The stone cave was dry and smooth, worn to a shine by the constant passage of animals in and out. A small stone Buddha sat half-blocking the cave entrance, offering shelter from the wind and rain.

Skitter, skitter!

Within the cave, a pair of bright, large eyes could be seen — somewhat fearful, yet also curious, rolling about with lively alertness.

This was a small creature. That it had cultivated remarkable Dao attainment in this age of spiritual decline was entirely beyond Ye Fan’s expectations — one could only call it a miracle.

“Come out. I won’t harm you,” Ye Fan sent out a thread of divine sense.

The small creature inside the cave had developed remarkable Dao attainment and had naturally gained spiritual awareness, understanding the meaning conveyed by his divine sense. And yet it remained somewhat timid, for it had sensed the immense power emanating from this man — a man who could hover suspended in the air for long stretches of time, something the creature itself could not do.

In the end, it poked its head out, almost ingratiating, blinking its large eyes rapidly, extending a pair of small claws in a slight bow, and standing cautiously at the cave entrance.

What species was this small creature? Ye Fan was surprised — he couldn’t immediately identify it. It was about a foot long, and if one counted its fluffy, voluminous tail, it reached two feet.

Its entire body shimmered with purple light, like the sheen of silk; its purple fur was long and silky smooth, impossible not to want to stroke. It was almost excessively beautiful — the sort of creature that would make any girl who loved keeping small pets immediately fall in love with it.

“A purple sable?” Ye Fan wondered aloud, then shook his head. Not quite — it was even more endearing than a sable.

A squirrel!

He settled on that identification at last, thoroughly astonished. For a squirrel to turn out like this was truly extraordinary — its entire body shimmered like purple crystal, refined to an almost excessive degree of delicacy.

Its two eyes were like a pair of black gemstones, large and wide, blinking pitifully, glimmering with light.

“You really are something unusual. How did you cultivate yourself to this point?” Ye Fan sat down on the rocky hillside and casually picked up the small stone Buddha — it was surprisingly heavy.

He was startled. The small stone Buddha looked quite crude, no taller than a palm, and yet it weighed a full thousand catties. An ordinary person could never have lifted it. He realized he had misjudged it entirely — this was definitely a treasure. What else could explain such weight?

The miraculous little squirrel on the ground stood upright, watching the stone Buddha with reluctance, as though it had lost its most beloved possession, yet it dared not resist, and instead lowered its head to look at its own small claws.

For the first time in many days, Ye Fan allowed a faint smile to cross his face. “Would I really steal your treasure from you?” he said.

The moment the small creature heard this, it perked up immediately, blinking its large eyes in an ingratiating manner, and raised its pair of small claws in a deferential bow.

On Earth, squirrels were almost never purple — except for the rarest of mutations, which might yield a faintly pale tint. But this one shimmered like a purple diamond, every strand of its smooth fur pulsing with purple radiance.

With such singular appearance, if it were taken out and sold as a pet, it would instantly captivate everyone who laid eyes on it.

“Show me just how much Dao attainment you have.” Ye Fan settled onto the rocky slope.

The little creature’s large eyes sparkled like jewels, performing eagerly, like a child showing off a prized treasure, waiting to hear praise.

Whoosh!

It transformed into a streak of purple light and shot upward into the sky — a height of over a hundred meters — then swayed unsteadily, taking a dozen steps through the air before it could no longer maintain itself and came tumbling rapidly back down.

The first secret realm of the human body is the Sea of Wheels, which has four minor stages: the Sea of Suffering, the Spring of Life, the Divine Bridge, and the Far Shore. One need only cultivate to the Spring of Life to achieve flight.

Comparing this to the demon race — though they have their differences, the correspondence is roughly the same.

This little creature swayed and stumbled; it had clearly only just set foot upon the path of cultivation. Compared to the world-shaking sages of the demon race, the gap was as vast as heaven and earth.

And yet, on Earth, such a performance was already impressive. With the Great Dao imperceptible, to have cultivated to such a level was enough to call it a world-shaking anomaly.

Moreover, Ye Fan looked carefully and realized the creature was far more extraordinary than he had imagined — it had already far surpassed the Spring of Life realm, breaking through the Sea of Wheels entirely and entering the second major secret realm, the Dao Palace. Of course, this was by the classification system used for humans.

“Earth is truly formidable. Even those at the Dao Palace level are suppressed here — unable to fly any great distance, barely managing to shoot upward a hundred meters or so before giving out.”

