In those years when I was a mortal and a demon

Without hesitation, Lu Yuan made a grabbing motion in the air with one hand, and several bean-sized specks of light immediately entered his palm. With a slight flicker, they condensed into a small bean-sized five-colored crystal.

With a slight inhalation, streams of pure spiritual energy surged forth from the crystal, instantly making his entire body feel incredibly comfortable.

This is the place where spiritual energy crystallizes!

The densest concentration of the five-colored lights was above a verdant pond.

Lu Yuan slowly approached the vicinity and carefully observed the area.

This pond is not the real Spirit Cleansing Pool. The real Spirit Cleansing Pool is in a special space, which can only be accessed through the teleportation array beneath the pond.

With a try-it-and-see attitude, Lu Yuan slowly approached the pond.

Sure enough, an invisible barrier blocked Lu Yuan just a few feet away from the pond.

The restrictions here were set up by those Demon Realm Saint Ancestors, and they cannot be broken by ordinary methods. In the original story, Han Li tried various means but failed to succeed. In the end, he only succeeded after self-destructing a pseudo-immortal puppet.

Lu Yuan is currently only at the Nascent Soul stage, so he naturally dares not even think about it.

Even so, Lu Yuan was not discouraged at all, because he had never intended to enter the Spirit Cleansing Pool in the first place.

Because once you use the Cleansing Pool and the Purifying Lotus, you lose all hope of advancing to a higher level, since nothing in this world is perfect.

Han Li only managed to succeed because he had Bao Hua's guidance and happened to obtain the Void Spirit Pill in the Guanghan Realm.

As for Lu Yuan's original purpose for reaching Bitter Spirit Island, he naturally had other plans.

Such abundant spiritual energy of heaven and earth must be extremely rare even in the True Immortal Realm, enough to satisfy the cultivation needs of his Ancestral Golden Body.

After observing for a while, Lu Yuan sat down cross-legged not far from the pond. He placed his hands, palms facing up, on his knees, closed his eyes, and began to practice the Myriad Paths to Gold Transformation Heavenly Art, which he had not used for hundreds of years.

Before long, the five-colored light spots floating nearby began to converge on Lu Yuan, rushing towards Lu Yuan's palm like moths to a flame.

After a few more moments, more and more five-colored light spots gathered, and Lu Yuan's palm seemed to be like a vortex, frantically swallowing the five-colored light spots into it.

This was even with Lu Yuan trying his best to control the absorption speed, because his current physical body simply couldn't withstand such terrifying spiritual energy entering his body.

A day later, Lu Yuan's expression became even more solemn.

Then, his brows furrowed and his face began to contort, as if he were enduring immense pain.

By this time, his clothes could no longer withstand the pressure and tore apart, revealing the taut muscles beneath. Bloodstains spread across them like a spider web.

Thin beads of blood seeped from the cracked skin, staining it a bloody mess.

All of this seemed to foreshadow that Lu Yuan would explode and die within the Sumeru.

Lu Yuan did not stop absorbing spiritual energy. His face showed even more pain, but his eyes were firm.

The cracks all over his body were more severe, and the flesh under his skin had turned outwards.

But within the gushing wound, tiny golden lights began to appear, as if something was about to emerge.

It's countless buds!

Slowly, the bud tip pierced through the flesh and slowly emerged.

Like a seed sprouting from the soil, yet it is a golden bud.

The most obvious example is Lu Yuan's ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, from which tender shoots have begun to unfurl and gradually grow into golden leaves about an inch long.

Several days later, Lu Yuan's wounds had healed, but his body was covered with feather-like leaves. Tiny golden branches had also grown from his seven orifices.

About a month later, Lu Yuan was reduced to a rough human figure, obscured by dense golden vines.

Several years passed in this way, and the area around the pond was completely covered by golden vines.

Eight years after Lu Yuan arrived on the island, a giant ship protected by green spiritual light once again sailed into the Thunder Sea and stopped at its edge.

"He is indeed still asleep, and nothing unusual has been found on the island." After seeing the mountain giant statue, which was petrified as before, Venerable Eagle Eyes withdrew his gaze and said to the woman in the black dress.

