In the blink of an eye, more than one month had passed. Every morning, when the first ray of sunlight burst across the skies, Wang Bugui would ascend to the peak of Yuxu Palace and meditate, clearing his mind of thoughts so that he could sense the laws of nature around him. Just as he was cultivating his prana power, he would replay the moves of the three mystical skills he knew in his mind.

After he had finished meditating on the roof of the palace, he would slowly open his eyes and they would turn from black to gold. His Innate Prana Power would then appear and slowly envelop his body. When that was done, the surrounding auras would also begin to gather around him. The various divine lights all around his body made him look like an immortal who had descended upon Earth after being banished.

He got up slowly and re-absorbed his prana power, dispersing the auras surrounding him at the same time. The golden glow slowly dissipated from his pupils, returning his deep gaze back to its usual clarity. He no longer seemed like an immortal from the Heavens by this point. The boy would then walk toward the Purple Waterfall. His speed was so fast that he covered the distance of about 200 meters in less than three seconds.

He would then begin the second phase of his daily training— cultivation of his martial arts by withstanding the huge pressure of the waterfall. After one hour of remaining in his stance below the waterfall, he would begin attacking. At this point in time, each of his strikes could force the flow of water back up by 20 meters.

He began to increase the pace of his attacks, and although the column of water only flew upward by 15 meters now, the speed of his kicks and punches were twice as fast.

The boy immersed himself in his training beneath the waterfall, the sounds of water being struck resonating throughout the entire Yuxu Pure Land, attracting all of its inhabitants to look at his practice. They saw his blood prana power being unleashed, and each of his blows contained immense power. His fists had turned gold and were engulfed by his strong blood vigor. He struck at the waterfall, which had a force of thousands of catties, and not a single drop of purple water touched his body.

He would practice in this manner until noon, whereby he would walk to the edges of the waterfall to meditate. He would not eat— he had officially embarked on the journey of enlightenment and could already avoid eating cereals. At most, he would drink some dew water and eat the wonderful medicine Yun Jinghong gave him. He rarely ate the fruit of the ancient forest, and there was no way he was going to consume meat within the Pure Land.

There was once when the desire to consume meat overcame him, and he tried to capture a huge bird that he had never seen before to grill. Before he could even touch a single feather of the bird, however, Yun Jinghong appeared and kicked him away before warning him that this was a roc that carried the lineage of the giant gold-winged rocs (albeit slightly), and that he would personally eat Wang Bugui up if the boy dared to consume the bird as food.

He then tried to lay his hands on a strange blue creature, but Yun Jinghong punched him into the ground before he could even get close to the little beast.

“Little fool, this is the qilin beast, a unique creature that carries the blood of qilins past. There’s only one of it left in this world. You’re really good at spotting! Let me tell you, don’t even try to touch any of the creatures in the Yuxu Pure Land!” Said Yun Jinghong in a huff. The boy could still recall the terrible memory of his master sitting on top of him and was afraid to even think about it.

From that day onward, Wang Bugui did not dare to eat any creature within the Pure Land on the sly. He stuck to the herbs in the ancient forest, dew water from the break of dawn, and occasionally some of the potent medicine Yun Jinghong would concoct for him.

After a short break, he would head to the training ground. It was as earth shattering as his battle with the waterfall— he would swing a 4.5-ton-heavy giant slab of rock, causing the Pure Land to rumble and the birds to flee.

After four hours of that, he would lay the huge stone slab down and meditate. His clothes would have already been soaked with sweat, enough to fill a bottle. He would channel his blood prana power to evaporate his sweat away before walking to the bottom of the Pure Land to begin his speed training.

The Yuxu Pure Land was about one-tenth the size of the entire Kunlun mountain range, about 50000 square kilometers. After reaching the Prana Body stage, Wang Bugui’s speed had increased considerably, and would run around the Pure Land at full speed for about an hour.

The ancient forest and Divine Lake in the center of the Pure Land took up much of his time. He did not know why, but he could feel that lately, the amount of gravity in the ancient forest had increased considerably, but everything within in seemed to function as normal. Yun Jinghong had also never mentioned that any gravitational field would be built. He decided to find out why at his second lap, confident that the white light would bring him back to his starting point if anything happened.

