The Quya Mountains Beckon

The prince and princess were indeed stunned. When they had first seen him, he had merely seemed like a Primal Daoist. The fact that he had killed several hundred Firewing Guards was one thing, but how could he have also killed eight of the Twelve Eastern Flow Demon Kings?

Although they hadn’t witnessed it with their own eyes, the dozens of Immortal-ranked magic treasures were no lie. They couldn’t believe that the Firewing Demon King and the other demon kings would have willingly given away the Immortal-ranked treasures they relied on to dominate their lands.

“Big brother, we absolutely must become this senior Northmont’s disciple. If we miss this chance, I fear we will never encounter such a being again in our entire lives,” the black-robed girl suddenly said.

“Right.” The prince’s eyes lit up as he nodded vigorously. “Senior Northmont is even more powerful than the Twelve Eastern Flow Demon Kings! He’s immeasurably stronger than our Qi Kingdom.”

The black-robed girl spoke solemnly. “The Firewing Demon King is dead, and his Firewing Guards have already fled in panic. They know that Senior Northmont is protecting us, so the surviving Firewing Guards will never dare to hunt us again. From now on, we no longer need to flee.”

The prince was startled, then nodded excitedly. He hadn’t seen it as clearly as his sister.

“But now that only the two of us are left of the Qi Kingdom’s royal clan, how can we grow strong?” the black-robed girl said in a low voice. “Relying solely on ourselves, I fear we will never see the glory of the former Qi Kingdom in this lifetime. But with the help of Senior Northmont, we have hope.”

“Mm.” Qi Rufeng nodded gravely. “Let’s go pay our respects and ask to become his disciple.”

“We must be completely sincere. For a master as powerful as Senior Northmont, any hint of deception or ulterior motive would be fatal,” the black-robed girl reminded him.

The siblings then entered the immortal mansion.

Inside the main hall of the mansion, Qingya Xiaoyu was sitting there, watching the royal siblings enter.

“We wish to see Senior Northmont,” Qi Rufeng said.

“Master is in seclusion. Please wait a moment.”

Qingya Xiaoyu didn’t drive them away, because she knew that since they had been able to enter the mansion, Ji Ning must have allowed it. After all, this was his cave-treasure; if Ji Ning hadn’t wished for the siblings to enter, they never could have.

The reason Ji Ning had let them in was that he had discovered something unusual.

“Oh?”

“A treasure map?” Ji Ning was flipping through a set of maps laid out before him. There were eight maps in total, all of them identical. All were treasure maps!

Although the eight demon kings he had killed were formidable, their storage treasures were merely of the Heaven-tier. Ji Ning naturally found them easy to refine. As he examined the contents of their storage treasures, he was astonished to discover… that each of the eight demon kings’ storage treasures contained a treasure map, and all the maps were identical.

The treasure map also had some simple markings, such as ‘Qi Kingdom’ and ‘Quya Mountains.’ A few textual annotations allowed Ji Ning to immediately recognize that this treasure map had been compiled by the Qi Kingdom’s royal clan! It was for this reason that he had allowed the prince and princess to enter the mansion.

“Eight demon kings each had a copy, and the Firewing Demon King’s copy was more ancient. The other seven were likely made using water-ink duplication techniques,” Ji Ning frowned. “Wait. Previously, I merely killed several hundred Firewing Guards, yet in an extremely short time, all Twelve Eastern Flow Demon Kings appeared together. Logically, the Twelve Eastern Flow Demon Kings are scattered in different locations. Even just transmitting a message and gathering them all would take considerable time. This can only mean that… when the news of my killing several hundred Firewing Guards reached the Firewing Demon King, the other demon kings were already present with him!”

“What would cause the Twelve Demon Kings to gather?”

Combined with each demon king having a copy of the treasure map, Ji Ning had already guessed the answer.

“Their gathering was most likely for this treasure!”

Ji Ning immediately continued his search, examining the Firewing Demon King’s storage treasures with the greatest care. As expected—while the other demon kings’ storage treasures had nothing else of note, in the Firewing Demon King’s storage, Ji Ning discovered an ancient book. The pages of this book were a golden-yellow, resisting decay even across billions of years.

“The first time I went to the Quya Mountains, I was merely exploring and adventuring when I stumbled upon it by chance…”

“I have already become a Void Earth Immortal. Before my tribulation, I decided to enter once more. Although I knew it was dangerous, I had only explored a small corner of this treasure ground. If I could obtain even a few more treasures, I believe I would have hope of surviving the tribulation and becoming a Celestial Immortal.”

“……”

“Six Loose Immortals again ventured into the Quya Mountains…”

“This time, having prepared many Dao talismans and treasures, we once again arrived at the Quya Mountains…”

Ji Ning flipped through the book.

This was a book passed down through the Qi Kingdom’s royal clan, detailing the great secret of the kingdom’s rise. The founding emperor of the Qi Kingdom had obtained a small fragment of the benefits from this place and used it to establish the kingdom. In a mere tens of thousands of years, the Qi Kingdom had produced quite a few Earth Immortals and Loose Immortals. Naturally, the royal clan had attempted to enter time and again, recording the various dangers of this treasure ground.

They sought to learn from their experiences and successfully venture deeper.

“A treasure?” Ji Ning murmured softly. “According to this description, by relying solely on the Ki Refining techniques, divine abilities, and secret arts obtained from this treasure, the Qi Kingdom produced several dozen Loose Immortals and Earth Immortals over tens of thousands of years? That’s far more than my Black-White College. These techniques, divine abilities, and secret arts must far surpass those of my Black-White College as well.”

