Rise of Humanity

by <unknown>

  Zhong Yue stared at the snowflake in his hand. Suddenly, a surge of psyche emanated around him, and snowflakes were then formed, flowing outward and clashing with the falling snowflakes.

  Bai Shuyue was shocked, and she said, "Senior Martial Brother Zhong has learned the Bai Zhe Clan skills before?"

  Zhong Yue shook his head and responded, "No, but this skill isn't too difficult to deduce anyhow."

  Bai Shuyue was shocked, she thought, I needed to use half a month to learn it. There was even an elder guiding me along the way. But this human only needed to look at the snowflake's totem patterns for a few minutes and was able to learn it? Is all-encompassing knowledge really the key to omnipotence, or is it something else?

  As they walked deeper into the core of the ice palace, the snow began to grow heavier, blowing on their faces like billowing waters and obstructing their visions.

  Zhong Yue turned his head back, and the corridor they came from had turned into a tiny black dot. Soon after, it had disappeared entirely from his vision.

  In front of them, the Flowers of Snow had gotten more powerful and vicious. Sparks of fire could be seen, and raucous screeches could be heard as the snowflakes continually collided with one another.

  Zhong Yue and Bai Shuyue struggled, and their pace greatly slowed. At this point, the snowflakes were as powerful as Inner Core Qi Practitioner soul weapons!

  With the countless snowflakes blowing at them, it was tantamount to hundreds of the soul weapons relentlessly attacking them.

  Even Zhong Yue was shocked; he never thought that the young lady would still be in such decent condition after all of that!

  He then looked carefully at her and immediately, he discovered the little tricks she used; Bai Shuyue's control of power was exceptionally fine. The little snowflakes she let out did not only clash with the incoming snowflakes, but they have also redirected the other snowflakes to clash with the others. Like this, each snowflake of her's would counter two or more snowflakes in the ice palace, allowing her to save a whole lot more energy.

  On the other hand, Zhong Yue had been relying on his abundant arcane energy to neutralize each snowflake individually.

  All of a sudden, an ice statue appeared in front of them – a Bai Zhe beast that was frozen in ice.

  Bai Shuyue's beautiful countenance then turned gloomy, and she said, "He is one of ours, a senior that had entered the ice palace for Lord Bai's heritage; but now, it seems like his prowess was lacking and is now sealed in the ice forever."

  The two of them continued going, and they then saw another young lady that was frozen in the ice. She was incredibly beautiful and was donned in a flowery dress.

  The further they went, the more Bai Zhe Clan seniors they could see. For the past 50,000 years, an uncountable number of experts tried to enter the ice palace for Lord Bai's heritage, but none have ever succeeded.

  “A Heavenly Dharma expert!”

  Zhong Yue and Bai Shuyue reached the front of another ice statue. It was a thousand-foot tall Heavenly Dharma Bai Zhe Clan member. He had morphed into the state of [Atman Body as One] but still died of exhaustion.

  At this point, the snowflakes had reached Heavenly Dharma soul weapon levels of strength. Bai Shuyue was now beginning to suffer wounds as blood trickled down from her mouth while Zhong Yue was also feeling the struggle of advancing.

  What has Lord Bai left in the ice palace? Why are there such powerful seals? It's like he doesn't even want his descendants to obtain his heritage.

  “The Boundless Great Sun!”

  Zhong Yue yelled softly and morphed into his Golden Crow form. He spread his wings out, and a great sun was blasted forward, melting the snow away in its path.

  He then raised his hand to grab the young lady at her waist, and he then flew into the sun.

  Bai Shuyue's body was tensed up at first, but in just seconds, the young lady had relaxed her muscles and allowed Zhong Yue to grab her in his arms.

  They flew inside the sun that Zhong Yue powered with his arcane energy, coalescing the sunfire and demon sunfire together so that the snowflakes would be melted before they reached the two of them.

  The snow was then heavier, restraining the great sun smaller and smaller while after flying for a few miles of distance, Zhong Yue’s great sun was then compressed to its smallest.

  “【Celestial Demon Tai Chi Art】, unleash!”

