16 years later.
A vast aura surged out of Tian Yongheng’s cave abode, but it was blocked by an unknown power as soon as it burst forth.
This power was extremely unfathomable, far stronger than even Zhao Ye’s Sword Intent and many times more powerful than Tian Yongheng of the past.
With this power blocking the aura, no one, not even Tian Yunchen, who had already reached the Seventh Stage of Golden Core Realm with his true strength reaching the peak of Golden Core Realm, could detect it.
Gradually, the rising aura halted and calmed down.
Inside of the cave abode, Tian Yongheng slightly opened his eyes, sensing all his newfound powers and abilities.
He had broken through to the Void Refinement Realm!
The aura earlier was none other than his aura of the Void Refinement Realm, and the power that blocked that aura was also his own Divine Sense too!
Without a doubt, he had become one of the strongest existences in the entire Qingyun Region as of now!
In these past few years, he had completely focused on cultivation, not paying any mind to the outside world.
It was only now he realized how deeply immersed he was, and how difficult cultivation had become with the continous increase in his realm as he went on further and further.
However, the increase in both vitality and power was surely worth it.
The Void Refinement Realm came along with many new and extraordinary abilities.
He was now capable of altering the void, and could create separate spaces not belonging to the world in the void.
Not just that, he could also take parts or lands of this world and merge them into the separate space he created.
His current limit for now was a thousand miles, which would surely increase in the future.
Which meant that he could also compress that separate world into a small object such as a Storage Pouch!
However, the Storage Pouch was his limit as of now, and he couldn’t create a Storage Ring just yet.
He could even manipulate fabrics of space to a certain extent now!
This included being able to teleport within a certain range, which was not exactly teleporting, but he could shatter the worldly laws of space that were binding him and move so fast that it would seem as if he were teleporting.
There was another special ability in this realm, which was the Dao Marks.
A Dao Mark was an ability that cultivators of the Void Refinement Realm and above could use to leave behind their Dao Marks in places, and they could later on access those places with the help of space manipulation treasures and artifacts and directly go to those places where they had left behind the Dao Marks.
However, gaining access to a space manipulation treasure was extremely hard even for major factions.
Dao Marks were the ability that was used in almost every major Teleportation Array Formation with some exceptions.
According to the Divine Scripture of the Primordial Beginning, at higher cultivation levels, it was even possible to leave behind a Dao Mark in different points of spacetime to travel across time, but that was merely a theory with no clues regarding how it was done with his current understanding and descriptions in the cultivation technique.
This was when he understood how the Enigmatic Godly Stele worked.
It was a spacetime manipulation treasure!
Dao Marks could also be used in other ways, but he didn’t know about them as of now.
Perhaps that was for the future.
Along with that, the increase in power was extremely great. His raw strength was easily tens of times stronger than his past self.
He could possibly fight against anyone in the Void Refinement Realm now with just his raw strength!
While he may be overpowered in terms of other abilities, he could crush them all with sheer force alone.
His healing factors had improved immensely, and the golden core inside of his Sea of Consciousness had stopped growing, being constantly nourished by the Spiritual Energy inside, enhancing his powers even more.
Right now, he had an indescribable urge to test out his strength in the Simulation Battle Trial.
However, he calmed himself down and only decided to do that after reaching his peak condition and cultivating all his skills to his current level.
With that thought, he opened his status panel.
[Name: Tian Yongheng]
[Race: Mortal]
[Lifespan: 297/15,233]
[Cultivation: First Stage of Void Refinement Realm.]
[Constitution: Five-Elemental Divine Spiritual Physique.]
[Bloodline: Jade Pure Bloodline (Descendant of the Celestial Venerable of Primordial Beginning).]
[Innate Talent(s): Sword Heart, Primordial Meridians and Primordial Bones.]
A massive leap in lifespan, directly increasing nearly 6,000 years!
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This was quite greater than the amount of lifespan Tian Yongheng had initially anticipated from the Void Refinement Realm, but this pleasant surprise was wholeheartedly welcome from his side.
At this moment, the system notification sounded in his mind as the blue screen appeared in front of him.
[Congratulations to the host for breaking through to the Void Refinement Realm.]
...
In the period of time Tian Yongheng was in seclusion, Lu Qingfeng had already returned to the Eternal Peak, at the Second Stage of Innate Realm.
His cultivation level shocked all the disciples, including Yan Jingfei herself, as she had just stepped into the Ninth Stage of Innate Realm.
He met up with Liu Ruoxue, who was already at the Seventh Stage of Acquired Realm, and was quite excited to know that he was no longer the junior and had also become a senior brother.
He wanted to show off his achievements of the past years to his master too, but after knowing that he was in seclusion for quite a while, he dropped the idea for the time being and just focused on enhancing his cultivation level even more.
However, despite the peace on the surface, the entire Qingyun Region, including the Eternal Peak, was quite shaken inside.
A news had come that the young lady of Qingyun Sword Sect along with the descendants and disciples of a few Peak Masters were attacked by demonic cultivators!
Not only were they injured, but some Sword Guardians had even died while protecting them, dictating that these demonic cultivators were of at least the Void Refinement Realm!
How many Void Refinement Realm cultivators resided in the Qingyun Region?
The number was barely around 1,200.
And how many truly powerful Void Refinement Realm cultivators at the later stages were there in the entire Qingyun Region including the hermits and secluded experts?
Less than a hundred.
The majority of them came from the Qingyun Sword Sect, and despite that, such a situation occurred.
All the Golden Core Realm and even some Void Refinement Realm powers were deeply shaken by this incident, a lingering fear in their hearts.
While members of the Eternal Peak could only hope that their background was strong enough to withstand the calamity that was brewing over the entire Qingyun Region, many were looking even more forward to this time’s Qingyun Dao Conference.
Specially since it was now commonly known that cultivators from beyond the Qingyun Region were coming to this Qingyun Dao Conference.
There will definitely be a major declaration from the Qingyun Sword Sect this time round.
Some were also speculating that the Qingyun Sword Sect would ask other powers from beyond the Qingyun Region for help in this matter concerning the demonic cultivators.
The strong figures within the Qingyun Region, including the people who had information of the Qingyun Region despite not being in it, were also wondering if the backing of Eternal Peak will show up in this Qingyun Dao Conference.
Although they knew that the Master of Eternal Peak, Tian Yongheng, was powerful, they never expected him to be beyond the Golden Core Realm.
Even if he was at the Void Refinement Realm, there was no way he could compare to the topmost figures.
While his backing may be of the Nascent Soul Realm or even higher.
They were underestimating Tian Yongheng.
Underestimating him a little too much.
However, he himself was unaware of all this, peacefully cultivating in his cave abode in this period of time.
Meanwhile a few years ago, Yun Jiang had arrived in the Eternal Peak to challenge Tian Yongheng, but after knowing that he was in seclusion, he persisted on staying here till he came out of seclusion.
But when he challenged Tian Yunchen, he was defeated in less than a move, which made him question his existence and wonder why was he trying to challenge Tian Yongheng when he couldn’t even beat someone who was supposedly weaker than him.
He didn’t stay any longer after that, and went away after telling Tian Yunchen to give his regards to Tian Yongheng.
At this point, in Tian Yunchen’s cave abode, he opened his eyes for a moment and ran his Divine Sense around, focusing on the summit where Tian Yongheng’s cave abode was at.
Finding nothing, he retracted his Divine Sense and muttered to himself, "Strange, I felt the circulation of Spirit Qi was unusual there for a moment..."