Several pieces of ancient jade had grown dim in color — too much time had passed, their luster buried beneath the ages. Blood-veined marks stained their surfaces — said to have formed from the corpse blood that seeped in over long contact with the dead.

Ye Fan held them in his hand and turned them over. Though they carried no gleam, they were smooth and fine in texture, warm to the touch — these were ancient jade script from remote antiquity, and each single piece would fetch a priceless sum!

Without question, they were national-treasure-grade objects. Each one that appeared in the world would cause a sensation. Dense oracle bone script was carved across the jade pieces.

The several pieces of ancient jade were each of a different color — some golden as metal, some red as blood, some white as mutton-fat jade — their luster restrained, as though veiled in a layer of dust, bearing the mottled marks of the ages, unmistakably objects of great antiquity.

Six pieces in total. They had been obtained by the Ten Thousand Demons Valley masters of every generation after expending boundless effort — retrieved from ancient hanging coffins from the land of Sichuan and Shu to Mount Wuyi, with no telling how many hanging coffins had been opened in the process. And the two oldest pieces had been personally sought out by the first-generation valley master — that ancient demon sage — himself.

Ye Fan held the ancient jade pieces up toward the sunlight and rotated them, carefully reading every character. The script resembled birds, beasts, fish, and insects — extremely abstruse and difficult to decipher. He managed to grasp only a rough meaning.

Just as the third valley master had described: the ancient jade script retrieved from the hanging coffins contained a world-shaking secret, faintly pointing to an earth immortal.

“Red Pine Master held a fragment of immortal bone bearing a partial geographical map. He came to the land of Sichuan and Shu in search of what it pointed to, and personally opened tens of thousands of hanging coffins — yet fell short at the last step, never obtaining what he sought. We have no immortal bone fragment to guide us, so we went about it more directly: we traveled the world, opening one ancient hanging coffin after another, searching for what he wanted to find.” The third valley master said.

These six pieces of ancient jade were the sum of their efforts — faintly mentioning an earth immortal, but without any indication of where to find this being. It was utterly mysterious.

“And based on this, you seek to find what even Red Pine Master could not?” Ye Fan asked.

“We try our utmost and leave the outcome to fate.” The third valley master said. The valley masters of every generation had been tenacious and had never given up.

An earth immortal — already an immortal — must possess unfathomable divine powers. To obtain what such a being possessed was easier said than done. Ye Fan transcribed the geographical map from the immortal bone fragment and showed it to the third valley master, asking whether he recognized the terrain.

“I have never seen this kind of terrain before. It should be a region sealed away by some ancient formation — invisible to the present world.”

“You said that five hundred years ago, one of the old valley masters made a stunning discovery. What was that referring to?” Ye Fan asked.

“He only managed to say that he had finally come to understand, and then swiftly passed away. Just before his death, he pointed to a certain place — yet none of us can enter it.” The third valley master said.

“What place?” Ye Fan asked.

“The place where Red Pine Master attained enlightenment in the Dao — the Immortal Sword Heavenly Pool.” The third valley master’s expression grew grave. In that time, the old valley master had been heaven-endowed in his gifts, transcendent and extraordinary, deeply versed in formation arts — yet in the end he could only barely crawl out alive.

The old valley master had just barely managed to indicate — put together what Red Pine Master had discovered with what the Ten Thousand Demons Valley masters had labored to find across the generations, and perhaps the earth immortal might be located!

“Is there truly a place called the Immortal Sword Heavenly Pool in the Shu Mountains?” Ye Fan was astonished — he had never heard of it.

The third valley master nodded and said it was the place where Red Pine Master had transmitted the Dao tradition, then gone alone to practice his sword and attain enlightenment in the Dao. Today, absolutely no one could enter it.

Ye Fan considered for a moment. Through the ripples of his divine sense he could perceive that the third valley master was not lying, and so he wished to go and try.

“Take me to have a look.”

The third valley master had revealed everything precisely because he wished to borrow Ye Fan’s strength — for he had long since seen that Ye Fan was no ordinary person and might well be comparable to a great cultivator of divine powers from remote antiquity. And through his name, the monkey had connected the dots to events from over twenty years past — when he compared the records and matched them up, he was profoundly shaken. He then understood that Ye Fan was one of those who had disappeared aboard the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin.

The Immortal Sword Heavenly Pool was naturally no ordinary place. Today it was unknown to the people of the world, guarded by an ancient formation. On ordinary days, not even birds could enter or leave.

