The Secret Way of Immortality

Ling Mountain Peak is located at the end of the southwestern branch of the Bottomless Abyss, reaching an altitude of 8,000 meters, effectively excluding cultivators below the Ghost Envoy Realm.

At midnight, the surrounding area of a hundred miles is shrouded in thick fog, making it difficult to find with the naked eye.

Because of Ling Mountain Peak's special location, the black market has gradually flourished, even unknowingly having a history of thousands of years.

Even if it is desolate, hundreds of rogue cultivators will gather when the black market opens.

Rogue cultivators are extremely poor, lacking even complete cultivation method inheritances. All forces know what is happening at Ling Mountain Peak, and no one is interested in the black market.

At midnight, when the thick fog is pervasive, blood-red vegetation sprouts from the soil, growing into bulbous shapes in just a moment.

These bulbous shapes resemble military tents but are actually a type of large leaf.

The leaves continuously absorb the thick fog, barely maintaining visibility within the black market, at least ensuring that rogue cultivators do not get lost on Ling Mountain Peak.

An old man crawled out of a grave pile. He is called the "Lamplighter," and his cultivation is only at the Half-Corpse Realm. However, as an undead, his lifespan is endless, so he has remained on Ling Mountain Peak.

The Lamplighter tottered to the center of the black market, took corpse oil from the wound in his abdomen, and placed it in a rusty bronze lamp artifact.

The bronze lamp emitted a faint light, making Ling Mountain Peak stand out in the thick fog.

Nether crows crowed on the branches, seemingly foretelling the opening of the black market, attracting the long-waiting rogue cultivators to converge towards Ling Mountain Peak.

Successively, cultivators came from the Bottomless Abyss, using magical artifacts. They each found bulbous shapes to settle down, organizing the resources they were about to sell.

For rogue cultivators, a long-standing black market is very important.

They inevitably have resources they don't need to exchange, and over time, it may increase their chances of breaking through bottlenecks.

The waning moon hung high in the sky, and the black market became lively.

Feng Ye traveled through the Bottomless Abyss along with the gale, and according to the mission of Dream City, he soon arrived at the location of Ling Mountain Peak.

The Wind-Void Clan has not yet joined the Stomach World, but that does not mean they are not part of the Heavenly Court.

Because they are also descendants of Immortals and Gods, they are allowed to go to Dream City and enjoy the qualification to accept tasks, so they do not have the monthly three-stone blood crystal allowance of the Forbidden Corps members.

In order not to expose his cultivation, Feng Ye took a pill to suppress his cultivation in advance. In the eyes of others, he was just a Ghost Envoy Realm cultivator.

After arriving at Ling Mountain Peak, he found that he had underestimated the strength of the rogue cultivators.

There were actually multiple Yang God Realm auras in the black market. The fact that they could coexist peacefully in the narrow Ling Mountain Peak meant that the mastermind behind the scenes was at least at the Heavenly Guile Realm, which made them so fearful.

Feng Ye looked around and noticed many dragon-shaped decorations in the black market, his expression somewhat astonished.

He quickly lowered his head, pretending to conceal his emotional fluctuations, and walked towards the stalls in the black market, without any cultivators stopping him.

Feng Ye noticed that the rogue cultivators' stalls were selling their own organs, or flesh and blood tissues stripped from corpses, not caring at all whether taking them would lead to alienation or loss of control.

He felt a little uncomfortable, so he began to investigate according to the requirements of the mission.

More than a dozen pairs of eyes were secretly observing Feng Ye, all remaining silent.

Although they did not know Feng Ye's Heavenly Guile Realm cultivation, they could see that the latter was likely from the Heavenly Court, so they did not ask about his identity.

Heavenly Court cultivators generally master systematic cultivation methods, but they have no reverence.

Due to the Forbidden Corps's external missions, Heavenly Court cultivators are now all over the place, a group of very extreme madmen.

The most famous thing about them is their endless pursuit of resources.

