Qing Yu breathed a quiet sigh of relief when she heard Lu Yun’s intentions.

“Xing Chen can’t easily leave the underworld, so I’ll have to go look for the world’s spleen myself,” pondered Lu Yun.

“I’ll go with you!” Qing Yu quickly volunteered.

“No, you can’t leave Mount Xuanhuang!” he quickly refuted. “There’s a woman by Dongfang Hao’s side who once took control of the immortal dao. You need to stay at the mountain and hold down the fort so she doesn’t have a chance to steal it again.”

Qing Yu fell silent, then nodded in a visibly downcast manner. “Alright then.”

“Honestly, we don’t need to be in a rush about this, it’s just one of my many plans. Right now… I have something much more important to do.” Lu Yun suddenly turned much more somber than he’d been moments ago.

“What is it?” He’d successfully caught the curiosity of Mo Yi and the others.

“Qing Yu, let’s get married.” Lu Yun turned gravely to Qing Yu. “We said a long time ago that we’d get married once you became an immortal!”

It felt like a thunderbolt had crashed into Qing Yu; she stared dumbly at her beloved. After a long while, she abruptly flushed beet red as she returned to her senses and fidgeted in place, not knowing how to respond.

Qing Buyi’s eyes widened with indignation. With a quick twitch, he interposed himself between the young couple and forcefully separated them.

“Hey kid, where’s your betrothal gift if you want to marry my sister!” He huffed and puffed and glared ferociously at Lu Yun.

Bam!!

A tremendous force blasted out behind Qing Buyi and sent him flying—Qing Yu. After sending her brother screeching toward the horizon with a powerful punch, she mumbled, “I, I do!”

“Betrothal gift, my dear sister!!” Qing Buyi wailed with injustice. “Look at you defending outsiders before you’ve even gotten married!”

Chen Xiao rolled his eyes at Qing Buyi. “We should make careful plans for this if you two want to get married. Little Yu is the dao sovereign and you are the headmaster of the Dao Academy. You also seemed to have obtained the legacy of the primeval human hell. You’ll likely earn the jealousy of all living beings if the two of you become dao partners.”

“We were enemies of the entire world before and got through that, what more is a little bit of jealousy?” The young couple shrugged off this concern.

Lu Yun had been waiting for this day for a very long time. He’d been besotted ever since he glimpsed her true form in the layout of absolute death beneath the burial mount of Myriad Formation Summit. After all these trials and hardships, his happily-ever-after was finally at hand. Why would he care about a little jealousy?

“The jealousy of all living beings can be a grave matter, but it can also be a minor trifle,” Lu Feng picked up the reins of conversation. “But if you wait until after Lu Yun excises the Dao Tree and connects the new dao immortal realm to the immortal dao… the unexpected may happen.”

“Huh?” Both Lu Yun and Qing Yu blinked in incomprehension, while Qing Buyi, Chen Xiao, and Mo Yi turned to Lu Feng.

“I think if you wait until then to become dao partners, you’ll be able to find a way to save the obsolete dao immortals!”

The batch of immortals to be discarded this time would be permanently obsolete with no recourse. They wouldn't be able to evade their fate even by practicing other methods or severing their cultivation, since this would be a fundamental change in cultivation realms, and not the restoration of a missing one like the void realm.

Qing Yu looked at Lu Yun, who grabbed her hand in return.

“Alright,” she made the decision with aplomb. “I’ll use the power of the Central World to seal away the Dao Tree so that no immortals can pluck their fruits anymore. Everything can wait until you find the spleen of the world.”

“Mm.” Chen Xiao nodded. “But we need to be quick about this. The new dao immortal realm must come to fruition as soon as possible. A hundred years isn’t enough.”

……

“The spleen of the world is in Xuan Yuan’s tomb… The Yellow Emperor?? Yellow Emperor Xuan Yuan of Earth’s legends?!” [1]

This time, Lu Yun traveled with Ashu and the Venerated Sacrosanct Demonic Sovereign. Being a holy king of the underworld, Xing Chen had lifted the realm’s restrictions on Ashu. Apart from the oppression of yang energy in the world, which meant he couldn’t call upon his core essence, the holy lord no longer had anything to fear. He’d received the breathing, body tempering, and nascent spirit methods and was now infinitely close to a true resurrection.

As for the demon sovereign, he viewed Lu Yun as a personal god after learning the nascent spirit observation method and did everything the human said. He’d fully merged the Hadal Bonefire with his nascent spirit with the method and combined them to create a Hadal Bonefire nascent spirit. This marked his Hadal Bonefire Method reaching the state of grand perfection, and he’d in turn gifted it to the Dao Academy to make it one of its legacies.

They were traveling to Heaven Locus Land, one of the ten monster spirit domains and not a particularly strong member at that. Ranked closer to the bottom half, Heaven Locus Land housed the Xuan Yuan Tomb.

“Lu Yun, I remember your primary body is also an adept tomb raider. However, you don’t seem to have passed on those methods.” Quiet during the entire trip, Ashu suddenly raised this question upon entering Heaven Locus Land.

“I haven’t?” Lu Yun started and looked blankly at the holy lord.

