Li Qingming looked at the scene before him somewhat speechlessly, thinking to himself: "Who exactly is this guy trying to spar with? Why is this Ancestor Witch so unreliable!"
Houtu, naturally innocent, then hurriedly asked, "Brothers, what's going on? Why have you started fighting without exchanging a word?"
Gonggong's ten brothers were quite fond of their two youngest sisters. Hearing this, he raised his hand to touch the back of his head and chuckled, "Hehe, it's just a habit, just a habit! Hehehe..."
Zhu Rong, who had just rushed back, now had flames rising from his head full of red hair. Panting heavily, he said, "Xiao Shui, you're really unreasonable. How many times have I told you not to kick my face? I swear at your lungs!" He spoke while slapping his own back of the head.
Houtu, whose face had just cleared up, turned furious again. "Brother Huo, you are too rude!" With that said, she stomped on the ground, and a dirt dragon emerged from the surface. It wrapped around Zhu Rong's leg with visible speed, completely sealing him into a sculpture.
Li Qingming thought to himself, "Only women and villains are difficult to raise! It seems that this saying applies equally well to women of any era! Infinite Heavenly Venerable!"
Gonggong rubbed his palms excitedly and said, "Brother Li, the trouble is solved! Let's compare our skills!"
Li Qingming helplessly nodded and walked to the open area in front of the hall. He stepped forward with his left foot, slightly squatted back, raised his left hand, lowered his right hand, and assumed the stance of a tiger claw. He lowered his head slightly, now truly embodying the fierceness of a tiger descending the mountain!
"Fellow Daoist Gonggong, brace yourself! This is Xingyi Tiger Fist!" Out of politeness, Li Qingming shouted loudly.
Gonggong's expression turned grave. The memories inherited from Pangu were mostly combat experiences with no specific techniques to follow! Observing Li Qingming's overall form, he felt an implicit fierce aura of a tiger.
"Roar!" A tiger's roar seemed to echo in his ears, and streams of Yuqing True Essence mixed with the surrounding spiritual energy outlined a White Tiger, over ten meters long. The tiger's teeth were sharp, and its aura formidable! The White Tiger opened its huge mouth and bit down on Gonggong with the momentum of a tiger descending the mountain.
"Good!" A limitless fighting spirit blazed in Gonggong's eyes. He took a horse stance, making the ground within a ten-meter radius tremble. "Ha!" He chopped down with his right hand, blocking at the White Tiger's forehead where the character "King" was. He punched with his left fist, targeting the White Tiger's chin.
"Clang!" A metallic sound resonated from where the fists met.
Li Qingming felt as if his right hand had harshly hit an iron block, veins bulging on his forehead and his face turning red. Gonggong was sucking in air sharply through his teeth.
From this single strike, Li Qingming was able to gauge Gonggong's combat power; he was roughly at the Early Stage of Daluo True Immortal, and could somewhat contend with someone at the Middle Stage of Daluo True Immortal.
Stirring up eighty percent of his True Yuan, Li Qingming switched his technique this time.
He lifted one leg, standing like a golden rooster. His thumb and middle finger tightly locked together, the other three fingers slightly raised. His right hand formed a hollow. Yuqing True Essence surged and shockingly outlined a Phoenix, four meters long, with spread wings ready to soar.
In his past life, Li Qingming had not completely mastered Xingyi Boxing. After all, the martial arts heritage spanning hundreds of years could not be fully inherited without some losses in techniques.
But these years, he had seen quite a number of Phoenixes, which precisely validated the Xingyi Crane Fist he had learned. He used it now as if it were second nature.
A soft screech, and the Fire Phoenix soared from the ground. Its sharp claws fiercely pounced towards Gonggong's back.
Ancestor Witches had ample fighting experience but lacked specific techniques. The inheritance of Pangu's techniques consisted only of the frustrating phrase: "The Great Tao is Simple!" This left the Ancestor Witches in a tough spot.
Just having learned Li Qingming's Xingyi Tiger Fist, Gonggong quickly evolved hundreds of techniques in his mind.
He stepped forward with his left foot in a drawing arc, slightly squatted back, raised his left hand, lowered his right hand, and assumed the stance of a tiger claw, his head slightly lowered. Using the same starting moves, Gonggong's rendition lacked a bit of the original charm. The White Tiger, formed entirely of Heaven and Earth Primordial Energy, appeared dull-eyed and its movements somewhat stiff.