Once a Heavenly Court cultivator appears somewhere, it means that they will appear like locusts, continuously, until they have eaten everything clean.

The Yang God Realm cultivators in the black market were somewhat apprehensive, but thinking of the black market owner, who was a descendant of an ancient Immortal God of the Heavenly Court, they did not try to do anything unwise to Feng Ye.

The fact was indeed as they expected. Feng Ye came to Ling Mountain Peak for the black market owner.

Feng Ye inquired about clues, and when he heard that the black market owner had shined brightly in Jing Province, he couldn't help but feel a little frightened.

"So your black market owner is called the Four Seas Dragon King?"

Feng Ye asked with a strange expression, and received a unanimous answer from the stall owners, and some rogue cultivators were certain that they had seen the appearance of the Four Seas Dragon King.

They confidently said that the Four Seas Dragon King had suppressed several people in the same realm.

Even if Immortals and Buddhas took action, the Four Seas Dragon King could escape smoothly. Even among the Heavenly Guile Realm Immortal Guests, he belonged to the top ten powerhouses.

When Feng Ye wanted to continue inquiring about the black market owner's information, he noticed that the Four Seas Dragon King rarely appeared, only showing up three years ago.

Feng Ye shook his head with a solemn expression.

The mission he accepted was to investigate the black market owner. If it was really created by the Four Seas Dragon King of the Thunder Department of the Heavenly Court, there was no reason for Dream City to issue such a inexplicable mission.

Feng Ye waited until the sun rose, and the black market rogue cultivators dispersed.

He informed Dream City about the clues about the black market, and then returned to the Bottomless Abyss. The black market would not reopen until the fifteenth of next month.

Feng Ye noticed that there were more and more tasks related to the Heavenly Court. Could it be that some cultivators were deliberately posing as the Heavenly Court to swindle outside?

All the information about the missions was eventually summarized in Ren Qing's hands.

Not to mention the Four Seas Dragon King, even the titles of the North Star Lord, the Plague Spreading Immortal, and the Dipper Wood Star Lord frequently appeared in various places.

Ren Qing initially suspected that it was the Elephant Master and other cultivators misappropriating the name of the Heavenly Court.

As a result, he immediately noticed that the Elephant Master and other cultivators were still acting around Jing Province, and did not have enough time to rush to Ling Mountain Peak.

Moreover, the black market on Ling Mountain Peak had existed intermittently for thousands of years.

Although rogue cultivators had always been suspicious of the identity of the black market owner, the sudden move to point the finger at the Four Seas Dragon King was almost without warning.

As if invisibly, a hand was influencing the direction of the Heavenly Court.

Ren Qing had sent more than a dozen cultivators to investigate the black market.

According to the feedback, the black market was just a simple gathering place, and it could exist for thousands of years simply because it was inconspicuous.

Ren Qing cursed a few times in his heart.

He could now be sure that a force was preparing to steal his peaches.

The other party's foundation was definitely deeper than the Forbidden Corps. With the Heavenly Court rumors in various places coinciding, the number of Heavenly Guile Realm experts they possessed was at least in the double digits.

It should be known that the "Heavenly Court Theory" has been accepted by most forces.

As if thousands of years ago, there really was an Outer Heaven that accommodated Immortals and Gods, but for some reason, it eventually led to the destruction of the Heavenly Court.

Most cultivators already believe that the Heavenly Court once existed. Even if someone thinks it's fabricated, they won't deny it openly.

As long as the Forbidden Corps confirms its identity as a descendant of the Heavenly Court, it is equivalent to gilding itself.

If its strength is sufficient to convince the public in the future, it can even openly reshape the Heavenly Court, because the Forbidden Corps has "righteousness."

This is also the reason why Ren Qing is working hard to develop the Forbidden Corps. Who knows if the danger in this world is limited to Immortals and Buddhas? What if the Three Dao Ancestors and the Three Lifetimes Buddhas are still not the end?

