Chapter Sixteen: The Five Spirits' Essence

  That immortal created this blessed land after feeling it was too empty, so he opened a spring and led in water, planted flowers and grasses, and went to various places in the world to search for rare flowers and strange grasses to transplant here. When bored, he would enter the Inverted Heaven Cave where there is the Five Spirits Pool, with an even more luxuriant aura of the Five Spirits which greatly benefits cultivation. The immortal also specially planted some rare and precious herbs in the Inverted Heaven Cave, such as the Spirit Ginseng. One day in the world outside was one year inside the cave, plus being nourished by abundant spiritual energy, the flowers and grasses naturally grew with divine speed.

  The immortal lived in the Five Spirits Blessing Land underground for hundreds of years, and finally felt bored, left the cave to travel far away, and didn't know where he went, abandoning this place. After a while, it had been hundreds of years again, and the spiritual lotus in the Inverse Heaven Cave had already had tens of thousands of years of life, sprouting spiritual awareness, having self-consciousness, and could transform into human form after some more years to cultivate.

  Trees, flowers and grasses condense spiritual consciousness is very difficult. In the Ni Tian Cave, among tens of thousands of various spiritual herbs, less than one-thousandth have formed spiritual consciousness. The white-haired old man was the first to transform into a human form, relying on the divine person's legacy, the alchemy tripod, and refining the elixir medicine, spending countless time and effort to cultivate to the top of the condensation period. After that, there were no more breakthroughs for several years, and then sprouted the idea of going out to take a look.

  The old man's true self was a spirit, so he changed his name to Lin Sen and went out to travel. However, due to his simplicity and gullibility, combined with the fact that he carried precious treasures on him, many people deceived him, even joining forces to take his life. The old man relied on his high cultivation to narrowly escape with his life, and from then on, he no longer trusted humans.

  After recovering from his injuries, the old man who had seen the prosperity of the world felt that there were too few living things in the cave and it was dull every day. So he went to the outside world to buy some chickens, ducks, cattle and sheep to raise inside the cave. Unexpectedly, the Water Spirit Pool in the Inverted Heaven Cave actually had the effect of cutting tendons and replacing marrow. More than half of the domestic fowl gained spiritual intelligence after washing their marrow in the Water Spirit Pool and could practice magic. The old man knew how to cultivate elixirs and helped them cultivate, thus giving birth to many demon beasts in the completion stage. However, to avoid repeating past mistakes, the old man raised the demon beasts only until they reached the initial stage of the completion period before not allowing them to enter the Inverted Heaven Cave again.

  After finishing this secret, Zhang's jaw dropped in shock. Listening to the old man's words, there might be nearly a hundred Nascent Soul stage experts in this cave? Their strength is even more powerful than that of Tianlei Mountain! After thinking for half a day, he could only describe it as terrifying.

  The old man looked at Zhang and laughed: "You're excited, aren't you? No one would dare to enter the Treasure Mountain empty-handed. Stay here for a few days, I'll help you refine some elixirs, how about that?"

  Zhang was so surprised that he didn't dare to believe his ears, and hastily thanked him: "Thank you so much, thank you senior, how did this happen?" The old man said in a low voice: "They are good to me, I am also good to them. You treat the little dog like this, I will help you cultivate your skills. Can't you still harm me? Besides, you have Fugod, I don't dare kill you. I'm afraid that if I kill you, Fugod will kill me. The only thing is to think of a way to get along with you and then hurry up and send you away, haha." What the old man said was indeed true.

  "And don't call me senior anymore, if you're willing to address me as Uncle Lin, and if not, just call me Old Lin. Let's go, first I'll give you three little dogs to wash their fur." Lin Sen led the way in front.

  Zhang was overjoyed, grabbing three small dogs and following closely behind Lin Sen. Exiting the pavilion was a nine-turn bridge, at the end of which was a stone path that wound its way to the front of the cave, where on the left-hand wall were carved three characters: "Inverted Heaven Cave".

  Lin Sen stretched out his hand in front of the cave, making a pulling motion, as if the mountain cave really had a door. Zhang Pa was puzzled by this strange behavior, but he didn't ask any questions, for the mysteries of the Five Spirits Cave were beyond his comprehension. From the moment they entered, one strange thing after another appeared before their eyes, and he was slowly getting used to it.

  Lin Sen turned back with a smile: "Isn't it strange what I'm doing?" Zhang Pa nodded in agreement. Lin Sen said: "There really is a door here, but you can't see it, this door can only be pulled from the outside and pushed from the inside, there's no other way to open it." Zhang Pa's curiosity was piqued, he reached out to touch, originally it was empty air, but as soon as he touched it, he felt a cold hardness, and exclaimed: "There really is a door!"

  Lin Sen smiled and said, "There's a fist-sized handle on the door. If you can't find it, the door won't open. It's much easier to come out from inside, just push it with your hand." As he spoke, he withdrew his hand and said to Zhang Pa, "Come in!" He went in first.

  Zhang was afraid to follow behind, one step into the cave, suddenly felt the pressure doubled, dizzy and disoriented, just wanted to operate stable mind, pressure suddenly disappeared, no longer dizzy, then feel the strong spiritual power coming face.

  Lin Sen explained beside him: "This is two layers of heaven and two worlds. At first, it was like this. You have to know that staying in the cave for a year means only one day has passed outside."

