On the Emerald Lake.
The five ancestors of the Golden Core Realm were suspended above the lake in their escaping light, chatting and laughing with each other.
Among these five rays of light, in addition to Taoist Sansha, Ancestor Yuanxu and Baihong Sword Immortal, there are also two unfamiliar Golden Pill monks.
One of them is a tall and muscular man with a beard and a thick face, wearing a cardigan; the other is a thin and slender young swordsman with an expressionless face, carrying a sword box on his back.
"It's actually him?"
Zhang Yao's eyes were fixed on the bearded man, showing a hint of surprise:
"Quite a natural..."
Hundreds of years have passed since the Battle of Cangjiang Water Palace started by the Dubu League.
But as the first serious body-training monk he had ever seen, Zhang Yao still had a deep impression on Man Tiansheng.
In the battle at Shuifu, this man was defeated by Zhang Yao and fled in panic. The battle was not over yet, and Zhang Yao did not bother to chase him.
"At the beginning, after the defeat of the Dubu tribe, the Dubu alliance collapsed. This person seemed to have escaped from Dali."
"I didn't expect that hundreds of years later, he would actually reach the Golden Core realm. Maybe he had some adventure?"
Zhang Yao didn't care too much when he thought about this.
With his current strength, even an early stage Jindan cultivator of the body refining method is not enough for him to take him seriously.
"Boom!" "Boom!"...
The escaping lights of Zhang Yao, Ancestor Haihe, Fairy Xiaguang and Fairy Feiying slowly fell from the sky.
"Huh? They're coming!"
Taoist Sansha and others immediately stopped talking and laughing, and all looked over.
"Sure enough, it's him! The Master Qingxu back then..."
Man Tiansheng crossed his arms and stared at Zhang Yao with burning eyes, with irrepressible fighting spirit and fire in his eyes.
He has always been brooding over the defeat that year.
Later, he got the opportunity to refine his body in the Xu Kingdom. After many hardships and twists and turns, he finally reached the golden elixir realm. His strength was completely different from what it was back then.
After refining the golden elixir, he can already be regarded as a high-level body-refining monk, and his strength is more obvious than that of monks of the same level. After learning about Zhang Yao's illustrious reputation, he still wanted to compete and avenge his shame. .
"Um?"
Zhang Yao glanced at him, noticed the excitement in his eyes, and couldn't help but smile.
"This bull is still as dumbfounded as before."
"That is Ancestor Qingxu!"
The eyes of Taoist Sansha and others also focused on Zhang Yao, their eyes showing the vigilance of facing a formidable enemy.
The name of a person, the shadow of a tree.
This ancestor of Qingxu, who was powerful in the southwest and dominated the country, had long been regarded as the number one enemy in their exploration of the Emerald Palace, so they naturally paid special attention to him.
"..."
No one on either side spoke, and there was no intention of being polite, and the scene suddenly became quiet.
Secretly, members of the two camps used their spiritual thoughts to communicate with each other, and Fairy Feiying and Fairy Xiaguang were still guessing about each other's tactical arrangements.
After waiting like this for about half an hour:
"Rumble..."
The calm lake surface suddenly set off huge waves, countless undercurrents surged, and layers of waves swept across.
"coming!"
Many Jindan monks were refreshed.
Everyone's spiritual thoughts shot down one after another, but they saw that the ground at the bottom of the lake was surging, the lake water was flowing in all directions, and a magnificent palace with jade inlays and carved railings slowly rose up.
Looking through the spiritual mind, the whole palace has a green color, as if it is made of sapphire or fused jade. It is so ingenious that it seems to be formed and carved from a complete jadeite as big as a mountain. out.
"The Emerald Palace... deserves its reputation."
Zhang Yao took a deep breath and suppressed the shock in his heart.
The portraits recorded on the jade slips are of course far more touching than seeing is believing.
Unlike other golden elixir ancestors, Zhang Yao, as a third-level formation master with astonishing attainments, is also keenly aware of the obscure and subtle spatial fluctuations when the formation pulses are running.
"This Emerald Palace is not located underground in the Emerald Lake."
A new judgment emerged in Zhang Yao's heart.
After the Jade Palace was last opened, it sank to the bottom of the lake and disappeared. Ancestor Haihe and Taoist Sansha also tried to search underground, but they found nothing after diving thousands of feet underground.
They originally thought that it was because the concealment methods of this Emerald Palace were too mysterious;
But now, in Zhang Yao's view, this Emerald Palace is not here at all on weekdays. Instead, it appears here through long-distance space movement at specific times.
