Chapter 56: Earth Immortal Avatar, Incomplete Innate Water Spirit

Man and flood-dragon spent a full five days wandering through the subterranean depths, successively discovering over a dozen underground spirit grottoes.

A third of them were already occupied, sealed with the Eight Desolations Prison Locks and used to captive-breed vast quantities of subterranean ley-line spirit fish.

The remaining spirit grottoes were too small to support many; the smaller ones held only a dozen or so, while the larger ones barely topped a hundred. Presumably, the Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven held them in disdain.

What a mighty expert looked down upon was, however, an supreme treasure to them. Every single one of these spirit fish was divided and devoured by the man and the flood-dragon.

Su Yu later gained proficiency in snatching food right out of a dragon's jaws, brazenly seizing over a hundred subterranean ley-line spirit fish of varying grades.

Added together, they increased his physique and strength by 660 points. Under the influence of his talent bonus, this doubled to 1,320 points in physique and strength. Combined with the 138 points gained previously, his total physique and strength increased by 1,458 points.

This thrilled him immensely, making him single-mindedly squat here and roam about everywhere, wishing he could acquire several hundred more in one breath to max out his attributes, even saving whatever he couldn't finish eating for next time.

The main reason was that the attribute-capping amplification of these creatures was somewhat exaggerated. Unlike other celestial treasures that had strict limits—such as the Millennium Vermilion Fruit, which became ineffective after three pieces—these creatures allowed a maximum accumulation of up to 1,000 points in physique and strength per serving. Crucially, this wasn't an absolute ceiling, but rather an annual limit.

This meant that, with talent bonuses, after increasing his physique and strength by 2,000 points this year, he could continue to refine and raise the upper limit by another 2,000 points the following year, year after year.

No wonder the Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven specifically used the Eight Desolations Prison Locks to captive-breed and carefully tend to these spirit fish; he wanted to farm them too.

"This place must be remembered. I can come back once a year to scavenge some."

The Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven would eat the bulk, while he himself would feed on the leftovers falling through the cracks. That was more than enough.

With such thoughts in mind, Su Yu refined a few more subterranean ley-line spirit fish, put away Ao Run, and continued to swim further down into the earth.

Fortunately, this belonged to the subterranean strata rather than the underwater bed, so the water pressure was not high.

If it were underwater, his current location would likely be hundreds of thousands of meters deep. Neither the Black Water Mysterious Pearl nor the water-evading immortal garments would allow him to linger at a depth of hundreds of thousands of meters.

Yet, even without water, the pressure at such depths was still immense, especially since the soil and rock here had been transformed by some unknown influence into a jade-like substance even tougher than spirit ores. The heavenly ghost's magic power consumption during tunneling grew increasingly heavy.

After resting well for a moment, the heavenly ghost continued its descent.

Plunging thousands of meters in one breath, upon entering a certain region, Su Yu abruptly discovered that the difficulty of earth-escaping had skyrocketed, while the spiritual energy contained within the jade-like soil and rock surged violently.

Su Yu raised an eyebrow and said with mild surprise:

"Have I entered the core region?"

The heavenly ghost continued downward. The deeper it went, the harder and more impenetrable the jade-like earth and stone became, and the denser the spiritual energy contained within the ground grew. Upon descending to a certain depth, he could even faintly sense some kind of ripple sweeping past the earth-escaping heavenly ghost.

"Could this be the benefit Ao Run spoke of?"

Pity that there was no space to release her while earth-escaping, otherwise he would have questioned her thoroughly.

After descending continuously for nearly half an hour, just as his magic power consumption exceeded fifty percent and he was considering whether to return and find a spirit grotto to recover his magic, the edge of a spirit grotto appeared at the periphery of his perception.

A surge of joy washed over him, and he hurriedly approached it.

Soon reaching the periphery of the grotto, he squeezed inside and instantly felt a torrential wave of spiritual energy rush over him like a bucket of ice water poured from overhead, chilling him straight to the bone.