He wanted to wave the banner of the Heavenly Court and make the world's cultivators become grasshoppers on the same rope.

As a result, Ren Qing found that there was actually a force secretly snatching the title of the Heavenly Court and calling themselves the Four Seas Dragon King.

If he continued to develop silently as usual, maybe in a few years, the orthodoxy of the Heavenly Court would completely belong to others.

Ren Qing showed a sneer. They really regarded the Forbidden Corps as a soft persimmon to be squeezed.

He instructed the cultivators to keep an eye on the locations where the rumors were spread. If an accident occurred, there was also the Snake Herding Daoist ready to support at any time.

Ren Qing wanted to see which force had the audacity to do this. Did they think the third level of Hell's prison was too empty?

He was afraid that the fake Heavenly Court would cause the lie to collapse, after all, the so-called Heavenly Court ruins were definitely fictitious.

Ren Qing pondered for a moment and decided to open the Little Heavenly Court of the Matchmaker's Niwan Palace.

Even if the Little Heavenly Court still had many defects, it was still much more real than those obviously fake Heavenly Court ruins.

If the Heavenly Court scam was maintained for a long time, it could drive a large number of cultivators to be used by them, searching for the Immortal positions hidden in this world.

Ren Qing used the Matchmaker to communicate with the Heavenly Guile Realm experts of Jing Province, including the White Bone Lady, who had been in prison in Hell for more than a dozen years.

The White Bone Lady was still supporting a clone, and her hand and foot joints were decaying to varying degrees.

She had become accustomed to the days in prison, and could calm down to hone her cultivation methods, using her soul to absorb the wandering Yin Qi around her.

The White Bone Lady felt that if she was imprisoned in Hell for thousands of years and didn't go crazy, she might be able to figure out a way to break through to the Heavenly Guile Realm without possessing an Immortal position.

It was a pity that the White Bone Lady had a clear understanding of her soul.

Probably in another three or four hundred years, instinct would cause her soul to fall into slumber, in order to avoid the self-destruction of consciousness.

The White Bone Lady kept thinking wildly, and vaguely fell into a slumber.

For more than a dozen years, her dreams had been constantly repeating the journey to the Heavenly Court ruins, from being enthusiastic at the beginning to being numb later on.

The White Bone Lady was still wandering around the Southern Heavenly Gate, watching the Outer Heaven that had once housed thousands of Immortals and Gods thousands of years ago.

She originally thought that even if thousands of years had passed, the Heavenly Court ruins would not have changed in the slightest.

As a result, the resistance that the White Bone Lady had imagined did not occur. The Southern Heavenly Gate actually accepted her existence smoothly, without any intention of stopping her.

She passed through the Southern Heavenly Gate and came to the Heavenly Court made up of ruins. She could still vaguely see several Wind-Void Clan members guarding the Thunder Department's palace.

"Maybe I can use the Heavenly Court's inheritance to escape the prison of Hell..."

The White Bone Lady ran towards the Plague Department's palace with a smile on her face.

The Plague Department's palace was dilapidated, but there was still a complete statue sitting in the ruins. The stone exterior was covered with dense text.

Could it be that it recorded a cultivation method that directly led to becoming a Land Immortal?

The White Bone Lady couldn't help but quicken her pace, but she didn't go very far at all. After only a thousand meters, she seemed to encounter a force field and couldn't move forward.

Her expression was resentful. Just as she saw a glimmer of hope, it was immediately extinguished. Her Heavenly Guile Realm state of mind suddenly showed a trend of imbalance.

Ren Qing took the opportunity to use the Toe-Leaving Technique, which acted on the White Bone Lady's memory.

He found that the White Bone Lady was the same as the Snake Herding Daoist. After comprehending cultivation methods through the Heavenly Dao, she had no memory of her previous life.

Ren Qing deeply suspected that the White Bone Lady was a new life resurrected from a corpse.