“Mm. I’ll have to take a good look.”

Ji Ning had often chatted with his senior fellow apprentices while at Mount Innerheart, so he naturally knew quite a few secrets of this Crescent Major World.

For example, the secrets of the Evil Dragon River, and many other hidden mysteries.

Although the Crescent Major World had been created by Patriarch Subhuti, when the primordial Pangu’s World shattered, Patriarch Subhuti had used his great divine power to move some fragments of that ancient world into this Crescent Major World. Occasionally, when the Patriarch wanted to create something or experiment with something, he would do so within the Crescent Major World!

Because this was the Patriarch’s territory, his secrets would never be leaked.

“I’ve heard my senior fellow apprentices say that within this Crescent Major World, there are spatial fragments of the primordial Pangu’s World, and even some treasures left behind from that great battle.” Ji Ning’s heart grew hot. Very few people knew this secret, mainly the Patriarch’s personal disciples. They would often wander and search within the Crescent Major World.

“But these places even retain residual power from that final great battle of the primordial Pangu’s World, sealed by the Patriarch. Unless you go there in person, you can’t detect anything at all.”

“It seems that this treasure ground is likely one of those special places.”

Ji Ning was certain.

Based on the descriptions, the fluctuations deep within the treasure ground had made even the Loose Immortals of the Qi Kingdom’s royal clan tremble with fear. Keep in mind, Loose Immortals could directly suppress and refine Immortal-ranked magic treasures, and even suppress Pure Yang treasures. For them to be terrified… could it be the corpse of a great power from the ancient era? A weapon? A great formation that had been set up? Or some other strange object?

“I’ll have to take a good look.” Ji Ning immediately decided that he absolutely had to go see for himself. Since fate had brought this opportunity to him, how could he hesitate?

After the prince and princess had waited for a long time, Ji Ning finally emerged.

Ji Ning asked about the treasure. The second princess knew nothing, and Prince Qi Rufeng hemmed and hawed, unwilling to reveal the greatest secret of the royal clan. But when Ji Ning uttered the words “Quya Mountains,” the prince was filled with regret and finally, stammeringly, confessed everything.

“You may leave now.”

Ji Ning merely issued this one command.

The prince and princess both knelt down, begging to become his disciple.

Ji Ning’s response was simple: he directly teleported them out of the mansion. The entire mansion then vanished into thin air, leaving only the prince, the princess, and their servants and guards standing foolishly on the mountain peak that had been sheared flat. The mountain wind blew, tousling their hair, and filling them with despair.

“The opportunity was right before my eyes. Why didn’t I speak? It was just a treasure map! Senior Northmont already knew about it. He must have intended to accept me as his disciple and was just testing me, but I wouldn’t speak! I regret it!” Prince Qi Rufeng was filled with endless remorse.

What he didn’t know was that even if he had spoken, Ji Ning would not have accepted him as a disciple.

Taking on disciples was not such a casual matter.

Ji Ning did not immediately head to the treasure ground at the Quya Mountains. Instead, he first went to seek out those heavily burdened with karmic sin.

His first target was the three surviving demon kings of the Twelve Eastern Flow who had fled earlier, all of whom were steeped in karmic sin. Unfortunately, only the fourth-ranked ‘Venomsting Demon King’ could be found. At that moment, the Venomsting Demon King was in his own palace, drowning his sorrows in drink, his heart filled with frustration and displeasure, a vixen in his arms to amuse him.

When Ji Ning appeared, the Venomsting Demon King was terrified and tried to flee, but with Ji Ning manifesting himself, how could there be any chance of escape?

“What did I ever do to offend you?!” The Venomsting Demon King left behind only one roar of grief and rage before being slain by Ji Ning.

Afterwards, Ji Ning spent over half a month tracking down a notoriously cruel Loose Immortal from a certain sect. This was a human Loose Immortal, the true strongest expert of his sect, a wizened old monster who had lived for over six hundred thousand years. His was an evil sect. Ji Ning directly attacked this demon’s lair!

He first struck down three Loose Immortals who rushed at him. Finally, the old monster himself charged out. Under the hopeful gazes of his sect’s many disciples and descendants… their eternally mighty and fearsome ancestor fought a protracted battle with Ji Ning, eventually being surrounded and killed by Ji Ning’s main body and his clone!

“What a formidable opponent. His strength nearly matched the Golden-Furred Black Demon King; he was only lacking in defensive abilities.” Ji Ning felt a surge of exhilaration from this battle. From this old monster, he obtained two Immortal-ranked magic treasures: one top-grade Immortal-ranked, and one high-grade Immortal-ranked.

This man was the most powerful opponent Ji Ning had slain thus far.

“Excellent, excellent.”

“Having killed so many formidable Loose Immortals, the generated killing intent and malevolent energy is strong enough. My three Northsea swords can now match high-grade Immortal-ranked flying swords.” Ji Ning was delighted. The ordinary Loose Immortals he had killed didn’t count for much, but the killing intent produced from slaying the nine demon kings and that evil patriarch was astonishing. The patriarch alone had generated as much killing intent as four or five demon kings.

“If I kill ten more evil patriarchs, I estimate my Northsea swords will be able to match top-grade Immortal-ranked flying swords,” Ji Ning calculated.

Having successfully taken on a disciple and having slain ten great sinners, Ji Ning finally brought his new apprentice, Qingya Xiaoyu, to the Quya Mountains.

“So this is the Quya Mountains?” Ji Ning gazed into the distance. The mountain range stretched as far as the eye could see, perpetually shrouded in mist. On the side of the mountains closest to Ji Ning, the range formed a sharp, fang-like shape.