Cloudwater Ferry had not gone far when a thunderous explosion sounded behind them. They looked back and saw that the Level-Five treasure ship had already become a gigantic fireball. The intense heat instantly brought the surrounding seawater to a boil, steam spread everywhere, and dense fog rose over the entire Drifting-Boat Market.
The outer ships scattered like a flock of startled birds. The ships farther inside were linked together, making escape far more difficult, and flames raced along the wooden gangways from one vessel to the next.
Xia Yunzhao sighed. When they first arrived and he saw all those ships linked together, he had thought the sight looked familiar. Now that they were burning, it looked even more familiar…
“The formation won’t hold,” Shang Shuangze said. Xia Yunzhao froze. “What?”
Shang Shuangze pointed upward. “The Tidal Formation.”
The fire burned fiercer and fiercer as countless treasure ships caught alight. This was no ordinary flame either. It threw the surrounding spiritual energy into chaos, and sure enough, the Tidal Formation suppressing the waves began to destabilize.
Xia Yunzhao’s expression changed. “Go!”
The word had barely left his mouth when another tremendous explosion rang out. Chaotic spiritual energy erupted all at once. The calm sea crumpled like fabric crushed in a fist, violently shaking, and with one sweep of wind, towering waves surged up… Boom!
The Tidal Formation broke!
Cloudwater Ferry rushed out of the formation at the very last moment, but everyone immediately sensed something was wrong. The surrounding spiritual energy was becoming more and more chaotic… “Damn it! A spiritual-energy storm!”
The collapsing Tidal Formation had actually triggered a spiritual-energy storm!
Spiritual-energy storms on Wangjin Sea were no joke. The chaotic spiritual energy cut like the sharpest blades, strong enough to slice through the defenses of even a Level-Four treasure ship. No one knew how many high-level cultivators died in such storms every year.
The sea rose high until it seemed the ocean itself had flipped upside down. The chaotic spiritual energy made every formation aboard Cloudwater Ferry flicker unpredictably. Before anyone could react, the entire group was thrown onto the deck. Even the juvenile whale came crashing down with a splat, landing on the deck with the heavy thud of half a butchered pig hitting the ground.
It gave two little “ying-ying” cries and spat something out of its mouth.
Xia Yunzhao had no time to look. He formed a hand seal and released the phantom of the Heaven-Reaching Tree. “The defensive formation can’t hold!”
Still down on one knee, Shang Shuangze pressed one hand against Cloudwater Ferry’s deck. Spiritual power poured rapidly from his body and wrapped around the entire ship, becoming a new source of power for the treasure vessel.
Zhong Yundu and Xiang Moyue led the city guards into positions along both sides, blocking the knife-like chaotic spiritual energy.
Du Yan had no attention to spare for anything else either. The Heaven-Measuring Ruler floated up once more, and he pointed in one direction. “The spiritual-energy storm is weakest over there!”
Su Ying and Su Meng had it the worst. The brothers tumbled around like rolling gourds, bouncing from one side to the other, yet still stubbornly managed to gasp out, “C-City Lord… hold on for… for one quarter-hour… it’s coming…”
Xia Yunzhao had no idea what exactly was “coming.” In any case, they had no choice but to hold on. If even one of them let up, they were all going to end up buried in the belly of the sea!
Wangjin Sea’s spiritual energy was unstable to begin with, and the storm kept expanding. At first they could still see its edge, but now a single glance was enough to tell that there was no longer any clear direction in which they could escape.
More and more broken hulls appeared across the sea. Those were treasure ships that had escaped alongside them, only to be torn apart by the storm and the waves the moment their crews slipped up.
Bang!
The ship shuddered as a broken mast slammed into Cloudwater Ferry and carved a deep crack into the hull.
Xia Yunzhao’s heart practically cramped with pain. They had been at sea for so long, and this was the first time Cloudwater Ferry had ever been damaged.
He formed another hand seal. Pure spiritual power covered the crack and slowly began repairing it.
