Although the Snow Fox Robe could not transform into a shovel, its sword form was perfectly suited for digging. Each strike carved out a neat, square block of earth, which could then be directly stored away.

There was no way the efficiency could be slow.

This life-bound demonic treasure of hers was also quite interesting. When paired with her bloodline inheritance divine ability, the Heavenly Fox Five Transformations, it was effectively equivalent to having five complete sets of abilities available.

It was enough to handle any situation. Moreover, as long as one focused on cultivating a single divine ability, the time and effort required were not excessive. One could function as five, which made it genuinely practical.

The little fox, reduced to manual labor, worked away with muffled grunts as she dug.

Wang Yu did not rest either.

After determining the direction, he began digging toward the location of the Scripture Pavilion. He wanted to see the black stone tablet. What was recorded on it was truly intriguing.

The Taiyin Nether Eye was already outstanding.

If he could obtain another top-tier divine ability inheritance on top of that, it would be even more delightful.

Half a day later.

A passage had been excavated, and the space of the underground palace’s Scripture Pavilion had been completely cleared out. The old rocking chair by the entrance had long since rotted into ashes.

Entering through the front door, that black stone tablet once again came into view after many years.

“Taiyin Sect, Zhu Qifeng left this?”

As expected, it was the Taiyin Sect. Wang Yu easily recognized the opening words, but as he deciphered more of the text, he realized that this did not seem to be a divine ability or secret art.

Rather, it was purely a record of information, as if it had been deliberately left behind for future generations.

The contents recorded on the stone tablet shocked him even more.

“In ancient times, the entire world was an ice plain? And the Ice Clan were the rulers of this heaven and earth?”

The so-called ancient era recorded on the stone tablet referred to that age itself. By modern reckoning, it would be an era even earlier than remote antiquity, a distant time of which almost nothing was now known.

Suppressing his racing thoughts, Wang Yu continued reading with growing curiosity.

In the information Zhu Qifeng left behind, these matters were only briefly mentioned. From the establishment of the Immortal Dynasty onward, however, the text became much more detailed.

According to his account, the human race was not native to this world. They had come from beyond the realm. Envoys from the Immortal Palace led people to occupy the Heavenly Origin of the Ice Prison Realm.

This marked the beginning of the ancient Immortal Dynasty.

Over countless years, the human race multiplied and grew stronger. One by one, ancient demons from beyond the heavens were captured by great powers and suppressed within the Ice Prison Realm. The many sealing grounds caused humanity to disperse from a single core into all corners of the world.

The various tribes separated from one another, gradually forming different customs and traditions. It was also from this point that the transformation of the Ice Prison Realm’s laws began. The ice plains that once covered the entire world shrank northward.

The Ice Clan were driven inward as well. Unable to adapt to the heaven and earth altered by great human powers, they could only survive within their original lands. At its root, this was due to changes in the world’s laws.

Wang Yu absorbed all of this shocking information.

For a moment, he was completely speechless.

So this world was called the Ice Prison Realm. So the ancient demons were deliberately captured and sealed here by powers from beyond the realm, perfectly matching the name of this world.

It truly was a prison.

If it was a prison, then the ancient Immortal Dynasty, the original hegemonic force of this realm, were effectively prison guards.

No wonder even Spirit Transformation venerables could not tamper with the ancient demon seals. They could only pry at them slowly through sacrificial rituals. Over time, demonic cultivation lineages began to flourish within the Ice Prison Realm.

Amid this storm of thoughts.

Wang Yu continued reading. The stone tablet recorded the reason for the downfall of the ancient Immortal Dynasty, and the root cause was human desire.

After the Immortal Palace envoys constructed this world-level prison, they left behind sufficient manpower and departed. The descendants of those left behind spent their entire lives within the Ice Prison Realm and naturally heard their ancestors speak of the world beyond.

Longing inevitably arose.

Thus, the mindset of the “prison guards” underwent a transformation. A group of people wanted to leave the Ice Prison Realm and witness the true vastness of heaven and earth.