"This level of spatial movement...even in ancient times, was quite astonishing."
As Zhang Yao's mind became more solemn, he also looked forward to the rewards in the Jade Palace:
"It seems that the background of this Emerald Palace is much more powerful than I imagined."
"Let's go!"
Ancestor Haihe said hello, and immediately together with Zhang Yao, Fairy Xiaguang, and Fairy Feiying, they broke through the lake surface and flew away towards the Jade Palace at the bottom of the lake.
"Let's go too."
Taoist Sansha opened his mouth and hurriedly flew down with Patriarch Yuanxu and Sword Immortal Baihong, followed closely by Man Tiansheng and the young swordsman.
Just a few breaths later:
Everyone passed through layers of lakes and came to the Emerald Palace.
In front of the shrine, all the lake water was drained, and the powerful forbidden air formation forced everyone to lower their escape light and land in front of the jade platform.
Passing through the jade platform and stepping onto the ninety-nine jade steps, the door of the Jade Palace is tightly closed, but there are nine obvious hexagonal gaps.
"Buzz!" "Buzz!"...
A crystal clear emerald green talisman flew out from the bodies and storage bags of the nine golden elixir monks, emitting thousands of rays of light and covering their respective masters.
The light from the front section converges into a hexagonal shape and shines on the gap. You can see the light converging like water.
"boom!"
The door of the Emerald Palace suddenly opened, revealing a wide and bright hall.
The nine jade tokens flew back and were taken back by their respective owners. Zhang Yao, Patriarch Haihe and others looked at each other and stepped into the hall first.
The moment you step into the temple:
Zhang Yao's eyes flashed, as if he had entered a colorful passage, with all kinds of bizarre sights flashing back and forth like a revolving lantern.
"The first level has arrived."
Zhang Yao was calm in his heart and showed no signs of panic.
The target selection and checkpoint procedures of the Jade Palace are all fixed. He already knew this and was fully prepared.
Soon, the colorful passages collapsed and turned into twisted and illusory routes, turning the surrounding world into a maze.
Zhang Yao looked around for a moment, then chose a route and strode forward without any hesitation.
The first level tests the strength of the soul and thoughts.
The weaker the soul and the ability to sense spiritual thoughts, the harder it is to distinguish between true and false the maze scene you see; on the contrary, the stronger the soul is, the easier it is to see through the simulated truth.
And this distinction between strength and weakness is based on the same realm, not absolute strength. This is naturally great news for Zhang Yao.
"It's so simple."
With the strength of Zhang Yao's soul and mind, he could directly see through the false appearance of seven or eight of the ten routes at a glance.
This greatly reduces his trial and error cost. At most, he only needs to try it once or twice before he can immediately find the real path and go to the next stage of the spiritual maze.
After walking in the maze for about a quarter of an hour:
"Wow!"
My eyes suddenly opened up, the light bloomed, and the illusory maze around me collapsed.
Zhang Yao squinted his eyes and saw his surroundings clearly again, and suddenly came to the last part of the first hall. In front of him was a closed sapphire ancient door.
"It's really awesome!"
There was a hint of solemnity in his expression.
He turned around and saw that the distance between where he was and the entrance to the palace was only a dozen feet.
And even this short distance of more than ten feet has traveled at least several thousand feet in his perception. This is enough to show that the formations against the souls in the Jade Palace are far beyond what he can catch a glimpse of.
"It's at least a top-level fourth-level formation, and maybe even a fifth-level formation!"
Zhang Yao was facing this way when his expression suddenly changed.
A mysterious message came from the sky and poured into his mind. It was the basic message from the Emerald Palace.
The message is simple:
In addition to briefly introducing the rules of the Emerald Shrine, it is also emphasized that trialists in the Emerald Shrine cannot attack each other except in certain specific areas. Violators will be expelled from the Emerald Shrine.
"In a specific area?"
Zhang Yao was keenly aware of this word and immediately understood it in his heart.
No wonder Ancestor Haihe and Fairy Xiaguang deduce that there may be confrontational levels in the later stages of the Jade Palace, precisely because of the hidden information revealed in this message.
Except for the confrontational levels, the exploration process itself is not dangerous. The real danger is after the exploration is over.
"It's not yet time."
Zhang Yao withdrew his gaze and no longer paid attention to the many golden elixir monks in the first hall.
Except for him, the rest of the people had their eyes closed and were stumbling forward, even slower than a snail.
The fastest Taoist Sansha was still seven or eight feet away from the ancient Jade Gate where he was, and according to time estimates, it would still be at least a quarter of an hour.
