Though the immortal emperor was smiling, the meaning behind his words made Lu Yun’s hair stand on end. He didn’t believe in fate or predestined outcomes… any sort of tribulation was man made!

After Emperors Fall, the very title had become inauspicious. Any who dared call themselves an emperor was struck with ill fortune without exception. With the demise of the primordial immortal emperor, the entire primordial world of immortals had fallen apart and even the four cardinal emperors had met grisly deaths.

Empress Myrtlestar and her entire clan had been slaughtered and buried in the Skandha Extinction Tomb as catalysts for a curse. If Lu Yun’s guess was right, the other three cardinal emperors were interred in the other tombs of the mountain range.

The ominous doom brought about by the title persisted even till today. None of the celestial emperors of the nine majors, monster emperors of the ten lands and four immortal seas, and even the divine emperor eighty thousand years ago had ever enjoyed natural deaths.

Now that Lu Yun had saved the immortal emperor, the latter’s string of bad luck would continue and maybe even affect his savior. Perhaps becoming the treasure spirit of the luopan was the best possible outcome for him.

As for Empress Myrtlestar… no one dared make trouble for her after she became Ge Long’s disciple. Besides, she’d changed her name to Fuying and no longer went by her former title.

……

“I will be able to release the true strength of this treasure after becoming its treasure spirit,” the immortal emperor sighed softly and stared at the world beneath his feet. “Such is likely the only value of me living on. My past life and present existence are but a dream. Why does one exult in living, why does one rage upon death?

“From henceforth, I shall no longer be the immortal emperor. I am the resident spirit of this treasure, and my name… shall be Meng Wang.” [1]

With that declaration, Lu Yun discovered that a layer of haze seemed to lift from his body, leaving a comfortable emptiness in its wake.

He’d known that the karmic repercussions of being the immortal emperor were too great. Just the change of a name wasn’t enough to stave off the incoming bad luck; only by becoming the resident spirit of a treasure would it mean that the immortal emperor hadn’t truly revived.

Lu Yun sighed, there was nothing he could do about this. He was too weak and just a regular immortal. Perhaps even Ge Long wouldn’t be able to protect him if an emperor-grade run of misfortune descended upon him. At a loss for any other options, he waved a hand to allow the luopan to merge with Meng Wang.

A tranquil smile creased the former immortal emperor’s face and his figure turned to motes of light, transforming into the state of a treasure spirit.

Hummmm.

Aureate light flared from the compass and forced the blazing flames back.

“Oof.” Lu Yun’s face flushed beet red as his immortal force surged, smashing through a bottleneck and ascending from true immortal to empyrean immortal realm.

Previously, he’d reached arcane immortal realm immediately upon becoming an immortal because of his replica. So once Xing Chen’s connection to his primary body was severed, Lu Yun lost this cultivation realm.

However, though he’d fallen back to being a true immortal, his comprehension and experience of the arcane immortal realm still remained. Future ascension would be a smooth affair as long as he continued to increase his personal strength.

The feng shui luopan was his greatest personal treasure, one which he’d refined with his very life. After becoming an immortal, the six paths of his nascent spirit had undergone an initial melding with the treasure. Today it obtained an extremely strong treasure spirit, further supplementing Lu Yun’s strength as well.

In fact, it was so bolstered that he shot straight into the empyrean immortal realm, thereby enhancing his death arts too.

“The luopan can be used as a tool for formula dao!” Spontaneous enlightenment struck him and he sat down, calling upon formula dao and sending its strength straight into the compass. The world it projected sharpened into greater focus as it furiously operated like an enormous precision machine. Such was using the power of an entire world to deploy formula dao!

“If… only there had been formula dao in the Primordial Era…” Meng Wang was bewitched by the power streaming into his thoughts. He closed his eyes to meditate over this fascinating dao, resulting in the same power ripples appearing over his body as well! He too was wielding formula dao!

Meng Wang was the luopan, and the luopan was him. The two becoming one meant that the compass unleashed even greater strength.

Booooom.

A layer of golden light rose from Lu Yun’s body as his eyes turned a brilliant gold. Two rays of black-gold light shot thirty meters into the distance, revealing all of the Ingenium Realm’s secrets to him.

“So this structure isn’t really a formation or a layout, but the manifestation of a combat art like the Path of Ingress!” Shock flitted through Lu Yun’s eyes and he clucked his tongue with surprise. “Meng Wang, did you say this Ingenium Realm is a creation of the monster celestial master?”

“That’s right, this structure is the monster celestial master’s Ingenium Realm, the ancestor of the monster spirit sacred land.” Meng Wang inclined his head. “It… what did you speak of?? It’s a physical manifestation of a combat art?” His eyes widened with incredulity.

Lu Yun waved a hand and brought out the Path of Ingress. Within the confines of their location, the formidable treasure could only ferry them inside the Ingenium Realm and couldn’t take its bearer outside.

“So this treasure was also created out of a combat art…” In Lu Yun’s eyes, there were remarkable similarities between the two, but the Ingenium Realm was much more sophisticated. He’d seen the formation of the Path of Ingress with his own eyes, but had had to theorize the truth of the latter through using formula dao in conjunction with the luopan.

“The four celestial masters hail from mysterious origins. They were there before I ended the times of chaos and became the immortal emperor. In all honesty, I constructed the immortal court only with their aid.” Meng Wang thought for a bit longer before continuing, “The four of them represented the four strongest races beneath the heavens: humans, demons, monster spirits, and divines.

“In the world before the immortal court, the races feuded with each other even more severely than they do now. If it wasn’t for the four celestial masters working in tandem, even I wouldn’t have been able to create a strong, unified dynasty.”

Lu Yun remained silent. He’d been stunned by the little fox’s existence the first time he saw her. She’d been dreaming and turned the entire burial mound into her dream; even Lu Yun and the others were just figments of her imagination. When the torch dragon said he hated foxes… could it have something to do with the little fox?

Mo Yi ought to know about her secrets or she wouldn’t have chucked the fox onto Levitating Island… I’ll ask Mo Yi when I return. Lu Yun rose and walked in a certain direction with his compass as a guide.

Roughly an hour later, the scene darkened in front of his eyes—an indicator that he’d walked out of the Ingenium Realm. The development startled the torch dragon awake.

“How is this possible?! You’re out? How did you get out?” He stared dumbly at the insignificant creature in front of him.

1. His name translates to Dream Forget and I contemplated giving him an English translation. However, I opted to follow Fuying’s example and just go for pinyin when they’re no longer that august personage.