The Journey of Immortal Cultivation-Chapter 438 - 258: The Great Mountain
Ning Xiaoxian asked in confusion, "What is he doing?"
"Avoiding the Karma Retrospection Mirror of Guangcheng Palace. The range of the Immortal Sect is too vast; they must have placed many Karma Retrospection Mirrors. There are bound to be blind spots that are not under surveillance," Changtian saw clearly. The Karma Retrospection Mirror is like a surveillance recording, and it’s unmanned. Only after an incident occurs will the sect check the records. So, whether it’s Ji Zhenzong or Ning Xiaoxian, even if their figures are captured by the Karma Retrospection Mirror, as long as nothing happens inside Guangcheng Palace, it’s unlikely that anyone will discover their theft under the moonlight, especially since both of them have their faces covered.
Ji Zhenzong’s cultivation hasn’t even reached the Foundation Establishment Stage, so his running style is almost indistinguishable from a mortal, yet his speed is not slow. After two hours, he arrived at the foot of a giant peak. Even among the many magnificent and perilous peaks within the realm of Guangcheng Palace, the size, symmetry, and majesty of this mountain are rare to see.
Looking up from the foot of the mountain, the great mountain points straight to the sky like a Jade Staff, its upper half buried in clouds and mist, no longer clear to the eye. However, the treetops in the middle part of the mountain are still covered with last year’s snow, while only the lower surroundings are lush green, presenting three distinct scenes on a single mountain.
When Ji Zhenzong arrived here, he climbed the stone wall adeptly as if he knew the path well. His movements, agile like a monkey and with measured leaps, quickly took him two hundred meters up. Ning Xiaoxian, following behind, furrowed her brow. This man is, after all, a cultivator of the Human Clan. Although his cultivation is low, why do all his actions and techniques resemble those of a demon?
Here, where strong winds howl all year round and the mountain wall is steep, only layers of pine trees manage to persistently grow. Ji Zhenzong climbed behind two pines and suddenly disappeared.
"Is there a door here?" After she jumped up, she realized something was amiss.
Behind the pines was still the hard rock wall, where there was no sign of a doorway. She scoured the nearby wall up and down like a gecko but didn’t find even a small crack! However, she trusted her eyesight; there was no doubt that Ji Zhenzong had disappeared right here!
It was really like seeing a ghost in the middle of the night. How could a disciple in the Qi Refinement Realm suddenly vanish on this vast mountain wall? What had she missed?
"Changtian, what is going on here?" Ning Xiaoxian couldn’t help but ask, "Could it be an Array or a Blinding Technique?"
He seemed to ponder for a long time before finally saying in a deep voice, "Yu Kong, back off."
She lay sprawled on the stone wall, and upon hearing this command, she leaped back without hesitation.
Hundreds of meters of empty space were beneath her feet as she performed a 360-degree backward somersault in mid-air. When she stood upright, the Tusks had already appeared under each of her feet, steadying her.
At this moment, she was fifteen meters away from the stone wall.
Changtian gazed for a while. "Retreat further."
Obeying his words, she backed off another twenty or so meters, and then she heard his command again: "Retreat further!"
...
She had retreated two hundred meters away, a distance of nearly seven hundred meters from the great mountain. After a short while, Changtian finally took a deep breath and said, "That’s enough. Now, go back to the edge of the stone wall."
She climbed back onto the stone wall.
"Try to see if you can chip off a piece of stone."
What’s difficult about that? She could now even bend steel. Ning Xiaoxian curled her fingers into claws and scratched hard on the stone wall, feeling pain in her fingertips, yet the rock wall remained intact.
She let out a soft exclamation: "This stone wall is somewhat strange, I can’t move it." She summoned the Tusks, ready to attack the wall. With such a sharp tool, she should be able to slice off a piece of rock, right?
"Stop!" Changtian cried out urgently, making her halt her action, "It’s just verifying a hypothesis, no need to take it so seriously." This girl was too earnest, almost causing a disaster.
"What hypothesis? Where did Ji Zhenzong go?"
"He hasn’t gone anywhere, he’s inside this mountain," Changtian’s first half of the sentence matched her conjecture—as scenes of people transforming weren’t seen every day—but the second half was somewhat absurd, "This mountain, he can enter, but you cannot."
She protested, "Why? By what right? Haven’t I also learned the Earth Escape Technique, can’t I use it here?"
"This mountain peak is transformed from a Magic Artifact!" He articulated slowly, "From top to bottom, seamlessly fitted, without the slightest gap, and not ordinary rocks, how could you possibly enter it?"
For the second time today, she was shaken to the core, her speech becoming stuttered: "You, you mean to tell me, this mountain peak, hundreds of meters tall, is transformed from a Magic Artifact?!"
"Correct," Changtian said indifferently, "Once one enters the Immortal Path, one should be aware of endless strange occurrences in this world. How can you still be so shocked by now?"
She finally closed her mouth, but her eyes were still full of shock and disbelief: "How can I not be shocked? This clearly is a big mountain, and yet you tell me, it’s transformed from a Magic Artifact!"
"Have you really not seen such a large Magic Artifact?"
"I’ve never seen it!" she asserted resolutely.
