Longevity Strange Immortal
Chapter 185 - 45 Chaotic Burial Mound is My Home

Chapter 185: Chapter 45 Chaotic Burial Mound is My Home

The Abyss was shrouded in silence.

Five White Bone Pagodas stood towering over the ocean of corpses, with not a single figure daring to approach, a sight that was eerily strange.

Atop the pagoda sat what appeared to be a standard Daoist temple, its plaque inscribed with the characters "Doulu," yet the doors and windows were tightly sealed, the interior shrouded in mystery.

Since the Golden Cauldron Sect’s rules were enacted, rather than inciting chaos among the artifact refiners, an unspoken deathly silence seemed to have fallen.

The Sect was simply too bizarre.

Under normal circumstances, the mountain gates of various inheritances should have first ventured into Zone 9, but instead, the Mother Furnace had suddenly transported them to the Abyss without the slightest warning.

Even Core Formation artifact refiners who tried to contact the Nascent Soul Great Powers received no response.

They found themselves unable to use any communicative Spirit Talismans in the Abyss, faintly sensing some unknown peril lurking deep beneath the surface.

Faced with such conditions, even the most confident Core Formation refiners dared not approach the White Bone Pagoda, fearing to court danger.

Unanimously, they chose to hide within the carcass-filled expanse, waiting for the situation regarding the Golden Cauldron Sect to unfold.

No one knew how much time had passed before one refiner could no longer restrain themselves, nervously emerging from the heaps of corpses, cautiously inching toward the pagoda.

The corpses were ghastly and grotesque, reeking of an unbearable stench.

The Core Formation refiner crept forward like a maggot crawling toward decaying flesh – conspicuous and revolting, yet drawing hundreds of gazes upon themselves.

Before long, someone recognized their identity.

It was Sun Yangli, a Pseudo-Core Stage refiner from Zone One’s "Ghost Cave" inheritance. Already three to four hundred years old, he had ascended to the Thirty Years Old Stage through sheer coincidence, holding the most inferior Low-Grade Golden Core.

With his meager talent, his prospects for advancement to the Condensation Stage were slim.

After long deliberation, all he could do was gamble using the Golden Cauldron Sect. If the White Bone Pagoda turned out to be a blinding technique set up by the Mother Furnace, he might find an opportunity amidst it all.

"Heh heh heh heh..."

A strange laugh escaped Tai Jiaozi.

He had been cowering inside the bloated belly of a corpse, observing Sun Yangli closely through a deliberately left crack.

Every time Tai Jiaozi attempted to stretch his limbs, an inexplicable fear emerged within him.

This ghostly place was beyond ordinary; climbing the White Bone Pagoda under the Golden Cauldron Sect would undoubtedly involve unimaginable secrets.

Sun Yangli steadily approached the pagoda, and to everyone’s surprise, nothing out of the ordinary occurred.

Grinning foolishly, he then began climbing the pagoda, grasping the bones protruding outward as he ascended. Even as these sharp protrusions pierced his palms, he seemed indifferent.

The hidden Core Formation refiners grew restless.

Particularly those inadvertently swept into the Golden Cauldron Sect – they were individuals who had little chance of achieving the Nascent Soul and whose promotion to the Inner Sect appeared increasingly precious.

The Daoists, however, remained stoic and unmoved.

To claim the top position within a Middle-Upper Grade inheritance required either remarkable innate talent or mastery earned through devoted cultivation; at the very least, they possessed a Dual Dao Body.

Even if the venture with the Sect failed, preserving their lives and waiting another hundred years would suffice.

Thus, they wouldn’t plunge themselves into risky situations unless they were absolutely certain of their chances.

Sun Yangli soon reached the summit of the pagoda, his body now covered in bloody gashes inflicted by the jagged bone spurs that jutted out from the structure.

His expression turned vacant, eyes fixated with a peculiar look on the temple before him.

"Doulu..."

He muttered the word over and over, then, with a dreamy and satisfied expression, unlatched the temple’s doors and walked inside directly.

The onlookers tried to glimpse what lay within but were met only with pitch blackness.

Bang.

The doors slammed shut.

The temple’s sealed windows suddenly lit up, revealing faintly moving silhouettes inside, resembling Taoists chanting scriptures in the dead of night.

After several breaths of silence, one by one, the Core Formation refiners emerged from the shadows, rushing toward the White Bone Pagoda.

They discovered that once someone entered the pagoda, it became impossible to open from the outside, rendering the temple a wholly enclosed environment.

A fierce struggle for entry unfolded around the pagoda in the Abyss.

Nonetheless, the figures from the Middle-Upper Grade inheritances remained rare; the Daoists were still composed, even if promotion to the Inner Sect was at stake.

Soon, all five White Bone Pagodas ignited with candlelight.

The other refiners begrudged the situation and began organizing themselves around the pagodas, trying to force open the temple doors.

Tai Jiaozi frowned deeply, his unease growing more pronounced.

After a moment’s contemplation, he manipulated the corpses to burrow underground, looking for a safer place to reconsider the Golden Cauldron Sect’s significance.

None of them had noticed.

Shadows were moving along the ground, dragging the bodies of Core Formation refiners away.

Silently, the shadows gathered the corpses and disappeared into the depths of the corpse heaps, arriving at a newly dug ten-meter erosion cave.

Li Mo sat cross-legged at the cave’s center.

The shadows transformed into a Ghost Tiger, placing the bodies before Li Mo before vanishing again.

Even trapped in the Abyss, Li Mo’s cultivation proceeded unhindered thanks to his Corpse Mountain.

He created a temporary Seclusion Room, observing the Golden Cauldron Sect while exploring the massive heap of millions of corpses hidden in the Abyss.

