hapter 56: Xiong Clan’s Xiong Village

　　To avoid too much trouble, after Li Changshou thanked her, he left a pile of gold and silver before he secretly left without saying goodbye while that young lady went to shout for someone.

　　He didn’t go far and executed the Earth Escape over 50 kilometers. He hid in the trunk of a large tree in the oceanside forest and used his immortal senses to scan all over this village.

　　As the saying went, “Each place has its own way of supporting its own inhabitants.”

　　‘Could this village’s water and soil have been mixed with strong medicine?’

　　As far as his immortal sense could see, a group of strong men and women were busy everywhere, and they weren’t just ordinary strong men and women. They had a kind of… indescribable, aristocratic strength.

　　As far as his immortal sense could see, there were men and women with prominent muscles all over their bodies. Each of them had arms nearly as thick as his junior sister’s waist, and dozens of kilograms of millstones were rolled around by a few children as toys.

　　Other than a small number of old people and children, most of the people in this village were about the same size as the young lady he had seen earlier.

　　‘I might be overthinking. This village probably pursues the beauty of muscles.’

　　Li Changshou smiled in his heart. When he was observing this village, he vaguely felt his immortal body and Primordial Spirit that had yet to fully recover.

　　The immortal sense was much better than the spiritual sense. Not only did it have a further detection range, but the images ‘seen’ were also clearer and more vivid.

　　Before the Tribulation Transcendence, Li Changshou’s spiritual sense could at most detect a range within a few dozens of kilometers. However, all he saw were blurred images, and he could only see clear images within 15 kilometers.

　　Now, it was different, as he could casually release his immortal sense and observe up to 1,000 kilometers away.

　　Just at that moment, even from 500 kilometers away, he could roughly distinguish the two figures wrestling on the forest meadow and their approximate fighting movements…

　　It seemed that they were not fighting there…

　　‘I don’t need to care about these details. Anyway, my detection skills have been greatly enhanced!’

　　Li Changshou returned his attention to the village 50 kilometers away.

　　The young lady, who had taken care of him for some time, hurriedly rushed into the wooden house, where he had been staying earlier, with a group of people and found a pile of gold and silver that he had left on his bed.

　　It had been more than nine months since he had left the Immortal Du Sect, and he could still stay outside for at most three or four years. After that, his master and the sectarian officers would go looking for him.

　　‘During this period, I should find an island and enter seclusion.’

　　There were still many things to do, and he must now think clearly and arrange his schedule one thing at a time.

　　Naturally, there was no need to mention about recuperating and stabilizing his cultivation realm.

　　He had to find a way to conceal his immortal power and immortal body, and simulate his original mortal Dao body.

　　Since he had chosen to conceal his cultivation level as a trump card in the beginning, he had to stick to that path to the end. If he was suddenly exposed, he would definitely be suspected by the Immortal Du Sect’s higher-ups.

　　The development of the third version of the Qi-Calming Turtle Breathing Mantra had to be on his schedule.

　　In addition, Li Changshou had to face an awkward fact.

　　Because after he had passed the Heavenly Tribulation, his strength had taken a big step forward, and he had gained the rumored ‘ascension’.

　　This was naturally a good thing, but one-third of the defensive methods he relied on before were completely meaningless, and one-third of them had their effectiveness greatly diminished.

　　For example, the Soft Immortal Disperser and many poisonous pills had already been a bit useless.

　　When he wasn’t powerful enough, the incapacitating agents and poisonous pills were powerful weapons to protect himself.

　　Right now, the poisonous pills were no longer as effective as him making a move on his own.

　　Many poisonous pills, which he had refined to deal with Perfected Immortals, could only be stored for future uses. Otherwise, he could go to the border of the Middle Continent and trade them for treasured herbs in the marketplace.

　　The power of that bronze crossbow could be increased according to the user’s Dharma powers and immortal power.

　　This offensive weapon that consumed very little immortal power could be kept. Later on, he would use his immortal power to brandish it and develop its potential. Then, he could let the paper dolls use it.

　　The same went for the True Samadhi Flames. Their power increased with his strength, and he only needed to replenish his cultivation and condense the immortal fire.

　　The paper dolls’ mystical abilities needed to be comprehended again, and future paper dolls would have more wonderful uses and power than before.

　　The Five-Element Escape technique could also be used to enter a whole new realm.

　　The sword array Dharma treasure needed to be brandished again as well.

　　Some powerful talismans that had previously been impossible to draw could now be made.

　　The Heavenly Precious Umbrella could create some more powerful arrays.

　　“Wait, wait, wait, wait…”

　　After taking a closer look, Li Changshou had many things to do, and three or four years might not be enough.

　　It was a good idea to first pick the most important ones and upgrade the most commonly used escape techniques.

　　There were priorities, and his life came first.

　　So what even if he had ascended? What could he do after ascending to an immortal?

　　Through Immortal Ascension, he had become a stronger ant.

　　Ascension had given wings to this ant to fly to the sky. However, he was still a flying ant, only with clearer goals.

　　Age wasn’t counted in the Primordial World, and it had been countless years since then. Even though the Great Tribulation continued to descend, there were still too many surviving experts.

　　There were the Heavenly Dao, Dao Ancestors, and Six Saints above.

　　There were mighty ancient figures, the Three Schools’ elders, remnants of mages and demons, experts of the human race, and all kinds of superior beings reincarnating below.

　　Right now, he was not even a third-rate expert and was not even close to achieving that.

　　The important point was that he was especially poor.

　　His immortal sense captured noises in the distant village, and the sturdy young lady crouched there bawling as she hugged the pile of gold and silver that Li Changshou had left behind.

　　“I wasn’t the one who lost the immortal! I didn’t sell the immortal either!”

　　Upon seeing her squat on the ground and crying like a child, the group of ‘iron towers’ and ‘King Kongs’ around her were still ruthlessly blaming her.

　　“I told you to take care of the Sea God. How can you lose sight of such a big one?”

　　“Oh, did you have to run out and yell for someone? Couldn’t you just stand at the window and shout ‘the Sea God is awake, the Sea God is awake’? Why did you have to run around!”

　　“I told you that the Sea God is not an immortal!

　　“Xiong Lingli! Don’t listen to your father! You can’t offend the Sea God!

　　“Hurry. Take these gold and silver to the village chief’s house! Lest these things provoke the Sea God!”

　　Xiong…

　　The surname suited them—the posture of a true bear[1].

　　The group of adults scolded the young girl for a while before they then dispersed. They did not punish the young girl and began to search for their ‘Sea God’ inside and outside the village.

　　Li Changshou continued to observe in secret.

　　This village was somewhat strange, which was also the only reason why Li Changshou would stay 50 kilometers away and didn’t leave.

　　There were always demons when things were abnormal, and it was also possible that there was a hidden treasure.

　　Thousands of people in the village relied on fishing and hunting to make a living and lived a full life. The place was in good weather with no natural disasters.

　　As for man-made disasters, a few thousand regular troops from the mortal kingdom tribe would not be able to take down this village, let alone those small gangs of bandits and sea pirates.

　　However, the vast majority of the people in this village did not cultivate and were all mortals, yet they were all as sturdy as young girls, which was somewhat unjustifiable.

　　First of all, their nutrition was definitely not up to par.

　　The people didn’t train their muscles deliberately either.

　　Of the several possibilities Li Changshou could think of, the most probable one was that there were special water veins or ingredients, and they were large in quantity.

　　Often, the kind of magical objects that mortals didn’t care about would be a treasure for alchemy, blacksmithing, array formation set-up, and cultivation.

　　Together with the fact that there were no traces of any foreign cultivators in this place, the few cultivators, who were at the Soul Formation Stage, in the village should be cultivating some sort of defective techniques, which were not uncommon within the human race in the mortal world.

　　Only then did Li Changshou become slightly more interested and decided to stay 50 kilometers away to do some observation.

　　The group of strong people searched the village to no avail.

　　After searching with their utmost best for half a day, an old man cried out in desperation, “The Sea God has returned to the big sea!”

　　Therefore, this group of villagers, most of whom had the surname Xiong, returned to the village and began a lively bonfire assembly to celebrate the Sea God’s return to the sea.

　　After Li Changshou observed for three days, he went to secretly check the water source of the place, investigated the food commonly eaten in this village, and searched the nearby 50 kilometers, but did not find any abnormalities.

　　Could it be that they really had an inherited body type?

　　Li Changshou didn’t want to spend too much time here and decided to leave since he couldn’t find the reason for the abnormality of this place.

　　In the middle of the night, Li Changshou squeezed out from the trunk of the large tree, transformed into a medium-sized fish, and plunged into the warm seawater to find the next place for seclusion.

　　This place was in the southwestern part of the South Continent and the scope under the influence of the Southern Ocean Dragon Palace.

　　Because the Southern Ocean Dragon Palace was too far from land and not as active as the Eastern Ocean Dragon Palace, this sea was unusually quiet and peaceful. Li Changshou soon found a small deserted island where he entered seclusion.