"Roar!" The White Tiger formed by Gonggong leaped backward, dodging the double claws of Li Qingming's Fire Phoenix. Its hind claws touched the ground, and its front claws soared skyward, leaping towards Li Qingming in mid-air.
Caught off guard, Li Qingming could only be brutally hit by Gonggong's head and sent flying. Flapping his wings wildly in midair to stop his motion, he flipped over, with his sharp beak aimed downward, and with the momentum of descending from above, he shot towards Gonggong like lightning.
Gonggong's tiger eyes seemed to flash with a hint of brilliance, and with a turn, his right leg transformed into a tiger's tail and "whooshed" towards the swiftly descending Li Qingming.
"Zzzz"
A piercing noise came, and Li Qingming's claws fiercely grasped Gonggong's tiger tail. As the steel claws and tiger tail rubbed together, they produced a noise similar to a knife scraping glass, painfully grating to the ear.
"The Witch, originally favored by the land, loses at least twenty percent of its strength when removed from the earth." Gonggong, lifted into the air, could no longer maintain the White Tiger formed of Primordial Energy, and reverted to human form.
He yelled frantically, "Brother Li, Brother Li! Set me down quickly! Hanging me upside down like this is just too uncomfortable!"
"Hehe," Li Qingming chuckled lightly, as he reverted from the Phoenix Form. His slender figure, holding Gonggong about a meter tall like lifting a small chicken, gently landed on the ground. He said, "Fellow Daoist Gonggong, I have offended you greatly this time!"
With his feet on the ground, Gonggong excitedly hopped about, mindlessly grinning and showing a smile, saying, "It's alright! Losing is losing, Brother Li, those two moves were amazing! Hahaha, I had a great fight today!"
Houtu and Xuanming also looked at Li Qingming with bright eyes, making him feel uncomfortable all over.
Even more clap-worthy were the other eight Ancestor Witches, all of whom looked at Li Qingming with excitement and a fighting spirit flickering in their eyes, capable of melting someone.
A crisp "snap" broke this eerie scene as Zhu Rong stepped out from the statue, saying, "I say, sister, what's going on with you? I still wanted to have a word with Xiao Shui!"
...
"Brother Li, come and spar with me..."
"Brother Li, ignore him and come fight with me instead..."
The once quiet and solemn Ancestral Witch Hall had now turned into a marketplace! Almost all the Ancestor Witches, except for Xuanming and Houtu, were eagerly challenging Li Qingming to a fight, much to his annoyance.
Out of options, Li Qingming's eyes suddenly brightened as he remembered something Zhu Rong had mentioned earlier. He then spoke up, "Earlier, Fellow Daoist Zhu Rong mentioned that a young man at the foot of Buzhou Mountain was extremely ruthless. What does that mean? If the fellow daoists can tell me what that young man did, I promise to stay here and spar with you all every day. How about that?"
The reticent Zhu Jiuyin, after a long silence, said to Li Qingming, "Fellow Daoist must be aware. When we were first born, the Primordial was shaken. The Innate Three Clans sent their elite to search for the reason at Buzhou Mountain. Unfortunately, these clans were already in frequent conflict, and their armies met at the foot of Buzhou Mountain. Initially, it was the Beast Clan and the Scale Armor Clan who met and agreed to work together to annihilate the flying bird Vermilion Bird army."
Zhu Jiuyin glanced at Li Qingming, who was intently listening, and continued, "The two clans set an ambush at the foot of Buzhou Mountain and wiped out the Vermilion Bird army, with only the army commander, the Princess of the Phoenix Clan, Feng Yan'er, managing to escape. Later for some unknown reason, the commander of the Scale Armor Clan, Crown Prince Ao Tian of the Dragon Clan, turned his spearhead and fought fiercely against the Beast Clan! In the end, in the end..."
Li Qingming frowned and asked, "What happened in the end?"
Zhu Jiuyin swallowed and said, "In the end, that Ao Tian transformed into a rolling black smoke, sweeping across the entire battlefield, and turned all the dragons and the Dinosaur army into black smoke!"
Upon hearing this, Li Qingming subconsciously thought of Luo Hou. He looked up at Zhu Jiuyin but didn't say anything.