Rumors of ascension spread throughout the realm.

They attracted more like-minded companions. The method these people chose was to continuously sacrifice living beings and release ancient demons, hoping that the power of these demons could shatter the world’s restraints.

The earliest legends of immortals descending into the lower realm originated from this.

The fall of the Immortal Dynasty was due to the ancient Demon named [Slaughter].

This neatly connected with the legends of the Asura Sword Venerable and the Rakshasa Demon Venerable. It was nothing more than a world-shattering war, after which Slaughter was sealed back within the Desolate Ancient Plains.

After the Immortal Dynasty fell, the cultivation world suffered a direct break in inheritance.

After that, the Taiyin Sect rose to prominence.

At the beginning, they were also unaware of the world’s truth. As they explored layer by layer, they gradually realized it and learned that releasing ancient Demons would invite immortals to descend.

Thus, they began to contemplate other methods.

For example, the Taiyin Star.

As one of the supreme stars among the myriad heavens, the Taiyin Lunar Star itself projected into countless worlds. The Taiyin Sect sought to use it as a pathway, directly teleporting themselves into other worlds that also possessed a moon.

It had to be said that this was a brilliant move.

The prison guards had no key, and they did not dare to release the prisoners.

“Resigning and leaving” became a viable path. The Taiyin Nether Eye was precisely that key. This divine ability, its faint connection to the (Lunar Yin) Taiyin Star, and the teleportation eye techniques were all designed to achieve the goal of leaving the Ice Prison Realm.

Unfortunately, in the end, they failed.

This eye-technique divine ability had not yet been deduced to fifth-rank before those secretly supervising this realm discovered it.

The stone tablet’s record ended here.

The final line read: "Beware of the Heavenly Eye Thief!"

As for the ultimate outcome, Wang Yu did not need to read further to guess it. The Taiyin Sect was wiped out without a sound. The force that replaced them as the hegemon of the Ice Prison Realm was the Void Illusion Sect.

Countless years later, they too were destroyed, though the exact circumstances were unknown.

After that came what was known as the ancient era.

By then, there was no longer an absolute hegemon ruling the Ice Prison Realm. Instead, Taihu and Crimson Kite emerged, completely dividing righteous and demonic cultivation lineages.

As he pondered, Wang Yu gradually pieced together the history of this world. Although there were still many gaps, he now understood the most crucial turning points.

The entire process could only be described as simple.

On reflection, it made sense. The more attempts the predecessors and sages made, the more traces they left behind. Generation after generation, uncovering the truth naturally became easier.

According to this reasoning, the top-tier cultivators of the Five Demonic Sects and the Seven Righteous Sects likely all knew this secret. No wonder that as long as one reached Core Formation in the Blood Reversal Sect, there were fixed quotas for exploring the unknown.

They were deliberately collecting information left behind by ancient predecessors. The most critical parts were already known, so slowly piecing together the truth of each era was acceptable. There was no longer the same urgency.

At this thought, Wang Yu’s mind shifted.

Were they also trying to break free from the shackles of the rules?

Since ascension was false, those old monsters unwilling to remain forever at the Nascent Soul or Spirit Transformation stage would inevitably seek other methods.

The “freedom faction” of the Immortal Dynasty had chosen the extreme path of releasing Ancient Demons.

That method had been proven wrong, yet at the end of antiquity, the Blood Demon Calamity still erupted. This showed that they had truly been driven to desperation, smashing the jar once it was already cracked.

After the Blood Demon Calamity, the cultivation world once again suffered a break in inheritance.

The cycle repeated.

The present cultivation world had been built atop the ruins of the ancient era. After so many generations of trial and error, what path would the people of today ultimately choose?

He thought of Xie Xie’an. Could it be that the Blood Nether Three Demons planned to release the ancient demon [Slaughter]? The problem was that they had not yet reached Spirit Transformation. It was unlikely they would harbor such ambitions.