“What went on here exactly?” Wang Bugui asked himself as he darted quickly into the ancient forest. No matter how hard he searched, however, there was nothing that seemed out-of-place.

He plucked up the courage to go closer to the area near the epicenter of the ‘gravitational field’. He found that the gravity there was stronger, and it was a little hard for him to remain in motion, even at entry maximal speed level. After sprinting for another few minutes, he saw a stalk of blood red ginseng which looked extremely potent. It was rooted into a cliff that looked as though it had been carved out with a knife.

One whiff of its fragrance told Wang Bugui that it was of otherworldly quality. The flora which were within the radius of its fragrance grew more abundantly, but strangely there was no sign of any animals around them. Even the purple qilin spiritual beast, which used to roam about the ancient forest, did not seem to have come to this spot. By right, the creatures should have been treating this area as their paradise.

“This stalk of blood ginseng must be priceless. I believe that there should be very good effects from consuming it.” Said Wang Bugui as he looked at the bright red ginseng. He was lusting after it, and the daring of his youth overcame his common sense. He had already noticed that the spiritual beasts, with their acute senses, avoided this spot of the forest, but still he wanted to pluck the plant for himself.

Without a further word, Wang Bugui channeled his blood prana power and dashed toward the ginseng. He had already came up with a plan— as gravity would get stronger the closer he got, he believed that he could reach the middle of the cliff by sprinting at top speed to its bottom and leaping as high as he could, with the Endless Golden Body Manifestation to protect his body. He would then ignite his blood vigour and use his hands to scale the cliff quickly, grab the plant and then escape. If there were any accidents along the way, he would make use of the pendant to tear through space and flee.

“Endless Golden Body Manifestation!”

Wang Bugui shouted, his whole body shrouded by the bright golden light. He then shot out like a sharp, golden arrow, and just as he expected, gravity got stronger as he neared the area where flora was abundant. He suddenly realized the reason for this strange phenomenon when he noticed the words ‘restricted area’ written on a stone table beside an old tree.

“Damn, this is really a restricted area! The tablet was placed too deep inside the forest, and I missed it. I can’t care about this now. I have to act quickly!” Wang Bugui cursed silently. Even though he knew there was a possibility that he was entering a restricted area of the forest, he had not expected to actually be so unlucky. Now that the fact was before him, he could only keep his complain to himself and charge in. Since he was already in it, he might as well take back something useful.

When he was halfway there, however, the pull of gravity doubled. His eyebrows arched as he put in all of his energy into channeling his gold prana power to withstand it, before igniting his blood vigour to increase his speed. At the same time, he invoked his mystical skill of maximal speed, and various images of different types of footwork appeared in his mind. They merged into his legs, increasing his speed even further. The cliff was only a few hundred meters in front of him, and he had to give it his best shot.

“Ergh!”

Wang Bugui gave off a muffled grunt as he met with a mishap when he was 50 meters away from the cliff. By this point in time, gravity had increased to about ten times its original strength, and he was nearly dragged back onto the ground on his knees.

“Why did gravity increase by so much all of a sudden? Also, it’s not a gradual increase. This is too far from my initial expectations!” Wang Bugui gasped as he kneeled down upon one knee and supported himself with his arm, barely resisting the pull of gravity. He took a while to get used to it, and his brow was furrowed when he got up eventually, his expression incredibly serious.

His speed under the influence of such strong gravity was that of a jogger, but the blood ginseng was right in front of him. If he went further into the restricted zone, however, the gravity might be even stronger. What could he do about it then?

“I’ll fight through it again!” Wang Bugui made up his mind instantly. He triggered the Blood Ignition Technique for a short while and gave it a final shot. With a low growl, a small portion of his blood vigour began to burn, allowing him to break free of the shackles of gravity temporarily. He then sprinted toward the cliff.

He reached the foot of the cliff within three seconds, but began to feel the effects of gravity again. He had no choice but to use up a little more of his blood vigour— he was hell bent on obtaining the blood ginseng. His veins became visible and began to glow red.

