Mysterious mirror hanging high

The puppet's head, originally made of a material as hard as a top-grade magic weapon, was pierced through by this ray of mysterious light like tofu. The puppet, which would have entangled a foundation-building cultivator for a long time, fell to the ground with a loud bang.

"Kudu Xuanguang is most effective against earth-type creatures. This stone puppet is made entirely of earth and stone. As long as it holds onto this Xuanguang, it will be virtually invincible."

"The Dao Lord's tests are getting more boring each time."

Jing Yu muttered to himself.

"Who are you calling boring?"

A lazy female voice sounded from the void. As Jing Yu looked on in disbelief, a purple light flashed on the top of the small sky gate held by the puppet statue's right hand. A beautiful woman in a crimson dress, with long hair like a waterfall and bare feet, sat on the top of the sky gate, staring at Jing Yu with a mischievous look.

The woman had a circle of golden bells tied around each ankle, and as her feet swung, the bells jingled.

"You, you are..." Jing Yu stuttered.

"Why, Jing Yu, after we parted at the Hall of Eternal Life, you can't even recognize me?"

The woman laughed and said, "Or do you think that the Nine-Life Daoist Monarch couldn't be a woman?"

"Greetings to Mr. Dao!"

Jing Yu bowed and said, "Thank you, Daojun, for your support and encouragement along the way. Otherwise, I would still be hanging around in the market."

"Oh, that doesn't sound right to me. It seems like I'm pushing you too hard."

Jiu Ming Daojun jokingly said, "If I hadn't added a spell to that token that would automatically transport you to this secret realm, regardless of whether you were cultivating your body or your Qi, as soon as you reached the Foundation Establishment stage in one of your systems, given your cautious nature, unless you were faced with a life-or-death crisis, you would probably have stuck to the five-hundred-year limit to come in and accept the test."

"Master Dao, there is something I have been holding in my heart for a long time. Now that you are here in person, I will tell you..." Jing Yu hesitated.

"You must be wondering why the tests I set for you are so trifling?"

Jiu Ming Daojun lifted his long hair, revealing his smooth, white, slender neck, and said lazily, "Why would I rather set up such a tailor-made carrot pit for you than just pass the martial arts inheritance directly into your hands?"

Jing Yu nodded, hesitated for a moment, and guessed, "This must be a rule set by the Daoist Master!"

"That's not it!"

The Nine-Life Daoist Lord said, "This matter has nothing to do with Dao Zun. The reason I can't directly pass these skills into your hands is to prevent other Daoists who are proficient in calculations from following the causal line connected to this destiny and calculating you!"

"What difference could there be?" Jing Yu asked curiously.

"Of course it's very different!" Jiu Ming Daojun sneered, "Just think about it, the universe is so vast. Daojuns, including me, have only two ways to survive the epochal catastrophe. One is to achieve self-realization, which is as difficult as ascending to heaven!"

"The other way is naturally to cultivate a true epoch-making genius."

"The Immortal Selection Hall is just one of the attempts, and it is far from all the calculations of the Taoist Lord."

"I don't know about the other Dao Lords, but this era has only just passed two billion years. I've left behind at least tens of millions of secret realms across the myriad heavens and myriad worlds. On average, every two hundred years I descend to the mortal realms to build a nest and spread some bait, hoping to raise a few true dragons in the ponds of countless smaller realms."

When Jiu Ming Daojun said this, his rosy lips pursed slightly, and he actually looked a little sad: "Alas, there are only a few who can become talents nowadays. In total, we have only raised three Immortal Golden Immortals. There is not a single Daojun, let alone a Daozun."

"I'm not the most diligent. In the Immortal Realm, there's a [Pudu Buddha Lord], from the Buddhist sect, who's also a Dao Lord-level figure. He's a true hard worker, incarnating into countless forms and traveling across the realms. He once set a record of leaving behind 100,000 inheritances within a hundred years. He even makes a nest every time he takes a shit in the lower realms. Who knows, there might be an inheritance left by him in the Immortal Continent. If you come across him, just take it. There's no need to be polite with him."

"A figure like the Buddha of Universal Salvation has been so frequent in his favor that the fates of countless talented people in the lower realms have long been tangled up with him. The thread of cause and effect is more tangled than the strands of my hair. No matter how proficient I am in calculations, I can't come up with anything useful."

"But if the Buddha Pudu directly handed you a Buddhist scripture, the nature of the matter would be completely different."

Jiu Ming Daojun smiled and said, "The complexity of the causal relationship between the two is not on the same level. If you understand, then you understand. If you don't understand, then it doesn't matter."

"Then why was the [Bitter Crossing Sutra] able to work before?" Jing Yu asked doubtfully. This body-refining technique written by the Taoist Wanshou was transferred into his mind by the Taoist Jiuming himself.

Daoist Master Jiu Ming was silent for a long moment before he slowly spoke, "The [Suffering Sutra] wasn't written by Daoist Master Wan Shou alone. Dao Zun actually laid the framework and completed most of it before handing it over to Wan Shou to finish... This technique is inherently of an extremely high rank, so Daoist Master naturally couldn't have predicted it."

"Ah, this..." Jing Yu laughed dryly. If he had known earlier that the [Suffering from Suffering Sutra] was just signed by Wanshou Daojun, he would not have mentioned it. Now he didn't know how to respond.

"To put it bluntly, Wanshou is different from the rest of us. He is the biological son of the Dao Master, destined to achieve Dao Fruit and attain Dao Lord status."

Jiu Ming Daojun's words were rather sour: "Jing Yu, do you know what fate means?"

"All sentient beings in the world have a destiny. Some destinies can be changed, but some cannot."

"Cultivators often say they are trying to defy fate and change their destiny, but the laws of nature are ruthless and selfless, so why would they care if you defy or follow them? Fate is predetermined, and perhaps your actions to change it are actually part of your destiny."

Jing Yu seemed to understand, but suddenly thought of something and asked, "Daoist Lord, when the Yunfeng Twins' younger brother, Lin Feng, was teleported out of the secret realm, he happened to be right next to me. Was that a deliberate arrangement on your part?"

Jiu Ming Daojun looked at Jing Yu with a little more appreciation in her eyes. She said meaningfully: "Maybe it was my deliberate arrangement, or maybe it was a coincidence, but no matter which one it is, it is Lin Feng's own destiny."

Jing Yu frowned and said, "You mean, even if it wasn't your deliberate arrangement, Lin Feng would 'coincidentally' appear beside me, and his destiny is to be my treasure-bringing boy?"

"A holder of the divinely gifted fate of [Longevity] is rare in an entire era. No matter which immortal story they appear in, they are the undisputed protagonists. They are simply born with destiny. So what's so strange about a few supporting characters appearing from time to time?"

Jiu Ming Daojun sneered, "Although you may not be considered a good person, you are not so sympathetic as to collude with a murderer like Lin Feng. If such a Tribulation Cultivator were to encounter you, there would be no good end for him."

"But the Taoist master of this secret realm can be controlled. If you had just given a little help and sent Lin Feng to another place, wouldn't his fate of death be averted?" Jing Yu said thoughtfully.

"Of course I have this ability, but why?"

Jiu Ming Daojun said slowly: "Lin Feng and I have no relationship. Why should I rush to change the fate of an ant-like thing?"

"If his brother controlled this secret realm, he would naturally be willing to change his fate, but his brother is just an ant in the Qi training realm..."

"Hey! Those who are willing to change his fate don't have the ability to do so, and those who are able to change his fate don't have the willingness to do so..."

"Then isn't it [destined] that he died at your hands?"