Long Chen had just stepped into the Jiuli secret realm when a primordial aura gushed over him. His FengFu Star began to circulate all on its own, crazily absorbing that aura.

As that aura was absorbed by his FengFu Star, Long Chen was surprised to realize that his FengFu Star was quickly growing larger.

Originally, it was just a small ball with indistinct images inside it, but now it seemed like it had become a whole new vibrant world, beautiful and bizarre with life-like mountains, plains, and rivers appearing within it.

“Could it be that this is the true ninth star transformation?”

Looking at his FengFu Star that seemed as if it had its own world, Long Chen couldn’t help but feel shocked. He could sense a terrifying energy from his FengFu Star, one that could annihilate the heavens, exterminate the land, and break apart the dome of the sky.

But currently, he could only sense the energy and was unable to use it. However, that was still enough to awe him.

After the FengFu Star quickly circulated for a while, it gradually calmed back down. Long Chen suddenly felt that his bottleneck had disappeared.

His blood, which had been silent for so long, was finally absorbing more spiritual qi. Now Long Chen finally understood.

The reason he had run into this impossible bottleneck and been unable to advance no matter what was because the outside world was now lacking this kind of primordial aura.

“Does the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art have something to do with this primordial energy? Then once I leave the secret realm, won’t I forever be unable to advance again?”

Long Chen was startled. He could sense his blood greedily absorbing that primordial energy, making him even more sure of his guess.

“No… the feeling of summoning still hasn’t faded. There’s definitely something in this secret realm that the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art needs.”

Sensing his body, he realized his body didn’t even need him to intentionally cultivate. His blood was like a starving monster that was crazily absorbing energy from the air.

According to this speed, Long Chen was sure he could reach the great circle of Blood Condensation and advance to Tendon Transformation in less than a week.

Looking around his surroundings, he saw that this world was in a state of eternal dusk, looking like primal chaos had filled the entire world.

The surrounding mountains had many bizarre stones as well as huge trees. There were many plants that didn’t exist in the outer world.

“Bloodfilled Star?”

Long Chen suddenly saw a precious medicinal herb located on a cliff not far from him. That herb was around a foot long, and there were blood-colored flowers that grew out of it.

Those flowers were extremely small and covered the plant. They looked like blood-colored stars covering a sky. They emitted a faint scent.

The Bloodfilled Star was an extremely precious fifth tier medicinal ingredient, a rare main ingredient for some fifth tier medicinal pills.

Long Chen noticed that there were actually dozens of them growing out of the cliff, delighting him. The Jiuli secret realm really was filled with treasures.

Even if he didn’t need this kind of medicinal ingredient, he could still sell it for a huge number of other medicinal ingredients. Even if he offered it to the supermonastery, he would be able to obtain a vast amount of points to exchange for things he needed.

Long Chen quickly climbed up that cliff. His hand was just about to touch one of them when he suddenly felt danger and jumped back quick as lightning.

A ray of light shot right past Long Chen’s hand. That was a small snake roughly as thick as a chopstick.

That snake was covered in blood-colored spots that looked similar to the Bloodfilled Star. Hiding within the Bloodfilled Star, it was almost impossible to see it.

“Bloodfilled Poison Snake?” Long Chen let out a startled cry and hastily took a couple more steps back. Perhaps other disciples wouldn’t be sure what this tiny little snake was, but Long Chen’s Pill Sovereign memories were able to recognize medicinal ingredients as well as some Magical Beasts.

This small snake wasn’t a true Magical Beast, but it was even more terrifying than some of them. That was because its body didn’t release any pressure, so it was difficult for people to sense them.

It was just an extremely ordinary snake. Even a child would be able to smash it dead with a stick.

But the world was filled with inconceivable existences. This tiny snake was incredibly venomous. Even fourth tier Magical Beasts were unable to stop its poison.

Its poison wouldn’t take a person’s life, but it would instantly paralyze them. Even Bone Forging experts would be paralyzed.

Although the paralysis wouldn’t last long, perhaps only a quarter hour, that wasn’t their most frightening point.

Once it paralyzed you, the Bloodfilled Poison Snake would go to your eye, and using its tail, it would dig a hole straight through your head, devouring your brain tissue.

Its tail had a sharp, sawtooth-like ending. It wasn’t that sharp, but it could easily cut through a person’s eye.

Thinking of that kind of death, anyone would have their hair stand on end. There were many ways to die, but dying to the Bloodfilled Poison Snake was incredibly mournful.

That was why Long Chen’s expression had changed so greatly. In his carelessness just now, he had almost died.

That couldn’t be blamed on Long Chen. The Bloodfilled Poison Snake had already gone extinct in the outside world. The fact that it would appear now immediately raised Long Chen’s guard.

Within the Jiuli secret realm, anything could happen. A small carelessness could lead to death.

Long Chen took out some long clamps and grabbed the Bloodfilled Poison Snake’s head, not letting it open its mouth.

Other than its toxicity, it was just an ordinary snake. Normally, it would stay near Bloodfilled Stars and sneak attack any Magical Beasts attracted to them.

But now that Long Chen had noticed it, its speed was incomparable to Long Chen and it was easily caught.

