Cultivation: Fortune by Lots

The great formation had been broken, and the altar, damaged by the shaking, lost all function. It was now meaningless to continue defending the peaks where the outer eight altars were located.

The area around Mount Tianxu immediately fell into total chaos and battle.

In the midst of the confusion, Lei Jun activated his life-bound Wind Riding Talisman.

With the effect of spiritual power, he slipped away with the wind into the night, as if fading into the formless void.

The defensive power of the outer great formation kept unraveling as a flood of Yellow Sky Sect disciples surged in.

"Why hasn't the core of the great formation been completely destroyed? Now we still have to attack the summit of the main peak."

A middle-aged Taoist leading one of the Yellow Sky Sect groups barked harshly, "The elder brothers are headed for the summit, while we go to the base of the main peak.

"Our mission is to take over vital areas like the elixir chamber, treasure vault, and medicinal garden.

"If you run into anyone on the way who can be killed, do it quickly and don't waste time!"

Lei Jun observed for a moment. Seeing chaos raging in the mountains with no clear victor, he quietly concealed himself, choosing not to leave Qiantian Peak.

Instead, he braved the howling, razor-sharp winds and stepped into the breach that had been blasted open in Qiantian Peak's mountain belly.

The moderately good lot had indicated that after the great upheaval of the main peak and before midnight, Lei Jun believed that this was the crucial window of time.

The deeper he went into the mountain's belly, the fiercer the cutting winds became—so intense that cultivators of the Lower Three Heavens could hardly withstand them.

Fortunately, Lei Jun possessed the Breathing Soil Banner.

Although he could not unleash the full strength of this spiritual banner, it was sufficient for protection at present.

Driven by Lei Jun's mana, the Breathing Soil Banner unfurled, radiating a faint, muddy yellow spirit light.

In midair, this spirit light seemed to solidify into earth and stone.

The fierce winds continuously scattered the stones and soil, but fresh waves of muddy light immediately replenished them, so Lei Jun always had that protective shell around him.

He descended, searching with utmost care.

The biting whirlwind interfered with Lei Jun's senses, so for a long time, there was no result.

*He estimated that midnight was near and frowned slightly.*

Suddenly, a faint breeze swept by.

Amid the raging tempest, Lei Jun caught a thin, unusual whistling wind—completely different from the fierce gales filling the mountain's belly.

This wind was strangely familiar, and yet, unfamiliar.

*...That time, just after arriving in this world, the soft breeze on the summit of Green Mountain brushing across his face.*

*Lei Jun's heart stirred with insight, and he realized where that familiarity came from.*

He followed that barely-there wind, which seemed to exist in another world altogether, searching deeper within the mountain.

At last, he came upon a blank expanse.

Although there was rock all around, here the cutting winds were absent—a true vacuum zone.

Lei Jun put away the Breathing Soil Banner, causing the muddy glow and earthen shell around him to vanish.

The familiar breeze brushed his face once more.

This time, unlike before atop Green Mountain—where the direction and source of the wind were unfathomable—

This time, Lei Jun found the source of the wind.

Beneath the mountain in the dead of night, there was no light anywhere.

But upon a hunk of rock, a gleaming radiance pulsed, forming a cryptic sigil.

The mark was not large—only about three inches square—nor was the pattern complex, yet it seemed to contain boundless mysteries.

When he drew truly close, Lei Jun could feel no more of that faint breeze.

There was only a constant swirling current of energy, circulating seamlessly, without beginning or end.

*Pondering the past journeys of Li Cangting to this place, Lei Jun's long-held, hazy suspicion was instantly confirmed.*

This sigil, like the characters left under the riverhead of Mount Tianxu's Tianxu River at Jiuzhou Ridge, should both originate from Master Cangting.

That was, the prior bearer of the Celestial Master Seal.

This sigil came precisely from the Celestial Master Seal—the chief of the Celestial Master's Three Treasures!

*What took Lei Jun by surprise was that, when he first arrived in this world and cleansed his body and heart atop Green Mountain, that breeze was also linked to the Celestial Master Seal.*

*Was there also a Celestial Master Seal mark up there, or... had the true Celestial Master Seal itself once been there?*

*Did Xu Yuanzhen, who appeared at the foot of Green Mountain at that time, also go searching for the Celestial Master Seal?*

*But she found no harvest in the end—why could that be...*

*A thousand questions flashed quickly through Lei Jun's mind.*

But with midnight nearly upon him, there was precious little time left.

A Fourth Rank Opportunity like this would surely carry entangled karmic threads—he needed to act with great caution.