At the same time, he could not help but marvel: this purple crystal squirrel was no ordinary creature. It had grown up defying the heavens under conditions where the Great Dao itself refused to permit its existence — a true demonic prodigy!

Ye Fan carefully reached out to sense the vital spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Yet across a vast stretch of land, he could capture only a few wisps — pitifully thin. To have cultivated to this stage under such conditions — was it truly a child of some demon sovereign?

He immediately let a strange expression cross his face, intending to try to see through this small creature more closely. The little purple squirrel immediately grew frightened. It scooped up the stone Buddha in its pair of small claws, held it out toward him with a pitiful expression, offering it up in appeasement.

“I’m not going to take your things. I only want to understand — how did you cultivate?”

The purple squirrel shook its fluffy tail and set the stone Buddha down, pointing at the Buddha’s head and then pointing up at the sky. This puzzled Ye Fan. He had already examined the stone Buddha — besides its extraordinary solidity and weight, he had found nothing else of note.

Before long, the sky grew dim and the stars emerged one by one, a silver disc rising into the heavens. At that moment the stone Buddha showed something peculiar — a ring of radiance bloomed from behind its head, formed entirely from moonlight.

“Ah, I see. You cultivate with its help,” Ye Fan said with a nod.

The purple squirrel breathed in and exhaled in sync with the moon, and as the moonlight passed through the halo behind the stone Buddha’s head and was transformed, the vital energy took on mysterious Dao markings — and it was through this that the creature had found its path toward the Dao.

Moonlight was naturally diffuse, but drawn in and focused by the stone Buddha, the density of light in this small area multiplied countless times over, all absorbed by the little creature.

“This is truly a strange and wondrous treasure — I completely misjudged it. Though the cultivators withdrew from Earth, they left behind certain mysterious things.”

Late in the night, the small creature tugged at the corner of Ye Fan’s robe, shyly inviting him to follow it somewhere, as though there was something it wanted to show him.

Ye Fan was curious, and followed it down from the rocky hill. They came to the ruins of an ancient temple, built against the mountainside. At the foundation, there was a great crack in the earth, leading downward.

The squirrel darted down with a quick leap, and Ye Fan followed it inside. After several twists and turns, advancing several dozen meters, he was struck with sudden alarm — before him appeared an enormous dragon’s head, identical to that of a true dragon!

This left him deeply astonished. How could such a thing exist here? Even across the northern stellar region, where ancestral dragon veins stretched for millions of li, a true dragon might not be born — and on Earth, there was certainly no territory vast enough to produce one.

This was an ancestral root deep within the earth that had transformed into a dragon shape, manifesting a stone dragon’s head. But it had long since died — meaning this earth vein had lost its spiritual nature.

Earth was in an age of spiritual decline, and the absence of spiritual nature was not strange in itself. But there should not have been a lifelike stone dragon here — given the limited scope of this territory, it was almost impossible for one to have come into being. It was a wonder without equal in the world.

Ye Fan probed with his powerful divine sense and discovered, with some surprise, that this dead stone dragon belonged only to this small region — it did not extend very far at all.

“How can this be? Could it be that in ancient times, Earth was far more vast than it is now?”

Before the true dragon’s mouth sat a cracked little earthen jar, containing a small amount of crystalline liquid from which wisps of a clear, heart-refreshing fragrance drifted upward.

The little purple creature trotted forward, carefully lifted the jar, and held it out to Ye Fan. But it couldn’t help itself — it swallowed a mouthful of saliva, quite clearly desperate for a taste as well.

Ye Fan took the small earthen jar and sniffed it, his expression shifting. This was Earth’s Spiritual Milk — something truly precious for this age of Earth. It was of no use to him, however.

The liquid dripped from the dragon’s mouth, accumulating to barely half a small bowl after roughly half a month. He let out a quiet sigh — this great dragon was thoroughly dead; this was its final remnant of “dragon saliva.”

Ye Fan returned the jar to the creature. The little thing was momentarily confused, then blinked its large gemstone eyes and, with sincere earnestness, offered it to him again to drink — and in the process quietly swallowed another mouthful of saliva, making clear how precious this was to it.

“I have no use for it,” Ye Fan communicated through divine sense, and asked whether there were any other cultivated extraordinary creatures nearby. Because the creature seemed genuinely guileless, he refrained from entering its soul with his divine sense uninvited.

The little purple squirrel could not speak aloud, but its expression of divine sense was clear enough: it had never left this area and had never encountered another being with Dao attainment.

In this exchange, Ye Fan also came to learn of its origins.