What truly warranted attention was instead the Heaven-Refining Demonic Sect.

Time and again, every righteous-demonic war had been instigated by them, their target always being the ancient Demon [Life] suppressed beneath the mountain gate of the Heavenly Void Sword Sect. That existence was likely special in some way.

Otherwise, the Heaven-Refining Demonic Sect would not have persisted so relentlessly.

And what about the Yellow Springs Monastery?

What left the deepest impression on Wang Yu was their creation of the Dead Silence Desert, a land utterly devoid of spiritual energy, with no signs of stopping even now.

Could they be trying to destroy the Ice Prison Realm?

Without heaven and earth spiritual energy as a foundational substance, even the laws set down by immortals might lose the basis for their existence and collapse as a result.

This line of thought was nothing more than idle speculation on Wang Yu’s part.

After all, no matter how extreme someone was, they would not go so far as to do something like this. Right?

There was also the Taiyin Nether Eye. This place was only a minor branch, yet it had still been able to leave behind information and inheritances. Would that not mean the Taiyin mountain gate and other branches had left behind even more?

Yet Wang Yu had never heard of anyone else using the Taiyin Nether Eye. He himself had openly used it more than once. If the ancestor of the Blood Reversal Sect had known of this inheritance, he would certainly have summoned Wang Yu for a discussion.

But that had never happened.

This led Wang Yu to feel that the Taiyin Sect might have been wiped out very thoroughly.

As for the reason?

The key had been found correctly?!

Others might find this question impossible to answer, but for him, all he needed to do was toss it into the Idle Slot and let it warm up. Sooner or later, it would rank up. Within his lifetime, he would surely unravel the truth.

This Black Stone Tablet had provided far too much information.

The chain of thoughts and conjectures it spawned left Wang Yu with a splitting headache, to the point that he felt utterly exhausted.

This kind of truth was even more despair-inducing than when he had been forced to become a spirit slave all those years ago.

Furthermore, the Heavenly Eye Thief recorded on the stone tablet instinctively reminded him of the Thousand-Mile Eye and Wind-Hearing Ear from the myths of his previous life. If, beyond the Ice Prison Realm, there truly existed even stronger “wardens” constantly watching this prison, then how was one supposed to break the deadlock?

For now, there were no answers.

The mere thought that he had been cultivating inside a prison all along left Wang Yu unable to put his current emotions into words.

“The undying Ancient Demons are prisoners, and the living beings of this realm are prisoners as well!”

As an artificial key, the Taiyin Nether Eye might be useful, or it might not. Wang Yu could not place all his hopes on it, especially since the inheritance had not yet been fully unlocked.

He would need to use it sparingly. If that “Heavenly Eye Thief” discovered him, he would certainly be finished.

If he were a warden, his gaze would undoubtedly be fixed on Spirit Transformation venerables who had a chance of breaking the deadlock, not on some insignificant Core Formation cultivator.

This information greatly broadened his horizons.

It allowed Wang Yu to judge the current situation from a higher vantage point. There was no supreme ruler dominating the land. Every faction harbored its own schemes.

He did not consider himself a peerless schemer.

He was simply not foolish.

Standing in place for a long time, Wang Yu finally pulled himself together. Whether or not he could escape the Ice Prison Realm, strength was the top priority. Improving one’s strength was never wrong.

He still had to proceed step by step.

Once he accepted this, his vigor returned, and he treated it as if he had never seen this stone tablet at all.

Immediately after, Wang Yu attempted to use the Ice Chi Pill Flame to incinerate the black stone tablet. However, he had no idea what material it was forged from. Even fourth-rank spiritual flames could not damage it in the slightest.

Yet he was unwilling to let information regarding the Taiyin Nether Eye fall into anyone else’s hands. Taking several steps forward, he simply wrapped his arms around the black stone tablet and forcibly pulled it out.

