Zhang Ze opened his eyes, waking up on the eighteen-square-meter large bed.
At this moment, Little Ball was rolling back and forth across his chest.
Four days had already passed since he picked up Little Ball.
Zhang Ze, Senior Sister Qiao Lezhi, her Master, and even the Pavilion Master had no idea where Little Ball came from.
On the Flying Boat returning to the Sect, Senior Sister Qiao and Old Li had tried all kinds of methods to remove Little Ball from Zhang Ze.
But they had all failed.
Old Li tried many traditional methods.
For example, sealing, countering curses, and other methods that normal Human Race cultivators ought to have thought of.
None of them worked.
Qiao Lezhi tried many nonhuman methods, but they were all equally ineffective.
For example, crushing it.
Her incredible strength was completely helpless against Little Ball.
She had even tried flooring the Flying Boat and then throwing Little Ball out of it.
But no matter how far she threw it, Little Ball would suddenly appear in some corner of the Flying Boat five seconds later.
Then it would bounce and hop back to Zhang Ze’s side.
Senior Sister Qiao had even considered trying to eat Little Ball raw.
But Zhang Ze and Elder Li stopped her.
In short, they had no clue what to do.
Thus, the two of them remained deeply worried throughout the journey back.
Qiao Lezhi felt that she had been too careless, crushing the Seal and causing her Junior Brother Zhang Ze to become entangled with Little Ball.
Old Li felt that his own negligence and insufficient vigilance toward Little Ball had caused this situation.
In short, it was all their fault.
Zhang Ze, on the other hand, kept comforting the two of them on the way back, saying that he was fine.
After leaving Underground, Zhang Ze had calmed down.
He felt that, given the System’s Tendency, even something like Old Li trying to hit him would trigger an emergency task.
If this ball were really dangerous, then his eyes would probably already be filled with wildly flashing Pop-up windows.
There would probably be a Countdown constantly jumping around in front of him, just like it did for some Mr. Wang.
But there was nothing in front of him now. Everything was quiet, and the System was as silent as if it were dead.
Moreover, Zhang Ze had his own Guess about Little Ball.
The name of the task for obtaining Little Ball was 【Awakening and Rebirth】.
The task involving the Spirit Snake Statue was called 【Unawakened Spirit Snake】.
When the System said the task had disappeared forever, it meant only the 【Unawakened Spirit Snake】 series of tasks and the related 【Lurk】.
Zhang Ze felt that 【Unawakened Spirit Snake】 was the major prerequisite task for 【Awakening and Rebirth】.
Following the task route, Zhang Ze had to gain the trust of the Spirit Snake Flotilla through 【Lurk】, then obtain the opportunity to approach the Statue.
After that, he would trigger some task involving the seizure of the Statue.
Only after he smashed the Statue’s head and saw the Small Coffin
would he finally trigger the task 【Awakening and Rebirth】.
The answer to the task was this Little Ball.
But what Zhang Ze could not understand was what connection Little Ball had with the Thousand Mechanism Technique, and why it had been sealed inside that Spirit Snake Statue.
Therefore, when Zhang Ze returned to the Sect and Old Li dragged him toward the Pavilion Master, he did not insist that he was fine.
He wanted the Pavilion Master to take a look as well.
Unfortunately, even the old Pavilion Master could not tell what Little Ball was.
Although the old Pavilion Master did not understand it either, he nevertheless attached great importance to it.
He had even arranged for Zhang Ze to stay in this room with an eighteen-square-meter large bed.
It was said that this room could suppress Evil Spirits and eliminate demonic thoughts.
Whether Little Ball was an Opportunity or a calamity, as long as it stayed in this large room Temporarily, nothing would happen.
This room also had a history.
According to Grandpa Wang’s bragging Short Stories,
when the Pavilion Master had just become the Pavilion Master, he once captured a Giant Ape.
But the Giant Ape was arrogant and untamable, refusing discipline, and the Demonic Energy in its body was difficult to dispel.
Thus, the Pavilion Master Forged this huge room and had the Giant Ape live there.
The Formation in the room could suppress Evil Spirits and cleanse the demonic heart.
Every day, after the third watch, the Pavilion Master would come and commune with the Giant Ape, teaching him human etiquette and Righteous Path Cultivation Methods.
In the end, the Giant Ape finally reformed, abandoning evil and returning to the good, and acknowledged the Pavilion Master as his Master.
He even melted down the Iron rod he had used for evil; part of it was forged into a Ring worn around his head as a reminder.
The rest was hammered into a Greatsword, which became his Magic Tool after his Rebirth,
after which he bid farewell to the Pavilion Master and traveled west to temper his sword heart.