Long Chen took out a bottle and placed it inside. He sealed the bottle with cloth, afraid that a bottle stopper would make it suffocate.

This thing could definitely be useful to Long Chen. He couldn’t let it go to waste. Long Chen had a life ring it could be stored in temporarily.

Long Chen then used a stick to lightly prod the Bloodfilled Star several times while also using his Spiritual Strength to sense any changes. After confirming there were no more Bloodfilled Poison Snakes present, he carefully excavated the medicinal ingredient, leaving a bit of earth on its roots.

No matter what medicinal ingredient it was, living medicinal ingredients were far superior to dead ones.

However, keeping them alive was too difficult. Furthermore, refining them was also much more difficult. So, the outer world’s medicinal ingredients were all dead ones.

However, a living Bloodfilled Star was definitely much more valuable than a dead one. In any case, his life ring’s space was not small.

With this experience, Long Chen carefully harvested seventeen Bloodfilled Stars, as well as gaining over twenty Bloodfilled Poison Snakes.

Those snakes hadn’t all just been hiding within the Bloodfilled Stars. Some of them had been hiding in the surrounding grass or cracks in the stone. They were extremely sly.

That made Long Chen’s guard go up even higher, and he no longer dared be the slightest bit careless. However, high risk came with high reward.

Long Chen estimated that just these Bloodfilled Stars would be enough to exchange for millions of points.

Although millions of points were nothing to Long Chen now, he had only just entered the Jiuli secret realm and was currently just in its outer areas.

Such treasures had already appeared. Once he reached the core region, there would definitely be some heaven-defying opportunities for him. Just thinking about those would make people feel a burst of fiery passion.

Seeing that there were no more medicinal ingredients around, Long Chen took out an iron spear from his spatial ring and used it as a walking stick.

The Bloodfilled Poison Snakes had raised his guard to its peak. Who knew what bizarre things were around him. It was better for him to be cautious.

Crack.

He had been walking when that light sound rang out. Long Chen looked down to see that it was a bone. So many years had passed that it had already been eroded by the wind.

Looking at its shape, it seemed to be a leg bone. The bone was a bit black. Its owner had probably died to poison.

Long Chen sighed. Perhaps this person was from the previous opening of the Jiuli secret realm or the one before that. Most likely, this person had died just after entering.

That really was an unlucky death, to die before even becoming accustomed to the surroundings. Long Chen continued several miles without seeing a single person.

Before entering, Ling Yunzi had told him that the disciples sent into the Jiuli secret realm would all appear in more or less the same region.

But that ‘same region’ was a region that was tens of thousands of miles wide. So, the chance of running into someone else wasn’t that high.

Furthermore, the Jiuli secret realm had several openings, so you would encounter both Righteous and Corrupt disciples.

Mo Nian had told him that he would also enter the Jiuli secret realm, but he hadn’t said what entrance he would come from.

He took out a map that the supermonastery had distributed to every disciple.

This map was something created from successive generations of disciples entering the Jiuli secret realm.

Each disciple was only able to contribute a small amount to it, but after enough people added and confirmed pieces of it, it had become extremely accurate.

However, there were still many regions that were vague. Those places were either mostly empty or had a red mark on them.

Those empty areas or areas written in red were all classified as danger regions with an extremely high probability of death.

Long Chen carefully looked it over. There were actually dozens of those danger regions.

According to history, the Jiuli secret realm had begun to appear tens of thousands of years ago. It took several attempts before people were finally able to enter.

But even after being able to enter, even after so many years had passed, even after so many of their elite disciples had entered, no one had figured out the true secret of the Jiuli secret realm.

In the beginning, some unknown person had brought out an inscribed board which had had characters from the immortal era on it.

After going through countless tomes, people finally managed to decipher what those two words were: Jiu Li.[1] From then on, that secret realm was called the Jiuli secret realm.

But as for the Jiuli secret realm’s origins, all people had their guesses. There was not a single definitive explanation.

Thus, trying to figure out the mysteries of the Jiuli secret realm had become something extremely enjoyable for the talented disciples of this era.

That was because it was said that whoever could uncover the Jiuli secret realm’s secret would be able to obtain an invaluable treasure, allowing them to become a supreme figure.

But of course, such nonsense was just used to trick idiots. The majority of people were focused on obtaining real opportunities inside it. No one would care about what mystery was involved.

Long Chen carefully continued advancing forward. His first goal was to reach something called the serene ancient tomb.

That was the closest place to him. It was said there was an immortal buried there, and it should have extremely large opportunities.

“Save me!!!!”

Just as Long Chen was walking forward, a ragged woman suddenly rushed over at Long Chen in complete panic.

[1] Now seems like a prime time to explain what Jiu Li (九黎) means. The Jiu means Nine. The Li is an uncommon character meaning Black.

Jiuli is also an ancient legend. Nine tribes decided to give themself the name Li, so Jiuli could be translated as the Nine Tribes. Jiuli was an alliance of nine tribes led by Chiyou, someone who, in the end, was said to have fought and been defeated by the Yellow Emperor of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Each of these nine tribes were said to be further split into nine clans/races.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiyou