Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
After gathering up the Maternal Water Essences, Tang Jie left the passage. He was linked to Yiyi through Heart Consonance, so he was in no rush to catch up, lagging behind so that those fiends wouldn't notice anything odd.
After flying for a while, Tang Jie finally spotted a mountain giant.
The mountain giant punched at Tang Jie the moment it spotted him, and Tang Jie didn't try to dodge, aiming the formation diagram from before at it.
But this time, the light had no effect on the giant, which still thundered over and punched at Tang Jie.
Tang Jie didn't panic, tossing aside the formation diagram and using his finger to draw out a formation on the ground, the formation lines he had seen before all emerging in his mind.
Regardless of which parts were the useful ones, he drew it all, seeking out a formation line that would counter the giant. But that mountain giant was terribly annoying, its brainless attacks constantly interrupting his train of thought.
Once he got annoyed enough, Tang Jie took on giant form, grabbed the giant, and threw it to the ground, after which he stomped on it to restrain it under his foot. The mountain giant struggled, unable to break out, and Tang Jie began to draw in the air. Blood flowed out of his fingertip and was transfixed in the air by a special energy, and formation lines began to extend outward.
Finally, as a set of formation lines was drawn, the mountain giant under Tang Jie's foot trembled and shrank.
Tang Jie said in delight, "This is the one!"
With a wave of his hand, more formation lines appeared, instantly creating a formation.
The moment the formation was completed, the giant beneath Tang Jie suddenly stood up and let out a roar of reluctance and anger, and then it became still, turning back into a mountain.
It was like a sleeping giant that had suddenly awoken and just as abruptly gone back to sleep.
But this time, there would be no waking up.
A yellow light shot out of the giant's body and into the sky. With a laugh, Tang Jie flew up and swung his giant arm, grabbing the light and taking a look at it. As expected, it was an Essence of Stalwart Earth.
This Stalwart Earth Essence was also semi-intelligent and savage, shrieking at Tang Jie.
Seeing this, Tang Jie closed his hand, crushing the Stalwart Earth Essence and absorbing it. This primordial Earth energy transformed into slivers of Dao Will that increased Tang Jie's understanding of the Dao of Earth.
After doing this, Tang Jie returned to his original form and continued flying, no longer holding himself back.
Whenever he encountered a giant, he would send over a formation stamp, upon which those giants would be annihilated. Yellow lights flowed into Tang Jie's body, strengthening his understanding of the Dao of Earth. By the time he reached the jungle, he had obliterated every mountain giant in his path.
Tang Jie had been planning to visit other areas, as he had only gathered a portion of the Maternal Water and Stalwart Earth Essences, but he was too worried about the safety of Yiyi and his avatar to stay too far away.
In the past, his greed might really have made him wander off.
But after the passing of the Wu couple and his nearly one hundred years of wandering, Tang Jie had changed. Now, no matter what, he would never go for profit if it would put his loved ones in danger, so he was willing to give up on gathering more primordial energy in order to keep going.
Because the avatar and Yiyi had gone ahead, Tang Jie knew what was in the forest already.
Giant tree sprites.
Just like the shadow spirits, the tree sprites were only a shell. Deep down, they were actually Essences of Pliant Wood that had turned into monsters. Upon understanding this, Tang Jie naturally found a tree sprite to perform experiments on, finding which formation countered them and then using that formation to annihilate the tree sprites in the jungle, absorbing their primordial Wood energy.
As expected, once he left the jungle, he stood before a golden desert.
The desert was actually made of grains of metal, which were too heavy to be tossed around by the wind. But through Yiyi's and Thunder Blade's teams, Tang Jie had discovered that the metal grains would take the form of sand people and attack others like puppets.
Just like before, even when they were blasted apart, they could come back together, even stronger than before.
It seemed that the person who had laid down this formation had found the essences of the Five Elements and then used some special method to break them apart. They then used formations to seal them, thus creating a vast, subterranean Five Elements forbidden zone.
Yes, this was clearly a Five Elements forbidden zone. This arrangement wasn't actually meant to keep out enemies, or else it wouldn't have been so uniform.
Among the Twelve Great Daos, the Dao of Five Elements was the Dao of all things—their growth, composition, and transformation. If the Dao of Yin Yang represented the two sides of the world, the Dao of Five Elements represented the basic elements that formed the world.
All things in the world were under the Five Elements, as were all arts.
Thus, the meaning behind a Five Elements forbidden zone was to create a special environment. This special environment had many uses. It could become a hidden realm where one could raise natural treasures, or it could be sealed up and become the source for the elements needed to maintain a small world. It could also serve as the core of a formation that could keep one running for eons.
Whatever the objective, only a Titan of High Antiquity could have created this Five Elements forbidden zone, and Tang Jie couldn't but click his tongue in praise as he gazed at this golden desert.
A puppet of golden sand appeared at this moment, its body shining with a metallic luster as it lumbered over to Tang Jie and threw a heavy punch. As it punched, it stirred up a powerful wind.
Tang Jie had basically grasped the formation within the passage, so he quickly found the counter formation, handling the puppet in a single strike and getting a drop of Resolute Metal Essence in return.
