The myth begins with the Lotus Lantern

Chapter 346 is confusing
"You truly disappoint me; is this all you've got?" Thousands of wisps of black energy coalesced again, forming a shape that flickered like a shadow. "Now...it's my turn!"

Bo Xun raised his hand, and three delicate black threads flew up.

Ding Lin felt his consciousness freeze, as if his three souls were locked. He reached out to draw upon the sky, and the colorful laws gathered in his palm, but he could no longer form them into the Taiyi Dao Law. He could only mix them with his magic power and unleash them together.

The five-colored radiance and the black mist merged and then vanished together.

The shadowy figure that Mara had transformed into swiftly approached.

Ding Lin raised his hands and repeatedly urged the power, seemingly using all his strength. However, the Five Elements Law above his head only flickered with spiritual light, like a burnt-out circuit. No matter how much Ding Lin urged it, it remained motionless.

In this vast cave, distance seems to have become a concept.

With a strange laugh, Mara arrived close.

Ding Lin lowered his eyes, seemingly sensing that he had reached a dead end, but a subtle look flashed deep in his eyes.

A dark aura descended upon him.

Suddenly, Mara stopped again, and a mocking laugh came from the black shadow, which then quickly faded away.

"What, disappointed?" Mara's voice rang out as he returned to his original spot. "You still have the strength to strike. What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for me to get close, until there's nowhere to hide and nowhere to avoid, before delivering that thunderous blow?"

"You hurt yourself. How could you think I wouldn't see through such a clumsy attempt at self-inflicted injury?"

Ding Lin suddenly raised his eyes, his gaze fierce, like that of an untamed wild beast, filled with shame and anger at having his schemes exposed.

"Why not unleash this final blow? I'm still giving you that chance. Give yourself a quick death, or this attack will be wasted in a moment," Mara said, unleashing a series of black wisps of energy.

Ding Lin remained silent, only continuously mobilizing the power of the laws to collide with it. However, as time went by, Ding Lin became increasingly powerless. The black aura emanating from Bo Xun's body seemed to possess a strange power that was subtly stealing his control over the Great Cave Heaven—the Heavenly Demon Possession.

From initially being able to both attack and defend, they gradually became only able to parry and had no power to retaliate.

At a certain moment, Ding Lin stopped hiding. He leaped forward and charged towards Bo Xun, drawing the Five Elements Laws into the air with both hands. The Taiyi Dao Law condensed, and although he knew it would be difficult to hit, he had no choice but to do so. If he dragged it out any longer, the situation would only become more and more unfavorable.

He seemed to have been driven to the brink of despair.

The Dao of Taiyi condensed and materialized into a long sword.

"Yes, that's it, cut it down!" Mara urged as he retreated.

Ding Lin loosely clenched his fists, and the sword energy dissipated in all directions, remaining suspended in mid-air.

"How long can you hold on? You've done your best. Cut it off!" Mara continued to ramble on.

Ding Lin gritted his teeth. He was not at his peak, and maintaining this state of restraint was not sustainable. He was already finding it difficult to hold the knife.

"Not quite ready to hold on any longer?" Bo Xun easily saw through Ding Lin's condition. He smiled wickedly, then suddenly stopped, saying as if toying with him, "Don't say I didn't give you a chance..."

opportunity?

Or a trap?

Ding Lin's eyes shone brightly, but he seemed to have no other choice. The moment Bo Xun saw through his thoughts, he could only let himself be.

The long sword slashed down, its blade energy crisscrossing!
"Amazing!"

With a strange cry, Bo Xun's frozen figure suddenly receded into the distance, exploding in all directions as before, transforming into thousands of strands of black energy. Each strand perfectly dodged the blade energy, achieving a flawless effect.

really.

Ding Lin showed no surprise. With the fall of the knife, he seemed to have exhausted all his strength, accepting his fate as his will settled on the ground, no longer chasing or resisting.

"That's it. You've done your best and it's good enough. Now, rest well. You feel tired, go to sleep. When you wake up, you'll never be tired again. I will take charge of this grotto-heaven with you. From now on, you can rest as long as you want!"

The seductive voice of Mara echoed in my ears, seemingly both very close and very far away, ethereal and alluring, bewitching my heart.

Ding Lin leaned against a huge boulder, his head bowed, his whole demeanor gloomy, as if he had resigned himself to his fate. But at a certain moment, he suddenly raised his head, his gaze falling on Bo Xun's reassembled form. A helpless and mocking smile appeared on his lips. To be more precise, he wasn't looking at Bo Xun, but rather at what was behind Bo Xun, where a cluster of green lotuses swayed quietly, serene and peaceful, as if the great battle in this cave had nothing to do with it.

Mara looked on in confusion and turned around.

Ding Lin's sword energy fell like a torrential rain of flowers onto that cluster of green lotus leaves.