The original soul had already been destroyed by the impact of the Heavenly Dao, which led to her potential being far inferior to her previous life, which was able to create cultivation methods.

Ren Qing also thought of a very bold idea from the two of them.

"In a sense, creators of cultivation methods traced back by information flow are bound to reach the Heavenly Guile Realm as long as they grow up, right?"

Anyway, he had nothing to lose, so he might as well try it. If it succeeded, the Forbidden Corps would create Heavenly Guile Realm experts in batches.

He guided the White Bone Lady, causing her to come to the corner of the Southern Heavenly Gate belatedly.

The White Bone Lady had also calmed down at this time. She knew that she had been confined in the prison for too long, and her soul had accumulated a lot of negative emotions.

If she didn't pay attention, she might be possessed by demons if she was careless.

As an undead, she actually had the patience to wait for an opportunity in Hell, but if an accident caused her state of mind to become unbalanced, she would probably die miserably in a few years.

The White Bone Lady took a deep breath. No matter what, it was good to be able to find something in the Heavenly Court.

Maybe after finding the laws of the Heavenly Court, she could continue to go deeper into the ruins. There was no reason why even the Wind-Void Clan, who was not at the Heavenly Guile Realm, could move around the Thunder Department's palace.

The White Bone Lady then carefully searched nearby.

She noticed that she was only a projection formed by consciousness, so any physical labor had to consume corresponding soul energy.

Even moving a half-meter object would take the White Bone Lady a lot of time.

The Southern Heavenly Gate should be guarded by giants of more than a thousand meters. It is almost unrealistic to complete the cleaning. It is better to lower my expectations."

The White Bone Lady's eyes locked on the barracks next to the Southern Heavenly Gate, which were scattered with countless remains of swords, spears, halberds, and guns, and a sense of solemnity came over her.

She walked slowly towards the barracks, and there was a slight resistance after stepping into the training ground.

With the White Bone Lady's Heavenly Guile Realm vision, the broken weapons all over the ground were still not to be underestimated. Any one of them could make the Yang God Realm go crazy.

What shocked her the most was that the weapons were almost flawless, and the manufacturing process was exactly the same, and even the time used was almost the same.

It was hard to imagine the horror of the Heavenly Court at its peak.

How many skilled craftsmen did it have to sit on, to be able to bring all the Immortals and Gods in the world under its command? And what kind of enemy could turn the Heavenly Court into ruins, embarrassed to survive for thousands of years?

The White Bone Lady stood in the barracks for several hours, until her consciousness returned to her body.

She never thought that the Heavenly Court ruins were fake. She could see how clever Ren Qing's methods were. It could be said that nine truths and one lie.

Nine points of true ideas mixed with one point of fake is a clever deception.

The weapons were all made by the Ghost Shadow, and only the Ghost Shadow could do assembly line weapon refining. Each weapon had high quality and high degree of coincidence.

Although Ren Qing felt very pained by the loss of deliberately destroying the weapons, he still had to pay what he had to pay. Anyway, the Stomach World could also produce minerals.

He digested the White Bone Lady's memory and gradually improved the ideas in his heart.

Ren Qing discovered a very hidden "lock" in both the Snake Herding Daoist and the White Bone Lady's souls.

The soul lock is the rumored "mystery in the womb."

As long as the mystery in the womb is unlocked, the memories of the previous life can be recalled.

Of course, not all cultivators have the mystery in the womb. Either it is the case like the White Bone Lady, where a new soul is born from the corpse.

Or it is reincarnated in the Stomach World through the Land Immortal position. After the cultivation deepens, the memories of the previous life will gradually awaken.

The reason why the Snake Herding Daoist is willing to be a ferryman in the Yellow Springs is because the soul is impacted by the aura of death, which has the opportunity to unlock the mystery in the womb.

However, in Ren Qing's opinion, the Snake Herding Daoist cannot completely inherit the memory.

