Fine drizzle fell from the thick, dark clouds, leaving the air more moist and cooler than before. The dense spiritual qi was refreshing, such that even breathing became much smoother.

  The nine-coloured deer slowed down, clip-clopping on the mighty stone bridge that stretched several metres long and was several hundred metres wide. They arrived beneath Myriad city. The great waterfall parted around the stone bridge, vanishing into the deep valley.

  Perhaps because it was already late, no one was present on the stone bridge. Gazing at the glorious city in the distance, the crashing sounds of the waterfall instead gave off a sense of tranquillity.

  Li Qingshan was not familiar with any Aura Observation techniques, but even he could see the condensation of aura, reaching high into the sky.

  This was not a city of mortals, but a holy land where cultivators gathered.

  “I’ll just bring you here. You’re familiar with the process that comes next. Once you become a formal disciple, you can come and visit my Hundred Herbs garden. I might have a job for you.”
“Hundred Herbs garden.”
Li Qingshan nodded to express he had taken note of it. He watched Ruan Yaozhu travel off into the distance, entering Myriad city alone.

  The layout of the city was extremely complicated, twisting and turning like a maze. Sometimes, he passed through corridors and gardens, and at other times, he climbed up stairs and made his way under bridges. He was unable to fly either. Li Qingshan completely relied on the spirit turtle’s deductive abilities to find the path leading towards the skyscraper.

  ALong the way, he encountered several patrolling guards. Li Qingshan suspected them to all be Leng Yuan’s subordinates, so he avoided them carefully, just in case it would lead to unnecessary trouble.

  He was not trying to enter the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes. He still did not possess that right. Only proper disciples had the right to enter the holy land of the Myriad sect. Formal disciples just happened to make the cut.

  “You’re Li Qingshan, the person who placed first in the entrance test. Why are you here so early?”
In the quiet, spacious hall, the cultivator responsible for receiving the new disciples was just as unwelcoming. Clearly, Li Qingshan’s sudden arrival had derailed some kind of arrangement he had in mind. Only after confirming Li Qingshan’s name did he warm up to him.

  There were many formal disciples in the Myriad sect, but they all had some status. Even when they encountered direct disciples, they would refer to them as senior brother or senior sister. The status of the cultivator here was a formal disciple in the Myriad sect too.

  Li Qingshan said, “Senior brother Le Tian wanted to gamble with me, so he urged me to be fast.”
“I see.” The male cultivator smiled slightly with that. He even seemed to be rather sympathetic. “You haven’t even joined the sect formally yet, and you’re already gambling with senior brother Le. You sure are bold.”
He did not even ask what they were gambling on as if he was already certain Li Qingshan would lose. Speaking of which, he was only a measly Soul Nascence cultivator, so how big could the gamble get? He was simply being toyed with by senior brother Le Tian.

  Instead, he told him about a great deal of interesting events involving Le Tian, as well as his thrilling and exciting gambles. It basically all ended in Le Tian’s victory. Some of his opponents had even been Human Immortals and Ghost Immortals. Even Li Qingshan was more than familiar with one of the gambler’s names, leaving him absolutely astounded.

  “It’s said that senior brother Le Tian had reached the end of his lifespan already, but when he set off for the yellow springs, he gambled with one of the Hell Guards, Ox-headed A’pang and won three centuries of life.”
“Ox-headed A’pang? Ox-head and Horse-face!”
Li Qingshan widened his eyes. That name was far too familiar to him.

  “Haha, at least you’ve heard of him before. Looks like you haven’t exactly spent your entire life under a rock. Oh well, there’s nothing you can do about it. The renown of us cultivators among mortals just isn’t as prominent as the gods of the underworld.”
“Black and White Impermanence, Ox-head and Horse-face, the Ten Courts of Yanluo…”
TL: These are all names from Chinese folklore regarding the afterlife. You can read more about Ox-head and Horse-face here, Black and White Impermanence here and the Ten Courts of Yanluo here.

  Li Qingshan muttered the names of these renowned figures as his heart thumped away. In a daze, he realised he had truly set foot in a world of immortals and buddhas. He was still very far away from beyond the Nine Heavens, but he was clearly getting closer. These renowned figures were already within arm’s reach to him. Perhaps he might encounter one very soon.