Suddenly, the juvenile whale that had been lying on the deck lifted its head. “Ying-ying!” No one knew what it had heard, but it abruptly floated into the air!
Xia Yunzhao jolted. “Careful!”
Sure enough, the moment it rose, the spiritual-energy storm swept it away. Such an enormous fish became as light as a leaf inside the storm.
Xia Yunzhao: “…” Even with his good temper, he was starting to think this little brat needed a spanking. It did nothing but cause trouble!
He was just about to rescue the little whale when a long, melodious whale call came through the storm.
The chaotic, razor-sharp storm seemed to be cowed by that song, and the wind weakened slightly. A streak of blue light suddenly flashed past like blue lightning.
In the next instant, the juvenile whale was smacked back onto the deck with a whap. A gigantic tail appeared and disappeared through the storm.
Juvenile whale: “Ying-ying-ying… ying!”
Xia Yunzhao’s heart dropped from his throat straight back into his chest. “Senior Cloud-Swallowing Whale!”
Soft whale calls sounded one after another until they formed a whale song. A ribbon of pale-blue light reached out from the distance, wrapped around Cloudwater Ferry, and pulled them forward.
The apocalyptic spiritual-energy storm was pushed aside by the blue light. Their ship seemed to be traveling through a blue tunnel.
Cloudwater Ferry finally steadied.
Everyone could finally breathe again. They climbed up from the deck. “Where is it taking us?”
Xia Yunzhao shook his head. “No idea. The handbook says that once a spiritual-energy storm forms, it takes at least seven days and as long as half a month to disappear. Senior is probably taking us somewhere to shelter from it?”
Then came a plaintive, “Ying-ying~”
Only then did everyone remember the juvenile whale was still there. They turned around and found it still lying on the deck. Looking more carefully, they saw a blue ring clamped around its tail and pinning it to the deck. No wonder it was being so well-behaved.
Xia Yunzhao poked it. The texture was surprisingly nice, cool beneath his fingers. “That’s what you get for being naughty. How long has it been since you went home? How did you get caught again?”
The juvenile whale looked at him with two enormous basin-sized eyes, pitiful beyond words. From the look of things, it had recognized all of them long ago. Its two short belly fins moved, nudging something out.
Only then did everyone remember that when the juvenile whale had first landed on the ship, it seemed to have spat something from its mouth. They all looked down.
After a long moment, Zhong Yundu burst out laughing. Then the laughter grew louder and increasingly outrageous until it nearly drowned out the storm roaring outside.
Du Yan could not take it anymore. He desperately wanted to shove the Heaven-Measuring Ruler down Zhong Yundu’s throat. “Fellow Daoist Zhong, is it really that funny?”
Zhong Yundu waved a hand while roaring with laughter. “Don’t you think it’s hilarious? Those people tried every trick they had to snatch this Ancient Jade Key, and in the end, the key was stolen by a fish.”
The juvenile whale opened its mouth and joined in the laughter, wagging the tail still pinned down by the blue ring. It was clever. It had seen everyone onstage fighting over this tiny, shiny thing, so it knew the object had to be good. The moment the water tank exploded, the jade key happened to fly right past its mouth, so it simply caught the thing between its jaws.
It nudged the Ancient Jade Key again with one fin, pushing it toward Xia Yunzhao. Its meaning was obvious: This is for you!
Xia Yunzhao did not know whether to laugh or cry. They had never intended to steal the jade key in the first place. They did not even know what the thing was… Who would have imagined it would still end up in their hands?
What was the saying? Plant a willow without meaning to, and somehow it grows into shade?
Everyone gathered around and began examining the jade key.
The fluctuations coming from it really were strange. They resembled ripples across water, yet the key itself contained no water-attribute spiritual power at all.
The auctioneer had claimed the key could open an ancient secret realm, but everyone had already witnessed his “art of speaking.” They did not exactly believe him. At the very least, they were not about to believe everything he had said.