Yet he had no time to be shocked by how abundant the spiritual energy in this grotto was; instead, staring into the grotto in utter astonishment, he drew in a sharp breath.

This was a unimaginably vast spirit grotto with an inner diameter of easily over ten kilometers. The edges were entirely composed of transparent jade glowing with a faint radiance that illuminated the entire grotto. One could see that at the bottom of this colossal grotto lay a massive spirit pool.

Inside the spirit pool was liquid spiritual energy formed from the liquefaction of pure spiritual qi, with spirit mist lingering at the bottom, as surging spiritual qi gushed forth to pour into this grotto.

Within this crystal-clear spirit liquid, schools of subterranean ley-line spirit fish swam back and forth in massive numbers.

The previously rare five-tailed subterranean ley-line spirit fish were everywhere here, and the even rarer seven-colored fairy fish—of which he had only ever seen three in total—numbered over a hundred here, interspersed with numerous eight-tailed and nine-tailed subterranean immortal fish as well.

Yet what shocked Su Yu the most was located right at the absolute center of the spirit pool: a crystalline jade pillar nearly ten meters in diameter protruding from the deep earth.

Atop that jade pillar was a smooth cross-section densely covered in array inscriptions. Eight light chains formed from runes rose from the array nodes in eight directions of the jade pillar, firmly binding a figure to the center of the grand array at the top of the pillar.

The distance was too great for Su Yu to clearly discern what the trapped entity was, but amidst the hazy blur, it vaguely felt like a humanoid silhouette.

After a brief inspection, his gaze shifted upward, spotting chains covered in dense runes converging toward the center above the spirit pool, tying into a giant lock platform a hundred times larger than the Eight Desolations Prison Locks he had seen before.

Atop that giant lock sat a white-robed Daoist, as wisps of spiritual power drifted upward to converge upon him.

Su Yu's gaze fell upon the white-robed Daoist, and his attributes instantly manifested:

Avatar of the Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven (Peerless): Earth Immortal, Level 240, Human, Secondary Primordial Spirit of the Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven.

"Hiss!"

"It's a mighty expert."

Subconsciously, he shrank back into the jade wall.

The secondary primordial spirit of the Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven, sitting cross-legged atop the stone lock, suddenly raised its head with a look of confusion.

Fortunately, this was located hundreds of kilometers deep in the underground, where the rock walls had transformed into jade and compressed further, boasting an extraordinarily exaggerated density that even the divine sense of an Earth Immortal could not penetrate, thus failing to detect the heavenly ghost hidden behind the jade wall.

---

"This place should be the ley-line convergence node for a radius of tens of thousands of kilometers, and also the core of this underground spirit grotto cluster."

Su Yu rubbed his chin, pondering what he could do.

Yet upon careful reflection, he concluded he could do nothing at all.

An Earth Immortal expert of over level 200 was right outside; he completely lacked the capability to pull anything off right under their nose.

"However..."

He probed with his gaze once more, looking longingly at the spirit pool beneath the Eight Desolations Prison Locks, which held perhaps thousands of subterranean ley-line spirit fish, making his mouth water.

If all these spiritual treasures belonged to him, how utterly blissful that would be.

Stably increasing his physique and strength caps by 2,000 points every single year meant 20,000 points in a decade—what kind of concept was that?

To say achieving physical sanctification through the flesh would certainly be an exaggeration.

Although these items had no stated upper limit and seemed capable of infinitely stacking attributes, no celestial treasure in the world could stack attributes infinitely; one could only say the ceiling of this spiritual treasure was extremely high.

This could be deduced from the fact that the Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven had not refined all these spirit fish; if they could be infinitely stacked, they would have long since been consumed and not left behind.

Yet regardless of whether it was infinite stacking, the effects displayed right now were already formidable enough.

Even if it could only stack for a decade, it would still be immensely powerful.

However...

