“Su He! Are you heading to the arena to fight?” A golden dragon crashed into Chenfeng Mountain, shouting loudly at Su He.

The arena is always an embellishment to the activities of cultivators. A gathering of Divine Beasts and cultivators isn’t complete without setting up an arena.

Su He opened his eyes and shook his head; he had no interest in the arena. Could fighting there compare to the minor divination advancements?

After spending more than ten days on Chenfeng Mountain, the sorcerer’s pen in the realm bead had finally taken shape. The chaos at the summit of Tai’a Mountain was churning and condensing, as if sensing something was about to happen, growing denser by the moment.

The sorcerer occasionally looked up at the chaos, eager to try.

But his power was still weak, not yet capable of opening the heavens.

Su He didn’t know what kind of Elixir Ji Feixue had fed him, but not only were there strange visions, the speed at which the Heng Gua revealed the world’s origin also suddenly accelerated the next day, so fast that it frightened Su He.

Without a moment’s rest, Su He helped Tai’a Mountain refine the world’s origin.

As he cultivated, the sorcerer’s power grew stronger step by step.

Su He now had no interest in external things, completely engrossed in his cultivation!

Meng Xuan snorted disdainfully and then asked Su He, “So, are you going to place a bet? The arena is open for betting! I’ll be the banker, guaranteeing your win!”

Su He shook his head: “My family doesn’t like me gambling.”

Meng Xuan looked down on him even more. Don’t think I didn’t see that big dice of yours! Even the Mountain God Seal has become a dice, and you say you don’t like gambling, are you trying to fool a dragon?

Not at all straightforward, she huffed and leaped into the air, flying down from Chenfeng Mountain towards the arena in Yunmeng Marsh.

Su He thought for a moment, then called out in his mind, and This Turtle appeared in a flash, covered in beast blood, holding a large saber, and looking at Su He with a murderous gaze.

“What’s the matter?” This Turtle was annoyed; the war was at its fiercest, and yet it had been summoned here.

It wasn’t time for the Dragon God Festival yet, was it?

“How is Yaya?” Su He asked.

“Her consciousness has entered the beast’s body, but her memories haven’t been sealed yet. The Mother Ape is fighting with Su Huanian over the girl, and you’re asking about this?”

Couldn’t this be asked in the mind? Why summon it here?

“The Dragon God Festival has opened the arena, take some spirit stones and elemental crystals, and bet on Meng Xuan to win no matter who the opponent is.”

Money isn’t important, relationships need to be maintained. Spending a little to show support can add bricks to the relationship, and there’s no better deal than that.

“Also, support that little Zeng and the Hengong Fish if they enter the arena.”

This Turtle: “???”

I’m neglecting my military duties to help you gamble?

“And you?”

“Cultivation!”

That reason was too strong, leaving This Turtle with nothing to say. It hopped down from Chenfeng Mountain, searching for Meng Xuan to gather recent intelligence on Yunmeng Marsh.

Although it had occasionally contacted Su He these past few days, it wasn’t very familiar with the situation here, only knowing that Su He had fought and won. It didn’t say more.

Taking a few steps, it looked up and sighed.

The country needed it, and leaving now, it didn’t know when it could return. By the time it returned, Feng Yaya might have transformed into a beast, Green Snake might have usurped power, and it might not even have a say anymore.

The position of the Left Prime Minister was gone…

This Turtle felt a sense of loss.

Su He closed his eyes again, his consciousness sinking into the realm bead, using his will to make the minor sixty-four divinations revolve around Tai’a Mountain.

The speed at which the Heng Gua revealed the world’s origin was too fast, and the efficiency of absorption by the minor sixty-four divinations alone was too low.

As he began to cultivate, a vision appeared in his mind again. It was still the creation of a world, but it was no longer a real minor world. Instead, it was a Divine Beast, opening up a world within the realm bead. This was a Huodou, a species marked by blood feud with the Dragon Turtle, similar to a Teng Snake.

It lay limp on the ground, unconscious. The realm bead was controlled by an invisible force, and within it, a black dog-shaped divine instrument tore open the chaos, creating an inner world.

The inner world was created, but it was only a small piece. Nothing special.

A white paw appeared, swiping the Huodou out of the vision. A line of text appeared on a jade tablet beside it:

The soul-suppressing is useless, can open the heavens, not yet emerged from the amniotic membrane.

Looking at the tablet, it was densely packed with similar research.

In the past few days, from what Su He had seen in the vision, this pair of white paws had troubled a total of twelve Divine Beasts! She had been researching from the creation of minor worlds outside to the Divine Beast’s inner world within the realm bead.