"Think carefully! If you can’t figure it out, you’ll enter the God Demon Prison to receive punishment!"
"...Eh. Then, I shall think it over again."
If she had seen such a massive magic artifact, how could she remain unmoved, without any impression? That is to say, all she needs to recall is when was the last time she was so shocked that she was rendered speechless.
Well, it seems, perhaps, there might have been such an occasion.
"Still can’t remember?" Changtian’s voice sounded gentle, yet it carried a schadenfreude tone, as if he was already imagining how to discipline her.
"I remember, I remembered!" She shivered with a jolt, her mind accelerating instantly, and a fragment of memory flashed through like lightning.
She had indeed seen such a large magic artifact before, at the bottom of Heart Lake among the Five Great Lakes.
A magic artifact refined from the immense shell of the Turtle Immortal.
The first time she saw it, she was as shocked as she was when she saw this mountain peak.
"It’s the body of the Turtle Immortal!" She quickly offered the correct answer. With this thought, the idea that the mountain was transformed from a magic artifact seemed less inconceivable, but still, "How tall must the person using this magic artifact be?... Hmm, it is a human, right?"
Changtian chuckled softly twice: "Perhaps. But when this magic artifact is in its master’s hand, it might not be much larger than the tusk in your hand." He continued without waiting for her question, "Separated by a thread of Sumeru mustard seed, top-level magic artifacts can expand or shrink at will, according to the owner’s desire. Besides, if you think this magic artifact is too large, it’s only because of your perspective. What if you consider it as part of an entire mountain range? Or within an entire state? And even further back, if you look at it from the whole Nan Zhanbu Continent, do you still find it gigantic?"
She fell silent. Indeed, when standing atop the whole Nan Zhanbu Continent looking down, this giant peak would seem as insignificant as a mustard seed. She understood that Changtian was enlightening her. The path of the Dao is mysterious and profound, aiming for that moment of spiritual epiphany, often indescribable, only to be understood intuitively. Her vision wasn’t broad enough, her Mental State naturally couldn’t open up as freely as his, who comfortably harbors thousands of worlds within his chest. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
Ning Xiaoxian took in a deep breath and quietly said, "I understand."
No wonder the mountain peak looked so peculiar in shape. Its original form must be a Jade Staff-like magic artifact, right? No wonder she couldn’t budge the rocks on the mountain; after all, every single stone was part of it. No matter how sharp her claws were, could she possibly chip a small piece off from a top-level magic artifact like this?
"Which venerable expert placed it here?" she muttered to herself, not really expecting an answer from Changtian. To her surprise, he pondered for a moment before saying, "Most likely a great power from Guangcheng Palace. Seeing that the mountain is now covered in lush greenery, it shows that the transformation of the Jade Staff into a mountain took no short amount of time, perhaps several thousand years? Whatever it is defending with this magic artifact must be extraordinary."
Ning Xiaoxian stared blankly at the mountain peak before her, suddenly reminded of the purpose of her journey.
"No, wait! If it’s a magic artifact, how could Ji Zhenzong manage to get inside?"
"Perhaps Ji Zhenzong has some connection with this magic artifact, which allowed him entry," theorized Changtian, "You’re a stranger to it, it would be odd if it opened its mountain for you."
"Then... what should I do now?"
"Simple, wait!" Changtian said indifferently, "You can’t get in, but he will eventually have to come out. Just wait here until he does!"
＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝
The stone wall Ji Zhenzong was touching silently slid open, revealing a small hole three feet wide. He had been here many times before and jumped in without hesitation.
While Ning Xiaoxian was blocked outside the mountain, he was advancing along a long corridor. It was strange; in front of him was the mountain’s interior, filled with millions of tons of massive rocks, but as soon as he stepped forward, the mountain body continuously retreated, carving out a narrow path just wide enough for one person.
A passage leading to the belly of the mountain.
However, once he passed, the walls closed in again, and the path disappeared.
He walked like this for 15 minutes, and suddenly, the space opened up, leading him to a small stone room. The stone room’s walls were embedded with unknown light sources, allowing him to barely make out everything within those few square feet.
The stone room had no tables or chairs, but strangely enough, there was a well-framed square painting hanging on the wall, completely smooth without a single crease.
The background of the painting was an endless desert, with rolling sand dunes and sand grains so fine they seemed to glow, showcasing the painter’s excellent skill and evoking a sense of vastness and infinity. However, all who see this painting can’t help but feel torn between laughter and tears.
Because the protagonist of the painting is a White Tiger, gazing up at the moon, with a majestic body marked with black stripes and the natural birthmark of a "king" character between its brows!
Merely seeing the White Tiger lazily lying on a dune conveys a sense of unmatched valor and a disdainful overwatch of all life.
However, no matter what, a tiger is traditionally roaring through forests and mountains, so placing it in a desert full of yellow sand creates an awkward discordance. It’s a mystery what the painter was thinking at the time.
If one looks closer at the tiger, even its pupils and whites are painted in deep, solid black, unlike the eyes of a normal tiger. Observers who stare too long may start to feel as though their Divine Sense is being sucked in. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, please head over to qidian.com to cast your recommendation tickets and Monthly Tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read on m.qidian.com.)
