Shrouding the Heavens: The Ultimate Daoist Venerable

Chapter 217 The Immortal Artifact Joint Operation Plan
Although the Celestial Venerable of Freedom had decided to use the power of darkness to bridge the gap between himself and Liang Yu and the others, at this point he only had an idea and didn't yet have a clear plan on how to implement it. However, the secret about the world rift must be kept from Liang Yu.

After all, Liang Yu treated the dark forces with utmost seriousness, far more so than he regarded those forbidden zones and supreme realms. Furthermore, Liang Yu had left a seal on the other side of the rift, so once he learned of the world rift, he never came into contact with that dark force again.

Liang Yu's third incarnation lasted for a full 48,000 years, and he also left a part of himself in the Primordial Ancient Mine. Under Liang Yu's watchful eye, the Carefree Celestial Venerable was naturally cautious and dared not expose himself.

During the first 30,000 years, the Carefree Celestial Venerable would occasionally emerge to explore the outside world. Only when he reached the vicinity of the Primordial Ancient Mine would he begin to study this sacrificial method. Ultimately, although he didn't delve too deeply, he successfully obtained some secrets from it, and used them to improve his own created secret technique, greatly increasing the conversion efficiency when absorbing divine treasures. Of course, the improved Nine-Turn Immortal Elixir that could slightly mend the Immortal Platform was unrelated to this sacrificial method; it was the Carefree Celestial Venerable's own accumulation.

During this period, the Celestial Venerable of Freedom's laws of time advanced once again. After Liang Yu created the Primordial Immortal Scripture, he was even more amazed, witnessing for the first time that these wondrous places held such mysteries.

However, due to insufficient compatibility, the Carefree Celestial Venerable only mastered half of the scripture. But even this half-finished immortal scripture bought him several thousand years. Moreover, it allowed him to gain some knowledge of wondrous lands; while he wouldn't say it was extremely profound, it was definitely more advanced than that of most self-severing Supreme Beings.

During this time, he discussed the Dao with the deceased Liang Yu, comprehended the laws of the Immortal Bell, and ultimately elevated the Law of Time to the Quasi-Heavenly Emperor level within the unexpected five thousand years he gained. It can be said that as long as he repairs the Immortal Platform, he can undergo a transformation and evolve a new physique of his own. Only then did he finally begin to have the confidence to realize his ideas.

In the thirteen thousand years following Liang Yu's death and departure from the Primordial Ancient Mine, the Carefree Celestial Venerable spent most of his time in slumber, occasionally waking up to continue studying the sacrificial method and beginning to conceive a plan to refine the Immortal Treasure Bottle based on the mysteries of the Desolate Tower and the Immortal Bell.

It wasn't until Liang Yu attacked the Path to Immortality and subsequently disappeared from the mortal realm that the Carefree Celestial Venerable truly began to implement his plan.

The Carefree Celestial Venerable absolutely refused to believe that Liang Yu had left the mortal realm. After all, he had learned about the Ascension Plan and the Reincarnation Plan from Liang Yu, and Liang Yu had also personally confirmed that the Moral Celestial Venerable and the Spiritual Treasure Celestial Venerable were still alive.

With this information, coupled with Liang Yu's consistent modus operandi, the Carefree Celestial Venerable was quite certain that this was a trap. Moreover, it was highly likely a pretext to deal with other forbidden realms' self-severed supreme beings. After all, this was something Liang Yu had been doing ever since he first attained enlightenment.

The Carefree Celestial Venerable secretly extracted a trace of dark energy from the crack for his research. He discovered that this power could indeed regenerate and strengthen people, but it was also extremely polluting, just as Liang Yu had said.

After numerous experiments, the Carefree Celestial Venerable mixed this wisp of dark power with his own refined blood essence imbued with the laws of time, and then purified it using a sacrificial ritual. Surprisingly, this greatly reduced the danger of the power. It was at this moment that the Carefree Celestial Venerable finally finalized the basic outline of his plan. Of course, he didn't directly absorb this purified aura into his body, but rather extinguished it to avoid premature exposure.

At this point, the Carefree Celestial Venerable re-established contact with the other Supreme Beings in the Forbidden Zones through the Heavenly Secrets Scrolls he had previously used to communicate with them. Some of the Supreme Beings who had previously researched the method of rebirth with him had actually instigated the Dark Turmoil, and therefore distrusted the Carefree Celestial Venerable, who was on good terms with Liang Yu, communicating only through the Heavenly Secrets Scrolls that wouldn't reveal each other's information. This time, the Carefree Celestial Venerable's plan required the participation of these Supreme Beings to maximize both his benefits and safety, so he had to use a highly feasible plan to deceive them. Thanks to his accumulated experience over the years, he actually devised a highly feasible plan. Thus, he began to pull the other Supreme Beings into the scheme.

Since the Celestial Venerable of Freedom had lost contact with the other Supreme Beings of the Forbidden Zones for a long time, in order to regain their trust, the Celestial Venerable of Freedom passed on his improved secret technique and the new version of the Nine-Turn Immortal Elixir formula to the other Supreme Beings and began to persuade them to participate in his plan.

The plan proposed by the Celestial Venerable to the Supreme Beings of the eight forbidden zones (excluding the Heavenly Illusion Realm and the Cloud Soaring Divine Realm) was to gather the strength of dozens of them to forge a celestial artifact, thereby paving their way to immortality.

After all, Liang Yu had already ruled out their chances of individually making it onto the path to immortality. But if they could forge a special immortal artifact to combine the power of dozens of people into one, and then use that artifact to unleash their power, wouldn't their chances of making it onto the path to immortality increase significantly? Furthermore, they could avoid the problem of insufficient energy and blood and difficulty in sustaining their efforts by taking turns in groups of dozens of people.

It's fair to say that this plan seems to have an extremely high success rate. After all, with nearly forty supreme beings joining forces, neither forging immortal artifacts nor conquering the immortal realm seems like a difficult task.

This Immortal Treasure Bottle was naturally a supreme immortal artifact prepared by the Carefree Celestial Venerable for himself. Its inspiration actually came from the two real immortal artifacts, the Immortal Bell and the Desolate Tower, as well as the Kunlun Immortal Body, which was formed by the ten supreme beings led by Zhulong merging together with the Kunlun Immortal Mountain.

It could be said that if the Carefree Celestial Venerable had no ulterior motives, even if they couldn't enter the true Immortal Realm, they would most likely have reached the Strange World. Unfortunately, the Carefree Celestial Venerable only wanted to kill two birds with one stone: to get them involved and to forge an immortal artifact for himself.

However, in the ten thousand years between Liang Yu's disappearance and Yuanshi Tianzun's attainment of enlightenment, these supreme beings remained hesitant.

While the plan was good, it had several problems. First, there was the issue of time; forging immortal artifacts couldn't be accomplished overnight, even with their combined efforts. Even if they managed to recover their condition and extend their lifespans using the advanced secret techniques of the Carefree Celestial Venerable and the new Nine-Turn Immortal Elixir, it would still be a struggle.

Secondly, there's the issue of safety. Even though Liang Yu has disappeared, they still dare not show their faces, fearing they might be wiped out by some contingency plan he left behind. If they want to refine immortal artifacts, they will inevitably expose their presence, which could very well attract Liang Yu's attention—a risk they cannot afford to take.

This attitude of the supreme beings was not completely changed until the Primordial Celestial Venerable attained enlightenment.

(End of this chapter)