Shān for seven years. And his strength was not prominent among the various spirits at that time.”

Bai Yu Flaw didn’t expect Dōng Fǔ to obtain such useful information in the Qīng Shuǐ Department. “You’re saying…”

Jiang Wang said, “He perhaps gained some kind of harvest in Hùn Shèng Shān. That kind of harvest is very likely something from outside heaven, which gave him inspiration from outside this world and showed him the way forward!”

“Will the changes from a thousand years ago still leave any clues for us to discover?” Play Fate asked.

“Impossible. Even if there were clues, they would have been cleared by the people of Fú Lù long ago. We have also experienced this civilization here; how can we underestimate their wisdom?” Jiang Wang said. “What I want to find are Áo Kuí’s traces. He currently has no way to sweep away the faith of Fú Lù, and being forcibly an enemy of the various departments of Fú Lù, his choices are already few. This place is probably where he brought changes to Fú Lù that year, and he will certainly come back here to seek change and seize a chance to win.”

Hùn Shèng Shān is in the central area of the entire Fú Lù world. The two departments nearest to this mountain are the Ní Tǔ Department and the Tiān Fēng Department. The former is the seventeenth of the soil departments, and the latter is one of the eight departments split from the Xuán Fēng Department.

Even saying “nearest”, they are still a thousand li away from Hùn Shèng Shān.

The Qīng Shuǐ and Yè Léi departments are even farther.

Flying quickly all the way, discussing all the way, the journey didn’t feel long.

When the four people stopped, what appeared in front of them was less like a mountain and more like a high platform.

It rose high in the vast land, yet it was broken at the waist of a majestic and perilous path.

The mountain was still lush, with walking beasts and bird calls. It had evidently become a world of its own, a world that had not experienced the changes of the era.

Play Fate retracted his steel wings and landed on the relatively flat mountaintop. He half-squatted down, pressing his index finger on the ground. From his fingertip, black ants appeared out of thin air, quickly crawling outwards.

With his landing point as the center, the ants poured towards the entire Hùn Shèng Shān like a black tide!

“Are these all mechanisms?” Net Ritual Monk curiously sized them up.

“All are living things,” Play Fate said faintly. “Mechanism art can also produce such ants, but the cost is too high, not in line with our ‘节用’ concept. These are just ants raised and then specially processed, controlled with the assistance of mechanism art.”

Ever since Qiān Jīn Huá became a giant, the Mò family, from top to bottom, considered one word the most important: “节用”.

But the “节用” before the Qiān Jīn Huá era was about restraint and simplicity. The “节用” after the Qiān Jīn Huá era was more inclined towards controlling costs in commercial activities.

Saying he is a true monarch of the business way is indeed not false.

Bai Yu Flaw vertically held his sword in the air and flew to a distant place.

Jiang Wang opened his Eye Immortal to patrol in all directions.

Net Ritual took big strides and went far away, directly sitting cross-legged in the air, pressing his palms together, closing his eyes. Buddha light surrounded his body and spread out like water ripples.

The four people divided different areas and thoroughly checked every inch of Hùn Shèng Shān.

“Found it.” Play Fate’s body shape shook, and he had already darted into the forest. Jiang Wang lifted his step and followed.

The two people quickly shuttled through the deep old forest, agile like birds returning to their nests. Finally, they landed in front of an old tree that needed nine people to hug it.

The tree was already dead, leaving only half of its remnant body, which was still very tall like a house. It had already been hollowed out by insects. Densely packed black ants crawled inside and outside the tree.

Play Fate pointed his index finger on the tree body, and the black ants rapidly recycled, almost connecting into a line, crashing straight into the middle of his index finger — which seemed to connect to another space.

“The ink ants here tasted power that doesn’t belong to this world,” Play Fate said. “It’s still very fresh, just within the last three days.”

Jiang Wang casually cut down a piece of rotten wood and slowly burned it with Three Flavors True Fire. “It can only be Áo Kuí. What did he do here?”