Right under the nose of an Earth Immortal expert, Su Yu racked his brain and truly found no way to act, at best sneaking in every year to pilfer a few that the other party didn't want.

"Sigh!"

Su Yu sighed, glancing back longingly as he prepared to leave.

Yet when his gaze landed once more on the blurred figure locked to the jade pillar beneath the Eight Desolations Prison Locks, a thought suddenly stirred in his heart.

Since he was already here, he might as well see what exactly was locked inside.

Glancing around a few times, he turned and re-entered the jade-like earth and stone, extending his heavenly ghost claws to begin digging.

After a flurry of sparks, he excavated a subterranean space large enough to accommodate himself, then reverted to his true form to rest.

The heavenly ghost incarnation's magic power was nearly exhausted; he needed to recover.

Half an hour later, transforming back into the heavenly ghost, he descended along the edge of the spirit grotto.

Plunging all the way down to the bottom periphery of the grotto and feeling that the horizontal level was about right, the heavenly ghost drilled out from the spirit wall. Without poking its head out entirely, it pressed just a pair of eyes against the jade wall at a position precisely level with the jade pillar, instantly catching sight of a flawless figure bound by rows of runic chains atop that pillar.

That was a divine maiden whose form could be called flawless and immaculate, possessing true ice-skin and jade bones.

It was not a mere description; her skin was truly as transparent as ice, allowing the naked eye to see through the icy flesh to the jade-like skeleton within and the blood vessels flowing with azure-blue light.

Her face was the most perfect he had ever seen, surpassing even Chu Xinyue and Xiao Qingli.

The very first glance told Su Yu that this was no human.

The second glance revealed her name, making his pupils dilate instantly:

Incomplete Innate Water Spirit (Mythic): Innate Lifeform, Level 1, an innate lifeform born from the transformation of a wisp of innate clear breath combined with the water essence accumulated over hundreds of millions of years in the earth's ley-lines, yet suffering from insufficient innate origin, making true birth difficult.

"Hiss!"

This shock surpassed even that of seeing the Earth Immortal avatar of the Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven just moments ago.

"Wait, an innate lifeform?"

Aside from shock, Su Yu felt an overwhelming sense of absurdity and disbelief.

What was an innate lifeform? It was an entity born of the primordial chaos, also known as an innate deity, naturally capable of mastering a rule of the Dao. Upon reaching adulthood, they rivaled immortals and grew with the passage of time, possessing an extraordinarily high ceiling.

Yet such entities generally only birthed during the primordial opening of heaven and earth, when sufficient innate origin existed to spawn them.

As time passed and the laws of the world gradually perfected, innate origin slowly transformed into acquired spiritual qi, leaving no conditions for innate lifeforms to be born.

This innate water spirit was precisely such a case. Although fortunate enough to birth consciousness, her innate origin was insufficient, making true physical manifestation impossible.

Su Yu looked at this grand array, guessing whether the Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven had deployed it precisely to extract ley-line power to replenish her origin.

"That must be it."

Even upon seeing it for the first time, Su Yu knew the innate water spirit's current state was intolerable to the world.

The manifestation of an innate lifeform either succeeded or failed; it could not remain in this state indefinitely. Without an array to sustain her, she would likely have failed long ago.

"Tsk tsk tsk, what a pity."

If she could successfully manifest, it wouldn't take long before she became an immortal.

Innate lifeforms grew at an astonishingly rapid rate given sufficient resources: ascending to scattered immortal in a year, Earth Immortal in three, and Celestial Immortal in a decade was effortless. And Celestial Immortal was not her limit; for an innate lifeform, that was merely the starting point.

"So the benefit Ao Run spoke of was actually this?"

"How did she know about this? Has she been here before?"

He desperately wanted to drag her out and interrogate her, but there was nowhere to place her outside.

"What a waste!"

Su Yu smacked his lips, preparing to leave.

Yet reluctance tugged at him.

He had already laid eyes on an innate lifeform; leaving just like that felt far too regrettable.