“It seems we were overthinking it. In that case, let’s leave it here.” The woman in the black dress nodded and then steered the giant ship back.

In the tenth year since Lu Yuan arrived on the island, the primordial energy of heaven and earth gathered once again in the sky above the center of Bitter Spirit Island. But for some unknown reason, it vanished in less than an hour.

In the seventeenth year, the petrified mountain giant by the sea returned to its original form and came to another direction on the edge of the Thunder Sea.

"According to what they said back then, they should have rotated twice by now. It seems they really have nothing to worry about!"

Lu Yuan sneered, then opened his mouth and spat out the Thunder Control Pearl, carefully maneuvering it to stop near the edge of the sea of ​​thunder.

Before long, the lightning cascading down like a waterfall in the sea of ​​thunder was attracted by the Thunder Control Pearl and began to gather continuously. The Thunder Control Pearl shone brightly, and thick electric snakes crisscrossed its surface before disappearing into it.

Meanwhile, in another realm adjacent to the Ancient Demon Realm.

Spirit world.

Although Fengyuan Continent is the smallest of the three known continents in the Spirit Realm, it has far more races than the other continents, and the "Ming" race is one of these races.

At this moment, in a heavily guarded, mysterious space within the largest main city of the Ming Clan, a murky voice rang out: "The Thunder Control Pearl has actually appeared?"

……

After an unknown amount of time, a figure appeared in this space.

"Ancestor, what brings you here?" The man bowed respectfully to the void.

"Is Lei Yunzi in the clan? What level of cultivation has he reached?" The murky voice rang out again.

"Reporting to the Ancestor, Lei Yunzi has reached the late stage of the Refining Void realm. He returned to the clan more than ten years ago. However, he somehow obtained a secret technique for condensing lightning patterns and is now studying it in seclusion every day, to the point that he has put his cultivation on hold," the figure replied.

"Have him leave seclusion immediately and prepare to go to the Demon Realm," the husky voice commanded, its tone carrying an unquestionable authority.

"Going to the Demon Realm? Could it be that the Thunder Control Pearl has been conceived once again?" The man's body stiffened, and he asked in shock.

"Judging from the secret warning I left in the thunderstorm in the Demon Source Sea back then, it should be right. Lei Yunzi is originally a Five Thunder Body. If he is further aided by the Thunder Control Pearl, his future achievements will definitely not be inferior to mine."

"Are you going too, Ancestor?"

"No, once I enter the Ancient Demon Realm, I will easily be detected by those Saint Ancestor-level beings. Select a few Nascent Soul elders from the clan and have them escort Lei Yunzi there."

Lei Hai's suppression of divine sense was quite severe; as long as he didn't enter Bitter Spirit Island, his whereabouts wouldn't be revealed.

......

Lu Yuan was unaware that placing the Thunder Control Pearl in the sea of ​​thunder had already alerted others.

Moreover, his current problems are even more complicated.

The area around the pond in the valley was now a completely different sight. Dense, tangled golden vines had completely covered the ground, even intertwining with each other to form nodule-like growths.

Although the spiritual energy he absorbed was increasing rapidly, his cultivation level stagnated.

Because he has not achieved the unity of the five elements, Lu Yuan is still unable to break through to the Void Refinement stage.

Before coming to Bitter Spirit Island, Lu Yuan had also considered this issue, but at that time he thought that the unity of the five elements would only increase the probability of breaking through to the Void Refinement stage, and it was not necessary to take that step.

Moreover, with this ancestral golden body from the immortal realm, coupled with the domineering devouring ability of the Myriad Paths to Gold Heavenly Art, he could completely draw on his experience of breaking through to the Divine Transformation realm in the human realm, forcibly breaking through the oppression of the power of heaven and earth, shaping his body and advancing to the Void Refinement stage.

What Lu Yuan never expected was that the power of heaven and earth in higher realms like the Ancient Demon Realm and the Spirit Realm was many times stronger than that in smaller realms like the Human Realm. To break free from the oppression of the power of heaven and earth, one would have to cultivate to the highest level of this realm, which is the level of the Great Ascension of the Saint Ancestor.