“Whatever inheritance lies inside, we’ll each have to claim it by our own ability.”
Li Yao glanced at Zhang Fan and Shen Xueyin, then entered the inheritance grounds first.
Zhang Fan and Shen Xueyin exchanged a look and nodded before following her in.
A few minutes after they entered, powerful cultivators began arriving one after another. They were all disciples of the five great sects. Without wasting a word, they hurried into the inheritance grounds.
Even those who had been enemies in the past set aside their grudges for the moment. This was the inheritance of a powerful ascended being—first come, first served. Every minute mattered.
Once inside, each person was sent to a separate space to face the same trials. Talent, perseverance, temperament… the tests went on and on.
Many couldn’t hold out and were expelled from the inheritance grounds. But they didn’t give up. They waited outside, hoping for a chance to pick up whatever was left behind.
Shen Xueyin’s talent was comparatively poor. After making it through a few trials, she was eliminated. Still, she managed to obtain some valuable treasures from the inheritance grounds.
Three hours later, Zhang Fan was eliminated as well, though he had acquired even more treasures.
Now, only seven people remained inside, including Li Yao. They were all prodigies from the major sects, their talents every bit as exceptional as Li Yao’s.
Six hours later, after a fierce contest, Li Yao completed the trials a few minutes ahead of the runner-up and ultimately claimed the inheritance.
“Where am I?”
After completing the trials, Li Yao was transported to a treasure vault piled high with chests and secret manuals.
At its center stood an exquisite stone platform. A blood-red seal bearing the image of a phoenix floated above it.
“A whole ten thousand years… At last, someone has made it here.”
A stunning woman dressed in phoenix-feather robes appeared out of thin air in front of the platform.
“Are you the Undying Heavenly Emperor, Senior?”
Li Yao kept her expression calm, but her guard was fully raised.
Anything could happen in the cultivation world. This might be an inheritance from a great expert—or it could be a scheme to possess her body.
She couldn’t afford to let her guard down.
The beautiful woman seemed to notice Li Yao’s wariness, and a faint smile touched her lips.
“Good. Caution is what lets you live longer.”
She stepped aside and pointed to the phoenix blood seal on the stone platform.
“This is the Phoenix Immortality Seal. Fuse with it, and you’ll gain the power to be reborn from the flames. As long as your divine consciousness remains intact, you can keep coming back to life, even if your body decays and turns to ash. You will be immortal.”
Li Yao’s eyes lit up as she listened.
As long as her divine consciousness survived, she could be reborn again and again—immortal, even.
In other words, as long as she herself didn’t believe she was dead, she would never die.
Unless, of course, the person who possessed the Phoenix Immortality Seal no longer wished to live.
“Can someone without a spiritual root fuse with the Phoenix Immortality Seal?”
Li Yao didn’t reach for it. Instead, she asked the question with eager anticipation.
The beautiful woman paused, momentarily taken aback.
She couldn’t quite understand Li Yao’s thinking. In her era, countless cultivators had yearned to obtain the Phoenix Immortality Seal.
Yet Li Yao seemed to want a mortal with no spiritual root to fuse with it.
“Yes.”
The beautiful woman nodded. “But what good would it do a mortal with no spiritual root? Even if they were immortal, they’d still be a mortal.”
“That’s enough.”
A faint smile appeared on Li Yao’s lips.
She walked up to the stone platform and took the Phoenix Immortality Seal.
“You’re the first person to see the Phoenix Immortality Seal and not be tempted by it.”
The beautiful woman seemed surprised, but more than that, she was curious.
To resist the temptation of immortality and not fuse with the seal was certainly unexpected.
“Because someone needs it more than I do.”
Li Yao offered no further explanation. Instead, she gestured to the countless treasures around them. “Are all these for me?”
The beautiful woman smiled and nodded. “That’s right. These resources are enough to raise you to the Great Ascension Realm.”
“As for whether you can ascend, that will depend on your own fate.”
“If you succeed in ascending, you can come find my true self.”
“After all, you’ve inherited my legacy. You can consider yourself my disciple.”
With that, she raised a hand. The enormous treasure vault gradually shrank until it had become a ring.
“This is a spatial ring. It’s hundreds of times better than your storage pouch.”
“That’s all I have to tell you.”
“I’ve been trapped in this wretched place for ten thousand years. At last, I can be free.”
The moment she finished speaking, her figure turned into countless tiny flames and vanished into the void.
Li Yao took out the Phoenix Immortality Seal. Her gaze grew resolute.
She didn’t hurry to leave the inheritance grounds. Instead, she first examined the treasures inside the spatial ring.
When she spotted a particular heavenly treasure, her eyes suddenly brightened.
With a wave of her hand, she took out a fruit radiating a bone-chilling cold.
“No wonder she was a peerless powerhouse who dominated an entire age. She had something this precious hidden away.”
Li Yao could sense an intensely pure source of frost within the fruit.
She had a feeling that if she ate it, her talent might undergo a transformation.
Without hesitation, she ate it.
The next moment, the source of frost poured out from the fruit, merging with her dantian and every cell in her body. Three days later, her talent had completed its transformation.
As it did, the entire inheritance grounds froze over around her. The temperature in the secret realm began to plummet, and soon, brilliant ice blossoms rained down from the sky, covering the whole realm.
“This is a celestial phenomenon! What kind of inheritance did the person inside obtain?”
The cultivators waiting outside the inheritance grounds stared in astonishment and greed.
“This inheritance should have been mine.”
A gloomy-looking man clenched his fist.
He had made it to the final trial. He’d been only a little short of completing it, but someone else had beaten him to it.
Losing such an astonishing opportunity filled him with bitter resentment.
The appearance of the celestial phenomenon only strengthened the other cultivators’ resolve to stay and seize their chance.
Yet even after the phenomenon ended, Li Yao still didn’t emerge.
“The Myriad Frost Origin Body.”
“I’ve awakened a special physique!”
Inside the inheritance grounds, Li Yao sensed the change within herself, and a flicker of delight crossed her eyes.
With a more powerful physique, her cultivation would advance even faster.
“I’ll raise my strength to the peak of Foundation Establishment before I leave.”
She could roughly guess what was waiting for her outside.
After gaining an incredible opportunity, the first thing she needed was the strength to protect it.
Three months passed in the blink of an eye.
With the various heavenly treasures in the spatial ring, Li Yao’s strength advanced by leaps and bounds.
In just three months, she reached the tenth level of Foundation Establishment, only one step away from the Golden Core Realm.
But breaking through a major realm wasn’t so easy. She still needed to build up her foundation.
“It’s about time I left.”
She rose slowly and glanced at the Phoenix Immortality Seal in the spatial ring.
“Someone’s waiting for me.”