"Well……"
Zhang Yao turned his head and looked at the transparent jade beside the ancient sapphire door.
On the transparent jade biscuit, there were lines of golden text, which obviously represented some kind of name, but Zhang Yao couldn't recognize what the text was.
"Could it be some kind of ancient writing derived from Yin etching and Yang engraving?"
Zhang Yao had some guesses in his mind, but he couldn't judge.
The historical gap caused by the great destruction of the ancient times has caused many things to be lost. The language and characters circulating in the world of immortality today and in the mortal world were made up by later immortal sages on the basis of ancient fragments.
But it is also because of this that the writing and language that were not unified in ancient times were unified after ancient times, and the same language was used all over the world.
"In ancient times, there were so many talented people."
Zhang Yao looked at the words on the transparent jade and sighed.
You don't need to guess, this must be some kind of list, and there are numbers-like symbols behind it, which should be a time scale.
Zhang Yao's soul is already very strong and can compete with soul cultivators at the same level, but he can't even reach the last place in the top ten list. This shows how fierce the competition in ancient times was.
And among all the levels in the Emerald Shrine:
You must wait until all trialists have completed the level, either successfully or failed, and then the door to the next level will be opened.
This meant that Zhang Yao was the first to break through the first level, and could only wait patiently for the others to pass - they were all Jindan realm monks, and it was impossible for them to not be able to pass the first level.
Zhang Yao waited quietly for a moment:
"Um?!"
Taoist Sansha finally arrived in front of the ancient Qingyu Gate and suddenly opened his eyes.
After being in a daze for a while, he quickly reacted, with a hint of joy in his eyes:
"It finally came out..."
Then, he noticed Zhang Yao beside him, and his heart suddenly tightened, but he soon relaxed.
He also realized that this was the inside of the Jade Palace. No matter how arrogant and vicious Zhang Yao was, there was no way he could attack him unless he wanted to be expelled.
"He is indeed first, but I don't know how far ahead of me he is..."
Taoist Sansha had been mentally prepared for a long time, but when things came to an end, his mood was still a bit complicated.
During the last exploration, he ranked first in all aspects, and finally beat everyone and won an ancient spiritual treasure.
But in this exploration, there were too many strong people. Let alone first place, he couldn't even guarantee the top three. He could only try his best to stay behind and seek a turn.
"Fellow Taoist Qingxu."
As Taoist Sansha's thoughts turned around, he suddenly said:
"There's something I want to tell you."
"oh?"
Zhang Yao glanced at him and said casually:
"What do fellow Taoists Sansha want to say?"
He wanted to see what kind of medicine the Sansha Taoist was selling in his gourd.
This person is not so stupid that he wants to sow discord between Ancestor Haihe and Fairy Xiaguang before they wake up, right?
However, beyond his expectation, Taoist Sansha actually did this:
"Fellow Daoist, I don't know what Haihe and Xiaguang told you, but you must be careful about them!"
Taoist Sansha looked solemn and said:
"Do you know how I convinced Ancestor Yuanxu and Baihong Sword Immortal to join forces with me to deal with Haihe and Xiaguang after we left the Jade Palace?"
Hearing this, Zhang Yao became really interested and signaled:
"Then tell me."
"My reason for persuading them is actually only one point."
Taoist Sansha looked calm and said:
"I dare to conclude that one of Haihe and Xiaguang must have a problem!"
"Ancestor Yuanxu and Baihong Sword Immortal finally agreed with my judgment and decided to join forces with me to form an alliance."
Zhang Yao narrowed his eyes and said:
"What do you rely on to judge?"
"It's very simple."
Taoist Sansha slowly opened his mouth and said:
"We have actually attended the regular gatherings on the Emerald Lake many times, but this is the first time for Haihe and Xiaguang to attend."
"Needless to say, Haihe is an outsider. He has been excluded before. Only in recent years has he been reluctantly accepted and qualified to participate in the Emerald Lake meeting."
"As for Fairy Xiaguang, it has been fifty or sixty years since she achieved the Golden Elixir, but before that, her master, Fairy Hongxia, was still alive, and Fairy Hongxia had always represented the Luoxia Sect in the competition, until Fairy Hongxia's birthday sixteen years ago. Just sit down."
Speaking of this, he paused and his tone became more solemn:
"I never believe that there are unprovoked coincidences in the world."
"We Golden Core cultivators have gathered at Emerald Lake many times in the past, and every time it was calm and nothing happened."
"But the last time five years ago, after Haihe and Xiaguang participated, the Emerald Temple suddenly appeared. Isn't this suspicious?"
(End of chapter)