Over the past several days, Su He understood what she wanted to do. She wanted to open up the inner world of the Divine Beast and generate an amniotic membrane!

Was this something only a dragon could do?

But the thought alone was thrilling beyond measure.

From the previous experiments, Su He had seen that if an amniotic membrane formed during the creation of a world, the membrane would collapse upon reaching its limit, turning into chaos—a sustainable kind, like the chaos outside the three thousand great worlds. After refining into a world, new chaos would still emerge.

The chaos within the Divine Beast’s realm bead was limited. Once the heavens were opened, advancing further would require grinding the inner world bit by bit, drawing the world’s origin from the outside to nourish the inner world, a process that could take tens of thousands of years to advance.

…

Time passed day by day, and the temperature in Yunmeng Marsh began to warm up. The arena proceeded orderly, not hindered by Su He’s absence.

Although people mentioned him, no one came forward to challenge without knowing better—the power of the second region’s divination water element was well known to those who had climbed Chenfeng Mountain.

Not many were truly brainless.Meng Xuan sang triumphantly along the way, becoming one of the most popular contenders alongside Feng Yi. With the Four Spirits gathered, the arena was bound to be more exciting, but Dragon Turtle Su He was in seclusion, and Kylin Mu Wei was reclusive, seldom leaving his Cave Mansion and not participating in the arena.

Only when everyone was focused on the arena and no one paid attention to him, did he quietly use his Divine Ability to peek at the arena and compare it to his predictions of the winners and losers. Although he didn’t place bets outside, he was certainly betting in his heart.

When the contender he believed would win emerged victorious, he would roll around in joy. Otherwise, he would sulk alone in his Cave Mansion.

These past few days, the toad had been conducting its business shrewdly and was now beyond returning to its old ways. It truly began to enjoy itself in the Cloud Dream Marsh, engaging in gambling, markets, and auctions, its presence indispensable everywhere.

It acquired a large batch of supplies for their beast nation, even signing supply contracts with several sects for long-term purchases of weapons and spiritual rice.

To cover these expenses, it even set up a small stall selling tobacco, which was surprisingly successful—Su He’s money was his own, and the beast nation’s was the beast nation’s; it distinguished them very clearly.

The Dragon God Festival was drawing closer, and the competition in the arena was becoming more intense.

Meng Xuan and Feng Yi finally clashed. At this moment, the dragon and the phoenix had already shattered the platform beneath them. Feng Yi looked at Dragon Xuan and spat out a mouthful of blood, which ignited into a blazing fire upon hitting the ground.

The phoenix’s eyes were filled with fighting spirit, yet also with astonishment. Were the youngsters nowadays all so unreasonable? You, a six-thousand-year-old golden dragon, have gone too far by beating me until I bleed.

Of course, there was another even more unreasonable one who did not participate in the arena.

Feng Yi glanced towards Chen Feng Mountain. Flame Crow and Zhu Yan had suffered far more severe injuries. Although as ordinary Divine Beasts they naturally couldn’t compare to the Four Spirits, to challenge a second-realm Divine Beast just half a year after transcending the heavenly tribulation was utterly shameless.

Dragon Xuan shook his body, shedding broken dragon scales all over the ground, yet seemingly feeling no pain, his eyes instead full of fighting spirit as he said nonchalantly, “Why look at the turtle? Do you want to fight him too?”

“Ptui!” Feng Yi spat out a flame, refusing to be compared to the likes of Flame Crow and Zhu Yan! Divine Beast battles were either against those of the same age or the same realm.

She fought Bai Ling because they were of the same age, and fought Meng Xuan because they were of the same realm. What honor was there in bullying a young turtle that had just passed its heavenly tribulation?

The dragon and the phoenix exchanged contemptuous glances and then collided in an instant, with the phoenix’s cry and the dragon’s roar resonating. The two creatures tacitly refrained from using Divine Abilities, engaging in pure physical combat.

The toad hid at a distance, shouting hoarsely with its fists raised, “Beat her! Bite her! Whip her!”

With each shout from the toad, a radish-shaped soul beast beside it echoed, “Toad Lord is right!” This was Meng Xuan’s soul beast.

Not far away, a lightning-shaped soul beast sparked with electric fire, grinding its teeth in frustration. But due to the disparity in numbers between friends and foes, it dared not approach and could only mutter quietly, “Nonsense!”

…

Inhale…

Exhale…

With each breath Su He took, a vast amount of vital energy surged into his nostrils, a breathing technique he had acquired from his ancestral sea. Although it was only the Dragon Turtle Breathing Technique and did not yet incorporate the Spirit Snake, it was better than nothing.

