After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

The wind and snow howled, and the leaden sky pressed heavily overhead.

In the dry, cold cave, the firewood was reduced to a faint, dark red glow.

"Congratulations, boss..."

The sound was extremely soft.

But a thunderous roar resounded deep within Zhou Ran's sea of ​​consciousness.

Zhou Ran's gaze passed over Xiao Rou, who was kneeling on the ground kowtowing.

It landed on the broken flowerpot that Ah Ning was holding.

In the pot, the palm-sized white umbrella mushroom stood quietly.

Gone is that cheeky, mischievous air of the past.

The gold patterns on the umbrella canopy are extremely understated.

It was deathly silent, unremarkable, yet it held the line.

Zhou Ran didn't say anything.

His eyes were slightly narrowed, and deep within his pupils, purple and gold intertwined and flowed.

The demonic eye, now in its initial stage of forming the Golden Core of the Mind, pierced the mushroom without reservation.

One floor. Two floors. Three floors.

The gaze penetrates the surface of grass and trees, pierces through the faint signs of life, and reaches the underlying laws.

Beneath the seemingly ordinary umbrella, layers of scenes spanning a thousand years overlap.

Torrential rain, scorching sun, thunder, and rotting corpses.

Countless days and nights of loneliness and desolation were compressed into a tiny body of consciousness.

They have finally discovered the true "Tao".

The white umbrella-shaped canopy in the flowerpot swayed slightly.

Without facial features, that mellow and righteous Sanskrit chant echoed in Zhou Ran's mind once more:

"Boss, I've seen the world."

Zhou Ran's taut jawline gradually relaxed.

A wild smile curled at the corners of his mouth.

Half a year.

That cup of tea from the monk not only enabled him to form the unique Golden Elixir of the Mind, a treasure found nowhere else in the world.

It also conveniently cleansed the dust off this mushroom that had been making noise for thousands of years.

This trump card not only wasn't wasted, but instead became the "Buddha's Eye" that could see through all illusions.

"You've seen the world?"

Zhou Ran stepped forward and flicked Bai Xuan's umbrella canopy with his fingertip, producing a muffled sound.

"Seeing the heavens and earth is useless."

"From now on, you'll have to watch over all these gods and Buddhas for me, and see how they die."

Bai Xuan did not respond. He lowered the umbrella slightly and entered a meditative state.

Zhou Ran withdrew his hand.

He ignored Ah Ning, who was shivering from the cold, and also looked at Xiao Rou, who was lying on the ground.

He turned around and sat down cross-legged on the bluestone with an air of authority.

The Golden Elixir of the Mind has been completed, and the crisis of the physical body has been resolved.

But there's still one issue that hasn't been settled.

Close your eyes.

The divine consciousness transformed into a jet-black blade, piercing straight into the deepest part of the sea of ​​consciousness.

There floated a black bead tightly bound by countless chains.

The original core left behind by the old demon Ye Futian before his death.

"Let me see what secrets Master is hiding."

The blade of divine sense slashed down with a deafening roar!

Countless fine cracks suddenly appeared on the surface of the black bead.

Extremely ancient, desolate fragments of memory, imbued with an aura of destruction, flooded into Zhou Ran's sea of ​​consciousness.

The Nine Netherworld Shattering Heaven Technique.

The scriptures of top-tier demonic arts flashed in his mind.

But this is only the surface.

What followed was a worldview framework so grand it was suffocating.

Demon world.

Nine Heavens.

In the fragmented memories of the night sky.

The once invincible Demon Emperor stood with countless withered bones beneath his feet and a crimson blood moon above his head.

He single-handedly ruled over the six lower heavens of the demon realm, with all demons submitting to him, displaying boundless arrogance.

The scene suddenly changes.

The color of memory turns into a deathly gray.

Ye Futian attempted to encroach upon the edge of the Void Realm.

He led a massive demon army to break through the dimensional barrier, preparing to pollute the desolate "Graveyard of the Gods".

Then, he encountered a finger.

Fair-skinned, long, and with even the edges of the nails perfectly trimmed.

The memory unfolds at this moment in extreme slow motion.

