The Xuan Master was sitting alone in a private room, and there was a certain scene on the wall before him. That scene showed Long Chen who had been cast into the Ghost Prison.

“Are you starting to reap the harvest?” asked an ancient voice.

“Yes. Originally, there should have been a longer time before the harvest, but Long Chen’s arrival has changed my plans a bit.” The Xuan Master nodded.

“Are you helping Long Chen or harming him? You actually gave him the entire Xuantian Catalog to look at.”

“It can’t count as helping or harming him. I’m just giving him an opportunity. Today, I saw many things because of Long Chen, and in particular, I saw some variables that are not in my control. These variables are largely beneficial to the Xuantian Dao Sect, so I’ve used this method to allow Long Chen to see the complete Xuantian Catalog. It’s up to him whether or not he can grasp anything,” said the Xuan Master.

“The Xuantian Catalog is an immortal canon that we have to translate into a simpler form for the disciples before we teach it to them. And those who can comprehend it are as rare as a phoenix feather or a unicorn horn. As for the most original Xuantian Catalog, let alone Long Chen, even those like Liu Cang and Luo Fan wouldn’t be able to see anything from it with just ten days,” said that ancient voice.

“Of course I know that. But I still feel like there are secrets we don’t know about Long Chen. Perhaps those secrets are the things Long Chen relies on the most. I’m testing him like this. If he can comprehend anything from the Xuantian Catalog, perhaps I’ll change my plans,” said the Xuan Master.

“Decide for yourself. In any case, I’ve handed the Dao Sect to you. If you’re so confident, I can focus completely on breaking through.”

“Master, how assured do you feel this time?” The Xuan Master’s expression became slightly grave.

“I’d guess thirty percent. After all, those who succeed in Netherpassage are few and far between after the immortal era.” After a moment’s hesitation, he continued, “If I fail, you don’t need to be burdened. You can be free.”

The Xuan Master shook his head. “I don’t feel like you gave me a burden. I just feel like you were too conservative. Continuing like this isn’t beneficial to the Xuantian Dao Sect’s development.”

“Alright, let’s not talk about these things. I’m going into seclusion, and I won’t be coming out until I break through. I don’t want to think about these troublesome things. Wait, what? What is Long Chen doing?” The ancient voice suddenly became full of shock.

The Xuan Master also looked at the wall. He saw Long Chen had taken out gold coins and was giving them one by one to the ghosts. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“This rotten brat, he dares to even buy them? These ghosts have a certain spirituality, and they’ve seen the Hall Masters comprehend the Xuantian Catalog. Looking at Long Chen’s expression, he definitely obtained some useful information,” said the Xuan Master helplessly.

“Thank you all, you can go back. I’m going to go comprehend this thing.” Long Chen distributed several hundred gold coins to the ghosts. He was full of excitement.

“So each line can be comprehended with the soul to grasp it. It’s indistinct and unfathomable just like the Heavenly Daos.”

This was what Long Chen had concluded through the countless clues the ghosts had told him.

He took a deep breath and expelled his random thoughts. Focusing completely, he placed all his attention on one of the lines of the symbol.

When his mind sank into that line, the line suddenly unleashed a burst of light.

The Xuan Master’s expression changed. The Xuantian Catalog was not something just any disciple could comprehend, especially not the original Xuantian Catalog.

Normally, disciples would first have to gradually cultivate one of the Dao-paths of the Xuantian Catalog. Once their comprehension of that Dao-path was enough, then under their teacher’s guidance, they would come to learn which line of the Xuantian Catalog referred to their Dao-path.

This process would take several years for even geniuses. And to form a resonance with the Xuantian Catalog like this would take decades to centuries. In the Xuantian Dao Sect, amongst the thousands of Elders, there were only a few dozen who could form a resonance with the Xuantian Catalog.

And even those Elders would require a few hours to start that resonance. But Long Chen had succeeded in resonating with the first line in just a few breaths.

There were a total of thirty-six thousand lines in the Xuantian Catalog, which referred to thirty-six thousand types of cultivation. It encompassed tens of thousands of laws and Daos. It was wide-ranging and profound, a secret canon of the immortal era. The Xuantian Dao Sect’s inheritance was based on it.

Once Long Chen chose a line, he encountered a strange space. This space was filled with countless revolving runes. At the same time, he saw a scene in front of him. There was a maiden playing a zither, and its sound was like stones falling into a clear spring. It was refreshing, cleaning the mind and soul.

“This line is the Music Dao. You want a manly man like me to play the zither?” Long Chen retreated from that strange space with just a thought, once more choosing a new line.

