Chapter 4: The Road Encounters a Strange Rock

  "Alas, I don't know how many times Hong Jun has spoken, Mount Buzhou, when will we finally arrive?" Yun Zhongzi flew towards Mount Buzhou while sighing.

  It has been two years since he flew to Mount Buzhou, but he feels that Mount Buzhou is still very far away from him. He also doesn't know how much longer it will take to reach Mount Buzhou.

  Although he was complaining, Yun Zhongzi did not lose heart. After all, in the vast wilderness, time was just a number for these immortals. Moreover, it had only been a few years since then. Of course, this period of time was still quite long for Yun Zhongzi, who had been a young man of only twenty when he crossed over. He had spent two years flying alone and felt somewhat irritable and suffocated by the solitude and monotony.

  Just as Yun Zhongzi finished complaining, a voice came into his ears, "A thousand years have passed, I will begin my second lecture at the Zi Xuan Palace thirty-three days from now. Anyone who comes to the Zi Xuan Palace can listen in."

  Yun Zhongzi heard this and felt a great relief in his heart, but at the same time, he also felt a tightening of his heart. The second lecture had begun unexpectedly, although there was still a third one to come. However, for now, he hadn't yet joined the ranks of the saints, and with only his current Golden Immortal early-stage cultivation, wanting to fly into the Purple Palace outside the Thirty-Three Heavens was undoubtedly a fool's dream.

  "Judging from the current situation, it seems that this second lecture is also not feasible, and I can only place my hopes on the third lecture. Alas, if only I could have traveled through time a few hundred years earlier... But there are no such ifs... Ah, wait, there's another method! Haha, if it really succeeds... But...". As he thought of this, Yun Zhongzi suddenly stopped, and after thinking for a long time in mid-air, he came back to his senses. His eyes then shone with determination, and he descended to the ground. Afterwards, Yun Zhongzi expanded his divine sense, as if searching for something.

  After discovering that there was nothing he needed to find here, Yun Zhongzi unfolded his body again, slowed down his speed, and flew at low altitude while expanding all his divine senses to search for every place on the ground around him. His expression was extremely focused and serious, as if he didn't care about the time it took to arrive at Zhou Shan at all, but just kept searching, searching, and searching...

  Half a year later, Yun Zhongzi was flying in the clouds when he suddenly let out a soft "hmm" and flew off in one direction. In an instant, he arrived at the foot of a cliff. Standing at the foot of the cliff, Yun Zhongzi carefully examined the opposite cliff, where vines were densely entwined, hanging down from the top of the cliff like a series of dragons.

  The wisteria trellis was full of strange and wonderful things, the fruit on the wisteria trellis was even more bizarre, with some being as long as a few meters of green melon, some resembling scimitars in shape and brown in color, and others that were truly astonishing, shaped just like human palms. There were also some fruits that resembled wine cups, which left Yun Zhongzi astonished.

  Yun Zhongzi merely glanced at the melons and fruits before shifting his gaze to a green vine, where the fruit looked ordinary. There were three calabazas. Yun Zhongzi's divine sense carefully sensed them and nodded secretly, "These three calabazas will take several more years to mature. In that case, I'll cultivate here for a period of time."

  Yun Zhongzi flew to the front of the mountain cliff, using his great divine power, and opened up a cave behind the green vines. Yun Zhongzi flashed into the cave, tidied up a bit, and began to set up an array, gathering the surrounding heaven and earth's primordial energy into the cave, making it convenient for himself to cultivate, while also accelerating the maturation of the gourd.

  Three years passed, and the three calabazas finally matured. Yun Zhong unceremoniously plucked them all down. His divine sense probed into the three calabazas, and three enormous spaces appeared in his divine sense's perception, with thick heavenly and earthly primordial energy inside. It was truly unknown how many years these calabazas had been here for.

  Yun Zhongzi held the first gourd, a green one, in his hand and said in a low voice, "Although these three gourds are several grades lower than those formed by the pre-heavenly spiritual roots, they can still store a large amount of things and preserve the spiritual nature of heavenly treasures. As for these two yellow and brown gourds, I'll give them to my disciples later."

  Then Yun Zhongzi put the other two gourds into the green gourd, and also put the bitter bamboo into the gourd. After thinking for a moment, Yun Zhongzi dug out that green vine again, and also picked some other fruits on the mountain cliff by the way, all of which were put into the green gourd. Although he had already become an immortal, and these fruits could not help him improve his cultivation, as a modern person, this desire for food was naturally to be satisfied when possible. Moreover, in these three years, Yun Zhongzi had eaten quite a few of the fruits here, and indeed liked their taste very much.

  After all, I'm a modern person, even if I've been in this desolate place for nearly ten years, some habits still can't be changed.

  Yun Zhongzi once again set up his body shape and flew towards Buzhou Mountain. At the same time, his divine consciousness spread out and continued to search for what he wanted most in his heart.

