Lu Yuan was truly curious now.
The aura of an expert on this old man couldn't be hidden no matter how hard he tried.
Anyone who had read a few novels knew that these kinds of eccentrically styled old fellows who never spoke properly were usually hidden, peerless masters.
Moreover, he had been able to see through the talisman in "The Dao," that top-tier mental cultivation method, at a single glance.
This was definitely not simple.
Lu Yuan probed with a question.
The next second, the old man's neck suddenly shrank back, his face filled with lingering fear, his voice changing pitch.
"Yikes!!!"
"Like hell I'm treating her!!"
"That woman is as fierce as the King of Hell's second mistress!"
"I've shaken the Three Pure Ones Bell my whole life, and I've never seen something so wicked!"
"Where in the world did you dig up this thing from, boy!!"
Looking at the old man's pathetic, cowardly appearance, Lu Yuan's eyes were full of disbelief.
He was definitely hiding something.
Lu Yuan raised an eyebrow.
"You can't treat her? Then why did you dare challenge her last night?"
The old man stiffened his neck, spittle flying.
"So what!"
"I'm a man with balls! Even if I can't beat her, I can't show weakness in front of a woman!"
"At worst, I'll die with my head held high!"
"After I die, I'll turn into a malevolent ghost, and maybe I'll be even fiercer than her. Then we'll see who deals with who!"
Lu Yuan: "..."
Fine then, never mind.
But the shadow of doubt in Lu Yuan's heart couldn't be dispelled no matter what.
This old man definitely had issues but then again, Gu Qingwan was no joke either.
A twenty-star super-fierce entity...
Based on Lu Yuan's current level of cultivation, evil spirits with danger levels of five or six stars were equivalent to a one-star Celestial Master realm.
The previous eight-star evil spirit, the Human-Faced Two-Legged Sheep, would require a two-star Celestial Master realm.
If it were a ten-star evil spirit, it would have to be at least a three-star Celestial Master realm...
Of course, there must be some margin of error in this but even with the margin of error, converting it this way, Gu Qingwan's cultivation level wouldn't be lower than a Grand Celestial Master!
A Grand Celestial Master...
The old man probably really didn't stand a chance but... it was hard to say.
After all, as the saying goes, one thing conquers another. Although a Daoist might not have cultivation as high as an evil spirit, they knew techniques and had brains.
If truly pushed to the limit, invoking a patriarch's possession wasn't impossible.
While calculating in his mind, Lu Yuan followed the old man to the side hall entrance.
"Alright, don't go in. You hurry up and take that pink spirit meat to break through."
"From now on, you should stay away from her business. She's really too wicked, I'm afraid there might be some karmic consequences..."
The old man stopped, turning back to instruct the still-distracted Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan came back to his senses and nodded.
Who was stronger or weaker didn't matter now.
One was his master, one was his lifesaver. He couldn't very well encourage them to actually fight each other.
Lu Yuan turned around and headed straight toward the storage room.
The old man took a deep breath and pushed open the hall door himself.
Lu Yuan hadn't taken two steps.
Behind him suddenly came an exasperated curse:
"Oh my god!"
Bang!
A figure flew out from inside the door in an extremely undignified posture, crashing heavily to the ground.
Lu Yuan: "???"
The old man lay on the ground, grimacing as he rubbed his old waist, shouting in Lu Yuan's direction, "You! Go tell her!"
"This crazy woman seems to have a grudge against me!"
Lu Yuan: "..."
...
Deep in the night, Lu Yuan sat cross-legged on the "Stone of Sitting and Forgetting" in the forbidden area behind True Dragon Temple.
After consuming the pink spirit meat, Lu Yuan had prepared for an entire day.
At this moment, everything was ready, only awaiting the final step.
He would begin his true breakthrough!
The spirit-gathering talisman array arranged around him instantly froze, even the green smoke rising from the Heart-Calming Incense stopped mid-air.
The wind stopped, moonlight fell, but was blocked and distorted by an invisible barrier three feet around his body.
In his abdomen, that piece of pink spirit meat had already dissolved, transforming into a peculiar existence between matter and natural law.
A miniature, warm "Dao placenta" began to emanate the most primal pink-white Dao resonance outward.
The first to bear the brunt was his lower dantian.
The true qi core that had originally been as solid as a golden core, the moment it was enveloped by the pink Dao resonance, actually emitted a subtle sound like shattering glass.