*No wonder the moderately good lot was worded as it was, and no wonder this was only a moderately good lot, not the best lot.*

Lei Jun exhaled slowly, calming himself, and attempted to take and carry away the sigil before his eyes.

He first tried to use the same method he had used to take the Huo Sui Yang Yu, employing the Supreme Pure Golden Bamboo.

But arcs of electricity burst from the sigil, dancing with thunder, causing the Supreme Pure Golden Bamboo to shudder and fail to contain the mark.

Lei Jun then took out the Breathing Soil Banner.

This time, when the banner flashed with a yellow glow, the sigil on the rock seemed to come alive, peeling away from the stone itself and merging into the dim, earthen light.

The next moment, the banner's surface displayed a new, unfathomably intricate sigil.

Lei Jun did not pause to inspect it just yet. Instead, he promptly raised the Breathing Soil Banner, using the yellow soil's protection to ascend and break through the windstorm belt inside the mountain, heading outward.

It was nearly midnight, but Lei Jun succeeded in making it out of the mountain's mouth before the hour arrived.

Leaping from Qiantian Peak and gaining distance, Lei Jun looked back; on the surface, Qiantian Peak had changed little.

But as midnight struck and the fierce winds vanished from the mountain's belly, their force finally spent, they began to dwindle and die away.

Beneath the night sky, the split Qiantian Peak now seemed perfectly ordinary, devoid of spirit or peril—just a forsaken mountain.

*Yet seeing the winds dissipate, Lei Jun's caution only grew stronger within.*

*He must never approach this mountain again.*

Lei Jun turned and left.

Meanwhile, the Yellow Sky Sect's all-out assault on the main peak of Mount Tianxu was reaching a fever pitch.

With the great formation's protection lost, most Tianxu Sect disciples had been caught unprepared. Hit hard by the Yellow Sky Sect's sudden strike, gates and passes on the main peak fell one after another.

The higher-ranking Yellow Sky Sect masters were now converged at the front of the Tianxu Sect's Tao Palace on the mountaintop itself.

By their plan, the inside help should have utterly destroyed the Tianxu Sect's formation core.

But for reasons unknown, the core had not utterly collapsed; half still remained, so the Yellow Sky Sect experts had no choice but to assault it head-on.

The Lower Three Heavens disciples of the Yellow Sky Sect targeted vital locations on the mountain's slopes and base.

Lei Jun let his gaze sweep the scene, spotting a Taoist Temple villa in the mountains being besieged by a group of Yellow Sky Sect disciples.

The villa had already half-collapsed, revealing a few Tianxu Sect disciples within who still resisted doggedly, but their situation was extremely dire.

One of the Yellow Sky Sect disciples involved in the siege asked the elder brother, "It looks like there's no Li Clan among the Tianxu Sect here, should we try to make them surrender?"

The leading Taoist's face was expressionless, "Fellow Taoists would already be on our side. Those who are not, deserve death a hundred times over."

Someone beside him chuckled, "Don't worry. As long as our Sect Leader breaks Dragon Tiger Mountain and we return to the Ancestral Court, there'll be no need to worry about manpower."

The lead Taoist said, "Enough talk, stop wasting time, kill!"

*Lei Jun was certain that other Celestial Master Mansion enemies were secretly supporting the Yellow Sky Sect.*

*Otherwise, even if the Celestial Master Mansion had inner and outer troubles, after their hard strikes, the Yellow Sky Sect should never have been able to scrape together their current resources.*

*But even so, the Yellow Sky Sect had spent years under constant persecution by the Celestial Master Mansion and even the Great Tang government. Their environment was brutal in the extreme.*

*In such unforgiving circumstances, you really couldn't demand too much in the way of morals from anyone desperate for survival, be it individuals or whole factions.*

*Those who still upheld high moral standards deserved praise.*

*Those who could not—it was only to be expected.*

*And yet...*

*Such rabid, stubborn extremism—wasn't that already a sign of spinning out of control?*

Lei Jun shook his head and pulled out a sheet of Talisman Paper.

All five elements were present—gold, green, black, red, and brown interwoven.

Now the gold, green, black, and brown faded away entirely, leaving nothing but a dazzling red light.

The Five Thunder Talisman, Fire Storehouse Thunder.

In the next instant, searing thunder-fire exploded from the rear of the Yellow Sky Sect ranks!

Blasts sprang forth in relentless waves, each one stronger than the last!

As if a warehouse packed with Thunderclap Talismans and Blazing Flame Talismans had been set off in a rolling chain of detonations!