Chapter 3497: The Eight of This Era
"Gurgle, gurgle!"
In the cauldron, the snowy white broth boiled, its fragrance spreading in all directions.
Zhang Ruochen ate the lamb, occasionally lifting his head to look at the Hong Cauldron and meet the gaze of the eye on its body.
He was too conflicted!
He wanted to quickly find the Kui Liang Emperor and eliminate this greatest threat from the Quantity Organization. Yet, he also didn't want to hand over the Hong Cauldron and the divine pill inside to Feng Tian.
He had to calm down and eat some lamb soup first.
He had already carefully examined the formation inscriptions on the Hong Cauldron's rim, finding no residual aura left behind. Clearly, the spiritual power supreme who had set up the formation had been very cautious.
However, although the formation inscriptions of the same formation and the alchemical inscriptions of the same divine pill were identical, different formation masters and alchemists would inevitably have their own unique techniques in inscribing the markings.
It was like the same character written in different handwriting.
In other words, traces must have been left in the inscriptions of the formation and the divine pill.
"Perhaps I can do this!"
Zhang Ruochen sent a chopstick flying from his hand, striking the rim of the Hong Cauldron. With a bang, the formation inscriptions burst forth.
Zhang Ruochen fixed his gaze on those formation inscriptions, tracing them with his fingers and imprinting them onto a roll of divine beast hide.
These formation inscriptions were extremely profound. With Zhang Ruochen's current level of spiritual power attainment, he could only barely manage to inscribe some of the simpler ones.
After inscribing dozens of formation inscriptions, Zhang Ruochen rolled up the brown divine beast hide, hid the Hong Cauldron away, then left the Five Realms Heaven and headed toward the Heavenly Fate Department.
The Heavenly Fate Department held a special position within the Destiny Temple, primarily responsible for divination, sacrifices, scripture storage, spiritual power inheritance, fate deduction, intelligence compilation and summarization, and so on. However, it rarely participated in punitive expeditions, and most of its cultivators practiced spiritual power.
The Heavenly Watch Platform and the Startling Cloud Pavilion were the most important places in the Heavenly Fate Department.
The Heavenly Watch Platform housed the world's most rare and precious scriptures. It could be said that taking any scroll out from there would cause bloodshed and turmoil in the mortal world.
"Greetings, Ruochen Divine Venerable!"
"Greetings, Divine Venerable!"
...
As he passed by, cultivators who saw Zhang Ruochen bowed respectfully.
Among them were not only cultivators from the Ten Clans of Hell but also human cultivators in Daoist robes and monk's garments.
The Yin-Yang Divine Master came out to greet him, facing Zhang Ruochen with his Yang body. With sleeves like two clouds, he clasped his hands and bowed, saying, "Ruochen Divine Venerable, I have been waiting for a long time!"
"Divine Master knew I would come?" Zhang Ruochen asked.
The Yin-Yang Divine Master said, "Your Divine Venerable's First-Rank Divine Path begins with Taiji, gives rise to Two Forms, and condenses Four Symbols. It may seem very similar to the Daoist lineage, but in truth, you are walking your own path. Walking another's path is easy; walking your own is difficult."
"Only by reading ten thousand books and learning ten thousand paths, with a clear and thorough understanding in your heart, can you have a chance to find the path ahead. How could the Divine Venerable not come to the Heavenly Watch Platform?"
Zhang Ruochen said, "Feng Tian has already agreed."
The Yin-Yang Divine Master smiled and said, "The Divine Venerable retrieved the Auspicious and Fulfilling for the Divine Temple. For such a request, Feng Tian would surely agree."
"Lead the way. I wish to peruse the files of the eight Tiantian Wuque of this era." Zhang Ruochen said.
A flicker of surprise passed through the Yin-Yang Divine Master's eyes, but he did not ask further and simply led the way.
After bringing Zhang Ruochen to the "Wuque Book Pool," where the files of the Tiantian Wuque were stored, the Yin-Yang Divine Master took his leave, as if he had no concern that Zhang Ruochen might steal the scrolls.
The Wuque Book Pool was vast, filled with densely packed bone slips.
They were all polished from divine bones, capable of being preserved for eternity.
