Translator: Sparrow Translations  Editor: Sparrow Translations

She wasn't kidding.

Fang Zhengzhi had placed a little hope on Ping Yang, thinking that she could get him out. However, it seemed like she and Qian Yu were partners in crime now.

“What should I do?”

“Should I force my way out? But, I don't know where to start! Having said that, if I don't force my way out, I can't possibly wait for them to come back, right?”

Most importantly, he faced the same problem even if he waited for them to return. He wouldn't be released if he didn't agree to marrying Ping Yang.

“Ai… I wonder how Yan Xiu is doing now?” Is he dead or alive?” Fang Zhengzhi sighed. Then, he dug a small hole on the ground and made a simple stove with two rocks. He cut a piece of meat from the two gigantic drumsticks and started roasting it.

After travelling over several dozen miles over the past two days, he was hungry.

The meat started to exude its fragrance thanks to the fire, and Fang Zhengzhi's stomach growl from hunger.

After eating the meat and drinking a little fruit liquor, he burped and lay down on the ground. Using a rock as a pillow, he started taking a nap.

The sunlight was warm.

Ling Yun Realm's sceneries were hugely impressive. There were mountains, rivers, trees, and flowers. Even though Fang Zhengzhi grew up in a village, he had to admit that the scenery here was incredibly beautiful.

“Wait a minute!”

“The scenery… Is beautiful?”

Fang Zhengzhi suddenly opened his eyes. He did learn something from the adventure at Ling Yun Tower. At the very least, his understanding of ‘Dao' had reached a new level.

Speaking of ‘Dao', Fang Zhengzhi started recalling the fight between him and Ling Yun Tower's disciples and Qian Ye.

He could still vividly remember Ling Yun Tower's disciples' extraordinary idea and technique. They actually made use of the theory of sound pulse to synchronize their Dao.

Apart from that… It was the orb that Qian Ye's squashed.

An independent Mountain River World!

Fang Zhengzhi felt a connection between the orb and Ling Yun Realm, as if they were closely related.

Fusion?

Fusing multiple Dao techniques together to create something that was even more powerful?

Fang Zhengzhi knew how to do that. After all, his black armour of a product of the fusion of Dao techniques. However, he felt that this wasn't enough to explain the Mountain River World that Qian Ye had created, or the Ling Yun Realm.

It wasn't just fusion…

If it was merely fusion, there would still be a barrier between two Dao techniques.

It was just like forcing two rocks together. Even though their power would improve, it was only to a limited extent. If the force was too strong, the rocks would break apart.

However, that wouldn't be the case if it was an entire rock.

“Wait a minute.”

“An entire rock?”

“That's it!”

If he had to find a way to describe Ling Yun Tower's attack and Qian Ye's Mountain River World, it was like those Dao techniques had become one.

“Become one?”

“That's it. It's becoming one!”

Combining all the Dao techniques into a single one and thereby creating a new Dao technique…

“Wait, it's incorrect to call it a new Dao technique… Because there are 3000 Great Dao techniques, but there are over billions of common Dao techniques. The correct explanation is that tens of thousands of common Dao techniques could combine and become one Great Dao technique.”

“I knew it, so that's how it works!” Fang Zhengzhi's eyes lit up as he had discovered something new.

He used to believe that he could become stronger by comprehending more Dao techniques. He would try to comprehend several Dao techniques every day, and slowly acc.u.mulate them over time.

However, that was too slow after all.

Most importantly, he didn't get many chances to use the majority of Dao techniques that he had comprehended, such as the average fire, wind, or rock Dao techniques.

After he had comprehended these Dao techniques, he hadn't used them at all. They weren't useful apart from the fact that they improved his strength by a tiny bit.

He felt like a tyc.o.o.n who had a lot of money. However, he didn't know how to spend the money, or use them to create more money, like how a s...o...b..ll gets bigger as it goes down the slope. In fact, he wasn't doing anything with the majority of his money.

That was Fang Zhengzhi's current state.

However, if he could combine multiple Dao techniques and turn them into one Dao technique, he would be able to solve that problem. He could start by combining a few common Dao techniques into a Great Dao technique. Then, he could combine a few Great Dao techniques into a Supreme Dao technique. If he continued to do that, he could combine all the Dao techniques into one Ultimate Dao technique.

In that case… There was a problem.

What should he name the Ultimate Dao technique?

He didn't know, and he didn't care… That was because he still had a long way to go before he could achieve that.

After all, combining and turning all the Dao techniques into one Dao would take countless attempts and explorations. However, he was certain that this was the right way to go!

Moreover, after fighting against Ling Yun Tower's disciples and Qian Ye, he understood two things. Firstly, the theory of sound pulse could synchronize combine Dao into one. Secondly, in order for them to become one, he needed to find a ‘origin'.

In other words, he needed to come out with something like the ‘Dao of Nature' in Qian Ye's Mountain River World.

‘Origin' was the core, and ‘sound pulse' was the method. Once he knew that, it wouldn't be difficult to combine many Dao techniques and turn them into a single Dao technique.

As Fang Zhengzhi thought of that, his eyes glowed brighter, because he had just realised something more important, which was the final outcome of becoming one…

It would produce something like the Mountain River World in Qian Ye's golden orb, or even the Ling Yun Realm where he was imprisoned.

Of course, these were just his guesses, and he couldn't prove them with actual results yet.

However, that had helped Fang Zhengzhi figure out a general direction… Which he had to work towards in order to escape Ling Yun Realm.

In that case, which two Dao techniques should he combine first?

Ice and Fire seemed great!

If he could combine two Dao techniques with completely opposite properties, he might be able to recreate the legendary technique, ‘Paradise of Fire and Ice'!

