Shrouding the Heavens: The Ultimate Daoist Venerable

Chapter 473 The Final Trial

Time flies, and ten thousand years pass in a flash. The aura of the White Tiger Emperor's Great Dao gradually dissipates.

Over these ten thousand years, the state of the human universe has begun to decline, becoming less suitable for cultivation than before.

Of course, this magnitude is much smaller than the fluctuations of the previous mythological era, and even less significant than those of later generations.

Although the human universe in the mythological era was not as barren as it is in later times, there were still some periods of low ebb in the human universe during these millions of years when cultivation was difficult.

The current Primordial Era should have been worse than the Mythical Era, but because the three Earth Immortals, the Celestial Venerable of Longevity, the Underworld Emperor, and the Xuanwu Emperor, were slowly repairing the human universe at a drop in the ocean, and because Liang Yu, the Celestial Venerable of Primordial Beginning, the Celestial Venerable of Morality, the Celestial Venerable of Spiritual Treasure, the Underworld Venerable, and others swept away all the Supreme Beings of the Forbidden Zones at the end of the Mythical Era, causing most of the accumulated Supreme Beings who had severed themselves to die and their souls to return to heaven and earth, the downward trend was finally stopped.

After all, those self-severing supreme beings absorbed countless essences of heaven and earth from the universe, and their existence was one of the reasons for the decline of the human universe.

Besides this reason, the Ascension Array leading to the Strange World always extracts a large amount of the essence of heaven and earth from the Strange World whenever a Daoist leaves, in order to ensure that the human universe will not suffer any loss due to the departure of the Daoist.

Due to these factors, the current human universe is even better than the environment of the previous mythological era.

Therefore, even though this is a relatively unsuitable era for cultivation, the human universe is not too desolate; it's just that those who have reached the high level of Quasi-Emperor are almost extinct.

In terms of the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and rare natural treasures, the human world is relatively stable now and will not get too bad.

However, the most crucial laws of the Great Dao will still decline under such a low point, thus beginning to suppress cultivators.

Of course, even so, it was far less severe than the Big Dipper in later generations, and it wouldn't even suppress the Dao-Slaying technique.

As this era, which is neither particularly good nor too bad, arrives, few promising talents aspire to attain enlightenment. It seems that the previous situation, where one person after another attained enlightenment without any gaps, has finally been broken.

However, the previous situation was abnormal in itself. Since the beginning of this era, most of those who had attained enlightenment were geniuses who had accumulated their talents from the mythical era. They had already accumulated enough knowledge and experience, which is why they were able to attain enlightenment one after another, passing the torch to each other.

Normally, enlightened beings don't appear in a continuous stream; it's quite common for no one to attain enlightenment for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years.

Of course, the reason for this is that those self-proclaimed top geniuses are also watching and seeing where the human universe is headed.

If things continue to deteriorate, they will have no choice but to lie low; if the environment remains stable, they can try to compete.

And so, the human universe fell into an eerie silence.

Gradually, time began to flow again, and the environment of the human universe continued to slowly decline. Although the rate of decline was decreasing, it was still deteriorating nonetheless.

Liang Yu, who was on Wuji Immortal Mountain, also sensed this process. Although he could have directly mobilized the laws and principles of the human universe through his connection with it, allowing the environment to return to its former state, he did not do so.

After all, the ups and downs of the human universe, while a natural phenomenon, can also be seen as a self-protective mechanism of the human universe to some extent.

Therefore, Liang Yu did not interfere with this change in the human universe.

However, Liang Yu estimates that this trough will probably not last long before it gradually recovers.

Therefore, he only sensed the details before resuming his seclusion. However, there was one person who did not wait for the revival of the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, but instead directly emerged into the world to attain enlightenment; that was the Heavenly Emperor's Son.

The saying goes that things don't happen more than three times, but the Emperor's son has failed to attain enlightenment three times, an achievement that can be considered the most in history.

After all, whether it's the Heavenly Emperor's son or anyone else, each time they fail to attain enlightenment, they will suffer severe injuries to their Dao, or even die and have their Dao extinguished.

However, the Heavenly Emperor's son was able to repair his injuries time and time again by relying on his powerful bloodline, making himself stronger and stronger, which shows the extraordinary nature of his bloodline.

Most bloodlines become largely useless once they reach the point of achieving a completely unconventional path like the Heavenly Emperor's son, but the Immortal Phoenix bloodline, comparable to the Chaos Body, is different.

Let alone achieving enlightenment through alternative means, even at the level of the Undying Emperor, this bloodline is still useful.

Therefore, although the Emperor's son failed three times, he was able to recover slowly without suffering any fundamental damage.

This can be considered a case of getting used to something the first time.

Because after each failed attempt to attain enlightenment, the Heavenly Emperor Prince would heal his wounds while continuing his secluded cultivation in order to perfect his own path, each of his rebirths would take thousands of years.

The accumulated time spent cultivating after these three enlightenments has resulted in over seven thousand years passing in the current life of the Heavenly Emperor.

If it is a normal, completely unconventional path to enlightenment, their lifespan is limited to a little over ten thousand years, and may even be less than ten thousand.

However, as the possessor of the immortal phoenix bloodline, it was already quite remarkable that he could live for ten thousand years in his first life before he had even reached complete perfection.

In this life, the Emperor Prince has made continuous progress through arduous cultivation after failing to attain enlightenment three times, reaching his limit. Therefore, his lifespan is estimated to be nearly 12,000 years.

This is actually based on his current state.

Generally speaking, starting from two-thirds of one's lifespan, one's condition begins to decline steadily, while the period before that is the peak.

The Heavenly Emperor's son had already lived for over seven thousand years, but his peak in this life had not yet passed, which meant that he might not have lived more than two-thirds of his lifespan. Therefore, twelve thousand years was indeed his theoretical lifespan.

But in any case, this is the last attempt the Emperor Prince will make in this lifetime. If he fails again, he will have no more chances in this life.

After all, even though he was already very familiar with the process, the injuries he sustained after failing to attain enlightenment still required a great deal of time, energy, and rare and precious materials to fully recover.

Once the Heavenly Emperor's son fully recovers, he will no longer be at his peak in this life, but will have declined significantly, making it even more hopeless for him to attain enlightenment.

In the past, only a very small number of people attained enlightenment at the end of their peak period of five or six thousand years old, and there was even less hope after that peak period.

However, the Immortal Emperor also left him the Nine-Turn Immortal Pill, so even if he fails in this life, he still has a chance. This is the advantage of having an emperor as a father.

(End of this chapter)