“What do you think, Fellow Daoist Xiang?” Naturally, for something like this, they had to ask the all-knowing owner of an information shop.
Xiang Moyue studied the jade key for quite a while before finally saying helplessly, “Forgive my ignorance. I truly have never seen a spirit object like this.”
Xia Yunzhao immediately became curious again. “Then do you know about ancient secret realms? Do they really exist in this world?”
Xiang Moyue smiled. “Ancient secret realms naturally exist. But they’re all in the hands of the major sects. Outsiders have no way to see them.”
That made perfect sense. The black-clad attackers had been numerous and extremely powerful, and they had destroyed a Level-Five treasure ship the instant they made their move, utterly unafraid of retaliation from whoever stood behind it. They really might have belonged to one of the major sects.
If this truly was a key capable of opening an ancient secret realm, it made sense for a major sect to come seize it.
Just then, a white light suddenly appeared ahead of them. The blue radiance wrapped around Cloudwater Ferry gradually faded. It seemed they had arrived.
The white light opened to either side like a pair of gates, and Cloudwater Ferry slowly sailed through. The spiritual-energy storm was left outside. It felt as though they had entered a peach-blossom grove in the middle of the sea.
Elio’s Notes: The “peach-blossom grove” evokes The Peach Blossom Spring, a classical Chinese tale about accidentally entering a hidden, peaceful world cut off from ordinary society.
A gentle sea breeze blew past. Golden sunlight lay over the sapphire-blue water like a veil of gold. White waves rolled onto shore like long trailing skirts, and as they withdrew, little crabs popped out across the beach.
…This was actually an island.
Young whale calls rang out one after another, all carrying a childish note. Cloudwater Ferry suddenly rocked. Xia Yunzhao instinctively started to form a hand seal, then sensed something was off and looked down. Huge heads were popping up one after another from the seawater beside the ship. They were several little blue whales!
“…Good heavens,” Xia Yunzhao murmured. “Did we get brought to the Cloud-Swallowing Whales’ lair?”
He looked back. There was no sign of the spiritual-energy storm behind them, only a calm expanse of sea.
Shang Shuangze said, “This stretch of sea was probably opened up with a spatial magical treasure.”
This was more than a lair. It was the lair of lairs. With so many juvenile whales here, this might well be where the Cloud-Swallowing Whales raised their young.
Ahead of them, Senior Cloud-Swallowing Whale turned around and gave a soft call. Two words simultaneously appeared in Xia Yunzhao’s mind: Make yourselves at home.
Then the little blue ring pinning down the juvenile whale broke apart. The little whale happily swished its tail and was just about to jump into the water to play with its friends when it suddenly floated up against its will, drifted over to Senior Cloud-Swallowing Whale, and was carried around the back of the island. A moment later, splashing sounds came from that direction, along with the pitiful cries, “Ying-ying! Ying-ying-ying!”
Xia Yunzhao nodded approvingly. Children needed to be disciplined like this!
He shrank Cloudwater Ferry and reached a hand into the seawater. Curious little whales immediately swam over one after another and gently bumped his palm with their mouths. They were even cooler than the water. “Do you think we’re allowed to go ashore and look around?”
“Probably…” Everyone looked at one another. None of them knew whether they were free to move around.
They waited for quite a while longer, but there was still no movement from behind the island and Senior Cloud-Swallowing Whale did not return. It seemed to have completely forgotten about them.
In the end, Xia Yunzhao made the decision. “Come on. Let’s go ashore and rest for the night. If we’re not allowed, we can always come back out.”
Only then did the group go ashore.
They had drifted at sea for so long that they were almost forgetting what walking on solid ground felt like. Xia Yunzhao kept feeling as though the earth beneath him was swaying and had to bounce around a couple of times before he adjusted.
The island’s environment was excellent. Vegetation was abundant, with many common spirit herbs and spirit ores, along with a few very low-level slaughter beasts.