Li Mo actively maintained his Primordial Dao Body, his towering frame of over four meters exuding oppressive authority, while his skin was marked with scale-like textures.

Spiritual Power circulated within the cave, causing the corpses to crystallize and gradually transform into rock-like material visible to the naked eye.

This method ensured the cave’s structural integrity, preventing it from collapsing.

One observation stood out.

The shallow-layer corpses indeed originated from the Mother Furnace; they were discarded failures with incomplete or malformed features, abandoned into the Abyss.

Following the Mother Furnace’s cycle, it produced a batch of artifact people every twenty years.

Li Mo assessed the corpses’ freshness to determine how long each had been dead, discovering numerous peculiar details in the process.

For instance, the newer the corpse, the more pronounced its innate deformities.

The freshest artifact people corpses not only had mismatched limbs, but their skeletal structures were twisted like knots, though their Melting Furnaces remained intact.

Possibly due to the Death Disease and their inherent metallic traits, these corpses decomposed extremely slowly – perhaps requiring centuries or thousands of years to completely rot away.

To Li Mo, this was fortunate news.

High-order artifact refiners exhibited even stronger metallic characteristics, sometimes halting decomposition altogether. The depths of the Abyss might indeed contain artifact refiner corpses thousands of years old.

For Li Mo, these corpses represented an invaluable resource.

He had experimented with his End-of-the-World Dao Seed by burning artifact people in the Melting Furnace, but shallow-layer corpses lacked experience from the Mother Furnace’s palace chambers.

Even reduced to ashes, they wouldn’t yield memories of cultivation techniques or magic.

Having undergone "Fertility" within the palace chambers himself, Li Mo knew that only basic techniques like the "Child Device Life Protection Heart Sutra" were taught there.

The shallow-layer corpses weren’t suitable for nourishing the Primordial Dao Seed.

Corpse Mountain, however, welcomed them indiscriminately, devouring each one within mere heartbeats.

In theory.

Using just one percent of the millions of corpses would suffice to push Corpse Mountain into an unparalleled transformation.

Corpse Mountain would likely undergo an indescribable metamorphosis, perhaps gaining access to the "Magic Treasure" rumored to belong exclusively to the Divine Separation Stage.

Unfortunately, stealing large quantities of corpses caused significant disturbances.

Even a mere hundred bodies could destabilize the heaps, triggering unforeseen consequences.

Not yet comprehending the intricacies of the Abyss, Li Mo refrained from flagrant actions.

Despite exploring the Abyss, he advanced downward by a mere hundred meters every half day, meticulously reinforcing his cave, accumulating only around two hundred corpses so far.

"This Abyss truly is a Blessed Land Cave Heaven for nurturing Corpse Mountain."

Once the cave walls reached sufficient crystallization, Li Mo absorbed some corpses into Corpse Mountain, allowing it to assimilate their essence.

Before he realized it, another peak began to rise.

Yet, limited by the Corpse Mountain’s Forty Refinements, the elevation growth slowed dramatically, nearly stalled altogether.

Li Mo surveyed the corpse collection brought by the Ghost Tiger—all sourced from Low Grade inheritances.

For those half-dead refiners, he threw them into Corpse Mountain as tenants; for those fully deceased, he extracted their memory of cultivation techniques using the End-of-the-World Dao Seed.

"Not leveraging Corpse Mountain to its fullest under the Golden Cauldron Sect’s influence would be a waste."

Li Mo even considered abandoning the Inner Sect promotion fight altogether.

On one hand, the White Bone Pagoda exuded unspeakable danger; on the other hand, promotion wasn’t an urgent concern for him.

He was the youngest among all Daoists and could afford to wait for the next Golden Cauldron Sect cycle in a hundred years.

Even lacking Nascent Soul-level cultivation techniques, Li Mo could achieve Perfect Dual Golden Core status within the Thirty Years Old Stage.

Contentedly, he relied on Breath Fog and the Ghost Tiger to observe the White Bone Pagoda while preparing Corpse Mountain’s Sixty Refinements.

Only by completing the Sixty Refinements could Corpse Mountain devour more corpses.

Top-grade Magical Artifacts were manageable in difficulty compared to the Hundred Refinements, aside from consuming substantial Top-grade Spiritual Materials for each refinement.

Despite having sufficient spiritual materials for the Sixty Refinements, Li Mo hadn’t yet accumulated resources for the Hundred Refinements.

According to his calculations, once Corpse Mountain reached Eighty Refinements, it would begin producing its own Top-grade Spiritual Materials, raising the likelihood of completing the Hundred Refinements during the Sect’s event.

If it evolved into a Magic Treasure, it would immensely benefit the Hammer Anvil Magic Artifact.

With this in mind, Li Mo commanded the Ghost Tiger to guard the cave while he promptly commenced preparations for the Sixty Refinements.

He planned to incorporate the unused Desolate Sub-peak into the Metal Mid-grade Magical Artifact.

The goal was to imbue Corpse Mountain with Five Elements Attributes, creating a perfected small world conducive to achieving the Magic Treasure.

After brief consideration, he infused decades’ worth of Nourishing Yuan Fruit Medicine Power to stimulate the Desolate Sub-peak’s transformation into a Metal Sub-peak.

Without pause, he began refining.

In this foreign and perilous environment, only Li Mo had such audacity.

The Ghost Tiger watched with helpless resignation, its Shadow Transformation form enveloping the cave, suppressing the noise generated during refinement.

As Li Mo worked on his artifact, an anomaly arose at the White Bone Pagoda.

From within Sun Yangli’s temple came the sounds of a heated argument, two similar but distinctly toned voices clashing.

The quarrel persisted for quite some time before the temple doors slowly creaked open.