  “Look at you. Don’t tell me you ascended from a lower world?” the cultivator said as he began his job in an orderly manner, sometimes burying his face in the documents and writing away and sometimes passing them to Li Qingshan for him to fill himself.

  Li Qingshan had far too many secrets on him, so with certain places, he could only be vague, or he would downright leave them blank. Originally, he thought it would cause problems, but he discovered that the cultivator did not even look at it.

  “Hehe, you don’t need to be surprised. This isn’t for me. You can just fill it in however you want. If you don’t want to fill it in, you can leave it blank too.”
“Then who’s it for? Don’t tell me it’s just to be archived?”
“Once the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance checks through them, these documents will be directly destroyed. Everything regarding you will obviously be retained in the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance’s sea of consciousness.”
“The Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance is?”
Li Qingshan was a little surprised. Didn’t this Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance have anything better to do? According to his observations, there were at least several hundred thousand people in Myriad city.

  “You really know nothing about the Myriad sect, don’t you? You don’t even know about the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance!”
“This is my first time here, so I hope you can elaborate, senior brother.” Li Qingshan passed over a Yellow Bronze bookmark.

  The cultivator glanced at the Yellow Bronze bookmark before glancing at him. He smiled. “You really did come first, didn’t you? You sure are generous. Though, you can forget about it this time. It wasn’t easy for you to dig up all that magnetic ferrum. Save it for bribing those guys from the guys from the Department of Heavenly Dwellings!”
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  “Thank you then, senior brother.” Li Qingshan sighed inside. Sure enough, there were still good people around.

  “It’s nothing impressive anyway. If you want to know, I’ll just tell you. The Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance is an immortal that’s undergone the sixth heavenly tribulation, our grand sect master’s mount. He possesses an extremely high status in our sect, standing on equal footing with the two sect masters. He can be described as the sect master behind the scenes. He spends all of his time in the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes. Once you get there, you’ll see him.”
“But you need to be careful. The Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance is a natural divinity. His knowledge is immense like the ocean, unmatched in the sect. He knows most things in the world. He’s startlingly talented and most skilled in divination and prophecies, so he can avert bad fortune while welcoming the good. There might be some truth or lies in this information that you provided. I can’t tell, nor do I really care. However, it will be as clear as day in the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance’s eyes.”
Li Qingshan thought of something and asked, “May I ask what species the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance is?”
“A spirit turtle.”
Li Qingshan thought, Sure enough, I’ve encountered one of my own.

  This was not a particularly great coincidence. There had never been a lot of species that were natural divinities, with even fewer that were numerous such that they formed groups. For example, while the bloodlines of three-legged golden toads and nine-coloured deer were not on par with the phoenix or the spirit turtle, they were instead even more rare, yet he still encountered them after arriving in the Human realm.

  He felt no joy from encountering a “clansmen” at all. Instead, he felt slightly worried. He struggled to estimate just how prophetic a spirit turtle with a complete bloodline that had undergone the sixth heavenly tribulation would be. This spirit turtle seemed to be extremely knowledgeable too, with a master that possessed the cultivation of True Immortal.

  The ambiguity in the documents would probably be seen through with a single glance. Even from the blanks, he would be able to calculate a lot of information, but changing it now would be far too obvious. On top of that, when he met him in person, he would still be unable to hide whatever he tried to hide.

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  This was probably the greatest danger he had encountered so far after arriving in the Human realm. Once something went wrong, he would stand no chance at all. It was far more terrifying than the earth fiend beasts he had encountered in Magnetic Field mountain.

  Perhaps from the moment he set foot in Myriad city, that Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance had already been watching him.

  However, this was also a great opportunity for him to find the way to Ruin’s End. This Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance definitely knew how to enter Ruin’s End. He might have even been familiar with that “prisoner of Ruin’s End”.

  Whether it was a curse or a blessing, even he who possessed the bloodline of the spirit turtle struggled to tell what this was, let alone averting bad fortune while welcoming the good.