"Lud Li, the Mirage Dragon Pearl is too defiant of the heavens. Hand it over so we may destroy it. If you hand over the Mirage Dragon Pearl, we will spare your life!" Amid the void, an elder with flowing white beard and a jade crown loudly declared.
"Lud Li, quickly hand over the Mirage Dragon Pearl. If this treasure remains in the world, our millennia of arduous cultivation will all be for naught."
"Lud Li, the Mirage Dragon Pearl is not tolerated by heaven and earth. Hand it over, and we will spare your life!" Amid the void, three fearsome beings surrounded a blood-stained Lud Li, continuously shouting in anger.
Trapped in the middle, with his jade crown shattered, his Daoist robe torn, and his face covered in blood, Lud Li burst into tragic laughter, "What 'not tolerated by heaven and earth'? Are you afraid?
Afraid that me possessing this treasure will shake your three old thieves' standing, right?
Hand it over? Spare me from death?
If I hand over this treasure, is there any difference between living and dying?
I, Lud Li, have roamed freely all my life. How could I let you manipulate me, hahaha......." Amid the wild laughter, Lud Li's body suddenly radiated an exceedingly brilliant light.
"This is bad, he is self-immolating his True Body, he's trying to escape. Brothers, lend me your strength and help me seal this beast!" The bearded elder with the jade crown suddenly pointed, and within the void, an instant flash of golden light filled the space.
At the same time, the other two fearsome beings surrounding Lud Li also pointed out, and three beams of golden light converged, forming strands of mysterious Divine Runes, pressing down towards Lud Li.
"Escape, when have I, Lud Li, ever fled like a dog?
Aren't you just afraid that the Mirage Dragon Pearl will impact your standing? I will plant a thorn in your hearts, a thorn that will never be removed!"
Amid the laughter, a pearl flew out from behind Lud Li's head, and the golden light exploding from his body instantly concentrated, enveloping the pearl.
"Ten Thousand Laws Chaotic Sky, Mirage Dragon Pearl, break!" The void suddenly shook violently, and the Mirage Dragon Pearl wrapped in Lud Li's full power abruptly broke through the golden light's suppression, shattering layer upon layer of the void, and fled.
"Leave it behind! Seal!" The elder with the bearded jade crown, enraged, his index finger bled without a blade, and the instant his golden blood shot out, he pointed out, and the endless golden radiance abruptly turned into a Divine Rune dragon, shooting towards the radiance transformed by the Mirage Dragon Pearl.
The Divine Rune dragon was incredibly fast, and in a blink, it enveloped the Mirage Dragon Pearl.
But as soon as the Divine Rune dragon had almost touched it, the space of All Heavens and Myriads of Worlds suddenly disrupted, and the Mirage Dragon Pearl disappeared into a piece of the void.
By the time the bearded elder with the jade crown searched again, the chaotic space had instantly returned to normal, and no trace of the Mirage Dragon Pearl could be found.
"Hahaha, countless worlds in All Heavens and Myriads of Worlds, Emperor Xuan, I want to see how you will destroy the Mirage Dragon Pearl...." Amid the laughter, Lud Li's body gradually turned into numerous points of light and dissipated, leaving only those three figures of Emperor Xuan standing in the void with ugly expressions, silent for a long time....
......
As this scene disappeared, the scene before Ye Zhen changed, and in a certain world, he saw a powerful being accidentally find the dust-covered Mirage Dragon Pearl, mistaking it for a treasure, studying it day and night without success, until his death.
As the scenes shifted, the Mirage Dragon Pearl changed hands several times, even igniting numerous bloody storms, costing countless lives.
Moreover, unmatched geniuses, upon obtaining the Mirage Dragon Pearl, gradually merged with the masses.
As the Mirage Dragon Pearl changed hands several times, the few sealed Divine Runes on it gradually disintegrated, and the pearl silently absorbed its owner's Blood Qi, True Yuan, and even higher levels of power.
In the last few scenes, Ye Zhen even saw the ancestors of the Ye Family obtain the Mirage Dragon Pearl, which then passed down as a family heirloom from one generation to another.
And their branch of the Ye Family, due to the absorption of power by the Mirage Dragon Pearl, saw their cultivation slowly decline, leading to their downfall.
The final scene showed Ye Zhen bleeding unintentionally, and the Peace Pearl on his chest mysteriously absorbing his blood.
The bizarre scenes concluded, revealing a pearl with nine spatial stages, but only the First Spatial Stage emanating a faint light, while the other eight stages appeared as chaotic grey, before Ye Zhen's eyes.
Ye Zhen then fell into deep thought.
The wealth of information contained in these bizarre scenes was overwhelming, especially the battle scenes involving Lud Li and Emperor Xuan, which left Ye Zhen shockingly astounded.
It turned out martial artists could be powerful to that terrifying extent. Ye Zhen needed some time to digest it all.
