Chapter 730: The Heavenly Palace

Translator: La0o9 Editor: La0o9

Gu Qing Shan stood within thick fog and clouds of this world.

He was carefully observing the Primordial Heaven Realm warp formation to carefully study it.

On the formation plate, the Kirin, the Vermillion Bird, the Spirit Tortoise, and the Golden Dragon each took up a corner, looking at the four cardinal directions.

Just now, after being killed by a single look of the Golden Dragon, Gu Qing Shan changed the direction he traveled in.

After running for a long distance, he reached the mountain.

At the foot of the mountain, there was a pavilion.

Mountain Protector Pavillion.

Lying inside the Mountain Protector Pavillion, a Kirin was loudly snoring.

As it discovered someone coming closer, the Kirin lazily opened its eyes and looked at Gu Qing Shan.

Gu Qing Shan’s vision went dark.

…

Back inside the tidal waves of darkness, Gu Qing Shan was thinking of a way to enter the Barren Cloud Heavenly Palace.

He noticed that the previous two times, he was running on the ground, which caused the Golden Dragon and Kirin to notice.

Then… what about flying over?

Everything went the same, just as before.

But this time, Gu Qing Shan didn’t travel on the ground.

He flew up and turned into a streak of light as he headed for the palace structure on the faraway mountain range.

Flying past the Feeding Ground and Mountain Protector Pavillion, Gu Qing Shan quickly approached the peak of the first mountain.

At this point, he noticed that there was a gigantic parasol tree that grew in between all the mountains.

A large bird with crimson feathers was perching on top of the parasol tree.

As Gu Qing Shan approached from the air, the bird turned to look at Gu Qing Shan.

———this bird looked exactly the same as the Vermillion Bird on the Primordial Heaven Realm warp formation.

This isn’t any normal bird, it was actually the Vermillion Bird!

Gu Qing Shan sighed helplessly.

Immediately after that, his vision went dark.

Gu Qing Shan once again returned to the tidal waves of darkness.

「 How is it? Not going well? 」 the dark figure of light asked.

Currently, the dark figure of light was using a few jade tags Gu Qing Shan left there to look at the gossips and rumors of the cultivation world.

“A bit, but I’ll think of something” Gu Qing Shan said.

「 Good, this skill of mine can only be used once in my entire life, so make sure you treasure it 」 the dark figure of light reminded him.

“I know, I’ll treasure it” Gu Qing Shan replied.

He lightly stroked the formation plate, silently thinking of how to enter the Barren Cloud Heavenly Palace.

What a hard problem.

I can’t even survive a single look, how am I going to get into the Heavenly Palace?

Even if I turn into a bird, I won’t survive the Vermillion Bird’s gaze.

The Golden Dragon probably protects the entire vicinity of the Barren Cloud Heavenly Palace, the Kirin watches over the path leading into the mountain while the Vermillion Bird watches over the entire palace area of the mountain range——- and there’s still the Spirit Tortoise that I haven’t seen.

If I had to fight these unimaginably stronger spirit beasts, I wouldn’t be able to go through even with 800 tries.

Maybe there’s a way to avoid them?

Gu Qing Shan fell into thought.

「 Have you thought of something yet? 」the dark figure of light asked.

“I’ll try again, send me back” Gu Qing Shan said.

「 Alright 」the dark figure of light replied.

Oom!

The tidal waves of darkness once again swallowed Gu Qing Shan whole.

He went through the conversation with Bai Hua Fairy, used the void string to travel back to the Justice Iron Fist Club, and activated the Primordial Heaven Realm warp formation.

Gu Qing Shan once again arrived at the Primordial Heaven Realm.

This time, he walked to the edge of the cloud and looked down.

Below the gloomy grey sky was the boundless ground.

—–this time I won’t go above the clouds.

Gu Qing Shan intended to fly just below the cloud, avoiding both the Feeding Ground and Mountain Protector Pavillion to go straight below the Barren Cloud Heavenly Palace.

As long as the mountain is a normal mountain, I’ll be able to use my swords to open a path straight up through the mountain.

This way, I’ll also avoid the Vermillion Bird and get inside the Heavenly Palace.

Gu Qing Shan carefully considered this course of action.

It’s a good way to do it.

Though maybe I should make less noise as I dig through the mountain.

How about turning into a mole to slowly dig a path up the mountain?

That’s doable.

Gu Qing Shan jumped down.

He let himself freefall until he nearly reached the ground before slowing down.

The ground was silent and desolate.

For the sake of safety, Gu Qing Shan decided not to touch the ground or wander around.

He flew straight towards the faraway mountain.

When he looked up from below the layer of clouds, what he saw was clearly different.