He could only gain partial insights, unable to become the Serpent Daoist who comprehended multiple techniques and forged his own unique path of cultivation.

The next night, Lady White Bone once again took the initiative to come to the Little Heavenly Court, heading straight for the barracks, hoping to find useful clues.

Feng Kongren noticed Lady White Bone's figure, but under Ren Qing's instruction, he focused solely on surveillance and did not drive her away.

Lady White Bone dared not waste time, searching as if digging three feet into the ground.

"How is this possible..."

"Since it's the residence of heavenly soldiers, there should be something extraordinary, could it be that all the technique inheritances are in the Immortal Department's palaces?"

Lady White Bone came to the Little Heavenly Court every night, but the results left her very disappointed.

The barracks seemed to only contain broken weapons and the armor worn by the heavenly soldiers.

It was already difficult enough for her to freely enter and exit the Southern Heavenly Gate, even if she took the weapons to the underworld, it would be impossible to break open the sturdy prison doors.

Not to mention, the underworld itself was a giant prison.

Just as Lady White Bone was about to leave the barracks, she was suddenly attracted by a well in the corner, a faint moonlight seemed to be emerging from the well.

The Little Heavenly Court had no sun or moon, the sky was covered by impenetrable dark clouds all year round.

She subconsciously came to the well, the moonlight fell on her face, and her soul felt a burst of coolness, instantly sweeping away the fatigue of her soul.

Lady White Bone was immersed in the strengthening of her soul, and time passed silently.

After she woke up in prison, the stagnant Yin energy in her body became active, and it was easier to absorb external Yin energy.

Lady White Bone was overjoyed and quickly sat down cross-legged to cultivate her techniques.

She seemed to see the possibility of escaping from her predicament, focusing her energy on a single point, and her cultivation unknowingly rose to the Yang Spirit Realm.

Her soul far surpassed others in the same realm, and had recovered to eighty percent of an ordinary Heavenly Gu Realm cultivator.

While Lady White Bone was cultivating, Ren Qing also figured out the soul lock, the former did not notice that her body and soul were gradually being attached to by the disease.

The disease covered Lady White Bone's soul, using a crude method to unlock the mystery of her origin.

Lady White Bone felt inexplicably physically and mentally exhausted, only thinking that it was due to her frequent trips to the Little Heavenly Court, unaware that someone was stealing her memories.

When Ren Qing had obtained all of Lady White Bone's memories from her previous life, his expression couldn't help but become excited.

He had not expected that this memory would be so complete, including Lady White Bone's experiences in the brothel, her humiliating descent into a beggar, and finally being discarded in a mass grave wrapped in a straw mat.

"If I can really create Lady White Bone based on her memories..."

Ren Qing's idea came from the two ancestral masters, when it came to talent, no one could compare to those cultivators who created their own techniques.

The talent can be well reflected from the Great Dream True Person.

There were many cultivators in the Forbidden Corps Hall who were of the same generation as the Great Dream True Person, and the Head in a Jar was comparable back then.

As a result, the Head in a Jar was still stuck at the bottleneck of the Yin Messenger Realm, while the Great Dream True Person was already at the Great Perfection of the Yang Spirit Realm, only one step away from the Heavenly Gu Realm.

Ren Qing was very curious whether a cultivator resurrected using memories from their previous life would possess amazing talent and break through the limitations of the Heavenly Gu Realm.

The inspiration also came from Jing Prefecture, didn't the Buddhist sect use the souls of ancient monks to create tens of thousands of Buddhas.

If ordinary people's souls were used instead, the Buddhas would need at least a few years to adapt.

Ren Qing's mind moved slightly, and Lady White Bone fell into a deep sleep uncontrollably.

Ren Qing took out the elixir refined from the River of Forgetfulness flower and gave it to Lady White Bone.

[River of Forgetfulness Flower]

[Cultivated by the Turbid Flow Child, if the soul cannot withstand the alienation after consuming the River of Forgetfulness flower, it will lead to the dissolution of the soul, otherwise a pseudo-soul will be bred after thirty-six days.]