In this manner, Wang Bugui began to climb and bound up the cliff with his arms and legs. He nearly fell a few times after failing to grab hold of the cliff, but luckily he was able to make use of a set of footwork known as ‘The Enraged Dragon Turns its Head’ to adjust his body position in mid air and return back to his previous position. Finally, he drew near to the ginseng plant and reached out to grab it.

“Bugui, come back!”

Just as Wang Bugui was about to succeed, Yun Jinghong came flying through the air from afar all of a sudden.

“Master! I’ll be able to pluck it now. Wait a minute!” Said Wang Bugui as he gritted his teeth.

“There are prohibitive measures placed on the blood ginseng. If you pluck it, you’ll be hit by the power of Taoism itself!”

Yun Jinghong exclaimed, his expression extremely anxious. His warning did not stop his disciple, however, and just as he finished speaking, the blood ginseng was in Wang Bugui’s hands.

“Boom!”

Less than a second after Wang Bugui had plucked the ginseng, a loud sound came from the cliff as a huge gold sword came crashing down from the sky. The boy instantly turned pale— the gold sword carried a force so great that he almost blacked out. Cracks appeared throughout the space which it traveled past, and it looked as though it was able to split the Heavens open.

“Spurt!”

A stream of gold blood flew into the air. Yun Jinghong arrived at the very last moment and used his own body to block the terrible Divine Sword. He did not stop moving after that, however. He hurriedly carried Wang Bugui with him as he retreated far away from the restricted area, but all of a sudden, a large seal appeared and trapped of them in it. At the same time, dozens of Divine Swords were suspended in the air and ready to descend upon them.

“Damn, the more skilled one is, the harder it is for one to escape.” Yun Jinghong muttered. He was seriously wounded from the attack earlier on, and was still coughing out blood.

Wang Bugui was about to ask Yun Jinghong why he did not use his power of Tao to block the attack, but his master seemed to have read his mind. “It’s not that I don’t want to use my Tao power, but there are some remnants of immortal formations past protecting this area, and the spirits residing within them are still here. If I unleash my power, they will get angry and strip me of my Tao powers, no matter whether I’m the Master of Yuxu Palace or not!” He said.

“What! Then, Master, you! I… Damn!” Wang Bugui spoke incoherently as he hugged his head and blamed himself for not expecting that entering the restricted area could be so dangerous.

“Don’t blame yourself. This blood ginseng is priceless and maybe it’ll be useful. Perhaps your pendant can help us escape.” Said Yun Jinghong as he thought quickly.

Wang Bugui drew out his pendant and wanted to infuse his blood prana power into the artifact to rouse it. Before he could do that, however, a ray of purple light shot out within the pendant— it was the purple crystal that Zi Yuxiao had given him. It gave out a bright purple glow and flew into the skies on its own accord. Strangely, the swords stopped moving when it noticed the presence of the pendant.

What perplexed them even more was the fact that the swords circled around the artifact, as if they were conversing with it. After a short while, the purple crystal returned back to Wang Bugui and stopped glowing. The Divine Swords gradually dispersed, as did the magic seal.

After that, rows of shiny golden words appeared on the cliff. “Bearer of the purple crystal, it’s said that you’re an exceptional talent of our sect. There’s another magical item here that will be more effective when used with the Blood Ginseng. If you’re truly unique, come back here after two months. If you dare to accept my test, I’ll reward you.”

“This is…”

Even Yun Jinghong was amazed at the turn of events, much less Wang Bugui. It was evidently the work of the spirits within the formations that had survived. How could this have happened? Wang Bugui had trespassed into the restricted area, and not only was he not punished, the spirit even offered to test him.

“Let’s go back first. Since the spirit has spoken, you can return after two months if you dare.” Yun Jinghong said as he wiped away the trail of blood on the corner of his lips. He instructed Wang Bugui to kowtow alongside him to the spirits guarding the restricted area before turning to leave.

“This was the tomb of that person, and the only spot where our founding father left an immortal formation behind before ascending to the Immortal Realm. Even the previous Human Emperor didn’t dare to step foot here, so why did the spirits allow Bugui to enter and even forgave my trespassing? Bugui even managed to enter the Palace of Purple Clouds. Could it be that…” Yun Jinghong muttered to himself along the journey back, causing Wang Bugui to feel puzzled.