Martial Arts Crossover: The Sweeping Monk of Wudang? That's our patriarch!

Lin Daochen's heart tightened—the swirling golden light was dazzling, with tiny lightning crackling around its edges, exuding a fierce aura that should not be underestimated.

A figure was swirling in the center of the vortex, its features indistinct and difficult to discern. While Lin Daochen was still in shock, the person had already broken through the golden flow and stood steadily in front of him, with a cold and sharp brow and a gaze as sharp as a blade.

"Oh ho, another little guy about to reach the threshold of the Fusion Realm? These young people are really getting better and better."

Lin Daochen looked up in surprise. Although he didn't know what was going on, he instinctively realized that this person was the guardian of this secret realm.

He was slightly shaken: the private domain that Senior Jiang Ziya had personally opened up actually had a guardian hidden there? But he had never heard them mention it before.

"Brother, are you the guardian of this secret realm? We've never met before."

The man looked young, and his name was unknown, but Lin Daochen still bowed and greeted him.

Unexpectedly, the other party curled their lips and sneered:

"Shut up! Didn't your teachers teach you? When you see a senior, show respect before you speak!"

His tone was full of sarcasm. Lin Daochen was stunned for a moment—a senior? What a joke! If he really was his senior, why didn't Jiang Ziya and the others mention him at all? He frowned, too lazy to argue.

"Alright, then I'll say hello—good morning, senior."

He gave a perfunctory clasped greeting, but before he could finish speaking, the man's expression relaxed, and he slowly lifted his eyes to examine him:

"That's more like it. But... I'd like to ask, how did you end up in this godforsaken place?"

"All I could see was chaotic light. Although it was indeed the light of the Great Dao that had dissipated, it was too sparse, too ethereal, and too fleeting, and it couldn't gather any strength at all."

"When I first came here, I was almost driven to the brink of madness by these 'soft knives'."

"Does Senior mean... that the Chaos Light, though seemingly gentle, is actually scattered and rootless, making it impossible to refine?" Lin Daochen's eyes flashed, and he immediately grasped the crux of the matter.

The man was straightforward and made no attempt to conceal anything.

"That's right! This place is a graveyard for cultivation. I've already tried it—the light of the Great Dao and the light of chaos are inherently incompatible; forcing them together will only lead to trouble."

Lin Daochen remained silent for a moment. Strange, he had just said that the light of chaos was transformed from the light of the Great Dao, so how could he assert that the two were incompatible? He couldn't figure it out no matter how much he thought about it, so he simply gave up and looked up to ask again.

"Senior, allow me to ask another question—since the Chaos Light was originally born from the disintegration of the Great Dao Light, and is ultimately still a 'child' of the Great Dao Light, why can't it return to its origin? What's even stranger is that it is of no help to cultivation at all? This really puzzles me."

"Um."

Lin Daochen laughed loudly.

"What's there to worry about? You can rest assured: even if you cultivate here for ten years, your cultivation level won't change an inch. That's an ironclad rule."

The man lifted his eyelids, too lazy to pay any more attention to Lin Daochen, as if he were just a blade of grass by the roadside, not even worth a second glance. He then let out a long yawn, tilted his neck and body, and lay down on the ground, assuming a posture ready to fall into a deep sleep.

Lin Daochen was stunned on the spot—just a moment ago he was calling him "junior" and vowing to give him guidance, and now he was sprawled out on the roadside, fast asleep? The contrast was too abrupt.

"Senior, please wait before entering my dream! I have something important I'd like to ask you!"

The man grinned, his laughter so hearty it was almost perfunctory.

"Want some guidance? There's no need for that! Now that you've stepped into this secret realm, you're destined not to leave. How about this, you take a break first, and I'll explain it to you in detail when I have some free time. It won't be too late."

Lin Daochen's mind went blank, as if it had been stuffed into a tangled mess.

Good heavens, there are such ridiculously capricious seniors in the world! Running into him is truly the worst luck Lin Daochen has ever had.

"Senior, I have come here for cultivation. If you would be so kind as to offer some guidance, I would be eternally grateful. Your presence in this secret realm must not be accidental—we can't have come all this way for nothing, not even to the slightest use, can we?"

