The lake water was icy cold and incredibly clear, as if empty of all matter.

Azure sky light shone down from above, penetrating three hundred zhang of deep water to reach the lakebed, creating a hazy shimmer.

The surface of the lake was vast, covering over a hundred acres, yet beneath, it spanned only a few dozen zhang in a circular area. In the very center laid a giant lying stone, upon which Shi Feiyang was now sprawled, sighing in frustration.

Though submerged underwater, he did not feel suffocated, for his body was that of a dragon.

Days before, he had taken a college entrance examination.

One of the multiple-choice questions had four options that were exceedingly similar; they all appeared correct to him. Despite racking his brains, he was unable to determine the right answer, so he drew a Qimen Nine Palace Array on scrap paper to calculate it.

Since childhood, he was fascinated by mysticism. Due to a twist of fate, he had self-taught Yi Jing numerology and even fantasied about defying destiny.

After years of practice, the accuracy of his predictions was a serious concern, with nine out of ten being wrong. The theories seemed logical, yet the outcomes never aligned with reality.

He believed numerology was true, but the information he collected was incomplete and many secrets had been lost over time.

Proud at heart, he figured that if the ancients could do it, so could he. So he labored with heart and soul, studying day and night, persistently practicing, summarizing, and deducing. Despite repeated failures, he was determined to fill in the gaps.

With the college entrance exam being critically important, he exerted every ounce of his heart power, rapidly manipulating his fingers with one hand while the other hand worked the pen, deducing the calculation on the scrap paper: Hidden Escape, Three Wonders Eight Spirits, Six Instruments Punishment, Nine Stars Inversion, Soaring High with Tai Chong and Heavenly Horse, Jade Girl Guarding the Gate...

All these intricate elements churned within his consciousness, his brain working at high speed, more exhausting than solving trigonometric functions, yet he became more and more excited with each calculation.

At last, he arrived at a result, option B!

He picked up his pen to darken the answer sheet, but just as he had filled in two strokes, he was overwhelmed by a severe dizziness and collapsed on the desk.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in this lake, no longer in a human form but transformed into a dragon!

Shi Feiyang's dragon body was quite long, which he estimated to be over thirty meters. From head to tail it was covered with black scales, he had four powerful claws, a pair of horns atop his head reaching skyward, eyes flashing like lightning, his gaze alone commanding respect.

He had not only acquired the body of this Black Dragon but also its memories.

The Black Dragon had lived for nearly three thousand years, originally residing in the Yangtze River. This world's Yangtze was thirty-six thousand li long, with the widest part exceeding three hundred li, a vast and raging river home to many fish and dragons, and teeming with monstrous demons and beasts.

In the memory of the Black Dragon, there were many formidable immortals in this world. The most prestigious was the founder of the Emei Sect, Master Changmei, undefeated in battles across the lands. There was also the Jile Perfected, Li Jingxu, who reformed his body with the essence of the Five Elements and walked about the human world as a child in playful disguise. There was also Yan Yingmu of Dongting Mountain in Suzhou, all of them mighty figures who could move mountains and overturn seas with a mere wave of their hands.

He also knew that there was a powerful hunchback living in the Wuxia Gorge, a particularly domineering old devout woman named Luo Ziyuan on Heng Mountain, a White Bone God practicing cultivation with dead human bones on Lu Mountain, and a provocative fox on Yellow Mountain that called herself Lady Bao Xiang...

Over a hundred years ago, he eavesdropped on two traveling Sword Immortals, who said Immortal Mountain's Dinghu Peak was where Emperor Xuanyuan had practiced alchemy and ascended. It was rumored that Emperor Xuanyuan had left behind the Heavenly Book and other wondrous treasures here, attracting many Sword Immortals to hunt for these treasures, hopeful to try their luck.

The Black Dragon, having cultivated for nearly three thousand years, had refined a fierce Demon Fire within its belly and condensed two inner cores, now capable of flying through the heavens and diving into the seas. He took advantage of a night with overcast skies, hiding in the clouds to follow the pair to this place, using Water Escape to stealthily lurk nearby.

The two of them searched every corner of the lake bed, convinced that the treasure from the Heavenly Book was hidden within the central Lying Stone, and deduced the method to open it based on the Circulation method. Just as the Lying Stone began to open, the Black Dragon suddenly struck, killing both of them and seizing the treasure within the stone.

