Chapter 523: Mid Golden Core Stage!

The Life Pool of Verdant Wood Peak was a forbidden sanctuary.

Even core disciples could only dream of crossing its threshold. Unless one had made monumental contributions to the sect-such as cultivating exceedingly rare spirit plants-they would never be granted the reward of bathing in its waters.

Otherwise, the doors would remain shut to them for an entire lifetime.

Because Zhou Yan had nurtured several exotic botanical treasures, his karmic merit was substantial enough to earn him three days within the pool each year.

As for Jiang Chen, he lacked any such qualifications. It was only because Senior Sister Bei Qingtang had pulled some strings, leveraging his work on the Crimson Fire Peak’s ripening task, that he barely secured a single entry.

After a ruthless round of bargaining, he had wrung out seven days.

Adding the three days gifted by Second Senior Brother Zhou Yan brought his total to exactly ten days.

If word of this leaked, the resulting envy and sheer resentment would likely drown him.

After all, the longer one bathed in that liquid vitality, the more they could temper their mortal coil, exponentially increasing their chances of breaking through bottlenecks.

It could forcefully push a cultivator from late Foundation Establishment to Foundation Establishment Perfection, or even shatter the threshold of a major realm entirely. The fortunes hidden within were simply too immense.

Countless disciples hungered for it, yet they possessed neither the status nor the profound capability required.

The primary obstacle, however, was that the Life Pool lay firmly in the iron grip of the Peak Master.

Who could enter.

Who would be turned away.

And the exact hour of their entry-every detail required her supreme authorization.

Now that Jiang Chen and Zhou Yan had cleared the air, the lingering tension vanished like morning dew.

Bei Qingtang gestured toward the depths of the peak. “Enough dawdling. Let us hurry to the Life Pool.”

Jiang Chen trailed closely behind her as they veered down a secluded path.

They left Zhou Yan and Su Tiantian behind in the courtyard.

The couple remained locked in each other’s gaze, the air between them thick with sincere, honeyed affection.

Fingers entwined, they drifted out of the grand hall, quickly leaving the peak behind.

Elsewhere, Jiang Chen followed Bei Qingtang deeper into the ancient forest until a massive, yawning tree hollow materialized before them.

To his surprise, a solitary figure stood guard at the ancient entrance.

It was none other than Fifth Senior Sister Mu Ning.

“Junior Brother, you’ve arrived!”

“Fifth Senior Sister, how fare my insects?”

She blinked, clutching her sleeves. “You… you aren’t asking for them back now, are you?”

Jiang Chen coughed lightly. “Well, it has indeed been quite some time.”

“Let’s do this-we can negotiate once you emerge from the Life Pool.”

Since she offered such terms, Jiang Chen naturally wouldn’t press the issue.

He was a patient man; the longer she nurtured them, the fatter his harvest would ultimately be.

Bei Qingtang shook her head with a weary smile. “Ah Ning, cease your playing. Open the Life Pool.”

Mu Ning chuckled, her eyes crinkling. “Opening it now.”

She pivoted and swept her sleeve gracefully toward the dark hollow behind her.

The pitch-black maw suddenly ignited with a profound, resonant cyan radiance.

Wisps of ethereal fog, resembling the breath of the primordial forest, drifted out from the depths.

Instantly, the ambient Wood Spirit Qi surged, its density doubling in the span of a single breath.

Jiang Chen couldn’t suppress his curiosity. “Senior Sister, why is it Fifth Senior Sister who commands the entrance?”

Bei Qingtang offered a cryptic smile. “The Heavenly Dao reveals all in time. Hurry inside.”

Jiang Chen cast another glance at Mu Ning. Seeing her aura faintly bleeding into the surrounding flora, harmonizing with the ancient wood, he gleaned a vague understanding of the truth.

Without further hesitation, he stepped over the gnarled roots and descended into the tree hollow.

Within moments, the swirling mist and cyan luminescence swallowed him whole, erasing his silhouette from the mortal world.

Mu Ning swayed slightly, rubbing her temples with a heavy sigh. “Every time I pry open the Life Pool, my spiritual sea churns with such a migraine.”

Bei Qingtang stepped forward, gently embracing her. “You have labored hard for the sect.”

…

…

Within the abyssal hollow, Jiang Chen pressed onward. The heavy fog rendered his physical vision useless, and the oppressive resonance of the ancient wood squeezed his Divine Sense, shrinking his spiritual perception by the second.

The tunnel felt infinite, a twisting labyrinth of roots from which one might never escape.

Yet, with every step he took, the raw, unbridled vitality of nature grew increasingly dense.

It was like returning to a mother’s womb-a profound, encompassing warmth that seeped into his very marrow, bringing an indescribable comfort.

He had long lost track of time when the soft slosh of water finally echoed beneath his boots. The Life Pool was here. Sweeping a hand over his spatial ring, he stripped away his robes and boots, storing away his worldly tethers.

Naked before the Dao, he continued forward, wading deeper into the primordial womb.