  Zhong Yue yelled and dispersed the Golden Crow celestial being form. The【Celestial Demon Tai Chi Art】then emerged, and those snowflakes that blew on them disappeared in the Tai Chi Art.

  “Hm?”

  When those snowflakes were disintegrated by the Tai Chi Art, he could feel a surge of energy billowing over him from each snowflake, marginally increasing his cultivation bit by bit while his Yuan Shen was also growing larger.

  This….

  Zhong Yue was puzzled, the Flowers of Snow was no doubt created as a killing skill, yet, why is it so effective for cultivating when disintegrated?

  “Senior Martial Sister Shuyue, look at this!”

  Zhong Yue conducted the energy from the snowflakes to Bai Shuyue, and immediately, Bai Shuyue's body quivered as she felt her inner core and cultivation base becoming increasingly stronger. Her eyes were filled with disbelief, and she shouted, "Why is such pure energy contained in the snowflakes? This is even better than medicinal pellets?"

  "Has the Bai Zhe Clan never noticed this before?" Zhong Yue asked curiously.

  Bai Shuyue then shook her head and said, "It's a skill, how can it be decomposed? The Bai Zhe Clan doesn't have any skills that can decompose other skills. How did Senior Martial Brother Zhong do it?"

  "These attributes are typically exclusive to demon cultivation techniques. The Demon Saint's【Heavenly Saint Godly Radiating Art】is a skill that can do this. It is used for decomposing matter into pure energy for the cultivator. But I've incorporated that into my own【Celestial Demon Tai Chi Art】. I think this is why I can do it," Zhong Yue explained out loud.

  "Demon cultivation technique?"

  Bai Shuyue startled, and she mumbled, "This pure energy can only be obtained by disintegrating the snowflakes, why has Grand Ancestor Lord Bai made such arrangements?"

  Zhong Yue cast the【Celestial Demon Tai Chi Art】while they moved forward. Not long after, the snowflakes became as powerful as strikes from magnates themselves. Even Zhong Yue was suppressed on the spot, only being able to move an inch at a time with blood trickling out from his mouth.

  However, with the snowflakes getting stronger, the energy in them was also stronger, allowing him to recover from the injuries right after suffering them.

  Zhong Yue stood on the spot and continued absorbing the pure energy, strengthening his inner core while channeling the extra energies into Bai Shuyue, helping her strengthen her inner core and cultivation base as well.

  The two stood on the spot for four days, and their inner cores had been refined to a nearly flawless degree. Their cultivation base had also been substantially increased.

  Their inner cores were basically at the extreme state of the Inner Core level, perfectly refined and to take a step further in prowess would be the formation of their Avatar from the heaven and earth.

  "We have accomplished more than a few years of hard works in just days." Zhong Yue said. "However, even if we enter the Heavenly Dharma level, we may not be able to traverse to the end."

  Bai Shuyue looked forward and saw nothing but snow for as far as her vision could extend. Her heart then began to sink. Zhong Yue surged out the divine eye and extended his vision past the snow. Abruptly, he said happily, "There are only three miles left, after these miles, we will reach the second seal."

  But Bai Shuyue shook her head, and she said, "We can never make it through this three miles…"

  “Big, big, big, big, big!”

  All of a sudden, Zhong Yue took out the Golden Peng Sword and yelled. The golden sword turned into a 30,000 feet long giant sword, and he laid it horizontally above t
he ground.

  Before Bai Shuyue could react, a muscular arm curled around her waist again and her vision blurred as she traveled through the three miles in just the blink of an eye!

  Dong——

  Zhong Yue placed the young lady on the ground, Bai Shuyue was still standing on her previous stance and was bewildered.

  “Small.”

  Zhong Yue kept the sword, and he looked forward - there was a frozen sea in front of them and an elder sitting on a layer of thin air. He had been dead in the case for god knew how long, his smile frozen on his face.

  “A magnate, a Bai Zhe magnate!”

  Zhong Yue's heart skipped a beat, and he looked around. Not far away from the elder, there were also many other elders, over hundreds of them, on the frozen sea. Each of them had a different stance and facial expression!

