Stealing The Heavens
chapter-411

There was an ocean located somewhere on Green Cliff Planet. The vast expanse of water measured about thirty thousand miles in length, and slightly over fourteen thousand miles in width. It was the greatest ocean on the planet.

As Yuan Hua Sect had its base built on Green Cliff Mountain, only a dozen small islands on this ocean were developed. They were used as the nurseries for spirit herbs that required a copious amount of water vapor to grow properly. Besides that, using magic spells, many breeding farms were created in the shallow water zones near these islands, where numerous oysters were bred. Some of them had lived for several thousands of years, producing pearls that were excellent materials for the crafting of various magical treasures.

There were also several dozen energy stone veins with rich deposit hiding in the middle of underwater valleys at the depth of the ocean. However, these energy stone veins served as the last strategic reserves for Yuan Hua Sect. Unless there were no other solutions, they would never be harvested. Every couple of years, Immortals of Yuan Hua Sect would come here to inspect the situation. Three years ago, Daoist Chi had personally carried out an inspection, and he found that after being nourished by natural energy for several hundreds of Periods, supreme-grade energy stones were being produced by them. The overall condition was indeed promising.

Due to lack of development, the natural environment here was well-preserved, especially for a cluster of islands located at the southeast corner of the ocean. It was a cluster of several thousand islands in various sizes, and all of them had excellent scenery, with rich natural energy and spring all year round, making them an excellent choice for constructing cave abodes.

A sword beam streaked across the sky. Wu Qi was sitting lazily on top of it as he ran his eyes from island to island. He was searching for an island with the best scenery and richest natural energy, where he would construct a cave abode that belonged to him and Princess Zhang Le, as well as Lord Xiansheng and Catfish-flood-dragon.

Not far away from him, a colorful cloud was seen flying up and down, hopping between islands like a flea. It was Princess Zhang Le, who was having fun visiting various islands together with Peppermint and Angelica. She too shouldered the task of searching for a suitable island. But, after taking a brief tour with Peppermint and Angelica, she was immediately attracted by the unusual things that looked completely different from those on the main continent. As a result, she simply flew here and there excitedly, forgetting the task she was supposed to carry out.

The girls' joyful laughter could be heard from off in the distance. Wu Qi suddenly realized that Princess Zhang Le was, after all, a teenage girl who was yet to be familiar with the ways of the world. Even though she had inherited the bloodline of ancient God from her nameless ancestor, she still had the heart of a teenage girl!

A tragic beast cry rang out from a random direction. A whale, who had a horn growing on its head and had assumed quite a bit of the appearance of a flood dragon, leaped out of the water desperately, followed immediately by three huge, bloody mouths that clamped down abruptly and forcefully, producing a loud cracking from the collision of their sharp teeth, as they nearly gobbled up half of the whale's body.

The whale dove back into the water and fled deeper into the ocean, while Catfish-flood-dragon, Gold Horn, and Silver Horn pursued closely behind. They were showing a look that they would never give up until they swallowed the whale completely.

Although the trio had just followed Wu Qi here for slightly over a year, they had already obtained a tremendous benefit. Especially after devouring half of Reverend Yun's fleshly body, the enormous immortal energy and blood essence had made their overall strength skyrocket. Catfish-flood-dragon managed to smoothly break through the Nascent Divinity realm, while the extra immortal energy and blood essence allowed her to expand her catfish body up to five thousand feet in length, making her one massive monster by now.

While the three greedy fellows were hunting for sentient creatures who had lived for long in the depths of the ocean, Lord Xiansheng was hovering above the ocean several hundreds of mile away. With the Longyuan River Dragon King's seal held in his hand, he was exercising a technique of summoning demons, a technique unique to the members of the Dragon King clan, trying to call upon all the aquatic demons that lived in this part of the ocean.

As Green Cliff Planet was the very foundation of Yuan Hua Sect, its disciples would carry out a bloody purge every one hundred years, especially targeting the aquatic demons who lived in this ocean, eliminating any aquatic demons that could potentially pose a threat to the Yuan Hua Sect. Hence, with great efforts, Lord Xiansheng only managed to gather slightly over one hundred underlings, who mostly were at the realm of Qi-Gathering, barely having a primitive intelligence, and not possessing any divine ability or magical power.