Seeing Lin Daochen staring at him silently with his eyes drooping, a hint of embarrassment flashed across the man's face. He coughed twice, his Adam's apple bobbing, and forced out a dry laugh.

"Hehe...hehehe...what you say makes some sense. But right now, I'm really too busy to get away. Here, take this scroll and study it yourself."

Before he finished speaking, he had already turned over, facing inwards and closing his eyes, even his breathing sounded very convincing.

Lin Daochen opened his mouth, but ultimately didn't speak again. He silently raised his hand and made a grasping motion in mid-air—the scroll was indeed pulled out by an invisible force and landed steadily in his palm.

As my fingertips lightly caressed the surface of the reel, a cool sensation permeated my skin, as if a quiet yet sharp aura lay dormant within.

But that aura was like viewing flowers through mist, elusive and hard to grasp. Lin Daochen simply stopped trying to force it. With a flick of his wrist, a deep vortex suddenly tore open in the void, and a gale swept up, engulfing him completely!

When he came to his senses, he found himself standing in a blinding expanse of silvery white, with two figures standing beside him, arguing heatedly in hushed tones:

"It's all your fault! If you hadn't led him the wrong way, how could he have run into his senior brother? Sigh, with that clown around, this mission is probably doomed!"

"What can I do? My senior brother has been entrenched here for a thousand years. I can run away one day, but I can't hide the next!"

The two sighed in unison, and before they could finish speaking, Lin Daochen, who was standing very close to them, heard them clearly.

Senior brother? — Could it be that the lazy and slovenly fellow from earlier was actually Jiang Ziya and Shen Gongbao's senior brother?

Lin Daochen's heart skipped a beat. He subconsciously looked up at the empty space above, then quickly turned to stare at the two people beside him. Jiang Ziya lowered his eyes and remained silent, while Shen Gongbao touched his nose and chuckled dryly, his expression full of undisguised guilt.

Lin Daochen bluntly stated, "Seniors, things have come to this point, why hide it any longer? If there are any unspeakable difficulties, it's better to speak frankly—it's better for us to figure it out together than to keep it to ourselves."

Jiang Ziya and Shen Gongbao exchanged a glance, then nodded with wry smiles. Now that things had come to this, how could they possibly refuse? They had no choice but to accept it.

Time slipped by unnoticed as the three traversed this dazzling, boundless, pure white world. Finally, Jiang Ziya and Shen Gongbao led Lin Daochen to a stop in front of a cave entrance.

All around was a vast expanse of dazzling snow. Five steps away, everything vanished into nothingness, even the outlines of the mountains and rocks blurred into mist. Lin Daochen followed closely, his gaze sweeping over every inch of the ground and every glimmer of light, but he found not a single clue.

Shen Gongbao and Jiang Ziya kept muttering to each other, one complaining and the other arguing back. Lin Daochen, standing in the middle, felt the veins on his forehead throbbing.

What else can be done now that things have come to this?

"Senior brother, it's not that I'm complaining—this secret realm really needs a thorough cleaning. Although we were the ones who carved out the boundary and built it brick by brick back then, what do we do now? I'm the one who's cleaning up, reinforcing, and replenishing the spiritual veins inside and out, while you've been standing by and doing nothing, which has almost become the norm. Is that acceptable?"

"Junior brother, you've gone astray." Jiang Ziya lightly tapped the scroll of the Investiture of the Gods with his fingertips, causing the golden patterns to ripple slightly. "I carry on my shoulders the registers of the Three Realms and the records of all spirits. Which of these matters isn't an urgent matter that's pressing down on our very eyebrows? Asking you to tighten a key to an array or patch a gap in the spiritual energy would seem like a huge injustice—but asking me to squat in this tiny secret realm every day, watching the eye of the storm and managing the flow of energy? The Three Realms would probably descend into chaos."

Jiang Ziya held the Investiture of the Gods in his hands, and his rule was so vast that it spanned the three realms of Heaven, the Underworld, and the Human World. This secret realm was merely a small trial world that he and Shen Gongbao had painstakingly carved out in their early years, using the embers of chaos as a guide and the ancient star orbits as a framework.