Wooden tags hung from the bone slips, bearing the names of Tiantian Wuque from ancient times to the present.
All the Buddhas and Confucian Ancestors, including Xi Zhan, A Fuya, and others—beings who had reached the ninetieth level of spiritual power in various eras—all had their records.
Zhang Ruochen took down the bone slip corresponding to the wooden tag inscribed with the three characters "Yan Tingqiu" and opened it to read.
It contained a detailed record of the Second Confucian Ancestor's life, commentary on his path of spiritual power, and transcriptions of various inscriptions he had left in the mortal world.
However, when Zhang Ruochen took down the file on Xi Zhan, it was completely blank.
Although Zhang Ruochen was very interested in these famous Tiantian Wuque of ancient times, he did not forget his main purpose. He came to the bookshelf storing the files of the eight Tiantian Wuque of this era.
Although there were only eight Tiantian Wuque, the files related to them numbered over a thousand volumes.
Every few tens of thousands of years, a new volume of secret records related to them would be added.
There were even detailed analyses and visualization diagrams of the cultivation methods of these eight Tiantian Wuque.
"Yama Tai Shang, Void Great Calamity Palace. Southern Heaven Life-Death Ruins, Star Sea Angler."
"Human Ancestor Fallen God Island, Crimson Glow Flying Immortal Valley. Demon Ancestor Houtu, God-Defying Nine Heavens."
Zhang Ruochen took out the texts related to Qing Tian, Yama Tai Shang, and Void Heaven, searching for diagrams of their formation inscriptions and carefully comparing them with the inscription patterns he had imprinted on the divine beast hide.
Because he believed that, relatively speaking, these three were more likely to be the Kui Liang Emperor.
But the results disappointed him!
So, Zhang Ruochen then began comparing the patterns of the Star Sea Angler "Yu Linsheng," Crimson Glow Flying Immortal Valley "Xianxia Chi," and God-Defying Nine Heavens "Old Wine Ghost."
Still no match.
Zhang Ruochen took down the scroll inscribed with the five characters "Demon Ancestor Houtu" and flipped through it. This recorded a Tiantian Wuque from the Demon God Realm. It was said that this person was a descendant of the Demon Ancestor, living in seclusion in Houtu for many years.
During the divine war a hundred thousand years ago, he had made a move once, clashing with Yama Tai Shang, his spiritual power unfathomably deep.
However, the Destiny Temple suspected that this person had little lifespan left, so he had fallen asleep in Houtu. For the past hundred thousand years, he had rarely shown himself to reduce the loss of life force. He had once campaigned at the North Marsh Great Wall, but like Yunshen Daozhu, he had hardly made a move.
After a careful comparison, there was still no match.
Zhang Ruochen finally noticed the last scroll—Human Ancestor Fallen God Island.
Opening the scroll and seeing the first sentence, he was secretly shocked.
The Fallen God Clan of Fallen God Island was a descendant of the Space-Time Human Ancestor, the oldest inherited clan of the Kunlun Realm.
Since ancient times, only three people had been able to simultaneously control time and space.
The first was the Space-Time Human Ancestor!
Even though the Space-Time Human Ancestor had fallen countless eons ago, he had still left many traces in the Kunlun Realm.
Places like the Nether Prison, the Mirror of Fate, and the Sword Pavilion were all suspected to be related to him.
Zhang Ruochen naturally would not suspect Yunshen Daozhu, but he still made a comparison.
Without a doubt, there was no match.
"Could it be that the Kui Liang Emperor deliberately concealed the traces in the formation inscriptions? Or is my spiritual power still not strong enough to detect the subtle differences?"
Zhang Ruochen frowned deeply, flipping through the texts again, activating the Heart of Truth to continue searching for flaws.
When he rolled up the bone slip again and looked up, he was startled to find an old man in plain clothes standing at the end of the bookshelf.
That old man was clearly not human, nor did he belong to any of the Ten Clans of Hell. He had tree roots growing from his chin and withered leaves on his head.
Zhang Ruochen put the bone slip back on the shelf and walked over, saying, "Senior, are you the World Tree that bears the Fate Divine Domain?"
The other party's spiritual power was terrifyingly high. Although Zhang Ruochen's full attention had been on the bone slips, even a Great Unbound Infinite could not have approached within ten steps of him so silently.