"As a glorious fourth calamity, seeing so many good things without making a haul fails to live up to the name."

"I must find a way to make a grab."

His gaze shifted, looking around before quickly landing on the jade pillar at the center of the spirit grotto, then moving down to the base of the pillar and the boiling spiritual qi at the bottom of the spirit pool.

"Logically speaking, this innate water spirit needs to extract massive amounts of ley-line spiritual qi at every moment to sustain her existence, which means the grand array cannot be completely sealed shut."

Although ley-line qi could seep through the array and be drawn in, the efficiency was far too low and certainly insufficient to sustain an innate lifeform.

Don't let her level 1 fool you; innate lifeforms required innate origin, a nature incomparable to current acquired spiritual qi. Perhaps a hundred million units of spiritual qi extraction were needed to equate to a single trace of innate spiritual qi.

Therefore, Su Yu concluded that this grand array should differ from the other Eight Desolations Prison Locks he had seen previously; the point where ley-line spiritual qi converged at the bottom was definitely not completely sealed, leaving an opening to exploit.

"I'll dive to the bottom first and play it by ear. If there's an opening, I'll see if there's a chance to sneakily grab some; if not, I'll consider other options."

Making up his mind, Su Yu decisively descended.

Following the edge of the spirit grotto all the way down to the bottom, he instantly felt the surging spiritual qi within the earth sweep past him like a tide rushing toward a certain direction.

"There's definitely an opening."

Su Yu's heart settled as he escaped along the direction of the spiritual qi's surge, quickly arriving at the place of convergence where the spiritual qi had already compressed into liquid, with countless spiritual tides rushing in from all directions to form an ocean.

Su Yu glanced at his panel, which displayed that staying here would yield over 5,000 spiritual qi experience points every five seconds—an utterly exaggerated rate.

"Damn, just staying here and cultivating without doing anything would be enough."

"I'll see if there's an opportunity later; if not, I'll return to cultivate for a while and accumulate a wave of experience."

With a thought, the heavenly ghost swam upward along the spiritual tide.

Seconds later, it bumped into a solid object. Looking closely, it seemed to be the lower half of that jade pillar. Reaching out to touch it, it was clearly rock-solid yet absorbed the furiously rushing liquid spiritual qi like a sponge.

The heavenly ghost flew left and right along the jade pillar, soon blocked by a layer of barriers.

Circling the stone once, he knew the array above had only a single gap plugged by this jade pillar.

He immediately pressed his hand against the jade pillar, and the heavenly ghost, transformed into a wisp of light smoke, drifted toward the pillar.

*Clang!*

A microscopic, muffled sound rang out as the jade pillar suddenly flared with light. Dense array inscriptions surfaced on its surface, and the light smoke formed by the heavenly ghost was bounced right out.

In the upper spirit grotto, above the Eight Desolations Prison Locks, the avatar of the Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven suddenly opened its eyes. Its gaze, blazing like torches, swept toward the flawless figure awakened on the jade pillar at the bottom of the array, while its substantive divine sense swept instantly across the entire spirit grotto, yet discovered nothing at all.

After a brief silence, the avatar of the Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven closed its eyes once more.

Beneath the stone pillar, Su Yu wore a speechless expression.

The good news: the grand array indeed had a gap.

The bad news: it was plugged up.

"No go, time to head back and cultivate."

Resigned to his fate, Su Yu returned beneath the jade pillar, reverted to his true form, and sat cross-legged amidst the rolling spiritual tides.

Casually pulling Ao Run out from the spirit cage, he pressed a hand over her mouth and transmitted his voice:

"Keep quiet. An avatar of the Sovereign of Tibet-Heaven is right overhead."

Ao Run, who had been on the verge of struggling, instantly went limp. Her long flood-dragon body coiled around his waist from head to tail, resting her head upon his crossed thighs, and she opened her mouth to inhale the rolling liquefied spiritual tide into her belly.