Xia Yunzhao immediately perked up. He casually tossed out a handful of stones and caught several Pine-Feather Chickens and rabbits. They certainly did not lack food, but lately they had eaten almost nothing except fish, and he was craving meat.
The others also found plenty of spirit fruit, enough for a good meal that evening.
“City Lord, there’s a cave over there. It’s very spacious and very clean!” one of the city guards scouting the area reported.
The mighty City Lord waved a hand. “Come on. Let’s take a look!”
Perhaps because the sea winds were strong, there was not a speck of dust inside the cave. Xia Yunzhao cast the Earthfire Art, and the entire cavern immediately lit up.
They did not know whether everyone else had managed to escape the spiritual-energy storm, but at least they had a place to spend the night.
Everyone ate, drank, and joked around for a while. Near dusk, the setting sun turned orange and another young whale song drifted over from the sea. One of the voices sounded quite familiar. “Ying-ying~ ying-ying-ying~”
Everyone listened for a moment before Xia Yunzhao suddenly laughed. “That little whale has been let out again. Senior Cloud-Swallowing Whale really spoils the kid.”
Curious, he stood up and looked down. Sure enough, a group of juvenile whales were chasing one another across the sea, carefree and playful. Not far away, beneath the surface, two enormous shadows loomed. At first he had taken them for the island’s shadow, but on closer inspection he realized they were two adult Cloud-Swallowing Whales protecting the youngsters as they played.
The round, crimson sun sank little by little. Night fell, stars scattered across the sky, and the night passed peacefully.
Xia Yunzhao and the others remained on the island for seven days. It was not that they were in no hurry to leave, but without Senior Cloud-Swallowing Whale guiding them, they could not leave this space on their own. Even if they could, the spiritual-energy storm outside had not ended, so they still could not continue their journey.
On the morning of the eighth day, something abruptly changed.
Xia Yunzhao woke in Shang Shuangze’s arms and immediately felt the ground trembling beneath him. His first reaction was, “An earthquake?”
Everyone else woke as well. The shaking grew stronger and stronger. “Can there even be earthquakes at sea? A tsunami?”
The whole group immediately rushed out of the cave. The juvenile whales had all hidden near the shore, while a magnificent and bizarre scene was unfolding over the sea ahead. Countless streams of chaotic spiritual energy seeped in from the outer space and gathered into dust-like vortices above the water. This was exactly the sign that another spiritual-energy storm was about to form.
Yet the island beneath their feet suddenly trembled. Spiritual power vaster than the sea itself drifted out from the island and entered those vortices, combing through the chaotic spiritual energy strand by strand. Spiritual energy of different attributes separated from one another until it formed a seven-colored spiritual rainbow stretching across the sky.
At the same time, countless blue points of light rose from the sea and filled the heavens. One vortex after another was untangled, and one spiritual rainbow after another took shape.
Beneath the island, an enormous tail flashed past. The island slowly drifted forward for a short distance, then stopped.
…So the island they had been living on for days was actually an enormous Cloud-Swallowing Whale. No one knew how long it had lived. Dust had slowly accumulated across its body until it became an island. Carrying that island on its back, it had turned itself into a sanctuary sheltering generations of its descendants.
Blue points of light were still pouring upward, blending sea and sky into one breathtaking scene. Even the spiritual-energy storm that had killed countless people could reveal such beauty.
As Xia Yunzhao watched, he suddenly became utterly still. He closed his eyes, sat cross-legged, and murmured, “Spiritual tides are born upon the sea… heaven and earth follow their own nature…”
Everyone froze. Had he just entered enlightenment?
“Good heavens…” One city guard looked up at the beautiful sky, then back at the City Lord already deep in meditation. “How do you get enlightenment from this? All I can tell is that it looks pretty.”
Everyone shook their heads. Who knew?
Xiang Moyue suddenly said, “City Lord Xia has the Myriad-Spirit Body. He can absorb spiritual energy of any attribute. This phenomenon is displaying precisely how spiritual power of seven different attributes is sorted and absorbed, so it is only natural that he would gain insight from it. Ordinary folk like us needn’t force the matter.”
