Chapter 2851: Spirit Moves, City Empties
In the end, he still hadn’t died.
Zhang Ruochen woke up, his head splitting with pain, his internal organs feeling unbearably uncomfortable, as if they had been burned.
His eyes were somewhat dazed, and he laughed mockingly, “What ‘Life and Death’? It can’t even kill a person!”
His voice was hoarse and aged.
Extremely unpleasant to hear.
Hearing such a voice coming from his own mouth, Zhang Ruochen would feel uncomfortable at first. But after decades, he had grown accustomed to it, just like this old and weathered body—it was all a part of him.
“It’s not that my wine isn’t strong enough, but that your vitality is too tenacious.”
In the room, an extremely pleasant voice sounded, like fine rain in a green mountain, capable of washing away the dust in one’s heart.
Hearing this voice, countless fantasies about the owner of the voice would arise in one’s mind.
It formed an extreme contrast with Zhang Ruochen’s voice.
Zhang Ruochen slowly sat up, finding himself lying on a soft bed, covered with a white beast skin that emitted a divine radiance.
It was the skin of a divine beast.
Any Great Saint, or even some false gods, would fight desperately for this skin. But now, it was only used to cover the bed, pressed down by Zhang Ruochen, an old man, not looking like a treasure at all.
The entire room was antique, adorned with calligraphy, paintings, and lamps. In the spacious area, there was also a pool.
In the pool, spring water dripped.
A very large room, elegant in every detail.
Moreover, everything revealed a breathtaking quality—the calligraphy, paintings, lamps, pool water—all had extraordinary origins, not something cultivators at the Saint realm could access.
Zhang Ruochen supported his aged body, walked toward the sound, and saw a figure in white standing by the window, looking out at the lake.
By the lake, purple bamboo swayed, the scenery picturesque.
“I am the owner of this estate. You can call me Yu Yao,” she said.
Zhang Ruochen found a chair and sat down, poured a cup of hot tea, and drank slowly, saying, “Has Huang Tian left?”
“He has left,” Yu Yao said.
“Alright, I’ll take my leave too.”
Zhang Ruochen took a divine stone from his space ring, placed it on the table, and prepared to leave.
“This morning, someone sent an old yellow ox, saying it’s yours.”
Yu Yao finally turned her face and looked at him.
Zhang Ruochen was surprised and looked at Yu Yao.
This woman was indeed pure and stunning, matching her beautiful voice.
She had a scholarly aura, appearing quite delicate, yet full of infinite vitality and liveliness. She wore no ornaments, and even her jet-black hair was simply tied behind her with a cloth ribbon.
But even if she were as beautiful as a celestial maiden, she stirred no ripples in Zhang Ruochen’s heart.
His heart was like a still lake.
The old yellow ox was tied in the purple bamboo forest, out of place with the surrounding scenery. At that moment, two exceptionally beautiful Saint realm maidservants were attending to its feeding, both very lovely.
What it ate was naturally not ordinary grass, but sacred medicine and divine spring water that even Great Saints could hardly obtain.
Seeing this, Zhang Ruochen felt that offering just one divine stone was far from enough. Except for gods, who could afford to stay in such a place?
Zhang Ruochen didn’t need to guess who had sent the old yellow ox here.
Besides the drunkard, who else would be so bored?
Zhang Ruochen touched the fur on the old yellow ox’s back and sighed, “You’re just an ordinary yellow ox, not a divine beast. Eating such good things, aren’t you afraid your body will explode?”
On the old yellow ox’s body, there was a spiritual power imprint that even Zhang Ruochen found hard to sense. It was precisely this that allowed it to withstand the Great Saint patterns, Dao locks, and divine patterns of the sacred city.
It even made the cultivators of this estate think it was some kind of divine beast, bringing it the most precious food.
Hadn’t he seen two top-tier Saint realm beauties attending to it?
“Let me help you!”
Zhang Ruochen released his spiritual power, drawing the sacred qi and divine qi from heaven and earth, channeling them into the old yellow ox’s body to refine its physique.
“Whoosh!”
The old yellow ox’s body immediately emitted a bright light.
The light changed from yellow to gold.
In the decades at the inn, Zhang Ruochen had prolonged the lives of the old yellow ox and the two white geese, but he only crushed sacred sources into powder and fed them small amounts.
But after decades of companionship, how could there be no feelings?
Since the drunkard insisted on having the old yellow ox and the white geese compete, and personally delivered the ox here, how could Zhang Ruochen let it fend for itself on Xinghuantian?
It was time to fully awaken its intelligence and teach it cultivation methods.
Not for the competition.
Zhang Ruochen thought that after his death, the old yellow ox should at least have the ability to protect itself, not be slaughtered and turned into a meal.
But an unexpected event occurred!
Zhang Ruochen had intended to refine the old yellow ox’s body to the Half-Saint level. That way, even without the drunkard’s spiritual power imprint’s protection, it could move freely in the sacred city.
For a spiritual power god, this was no difficult task!