Zhu Jiuyin continued, "It was terrifying to behold, so I escaped into the long river of time, only to find out that both Feng Yan'er and Ao Tian were dead, and the current Feng Yan'er and Ao Tian are puppets of Luo Hou!"
"Indeed!" Li Qingming inwardly sneered repeatedly.
The hall immediately fell into silence.
After a while, Li Qingming said, "Well, it's time for me to keep my promise. Who shall we start with?"
Thus, Li Qingming gave up his thoughts of returning home and settled down in the Ancestral Witch Hall. He sparred daily with the Ancestor Witches and even taught them the essence of martial arts of future generations, such as Yong Chun Fist, Eight Trigrams Wandering Dragon Palm, Xingyi Boxing, and Tai Chi Boxing.
Over a hundred years passed, and one day, as usual, Li Qingming was sitting on the steps of the grand hall watching the Ancestor Witches practicing boxing.
Suddenly, a ten-thousand-foot golden light flashed from the western part of Buzhou Mountain and disappeared in an instant. If not for the closeness of the gathering, it would have gone unnoticed.
All the Ancestor Witches stopped their exercises and turned their eyes towards Zhu Jiuyin. Seated in a lotus position, Zhu Jiuyin channeled his divine skills and plunged his consciousness into the long river of time.
After a while, Zhu Jiuyin opened his eyes, swept a glance over the crowd, and said, "I cannot deduce what this thing is! But it must be related to Brother Li!"
Li Qingming, too, was suppressing his excitement and said, "I intend to go and investigate. Although it was a fleeting flash, I always have a feeling pulling me there!"
The Ancestor Witches said, "We are willing to accompany Brother Li!"
Li Qingming said nothing, just nodded.
Inside Li Qingming's Primordial Spirit, the Qiankun Ruler and Qiankun Map were pulsating ceaselessly, emitting waves of joy.
Li Qingming had a vague guess in his heart: "Could it be that thing?"
Inside the Phoenix Hall of Tian Nan Undying Volcano.
"Father Emperor, you must take revenge for Aunt Huang and those tens of thousands of Vermilion Bird Clan sisters and brothers! Woo woo woo!" after a hundred years, Feng Yan'er had just returned and was now crying pitifully in the hall.
"Yan'er, are my tens of thousands of children from the Vermilion Bird Clan, truly, truly fallen at the hands of these two clans?" Feng Tian trembled, his face filled with sorrow.
"Yes, Father Emperor! So terrifying... woo woo woo..." Feng Yan'er covered her delicate face with her hands, a cold sneer lining her mouth.
"Ahh! Lin Tian, Ao Long, I will demote your Primordial Spirits into the Nine Netherworlds for millions of years, ensuring you never reincarnate!!" Feng Tian's face was ferocious, revealing his cultivation of the middle stage of a Quasi-Saint, his authority pressuring the entire hall!
In the Dragon Clan, Ao Tian was also deeply distressed, denouncing the Beast Clan and the Flying Bird Clan.
Looking at the Beast Clan, inside the Qilin Hall. Lin Ming, who was supposedly dead, was now kneeling in the center of the grand hall, recounting the adverse actions of the Scale Armor Clan and the Flying Bird Clan over the past century.
...
On the eastern side of Buzhou Mountain, at the location of the gourd vine.
A group of thirteen people stood on this plot of land that was now empty, save for the vines. Li Qingming was incredibly excited. "I knew it! How could such weak soil produce the Innate Gourd Spirit Root? It must be that thing buried deep here, providing nutrients for the growth of the gourd vine."
"Crack, boom!"
A bunch of bright yellow light burst forth from underground. Looking at the ground, the gourd vine had vanished without a trace.
Suddenly, the Qiankun Ruler and Qiankun Map within Li Qingming's Primordial Spirit escaped, leisurely spinning and shooting towards the light in the sky.
Li Qingming quickly urged his Primordial Spirit, trying to retrieve the two Magic Treasures. Despite his efforts, the light's pulling force was too strong, dragging the treasures like swallows returning to their nest into the light sphere.
The three objects met in midair, amidst a brilliant golden light, gently descending and aiming directly at Li Qingming. Hovering in front of him, continuously rotating and pulsing, Li Qingming looked and was overjoyed: "The Qiankun Tripod!!!"