Before long, the heavy, viscous liquid reached his neck. A single step further would submerge him entirely.

Yet, Jiang Chen did not halt. Circulating his Magic Power, he ignited the essence of the Dragon Transformation, elevating his aquatic affinity to its absolute zenith, and allowed the depths to claim him.

This was his first pilgrimage to the pool, and he was blind to its deeper mysteries.

But even a fool could deduce the truth of the Heavens: the deeper the dive, the purer the creation essence.

Unlike the biting chill of ordinary subterranean springs, the Life Pool was a cauldron of liquid gold, its profound warmth penetrating his mortal coil through every open pore.

At a depth of a hundred paces, the life essence was undeniably rich, yet still within the bounds of mortal comprehension.

At two hundred paces, the spiritual resonance and sheer volume of vitality violently doubled.

By the time he descended three hundred paces, the ambient life force had become so viscous it felt like swimming through molten amber.

Traditionally, those in the Qi Condensation stage would anchor themselves within the first hundred paces.

For a Foundation Establishment cultivator, a depth of two hundred paces was considered their physical limit.

Jiang Chen, however, was a master of the Golden Core stage. He had forged a Heavenly-Grade Golden Core, though the severe toll of severing his Spirit Roots had caused it to regress to an Earth-Grade Golden Core.

Regardless of its grade, the foundation of his Dao remained unshakable.

Furthermore, the primordial weight of the Chaos Dao Seed still anchored his spirit.

Thus, a depth of three hundred paces could not satisfy his appetite. Gritting his teeth, he tore through the semi-solidified vitality, plummeting deeper into the abyss.

Only when the crushing pressure at five hundred paces threatened to shatter his very bones, preventing him from sinking even a fraction of an inch further, did he finally arrest his descent.

‘When I crossed the threshold, I felt my Divine Sense being heavily suppressed,’ Jiang Chen mused, his mind sharp as a whetstone.

‘At a depth of five hundred paces, the spiritual interference is absolute. No one can pry into my secrets here.’

‘I am completely untethered from watching eyes.’

A faint, calculating smirk graced Jiang Chen’s lips. With a decisive flick of his wrist, he summoned the Four Seasons Fruits borne from the Spacetime Year Wheel Tree. He shoved the cluster into his mouth, chewed the spiritual flesh twice, and swallowed the heavenly bounty whole.

Instantly, a torrential wave of enlightenment and physical amplification erupted within his meridians, a supreme state of Dao-resonance that would burn uninterrupted for ten days.

Only with his foundation perfectly primed did he open the floodgates, greedily devouring the viscous, golden life force crushing against his skin.

The results were terrifying. Bolstered by the fruits of time, his mortal coil refined the raw vitality at a speed that defied common sense.

Within his spiritual sea, his Wood Spirit Root flared with a blinding cyan brilliance.

His Water Spirit Root responded in kind, radiating a deep, oceanic blue.

He didn’t even need to forcefully steer the currents; the sheer density of nature’s raw vitality spontaneously refined itself into liquid Magic Power.

Jiang Chen closed his eyes. While his physical sight was useless in the dense amber depths, his inner vision was terrifyingly lucid. He could watch the microscopic shattering and reforming of his own flesh.

First came the mending of old, hidden wounds within his mortal frame.

Next came the brutal, transcendental metamorphosis of his physical limits.

Finally, the ascent toward absolute physical perfection.

The surrounding life force acted as the primal kindling to his spiritual fire.

He could distinctly feel the stubborn bottleneck of his cultivation loosening, cracking under the relentless tide.

For six long years, he had lingered but a single half-step away from the Mid Golden Core stage. Now, caught between the twin gravitational pulls of his Water and Wood Spirit Roots and the torrential baptism of the Life Pool…

The Golden Core suspended in his dantian suddenly convulsed. In a burst of blinding spiritual light, its volume violently expanded, swelling to twice its original size.

A deluge of impossibly pure Magic Power poured from the core, flooding his meridians. It scoured his limbs and bones, viciously tempered his internal organs, and, having completed a grand heavenly cycle, cascaded back into the Golden Core.

Yet the heavens were not finished. Suspended in his spiritual sea, the enigmatic Chaos Dao Seed gave a subtle tremor. In response, his newly doubled reserves of Magic Power violently multiplied yet again.

The sheer volume of energy was staggering. Jiang Chen felt a visceral, aching bloat within his dantian, his Golden Core groaning under the strain like a glutton who had swallowed a mountain whole.

And still, the transformation continued. Cyan and azure hues chased each other across the surface of the Golden Core. The Magic Power naturally adhered to the Supreme Dao: Water nurtured Wood, Wood fed Earth, Earth birthed Metal, and Metal wept Water. The eternal cycle of the Five Elements was flawlessly reformed.

The five primal colors blazed into existence, their karmic resonance growing increasingly profound and ancient.

And as his spiritual pressure climbed with the unstoppable force of a rising tide, his foundation locked into place, completely and irreversibly stabilizing at the Mid Golden Core stage!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.