After the killings, the Black Dragon realized what was hidden inside the Lying Stone was a brilliantly shining Jade Box, its six sides fitting tightly together as if carved from a single piece of jade, adorned with golden talismanic engraving. The slightest pressure would cause it to emit light that bounced back; despite all efforts, he was unable to open it.

Shi Feiyang compared the memories of the Black Dragon with his own past knowledge, confirming that he had come to the world of "Shushan Swordsmen" and had become the unfortunate Black Dragon of Dinghu Peak.

Originally, this Demon Dragon was merely a lesser water dragon. Starting from birth, it would shed its skin every thirty years, each shedding bringing a change, until after a hundred times, it could transform into a True Dragon.

What was tragic was that it needed to absorb the True Sun Fire from the outside during its skin shedding, requiring two months of basking. In these two months, he would completely lose consciousness every night at the hour of Zi, as if dead; even an ordinary butcher from the countryside could carve him up into pieces!

After all, as a traditional world of immortals and swordsmen, even Manjusri Bodhisattva in "Journey to the West" was bound and immersed in water by mortals, and the Dragon Crown Prince in "Jigong" was dismembered and eaten by ordinary folk. No matter how fierce and mighty one normally was, when one's fated crisis arrived, they would be extremely vulnerable.

Even more fatal was that he had Xuanyuan's Jade Box, and although not many Sword Immortals knew about it, there were still a few.

He calculated the days, and in just over a year, he would undergo another skin shedding. According to the plot development in the Shushan World, there would be a vicious female Sword Immortal named Wei Fengniang, along with her lover, the Demon Monk Brooyinca, who would come to kill him, turning him into bone shards and rotten flesh, and finally seize the Heavenly Book!

After understanding his plight, Shi Feiyang's first reaction was to flee immediately; however, as long as he carried Xuanyuan's Treasure on his person, he would be hunted by Sword Immortals wherever he went. It would be better to stay in the lake, protected by the Golden Seal on the surrounding stone walls.

If giving up the Heavenly Book meant peace and safety, he would be willing to let it go.

However, he would still need to shed his skin twice more in the future, each time facing a life-threatening trial, especially the last time which would be extremely dangerous, almost certainly resulting in death. If he could open the Jade Box and take out the treasures of the Heavenly Book inside, using them wisely might offer a slim chance of survival; if he gave up now, although he could live for a few more years, when the time came, death would still be inevitable!

After brooding for a long time, Shi Feiyang felt that his hope for survival still rested on the Heavenly Book, so he prepared to spit out the Jade Box to study it thoroughly.

Previously, after obtaining the Jade Box, the Black Dragon had swallowed it and constantly tempered it day and night with the Dan Fire. Not only was it ineffective, but the more he refined it, the harder it got.

To open this thing brute force was not enough; the right method was needed. Shi Feiyang vaguely felt that the Golden Seal on the surrounding walls was related to the runes on the Jade Box, seeming to be the key to unlocking it.

He activated his Dantian, spat out the Jade Box, and placed it on the Lying Stone.

The Jade Box was seven inches long and three inches wide—a crystal yellow jade quality with a layer of golden light like flames swirling around. A red aura blossomed from its outer layer, brightly illuminating the lake bed as soon as it appeared, the light and water moving together, shimmering like neon lights, full of dazzling charm.

Shi Feiyang leaned in close to scrutinize the runes on the box, comparing them with the Heavenly Talismans on the surrounding stone walls, noticing many similarities.

The Golden Seal on the stone walls consisted of numerous line segments and dots, dense like the stars in the sky, with no discernible pattern, reaching nearly a yard high, encircling entirely, without beginning or end.

The talismanic engraving on the box resembled individual strokes of seal script, as well as different pictograms.

He matched the engravings from the box with the corresponding Heavenly Talismans on the wall; there were a total of seventy-two talismans on the box, which was only a small portion of those on the wall. He categorized the patterns and, after one full round, divided them into three hundred and sixty Heavenly Talismans.

"Three hundred and sixty talismans, arranged in a circle, perfectly matching the number of the Circulation..." Shi Feiyang pondered, when suddenly, he heard someone speaking above by the lake shore, "There's golden light and red aura constantly surging in this lake water, there must be a treasure emerging below!"