Ashu frowned, then shook his head slightly. “I haven’t seen anything to the contrary.”

He’d gotten to know Lu Yun’s past during this time and was aware that the youth was a great tomb-raiding expert. His mastery in tomb raiding was actually superior to his grasp of the supplemental paths and combat arts. And yet, the holy lord hadn’t seen anything about tomb raiding in the Dao Academy.

“Tomb raiding isn’t a great dao at all. It’s just a combination of all the great daos in the world, the three religions and nine schools of thought, and endless knowledge with experience.

“When it comes to how feng shui of the tombs affects formations, you can learn that through formation dao.

“Restraining immortal ghosts and zombies are found in talisman dao.

“Treasures to destroy ghosts and zombies can be refined through equipment dao.

“Curing corpse poison and avoiding the qi of malice lies in pills through pill dao.

“Seeking the dragon, discerning location, and determining the life point of a tomb are located in formula dao.

“As for the ‘Secret Archives of the Tomb Raiders’ that I compiled, it’s on the library shelves of the Dao Academy. Anyone who makes it through the outer academy examinations can peruse it at their leisure.

“To be honest, the content inside is profound and hard to grasp—not even the four supplemental sovereigns might be able to understand it. If I put it in the outer academy for everyone in the world to see, they’ll lap up the information without comprehending it and have it all backfire on them.

“If someone takes what they’ve read and ventures into an ancient tomb to regurgitate theories they’ve acquired through rote memorization… well, they’ll die a nasty death.

“Not only that, but if one lacks the fundamental knowledge of the outer academy and tries to understand the craftsmanship behind lord-grade fortress ships, the refinement method of crystal cannons, the formations that counter the weapons, or dao-grade formations of heaven and earth… again, it’s just impossible, even if I teach them personally.

“It’s all about foundations! Everything in the outer academy is just the basics, including even the six supplemental paths, various combat arts and cultivation methods. I’m giving them sixty years so they lay down the proper groundwork and consolidate it. When they reach the level of being able to learn more sophisticated concepts, the inner academy will naturally open to them.

“On the other hand, if they fail to learn even the basics after sixty years, it’d just be a waste of time for them if they continued studying at the Dao Academy.”

Understanding struck Ashu and he heaved a sigh of relief at the same time. Bafflement that’d weighed over him had just been flawlessly explained away.

“How does a young twenty-something like you know so much? Sometimes, my dear, I think you’re the old monster who’s lived through several eras,” chuckled the holy lord.

“I’d love to take you to my homeland if there’s ever a chance. It’s… much more complicated compared to the world of immortals. …we’re here!” Lu Yun suddenly stopped in front of a vast marsh.

The Heaven Locus Marsh.

Heaven Locus Land was named after this area of boundless marsh that seemed to stretch on forever. It was a big forbidden area in the Primordial Era, and legend had it that the Xuan Yuan Tomb was located inside its swampy depths.

The Earth Altar lay interred inside this tomb. If the spleen did exist, it would very likely be on top of that altar.

“Halt! Who goes there and how dare you trespass in the Heaven Locus Marsh!” By the banks of the marsh, a troop of heavenly soldiers suddenly descended from the skies and surrounded the trio. They were extremely powerful monster spirits and all peerless immortals!

In the days of yesteryear, to be a golden immortal ranked one amongst the upper echelon of the world. As nobles, they would never be ordinary soldiers. But since the restoration of the void realm, immortals who hadn’t experienced it underwent a dramatic decline in fortunes. Once honored with the title of immortal king, peerless immortals were now part of the rank and file.

Although the formation of heaven and earth was in circulation and there were many formation masters who could engrave it, not every immortal was blessed with obtaining one. It’d only been two years since the appearance of this creation. Therefore, all of the formerly lofty golden, arcane, and peerless immortals were just foot soldiers now.

The troop was three hundred strong and exhibited a tremendous burst of power when they assembled in formation. In fact, they showed signs of becoming one with the Heaven Locus Marsh.

“The Heaven Locus Marsh is off limits in the Heaven Locus Land. Any who wish to enter must obtain the approval of the celestial emperor and show his personally signed order.” Their leader was a peerless immortal at the peak of his realm. He could’ve vied with the former Beigong Yu of the Northern Palace, Scaled-Dragon King, and Zou Longxiu.

Sadly, he came from humble origins and didn’t have a strong patron. No one had etched a formation of heaven and earth for him, so he had to settle for being a squad leader of this small troop.

“I see, then the three of us shall request an audience from the celestial emperor and request approval.” Instead of erupting in fury at the disrespect, Lu Yun raised his hands in a cupped fist salute instead.

The peerless immortal blinked, then hastily returned the courtesy. “It’s not the Heaven Locus Land being difficult and forbidding immortals from entering, it’s that the marsh is really too dangerous. Ordinary immortals march only to their death when they enter, and they turn into zombies when they die. When they spawn, they plague the Heaven Locus Land instead.

“Too many have died in the marsh over the years. If this continues, we’ll be conquered by all of the zombies in the bog one day.”

1. Xuan Yuan is also known as the Yellow Emperor and is a deity in Chinese religion. He is one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and culture heroes among the mytho-historical Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors.