Sage of Humanity-Chapter 596 - 594 Heaven’s Augury’s Reward

Returning to Fox Fairy Valley, his state of mind was completely different.

"So this is Fox Fairy Valley, quite beautiful," Feng Yuechan stood in mid-air, overlooking below.

Speaking of scenery, Fox Fairy Valley was indeed not bad, after all, it had long been the dwelling place of the Fox Demon, how could it be poor, but compared to the spirit ground, it still fell short.

Having been accustomed to the beautiful scenery of the spirit ground, the Fox Fairy Valley was rated as merely quite beautiful in Feng Yuechan's eyes.

"What is Junior Brother Lu doing back here?" Li Baxian asked.

"There is a place here that caught my attention," Lu Ye replied as he led the way, with the others following.

Moments later, they arrived at a place shrouded by a big array.

Li Baxian pondered, "This place is... a forbidden land?"

Although he and Lu Ye had only spent a little over a month in Fox Fairy Valley, he had heard of the forbidden land. More than one cultivator had told him that all places in Fox Fairy Valley could be visited, except for two places.

One was the Fox Demon's chamber, where one must not intrude unless summoned.

The other was the forbidden land located at the deepest part of Fox Fairy Valley.

At least there was a chance to enter the chamber of the Fox Demon, but as for what exactly this forbidden land was, no cultivator in the entire Fox Fairy Valley knew, even Xie Yunhan, who had previously been in charge of the entire valley's formation, was unaware because this was a place strictly forbidden by the Fox Demon, forbidding anyone to even approach within a hundred paces.

Li Baxian understood why Lu Ye wanted to come back.

Honestly, he was somewhat interested in this forbidden land too, the unknown always elicits curiosity.

Lu Ye stood in front of the big array, his eyes enhanced with Insight Spirit Runes, observing the array's nodes. After a moment, he raised his hand and threw out several array banners.

During his last visit, he had sneaked into this array relying on his proficiency in Array Path, so he did not cause any damage to the array, but this was no longer necessary.

Strictly speaking, the strength of this array was not high, and to him, solving it was not difficult.

As each array banner was thrown out and embedded into the nodes, Lu Ye placed his hand on the array. As he stimulated his spirit force, the spirit force flowing on the surface of the array's light screen began to slow down, until it completely halted.

The supplies box at his waist buzzed as 9th Dao Liu Guang shot out in succession, directly bombarding a certain part of the array.

With a crunching sound, like a mirror shattering, web-like cracks immediately spread across the array and within three breaths, it completely shattered.

The land once covered by the array was now visible to the group.

A solitary grave, an ancient altar.

"Why is there a grave here?" Feng Yuechan approached with curiosity and saw a tombstone standing before the grave, with a line of large characters on it.

"The grave of master Lei Zhengyin?" Feng Yuechan murmured softly.

"This Lei Zhengyin should be the original master of the Fox Demon, but for some reason, he was killed by the Berserk Giant Ape, so since twenty years ago, the Fox Demon began its plan for vengeance, gathering cultivators all these years until today," Lu Ye casually explained.

Li Baxian thoughtfully asked, "Junior Brother Lu, have you been here before?"

Lu Ye replied, "Once, out of curiosity, I sneaked in here, and just happened to encounter the Fox Demon mourning here, so I heard a few things."

"I see," Li Baxian nodded in understanding.

"The grave is an ordinary creation by the Fox Demon, it's nothing special. What I'm interested in is this altar," Lu Ye spoke while stepping forward and walking onto the altar, "Senior Brother Li, Senior Sister Feng, can you tell what this altar is for?"

Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan went forward to have a closer look. After a long time, Li Baxian shook his head, "I can't tell, but it has four grooves, probably for placing Spirit Stones. Maybe if enough Spirit Stones are placed, it might activate something."

"Activate what?"

"A secret realm?" Feng Yuechan speculated boldly.

Her words piqued the interest of both Lu Ye and Li Baxian. If this altar could indeed open a secret realm, that was something they could not miss.

The Cloud River battlefield possessed many secret realms, so Feng Yuechan's suspicion had a high likelihood of being true.

"Let's give it a try!" said Lu Ye excitedly.

Immediately, all four of them took positions at each corner and took out Spirit Stones from their storage sacks, placing them into the grooves.

An astonishing scene unfolded, as each mid-grade Spirit Stone was placed into the grooves, its spirit force was drained in an extremely short time, turning into waste stone.

And after the altar absorbed the spirit force from the Spirit Stones, the intricate patterns on the altar's surface lit up a small area. This small lit-up area was only a negligible part of the entire altar but was enough to brighten up Lu Ye and his group's eyes.

They exchanged glances and then each took out more Spirit Stones to place in the grooves.

As more Spirit Stones turned to waste, the range of lit patterns on the altar increased.

Until a certain moment, after the four of them had consumed a total of over a thousand mid-grade spirit stones, the altar's surface burst into a dazzling light, with all the runes fully illuminated.

At the same time, Lu Ye felt a warmth on the back of his hand. He quickly looked down and saw the golden mark on his hand suddenly flying out, turning into a golden beam that fell into the altar.

In an instant, his vision was filled with blinding golden light that was too intense to look at.

Several breaths later, when Lu Ye and the others' vision returned, an oval-shaped golden light screen had appeared before them.