Above the Milky Way, stood a blurry figure with silver hair.

There was no earth-shattering magical clash.

There was no deafening collision of laws.

The beautiful figure stood in the void, gently raised her hand, and pressed down a finger across billions of miles of dimensional distance.

boom.

Ye Futian's towering demonic body, which he was so proud of, along with his invincible army of millions of demons behind him.

Under that single finger, it instantly exploded into a cloud of blood and foam.

The dimensional barriers are healed.

Everything returned to deathly silence.

Only that aloof and solitary figure remained deeply imprinted in the deepest part of the black pearl, becoming a nightmare that Ye Futian dared not touch even in his death.

Zhou Ran suddenly opened his eyes.

The memory abruptly ended, and the black bead shattered completely.

"I see."

"No wonder, that old man was so scared of this crazy woman that he almost wet his pants."

There was no fear in Zhou Ran's eyes.

He licked his back teeth, letting out a low, cold laugh.

"I thought he was some kind of great and ambitious demon emperor of all time."

"After all that, he turned out to be a loser who couldn't even catch one of their fingers and was instantly defeated."

The Moon Emperor, Ji Yue.

Zhou Ran silently recited the name in her heart.

The indifferent look in his eyes when he glimpsed the void, coupled with the invincible finger in his memory.

It did not make him back down in the slightest.

Instead, it transformed into the fiercest fire, fiercely drenching my heart.

The incurable desire for conquest deep within him was completely ignited.

"Sooner or later, I'll drag you down from your high and mighty position and make you sing 'Conquer' while pinning you to the ground."

Inside the dantian, the pitch-black Golden Core of the Mind began to spin wildly!

An extremely strong pulling force erupted from within the Golden Core, swallowing the shattered black bead energy in the Sea of ​​Consciousness in one gulp.

That belongs to the Demon Emperor's purest primordial demonic essence!

boom!

A massive amount of energy exploded within his body.

The eight extraordinary meridians were instantly expanded by the black and gold light.

This power is too pure.

The accumulated wisdom of the night sky over countless years has all been transformed into nourishment.

The barriers at the peak of foundation building are practically useless.

Click!

Breakthrough in realm.

Early stage of Golden Core!

Energy is still flowing back in frantically.

The meridians emitted a mournful cry, overwhelmed by the burden.

Zhou Ran didn't even flinch, forcefully suppressing the violent spiritual power in his dantian using the powerful physique of the Primordial Overlord Body.

Peak of the first level of Golden Core!

Peak of the second level of Golden Core!

Peak of the early stage of Golden Core!

His cultivation level soared until he hit the threshold of the mid-stage Golden Core realm, at which point it suddenly came to a halt.

"Break it!"

Zhou Ran's eyes widened, and he slammed his fist heavily onto the bluestone.

boom!

Visible black and gold waves of energy surged wildly in all directions from him.

His cultivation level has steadily remained at the mid-stage of the Golden Core realm!

A terrifying pressure instantly filled the entire cave.

The solid stone wall creaked and cracked, and countless spiderweb-like cracks spread out, with gravel tumbling down.

Ah Ning was so overwhelmed by the aura that she collapsed to the ground.

Her ribcage creaked as she gasped for breath, but all she felt was being sucked out. Her eyes were filled with horror.

This is a monster!

Xiao Rou, however, showed no fear.

Instead, it's like a mad dog that's smelled blood.

Despite the immense pressure that could crush an ordinary person, she used all four limbs to frantically crawl across the rubble.

She was completely unaware that her knees and palms were bleeding.

I crawled all the way to Zhou Ran's feet and looked at the footprints he left in the dust.

Xiao Rou laughed in a sickly manner.

He lowered his head, almost reverently pressing his face against the spot where Zhou Ran had walked.

"The scent of my master..."

She murmured obsessively, her whole body trembling.

Zhou Ran glanced at her with her eyes lowered.

There was no emotional fluctuation.

With a wave of his hand, the black and gold light receded, and the overwhelming pressure dissipated instantly.

"Pack your things."

Zhou Ran strode out of the cave, his cold voice echoing in the wind and snow.

"Back to Jiangcheng."