Merely circulating the Realm Bead’s minor trigrams was somewhat a waste of time. It was better to practice the technique and cultivate the physical body simultaneously.

Su He multitasked, with half of his consciousness on cultivation and the other half on the images brought by the Elixir.

Today, a Heavenly Dog was opening the heavens.

More characters had appeared on the jade slab beside him:

Yayu A, severed Divine Sense, failed to open the heavens…

Great Phoenix B, stripped away the Realm Bead, the amniotic membrane appeared, failed to open the heavens…

…

Heavenly Dog C, severed consciousness, successfully opened the heavens, amniotic membrane appeared.

Zhu Huai D, expelled consciousness, successfully opened the heavens, amniotic membrane did not appear.

Each line represented a Divine Beast’s attempt to open the heavens. At this moment, Su He looked at those names with a calm heart; half of them were enemies marked by the Dragon Turtle Blood Curse. The other half were not much better.

In the image, a pair of white turtle claws continued experimenting. Today, they did not sever the new Heavenly Dog’s consciousness but expelled it instead, then sealed the memories within the consciousness. The experiment… was a success!

Another line appeared on the jade slab: Heavenly Dog E, expelled consciousness, sealed memories, successfully opened the heavens, amniotic membrane appeared.

The image shattered there. The day’s experiments had ended…

She actually succeeded?

Su He ended his cultivation and looked up at the bright moon.

Those claws were unmistakably hers, so the Elixir was not given by Ji Feixue, but by Bai Ling?

He had a rough idea of what she wanted to convey.

But an opening of the heavens without conscious control, producing an Elixir-like result, one could imagine the combat power.

Su He had the Sixty-Four Trigrams, the world’s origin revealed by the Heng Trigram; he was confident that when he opened the heavens, he would astonish all Divine Beasts.

If he allowed consciousness to open the heavens autonomously, he feared… the size of heaven and earth would become a joke among all beings.

He wondered if Bai Ling had solved this problem.

Su He lacked Bai Ling’s methods, unable to capture many Divine Beasts for repeated experiments, and he did not have the time either. He could feel that the moment to open the first realm of heaven was approaching.

The images were quite annoying; apart from the first day’s real-world creation, there was only one Divine Beast opening the heavens each day.

Su He was somewhat impatient for tomorrow’s image.

A night of cultivation passed without incident, and the next day… the image did not appear, breaking the continuous streak of over twenty days. Then, there was no image on the third day.

Nor on the fourth day.The scene had come to a complete end! Bai Ling didn’t even consider this issue!

Days passed, and the scene did not reappear. Su He grew anxious for several days before forcing himself back into cultivation.

At some point, the Yunmeng Marsh was covered with blooming lotuses of varying sizes, some petals spanning two to three miles, while others were no larger than a fist.

Each lotus radiated strands of brilliant light.

Su He was awakened by the croaking of a toad. When he awoke, it was already the twenty-ninth day of the month. In two more days, it would be the Dragon God Festival, and it would be unreasonable not to wake up by then.

The scene ultimately did not reappear. Su He had to ponder alone whether to leave his body in spirit, block out his memories, and open the heavens with the divine artifact on his own.

There were many ways to leave one’s body in spirit, whether it was to completely immerse one’s consciousness into the Mountain and Sea Mysterious Realm or to transform into a beast during the Dragon God Festival and leave the body in spirit.

But blocking out memories was difficult.

Su He only had the modified Beast Transformation chapter given to Feng Yaya by Uncle Luo, which contained relevant methods. But it was difficult, and Su He alone could not do it.

He did not know how to concoct elixirs!

At this moment, within the realm bead, the witch and the brush had completely solidified, and the witch could wield the brush to open the heavens. But it had not yet reached its limit, still far from it. Opening the heavens could not be rushed; it had to wait until the divine artifact reached its pinnacle and could no longer refine the world’s origin.

Upon waking, Su He first went to visit Ji Feixue and indirectly inquired about elixirs, only to be teased by her and ran out as if escaping. He visited the elders of the dragon race and received a pile of gifts.

The Four Spirits had always had a good relationship, and the Dragon Turtle clan had an even better relationship with the dragon race. When Meng Xuan hatched, she also received gifts from the Dragon Turtle clan.

This was the way of reciprocal courtesy.

Yunmeng Marsh became increasingly lively, with divine birds soaring in the sky, Flood Dragons roaming, Dragon Turtles lurking in the waters, and Divine Toads leaping.

The toad was thriving among the many Divine Beasts. It introduced Su He to one Divine Beast after another, filling his schedule for two days, even introducing him to the sect leaders and elders of the major Sects.