The creature pointed toward a stone cave not far away, where a tiny set of remains could be found — those of a squirrel, which was, precisely, its mother.

Scene after scene unfolded in Ye Fan’s mind: a fierce raptor diving down from above; a squirrel desperately fleeing while shielding her young; being gravely wounded despite everything; and in the end, able to carry away only one pup in her mouth, slipping down into the earth crack, arriving here.

Not long after, the wounded squirrel died. The pup crawled about on its own and grew up by licking the Earth’s Spiritual Milk that dripped down beneath the dragon’s head.

Ye Fan let out a quiet sigh. This small creature was not human — merely a tiny living being — and yet it stirred something in him, for he himself had just been severed from his parents forever.

And yet, the little purple creature merely pointed toward the cave where its mother’s remains lay, completely unburdened, with no knowledge of grief — entirely innocent in its expression.

Ye Fan took out a piece of divine source. Instantly, vital energy overflowed and illuminated the entire stone cave. The purple squirrel nearly startled, set down the little earthen jar, and retreated timidly a few steps.

“Don’t be afraid. This is for you,” Ye Fan said, holding it out. In this age of scarce heaven and earth spiritual energy, a piece of divine source was priceless to a cultivator of lower stages.

The small creature gathered its wits, recognized it as a rare treasure, and immediately clutched it to its chest with great joy, rolling about beneath the dragon’s head in carefree happiness.

“Would you be willing to leave this place with me?” Having encountered such a creature with Dao attainment, and after spending this time together, Ye Fan found that it had momentarily lifted him out of his grief. He wanted to bring it along.

The purple crystal squirrel froze. It had never once considered leaving. It was full of attachment to this place. It climbed up onto the rocky hillside, looking at the bright moon, looking at the crumbling ancient temple below, uncertain what to do.

“Never mind. People live to be free — and so do you. Stay here and cultivate in peace.” Ye Fan rose to his feet and turned to leave.

Whoosh!

As though a flash of insight had struck its heart, the little purple creature hurried after him, grabbed hold of his trouser leg, and tilted its head back with a pitifully pleading look. Despite its reluctance, it had made its decision — it would go.

Ye Fan helped it tuck away the small stone Buddha. Treading through moonlight, like an immortal descended from the heavens, he crossed the sky and departed from the Tibetan region.

“From now on, you shall be my second disciple.”

The little purple creature was bewildered, but it was happy nonetheless, and broke into a carefree, guileless smile.

In that moment, amid the purple radiance flowing from its body, Ye Fan glimpsed a thread of divine light, and murmured involuntarily: “Demon Sovereign.”

The moment those words left his mouth, he was startled — for the stone Buddha in his hand trembled slightly. In that instant, the divine halo behind the stone Buddha’s head seemed to transform into a stone mirror.

When he looked again, there was nothing. The little purple squirrel was just as endearing as before, and the stone Buddha just as ancient and unadorned. Yet Ye Fan fell into a silent moment of contemplation.

On the way back, Ye Fan made many attempts, and finally managed to project his divine sense into the stone Buddha’s interior. There was nothing else within — only a few golden, radiant ancient characters, rendered in ancient Sanskrit, each one like a seated Buddha!

He could not discern their meaning and decided to look into the matter, to find out what they said.

Ye Fan returned to City B. Though sorrow still lingered in his heart, the journey to the Tibetan region had eased it somewhat. He suppressed the grief and buried it deep — for there were still things he needed to do.

Before departing on his way back, he had discussed with Pang Bo that they would visit the families of all the classmates lost in the northern stellar region, and look after them on those people’s behalf.

“Pang Bo — I have always believed in you. I have always thought of you as a brother worth dying alongside.”

Before ascending the Five-Colored Altar, Pang Bo had suddenly departed. And then Li Xiaoman had claimed he was thoroughly wicked. But Ye Fan did not believe it. Even if there had been something strange about Pang Bo, the bond forged through life and death could not have been false.

After returning to City B, Ye Fan first invited Xu Qiong’s family to dinner. In this world of ordinary people, he didn’t want to display too much of his abilities — it would cause too great a stir. And beyond that, he always had the feeling that Earth harbored deep mysteries, and feared there might be eyes watching everything from above.

He asked Xu Qiong for help in quickly locating the families of several former classmates. And in the process, he also gave the few ancient Sanskrit characters from the stone Buddha to Yang Xiao and asked him to find someone to help decipher them.

Before long, Yang Xiao truly did find someone to translate them for him and presented the results to Ye Fan. What he learned left Ye Fan thunderstruck.