Shrouding the Heavens

At the same time, he was actively making preparations to enter the purple mountain. He had to learn everything about it.

“If you’re asking this much, it should be that you’re thinking of entering the purple mountain right?” Ye Fan had been constantly asking questions about the purple mountain over these few days, so Fifth Grandpa Zhang noticed and frowned. “Don’t take such risks, otherwise you’ll just lose your life.”

“Don’t you want to bring the Heavenly Source Book back?” Ye Fan smiled.

“My ancestor lost it, and I naturally don’t want for that legacy to be cut off. But what can I do? That person from a thousand years ago didn’t listen to the ancestor, and used it to enter the purple mountain, never returning. It’s impossible to get it back.”

According to what he said, the Heavenly Source Book was a spiritual treasure that could be used as a weapon.

“If you tell me what happened back then clearly, maybe I can bring the Heavenly Source Book back.”

Fifth Grandpa Zhang shook his head. “You’ve done such great favors for our village. I don’t want to send you to your death.”

“I have my own means. Don’t be worried.”

But no matter what he said, Fifth Grandpa Zhang still remained oppose to this risk.

------

Five days later, Ye Fan went to an ancient mine around fifty kilometers away from the stone village. This was the place Bandit Chen Da had found the ancient jade.

That ancient jade definitely had a relation to the purple mountain, so he naturally had to explore that mine a bit.

This was a desolate area with no signs of people. The ancient mine was filled with a dense, eerie aura. It had been abandoned for who knew how many years, and a kind of moldy smell came from it.

It was a huge mining shaft, like an enormous pit. It was completely pitch-black underground and so deep that the bottom could not be seen. Even just standing around could cause someone to shiver.

“I won’t disturb any evil spirits, will I?”

The bottom of the mining shaft was extremely quiet, without the slightest noise. Ye Fan had to descend for over a thousand meters before reaching the bottom. He couldn’t help but be amazed at how enormous this mining vein was. Such a thing was extremely rare, and back in the day they must have extracted a huge amount of Sources.

Unfortunately, everything was covered in dust before even the Ancient Desolation, so there was no hope for any precious Sources being left behind.

Crack.

His feet stepped over a withered skeleton. This was someone who had died within the past hundred years here, and not a corpse left from the ancient past.

The huge ancient mine was filled with pick and hatchet marks. These were all left by previous people, telling of the amount of blood and tears from those Source miners back in the day.

“Who left the ancient jade here? They definitely didn’t have ordinary statuses. It’s impossible for it to have just appeared here out of nowhere.”

Ye Fan quickly reached where they had found the ancient jade, but there was nothing special about that place. He searched the area for two hours before continuing forward, exploring deeper into the mine.

He walked for over five thousand meters, but still didn’t reach the end. This huge mine seemed as if it had come from the underworld, it was so pitch-black and silent.

After walking another three thousand meters, Ye Fan couldn’t help gasping at how endless it was. He had walked eight thousand meters in this ancient mine, and still hadn’t reached the end. What sort of concept was this?

Ordinary mines were only a couple hundred meters in size. This mining shaft was huge to an absolutely exaggerated level. There was no way this was a single Source vein. It had to be that several mining shafts had ended up meeting each other.

However, why was there only one exit, then?

“If this is actually a single huge Source vein, it might be a legendary dragon vein…” Ye Fan was very startled. This would mean that this place had very well likely held a couple Divine Sources.

It was very obvious that quite a few people had come here since the Ancient Desolation, as they left behind many marks.

---

After walking nearly ten thousand meters, Ye Fan finally reached the end. He heard the gushing of water.

There was no path forward anymore. There was only a deep cave shaft that went straight down. The sound of water was coming from inside it.

Ye Fan looked down and felt that the underground river below was extremely sinister. It gave him the feeling of blunt blades cutting through flesh, an exceptionally painful sensation.

“How strange…”

He thought about it for a moment before deciding to jump into the water and get carried along by the underwater river.

The river was bone-chillingly cold. Even with divine energy protecting his body, he still felt the chill. After flowing around ten kilometers, the pick and hatchet marks that signified mining gradually stopped appearing.

Ye Fan ground his teeth and stubbornly continued forward. He noticed an extremely strange anomaly. The river only continued in one single direction, flowing completely straight. Even after another twenty kilometers it was still like this.

In the end, he travelled over thirty kilometers in the water before finally stopping.

He stopped because just at this moment, he felt a huge sense of danger from a huge black funnel that had appeared ahead. That underground river was constantly being sucked into it like it would never be full.

He didn’t know why, but at this point his spirit had started to shiver. That huge black funnel seemed as if it could swallow even his consciousness, causing him to feel his blood run cold.

“Since this place is so dangerous, there’s no point to me going further. I only came here due to the ancient jade. My main purpose is just to enter the purple mountain.”

Not wanting to go through that huge black hole, he followed back along the river until he finally arrived back out inside the ancient mine.

But at that moment, Ye Fan suddenly thought of something. “Could it be…”

He quickly charged back along the ten thousand meters and flew up out of the ancient main shaft. Once on the surface, he followed the direction the underground river had taken.

After rushing for tens of kilometers, and finally arriving at where that underground river ended, Ye Fan was stunned.

Just in front of him was a barren mountain range laying across the blood-colored ground. It was like a snaking dragon as it blocked his forward path. The mountain range meandered and wound, appearing majestic and lofty.

With the purple mountain as the center, all added together, there were nine mountain ranges that came from each direction. This was one of them.

“It really is on a grand scale!” Practically everything within dozens of kilometers had to do with that purple mountain.

