“I did come for the Great Destiny Technique,” Lan Xiaobu said, his gaze settling on the figure reduced to a few white bones. Despite the man’s soul and body being nearly corroded away, Lan Xiaobu could still sense he was a Nine-Turn powerhouse.
“The Great Destiny Technique lies deep within Destiny White Mountain, but it’s impossible to obtain. I ended up like this trying to get it. Fellow daoist, take my advice—unless you’re a Destiny Sage, no one can claim it. I heard about the technique here, got trapped by the corrosive laws for a thousand years, and was just a dozen steps from escaping…” the skeletal man’s voice was faint.
Lan Xiaobu glanced at the bones, only a few steps from the mountain’s base, about to offer help when the man spoke again, “Please, fellow daoist, lend me a hand. I, Xiang Jiongtian, will repay you.”
Lan Xiaobu didn’t mind. With a casual wave, his charm swept up Xiang Jiongtian’s skeletal form and set him down outside the mountain. Saving someone like this was no big deal.
Xiang Jiongtian was ecstatic—he hadn’t expected Lan Xiaobu to rescue him so effortlessly. Free of the mountain’s corrosive laws, his flesh regenerated in moments.
He glanced at Lan Xiaobu still on the mountain, chuckled, and instead of leaving, picked a spot to heal. More than that, he tossed out hundreds of array flags, linking the outermost charm of the void white mountain to his divine sense.
From now on, he could heal while refining the mountain. He’d learned inside that Destiny White Mountain was a top-tier treasure. If he could claim it, his power would dwarf any ordinary Nine-Turn sage. Plus, once he refined it, everything in that courtyard deep within would be his.
Lan Xiaobu didn’t pay much attention after saving Xiang Jiongtian. He summoned his Life-Death Ledger to shield himself, ready to retreat if needed, and pressed forward.
But after a few steps, he stopped, his eyes fixing on the spot where Xiang Jiongtian had lain. The corrosive laws there were stark—no way they’d held someone for a thousand years.
With that thought, Lan Xiaobu flicked out a dozen time laws. An image instantly formed in the void before him.
It clearly showed Xiang Jiongtian hadn’t been stuck there for even ten days. He hadn’t been corroded into that state at that spot either—he’d ventured deep into the mountain, got ravaged by the corrosion, and fled outward, only to be pinned down here by the laws. Without Lan Xiaobu, he’d have been done for.
Lan Xiaobu sneered inwardly, tempted to go back and finish him off. But surely the guy had bolted—lucky bastard got off easy.
Wait, something felt off. Closing his eyes, Lan Xiaobu soon picked up a faint trace of charm.
His face darkened. From that trace, he could tell Xiang Jiongtian was the one who’d destroyed that life-bearing planet earlier. After smashing it, he’d come here, likely hearing about the Great Destiny Technique on Destiny White Mountain, and rushed in to snatch it.
That made Lan Xiaobu’s stomach turn. He loathed scum like Xiang Jiongtian, and yet he’d saved the jerk—ironic as hell. Better hope they didn’t cross paths again, or he’d wipe him out without a second thought.
Shaking off the frustration, Lan Xiaobu pushed deeper with his Longevity domain. The repulsive laws couldn’t stop him, but the corrosive ones gnawed at his domain, slowing him down.
He knew brute-forcing it might get him to the mountain’s depths in a few hundred or thousand years, but who knew what’d happen in that time?
The corrosive charm here was brutal. Relying solely on his dao to resist would be slow and risky—he might not even make it halfway before crumbling.
So Lan Xiaobu stopped, opting to comprehend the corrosive laws instead.
Only by understanding them and treating Destiny White Mountain like any other place could he reach its core. For others, grasping laws might take ages, but for him, a few years tops.
His dao was refined, sure, but before perfecting it, he’d leaned heavily on the Cosmic Dimensional Model. Using it so much, he’d developed a knack for instinctively catching the traits and patterns of various daos. Over time, he’d honed his own method of insight, far surpassing most cultivators.
To him, the eight laws on his Longevity Dao Tree were leagues more complex than this corrosion—yet he’d mastered them all, hadn’t he?
This corrosive law didn’t even qualify for his Longevity Dao Tree. Comprehending it wouldn’t take long.
He grabbed two top-grade divine spirit veins, his Longevity charm flowing, instantly wrapping the surrounding corrosive laws into a faint vortex.
The vortex spun around him, its charm and laws peeling apart under his scrutiny.
Two years passed in a blink. By now, his Longevity domain had vanished, replaced entirely by corrosive charm. Yet it couldn’t harm him anymore.
Standing up, the mountain’s corrosion posed no threat. His divine sense could now sweep across the entire void white mountain through the corrosive charm.
Soon, he noticed something odd. With one step, he landed outside a courtyard deep within the mountain.
It hit him—Destiny White Mountain wasn’t a natural void formation; it was a treasure. How else could there be a courtyard inside?
The courtyard door was ajar. Pushing it open, Lan Xiaobu was stunned to see a woman in green sitting there, alive. Who knew how long she’d been here—she just sat calmly, watching him as he entered.
“You’re not dead?” Lan Xiaobu blurted, then realized it was a dumb question.
The woman smiled faintly, “Not yet.”
“Uh…” Lan Xiaobu laughed awkwardly, then said, “If I’m not mistaken, you’re the Destiny Sage, right?”
He was certain. This woman was the Destiny Sage. On the table before her sat an ancient scroll with four words: Great Destiny Technique. Her dao was bound, but faint traces of destiny laws lingered.
“Some did call me that once, but now I can’t even control my own fate, so…” She smiled, trailing off.
Lan Xiaobu sensed it—her fate had been backlashed by her own dao. As a Destiny Sage, she cultivated the Destiny Great Dao. A backlash from that dao had to be destiny-related. Oddly, the laws binding her seemed to come from a higher tier of destiny laws, pinning her to that chair, immobile.
“Before, did a guy named Xiang Jiongtian come here to steal your destiny scroll and get his body corroded?” Lan Xiaobu pieced it together. The mountain’s corrosive laws were harsh, but a Nine-Turn sage could still move through them.
The real danger was that scroll on the table. Touch it, and your body and soul would corrode to nothing. Xiang Jiongtian had guts—after getting wrecked, he’d still escaped with his life.
“He was called Xiang Jiongtian? Yes, someone did come. He saw I was bound by destiny laws and tried to grab the Great Destiny Technique. Bad luck for him—he got half his life corroded away,” she said coolly.
Lan Xiaobu clasped his fists, “Fellow Daoist Destiny, I’d like to study your Great Destiny Technique scroll. In return, I’m willing to help you out.”
“You can’t help me,” she said, shaking her head, her tone flat.
Lan Xiaobu chuckled, “If anyone in this plane can help you, it’s me. If I’m right, you reached Eternal Sage status. But in the Eternal Lands, you ran into a destiny master who understood the dao better and bound yours with it. Luckily, you had this white mountain treasure—it got you out of that stronger foe’s grasp. How you left the Eternal Lands, though, I don’t know.”
He grew more eager to master destiny himself. Without it, facing whoever bound her could spell trouble.
“You really know?” The woman stared at him, shocked. Everything he’d said was spot-on, like he’d seen it himself.
Lan Xiaobu nodded earnestly, “I do.”
“You know how to save me too?” she pressed.
“Yep, I know that too,” he replied.