The proportion of River of Forgetfulness flower contained in the elixir was not high, it could only support Ghost Envoy Realm cultivators to breed pseudo-souls, and it was not effective for Heavenly Gu Realm cultivators.

After about a month or so, a wisp of pseudo-soul appeared in Lady White Bone's Niwan Palace.

However, the pseudo-soul was only the Corpse Dog Soul among the seven souls, it was not complete, but it was enough to carry Lady White Bone's memory.

Ren Qing spent a long time selecting in the village in the stomach world, and after letting Lady White Bone's remnant soul merge with the Ghost Immortal position, he went to the mountains to guard the area.

He injected the memory into the remnant soul, and Lady White Bone's pseudo-soul hardly rejected it, successfully receiving almost eighty percent of the memory.

Relying on the faith of mortals, the pseudo-soul could fully recover in a few decades.

Ren Qing planned to use the Earth Immortal position's ability to reincarnate at that time, and send the pseudo-soul to reincarnation, so that they could obtain a physical body.

However, the number of Earth Immortal positions was limited, and chosen ones could not appear in large numbers.

Ren Qing followed the same method, and the memory and pseudo-soul of the Serpent Daoist were easily obtained, the latter did not resist too much.

He once again transformed the pseudo-soul into a mountain god, and then took out a spore from the Treasure Pavilion.

This spore was condensed from hundreds of split souls stained with the aura of the Grand Suidae Dao Lord when the Great Dream True Person advanced to the Immortal Ascension Ladder, and essentially possessed all the characteristics of a soul.

Based on Ren Qing's understanding of the Grand Suidae Sutra, the spore was likely to retain the memory of the Grand Suidae Dao Lord.

After all, the Grand Suidae Dao Lord had reached the Heavenly Gu Realm through the Forbidden Corps Method, and his body and soul possessed the characteristics of a strange object, like a centipede that does not fall even after death.

Ren Qing directly threw the Grand Suidae Dao Lord's spore into the mountain god temple.

After merging the Ghost Immortal position into the spore, the spore seemed to undergo a subtle change, but upon closer inspection, there was nothing unusual.

Ren Qing himself was not sure whether the spore could give birth to a soul.

Ren Qing still had four Earth Immortal position quotas, and planned to take out two to bestow upon the ancestral masters.

But to Ren Qing's surprise, the Heavenly Dao Child actually chose to refuse.

The Heavenly Dao Child only had rudimentary intelligence, he was worried about the safety of the village, and would rather become a small god guarding the mountains for generations.

Ren Qing awakened Chen Changsheng's consciousness, and the latter agreed without much hesitation after hearing about the effects of the Earth Immortal position.

"There's no willingness or unwillingness, I've already figured it out after a hundred years in the mountains, no matter how great the risk, it's better than dying of old age."

However, Chen Changsheng was not surprised at all when he learned of the Heavenly Dao Child's choice.

"I've been friends with the Heavenly Dao Child for many years, how could I not know the essence of the Non-Action Daoist Temple."

Chen Changsheng said with a helpless expression: "I once suggested that the Heavenly Dao Child bring his direct disciples to Xiangxiang to establish a Daoist lineage, but the Heavenly Dao Child could not abandon the sect he had personally established."

"The Heavenly Dao Child's character is like this, it seems that he will wake up sooner or later."

Chen Changsheng severed his own vitality, and his soul became increasingly dim.

"Grand-disciple, don't worry."

"If I can unlock the mystery of my origin in the next life, I will go to Mount Daxing and personally persuade the Heavenly Dao Child to reincarnate."

The Earth Immortal position carried Chen Changsheng's soul to the Heavenly Dao, what kind of being he would be in the next life was not something Ren Qing could control.

Ren Qing didn't have time to pay attention, because the things involved by the fake Heavenly Court were even more bizarre than he had imagined.