Chu Feng found himself surrounded by peach trees, their blossoms fluttering down in a breathtakingly beautiful scene.
But as stunning as it was, there was something peculiar about it.
The sky was pink, the clouds were pink, even the ground beneath his feet was pink.
Though the shades varied, creating a sense of depth and layering, the overwhelming dominance of pink made it undeniably strange.
However, Chu Feng paid little attention to that. His gaze was quickly drawn to the southeast.
While peach trees enveloped his surroundings, the southwest was an exception; there lay a cliff.
It turned out this peach garden perched atop a cliff’s edge.
At that moment, someone sat at the cliff’s summit.
Judging by the figure’s back, it was an elderly person. Their back was hunched, with a noticeable bulge, likely a hunchback.
Though the scenery here was far from ordinary, the old figure’s attire was quite plain.
They wore a tattered gray robe and a worn-out straw hat, looking for all the world like an aged farmer.
Yet Chu Feng felt a surge of respect.
From this figure, he sensed a potent aura, an ancient aura.
In their hand, they held a fishing rod.
Perched atop a cliff, fishing rod in hand, with the line dangling below, they seemed to be fishing.
This piqued Chu Feng’s curiosity. Sitting at the cliff’s edge with a rod, what could they possibly be fishing for?
But standing here, Chu Feng refrained from using his Heavenly Eye or any other probing techniques to peer beneath the cliff.
That would be disrespectful to this elder.
Instead, he clasped his fists, bowed, and said, “Senior, this junior Chu Feng has come to pay his respects.”
After Chu Feng spoke, the old figure didn’t respond. Instead, they began speaking to themselves, “The Peach Garden I established contains ten layers of inheritance.
“With Purple-Striped Boundary Stones to enter the formation, 100,000 stones make it easiest to comprehend, but yield the least insight.
“The reverse is harder, but offers greater rewards.
“Today, someone has arrived here, surely having entered with just 10,000 Purple-Striped Boundary Stones. To reach this place, they must be a prodigy of exceptional talent.
“Such a junior is worthy of my inheritance.
“But how much you gain depends on yourself; comprehend it on your own.”
*Whoosh!*
Suddenly, the old figure waved their sleeve.
In an instant, the winds howled, and the world shifted dramatically.
Chu Feng had been surrounded by peach trees, but now everything around him changed.
He still stood atop the cliff, but the peach trees had vanished. Beyond the cliff, his surroundings seemed to dissolve into nothingness.
Then, abruptly, a fierce wind surged from ahead, rushing toward Chu Feng.
“What’s this?”
As the wind swept past, Chu Feng’s expression shifted dramatically.
He realized that within this gust hid the mysteries of martial cultivation.
But the wind came and went in a flash, passing by in an instant.
As it faded, Chu Feng’s surroundings returned to normal. The peach trees reappeared, and the old figure remained seated at the cliff’s edge, still fishing for something.
Yet Chu Feng’s heart raced, his face alight with astonishment. His emotions surged so intensely that his chest heaved, unable to calm for a long while.
That fleeting wind had brushed past him in a mere moment.
But in that moment, Chu Feng felt as though a fog had lifted, and he’d grasped numerous truths of martial cultivation.
If the path of martial cultivation were a road strewn with countless obstacles, riddles to solve before advancing, each step requiring the unraveling of myriad challenges, with failure meaning stagnation forever, then what Chu Feng had just comprehended was enough to carry him forward a significant distance. Many things he’d previously struggled to understand, mysteries he couldn’t unravel, questions he didn’t know how to approach, all became clear to him now.
To gain so much clarity in a single instant was nothing short of an epiphany.
Though Chu Feng’s cultivation was currently suppressed, preventing an immediate breakthrough, he felt that if he could cultivate now, reaching the peak of the Martial Immortal realm would be no issue. Even stepping into the Exalted Realm might be within reach.
Today’s harvest far exceeded his expectations.
“Thank you, Senior!”
Overwhelmed with gratitude for such a boon, Chu Feng didn’t dare delay. He bowed deeply, thanking the old figure.
But the elder paid him no mind, instead repeating their earlier words, “The Peach Garden I established contains ten layers of inheritance.
“With Purple-Striped Boundary Stones to enter the formation…”
The old figure recited the same speech, and once finished, waved their sleeve again.
This time, however, nothing changed around Chu Feng, and he felt no surge of power.
At that moment, Chu Feng understood. This elder was likely just a remnant projection left by the formation, not a living being.
They were merely following a preset script, repeating the same actions.
That made sense. The elder must have lived in ancient times, an era far removed from the present. No matter how powerful a martial cultivator might be, surviving from then to now was implausible.
With this realization, Chu Feng walked directly toward the cliff.
He wanted to see what lay below.
When he reached the edge and peered down, his eyes widened in shock.
Beneath the cliff was an abyss, its depths unfathomable.
Though the bottom was out of sight, massive creatures were visible just below the cliff’s edge.
The smallest of these behemoths stretched over a thousand meters, while the largest spanned tens of thousands.
Each one exuded an aura of overwhelming power.
Standing at a distance, Chu Feng hadn’t felt it, but now, at the cliff’s edge, he could sense it clearly.
The strength of every single one of these creatures could only be described as world-shattering.
Forget Chu Feng himself.
Even in the entire Ancestral Martial Starfield, no one could stand against these beasts.
Any one of them, plucked from beneath this cliff, could annihilate the entire starfield.
