As the conversation livened up, Chen Yu casually posed a question. "I’ve heard that Golden Core Cultivators can live for hundreds of years, and a single session of closed-door cultivation to comprehend the Great Dao can last for decades. With such long lifespans, and with them often cultivating in immortal abodes or secret realms... has there never been a Golden Core senior who, for some reason, passed away in seclusion and wasn’t discovered by their sect members or descendants for a long time?"
His true purpose was simple: he wanted to find out the real identity in Void Profound Heaven of the Golden Core Cultivator who had accidentally ended up in Zeyarira, and see if there were any related records or legends.
The other elders suspected nothing. They could not even imagine the bizarre existence of another world besides Void Profound Heaven, so they just treated it as casual cultivation chatter.
An elder stroked his beard and replied with emotion, "Of course, that happens. Void Profound Heaven is vast and boundless, filled with ancient ruins, natural danger zones, and even perilous lands forged by great wars or strange mutations. The dangers within are unpredictable, a place where fortune and crisis coexist. Even if a Golden Core Cultivator ventures in, a single misstep could lead to their demise, leaving not even a bone behind. Naturally, no one would ever know."
"As for passing away during seclusion in one’s own immortal abode or a sect’s secret ground... sigh, that’s even more common," another elder lamented. "The Great Dao is fraught with difficulty, and even Golden Core doesn’t grant a carefree eternal life. Forcibly trying to break through to the next realm when one’s lifespan is about to end and failing, suffering from cultivation deviation, or succumbing to some unhealable old injury... all of these can lead to a cultivator perishing silently within their seclusion chamber."
"Once the array is sealed, decades or even a hundred years can pass without anyone disturbing them. Only when the immortal abode is opened do later generations discover that their ancestor has already passed on."
"Even those at the Golden Core stage cannot truly be free and transcend life and death. We’ve toiled for half our lives and haven’t even touched the threshold of Golden Core, so we can’t afford to think that far ahead."
Chen Yu’s heart stirred. Continuing on the same topic, he pressed on with feigned curiosity, "Then have you elders heard of any Golden Core seniors, masters of the myriad cultivation arts, who have suddenly disappeared or gone missing in the last few hundred years? Especially one with exceptionally high attainments? Can even such a cultivator not defy their destiny?"
He was gradually narrowing down his search.
From what he knew so far about the Golden Core Cultivator who ended up in Zeyarira, the person had to be an absolute genius in the fields of Artifact Refining and Arrays.
A Magical Life form like Silver Sparrow, the exquisitely complex composite Magic Arrays in the castle, and even an alchemical item like the "World Tree in a bottle," which was nearly an act of creation... all of it demonstrated that person’s pinnacle of achievement in the fields of Artifact Refining, Arrays, and alchemy.
With such talent and achievements, they couldn’t possibly have been a nobody in Void Profound Heaven.
Upon hearing this, Elder Hong let out a laugh. "Fellow Daoist Guo, you jest. Simply cultivating the Great Dao already consumes the better part of a cultivator’s life and energy. For a Golden Core Cultivator to also master ’external paths’ like Artifact Refining and Arrays to such a profound level in their spare time... frankly, it’s a rare sight. A person’s energy is finite, after all."
He paused, as if recalling something, and smiled. "However, there was indeed one person who could be called a true polymath. But for a figure of such breathtaking talent, how could they possibly pass away in obscurity, completely unnoticed?"
"And to whom is Fellow Daoist Hong referring?" Chen Yu cupped his hands at the appropriate moment, an expression of curiosity on his face.
The elders in the pavilion exchanged glances, then burst out laughing.
"Hahaha, Fellow Daoist Guo, who else could it be? It’s obviously our Three Elements Sect’s own Yunya Ancestor Master, he of the ’Union of Three Daos’!"
"A prodigy like that is a rare sight in this world!"
"Legend says that Yunya Ancestor Master not only cultivated three Daos concurrently, but he was also a master of the myriad external arts, able to draw parallels and excel in them all. This Ancestor Master once said, ’The Dao of Arrays is but a transcription of the patterns of Heaven and Earth.’ After that, it took him only a year to master the principles of most known Arrays of his time. As for the art of Alchemy, in less than a year, he was able to concoct Spirit Pills that left the Alchemy Dao masters of the day speechless with admiration."
Chen Yu was shaken to his core as a realization suddenly struck him.
If he remembered correctly, Hong Changtian had once said this Ancestor Master disappeared for a time, and when he reappeared, he was already a master of three Daos.