"Junior Brother, what was that just now?" Li Baxian asked with a mix of surprise and confusion.

The phenomenon of the golden mark on Lu Ye's hand falling onto the altar had been clearly seen by Li Baxian, but he had no idea what the golden mark was or why it would fall onto the altar.

Lu Ye realized what had happened.

So this was the reward granted by Heaven's Augury!

He had seen that golden mark before, just like the last time he received it in the hunting ground, and he thought he needed to find a Heaven's Augury Pillar to investigate his gains. Unexpectedly, the golden mark was actually used to activate the altar.

That meant even if the people from Fox Fairy Valley returned here and found the altar, no matter how many spirit stones they arranged, without his mark, they wouldn't be able to activate the altar.

Follow curr𝒆nt nov𝒆ls on fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com.

"It's a reward from Heaven's Augury. I received it from Heaven's Augury after slaying a Fox Demon," Lu Ye explained briefly.

Li Baxian was utterly astonished, "Killing a Fox Demon and getting a reward from Heaven's Augury?"

This was unheard of.

Lu Ye shared his previous conjecture and what the Fox Demon said before dying. After hearing this, Li Baxian nodded and said, "With that said, Junior Brother, slaying the Fox Demon did indeed remove a great calamity from the Cloud River battlefield, bringing benefits to all. It makes sense that Heaven's Augury would grant a reward."

Feng Yuechan's expression flickered slightly, "Since it's a reward from Heaven's Augury, it must be beneficial. Junior Brother Lu, good people truly receive good fortune."

Lu Ye let out a chuckle; his main purpose in killing the Fox Demon was to save Li Baxian. If Li Baxian hadn't been ensnared by the Fox Demon, he would have slipped away long ago. These many mishaps were all a series of fortunate accidents.

Feng Yuechan's eyes brimmed with anticipation as she looked at the golden light screen, "I wonder what's behind this?"

Li Baxian said, "You mentioned benefits, so it surely won't be anything bad. Junior Brother, shall we explore inside?"

Lu Ye nodded, then suddenly recalled something and spoke up, "Giant Armor, have the wolf pack guard the surroundings."

Giant Armor nodded, brought his hand to his mouth, and blew a loud whistle. In the next instant, a large pack of demon wolves, led by the head wolf, rushed over, creating an impressive scene.

Giant Armor casually drew a circle with his hand and said succinctly, "Keep watch."

The wolf pack immediately split to either side, encircling the area securely.

Lu Ye watched in amazement. Although he had previously gotten along with the wolf pack reasonably well, he could never achieve the level of control that Giant Armor had, as if directing his own limbs.

"Giant Armor, scout ahead!" Lu Ye ordered.

Despite this being a reward from Heaven's Augury and likely safe, prudence was always the best policy.

Among the group, Giant Armor had the strongest physique, so it was natural for him to take the lead.

Without a word, Giant Armor strode towards the golden light screen, and in a few steps, he stood in front of it. Without any hesitation, he plunged into it.

Lu Ye's gaze never wavered as he watched ripples spread across the golden light screen before it completely swallowed Giant Armor's figure.

Lu Ye followed closely behind Giant Armor, with Feng Yuechan after him and Li Baxian bringing up the rear.

Stepping through the golden light screen, they instantly entered another world. However, this world was shrouded in mist. The already present Giant Armor was not far ahead, but in the hazy mist, Lu Ye could only make out his silhouette vaguely.

Lu Ye stood still, his eyes revealing a look of surprise.

That was because the environment around him felt incredibly familiar.

Soon after, Li Baxian's low exclamation came from behind him, "A baptism from Heaven's Augury?"

Among the four present, except for Giant Armor who had never been on the Spirit Stream Ranking, the other three had all been on it and were no strangers to the monthly baptism from Heaven's Augury.

The baptism granted by Heaven's Augury would take cultivators on the Spirit Stream Ranking to a completely secluded and special environment where both their physical and mental states could be tempered, enhancing their capabilities.

It could be said that the future prospects of those who had been on the Spirit Stream Ranking differed from those who had not.

Wei Que was at Cloud River Level 9, and so were Tan Sheng and Xia Liang. All three had advanced to Cloud River Realm through the ascension of 360 orifices. However, comparing them, Wei Que at Level 9 was more than just a little inferior in strength to Tan Sheng and Xia Liang.

The fundamental reason was that Tan Sheng and Xia Liang had both been on the Spirit Stream Ranking, and both had held high positions on it.

The Spirit Stream Realm is considered the initial realm of a cultivator's journey, laying the foundation for the entire cultivation path. Receiving the baptism of Heaven's Augury in this stage undoubtedly solidifies the cultivator's foundation and broadens their future horizons. The higher the ranking on the Spirit Stream Ranking, the greater the benefits received from the baptism of Heaven's Augury.

When Lu Ye was in the Spirit Stream Realm, he could barely manage to kill those who were a minor realm above him, but once in the Cloud River Realm, he found it not challenging to surpass two minor realms. This was certainly related to the varied strength levels among Cloud River Realm cultivators, but it could also be attributed to the benefits he received from occupying the first place on the Spirit Stream Ranking. As one's cultivation level increases, surpassing another is more difficult because each incremental rise enhances one's abilities all the more significantly.