Shrouding the Heavens: The Ultimate Daoist Venerable

Chapter 210 Conspiracy
After the treasure bottle connected with the great formation and changed again, the nine supreme beings finally understood that the carefree heavenly venerable had borrowed the laws of the heavens themselves to transform this wondrous place, which they had already turned into a great formation platform and a weapon-refining furnace, into a pill-refining furnace.

These supreme beings never expected that the array they had set up together could not only be used to refine weapons, but also to refine pills—specifically, to refine their own human body pills!
In the original timeline, the Emperor and the Underworld Lord used Kunlun Immortal Mountain to forge the Myriad Things Origin Cauldron. During this process, Kunlun Immortal Mountain served as the forging furnace. In the process of forging the Myriad Things Origin Cauldron, they not only drained the essence of countless ancient life-bearing stars, turning them into dead stars, but also greatly consumed the primordial power of Kunlun Immortal Mountain, causing it damage that would take a long time to recover from.

Although the cost was incredibly high, they ultimately succeeded in forging the immortal artifact, the Myriad Origin Cauldron. This clearly demonstrates that utilizing the power of extraordinary locations can reduce the difficulty of forging immortal artifacts, albeit with the immense resources required. Although they were unaware of this, they accomplished something similar under the organization of the Carefree Celestial Venerable.

The reason why the Celestial Venerable of Freedom and the others were able to refine the Immortal Treasure Bottle was firstly because it relied on the combined efforts of dozens of Supreme Beings. With dozens of Supreme Beings working together and imprinting their respective Great Dao imprints, a quantitative change led to a qualitative change, and the effect was naturally extraordinary.

Secondly, the shape of this treasure bottle is the result of countless millennia of accumulated wealth from the eight forbidden zones, including countless kinds of immortal gold and divine materials mixed together. Although its materials may not be as pure as the Origin Cauldron of All Things, its mystical nature is definitely not weak.

Thirdly, they also greatly depleted the primordial power of Heaven. Because of this, it will likely take Heaven hundreds of thousands of years to recover its vitality.

In addition, there is a fourth point: the special terrain of Tianyuan was completely decomposed, and a large amount of its origin was extracted from the other six forbidden areas, regardless of whether they were strange places or not, although not as much as from Zangtian Island.

Under these four conditions, they were able to forge a quasi-immortal artifact. Of course, this was because the time was too short; otherwise, it could have been forged into a true immortal artifact. But even so, with a period of nurturing, the treasure bottle will naturally become an immortal artifact.

The reason why the Carefree Celestial Venerable was able to design a plan for forging immortal artifacts coincided with that of the Emperor and the Underworld Venerable in the original timeline is twofold. First, because he saw the Desolate Tower and the Immortal Bell in Liang Yu's possession and conducted considerable research on them, he had a high level of understanding of immortal artifacts. Second, he had also cultivated the Primordial Immortal Scripture, although he only mastered half of it due to a low degree of compatibility with himself, he still had a deep understanding of these wondrous places.

Other supreme beings also continuously contributed to this plan, refining many details. It can be said that the entire scheme for forging immortal artifacts and all the array patterns were based on the plan of the Carefree Celestial Venerable, and then they designed it together.

Of course, if it were truly forged into a celestial artifact, the Celestial Venerable of Freedom would naturally have the greatest control over it. However, the others, having imprinted their own Dao imprints, would also possess considerable control, creating a balance of power. This means that only through their combined efforts can the full power of the Celestial Treasure Bottle be unleashed. This is a crucial prerequisite for ensuring their cooperation.

Therefore, they were fully aware of the entire process of the Heavenly Realm acting as a refining furnace. But now, the grand formation they had jointly completed had changed right before their eyes, becoming a furnace to suppress and refine them, yet they were completely unaware of it.

Furthermore, the heavens are now firmly in the hands of the Carefree Celestial Venerable, and even the Lord of the Heavens cannot change this. Of course, this is because the Lord of the Heavens is not proficient in the Origin Technique and has not comprehended the core laws within Burial Sky Island, so his control over the heavens is not very strong to begin with.

Although the Carefree Celestial Venerable didn't understand Source Techniques very well, he did understand Wonder Lands. Having originally cultivated the Primordial Immortal Scripture, he gained a method through analogy to more efficiently mobilize the primordial power of Wonder Lands, even without using Source Techniques.

Therefore, even though the time was short, the Celestial Venerable of Freedom still managed to grasp a portion of the primordial power of the heavens through this secret technique, and even went so far as to capture its core laws, thus gaining greater control than the Lord of the heavens.

In the years since he arrived in the Celestial Realm, he has been using this opportunity to increase his control over it, and secretly adjusting the array patterns through the Celestial Realm's primal power, shaping them to his liking. Of course, he only made very subtle changes, all concealed by the Celestial Realm's laws and Dao traces. This is why the other Supreme Beings couldn't detect it. After all, they didn't understand Origin Techniques and Strange Lands very well, so naturally they couldn't perceive anything amiss from such subtle details.

Moreover, the Immortal Treasure Bottle originally required their combined efforts to unleash its full power, but the Carefree Celestial Venerable, through the connection of the Heavenly Creator's creation of the bottle, used the power of the Heavenly Creator to fully unleash the power of the Immortal Treasure Bottle, thus bypassing the influence of the Great Dao Imprints of the others.

"If you kill us, how will you control this Immortal Bottle? Don't forget, only by combining the strength of all ten of us can those chaotic Dao imprints truly merge into one!"

"That's right, don't forget, we're going to explore another world together. How can you open the portal alone?"

“Fellow Daoist Xiaoyao, once we enter that world, we'll be unfamiliar with everything and everyone. We'll need allies to look after each other, won't we? You can't carry this alone!”

The supreme beings suppressed within began to try to persuade the carefree Heavenly Venerable, since their condition was no longer able to withstand any further torment.

The Carefree Celestial Venerable said calmly, "Everyone, from the very beginning I only intended to use you as nourishment. A bunch of spiritless, decrepit old people, whose lives are worse than death, do you even deserve to be my fellow Daoists?"

"You, Celestial Venerable Xiaoyao, have gone too far!"

Ignoring their exasperation, the Celestial Venerable of Freedom continued, "As for allies and cooperation, heh heh, I've never been one to mingle with others. Cooperating with you bunch of insects for so many years has already pushed my patience to its limit. You might as well just die quietly and stop struggling."

"Then go die!"

These supreme beings already knew that once the Celestial Venerable of Freedom had made this decision, he would never change his mind easily. They were just talking to lower the Celestial Venerable of Freedom's vigilance while trying to break the great formation by pushing their limits.

Now, they are finally about to achieve their ultimate ascension under the suppression of the great formation and the immortal bottle, breaking free from the formation. Although they will most likely die even if they do so, they can no longer care about that now. After all, failing to ascend means certain death.

(End of this chapter)