Play Fate said, “Plundered this old tree’s vitality. He intentionally covered his tracks, decorating it to look naturally rotten and dead, but his influence on the soil and his occupation of the surrounding trees’ living space are things he cannot change.”

Jiang Wang himself had also obtained the answer through Three Flavors True Fire, consistent with Play Fate’s description. He frowned and said, “Áo Kuí has the ability to plunder the vitality of trees for his own use. But this bit of vitality is too small compared to him. What is enough for him to do?”

Play Fate said, “If Áo Kuí could rely on this to recover, what we would see here should be a bald mountain. This secret art has limitations, and he really needs to utilize this point of vitality to do something here.”

Jiang Wang asked again, “Can we trace him through these powers?”

“I’m doing it.”

“If I were Áo Kuí, I would have hastily passed through here a thousand years ago and hidden a heavenly Buddha treasure. A thousand years later, when I come back, the first thing I would definitely do is still seek the treasure. And I have already connected to the Bénɡ Shēnɡ Rú Shì Bowl, sealing this world. But for some reason, I cannot completely liberate its power — then the most important thing now is to unseal this treasure, to live a hundred lives.” Jiang Wang pondered, “Can this tree’s vitality be useful to the Bénɡ Shēnɡ Rú Shì Bowl?”

Play Fate injected the power swallowed by the ink ants into four mechanism birds, then flew them in four directions, analyzing at the same time. “From the contrast of power, even if it’s useful, it’s at most a guiding role.”

Jiang Wang seemed to be thinking. “What is special about this tree?”

“The oldest tree in this mountain forest…” Play Fate said, grasping the key. “No, the special thing lies in the fact that it is the oldest existing tree on Hùn Shèng Shān.”

The special thing lies in Hùn Shèng Shān!

Jiang Wang’s eyes also lit up. “It has the origin power of the Fú Lù human race!”

Play Fate continued, “The Bénɡ Shēnɡ Rú Shì Bowl may have been sealed by the world power of the Fú Lù world, which is why Áo Kuí cannot fully use its power. Whether it is the intentional guidance of the Fú Lù human race or the repulsion of the world’s instinct, in short, such a situation has been created. And Áo Kuí understands the truth of the world, sees the fundamental problem, and is solving it. So he just needs to use the origin power of the Fú Lù human race as a guide.”

“How to solve the sealing power of the world when one’s own body power is insufficient? With the long inheritance of the giant city, presumably there are many ideas?”

“We can also ask Little Holy Monk. Xuán Kōng Temple is not a false name. It’s best if we pool our ideas and exhaust the dragon’s path, then cut it off one by one.”

Just as he finished speaking, Net Ritual’s voice rang out — “Junior Brother, this way!”

The ink ants were still tirelessly crawling over every inch of land.

Jiang Wang and Play Fate shuttled through the quiet mountain forest, quickly finding Net Ritual’s location.

He was in a deep rock cave.

This rock cave was hidden extremely deep, with vines, ancient trees, moss, and giant stones outside. It was unknown how he found it.

At this moment, the trees moved and the stones opened, as if an ancient tomb had been dug, and the sky light poured in. The old rotten smell still surged outside. It was unknown how many years the stone seal had been in place, and it was reappearing in the human world.

Entering revealed that this rock cave was both high and wide, reaching in all directions, making it difficult to see its full extent at a glance.

The sound of wind shuttled through the distant cave, vaguely resembling the call of an old crow, inexplicably gloomy.

The handsome and clean young monk, with his palms together, stood in front of a long historical stone wall. A circle of Buddha light behind his head made his shiny bald head gleam, and this dark mountain cave seemed to be illuminated by him.

Thus, the large, bloody, and terrifying rock painting in front of him also seemed to become peaceful and warm.

In Jiang Wang’s eyes, this scene itself was also a painting, for —

Buddha views evil ghosts.

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