However, halfway through the refinement, the power of heaven and earth surged violently. The sacred qi of the entire sacred city, including the divine qi from a divine vein underground, was drawn like a black hole, converging into the old yellow ox’s body.
In a sacred city, there were naturally many experts.
All the powerful cultivators’ gazes turned toward the estate. Above it, a massive vortex of sacred qi and divine qi appeared, pulling down the clouds from the sky.
“Why has such terrifying energy fluctuations suddenly appeared, draining all the sacred qi and divine qi from the entire sacred city?”
“A sacred city can support the normal cultivation of millions of Saint realm cultivators. How can it be emptied all at once?”
“Even if a great god were cultivating in the sacred city, this couldn’t happen. Could it be that a god venerable has descended upon the sacred city?”
“Not necessarily. If someone were undergoing tribulation to become a god, this could also happen at the moment of ascension.”
...
Although the entire sacred city was alarmed, no cultivator dared to approach that estate.
Those who dared were stopped by their elders through voice transmission.
Zhang Ruochen, who was helping the yellow ox refine its body, hadn’t expected this either. It was as if he had only intended to dig a ditch to channel water into the desert.
But instead, he had drawn an entire ocean.
He thought he had harmed the old yellow ox.
The old yellow ox surely couldn’t withstand such immense energy; it would turn into a blood mist, its divine form annihilated.
But something even more surprising happened. The sacred qi and divine qi drawn from heaven and earth were not at all violent or foreign, as if they were cultivated by Zhang Ruochen himself.
Although they entered the old yellow ox’s body, merging into its flesh, bones, and organs, under Zhang Ruochen’s control, these energies formed a wondrous balance with its body.
It was like when Zhang Ruochen had cultivated the Wuji Sacred Intent.
His power was clearly insignificant, but by controlling the balance of time and space, the balance of the five elements, and the balance of yin and yang, he could contend with the power of the entire universe.
And he survived.
The old yellow ox’s current state was like his state back then.
As long as the balance was disrupted even slightly, the old yellow ox’s body would instantly shatter.
The only difference was that this state was maintained by Zhang Ruochen for the old yellow ox, not something the ox could achieve on its own. Moreover, even Zhang Ruochen himself didn’t know how he could do it.
Because under normal circumstances, maintaining such a balance was beyond his current spiritual power.
The Saint realm maidservants standing nearby were stunned speechless, their eyes filled with the utmost reverence, as if they had seen a god venerable, immediately kneeling to Zhang Ruochen.
With their cultivation levels, they naturally couldn’t see the intricacies.
But they could feel the changes in the old yellow ox’s body.
In an instant, it reached the Half-Saint level.
Then it rose step by step, its body becoming Saintly, and it continued to grow stronger at an astonishing speed.
The two of them had cultivated for centuries to reach their current Saint realm cultivation.
Yet, with the help of this old senior, an ordinary yellow ox had reached their level in an instant. What kind of technique was this?
Even a great god might not have such a technique!
Not to mention them, even Yu Yao, standing in the distance, had a flicker of surprise in her calm, bright eyes.
Because she saw through the essence of it.
“No wonder... no wonder he personally delivered the yellow ox. Could this old man also be an ancient sage of that level?”
But Yu Yao thought again and found it wrong.
If this old man were truly such a figure, his meeting with Huang Tian yesterday wouldn’t have been like that.
In Yu Yao’s mind, the mystery surrounding the old man had undoubtedly deepened.
No matter how much sacred qi and divine qi entered the body, it still needed nurturing for the body to become strong.
Nurturing took time.
After the body became Saintly, the rate of the old yellow ox’s physical enhancement didn’t slow down much, but reaching the Saint King level couldn’t be done overnight.
A Half-Saint was a cup.
A Saint was a vat.
A Saint King was a pool.
A Great Saint was a lake.
Filling a cup or a vat wasn’t too difficult. But filling a pool at the same speed would take considerable time.
If one didn’t know physical cultivation techniques to speed up absorption and nurturing, this time could be very long.
Zhang Ruochen led the old yellow ox out of the estate and headed straight for the Goddess First City.
Yu Yao didn’t stop him.
The Goddess First City and the sacred city where Zhang Ruochen was now were actually the same city. Or rather, the Goddess First City was a city within a city.
Actually, that wasn’t quite right either.
Because on Xinghuantian, the Goddess First City came first. Due to its prosperity, other buildings were constructed around it, taking countless tens of thousands of years to develop into a sacred city.
The Goddess First City and the outer sacred city were completely separated by walls, and even the city-protecting formations were independent.
The outer sacred city was called “Garment City” or “Goddess Garment City.”
Cultivators entering the Goddess First City from the Goddess Garment City were almost all young. Even those Great Saint elders who had lived for tens of thousands of years deliberately changed their physical appearance.
Such changes naturally couldn’t fool spiritual power experts.
Only Zhang Ruochen, an old man leading a yellow ox, stood out, drawing pointing fingers and ridicule from many cultivators.