This time, he entered a desert. Sand blew through the air, covering the sun. Long Chen was lost for a while before he realized this was an extremely rare style amongst earth cultivators, sand cultivators. The sand was like a furious dragon roaring toward the sky.

“This is also not suitable for me.”

Long Chen once more retreated and chose a new line. This time, he entered a space filled with flying snow and countless ice stalactites soaring out of the ground. This was the Ice Dao, also not what he wanted.

He tried several lines, and each time, he would leave after just a few breaths. That made the Xuan Master speechless.

“Master, do you have any opinion?” he asked after a long moment.

“It’s very likely due to his cultivation technique. It might be on an even higher level than the Xuantian Catalog, making it so the Xuantian Catalog cannot hide any of its Dao-paths.”

The two of them descended into silence. That was too shocking. It had to be known that the Xuantian Catalog’s Dao-paths were all shockingly profound. A genius might spend a lifetime studying it and not even comprehend a tenth.

Furthermore, each Dao-path required a disciple to have the right qualifications to reveal itself to them. Only ice attribute disciples could open the corresponding Dao-paths. It was like a key opening a lock.

But now, Long Chen was opening each Dao-path one after another, shocking both the Xuan Master and his master.

Originally, the Xuan Master had just been wanting to see if Long Chen could cause a resonance with the Xuantian Catalog and find his corresponding Dao-path.

But he hadn’t thought that Long Chen didn’t need such luck. He could go through all of them as he pleased. It was too shocking.

Long Chen went through many Dao-paths without finding one that suited him. Either it was useless or he wasn’t able to cultivate it. Finally, he entered a space filled with roaring flames.

“Finally, I’ve found this place.” Long Chen was delighted. This space was definitely the place to comprehend the Flame Dao.

Although he had his Pill Sovereign memories, they were very incomplete. His ways to circulate flames were limited to alchemy techniques, and there was basically nothing about fighting.

The Flame Dao here was perfectly suited to him. The Flame Dao was not the Pill Dao. The flames here were used for combat, just what he needed.

He immediately sat lotus-style within the flames. Those flames were formed of the Dao-path, and from it, he could sense many things that he had overlooked before.

Fighting with flames was different from using flames for alchemy. It was pure flames without the slightest wood spiritual energy. Such flames were even more berserk and much more powerful.

But because Huo Long had always been helping him to refine pills, it had formed a resonance with his trace of wood spiritual energy. As a result, it was no exception even when fighting.

Now when he thought about that, he felt he really was stupid. If he extracted that wood spiritual energy, Huo Long’s power would become even greater in combat.

Within this strange space, the flames were constantly changing, and there were also various flame runes revolving. Long Chen randomly reached out to grab one.

That flame rune exploded violently, shooting out flame arrows at Long Chen. Long Chen jumped in shock and hastily dodged, but some flame arrows were still shooting toward him. He hastily took out Blooddrinker.

Those flame arrows caused his arm to turn numb when he blocked them. Long Chen was shocked by how powerful this flame attack was.

After the explosion of flame arrows was over, they transformed back into the exact same rune as before.

“Could it be… is every rune here a flame magical art?!”

Long Chen looked at the various runes floating in the air with absolute delight.

“I’ve definitely struck gold now.”

Long Chen arrived in front of that rune and once more grabbed it. The rune instantly exploded, but this time, he sensed the way and the rules of how the flames had circulated and how the energy was accumulated before erupting.

“So that’s what it was.”

Blooddrinker blew apart the rain of flames. He had finally realized the secrets of this place.

Each of these runes was a magical art’s most primal rune. When activated, it would display the principles behind it. However, it would only display it for an instant, and without intentionally paying attention, it was very difficult to remember it.

However, it wasn’t able to pose a problem for someone with Spiritual Strength as strong as Long Chen’s. After two tests, he had memorized its principles. He took a deep breath and formed hand seals. A translucent rune condensed over his palm.

“Meteor Rain of Arrows.”

Once that rune was formed, he involuntarily shouted its name.

Following that, a huge ball of flames condensed above his head, and then countless flame arrows shot out.

Each flame arrow caused a huge explosion upon striking the ground. Even Long Chen was shocked by its power.

That had just been a small test. Because he had just learned it, he had been afraid of a backlash and only used a small amount of flame energy. He hadn’t expected it to have such a terrifying effect.

“The Xuantian Catalog is truly worthy of being one of the Xuantian Dao Sect’s core treasures. No good, I can’t be this excited. I have to quickly learn all of this. Why was I only imprisoned for ten days?! It should have been at least a month!”

Long Chen reached his hand out to the next rune.