On one of the other four paths, a woman was standing alone at the peak of a mountain. This was the Northern Source’s trial path.

The mountain beneath her feet was covered in ice. A verdant forest had originally been here, but it was now a land of ice.

Snow constantly circulated around her. She was grand and beautiful, like a goddess of ice.

Her eyes suddenly opened. Those pupils were icy-cold, but within that iciness, a trace of warmth appeared.

“It’s him.”

She looked in a certain direction, her gaze seeming to be able to pierce through space. A face appeared in her mind, one that was a bit naughty, but one that was extremely warm when it smiled.

“Senior apprentice-sister Zhiqiu, the spiritual qi has reached its peak! You can advance to Sea Expansion now!” shouted a distant woman wearing the same white robes as her.

“Alright. You can go too. The Immortal Condensing Pillars have benefits and drawbacks. Don’t force yourself.” Ye Zhiqiu nodded, looking into the distance. She once more closed her eyes. Snow began to dance around her, and an icy aura soared into the sky.

…

Hearing lord Heaveneye’s words, Long Chen and Yue Xiaoqian opened their eyes. Looking at each other, Yue Xiaoqian asked, “Together?”

Long Chen shook his head. “No, you can go first.”

Yue Xiaoqian nodded and closed her eyes. Her aura began to surge, as if a peaceful lake was starting to boil. It grew more and more intense, until her aura was raging against the sky.

Long Chen stared closely. He wanted to see how others advanced to Sea Expansion.

Yue Xiaoqian’s aura was growing stronger and stronger, with everything within a hundred miles trembling from it.

An illusory sea appeared behind her. It was five miles wide. The spiritual qi around her was pouring into it.

“Heavens, it’s already so big at the start! Once she steps into Sea Expansion, won’t it be enough to frighten someone to death?” The Sea Expansion experts were all shocked.

The initial sea of a Sea Expansion expert was normally only three hundred meters. Fifteen hundred meters would make someone a genius. But even geniuses couldn’t compare to Yue Xiaoqian’s initial sea.

This sea was a projection of her Dantian. As she used her Dantian’s power, its image automatically appeared before her. The initial sea and her Dantian were linked. Their energy was the same.

Once the initial sea behind her formed, spiritual qi began to be absorbed faster and faster by it. It gradually grew larger, growing by the mile every breath.

“What speed!” The experts were startled again. Not only was her initial sea exceedingly large, but the speed at which it grew was many times faster than others.

Yue Xiaoqian’s body began to automatically float in the air. The more her initial sea grew, the higher she floated. In less than an incense stick’s worth of time, her initial sea was already thirty miles wide. The powerful fluctuations were constantly causing ripples in space.

But once it reached that size, the speed at which it grew clearly lowered. Or perhaps it was just too big, and so any increase in size seemed insignificant.

Through the aboriginals’ shock, Long Chen was able to tell that this speed was amazing. But he was worried. He didn’t have a Dantian. How was he supposed to advance to Sea Expansion?

Thunder filled the air. Long Chen jumped, but when he looked up, he didn’t see any change in the weather.

“The Immemorial Path’s heavenly tribulations are linked. When nearby people undergo tribulation, it’s common for others to sense it,” explained lord Heaveneye.

Long Chen nodded. The Immemorial Path truly was strange. He didn’t know whether they would be disturbed because of others undergoing tribulation too close to them.

As if seeing through Long Chen’s thoughts, lord Heaveneye said, “You don’t need to worry. Although you can hear the thunder of their tribulations, in reality, they’re probably millions of miles away. It’s like swimming in an ocean. You don’t need to worry about the ripples from other people affecting you. Right now, she’s in the midst of fully forming her initial sea. Once it forms a resonance with her Dantian, her tribulation will fall.

“Although the Immortal Condensing Pillar does have an isolation effect, you might get affected by her tribulation. To be safe, you can temporarily leave.”

These pillars on the Immortal Condensing Platform had runic formations. No matter who sat on them, they would feel a strange force field around them. Through that force field, their absorption of spiritual qi would increase, but the lightning tribulation would also grow stronger.

“It’s fine. I’ll stay right here. I can look after her like this.” Long Chen smiled and declined his suggestion.

His refusal caused quite a few people’s eyes to turn a bit colder. Lord Heaveneye was like a god to them, and Long Chen was being disrespectful. But lord Heaveneye merely smiled slightly without the least bit of anger. He continued watching Yue Xiaoqian with everyone else.