　　Three months later, Li Changshou’s Dao injuries had completely healed, and his Water Escape and Earth Escape had also greatly improved. He had cultivated the True Samadhi Flames once again and condensed the immortal fire.

　　Five months later, the immortal light around Li Changshou, who was sitting in a lotus position in the reef cave, had completely dwindled. His breathing was no longer clear, he had no threatening gaze, and his body’s faint fragrance had disappeared.

　　Standing up, he lowered his head and sized up for a while, and his own aura no longer fluctuated in the slightest bit.

　　Walking to the reef’s side, Li Changshou stood quietly and observed the creatures’ reactions in the seawater.

　　Previously, because of the immortals’ existence, the fish and shrimps in the sea would dodge.

　　Now that he was standing here, the fish and shrimps in the sea were only alarmed for a little while before they played as usual.

　　After thinking about it, Li Changshou first simulated the aura of the Seventh Stage of the Void Return Realm. He hid part of it before revealing the aura of the Third Stage of the Void Return Realm.

　　The Third Version of the Qi-Calming Turtle Breathing Mantra was a phenomenal success.

　　‘I’ll pass the second version to Ling’e when I go back.’

　　Exhaling lightly, Li Changshou was in quite a good mood and did not want to waste any more time. He was about to return to the rock cave where he was hiding before to continue his cultivation.

　　He was just about to turn around when a ray of seven-colored precious light suddenly appeared in the northern sky.

　　Li Changshou’s immortal sense immediately scanned and discovered that the source of that precious light was the village that the young lady, Xiong Lingli, was from.

　　There was indeed good stuff in that village!

　　However, making such a big commotion would most likely attract the attention of other cultivators, and he might easily fall into danger if he rashly went over there.

　　After some deliberation, Li Changshou took out a paper doll from his sleeve and blew at it.

　　The paper doll shook a few times and slowly came to life. It stretched its small arms and legs and jumped up in Li Changshou’s hands before landing on the sea surface.

　　The little paper doll took two steps on the seawater and transformed into the figure of a middle-aged Daoist. It caught the three storage sacks thrown by Li Changshou, turned around, and disappeared into the seawater.

　　Li Changshou returned to the rock cave and closed his eyes while he put his mind on the paper doll.

　　He put his mind in a very relaxed state.

　　He would pick up treasures if he could. If he had to do more than a ‘pick up’, then he would let the paper doll do it.

　　After all, as his cultivation realm rose, the more advanced the paper doll was, the more laborious it would be to produce it.

　　Since this was the mortal world, it was unlikely that there would be any powerful Dharma treasures.

　　…

　　At the border of the South Ocean and the East Ocean, the corner of the island that resembled a large turtle.

　　“Fellow Daoists, I’m speaking the truth.

　　“On the way back last time, I came across a man who had survived the Nine Heavens Godfiend Tribulation. I said that he couldn’t go through it, but he did!

　　“The Heavenly Punishment even struck this man after his Tribulation Transcendence, and I felt again that he definitely would not make it, but…

　　“Fellow Daoists, guess what happened next.”

　　Next to the precious pond, an old Daoist priest was chatting with more than a dozen cultivators of similar Dao cultivations in a lively manner.

　　In the corner under the pond, Ao Yi regained his original azure dragon form and entrenched at the bottom of the pond without moving.

　　The Primordial World was truly terrifying.

　　The nightmare still hadn’t subsided, but Ao Yi took the initiative to request his mother this time to send himself back to the territory of the immortals from the Jie School.

　　That was because Ao Yi knew that there were some human tribes among the Jie School, so he could observe them and learn from them what the dragon race lacked, especially their craftiness and schemes.

　　The topic of the cultivators at the side of the pond was unwittingly changed to the little dragon at the bottom of the pond.

　　One of them said with a sigh, “The gap at the bottom of the pond has been set up with a restriction. I don’t know what exactly this Dragon Prince finds so bad about our Golden Turtle Island that he actually escaped.”

　　“It’s not unusual for a child not to want to listen to an old man.”

　　The old Daoist priest, who was telling the story of encountering the Tribulation Transcendence just now, laughed and stroked his beard as he said, “Don’t worry. As long as we treat this Dragon Palace’s prince well, he will appreciate our kindness and cultivate at ease here.”

　　The cultivators nodded their heads in unison.

　　Ao Yi, who was in the pond, moved his dragon head but ignored them.

　　[1] Xiong can also mean bear.