Bo Xun finally realized something was wrong. No wonder he was able to dodge Ding Lin's attack so easily; it turned out that the attack was never aimed at him from the beginning.

But what secrets could be hidden within those lotus leaves?
Mara pondered, but even faster than his thoughts were the actions of the manifested form. Dozens of black wisps split off and grabbed at Ding Lin. No matter what happened, he wanted to devour Ding Lin's consciousness, control his three souls and seven spirits, and turn him into a human puppet!

However, it was too late.

Ding Lin neither dodged nor avoided the attack. He watched helplessly as ten streams of black energy swept towards him, his consciousness about to be scattered and his three souls and seven spirits no longer under his control.

Just then, invisible ripples spread from that cluster of green lotus leaves.

Ding Lin smiled. He was less than half a foot away from Ding Lin's face when the ten black wisps were frozen in place, the space was blocked, and only a tiny distance remained. But this tiny distance could never be crossed again.

"You...are you already someone else's fish?"

Bo Xun cried out in alarm. He seemed to suddenly realize something and looked up. Beside Ding Lin's golden core, the spatial law, without Ding Lin's control, started to move on its own and fell down. Beyond the Great Cave Heaven, there was still space. Suddenly, cracks appeared inch by inch around Bo Xun, and his shadow-like body was instantly shattered into countless fragments.

Ding Lin's lips curled into a mocking smile. His eyes turned to Qing He, revealing a deeper sense of apprehension.

"No!"

Bo Xun's mocking voice finally changed, revealing fear. The thousands of fragments tried hard to reassemble, but could not succeed. It looked like a simple cutting, but in fact each piece of the shadow was in a different space.

"Dijiang..."

Mara seemed to have discovered something and suddenly cried out in surprise.

The next moment, half of the thousands of fragments suddenly vanished on their own, revealing a thick black law, like a vine with a small fruit at its tip.

Ding Lin, observing from the side, felt an immense pressure descend upon him. Despite not recognizing the fruit, he experienced a profound and mysterious intuition, instantly recognizing its identity—a Fruit of Rank. It was the fruit formed by a Taiyi Golden Immortal merging their own Dao and principles.

"Damn it!"

Mara gritted his teeth. As he attained enlightenment, the remaining half of the black energy was forcibly kneaded together, like a broken mirror being pieced back together. A broken mirror is hard to mend, but at least it could still be pieced together to form a rough outline.

The next moment, the Heavenly Demon transformed into countless forms.

Mara's figure vanished without a trace.

The laws of space trembled, then flew back into the sky, hovering beside the golden core, seemingly unmoved.

But then a change occurred on the green lotus. The green energy captured the half of the demonic energy that Bo Xun had exploded in the air and collected it one by one. Then it was planted, and a three-petaled black lotus grew among the green lotus, with a white lotus of the same three petals next to it.

Ding Lin was startled to realize that if the black lotus hadn't grown, he would have never discovered the white lotus, having been kept completely in the dark.

Amidst the cyan waves, black and white stand facing each other, like twin flowers growing side by side.

The lotus leaves swayed gently.

Everything returned to normal.

Only Ding Lin's Dao injury worsened again.

Ding Lin, however, did not focus on his injuries. He looked up at the laws of space, then at the lotus grove in the distance, his eyes filled with gloom. He recalled Bo Xun's cry of alarm: Di Jiang.

Dijiang, the head of the Twelve Ancestral Witches, the Ancestral Witch of Space.

But don't the Wu tribe not cultivate the primordial spirit?
Or, what changes will occur when one reaches the Great Luo realm, which is the Ancestral Witch realm?
It's becoming increasingly confusing.

The enemy, who had been hiding in the shadows, finally revealed a trace of himself, no longer completely undetected.

But there is some truth to what Mara said.

Ding Lin pondered for a long time before silently rising. His consciousness returned to his physical body, and as he opened his eyes, another wave of pain washed over him, like being burned by flames. Only then did Ding Lin remember that he had used the banana leaf fan to unleash the Samadhi True Fire in order to buy time. At that time, Mara had taken over his body, but now the situation had changed, and it was ultimately his turn to bear this pain.

In his sea of ​​consciousness, the laws mixed with magical power flowed through his physical body, but because the Dao injury had worsened, he could not use the higher-level laws. Although the Samadhi True Fire had only just entered the threshold, it was indeed a real higher-level law, and the injury could not be healed for the time being.

Ding Lin simply closed his eyes. He had obtained the Banana Leaf Fan from Princess Iron Fan, originally intending to comprehend the two superior laws within it. Now, he could cultivate and heal at the same time.

As consciousness probed into the fan, two forces stood apart, clearly distinct yet intertwined, somewhat resembling the interplay of yin and yang.

Half of it was raging and chilling, the other half was burning brightly; it was the Samadhi True Fire and the Samadhi Divine Wind.