In Wu Qi's eyes, these underlings were no different than seafood, and could be better cooked into a pot of good dish. If he hoped that they would provide him some help, he would have to wait for several hundreds of years.

Nevertheless, as Lord Xiansheng used to be a demon king who was escorted by many of his underlings on the Myriad Immortals Planet, after knowing that Wu Qi wanted to build an immortal abode in this vast expanse of water, his itchiness of showing off the might of a demon king overtook him. It drove him to summon some underlings that could serve him. Even if these little demons could only be the guards of honor, they could at least make him look great!

Wu Qi yawned lazily as he remained sitting on the sword beam, having his divine will following closely behind Princess Zhang Le and the others.

Days ago, after murdering Daoist White Sparrow and using the thunder ball of Dark Water to nearly collapse Qing Cang Peak, Wu Qi managed to leave a hint for Patriarch Yuan Hua that there was a huge flaw in Yuan Hua Sect's defensive system. Then, following Wu Qi's suggestion, Yuan Hua Sect dispatched several hundred elite Nascent Soul and Nascent Divinity disciples to all parts of Green Cliff Planet, giving them the mission of constructing immortal abodes as well as building up an early warning system. With that being done, any outsiders who sneaked into the planet would immediately trigger an alarm in Green Cliff Mountain.

And Wu Qi volunteered himself for the mission, choosing this great ocean so that he could construct the immortal abode that solely belonged to him and Princess Zhang Le. As a matter of fact, he did all this with the intention of having an isolated cave abode that was far away from Green Cliff Mountain. After all, he owned too many precious treasures that could hardly be revealed to the public. If not because of this, he could have just left straight away after murdering Daoist White Sparrow, without throwing the thunder ball towards Qing Cang Peak.

Now, everything had worked out as per his plan!

After setting up an immortal abode on Green Cliff Planet as the root, and using Yuan Hua Sect as his foundation, he could then begin to go full force in expanding his overall strength and power! Wu Qi nodded thoughtfully as he gave a look at the group of noisy aquatic underlings clustered around Lord Xiansheng. He remembered that there was a formation called 'Demon Spirit Star Gathering Formation' in the Scroll of Stealing, which could gather the essence of stars and moon to stimulate the growth of fiendish demons. Perhaps, he could construct this formation here and produce a batch of aquatic demons.

Even as he was pondering, his divine will swept across a small island shaped like a screen and stood over five thousand feet from the surface of the ocean. The island stretched about thirty miles from east to west, and measured less than two miles from north to south. There was a small hill shaped like a screen erected right at the center of the island, which occupied almost seventy percent of the island's landscape. Both the north and south side of the hill was made of steep rock walls. The rocks looked fine and smooth, as if they were jades, while rich natural energies were seeping out of the slits between rocks. There was a layer of moss as thick as a human palm attached to the rocks, and several thousand trees were seen loosely growing between boulders. They all decorated the small hill, making it look like a finely created bonsai.

The small island was enclosed in the middle of thirty-six coral reefs, which were arranged in a ring-shaped within one hundred miles from the island. With just a slight adjustment to their positions, a Heavenly Dipper Kill Formation could be easily set up. It was a great formation which was listed as immortal-grade in the Scroll of Stealing. Furthermore, the fire and water were blending right beneath the island, as an underground volcano happened to be suppressed by an underwater water element energy vein. With the opposing nature of water and fire elements, an unlimited life force was produced right below the island.

In addition to that, there were plenty of fishes around the island, and its beach was densely blanketed by countless oysters and clams, all of which served as an evidence that the island was copious with life force. Wu Qi exercised his Mystic Eyes of Universe and saw that the volcano beneath the island was about tens of miles in circumference, and contained a very strong heat, while the water element energy vein that suppressed the volcano actually stretched several tens of thousands of miles away, with its end going straight into Green Cliff Mountain's main peak.