But as time went by, affairs came flooding in, and this little world gradually became like an old pottery jar left in a corner—neither broken nor wiped clean, left to gather dust.

But this dusty place was a life-saving spring for Lin Daochen.

Creating a world is like forging a sword; the slightest carelessness will result in the tearing of the boundary walls, the backflow of spiritual energy, and the collapse of the universe. To prevent this world from disintegrating, the two of them did not hesitate to draw upon the power of the primordial chaos to forcibly solidify the boundary core—but how violent is the power of chaos? Once disturbed, at best the wind and rain within the world will become disordered, and at worst the spatial folds will collapse, leaving no time to even react.

Others found it mysterious and difficult to understand, but they had long been accustomed to it. Lin Daochen's mind became clearer: these variables were not uncontrollable, they just did not require his intervention.

Since he sees through things, he will never allow things like debris flying and injuring bystanders when the boundary wall collapses.

This time, however, they were truly forced to sigh.

Lin Daochen's cultivation was so powerful that he actually "awakened" this secret realm that had been dormant for thousands of years. The power of chaos should have been dormant like stagnant water, but the moment he stepped in, the entire realm trembled, boiled, and awakened!

Jiang Ziya and Shen Gongbao turned around and saw Lin Daochen following closely behind. They paused, their hearts tightening.

Sigh, this fool... he's managed to withstand the scourge of chaos and come this far? Normally, this force should have crushed an ordinary cultivator into dust long ago, how could he have made it this far? Not to mention, his spiritual energy has not only not withered, but has become brighter and hotter as he goes!

The two exchanged a glance and hurried forward, their voices softening slightly: "Don't panic. Deep within the secret realm lies a 'Heart-Nourishing Cave' that we've secretly set up. Go in and rest for a bit, and we'll replenish your depleted vital energy and spiritual essence doubled—your cultivation level must have dropped quite a bit after those waves of chaotic cleansing, right?"

Lin Daochen blinked, looking completely bewildered: "Fall? It didn't fall."

The two were taken aback.

He raised his hand and clenched it, a warm, spiritual light rising from his palm, flowing like living water: "Not only did I not fall, but my consciousness is clearer than before, my thoughts are turning faster, and I can even see the veins of fallen leaves three miles away clearly... What? Something's not right?"

"Something's not right!" Shen Gongbao blurted out, his mustache bristling. "The power of chaos specifically erodes spiritual roots, devours dharma forms, and transforms true essence! It absorbs your cultivation, and should spit out ashes—but you've gone and chewed it up like a tonic?"

Jiang Ziya couldn't hold back any longer. He stared at Lin Daochen again and again, his eyes wide as if he had seen a living Qilin.

Lin Daochen scratched his head, a little embarrassed: "I'm not bragging... I really didn't feel weak, on the contrary, I felt full of energy."

"Or..." He paused, then suddenly tapped his toes, his body soaring into the air, his robes fluttering, and he shot straight into the sky—in the blink of an eye, he was suspended a thousand meters in the air, with the sea of ​​clouds surging beneath his feet and thunderclouds gathering above his head!

In an instant, purple lightning, like a dragon, cleaved the sky. But as soon as the violent thunderbolts approached, they strangely turned, coiled, and became tamed, wrapping around him in circles, like silver scales submitting to his will!

Jiang Ziya's mouth was agape, and Shen Gongbao's eyes were wide open; the two of them froze on the spot.

Condensing a realm out of thin air? Silently controlling lightning? This kid... is he really a human cultivator?

"You brat!" Shen Gongbao finally roared, both angry and amused. "Did you start practicing martial arts from the womb? This talent, was it just forced into your mouth by God?!"

Upon hearing the two speak, Lin Daochen laughed heartily, his laughter both cheerful and frank. What profound schemes did he possess? It was merely the result of daily meditation and constant concentration, a skill honed step by step. As for his current earth-shattering progress, in the end, it was all thanks to the guidance and support of these two seniors before him—without their guidance and bridging, how could he have stepped into such a realm of destiny?