Xu Fu extended his hand. Xu Ying hesitated, then grasped it. Xu Fu pulled him onto Mount Fangzhang.
Yuan Qi shrank his body and leaped after them. "Wait for me!"
Xu Ying stood on the tiny immortal mountain and marveled. The cube measured barely a zhang across, yet it held two people comfortably. As it flew, strange patterns surfaced on its walls, shifting and changing.
Xu Ying studied the patterns. They seemed familiar — almost like bird-seal and worm-script — but when he looked closer, they vanished, defying interpretation.
"This mountain is a piece of the immortal realm?" Yuan Qi whispered, hanging from Xu Ying's ear. "It looks ordinary. And Xu Fu always stands on it. Can he not leave?"
The bell's voice rippled. "What happens if he leaves?"
Xu Fu's scar twitched.
Xu Ying's eyes narrowed. "Stop guessing. He said the First Emperor gathered the world's strongest cultivators and opened a crack in my seal. Then the emperor sent us to sea seeking immortal mountains. Could the news of Mount Fangzhang have come from me?"
He blinked. "How would I know about immortal mountains?"
The bell and Yuan Qi had no answer. They'd never heard of Mount Fangzhang, let alone its secrets.
Yuan Qi dropped to the ground and gasped. "Look! You can really see the immortal realm!"
Xu Ying looked around but saw nothing.
"Shrink yourself," Yuan Qi said. "Like me!"
The bell shrank to palm-size and landed beside him. "He's right! I can see it!"
Xu Ying reversed the Bean-Soldier Art, shrinking to the size of a bean, and looked up. Through a thin atmospheric shell surrounding the tiny mountain, he saw enormous immortal mountains floating like phantoms in the distance. Immortal light arced like rainbows and ribbons. Floating palaces drifted among clouds. Immortal trees heavy with peaches hung within arm's reach.
Xu Fu's voice drifted from above. "That is the immortal realm. We can see it, but never touch it. This stone fell from the immortal realm, yet it shares the same sky. We stand here and witness paradise, forever beyond our grasp."
Xu Ying dispelled the art and returned to normal size. "Mount Fangzhang is truly wondrous."
"More wonders await. When the immortal sun rises, you'll understand. Its light becomes primal qi in your body, purifying every impurity, turning your flesh to jade. Like consuming immortal medicine."
Xu Ying, Yuan Qi, and the bell burned with anticipation.
Xu Fu's disciples — white-robed, sword cases on their backs — gathered in fours and rode sword-qi alongside Mount Fangzhang. Xu Fu steered the mountain through steep valleys, laughing. "One day in heaven, one year on earth. I've experienced only four thousand sunrises since claiming this mountain. Wait a year, and you'll see the next dawn."
Xu Ying looked ahead. A paulownia tree grew on a distant peak, taller than the rest, facing the sea.
A cry split the air. A divine bird with a trailing tail of fire shot across the sky. It spread its wings, and flames erupted, accelerating its flight.
"That was a divine bird with awakened ancient blood," Xu Fu said. "They say a phoenix lives nearby. Since its arrival, more divine birds have gathered."
Xu Ying gazed at the paulownia. "Could it be Avia?"
"This place is called Mount Huotong — the first of the ancient Thirty-Six Grotto-Heavens. Countless cultivators trained here. Uncountable tribulations were weathered."
Mount Fangzhang flew toward a neighboring peak and passed through a massive fissure in the rock. Strange flesh coated the walls, writhing with countless tendrils.
The tendrils smelled life and lashed out. The disciples summoned sword-qi to fight, but several were pierced, their qi and blood draining until only bones remained.
More than a dozen died before Xu Fu flicked his sleeve. The entire fissure shook, and the flesh exploded into nothing.
"Thank you, Master, for saving us!"
Yuan Qi whispered, "He could have destroyed all that flesh from the start. Why wait?"
A nearby disciple answered. "This is a test of our cultivation. If Master solved everything for us, how would we grow?"
The others nodded.
Yuan Qi started to reply, but the bell struck a note that left him dizzy and forgetful.
Mount Fangzhang flew deeper. A vast blood lake appeared, thick tendrils rising from its surface. The flesh Xu Fu had destroyed was already regrowing.
The lake stank. Bubbles rose and burst. This was no immortal paradise.
The mountain approached. Xu Ying felt the evil qi pressing against him. The disciples' sword cases rattled, and blades flew out, slashing invisible tendrils of corruption. Each strike produced a flash of blood-light.
Yuan Qi shivered. "This place is too evil. Is it really a grotto-heaven?"
"Absolutely."
Xu Fu raised his hand. The blood lake parted, and Mount Fangzhang carried them inside. The white-robed disciples surrounded them with sword-qi, vigilant.
"These disciples are far weaker than Xu Fu," Xu Ying thought. "Why does he need their protection?"