That very day, Ye Fan and the third valley master departed from the Ten Thousand Demons Valley and made straight for a great mountain range deep within Sichuan territory.

Mount Emei — with layer upon layer of overlapping peaks, a grand and commanding terrain, and scenery of divine and luminous beauty, with ten thousand variations of atmosphere.

The so-called Shu Mountains were a collective name for the mountain ranges in the vicinity of Emei. Here, ancient trees soared to the sky, clouds hung in broken chains across the bridges, gorges ran deep and valleys lay secluded, ten thousand torrents flew in cascades, the sound of water ever-present.

“The mortal world’s energy is too heavy here,” Ye Fan said with a furrowed brow. He did not believe this place still harbored an immortal sword tradition.

“Nothing to be done — this place has become a scenic attraction in the present day, thronged with too many travelers. Those who cultivate the Dao retreated long ago.” The third valley master said.

Mount Emei is one of the four great sacred Buddhist mountains of China, the sacred ground of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, and is ordinarily frequented by many visitors.

The third valley master said, “One must acknowledge that Buddhism showed remarkable foresight. Before the age of declining spiritual energy arrived, it began spreading eastward to transmit the Dharma, drawing upon the many sacred mountains of our Central Plains to sustain its cultivation and ensure the transmission of its lineage would not be severed — while India itself no longer believes in Buddhism.”

“This is the sacred ground of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva. Let me see whether any ancient sage-level figures still exist here.” Ye Fan stood suspended in the air and extended his powerful divine sense outward — yet he sensed nothing.

“The true Buddhist cultivators have withdrawn from the Golden Summit of Emei and practice in an uninhabited zone not far from here, where a formation provides protection. Ordinary mortals cannot detect it.” The third valley master said.

He also mentioned the advantages of the Buddhist path — gathering the power of faith through incense and prayers and drawing upon this mental energy in cultivation, which gave them a considerable advantage in this age of declining spiritual energy.

“Has no one in the Central Plains tried to emulate them?” Ye Fan asked, puzzled.

“There is no way. There are too many powerful figures in the Central Plains. Daoism alone can be divided into dozens or even hundreds of sects, none of whom submit to any other, and the Three Pure Ones they revere are themselves the result of mutual compromise — to say nothing of the demon race and others. No systematic divine hierarchy has been established — there are contradictions and conflicts in every direction. Even if there were offerings and prayers, which deity would receive them? The Earth God, the City God, the Mountain God, the King of the Underworld, the Second Lord Guan, the Celestial Master, the God of Wealth, the Door Gods, the Stove God, the Dragon King… the Queen Mother of the West, the Old Man in the Sky… the Three Pure Ones, the Sovereign of Heaven and Earth — which one do you pray to?”

Ye Fan developed a headache. When he thought it through carefully, it truly was so.

The divine positions listed by the third valley master did not necessarily all exist, yet they were sufficient to illustrate a problem: the Central Plains were too formidable, each faction sovereign unto itself. Setting aside the demon race and others, even Daoism itself was riven with contradictions and lacked unity.

It was precisely because there were so many powerful figures and so many schools standing side by side that it had become possible for outside teachings to coexist.

In the end, cultivators of the Central Plains relied entirely on their own Dao attainment, drawing upon their own selves in cultivation, without leaning on the external power of faith. The divine powers they cultivated were in fact all the more formidable for it.

“Speaking of gathering faith and drawing upon mental energy in cultivation — the Western tradition surpasses even Buddhism in this regard, by a wide margin. If you have the chance, go to Jerusalem, the Holy City, or to Vatican City — you will see at once. The mental energy there is even more pure, surging like a great river and the sea. And it is precisely for this reason that in this age of declining spiritual energy, the West can still produce great cultivators of divine powers.” The third valley master sighed.

With the vital energy of heaven and earth exhausted and the spiritual energy needed for cultivation gone, while the human population had grown ever larger, the judicious harnessing of the vast and pure power of faith had become all the more important.

Some tens of kilometers beyond the Golden Summit of Emei, Ye Fan discovered a hidden ground belonging to the Buddhist sect. He could see thin threads of mental energy flowing in through it. He spread his divine sense to look inside — no figures at the Arhat level were visible, and overall the strength within did not match the Ten Thousand Demons Valley.

They did not linger. They wound their way along the edge of Emei Mountain, turning left and right, and eventually passed into an ancient formation and arrived in a vast uninhabited zone.

“This is the legendary Shu Mountains!” Ye Fan exclaimed in amazement.

The peaks before him were each perfectly upright, every single one like a long sword standing proud beneath the sky, each bearing a penetrating air of sharpness!

