“Impossible!” shrieked the torch dragon. “You’re just an insignificant, minuscule empyrean immortal! How could you have quietly slipped out of the Ingenium Realm like this?!”

Though the tomb realm manifested by the moat snake had become its own world, it still existed beneath the immortal dao; the Xuan Yuan Slaves wouldn’t have been unable to cultivate otherwise.

An unparalleled powerhouse such as the torch dragon, an entity on par with a primeval human king, could naturally sense the changes in the world outside and feel out the cultivation path of current times. As a result, he’d set foot on the path of cultivation and reached a stunning level of strength under the immortal dao.

Though the immortal dao was broken, his was complete. In his eyes, empyrean immortals were mere gnats. Even he would have to expend a great deal of effort to thread a way out of the Ingenium Realm.

Therefore, just how was it possible that a puny empyrean immortal had made it out?!

“Is it broken in some way?” grumbled the torch dragon and snaked out a front claw, grabbing the treasure for a close inspection. “It looks fine… or am I actually feeling my age now and forgot to close the door?”

Perplexed, the torch dragon cocked his head and mentally shrugged before smashing the Ingenium Realm onto Lu Yun again.

The mighty overlord of hell had just regained his freedom and didn’t have time to do anything else before he once more found himself in the maze. Inside the treasure, power from the five elements flared at the same time and transformed the pitch-black maze from the first time into a real world.

Lu Yun looked around wordlessly. Though the environment had changed, all was still the same to him as long as he deployed formula dao through the luopan. Everything he saw was fake.

Though the Ingenium Realm was a real world and independent from the multitudes of other worlds in the universe, everything inside it was fake and comprised of illusions. The real nature of this realm was still an enormous maze.

To be more precise, it was an enormous maze that’d exceeded the limits of a grand influence over heaven and earth and become a world unto itself!

However, the feng shui compass was even greater than the Ingenium Realm. Now that Meng Wang was its treasure spirit and raised its power to new heights, the treasure had evolved to become a tool of formula dao.

When Lu Yun communicated with the luopan through formula dao, he entered a marvelous state that fully deciphered every illusion and all the nooks and crannies of the Ingenium Realm to him.

“If I practice the Dragonsearch Invocation, Dragonshift Method, and Dragonspike Litany with formula dao through the luopan, it’s very possible that I can reach great perfection with them and recreate the legendary Dragonquake Scripture!”

With such thoughts on his mind, Lu Yun steadily made his way out of the Ingenium Realm again.

……

The torch dragon stared dumbly at the human who’d presented himself, at a loss for what to do.

“This isn’t possible!” shrieked the torch dragon. “That fox trapped me in the Ingenium Realm for three hundred million years! I used three hundred million years to walk out of this thing, but you, you, you—I don’t believe this!”

With a quick flick of his claw, he sent Lu Yun into the Ingenium Realm again. This time, he stared fixedly at the human in the middle of the maze and saw with his own eyes how the young man made his way back out again. None of the various obstacles, formations, illusions, barriers within the treasure seemed to exist for the human; none of it had any effect.

When Lu Yun once more stood in front of the torch dragon, the latter’s eyes were so wide that his eyeballs threatened to fall out of his sockets. Staring unblinkingly at the young man, the torch dragon asked in a quavering voice, “H-how a-a-are you doing this?!”

“The immortal dao is developing and the times are changing.” Lu Yun spread out his hands in his customary gesture. “It’s not that hard for me to solve an old antique like this.”

The torch dragon didn’t respond. When he’d cultivated immortal dao, that’d been when it was first founded. He hadn’t paid much attention to its changes afterwards. Hearing Lu Yun’s words made him feel quite… lost.

“As the times progress, so too does the world. You’ve been trapped here too long and have been eliminated by the era. You can easily throw me into the Ingenium Realm because your cultivation and strength is greater than mine, but if we were of the same level, I would easily suppress you as well.” Pride flashed through Lu Yun’s face.

“Hahahaha!!” the torch dragon laughed uproariously. “The same level? When you face a real enemy, no one will be the same level as you. They’ll crush you with the strongest strength they can bring to bear and won’t bother with a cat and mouse game.” He shook his head as derision drifted through his pale-gold eyes. “I’d thought you were a genius, but who would’ve thought you’re actually an idiot?”

Lu Yun sighed as he looked at the dragon. “This is why you lost that bet and were trapped here for all this time.”

The ball of flame atop the torch dragon’s head spasmed violently as a tyrannical air exuded from the suddenly menacing creature. Trembling, the Ingenium Realm seemed to be winding itself up to imprison Lu Yun again.

“Your realm is high and your cultivation great, but you need to move with the times as well. So what if you reach peak cultivation and exceed the great emperors before Emperors Fall? Even those unfathomable existences perished in the end.

“Complacent with your current situation and content with walking the same path, this is why old geezers like you have fallen and old antiques become obsolete.”

The torch dragon’s wrathful presence slowly calmed down and he looked silently at Lu Yun, not saying a word.

“Cultivation? Realms? Those things are just a matter of time to me. If I am willing, I can break through at any time to reach greater heights. But is there any point to doing that?” Lu Yun waxed eloquent. “The primitive way of cultivation is a pursuit of greater cultivation realms and increasing strength. Cultivation level is seen as an indicator of strength. But if you open your mind and take a further look into the distance, you’ll discover that strength and level are hardly the end goals of cultivation!”

Lu Yun possessed the Karmic Tree and kingdom of hell, so he could ascend to dao immortal realm with a snap of his fingers if he cared to, or even advance to the ingress, primordial, and principal realms.

But that wasn’t what he wanted to do.

He desired to fundamentally understand immortal dao, to experience the minute details of all its realms so that he could deduce the future of its evolution. This was how his formula dao, nascent spirit observation method, breathing method, and body tempering method had all come about.

“You can kill me with one blow where I stand, but there will absolutely be another person like me in the future standing in front of you, waiting to crush you with one blow.” Lu Yun lifted his head proudly. “You should go take a look at the world outside instead of cowering in here, guarding the tomb of a dead man.”

“Do I have any other choice?” Wryness curved the torch dragon’s lips. “There’s a dragonbolt pillar beneath us. Even the great emperor himself wouldn’t be able to release me. I can see the immortal dao outside, but I can’t break free of this place.”

Lu Yun thought for a bit. “I’ll pass on the nascent spirit observation method to you so you can gain freedom through a nascent spirit projection.”

“The nascent spirit observation method?” blinked the torch dragon.