Though it was only about a zhang tall, it was unimaginably heavy, as weighty as an ancient mountain. He placed it at the very bottom of the Sea Heart Ring.

Only then did he feel at ease.

In the future, unless absolutely necessary, he would no longer use an over-spec eye-technique divine ability like the Moonfall Art. At most, he would use Moon Observing and Illusory Moon.

“Ao! Master, come look!”

Hearing Snowjade’s call, Wang Yu waved his hand and leveled the entire Scripture Pavilion, then swiftly arrived at her side.

What she had discovered was a completely dead corpse demon.

It was the very same one Wang Yu had encountered back then.

It lay at the entrance of the Moon Condensation Hall in the underground palace’s main hall, without any visible injuries, stiff and straight, as if it had suffered a divine sense-type attack.

Wang Yu’s expression turned grave.

Based on the lineup that had entered the underground palace at the time, Situ Hong might have possessed an offensive divine sense secret art. The problem was that he had only been at the Qi Refining stage back then. How could he possibly kill a Foundation Establishment corpse demon with divine sense?

If he truly had such ability, he would have already seized the greatest benefits of Blackbone Mountain. He would not have been too afraid to even touch a second-rank Bone Lion, fearing bad luck.

Judging from this, the probability that it was the “Heavenly Eye Thief” who did it was much higher. The corpse demon’s revival… could this body have belonged to the message-leaver, Zhu Qifeng?

If so, the discovery must have occurred quite late.

Otherwise, it would have been very difficult for him to leave the underground palace alive. That “Heavenly Eye Warden” was far beyond the Ice Prison Realm. There were likely unknown restrictions on its actions. With this in mind,

Wang Yu put the corpse away and instructed Snowjade.

“Continue clearing the area. This underground palace must be completely restored.”

“Understood.”

Sensing the change in Wang Yu’s demeanor, Snowjade worked even harder. After several days, this relatively small underground palace was finally fully cleared.

Wang Yu inspected each structure one by one, but ultimately did not find a second stone tablet. Thus, under Snowjade’s puzzled gaze, he personally destroyed the place using the Yellow Springs Great Hand Seal.

After the underground palace vanished, only murky yellow liquid remained, corroded and washed clean. Not even a single intact stone was left behind as the subterranean space was compacted once more.

Wang Yu patted his hands as if nothing had happened.

“Let’s go. On to the next destination.”

Snowjade leapt into Wang Yu’s arms. Watching Blackbone Mountain recede into the distance, she asked nothing, her intelligence evident.

The Blackbone Mountain trip officially came to an end.

Yet its impact on Wang Yu was immense. It was as if another mountain had been placed atop his already burdened shoulders, pushing the pressure close to the breaking point.

At times like this, the conventional solution would be relaxation. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Unfortunately, his confidant was not by his side, and he himself was still in a state of flight. The circumstances were deeply lamentable.

Following the map, he flew southward.

This time, his destination was Fallen Dragon Valley.

Combat could also help him relax somewhat. The rumored Dragon Blood Vine Demon there was just right to test his current limits after the innate demonic embryo had raised his upper bounds.

His physical body still possessed growth potential within the third-rank range. It had not yet reached its peak state.

Wang Yu thus planned to cultivate in Fallen Dragon Valley for a period of time.

He had consumed a great many Body Refining supplements, and there was still accumulated medicinal power within his body. Digesting it through combat to gradually release the potential of his flesh was an excellent method.

He had used this approach during the Foundation Establishment stage. Naturally, it was still applicable now. Moreover, Dragon Blood Vine Demons were clearly dragon-bloodline beings. He had yet to try secret medicines refined from plant-type dragon blood.

This would be a good opportunity to see the effects.

Flying onward in this manner, he passed through a region called Qingyuan City. Wang Yu took a few extra glances. This place was already very close to the Northern Severed Boundary Mountains.

There might be traces of the Moluo Horde’s activities.

After a brief look around without finding anything, he departed.

Until ten days later.

Fallen Dragon Valley had arrived.