This was the true Shu Mountains — every peak resembled a sword, with a world-shaking momentum that seemed ready to pierce through the clouds.

Red Pine Master had transmitted his Dao tradition here and let later generations receive his arts, founding the sword cultivation lineage. From the very moment one beheld this landscape of mountains and rivers, it was already destined.

To this day, the Dao tradition left behind by Red Pine Master — the sword cultivation lineage — kept a very low profile and had never emerged into the world. Their footsteps were nowhere to be seen.

Yet entering this place today, Ye Fan sensed keen sword energy on more than a dozen mountain peaks. The third valley master said this lineage was not weaker than the Ten Thousand Demons Valley — though their transmission had gaps, they were still a force no one should underestimate.

They had no desire to invite unnecessary trouble. They gave this sword cultivation sect a wide berth and skirted around them, then flew outward for more than four hundred kilometers before at last drawing near to their destination.

Before them rose a peak that soared into the clouds — so sheer that not even a bird could perch on it. It stood straight up from the earth like a heavenly sword driven into the ground.

And from it surged a wave of keen killing intent — it cut through the spirit, rent the physical frame, and would shatter one’s bones. Cultivators below the Dragon Transformation Secret Realm had no hope of approaching.

Ye Fan was shaken. In the present age, there still existed a place like this in the world — it truly inspired dread.

The third valley master went pale. He could barely stand before the mountain, battered by wave after wave of sword energy, his physical body threatening to collapse — it was an agonizing experience.

“This is the Immortal Sword Peak. At its summit there is a heavenly pool — said to be the place where Red Pine Master washed his sword. Do not force your way in — terrible disaster awaits!”

The third valley master’s face had gone white. He issued a sincere and earnest warning, saying that the old valley master of five hundred years past had been heaven-endowed in gifts, had consumed a divine pill left behind by an ancient demon god, cultivated for eight hundred years, and stepped into the Immortal Platform Secret Realm — yet even he had met his end here.

Ye Fan indicated that he understood. The sword energy of this place was extremely intense, ringing out with a metallic cry, as though ten million heavenly swords were singing in unison — a sound that reverberated through heaven and earth!

The clanging sword energy was not yet enough to harm him, but he nonetheless had to remain carefully on guard. There was no telling what great danger might await at the very summit of the mountain.

“Brother Ye, you must be careful!” The third valley master stepped back, calling out loudly.

Ye Fan nodded. Step by step he walked forward. As he neared the mountain, not a single blade of grass grew upon it — it was smooth as the body of a sword, the killing intent having solidified into something tangible, severing the divine souls of those who approached.

Xiao Song was clinging nervously to his sleeve, deeply worried, insisting on accompanying him, its little heart hammering away — the very image of one who had resolved to go to its death alongside him.

“It will be fine.” Ye Fan consoled it and stroked the small purple creature’s head.

Clang… Clang…

The moment Ye Fan drew close, ten million heavenly swords rang out together — their divine brilliance blotted out the sun as they cleaved through clouds and severed the void of past and present alike.

He trod the movement arts of the Sacred Script of Words, transforming into a streak of light and charging through the gaps between the sword brilliances, surging upward at great speed, evading one after another of the keen sword energies.

“This is not a killing formation — this is the supreme sword intent left behind in ages past!” Ye Fan was shaken to his core. Just how powerful had Red Pine Master been? Across countless ages, the sword intent he had left behind still endured.

The place where he washed his sword — the place where he attained enlightenment in the Dao!

This was a divine ground. Were one to take up long residence here and endure this sword intent, one could indirectly obtain its Dao tradition — an inheritance of priceless worth.

Red Pine Master had cultivated a heart of benevolence. Though sword energy crisscrossed through this place, he had purged all murderous energy from it — it was not of the destructive kind, or else few in the world would be able to approach.

Ye Fan ascended to the Immortal Sword Heavenly Pool. He sensed a true meaning of the sword Dao — quickly he stilled his mind, not opposing this energy but instead opening himself to receive this great Dao.

Before him lay a sword lake — crystalline and transparent, emitting a thousand threads and ten thousand strands of sword light, as though a peerless immortal sword lay buried within.

“This is the Immortal Sword Heavenly Pool…” Ye Fan murmured to himself. He knew at once — Red Pine Master’s true supreme Dao tradition resided here.

His gaze sharpened, and immediately he understood why the Ten Thousand Demons Valley master of five hundred years ago had said what he had — for he too had now discovered what Red Pine Master had left behind.