With such formidable spiritual power, in the Destiny Temple, besides Void Heaven, only the World Tree Spirit, which had made Zhang Ruochen suffer in the Heavenly Fate Department's Divine Prison, could do this.
The old man in plain clothes saw that Zhang Ruochen had regained his composure in an instant and faced him without any pressure. He already had an assessment in mind, but his expression remained unchanged. He said, "I am merely a humble commoner guarding the Heavenly Watch Platform!"
He walked forward with his hands behind his back, his steps unsteady, and said, "The person you are looking for may not necessarily be among those files."
Zhang Ruochen looked at the divine beast hide in his hand, pondered for a moment, and followed, saying, "Does Senior know what I am looking for?"
The old man in plain clothes did not turn around, saying, "Reaching the ninetieth level of spiritual power is called Tiantian. Tiantian means infinite and without flaw. And once one breaks through this realm, the phenomena caused in the universe are far greater than breaking through the Infinite Realm."
"However, there are exceptions. For example, the one from Southern Heaven... no, it should be called Nine Heavens. When Nine Heavens broke through to Tiantian Wuque, it was silent and unnoticed. It was not until he fought with Shang Tian of the Paradise Realm that the world learned the truth."
Zhang Ruochen said, "Why is that?"
"The universe is vast and boundless. There will always be many things beyond common sense. I am not Tiantian Wuque, so how could I know the secrets of Tiantian Wuque?" the old man in plain clothes said.
Zhang Ruochen said, "So, Senior believes that the Kui Liang Emperor is very likely the ninth Tiantian Wuque?"
The old man in plain clothes stopped, looked out the window, and said, "If that is the case, then we will have to make a move to test him."
Although he did not specify who, Zhang Ruochen understood in his heart.
"Give me that roll of divine beast hide," the old man in plain clothes said.
The other party did not ask about the origin of the divine beast hide, which was already showing great respect to Feng Tian.
Zhang Ruochen was straightforward and handed over the divine beast hide.
But at the moment he handed it over, a fierce light suddenly surged in the old man's eyes, turning them into two dead, silent deep pools that sucked Zhang Ruochen's consciousness in.
Zhang Ruochen had been on guard, but he only resisted for an instant. The next moment, he was pulled into an endless darkness and cold, with nothing around him.
He burst forth at his fastest speed to escape, but no matter which direction he flew, he could not reach the edge.
It felt like he had been in the darkness for a thousand years. Zhang Ruochen's consciousness returned to his body, his face pale, and he stumbled back several steps.
The gray-robed old man, holding the divine beast hide, had already walked to the end of the bookshelf. He said hoarsely, "Feng Tian is protecting your life, so I naturally will not touch you. But if one day I find that you truly threaten the Destiny Temple, then even if Feng Tian still protects you, I will definitely mobilize all the power I can to kill you. Take care of yourself!"
Clearly, this move was deliberately meant to intimidate Zhang Ruochen.
As a must-kill target on the "God-Defying Scroll," a young ancestral being who had triggered various destructive phenomena, there were definitely many gods in the Destiny Temple who wanted to kill him.
The gray-robed old man was the guardian of the Heavenly Watch Platform, the one who most believed in the Fate Heavenly Scripture, so he would naturally be hostile to Zhang Ruochen.
"Such formidable spiritual power, truly infinite, traceless, and unbreakable. Before him, I am like a lone boat on the sea, unable to find the shore." Zhang Ruochen's expression was grave.
A World Tree Spirit that had not reached Tiantian Wuque was already this terrifying.
How strong must those who had reached Tiantian Wuque be?
At this moment, Zhang Ruochen realized that he seemed to truly lack a sense of reverence. In front of Tai Shang, Nine Heavens, the Star Sea Angler, and the others, he had never thought about how high they truly stood.
Only eight people in the world, countable on ten fingers. In some aspects, they were even more terrifying than the Indestructible Infinite.
Zhang Ruochen gradually calmed down and called out in the direction the gray-robed old man had left, "I wonder if you, sir, mobilizing all the power you can, could kill Fengdu Dadi, the number one on the 'God-Defying Scroll'?"