Ye Fan had once flown up as high as he could into the air to observe that the nine mountain ranges clearly all pointed towards the purple mountain.

He thought about it for a moment before deciding to return back to the stone village.

------

Ye Fan drew the purple mountain and the nine mountain ranges proportionally upon a piece of leather. He handed it to Fifth Grandpa Zhang and asked, “Does such a land formation have any meaning to you?”

Fifth Grandpa Zhang might live here, but he was only a mortal. There was no way he could fly so high into the air and see everything clearly.

When he saw this clear drawing, he stood up in shock and said, “This is… So you actually saw through it.”

“Then that means you already knew about this?”

“It was precisely due to these nine mountain ranges that my ancestor realized the purple mountain wasn’t ordinary.” Fifth Grandpa Zhang unrolled the leather and said, “Look, what does this appear to be?”

“It doesn’t look like anything. It just looks like it’s arranged systematically. The nine mountain ranges all point to the central purple mountain.”

“These are nine dragon meridians that guard and protect a pearl!”

Ye Fan was somewhat speechless. How did those nine mountain ranges seem like dragons? As for the purple mountain, it was as precipitous as a huge sword, not at all appearing like a pearl.

“You haven’t studied the Heavenly Source book, so you naturally weren’t able to make the connection. These are definitely dragon veins, nine dragons protecting a pearl!”

“What does that imply?” asked Ye Fan.

“The implications are too huge! The Heavenly Source Book had extensive recordings and I only know a little bit. This kind of ‘Great Power’ is endlessly marvelous and profound.”

“What do you mean?”

“My ancestor had once said that the nine dragons guarding a pearl was the absolutely most profound and marvelous charge of heaven and earth!”

“What’s so marvelous and profound about it?” asked Ye Fan.

“Let alone mortals, even powerful cultivators are unable to bear this kind of ‘Great Power.’ My ancestor only said one sentence: other than Great Emperors from ancient times, no one is capable of moving such a ‘Great Power.’”

Ye Fan felt a huge headache, asking, “Your ancestor, that Heavenly Source Master, didn’t he leave behind a more detailed narrative?”

“No. But there is one thing that is certain. It was precisely because my ancestor had pried into the purple mountain that he had decided to retreat and not dare asking for the Jade Lake fairies’ help.”

“This…” Ye Fan was completely shocked.

“The other ancestors of my Zhang family tried cultivating the Heavenly Source Book, but were never able to completely comprehend it. All they could do was speculate that this place concealed a huge secret.”

Ye Fan was becoming more and more interested in the truth. “Could it be they didn’t find the slightest traces or clues?”

“Many of those ancestors were unanimous that this all pointed back to the ancient Great Emperor. He had most likely left behind a couple terrifying things here…”

Did he use this place’s Great Power to leave those things behind? Ye Fan continued asking, “The Ancient Desolation of cultivators should have been over a hundred thousand years ago. But this Great Emperor had to be from hundreds of thousands of years ago. What purpose did leaving behind such things have for him?”

Ye Fan couldn’t understand why a Great Emperor that had long since returned to the dust would do such things.

“It’s possible it was preparations for his descendants…” Fifth Grandpa Zhang shook his head and said, “Only by completely comprehending the Heavenly Source Book could one understand what that Great Emperor was doing.”

Where were the living creatures that were related to such a distant existence from such ancient times? Ye Fan simply couldn’t understand that Great Emperor’s thinking.

“Just now I saw a huge ancient mine that pointed to the distant mountain range. Everything underground had been completely excavated, and it looked like a Source dragon vein. Wouldn’t that mean there were Divine Sources there?” Ye Fan began to talk about what he had found in that abandoned ancient mine.

“Actually, that ancient mine should lead all the way through the mountain range and everything beneath the entire mountain range should have been completely excavated.”

“This…” Ye Fan was startled, asking, “Was it actually such a huge project?”

“The methods of ancient Great Emperors are something we cannot imagine. He naturally could do such a thing.”

“This was also done by that Great Emperor? It wasn’t excavated by later people?” asked Ye Fan.

Fifth Grandpa Zhang said, “My Zhang family had some ancestors who speculated that the nine dragon veins each had their own peerless Divine Sources, but they were all removed and collected within that dragon pearl.”

“Why would such a thing happen?” Ye Fan was extremely shocked.

“Ancestors who have cultivated the Heavenly Source Book speculate that it was in order to push this land’s Great Power. By collecting the nine dragon vein’s essence and collecting it within the dragon pearl, the nine dragons guarding a pearl might really spit out the dragon pearl.”

Everything was based on that pearl. Everything that ancient Great Emperor had done had to do with the purple mountain, while the nine mountain ranges were just supportive.

“I really want to know just what this Great Emperor from hundreds of thousands of years ago wanted to do!”

Since ancient times, the Eastern Wastelands had only produced a few Great Emperors in total. They could refine peak weapons and create the most profound ancient scriptures. Their abilities were a defiance of the heavens.

For a Great Emperor to put in so much effort on such a grand scale, just what was it all about?

------

Two months quickly passed. Ye Fan had learned much of the superficial knowledge from the Heavenly Source Book that hadn’t been lost.

He prepared a long time and had finally learned enough. He even knew just where that ancestor of the Zhang family had entered the purple mountain from back then.

Now, he prepared to move and enter the purple mountain in order to find the Heavenly Source Book.

The purple mountain was filled with countless secrets. As for the Heavenly Source Book, it held endless magical power. As long as he could find it and cultivate it, he would be able to understand everything.