  Fifty thousand years of time, the Bai Zhe Clan have sacrificed too many magnates in search of Lord Bai’s heritage.

  “This is?”

  Zhong Yue and Bai Shuyue turned back and were stunned. The snow behind them was all gone, and before them was only a huge picture scroll hovering in the air.

  That picture scroll had a world of ice painted on it.

  It was the world that they had just walked out of!

  Chapter 406: Luminant Sun Gold |

  The picture hung in the skies, and when looked carefully, it was like they could feel the roaring wind blowing out of the picture.

  The godly weapon left behind by Lord Bai!

  As he examined the Scroll of the Flowers of Snow, Zhong Yue murmured, “When did we enter this picture and when did we leave it?”

  On the other side, Bai Shuyue murmured in awe, "We walked for over a thousand miles in the picture… Does that mean that the area in the picture is bigger than that? What about those that were killed in the picture?"

  She then looked at the picture again, only to find ice sculptures, one after another, standing in the picture. These ice sculptures were the Bai Zhe Clan's Qi Practitioners that perished to eventually become part of the picture.

  Zhong Yue's attention, however, was concentrated on something else. He saw the long hallway that they walked through in the picture, and at the very end of the hallway was an ice palace. The Frozen Ancient Capital of the Bai Zhe Clan was directly behind the palace!

  Could it be that the Frozen Ancient Capital is actually in the picture? Have we been staying inside the picture all this time and only just got out of it?

  Instantly, he felt that everything happened right now was incomprehensible.

  If the Frozen Ancient Capital built within the North Barren were located in the picture, did that mean that the North Barren itself was also inside the picture?

  Could it be that only by escaping the art would one be able to return to reality?

  The more he thought about this, the more confused he became. Slowly, he felt that the line separating reality and illusion was growing more indistinct.

  "This picture only contained about a thousand miles of the North Barren. It is not as strong as you think. If Lord Bai managed to do what you thought, he would have been on the level of the Creator," said Xin Huo.

  Through Zhong Yue's vision, Xin Huo looked around and said again, "These ancient gods are all scum. How dare they use the Ancestral Star dimension to forge their own godly weapons! No wonder the Ancestral Star has become so small!"

  The confused Zhong Yue then asked, “Xin Huo, how much of the Ancestral Star’s dimension was used by these ancient gods?”

  "The Ancestral star was much larger before, but these idiotic gods had nothing better to do. They all thought that the Heavenly Emperor returning to this planet to die was a license for them to keep taking portions of the Ancestral Star to make into their own. Just the portion stolen by Lord Bai himself was larger than the current Ancestral Star! I am very sure that aside from those we already know, there are even more ancient gods that stole the land of Ancestral Star and make it into their own godly weapons!"

  "Just how big will the Ancestral Star be if the stolen dimension if the star were recovered?" asked Zhong Yue again.

  “At least a thousand times bigger.”

  Zhong Yue then murmured, "These robbers! When I ascend as a god in the future, I will recover all that stolen land!"

  "If you manage to do so, the Ancestral Star will be enlarged by a few times! The scene will definitely be quite incredible to behold!"

  Meanwhile, Bai Shuyue examined the picture, and she tried to claim this godly weapon for herself. However, she failed inevitably as even the previously strong Qi Practitioners of her clan failed. Thus, she gave up after a few attempts.

  “Xin Huo, any ideas on allowing me to claim this godly weapon for myself?” asked Zhong Yue again.

  "I do have some ways and means, but you are not strong enough yet."

  "Senior Martial Brother Zhong, I am not strong enough to advance on the path ahead easily anymore, I will have to rely on you then. Knowledge is power. Everything will depend on you from now on."

  Zhong Yue opened up his divine third eye and looked at the ice surface ahead of them which seemed completely ordinary to the naked eye.

  However, under the gaze of his divine eye, various colorful totem carvings appeared in his vision. These glowing totem carvings were all chained together as they all moved around the ice surface.

  Judging from the large portion of these glowing light of the totem carvings that circled around frozen Qi Practitioners, these totem carvings were most probably some kind of dangerous seal.