A bright gleam shone from Wu Qi's eyes, as he realized that this energy vein was one of the main energy veins for this great ocean. With delight, he made up his mind. If not because he had a different divine will compared to ordinary Immortals, which was an innate divine will that could easily merge with the surroundings and discover traces that were hardly discoverable, he would have missed this underground energy vein, as it was veiled by the aura emanated from the volcano.

Presumably, it was because of this volcano that those cultivators from Yuan Hua Sect failed to discover the existence of this main energy vein.

Wearing a complacent smile on his face, Wu Qi flew towards the island and took a few rounds around the peak. What he found had made him even happier. There were a total of nine interconnected caves on this screen-shaped peak, all of which could access a huge cavern hiding deep underground, measuring about one mile in circumference.

Through his Mystic Eyes of Universe, Wu Qi saw glowing pale-purple mist being absorbed and sprayed out of the caves, like a heart of a human pumping blood. They were sending forth an endless amount of life force. Wu Qi's heart raced instantly. Without the slightest hesitation, and with all his effort, he cast numerous primordial runes and sprinkled them all over the island. One after another, dazzling primordial runes were formed using his energy, falling down amidst a deep, muffled incantation that sounded very ancient and bleak. Very quickly, the small island was completely concealed.

Wu Qi was both shocked and surprised that a spirit cave such as this had escaped from being discovered by the Yuan Hua Sect. What he found was the unique characteristic of a natural lower-grade immortal abode. It was named the 'Nine Orifices Cave'. Judging by the pattern of how the purple energies were being absorbed and sprayed, in just several tens of thousands of years from now, the first thread of immortal energy would have been produced in the underground cave!

It was immortal energy, not those ordinary natural energies!

But at the same time, he could understand the reason behind it. When the immortal energy was forming, only the best essence found in natural energy would be condensed together, while the rest of the impurities would transform into the glowing purple mist and disposed. For ordinary Immortals, these purple mists were complete rubbish. But little did they know that right below this island, an immortal abode was in the middle of making, a cave which even those higher grade Immortals would fight fiercely against each other for!

After all, Yuan Hua Sect was still very young, so they had never seen a real immortal abode produced by nature!

Like the cat that ate the canary, Wu Qi concealed the entire island before flying into the Nine Orifices Cave, burying the Energy-Condensing and Immortal-Ascension Ball into the ground, which he found in Cang Ao Immortal Abode. As the ball could gather natural energies and transform them into immortal energies, it would take just a few years before this immortal abode became a true abode for Immortals!

After that, Wu Qi produced a great variety of materials he brought from the Myriad Immortals Planet and began to set up the immortal abode that solely belonged to him.

Starting from the underground cave, one formation disc after another, which he had already crafted back on Myriad Immortals Planet, was placed on the ground and assembled. Numerous formation flags, suppression items, countless energy stones, and materials were placed and mounted into the formations. Very carefully and by exerting the greatest strength he could, Wu Qi constructed a great formation consisting of a total of thirty-six layers of smaller formations in this immortal abode.

With its core located in the underground cave, the formation stretched into the surrounding ocean floor, then from the bottom of the ocean up to the surface of the water, and covering the entire sky above the island. Wu Qi had devoted his heart and soul into the modification of the small island, taking care of every single flower, grass, sand, and rock.

Gradually, the small island became fuzzy, including all thirty-six coral reefs around it, then they became clear to the eyes again, but soon were shrouded by innumerable clouds and mists, before becoming visible as before. The process repeated several dozens of times, and finally everything returned to normal.

If someone had visited the small island in the past, he would be surprised to find that the positions of the island, as well as the surrounding coral reefs, had changed slightly. It was as if in this part of space, the light, time, and space were slightly twisted. But, if he gave everything a careful second look, he would find that everything looked just as they used to, and the small island was perfectly normal.

Wu Qi came to an east-facing cave entrance on top of a cliff wall, then mounted a jade plaque engraved with four huge characters into the rock wall.

'Wu Xuan Immortal Abode'. This was the first footprint Wu Qi imprinted in this world of Immortal cultivators.

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[1] Wu Xuan Immortal Abode - The combination of 'Wu' Qi and Zi 'Xuan'.