The Great Ice Pan Palace of the Central World? Lan Xiaobu’s mind briefly lingered on the thought before dismissing it. He hadn’t heard of this sect, and he had no plans to visit the Central World for now. His attention was drawn to the contents of the woman’s world: tens of millions of high-grade Dao crystals piled to one side, along with a stack of Dao fruit jade boxes sealed with restrictions.
This woman clearly wasn’t one for planting trees—her world had barely any Dao fruit trees. Truly a vulgar person. Unfortunately, there were far too few Dao veins compared to Qu Peng’s haul.
There were only a dozen low-grade Dao veins, no mid-grade ones, and just three high-grade Dao veins.
“The women of the Great Ice Pan Palace are extremely arrogant. They don’t allow any disciple or member to suffer the slightest loss. If such a thing happens, they’ll uproot the offender’s entire sect. Though Gu Qiang isn’t from the main line, she’s still part of the Great Ice Pan Palace. Even more terrifying is her sister, Gu Yuer, who is no ordinary figure…”
Zong Quan was still rambling, trying to prove his worth.
“You’re Zong Quan? Where are you from?” Lan Xiaobu, having collected the items, curtly interrupted. He didn’t care about the Great Ice Pan Palace or Gu Yuer.
Zong Quan’s heart sank, but he quickly answered, “I am indeed Zong Quan, from Waizeng Heaven in the Moru World, a Yinbu Enforcer of the Fourth Holy Court…”
“That’s enough. Go in peace. I’ll make sure your name lives on,” Lan Xiaobu said, throwing a punch. Zong Quan saw it coming but couldn’t dodge.
*Boom!* A mist of blood exploded as Lan Xiaobu tore open Zong Quan’s world. Compared to Gu Qiang, Zong Quan was far inferior. Not only was his strength lacking, but his world had barely any high-grade Dao crystals—less than ten million in total. Lan Xiaobu doubted whether, if Zong Quan had stayed on the Listening to the Dao, those ten million Dao crystals would have lasted him to Xueru Dao City.
What puzzled Lan Xiaobu was why no one from the Listening to the Dao had followed him or placed a mark on him.
Did they assume he’d return to the ship? Lan Xiaobu quickly dismissed the thought. He wouldn’t go back to the Listening to the Dao until he reached the fourth step.
Sweeping his divine sense, he found the chaotic zone’s edge unsuitable for cultivation, filled with mottled Dao principle auras. This was because, as the chaotic zone merged with external cosmic rules, some chaotic auras fully transformed into various Dao principles, while others only partially did. These incomplete transformations created various spatial structures—ruin spaces, in fact.
The Listening to the Dao stopped here because, though the mottled Dao principles at the chaotic zone’s edge made cultivation impossible, it frequently birthed various treasures: innate treasures, acquired treasures, even sky-opening and post-chaos treasures. Top-grade Dao crystals were the most common, while top-grade Dao veins depended on luck.
Lan Xiaobu had no interest in these treasures or in searching for them. His goal was the true chaotic zone. For cultivators like him and Mo Wuji, who cultivated their own Dao, surviving in a true chaotic zone was possible. As long as he didn’t perish immediately, he could use his Dao to construct a rule-based world within the chaos.
Most cultivators from the Listening to the Dao wouldn’t venture deeper than a year’s journey into the chaotic zone. Every step deeper increased the danger, and going too far meant never returning. But Lan Xiaobu sped forward, heedless of how deep he went.
As he advanced, the mottled Dao principles weakened, replaced by an increasingly dense chaotic aura. Then, he sensed a new, familiar Dao principle—Burial Dao principles.
Under these Burial Dao principles, his body’s Dao charm was constantly being eroded and buried. Lan Xiaobu realized this was where Qu Peng’s Burial Dao principles had originated. Qu Peng must have sensed these principles at the chaotic zone’s edge, refined them, and created the Burial Dao sect.
The Burial Dao principles here were far stronger than those Qu Peng had developed, growing more potent the deeper he went. They carried not just strength but a chaotic suppression. Space began to blur and slowly vanish.