  However, since he was not strong enough, he couldn't do anything despite being able to see these seals.

  It was Xin Huo that possessed the knowledge that allowed him to know the weaknesses of the many things he saw, not Zhong Yue himself.

  “Xin Huo, can you help me to dispel these glowing seals?” asked Zhong Yue.

  "These glowing seals implemented by Lord Bai are far weaker than the seals in the Devil Soul Forbidden Land, so its not a problem to lift his seals. But with that your strength right now…."

  "However, I can guide you into the seals without any problem."

  Zhong Yue then took up his Golden Peng Sword, and as he entered the ice field carefully, the young lady from Bai Zhe Clan closely followed behind him. Under Xin Huo's guidance, Zhong Yue got past the seals one after another, and they continued going deeper into the ice field.

  The further they advanced, the greater the number of frozen Bai Zhe Qi Practitioners that appeared in front of them; some appeared in their human form while others were in the beast form.

  There were also tons of frozen magnate level soul weapons, but with them being frozen, it was impossible to pick them up.

  The ice field turned into a gold mine all in a sudden. After the death of the many Qi Practitioners, there were all sorts of precious herbs, materials and soul weapons that laid bare on the ground, but they could not even pick one up.

  Tempted, Zhong Yue walked forward, and when he tried to separate these frozen items from the ground with his Golden Peng Sword, he only managed to cut down a little bit of the black ice even after using all of his strength

  And the severed part of the black ice immediately grew back, making it impossible to retrieve any of these frozen items. With no options left, he gave up and suddenly, Bai Shuyue shouted, "The Bloody Saint Orchid Tree! It is frozen here as well!"

  As soon as Bai Shuyue saw the bloody red tree that emitted supremely vibrant life energy and with three orchids hanging on its branches, she shouted again, "This godly herb is still alive! It did not die from the cold! The tree only produces one flower every 10,000 years. Look at the three orchids … It has been here for 30,000 years!"

  "The Luminant Sun Gold!"

  Zhong Yue's attention was immediately drawn to the godly herb, and when he looked at it, he felt an immense life essence that caused him to feel at ease.

  The godly herb's efficacy may not be stronger than the saint herb, but the saint herb that Zhong Yu
e once absorbed was a saint herb that was consumed by the saint spirit beforehand. Thus, the efficacy of the saint was definitely stronger than the godly herb.

  However, it would be very beneficial to him if he got his hands on the Bloody Saint Orchid Tree.

  What a shame….

  Similar to the other items, they were unable to retrieve the godly herb, and they continued their advance only to encounter even more incredible objects.

  Those were divine gold pieces collected by a Bai Zhe Clan's magnate Qi Practitioners. They were all frozen in the black ice, and yet, they still emitted blinding rays of aureate light.

  Obviously, the magnate Qi Practitioner was about to forge a soul weapon with these godly gold pieces, but before he could put his thoughts into actions, everything had become frozen in ice.

  Zhong Yue shook his head and continued walking. All of a sudden, he sensed something and quickly turned around. He suddenly felt an unknown but familiar and dreary presence not far away. What he saw was a black charcoal-like object that was sealed in the black ice.

  This charcoal-like object looked extremely dull, and it did not emit any sort of alluring light that many either high-level artifacts did, but this was also what drew Zhong Yue attention. Not only that, but this object caused Zhong Yue's sun spirit to tremble with expectance as if this charcoal-like object were very important.

  “The Luminant Sun Gold!”

  Xin Huo had a shock upon seeing this object, and he quickly shouted in joy, "Brat Yue, this is something perfect for you! It is a divine gold that got separated from the core of the sun undergoing supernova! Whether it be crafting equipment or cultivating the sun spirit, this gold will be able to bring you unlimited benefits! With the Moon Core Mystic Gold, you can forge a top graded soul weapon and nourish your sun and moon spirit!"

  Without any hesitation, Zhong Yue quickly rushed towards the Luminant Sun Gold. But upon reaching it, he was only able to frown in disappointment at the fact that he had no way to extract the divine gold from the black ice.