This Mirage Dragon Pearl must be an incredible treasure, judging by how resolute those three of Emperor Xuan were to destroy it.
However, after Lud Li desperately used the secret technique to mess up time and space, the Mirage Dragon Pearl managed to escape the clutches of Emperor Xuan and his two colleagues. Yet as it fled, a small portion of Emperor Xuan's sealing divine runes fell upon it.
What followed was a lengthy unsealing process.
As the years passed, the first layer of the sealing divine runes on the Mirage Dragon Pearl began to loosen, allowing the pearl to regain a minuscule, nearly negligible function.
It secretly absorbed power from its owners, generation after generation. By the time it reached Ye Zhen, the pearl had completely broken the first layer of the sealing divine runes, unlocking the first spatial stage of the Mirage Dragon Pearl.
Ye Zhen calculated that before him, the Mirage Dragon Pearl had passed through ninety-two owners, and the process of breaking the first seal had lasted for thousands of years.
It was truly a feat akin to water dripping through stone.
"Since the Mirage Dragon Pearl could attract Emperor Xuan and two other unparalleled beings to join forces to destroy it, what kind of heaven-defying feature could it possibly have?" This question had been circling in Ye Zhen's mind from the very beginning.
Unfortunately, how the Mirage Dragon Pearl defied the heavens remained unclear, as the bizarre and disorderly images provided no clues.
Ye Zhen discovered that the Mirage Dragon Pearl seemed to have completely fused with the Danzhong acupoint in his chest.
Whenever his gaze fell on the seal of the Mirage Dragon Pearl on his chest, or he concentrated on it, the Mirage Dragon Pearl, shimmering with a faint luminescence, would appear in his consciousness.
However, no matter how Ye Zhen tried or stimulated it, the Mirage Dragon Pearl at his chest showed no reaction at all, let alone display any heaven-defying features.
After unsuccessful attempts, Ye Zhen could only set it aside for now.
"Perhaps, I have not yet discovered the mysterious aspect of the Mirage Dragon Pearl. Or maybe, my ability to understand the language of beasts is a small secret granted by the Mirage Dragon Pearl; I can only uncover it slowly," comforted Ye Zhen himself.
After calming his mind, Ye Zhen, regardless of the filth on his body, sat down cross-legged again and activated the Blood Qi Technique to concentrate and inspect carefully.
The heaven-defying effects of the Mirage Dragon Pearl were far from reach for Ye Zhen, but the two drops of Stone Marrow Spirit Liquid he had just taken were tangible and beneficial.
Regrettably, at the crucial moment of his cultivation breakthrough, Ye Zhen had fainted.
Now, Ye Zhen was eager to know to what extent the Stone Marrow Spirit Liquid had enhanced his Cultivation and to estimate the value of the Spiritual Liquid based on this progress.
The moment he activated the Blood Qi Technique to look inward, Ye Zhen was stunned.
He was astonished by the Cultivation of the Blood Qi circulating in his own meridians.
Indeed, the changes in the Cultivation of the Blood Qi inside his body stunned Ye Zhen.
However, the change was not a significant increase in Cultivation.
Rather, it was because Ye Zhen's Cultivation had unexpectedly decreased, and the magnitude of the decline was not small.
Before taking the two drops of Stone Marrow Spirit Liquid, the Blood Qi in Ye Zhen's meridians had already reached the Blood Qi Filling Veins level.
With the help of the two drops of Stone Marrow Spirit Liquid, Ye Zhen estimated that his meridians' Blood Qi would at least reach Blood Qi Like Waves, close to or at the Peak of the First Stage Blood Refining.
But in reality, the Cultivation of Ye Zhen's meridians' Blood Qi had somehow dropped to the thickness of chopsticks, the Blood Qi Like Chopsticks.
Faced with this unexpected outcome, Ye Zhen was so frustrated that he almost vomited blood.
The annual assessment was approaching, and his Cultivation was already far behind. Now, it had fallen even further behind.
With a suffocating feeling in his chest hard to vent, Ye Zhen suddenly leaped up and throw a punch fiercely at the rock wall of the cave to vent his frustration.
Hisss!
A punch as swift as lightning tore through the air, and the sound of air tearing explosively erupted.
Bang!
As his fist struck and shattered the rock wall, sending stone debris flying, Ye Zhen was stunned again.
Breaking the wind with a punch was something that could only be achieved when the strength exceeded two thousand kilograms and the Cultivation reached the Peak of the First Stage Blood Refining.
Startled for a moment, an ecstatic smile swiftly spread across Ye Zhen's face as he dashed out of the cave like a whirlwind.
Just as he reached the entrance of the cave, Ye Zhen suddenly halted to cover the bodies of the giant rats, other decaying animal corpses, to prevent wild animals from smelling the blood and revealing his location.
Then, Ye Zhen dashed out, his face full of excitement, and sprinted towards the martial arts training ground of Hundred Pine Peak.