Fang Zhengzhi got excited just from thinking about it.

He had always put his ideas to action right away. Moreover, since he had just eaten, he needed a channel to vent his energy.

He summoned ice on his left hand. White, freezing air converged in his left hand and soon turned into an ice flake.

Then, a fiery aura gathered in his right hand and turned into a ball of flame almost instantly.

Then, he began the process of ‘becoming one'.

Fang Zhengzhi closed his palms together and started compressing the two different Dao techniques.

Then… There was no then.

That was because the flame was jumping around due to the cold air, but Fang Zhengzhi was controlling the cold air with all his might so that the ice flake wouldn't melt. In that case, the result was pretty obvious.

There was an explosion!

The ice flake blew up due to the intense heat and blasted towards his face. If Fang Zhengzhi didn't react in time, he would have been disfigured.

“I knew it. There is a gap between dream and reality after all. I need to stop thinking about recreating ‘Paradise of Fire and Ice' for the moment.”

Fang Zhengzhi didn't give up. He simply decided to start from something easier and get use to this process before attempting the tougher projects.

Fang Zhengzhi became serious as he thought of it. If the combination of wind and water can become ice, what about the combination of fire and rock? Magma?

Actually, apart from these ideas, there was a huge number of possibilities.

While Fang Zhengzhi was thinking of different possible combinations, he also began attempting. He started off by combining two different Dao techniques, and slowly made his way up to three, four, and five different Dao techniques, and so on and so forth…

He also figured out some principles very quickly. For example, by using ‘Dao of the Five Elements' as the origin, he could successfully combine metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. By using ‘Dao of Yin and Yang' as the origin, he could combine Dao techniques like heat and coldness or light and darkness.

After his first successful attempt, his second attempt was much faster. In addition, he also understood more about the relations.h.i.+p between Great Dao techniques and common Dao techniques.

Most of the time, a Great Dao technique was the origin of the common Dao techniques. Although there seemed to be no relations.h.i.+p between many different common Dao techniques, they actually shared the same origin.

It was their origins that connected the different common Dao techniques together.

Success breeds success.

After ten consecutive successful attempts, Fang Zhengzhi came up with a bold idea, which was combining multiple Great Dao techniques and turning them into one Dao technique.

To put it more bluntly, he wanted to create a brand-new move by combining multiple Great Dao technique, and that would be his unique creation.

As the saying went, ‘You aren't a teenager if you aren't crazy enough'.

Although Fang Zhengzhi was too old to be a teenager as he was already a young man, he was afraid how crazy he could actually get.

“It's all or nothing! If I die, so be it!” Fang Zhengzhi roared inside Ling Yun Realm,

following which, a dazzling radiance lit up the sky.

15 days later.

Holy Region, Heaven Zen Mountain.

As compared to 15 days ago, Heaven Zen Mountain was much quieter now. At the very least, there weren't any enormous and ferocious birds flying in the sky anymore. There were obviously much fewer beasts roaming in the jungles too, especially during the day, when people could hardly hear them roaring anymore.

However, there was an unerasable scent of blood in the mountain now.

Thousands of beasts had died because of the Heaven Alliance Meeting.

As rulers of the world, humans had absolute control. In that case, those beasts that dared to stand in their way, had to choose between banishment and death.

This was the harsh reality.

Luckily, the disciples who were tasked with ‘cleaning up' the jungles didn't overdo it and destroy the jungles. The spring water was still fragrant, and the seven-coloured light was still visible amidst the clouds.

Heaven's Peak, the location of the Heaven Alliance Meeting, was already full of people. The armies of the four great dynasties were here, as they were in charge of the discipline and order of the meeting. The disciples from all kinds of sects had also gathered here. Some were carrying swords on their backs, while some held sabres in their hands.

Of course, the five sects of Holy Region were seated at a different location from the other sects. They each took up the s.p.a.ce between the five stone statues respectively.

As the organizer of this meeting, Heaven Dao Alliance was the first to arrive. Since Fu Xi Valley was just nearby, their people also arrived pretty early.

Apart from them, Yin Yang Hall was the only sect that came on time.

However, unlike Heaven Dao Pavilion and Fu Xi Valley, there wasn't only a single person sitting at the front of Yin Yang Hall. Instead, there were two chairs standing by side by side.

The person on the left was dressed in both black and white and wearing a mask that covered his face. The person on the right wore a green dress and a bamboo hat with a white veil.

No one could see their faces clearly, but no one doubted their ident.i.ties.

This was because almost everyone knew that the person on the left was Yin Yang Hall's Hall Master, Dao Hun, and the person on the right was Dao Xin.

However, the person standing beside them caught everyone's attention instead.

That was because he was sitting right behind Dao Hun and Dao Xin.

In other words, he was sitting in front of Yin Yang Hall's elders.

It would be impossible for the other sects to remain indifferent to this seating arrangement, because the seat often depicted one's position after all.

However… The person sitting behind Dao Hun and Dao Xin didn't reveal his face either. He was wearing a mask too.

The mask was both black and white and shaped like the Yin Yang symbol. It seemed a little creepy, especially those pitch-black eyes that could be seen through the mask, which looked like bottomless pits.

“Who is that?”

“He's actually sitting behind Dao Hun and Dao Xin. Furthermore, it seems like Yin Yang Hall's elders are ok with that.”

“This is strange, I don't think such a person existed… In Yin Yang Hall? Did Yin Yang Hall come across a G.o.dsend opportunity recently?”

Everyone was guessing internally while they discussed softly. However, no one dared to ask about that person's ident.i.ty, because they were just the disciples of some small sects after all. If even the other sects of Holy Region had kept quiet, how could they possibly have the guts to ask about it?