  After adapting, Zhang Pa saw that the Inverted Heaven Cave was not as dark as an ordinary cave, but rather bright like a large garden outside, only much smaller. Upon entering the Inverted Heaven Cave were over a dozen pavilions, some of which had people sitting in meditation, including Fu Er whom Zhang Pa had met before.

  "These pavilions were built later by me, using boundary markers to separate them, making it convenient for everyone to cultivate."

  The two entered the cave, and the people in the pavilion sensed it, knowing it was Lin Sen, and they all came to pay their respects. Zhang Pa quickly took a look around, and they were all chubby and adorable babies. It goes without saying that they should be mostly spirit grass and fairy flowers, absorbing spiritual energy for millions of years, forming spiritual consciousness, and cultivating into humans.

  Fu'er was shocked to see Zhang Pa and lost his color, grabbing Lin Sen to ask: "Grandpa, grandpa, why did you bring him here? He's a bad guy!" The three-year-old chubby doll looked very cute. He got angry and panicked, making Zhang Pa want to pinch his little face, so he teased: "If I let you go, are you also a bad guy?"

  Fu'er tilted his head and thought for a moment, pouting: "Anyway, you're just a bad guy."

  Lin Sen glared at Fu Er: "I told you not to run out, but you didn't listen. What's so fun outside? Not only did you cause trouble, but you also dared to yell at me? Go practice!" Fu Er was scolded and angrily stared at Zhang Pa before reluctantly returning to the Liang Pavilion to meditate.

  Lin Sen led Zhang Pa to leave the pavilion and walked towards the white stone road on the left. Zhang Pa felt that something was wrong when he stepped on the stone slab, it seemed a bit strange, so he lowered his head to take a closer look. At first glance, he thought he had made a mistake, but after squatting down for a closer look, he was shocked again. The so-called stone slab road turned out to be paved with top-grade white jade, and a palm-sized piece of top-grade white jade could sell for a sky-high price in the outside world, at least requiring thousands of spirit stones to exchange. Yet, inside the Inverse Heaven Cave, it was used as paving material in large pieces.

  "Let's go," Lin Sen said calmly. "This is a land of five spiritual blessings. There are many more things that will surprise you."

  After walking nearly a thousand meters, the stone slab road ends, and a large pavilion with a length and width of over 20 meters appears. There is no door, window or wall, but inside the pavilion there is a tatami mat, a white jade case table, and mostly bookshelves and cabinets, with most of the cabinets holding tripods and stoves, except for a few that hold some jade slips and jade bottles.

  Lin Sen continued: "This is where our predecessor cultivated and sat in meditation, those cauldrons were all refined by him."

  Zhang Pa didn't understand: "What's the point of refining so many tripods? It would be better to refine a few precious artifacts or talismans."

  Lin Sen smiled and said: "Guess."

  These tripods look exactly the same from the outside, with the same shape and pattern. Zhang was afraid to pick one up and try to sense it, but after several attempts, he couldn't enter it at all. He put the tripod back and said, "The disciple's cultivation is too low, can't see the difference."

  "These crucibles are all alchemy furnaces, but each crucible has a different formation array embedded in it during the refining process. Some even have multiple arrays at the same time. There is still a large amount of elixir left in the crucible, and it seems that after refinement, they were not taken out. In my opinion, I think the predecessor wanted to refine a certain kind of immortal pill, first tried to refine various crucibles, and looked for the one with the best refining effect before starting to refine the pill." As he spoke, he waved his hand: "These crucibles should be discarded here because they couldn't meet the predecessor's requirements."

  Zhang Pa saw at a glance that there were at least several hundred top-grade tripods and furnaces, all discarded like this. He was indeed a divine being, and Zhang Pa admired him immensely.

  "In respect for the seniors, the elixir in the tripod hasn't been touched. Let's go to the Water Spirit Pool." The two of them walked through the pavilion and onto a white jade path again. Not far away, they came across a descending staircase. After walking down hundreds of steps, they arrived at a massive platform surrounded by five circular pools, each dozens of meters in diameter. The pools were spaced far apart, perfectly encircling the platform. There were five floating bridges connecting the platform to the circular pools."

  Five circular pools inside five kinds of "liquids" steaming, various spiritual energies and auras "chaotic" roaming, making Zhang Pa somewhat uncomfortable. Lin Sen said: "This is the place where the Five Spirits gather fortune, the creation of heaven and earth is truly wonderful, it can actually gather the five elements of spiritual essence in one place."

  Five large circular pools, namely Jinling Pool, Muling Pool, Shuiling Pool, Huoling Pool and Tuling Pool; the colors are golden yellow, emerald green, crystal white, fiery red and earthy yellow.

  Lin Sen led the way, and they walked towards the White Water Spirit Pool. The two of them stepped onto the floating bridge one after another. Zhang suddenly glanced down and was frightened out of his wits, unable to move. The floating bridge was suspended in mid-air, without any ropes or supports. Below the bridge was a vast expanse of darkness, as if it were an empty space.

  Zhang Pa was reciting the Heart Sutra, stabilizing his mind and slowly backing away. It took him half a cup of tea's time to retreat two steps back onto the platform. Lin Sen looked at him with amusement and asked, "What's wrong?" Zhang Pa paused for a moment before speaking: "I'm afraid of heights." Lin Sen almost burst out laughing - could a cultivator really be afraid of heights? He gazed at Zhang Pa with playful eyes: "You're quite interesting." Zhang Pa shook his head seriously: "It's not interesting."