As her initial sea continued to grow, Long Chen closed his eyes, seeing if he could enter that mysterious state again.

As he circulated the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art, his soul relaxed, and he gradually felt that feeling of being able to see the entire world. But what he ‘saw’ was extremely indistinct. It was more like a sense, a kind of spiritual perception.

As his spiritual perception grew, he saw experts surrounded by lightning nearby. They were receiving the baptism of heavenly tribulation.

It seemed they didn’t have any experience and hadn’t timed it properly. They had begun their breakthrough before the spiritual qi had reached its greatest density. Now, they had already finished expanding their sea and were undergoing tribulation.

From the strength of their tribulations, it was possible to tell that their expanded seas weren’t very large. Otherwise, the tribulations wouldn’t be so weak.

His spiritual perception spread further. Long Chen sensed more and more people absorbing spiritual qi and attacking Sea Expansion.

Some were deep in the mountains, some were in the ruins, while some were sitting in the clouds. To sum it up, all the disciples that had entered the Immemorial Path were now attacking Sea Expansion.

“Excellent, this fellow should be Gu Yang.” Long Chen sensed a familiar aura. He seemed to be able to see a dazzling bald head that could light up heaven and earth. Such a thing was probably something only Gu Yang possessed.

BOOM!

Suddenly, Long Chen was woken by a powerful pressure. He opened his eyes to see that Yue Xiaoqian’s initial sea had grown to a huge size of three thousand miles.

What he didn’t know was that in his empty state, he hadn’t felt the passing of time. Ten days had passed without him knowing.

Only now did he see that lord Heaveneye and the other aboriginals were thousands of miles away, still watching them. Seeing that huge qi sea, other than lord Heaveneye, everyone was astonished. This was a true sea.

“A qi sea of three thousand miles. Perhaps she has already reached the level of an immortal sprout from the immortal era,” gulped one elder.

The other experts were as astonished as him. They were under a curse here and were unable to rely on the sudden influx of spiritual qi to advance or cultivate. Such a huge initial sea was something they had only heard of in legends.

Lord Heaveneye shook his head. “The immortal sprout’s standard is to have a three-thousand-mile initial sea at the very beginning. She’s far from that requirement. But this huge qi sea of hers is truly startling. Although it can’t compare to those legendary immortal sprouts, her future prospects are unlimited. But this is just the start. The difficult part starts now.”

Lord Heaveneye’s expression was slightly grave. The larger the initial sea, the stronger the heavenly tribulation. Those were the laws of the Heavenly Daos. That was why the Immortal Condensing Platform was a double-sided blade.

Yue Xiaoqian’s veil had been destroyed. She suddenly found that she was starting to lose control of her qi sea. She had been worried that she wouldn’t be able to expand her qi sea large enough, so she had gone all-out. However, now her qi sea had reached an immense size, such an immense size that it was out of her control.

She also knew what the concept of a three-thousand-mile initial sea meant. She was the first one to reach this level since the original devil race had declined. If she didn’t fall, she would become the strongest expert of the declined original devil race.

She was pale with terror now. She didn’t dare to call her initial sea back into her Dantian. Once she did, she would immediately be sensed by the Heavenly Daos, and her heavenly tribulation would fall upon her. Its power would be beyond her imagination.

“Don’t be afraid! If the heavens collapse, I’ll be there to help you hold them up!” A voice suddenly rang out. It wasn’t loud, but it filled her with warmth.

Yue Xiaoqian looked at Long Chen. He was still sitting on his pillar, a faint smile on his face. He gave her a victorious gesture.

For some unknown reason, seeing his smile made her terror lessen a great deal. Long Chen’s smile was full of confidence, confidence that increased her own confidence. Taking a deep breath, she slowly formed hand seals.

The qi sea behind her slowly calmed and began to surge into her Dantian. She began to glow, and her Heavenly Dao runes automatically appeared around her.

“An innate rank three Celestial’s Heavenly Dao runes. It’s unknown how much of the heavenly tribulation’s power they can block,” said one elder. It would be too regretful for such a genius to fall to heavenly tribulation.

As she drew her qi sea into her Dantian, everything was calm and steady. That showed how steady her heart was.

It took a full two hours for her huge qi sea to completely return to her Dantian. Once the last bit of power entered her body, a majestic aura surged into the sky.

Thunder filled the air. Boundless tribulation clouds condensed in the sky, covering an area of ten thousand miles. Everyone’s expressions turned pale as paper.