In Ding Lin's memories of his previous life, there were only brief mentions of these two supernatural powers in the margins.

"Fire represents desire, namely the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance, hence the terms Samadhi and the three fire dragons. Ignorance means darkness and lack of knowledge."

"The heart is the sovereign fire, also known as the divine fire, and its name is Upper Melancholy; the kidneys are the minister fire, also known as the essence fire, and their name is Middle Melancholy; the bladder, which is the sea of ​​qi below the navel, is the people's fire, and its name is Lower Melancholy." This is the true fire of Samadhi.

There are even fewer records of the Samadhi Divine Wind.

"That wind can darken the heavens and earth, it can cause even ghosts and gods to grieve, it can split rocks and collapse cliffs, and it can instantly kill a person..."

There is only one sentence in the original text of Journey to the West describing its power.

Such a simple method would have taken Ding Lin countless years to master the fire and wind techniques if he had to learn them from scratch. However, with the comparison of the true fire and divine wind within the Banana Leaf Fan, and the personal experience of his Taiyi realm soul, it was a completely different story. This provided tangible results, and with some clues to work backward, although it was still not simple, the difficulty had been greatly reduced.

Ding Lin devoted himself to rigorous self-cultivation in his thatched hut, and before he knew it, years had passed.

……

After leaving the thatched hut, Princess Jade Face lived with Princess Iron Fan. It was a fairyland after all. Although she missed Ding Lin, she could keep it hidden. When Princess Iron Fan asked, she would say that Ding Lin was in seclusion.

Ding Lin had just obtained the Banana Leaf Fan from Princess Iron Fan. Besides serving as a magic weapon for self-defense, the fan was also used to comprehend the laws of nature. The Bull Demon King had cultivated the Samadhi True Fire and Samadhi Divine Wind using the Banana Leaf Fan. Therefore, Princess Iron Fan did not doubt Princess Jade Face's words about seclusion. Anyone who obtained such a treasure as the Banana Leaf Fan would be eager to comprehend it, after all, it contained two superior laws.

Time flies, and thirty years have passed in the blink of an eye.

Another morning.

Princess Jade Face awoke from her cultivation. In the past thirty years, with ample resources, her magical cultivation had progressed extremely rapidly, reaching the late stage of the Celestial Immortal realm, and she had accumulated over ninety thousand years of cultivation.

Beside her, Princess Iron Fan was meditating with her eyes closed, her aura sullen. Since her last awakening, she had been immersed in cultivation for five or six years.

Princess Jade Face glanced at Princess Iron Fan, then looked at Ding Lin's thatched cottage. Since the day she left thirty years ago, there had never been any movement from there. If Princess Jade Face hadn't witnessed Ding Lin's uncontrollable state firsthand, she probably would have thought it was just an ordinary seclusion. She could have cultivated faster, but her worries slowed her down.

However, sometimes silence is good news.

A hint of worry flashed in Princess Jade Face's eyes.

A faint divine light suddenly flashed across Princess Iron Fan's body. The next moment, she slowly opened her eyes. She was not breaking through, but merely repairing her injuries. There were powerful beings everywhere in the Five Elements Mountain, and she was an alien, so she was even more careful. Under her deliberate control, she made very little noise.

Only Princess Jade Face noticed.

“Sister, you…” Princess Jade Face turned to look at Princess Iron Fan, but as soon as she spoke, she froze. She realized that Princess Iron Fan seemed to have changed a bit.

"Thirty years have passed, and I have finally healed my injuries." Princess Iron Fan smiled slightly.

"Congratulations, sister." Princess Jade Face was also happy for Princess Iron Fan.

"Don't congratulate me. I remember that before you entered meditation last time, your magical power had already reached 87,000 years. Five or six years have passed since then. I thought that if you hadn't reached perfection, you should at least have accumulated 100,000 years of cultivation. How come your cultivation has only increased by a few thousand years?"

Princess Iron Fan had fully recovered from her injuries, and Princess Jade Face had not made any attempt to hide it. She could tell the latter's cultivation level at a glance. She thought of the direction Princess Jade Face's eyes were looking when she woke up.

"I know you miss the Venerable One, but at the Venerable One's level, seclusion for tens of millions of years is commonplace. It's only been thirty years. Sister, cultivation is a personal matter, and I shouldn't say much, but I really can't bear to see you so dejected. The aura of laws here is rich, making it more than ten times easier to comprehend them than outside. You are now a Celestial Immortal, don't you want to become a Golden Immortal? Once you cultivate for 100,000 years, it will be easier to comprehend the laws. Your most urgent task is to improve your cultivation. Once you become a Golden Immortal, you will have no more worries about your lifespan. Don't act like a little girl anymore. Remember, everything else is illusory; only your cultivation is truly your own!"

(End of this chapter)