But just when he was going to use this formation to deal with more puppets, he suddenly recalled the Weapon Mantra.
With this thought in mind, Tang Jie decided not to use the formation, instead punching at the next puppet to come up.
There was a shriek as the golden grain puppet was obliterated by Tang Jie's punch, all of those golden grains turning to dust and falling to the ground, leaving behind a particularly large golden grain floating in the air.
Tang Jie weighed the grain in his hand and reached out his senses, upon which he discovered that, as expected, the golden grain was utterly devoid of life.
In other words, the Essence of Resolute Metal in the puppet had been directly refined by the Weapon Mantra.
This explained why Tang Jie was able to get such a large golden grain for the Sovereign Blade despite not having targeted any art relic.
But a golden grain wasn't what Tang Jie wanted. What he currently lacked was comprehension of the Dao of Metal.
As he was thinking this, he suddenly felt a stream of energy flowing from the grain into his body.
Primordial Metal energy!
Tang Jie was shocked to find out the primordial Metal energy of the Resolute Metal Essence hadn't been obliterated by his punch and had come out all on its own for Tang Jie to absorb.
Not only that, the Dao Will brought by this primordial Metal energy was much greater and more distinct than what he had absorbed before, much to his pleasant surprise.
He quickly realized what had happened.
The Weapon Mantra was part of the Metal Dao, one of its branches.
The Martial Lord was a heaven-defying genius, breaking the rule that the Daos could not be transmitted and turning the Weapon Dao into an art, passing down the Dao through the Weapon Mantra. This allowed the Weapon Mantra to transcend arts and destroy all treasures, creating the legendary Sovereign Blade.
This was because the Weapon Mantra was no art, but a Dao.
This was also why the Parting Classic had its name, because it was an action that contravened the laws of the world and betrayed the Dao.
It was also why Tang Jie had never truly grasped the Weapon Mantra, or perhaps it was better called the Weapon Dao.
The true Weapon Dao was like when the Martial Lord had faced down the Myriad Court on his own, shattering all treasures with a single shout.
The true Weapon Dao was the Sovereign Blade in hand, sharper than anything else in the world.
This was the true Weapon Mantra!
But Tang Jie had only learned the art, never comprehending the Dao within, which meant that he was never able to truly use the power of the Weapon Mantra or the Sovereign Blade.
Pathetic and ignorant, he always felt that the Sovereign Blade was too weak, causing him to shatter any divine weapons he could get his hands on to make it stronger.
Only now did he understand that he had done something unnecessary.
He had been unable to use the Sovereign Blade with spell arts not because he hadn't refined enough soul weapons, but because he hadn't comprehended the Dao.
All that business with soul weapons had been a detour, and if he had kept it up, he would have wasted the Sovereign Blade by turning a Dao armament into a spell art weapon.
Yes, the Sovereign Blade was a Dao armament!
Moreover, it was a Great Dao armament, above all other weapons, which was why it was called the Sovereign Blade, a divine weapon that Xiao Biehan had once speculated could exist. It was just that Tang Jie had never comprehended the Weapon Dao, so he was never able to use its full power.
Tang Jie blushed in shame.
He had spent a hundred years cultivating and had even entered the most difficult Dao of Fate, but he had somehow failed to comprehend the Weapon Dao, which had even been turned into a spell art to make it easier to comprehend.
Perhaps this was what was meant when it was said that it was darkest under the light.
At least absorbing that bit of primordial Metal energy had finally enlightened Tang Jie to his mistake.
He stopped hesitating, charging forward with a howl.
This howl drew countless golden grain puppets toward him, many more than what he had encountered in the first three areas. But Tang Jie was fearless, laughing at those puppets, "My blade is my path! Open!"
He sent out a thunderous punch.
The blast of energy from the punch swept up the leading puppet, and it immediately blew apart, a single golden grain flying out from it.
This was the first time Tang Jie had unleashed the Weapon Mantra over a distance.
Although it was still rather short in range and could only target one thing, it was enough to make Tang Jie excited. After all these years, this was the first time the Weapon Mantra had been visibly improved.
Roaring, he punched over and over, obliterating one puppet after another, golden grains flying into the air.
Tang Jie threw out the Sovereign Blade, and all of the golden grains flew toward it.
The golden grains were the Sovereign Blade's, and the energy belonged to Tang Jie.
Slivers of primordial Metal energy flowed into Tang Jie's body, increasing his understanding of the Metal Dao and the Weapon Dao.
He constantly circulated the form of the Weapon Mantra in his mind, and Dao Runes gradually began to form and merge with his body. Tang Jie's understanding of the Dao of Metal had risen with incredible speed, skipping straight to the Dao entering level.
This was the Weapon Mantra!
This was the Parting Classic!
Beyond all reason, the Martial Lord had passed down the Weapon Dao as a spell art, and today, Tang Jie had finally inherited it.
Letting out a howl, Tang Jie grabbed the Sovereign Blade and swung it.
A golden wave of light swept forth.
It spread out like a shockwave, sweeping through the land. Any golden grain puppet it encountered, no matter where they were, even those buried deep underground, turned to dust, leaving behind golden grains that flew up into the air.
One strike had turned a little less than half of this metal desert into a death zone.
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