It wasn’t until the deep night of the first day of the second month that the social activities finally came to an end, and then the toad threw him aside and ran off somewhere.

In the deep silence of the night, Meng Xuan was not by his side. With major events of the dragon race and guests from all directions, many matters required her presence.

The waters of the marsh rippled, and Su He enjoyed a rare moment of tranquility.

Just then, a figure approached stealthily, a middle-aged man dressed in a gray robe covered with various paints, resembling a common painter who made a living by selling paintings.

Su He only noticed him when he got close.

This man’s Cultivation Level was incredibly high, and he had intentionally allowed Su He to detect him; otherwise, it would have been difficult to notice him even at close range.

“Young friend, you’ve been busy!” He approached and greeted Su He with a bow, his face filled with sighs: “Old Taoist Yun Yuan from Xuantian Sect, I’ve long wanted to visit young friend Su He, but your soul beast charges too high a fee. Old Taoist is short on funds and truly cannot afford the introduction fee, so I had to wait until you had seen everyone before coming over quietly.”

“???”

“!!!”

“Cuihua!” Su He shouted in his heart. No wonder for two whole days, one introduction after another, the toad wouldn’t even give him a moment’s rest, having met over a hundred Divine Beasts and the leaders of the major Sects.

The Sects that could participate in the Dragon God Festival were all top-notch. Qingyuan Sect unified Dongyun but didn’t even have the qualifications to observe the ceremony.

It seemed the toad had guessed he would be angry, as Su He could sense it fleeing rapidly, getting farther and farther away.

In the deepest part of Yunmeng Marsh, the toad was counting its earnings, having made a big profit this time.

With this return, it could at least secure a position as the Minister of Revenue, and perhaps it could persuade Feng Yaya to step out of her small world and play in the Mysterious Wasteland.

With an Exotic Beast and a toad, they could conquer a realm. Wouldn’t it be reasonable for her to become a proper founding empress?

What’s the point of just fighting with Exotic Beasts? Establish an empire! These past few days, it had learned that the dragon race had once done this.

There was still a great world with a Dragon Imperial Court established, where dragons were revered. The emperors even called themselves True Dragon Sons of Heaven!

If dragons could do it, why not Dragon Turtles? In terms of background, no one was inferior to the other!

Su He took a deep breath and looked at the approaching middle-aged man. Yun Yuan from Xuantian Sect, this was the Sect Leader of Xuantian!

Actually, the Dragon Turtle and this man had met once before. On the day outside the Seven Extremes Secret Realm, the Sect Leader of Xuantian had made a move, but Su He only saw a divine figure pulling down a piece of the sky and had not seen his actual face. Today was the first time he saw his true appearance.

This was a Divine Beast in human form!

Even the aftermath of the battle between the Dragon Turtle and the Teng Snake could be suppressed, indicating the depth of his Cultivation Level.

In front of him, Su He took out the Hakutaku List, and before he could look, the Sect Leader of Xuantian shrugged and said, “Three hundred and forty-first place, but Hakutaku must have made a mistake. I’ve fought those in the top three hundred, and I think my ranking should at least be in the top three hundred.”

He became indignant as he spoke: “That old woman from Tianxing Palace actually ranked two hundred and ninety, and she’s in the two hundreds, while I’m outside of three hundred! It shows that Hakutaku is blind!”

Is this a competition of vanity?

Su He silently put away the Hakutaku List.

Hmm, aside from him, the lowest-ranked member of the Dragon Turtle clan was Uncle Lei, only ranked eightieth. Nearly missing the number ninety-nine, thinking about it, he was not afraid of Xuantian Sect at all.

Their Sect Leader wasn’t even ranked as high as the tail end of his own clan.

The closer to the front of the Battle List, the more valuable the ranking. A single rank difference was like heaven and earth.

In the top hundred of the Battle List, Divine Beasts occupied half, and all the adults of the Four Spirits were within the top hundred… well, not all, two from the dragon race lagged behind, ranking one hundred and seven.

My Dragon Turtle is invincible!He looked towards the Xuantian Sect Leader, unsure of what this person was approaching to do.

After finishing his tirade, Yin Yuan turned to Su He, rubbing his hands together with a somewhat embarrassed expression, and asked, “Um, can I fight Feng Yiju?”

Chapters 8 to 16 of this volume have been revised. If you are currently reading and notice any discrepancies in the plot, you may start over from Chapter 8. The complete modifications and replacements will take about 10 minutes, starting at 12:00 PM on May 17th. If you begin reading after 12:10 PM, you should be able to proceed without any issues.