Then he understood. "Of course. It's the same habit from the sea voyage. Three thousand youths died, and only he and I survived. He stayed in the center, constantly protected. That's how he lived."
These disciples were the same as those children. Expendable.
Beyond the lake lay Huotong Grotto-Heaven.
The grotto stretched impossibly vast — a thousand li from center to edge, six thousand li around. But it had decayed. The strange flesh covered peaks and devoured the beasts that once lived here, leaving only skeletons. It even climbed the sky, blocking out the light.
Most striking: four ascension lights hung at the grotto's center, falling from the sky and intertwining, radiating the promise of transcendence.
"These four lights," Xu Fu said, "drew countless cultivators here to attempt ascension."
The earth shook. Flesh tendrils reached for them.
Xu Fu's expression remained calm. His Primordial Spirit manifested behind him, opening its mouth to spew Samadhi True Fire. The flames spread across earth and sky, incinerating everything.
Mount Fangzhang rose higher, carrying them into the four ascension lights. Xu Ying looked down and saw tribulation circles — basins of varying sizes scattered across the ground. The smallest was dozens of li across. The largest reached nearly to the grotto's edge.
The scale of the heavenly tribulation was staggering.
"This flesh is the remains of ascension-stage cultivators who failed," Xu Fu said. "They faced increasingly powerful tribulations, despaired, and their hatred and resentment transformed their corpses into this corruption. It gathers all evil, trying to break out of this grotto-heaven and poison the mortal world. If we hadn't come, in a few more years, this evil would have spilled into the living world and devoured everything."
The disciples chorused, "Master is merciful!"
"Lord Xu," Xu Fu said, "can you tell me where the largest tribulation lies?"
Xu Ying studied the circles. "The largest isn't the one ten li from the edge. Wait —"
His heart seized. At the horizon, a line of tribulation lightning circled the entire grotto. A black thread wrapping six thousand li.
A super tribulation spanning a thousand li.
Xu Fu guided Mount Fangzhang to the edge. They followed the tribulation line. Xu Ying smelled the ozone of burnt air — and realized there weren't one line, but forty or fifty, stacked together.
Each circled the entire grotto.
Forty or fifty powerful cultivators had attempted ascension here, triggering a super tribulation that engulfed six thousand li.
"The ancient text Elegant Gatherings of the Fangshi records that super tribulations have existed since antiquity. They seal the gates of heaven and earth, severing the path to immortality. No one can pass."
Xu Fu produced a bamboo scroll. It was the Fangshi text. "It says that ascension sites lie closest to the immortal realm, where tribulation power is weakest. Cultivators sought these places to transcend. They catalogued thirty-six grotto-heavens and seventy-two blessed lands where immortals had ascended, leaving behind ascension lights."
He waved his hand, and the bamboo strips expanded, characters projecting into the air — images of the grotto-heavens and blessed lands.
"According to this text, after super tribulations appeared, all thirty-six grotto-heavens and seventy-two blessed lands became useless. No ascension-stage cultivator could survive the tribulation anywhere. The last recorded cultivator to attempt ascension here was named Gao Yue. He died during the Zhou Son of Heaven's reign, a high minister equivalent to today's chancellor."
Xu Ying listened in silence.
"During the First Emperor's reign, nuo arts had already spread. Some cultivators tried to replace cultivation with nuo techniques. The First Emperor was furious. He gathered all nuo art texts and practitioners and burned them."
Yuan Qi muttered, "Burning books and burying nuo masters."
"The world's texts were collected in Xianyang. I was fortunate enough to read them and learn some secrets. Since the Shang and Zhou dynasties, no immortal had appeared in thousands of years."
He sighed. "Every few centuries, a super tribulation would engulf the land, shaking Yuanshou, terrifying gods and demons. One supreme cultivator after another fell to its power. For millennia, super tribulations consumed generation after generation of geniuses. By the First Emperor's time, cultivators were already declining."
The bell spoke. "In my master's era, many cultivation methods were already lost. Even sword control techniques were incomplete."
"At that time," Xu Fu said, "those who practiced the highest-level cultivation methods had all perished in super tribulations. Which cultivator didn't live in fear, desperately seeking ways to avoid the tribulation? After Lord Xu and I crossed the sea and found Mount Fangzhang, I used the super tribulations to navigate my way back."
His face darkened. "Four thousand years ago, super tribulations erupted every few years. Three thousand years ago, every few decades. Two thousand years ago, when I returned, the last super tribulation had occurred eight hundred years prior. I knew then — the last cultivator in Yuanshou had died."
An era had ended.
"The First Emperor burned books and buried nuo masters, but he couldn't stop the decline."
Xu Fu's eyes dimmed. "For two thousand years after, I sensed nothing. No super tribulation. No cultivation."
Until recently.
Zhou Qiyun's tribulation.
It had triggered a super tribulation.
Xu Fu's eyes blazed with renewed fire. He looked at Xu Ying. "That tribulation rekindled my hope of ascension!"