That made considerable sense. Enlightenment had always depended on each person’s own affinity and fortune. They had spent so long aboard Cloudwater Ferry, nourished by the Heaven-Reaching Tree, that their comprehension had already improved enormously compared with before. They could not be greedy.
So everyone settled down and waited for Xia Yunzhao to awaken from meditation.
They waited another three days.
When Xia Yunzhao opened his eyes, he found several pairs of worried yet curious eyes staring at him. He froze. “Why are you all looking at me like that?” To him, it felt as though he had only meditated for a moment. He had no idea three days had passed.
Once everyone explained, he was startled too. “What? We lost another three days? Damn, are we going to miss the Qianyuan Grand Competition?!”
Everyone hurried to reassure him. “No, no. There’s still at least a month before the Qianyuan Grand Competition. We’ll definitely make it… Um, why don’t you check your cultivation first?”
Only then did Xia Yunzhao inspect his own cultivation, and once he did, he froze again. “Uh… I think I advanced. I’m at mid Golden Core now.”
Without a cultivation method, he had somehow leveled himself up purely through enlightenment.
What kind of talent was this? Everyone present had already lost the desire to praise him.
Xia Yunzhao scratched his head, equally puzzled. “How did I advance? I wasn’t even trying to comprehend anything in that direction.”
Shang Shuangze asked, “Did you comprehend a spell art?”
Xia Yunzhao hurriedly nodded. “I comprehended an offensive spell. Help me take a look.”
As he spoke, he formed seals with both hands, his finger movements shifting while he recited the incantation under his breath. The surroundings changed in an instant. Seven vortices of spiritual energy, each of a different attribute, formed around him. They continually arose and vanished, each revolving without end.
Everyone instinctively retreated three huge steps. They could all sense a terrifying aura hidden inside those vortices.
Only Shang Shuangze froze. “This is…”
Xia Yunzhao tugged him closer. “Doesn’t it feel familiar? There’s a little of the Fuli Annihilation Sword’s sword intent in there.”
Fuli represented life, annihilation represented death. The so-called Fuli Annihilation contained precisely the conception of life and death endlessly cycling.
Xia Yunzhao had not done it deliberately. He and Shang Shuangze were simply too familiar with each other. Every night, Xia slept surrounded by the sword intent of the Fuli Annihilation Sword. It did not matter much while he was cultivating established methods, but once he began comprehending something on his own, his understanding of the Fuli Annihilation Sword naturally seeped into it.
Still tugging at Shang Shuangze, Xia Yunzhao said, “I feel like the two of us can coordinate. If you use the Fuli Annihilation Sword to guide these vortices, the power will definitely become even stronger. Hurry and try it!”
Shang Shuangze hesitated. A sword cultivator’s instincts told him this experiment would probably cause some kind of problem. Unfortunately, Xia Yunzhao looked far too good staring up at him like that. He did not hesitate for even half a breath before Mingyun was already out of its sheath.
The sword tip precisely caught one vortex. Sword intent surged, the vortex spun faster and faster, then flew with the sword intent toward the sea ahead.
Su Meng asked curiously, “City Lord, what is this spell called?”
Xia Yunzhao said, “I named it the Myriad Phenomena Tide-Raising Invocation…” His expression gradually went blank.
When that little vortex was launched, it made no sound. It streaked forward with the sword intent, devoured that sword intent and rapidly expanded, then exploded in complete silence. The sky split apart. Half the sea collapsed inward, exposing the space behind it.
Even then, there was still no sound. The silent collapse was even more terrifying, like the end of the world itself. The sea surface was pressed downward, then farther down, as though an invisible giant iron sphere had smashed into it. The water was compressed so deeply that they could almost see the seabed.
Then it erupted.
BOOM!