  As time flies, in the blink of an eye, a hundred years have passed, and Hongjun's second lecture has also come to an end. At this time, Yun Zhongzi is still searching, and he has even become numb, but he hasn't relaxed at all. Every ten years, he would rest once and recover his vitality before continuing on the road again, repeating this process without stopping or slackening.

  During this century, he was not without gain and found many treasures, but these could not satisfy him, so he continued to search again.

  Unconsciously, another three hundred years passed, and Mount Buzhou was already in sight. Based on Yun Zhongzi's four-hundred-year flying experience, he estimated that at his current speed, it would take about fifty years to reach the mountain. If he flew at full speed, he believed it would only take ten years to arrive at Mount Buzhou. Looking at Mount Buzhou, which was so close to him, Yun Zhongzi also let out a sigh of relief, "Finally, I'm almost there, just one step away from becoming a disciple."

  Although it would only take ten years to fly at full strength, Yun Zhongzi gave up the plan of flying at full strength and instead flew towards Mount Buzhou at a steady pace as before.

  Five years later, Yun Zhong was still searching carefully as he had for the past 400 years. Suddenly, Yun Zhong stopped and furrowed his brow, looking around cautiously. Underneath him was a vast expanse of sandy terrain, stretching out for dozens of square miles.

  "It's strange, just now when I flew over, there was also a place like this sandy ground, but between the two sandy grounds was a forest. The sandy ground had no spiritual energy at all, while the forest was densely packed with spiritual energy that was oppressive to people. Could it be that there's something strange about this place?"

  Curiosity, everyone has it, let alone a modern person who crossed over to the Desolate Continent. So, Yun Zhongzi stopped on the sandy ground after just a moment of contemplation, his divine sense scanning every inch of the sand. He discovered that the yellow sand was about several dozen meters deep, and beneath the sand was a layer of rock. On the surface of this rock were lines of texture, which were extremely regular, but unfortunately, Yun Zhongzi couldn't understand them at all. Moreover, after carefully using his divine sense to scan for a long time, he would even feel dizzy.

  Yun Zhongzi was extremely shocked, immediately calmed down, and his face didn't show any fear, but instead showed some excitement. He laughed out loud and opened up all his spiritual senses, instantly covering the entire desert.

  After the divine sense enveloped the sandy ground, it extended downward again, extending to a depth of over 100 meters before finally passing through the rocks. At this time, Yun Zhongzi's divine sense was somewhat laborious, and for some reason, after his divine sense enveloped the surface layer of the entire rock, a strong pressure suddenly pressed against Yun Zhongzi's divine sense, causing his face to turn pale.

  Yun Zhongzi gritted his teeth and let out a low shout, using all his might to shift the entire boulder towards the ground. Unfortunately, the effect was not very good, and the boulder only moved up one foot. In that instant, Yun Zhongzi's face turned pale, and his body trembled slightly. However, he did not give up and continued to try and move it upwards. When the boulder finally moved up a meter, Yun Zhongzi could no longer hold on and sat down on the ground with a thud.

  "Hmm, this stone isn't that big, but why is it so heavy? With my current Golden Immortal initial cultivation, I can only move it one meter." Complaining aside, Yun Zhongzi didn't waste any time and instantly retreated to the forest dense with spiritual energy to start recovering his divine consciousness.

  After regaining consciousness, Yun Zhongzi stopped moving the boulder and instead took out a brown gourd from the green calabaza. He pinched a spell in his hand, and the brown gourd flashed, instantly transforming into an enormous gourd suspended in mid-air. A whirlwind burst forth from the gourd, sweeping towards the yellow sand on the ground. In almost an instant, all the yellow sand on the boulder was sucked into the brown gourd, revealing the rock at the bottom of the earth.

  This rock appears to be somewhat transparent, and it gives off a faintly oppressive feeling. The lines on the surface of the rock seem to be chaotic and disorderly, yet they also seem to contain a profound and mysterious truth. Yun Zhongzi used his divine sense to probe into the rock, wanting to investigate its secrets. However, as soon as his divine sense entered the rock, he felt like his head was going to explode. Yun Zhongzi abruptly cut off his divine sense, staring at the rock with wide eyes, filled with incredulity.

  Yun Zhongzi knew that this rock was absolutely an extraordinary treasure, so he had to get it into his bag no matter what, not to mention there were more than one such treasures.

  Right after that, the brown gourd collected all the mud around the rock into the gourd, revealing a whole piece of rock. Yun Zhongzi smiled excitedly and changed his hand seal, only to see the gourd in mid-air directly approaching the rock, wanting to put the entire rock into the gourd. However, what made Yun Zhongzi disappointed was that when the gourd landed on the surface of the rock, a thin layer of protective film suddenly spread out from the rock, although it was very light, but also stopped the brown gourd.

  Yun Zhongzi's face turned ugly, staring at the protective film for a moment, and then suddenly appeared beside the rock, with both hands heavily pressed against the protective film on the rock!