That monkey’s surname was even Sun.
After hearing this, Zhang Ze found it utterly Outrageous, but he did not want to ask further.
He was afraid that if they continued talking, Grandpa Wang would tell him that before Cultivating Immortality, the Pavilion Master’s home had been at Liangshan Marsh.
In any case, over the past few days, whenever Zhang Ze had nothing to do, all he played in his mind was Journey to the West.
For example, Zhu Bajie’s Seven In, Seven Out of the Daughter Kingdom and the like.
For the rest of his time, Zhang Ze read books.
A small portion consisted of Cultivation Manuals for the Qi Refining Stage, while most of the rest covered miscellaneous anecdotes about the Land of Four Continents.
Compared with Cultivation Methods, these miscellaneous stories were more entertaining, probably because he had heard too many of Grandpa Wang’s bragging Short Stories.
Zhang Ze picked up a copy of 《Records of the Four Continents》 beside his pillow and continued reading from where he had stopped yesterday.
《Records of the Four Continents》 described the history, customs, and local traditions of the Land of Four Continents. Its author was a Purple Robe Heavenly Master from Dragon Tiger Mountain who enjoyed traveling.
Several tens of thousands of years ago, the Eastern Continent was not yet called the Eastern Continent. It was called Eastern Qi.
It was a very unoriginally conceived Human Race cultivator Empire, the sort of thing found in all kinds of novels nowadays, like Great Wei or Great Zhou.
To the west of Eastern Qi were very unoriginal Barbarian Tribe settlements, where the Barbarians lived happily in little leather skirts, just as unoriginally.
The men were very unoriginally passionate about the battlefield and made friends through their fists.
The women were very unoriginally bold in love and hatred, and were often taken home by Eastern Qi’s lecherous Cultivators.
They had a very unoriginal fight.
The scattered and chaotic Demon Race to the north also very unoriginally united and Joined the group battle.
Then they fought the world into the Land of Four Continents.
Eastern Qi was beaten out of existence, the Royal Family’s Bloodline was completely wiped out, and the various Sects and Noble Families became independent, dividing up territory and agreeing not to invade one another.
Each Immortal Sect governed the land under its control.
Eastern Qi became the Eastern Continent.
As for what it looked like exactly, it was probably like the world in 《Under the Heavens》.
The Barbarians retreated to the west, that land which Eastern Qi’s scholars had always called the Western Barbarians.
But Eastern Qi was gone now, so the tribal chiefs of the western lands gathered for a Meeting and decided that their side would rename itself the Western Continent.
Although everyone was tired of fighting and did not want to fight anymore, they absolutely could not afford to lose their imposing presence.
The happiest were naturally the Demon Race. After all, they had truly become independent, and all the land north of Thousand Lotus Mountain had become the Demon Race’s territory.
Blocked by the Mountain Range, that place was Almost completely cut off from the outside world. The Old Heavenly Master had only gone there a few times.
According to the Old Heavenly Master, the Demon Race’s Customs were utterly debauched and disgraceful, looked down upon by cultivators like us.
By the way, the Demon Race refused to be bound by convention and declared that their home was called the Northern Territory.
But the Barbarians and the Righteous Path Sects of the Eastern Continent paid no attention and continued calling them the Northern Continent.
There was no Southern Continent. This mainland was shaped like the character for “品,” and the Fourth Continent was the Central Continent—the vast Battlefield where the war had once been fought.
Although the Great Dao had not been destroyed, the entire Central Continent had nearly been shattered.
Even the Barbarian Tribe of the Western Continent said that not even dogs would live in the Central Continent.
Thus, the Central Continent became a buffer zone between the Three parties.
Naturally, these were not the original words of the 《Records of the Four Continents》 in Zhang Ze’s hands.
The Old Heavenly Master of Dragon Tiger Mountain was learned and incisive in style, recounting that history with Full of ups and downs, like a surging river flowing endlessly.
But in Zhang Ze’s view, that was what had happened.
Zhang Ze put down 《Records of the Four Continents》 and picked up 《Miscellaneous Tales of Wild Ghosts》, written by a former Demonic Path Venerable One.
After entering the Buddhist fold, this Demonic Path Venerable One carried a ghost-headed saber every day while eating vegetarian food and chanting Buddhist scriptures; in his spare time, he used his brush to record his own glorious deeds.
Zhang Ze liked the part where the Venerable One teased the Female Cultivators of the Heavenly Sect the most, but someone had completely blacked out the crucial parts with ink.
What a pity.
Just as Zhang Ze held the book up to the sunlight, trying to see the blacked-out section clearly, the Pavilion Master’s voice sounded beside his ear.
“Stop reading. I’m the one who blacked that out.”