The shockwave from the enormous sound deafened everyone for about seven and a half minutes. Spiritual energy around them fell into chaos, space itself fell into chaos, and even their thoughts went completely blank. It was no exaggeration to say that if the sky had collapsed, it probably would not have made much more of a commotion!
The compressed seawater suddenly exploded upward as high as the heavens, then poured through the spatial rupture like a heavenly river connecting sea and sky!
The instant Xia Yunzhao’s hearing returned, the deafening roar of rushing water flooded his ears.
One gigantic shadow after another rose from the seafloor. The entire Cloud-Swallowing Whale clan had surfaced. Everyone wanted to know what had happened and who had just torn apart their home.
The island beneath them shifted. Xia Yunzhao’s hearing, still not fully recovered, caught a soft sigh.
Xia Yunzhao: “…”
Xia Yunzhao sprang to his feet. “S-S-S-Sorry!”
He immediately raised both hands and poured spiritual power from his body without restraint, using it to repair the hole in midair. “I-I-I-I’ll fix it right now!”
This space had been opened by a magical treasure in the first place. As long as the magical treasure itself remained undamaged, the space would naturally repair itself. With Xia Yunzhao’s spiritual power helping, the gaping tear rapidly began closing.
The Cloud-Swallowing Whales had seen plenty in their long lives. Young whales caused things like this during practice fights too. This time the troublemaker merely happened to be someone else’s cub, which made little difference. One enormous shadow after another sank beneath the sea again.
Xia Yunzhao mentally wiped sweat from his brow and hurriedly shouted, “Don’t just stand there! Help me!”
Good heavens. He had come to a friend’s home as a guest and ended up demolishing the place… He had not done something like this since he was three years old!
Shang Shuangze smiled and raised a hand, sending out spiritual power as well.
Everyone else joined in.
Even Su Meng and Su Ying squeezed out a thread of spiritual energy to help. Su Meng quietly asked, “City Lord, you didn’t know before you tried it?”
Xia Yunzhao grumbled softly at himself, “How would I know? I’m only at Golden Core! How was I supposed to know a random spell I comprehended would be this powerful?!”
Good grief, where exactly had things gone wrong? Were the two of them simply absurdly powerful when they worked together? With this much force, that attack had to be comparable to one from a Nascent Soul cultivator, right? Or maybe… Soul Transformation?
And that had been only one vortex. He had created seven of them in a single breath! Thank goodness he had not released them all at once. Otherwise, they probably would have been thrown out immediately…
After considerable effort, they finally repaired the rupture. Senior Cloud-Swallowing Whale’s call came from the sea.
Xia Yunzhao wiped his sweat and led everyone awkwardly to the shore. “Senior…”
Senior Cloud-Swallowing Whale gave a short call, then turned and began leading the way.
Actually, if Xia Yunzhao had not entered meditation, they should have departed three days ago. The spiritual-energy storm had ended three days earlier.
Xia Yunzhao coughed lightly, released Cloudwater Ferry, and everyone boarded. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Senior. I was reckless just now…”
Another short whale call sounded, and a sentence entered his sea of consciousness: 【There is no need to worry. The Space-Anchoring Jade Pendant is an immortal-grade magical treasure. It will not be damaged so easily. No one in the clan blames you.】
Xia Yunzhao instantly relaxed. “Then I’m relieved!”
The next moment, another sentence came through: 【Ready?】
Xia Yunzhao: “Huh?”
Then he felt Cloudwater Ferry lift into the air. That was not an exaggeration. It genuinely flew. The entire ship had been very smoothly thrown outward.
He jolted. “Senior! Didn’t you say nobody blamed meeeee?!”
Beneath the sea, the enormous shadows rose one after another to watch the fun. As Cloudwater Ferry flew along, the shadows surfaced all along its path, following the spectacle the whole way.
Only after Cloudwater Ferry landed did it shoot out of that stretch of sea and return to the outside space.
Xia Yunzhao could still faintly hear an unfamiliar whale call filled with laughter: 【Teasing children is so much fun.】
Xia Yunzhao: “…”
So mean!