This wasn't destruction.
It was reconstruction.
This process brought not comfort, but a chaos of intertwined agony like death by a thousand cuts and extreme bliss.
Lu Yuan's body trembled violently, fine beads of blood seeping from his seven orifices.
The blood droplets didn't fall, but floated in the air, drawn by the pink Dao resonance, slowly rotating around him.
They were stretched and twisted, actually sketching out in the air a constantly generating and dissolving Primordial Eight Trigrams blood diagram.
Outside, heaven and earth phenomena suddenly arose.
With Lu Yuan as the center, within a radius of thirty feet, the plants and trees defied the season.
They began madly sprouting, growing, flowering, bearing fruit, withering, then instantly reviving.
A strange "Dao fragrance" permeated the air.
Neither orchid nor musk, clear and lofty. Just one whiff would purify one's mind and spirit, eliminating all distracting thoughts.
In the night sky, the stars suddenly became brilliant, beams of starlight falling like silver threads, converging above Lu Yuan's head.
It was a pillar of light visible to the naked eye, with dragon roars and phoenix cries faintly within.
The true test came from the depths of his divine soul.
When the pink Dao resonance penetrated his four limbs and hundred bones, beginning to launch an assault toward the final and most critical pass, the ancestral aperture between his brows.
In the depths of Lu Yuan's consciousness, a sound like the creation of heaven and earth exploded!
BOOM——!
That wasn't a sound.
It was a "Dao shockwave " acting directly on the origin of his soul.
A gentle yet irresistible creative vitality instantly penetrated his heaven, earth, and human apertures.
The ancestral aperture between his brows suddenly opened wide!
For a long while, when the horizon began to show a hint of pale dawn.
All the phenomena receded like a tide.
The circling blood Eight Trigrams entered his brow and disappeared from sight.
The wildly growing plants returned to calm.
The pillar of light condensed from starlight and moonlight also quietly dispersed.
The Dao fragrance in the air gradually faded, returning to nothingness.
Lu Yuan slowly opened his eyes.
Those eyes no longer leaked any spiritual light, deep as an ancient well, calm and waveless.
The aura around his body was completely restrained. Sitting there, he was just an ordinary, handsome young man yet he was also perfectly integrated with the entire back mountain, the entire heaven and earth, unfathomably deep.
Only the occasional tiny arc of electricity jumping at his fingertips that thunder technique power that could only be controlled by a true Celestial Master silently proclaimed...
It was done, from half-step Celestial Master, he had ascended in one step.
Lu Yuan was now a true Celestial Master!
The first feeling upon becoming a Celestial Master was...
Hunger.
Hungry enough that his front was sticking to his back.
From yesterday noon until now, he hadn't had a drop of water.
Lu Yuan stood up from the "Stone of Sitting and Forgetting," rubbing his butt that had nearly been sat into eight pieces, swaying as he walked toward True Dragon Temple.
He'd stop by to see how the old man was doing.
When Lu Yuan came down from the back mountain and stepped into the back courtyard.
His gaze unconsciously turned toward that side hall.
The system's red marker clearly showed that Gu Qingwan was inside the hall.
At first, Lu Yuan didn't pay attention.
Because from today on, Gu Qingwan couldn't move around freely anymore.
From now on, she could only stay in the side hall, using faith power to wash away the hundred-year curse on her body.
Of course, this didn't seem to be a big problem.
After all, from the looks of it, Gu Qingwan seemed like a homebody, the type who didn't much like going out but soon, Lu Yuan suddenly realized something was wrong.
His footsteps abruptly stopped.
Lu Yuan stared at those blood-red characters in shock, his eyes widening more and more.
[Name: Gu Qingwan]
[Type: Ghost Bride]
[Cultivation: Ominous]
[Weakness: Ominous]
[Danger Level: ★★★★★★★★★★]
Lu Yuan: "??????"
No... that can't be right??
I... I've already advanced to Celestial Master, haven't I??
Why... why is Gu Qingwan's danger level still... still twenty stars???
I definitely advanced to the Celestial Master realm!!
In that moment, Lu Yuan seemed to realize a problem.
Today, the old man... seemed like he wasn't pretending...
The old man probably really couldn't treat Gu Qingwan...
This twenty-star danger level was the system's upper limit...
Not Gu Qingwan's upper limit...
No... no way...
What exactly is Gu Qingwan's cultivation level?!
[NEXT CHAPTER]