The clouds in other places were very thin and faint, but the layer of clouds right below the mountain range was considerably thicker

—–or perhaps it had to be that thick, otherwise, it wouldn’t be able to uphold an entire mountain range and the palace structures.

As Gu Qing Shan thought about that, he quickly flew faster.

While he hastily flew below the clouds, he safely made it directly below the mountain in the sky.

The Golden Dragon, Kirin, and Vermillion Bird all didn’t notice him.

Gu Qing Shan sent his inner sight into the cloud.

Nothing there.

Seems like this is still a bit away from the bottom of the mountain range.

Gu Qing Shan took a deep breath and flew straight into the cloud.

Bam!

A dull sound came out.

Gu Qing Shan was knocked backward as he crashed into the cloud.

That hurts!

Gu Qing Shan had to grit his teeth for a few minutes before the pain subsided.

He looked above.

Layers of thick grey clouds obscured his vision.

What kind of cloud is this? My inner sight couldn’t see what was in there at all.

And what did I crash into?

Gu Qing Shan tried using a wind seal.

This was a very basic spell with a simple effect to summon the wind.

Infusing the seal with spirit energy, and the spell was complete.

A gust of wind was summoned.

Intense wind strong enough to blow away the entire thick layer of clouds!

Since Gu Qing Shan was now a Virtualized realm cultivator, even a simple spell he cast was vastly more powerful than before.

The entire layer of cloud beneath the mountain range was within the range of the wind.

As the cloud layers were blown away, the scenery hidden behind them appeared.

Gu Qing Shan stared blankly at the thing hidden behind the clouds, completely losing his ability to speak.

He finally knew what he crashed into before.

The Spirit Tortoise.

The Golden Dragon, the Kirin, or even the Vermillion Bird wasn’t even 1/10th the size of this creature.

This gigantic Spirit Tortoise was carrying the entire mountain range on its back, slowly drifting in the sky.

And yet, the Spirit Tortoise had its eyes closed, seemingly sleeping.

Gu Qing Shan’s crash wasn’t even enough to tickle or cause it to feel anything at all.

The world was silent.

Time slowly passed.

Gu Qing Shan simply hovered in place, staring at the Spirit Tortoise.

Whenever the Spirit Tortoise breathed, puffs of cloud came out from its noise, slowly filling the space around itself.

The puffs of cloud slowly formed into a layer of cloud, obscuring the Spirit Tortoise’s body inside it once again.

Gu Qing Shan closed his eyes and silently sensed it.

He could feel boundless life force radiating from the Spirit Tortoise’s body, the life force was not unlike that of a brightly burning flame.

In fact, within Gu Qing Shan’s spirit sense, his Virtualized realm life force felt like that of a firefly, while the Spirit Tortoise’s life force was like the sun.

How unimaginable.

—-wait a minute.

Gu Qing Shan suddenly opened his eyes and muttered: “That can’t be right, the Golden Dragon, Kirin, and Vermillion Bird I saw before were also unbelievably strong, but I didn’t feel anything like this from them”

Gu Qing Shan tried recalling what happened when he saw the other three ancient spirit beasts for the first time.

Something was definitely strange.

To those three ancient spirit beasts, someone like myself should be like an ant, posing them no threat at all.

But they still killed me.

Without saying anything.

Without warning.

As if they were following a preset program, coldly and mechanically killing him off.

—–but the Spirit Tortoise is clearly different.

The Spirit Tortoise is sleeping soundly.

When a spirit beast reaches their level, their natural spirit sense should allow them to easily detect a lot of things.

The Spirit Tortoise didn’t sense any danger from Gu Qing Shan so it was still happily sleeping.

At this point, Gu Qing Shan began to suspect that something was wrong with the other three spirit beasts.

All of a sudden, a voice resounded in his mind.

「 You wish to enter the Barren Cloud Heavenly Palace? Youngster, present your jade disk 」

Gu Qing Shan looked up.

The Spirit Tortoise had already woken up at some point.

It was staring at Gu Qing Shan.

Gu Qing Shan bitterly smiled and waited.

His vision didn’t darken.

I’m not dead.

Yes, finally, this time I’m not dead right away!

He hovered in the air, slowly realizing what was happening.

A creature of the Spirit Tortoise’s level would definitely have perfect control over their powers.

When it doesn’t want to kill someone, it can definitely control its powers properly.

Gu Qing Shan regained his senses and clasped his fist towards the Spirit Tortoise: “The Heavenly Palace jade disk is already broken, please let me through”

The Spirit Tortoise instantly refused: 「 No jade disk? Then you can’t enter the Heavenly Palace 」

The Spirit Tortoise then looked at him sympathetically and spoke: 「 Alright, if you can’t enter the Heavenly Palace then you will die anyway, let me send you off 」

Gu Qing Shan’s vision went dark.