’But what if, during those decades Yunya Ancestor Master was missing, he wasn’t cultivating in seclusion in some secret realm in Void Profound Heaven, but had... accidentally ended up in Zeyarira instead?’
To avoid arousing suspicion, Chen Yu didn’t press for more details about Yunya Ancestor Master’s disappearance, instead steering the conversation toward other interesting tidbits.
Only when the lights in the autumn pavilion had dimmed, the tea had gone cold, and the other elders had departed, leaving only the chilly moonlight and the mountain breeze, did Chen Yu sit alone in the pavilion and begin to secretly ponder and recall every rumor he had heard about Yunya Ancestor Master.
Although there were many rumors about Yunya Ancestor Master, most were later fabrications or dramatizations, likely distorted in the retelling and not to be taken as truth.
Only one rumor, which seemed relatively more credible, caught Chen Yu’s attention.
It was said that during the forty-three years he was missing, Yunya Ancestor Master had gone to the Gui Xu of the South Sea.
According to legend, that was the end of Void Profound Heaven’s four seas, also referred to in some ancient texts as the place where the oceans began.
The place was filled with destructive Gui Xu astral winds and all sorts of incomprehensible phenomena. There were also various mysterious rumors circulating about ancient treasures, lost Divine Abilities, and even passages to other realms.
But the place was crawling with great demons and the environment was harsh; it was no place for anyone below the Golden Core stage. Even if he wanted to investigate now, he was powerless to do so.
Besides, he couldn’t even be certain that the Golden Core Cultivator who ended up in Zeyarira and Yunya Ancestor Master were the same person.
First of all, the timelines didn’t match up.
The influence and creations left behind by the Golden Core Cultivator in Zeyarira had clearly existed for much longer—possibly for several thousand years or more—while Yunya Ancestor Master was only missing for forty-three years.
There were many legends about the Golden Core Cultivator who wound up in Zeyarira; it was impossible that they had only been there for a few decades.
Secondly, Yunya Ancestor Master eventually emerged from seclusion and ascended. The Golden Core Cultivator in Zeyarira, however, seemed to have never returned—or if they did, they left no clear record of it. It was more likely that they had spent long ages in Zeyarira and perhaps even perished there.
Therefore, this Golden Core Cultivator was likely someone else entirely, perhaps a cultivator from a much more ancient era. For now, he had no way of knowing.
Still, the Gui Xu of the South Sea was a lead worth pursuing.
To further test his theory, over the next few days Chen Yu used the privileges of his elder status to dispatch his Gel clones. Their mission was to secretly gather a list of all recorded Golden Core Cultivators in Void Profound Heaven from the past few hundred years and screen them one by one.
The results, however, were not what he had hoped for.
The myriad arts of cultivation—Alchemy, Artifact Refining, Talisman creation, Array deployment... each was a broad and profound path in its own right.
Mastering them in addition to one’s primary cultivation was an extremely difficult feat, even for a long-lived Golden Core Cultivator.
Most Golden Core Cultivators specialized in one or two arts or only had a superficial understanding of others. A polymath like the legendary Yunya Ancestor Master was as rare as a phoenix feather; there had been no clear record of another in several thousand years.
And so, Chen Yu’s focus returned once more to Yunya Ancestor Master.
He was still just an Outer Sect elder. Having only just joined the sect, he had no access to its core affairs. His ability to conduct a deep investigation into the details of Yunya Ancestor Master’s disappearance was limited.
It wouldn’t be easy to find a definitive answer in Void Profound Heaven in the short term. For now, he could only bury this question deep in his heart and refocus his attention on Zeyarira, hoping he could find the clues he needed there.
Nevertheless, the authority of an Outer Sect elder was not insignificant.
Using this identity, Chen Yu was still able to collect a large number of books on the various arts that would be helpful for the Kingdom’s development—High Tier alchemy atlases, the Array Map Explanation, the Complete Annotation of Talismans and Seals, and, most importantly, dozens of books on Artifact Refining, ranging from basic to advanced, such as the True Understanding of Artifact Refining, the Gold and Stone Record, and the Spiritual Fire Control Skill.
For the rapidly developing Slime Kingdom, this knowledge was undoubtedly an immeasurably valuable treasure.
After secretly sending these materials back to Mudu through the Gel network, before he could continue delving into the authentic teachings, his attention was diverted by a Wise Man who claimed to be from the Forest Sages’ Association.