Lan Xiaobu knew he was at the edge of the true chaotic zone. He wasn’t overly worried. Having survived chaos before, he knew others might be immobilized by its suppression, with space and time fading, but with his Longevity Dao Tree, he could gradually build his own world in chaotic space.
With this experience, Lan Xiaobu pressed forward even after entering the true chaotic zone. When the surrounding space nearly vanished, he knew going further would plunge him into complete chaos.
To be safe, Lan Xiaobu tried to use his Longevity Dao Tree to construct a Longevity Dao principle. But the next moment, a chill ran down his spine—he couldn’t connect to the Longevity Dao Tree. It was clearly in his sea of consciousness, and he could sense it with his mind, but he couldn’t communicate with it.
Something was wrong. Lan Xiaobu immediately stopped and cautiously retreated.
With space nearly gone, he felt endless chaotic aura crushing him, as if to reduce him to nothingness.
Though he could still think, Lan Xiaobu felt his consciousness slipping. His body began to hunch, compressed by the chaos.
Frantically, Lan Xiaobu condensed a divine soul spike and pierced his own primordial spirit. The groggy haze in his mind cleared slightly. Burning his essence blood, he retreated. He was grateful he could still condense one soul spike but wasn’t sure he could manage a second.
The chaotic force was overwhelming. Even though he wasn’t fully in the true chaotic zone, he moved backward at a snail’s pace.
As his Dao crumbled under the chaos, Lan Xiaobu forced himself to stay calm. Unable to use the Longevity Dao Tree, he struggled to build his own spatial Dao principles in the chaotic space.
Running his Longevity Dao, he found that in this chaos, moving his aura even slightly took immense effort and time.
*Crack!* It might not have been a sound, but Lan Xiaobu felt his spine snap as his body was relentlessly compressed by the chaos.
With no time to think, Lan Xiaobu desperately connected to his white top-grade Dao vein.
*Boom!* The Dao vein’s vitality exploded around him like a firecracker, flooding his body with abundant energy. In an instant, he completed a full cycle. Feeling the surrounding space loosen slightly, Lan Xiaobu didn’t hesitate and rushed out.
An hour later, he stopped, heart pounding, staring at the true chaotic zone beyond the reach of his eyes and divine sense, still reeling from what had happened.
If he hadn’t had that top-grade Dao vein, if he hadn’t been just short of the true chaotic zone, would he have escaped? And earlier, his mind seemed to connect to the Longevity Dao Tree, but it hadn’t actually worked. The sensation was bizarre.
Sometimes, experience could be deadly. He’d thought his experience in the Taixu Tomb’s chaotic zone applied here, but now he realized the two were entirely different.
Still shaken, Lan Xiaobu soon grew excited. What did this mean? The chaotic zone here was of a higher grade than the Taixu Tomb’s.
But using the Taixu Tomb’s experience to achieve the fourth step here was useless. Fortunately, he now knew the top-grade Dao vein worked—he wouldn’t have escaped without it. Could his single top-grade Dao vein help him reach the fourth step?
His top-grade Dao vein was white. He’d heard that top-grade Dao veins also came in black, forming a yin-yang pair.
If he were to achieve the fourth step, would he need a black top-grade Dao vein too? Top-grade Dao veins were so rare that getting one was already incredible luck—his came from Mo Wuji giving him the whole vein; otherwise, he’d only have half.
Lan Xiaobu felt a pang of regret. If only Tai Chuan weren’t in seclusion in the Great Evolution Realm. Tai Chuan, a chaos unicorn, was highly sensitive to Dao veins and adapted to chaos. If Tai Chuan were here, he’d have a good chance of finding a top-grade Dao vein.
Wait—though Tai Chuan wasn’t here, he had the cosmic model. While it was slow to construct the chaotic zone’s dimensional structure, it could help him locate a top-grade Dao vein.
Lan Xiaobu immediately began building the dimensional structure of the surrounding space. He didn’t expect to find a top-grade Dao vein in one go, but as long as one existed here, continuously constructing dimensional structures would give him a chance to find it.
