Chapter 133
Many faces were filled with hesitation, but eventually, someone couldn't hold back any longer.
“Damn it, I’ve worked my ass off for this! With this wealth, what can’t I have?”
“Even if the things behind are better, they might not belong to me. Why not just split this money?”
“Maybe what’s in the first palace is the best of all?”
...
Among the fifty people, a dozen stepped into the palace.
There were still over thirty left.
“Just a pile of crap.”
Bai Jinghong raised an eyebrow and continued forward.
Tie Qi looked at the wealth before him, his breath becoming heavier. However, seeing that one person remained unmoved, he ultimately stopped in his tracks.
“Li Laodi, you’re not interested in this...?”
“Interested.”
“Then why...”
“They’re offering too little.”
Li Mo shook his head slightly.
Tie Qi: “??”
Are you even speaking human language?
Even if Li Laodi had some family wealth, it couldn’t possibly compare to the riches in this palace.
He must not care and is just saying this on purpose.
Ying Bing didn’t need to say much.
The Ice Block found counting money quite enjoyable, but only if she had earned it bit by bit.
Ouyang also seemed uninterested in money.
Xiao Bao, the senior brother...
The things inside weren’t worth as much as he himself.
---
**Chapter 132: The Overbearing Ice Block and the Arrangement of the Master of Xuan**
“What could be in the second palace?”
“By the way, why does this secret realm test people’s greed for wealth?”
Li Mo continued to climb upward.
This time, as he stepped onto the stairs, a series of sounds echoed in his heart.
The voice was reciting something.
It sounded like a scripture, like Buddhist teachings, and in a daze, it resembled a great scholar lecturing.
Just as he reached the front of the palace.
Boom—
The sound in his ears suddenly intensified, like a great bell ringing, leaving his mind blank.
“What is this?”
Li Mo looked around.
Inside the palace, three bronze statues were enshrined.
The first was a solemn Buddha, sitting cross-legged, with a compassionate face, forming a smile as if holding a flower.
The second statue wore a Confucian robe, gesturing as if commanding the world, standing there in silence, embodying the very essence of ‘reason’—a statue of a Confucian sage.
The third statue was not what Li Mo expected; it was not a Daoist but a shamanic figure.
Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shamanism.
The three statues exuded a heavy aura, standing there as if the heavens themselves were pressing down.
If one truly sought to comprehend them, perhaps they could condense a powerful divine form in the realm of observing the divine.
**[Kneel and bow to enter this door.]**
Thud, thud.
Another dozen people knelt down.
Some didn’t want to kneel.
But their faces turned pale, veins bulging, wanting to stand but being firmly pressed to the ground.
“This...”
Li Mo felt the pressure but only found it slightly hard to breathe.
He felt nothing else.
“These three statues all carry the weight of the Dao.”
Ying Bing spoke softly beside him, “If anyone feels awe towards any of them, they’ll have to kneel, whether they want to or not.”
Whether it’s the Buddha, the sage, or the shaman.
She had always only believed in herself.
“So, the first palace tests reverence for wealth.”
“I was wondering why the creator of this secret realm is so keen on making people kneel.”
Li Mo pondered.
In his two lifetimes, as an atheist in his previous life, he couldn’t kneel even if he wanted to.
But why must this test select those who disrespect the divine and do not covet wealth?
While munching on watermelon, he stepped onto the next stair.
At this point, more than half of the fifty had already gone.
On the way to the third palace, a few more couldn’t withstand the pressure and jumped into the abyss.
Only twenty remained to ascend.
The statues enshrined here were familiar to everyone.
Dressed in a yellow robe, with the Emperor’s sword at his waist and holding the jade seal, a pair of mighty eyes gazed proudly at the heavens.
The Great Yu’s founding Emperor, Wu Di.
This looked just like how he appeared when he ascended the throne, exuding a majestic aura, swallowing the four seas and eight wastelands.
Thud, thud—
The sound of knees hitting bronze echoed endlessly.
Most people knelt down.
Including the strong-willed Tie Qi, the chief of Ruyi Peak, Ouyang, and Bai Jinghong.
“Ugh...”
Tie Qi struggled a few times but felt as if a mountain was pressing down on his shoulders.
He could only look apologetically at Li Mo.
Li Mo nodded at him.
The Emperor?
This probably represented imperial power.
What a joke.
For our little Li’s ideological awareness, the only thing that could test him was the people!
So the sense of oppression he felt here was almost zero.
But he understood Tie Qi’s situation quite well.
As a subject of the Great Yu, having grown up listening to stories of the founding Emperor, how could he not feel a sense of reverence?
So it was understandable that this level caused almost everyone to fall.
“How come they didn’t kneel?”
Countless eyes filled with reluctance or bitter smiles turned toward them.
Only three people qualified to enter the fourth palace.
“Let’s go, Xiao Bao, senior brother.”
The Ice Block had already moved on, and Li Mo casually tossed aside the watermelon rind, calling out to Tang Xiaobao.
Xiao Bao was there, straining to try and lift the statue.
“Why?”
Bai Jinghong was nearly grinding his teeth in frustration.
He wouldn’t accept it!
From the moment he was born, a master had told him he possessed a sword body. At six, he was taken as a direct disciple by a powerful figure from Hengyun Sword City.
At twenty-two, he comprehended the Hengyun Sword Intent and ascended the Hidden Dragon List.
At twenty-three, he tested his sword against the world, battling with the top talents of a state, achieving seventy-four victories and two draws, cultivating the sword energy within him.
In the small Eastern Wilderness, why should he kneel faster than those three?!
He wouldn’t accept it!
Buzz—
Looking at the backs of Li Mo and the others, Bai Jinghong’s sword energy and intent erupted.
Behind him, a divine sword amidst the white clouds began to faintly materialize.
He stood up, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
With every step he took, he trembled, bearing immense pressure, his body straining under the burden, the sound of cracking bones echoing.
He was getting closer to the stairs.
---
**Chapter 133: Han Zhen Appears, the Grand Master of the Great Shang**
In the secret realm, the wind howled, and a terrifying celestial might descended.
In the midst of it all, a voice like a phoenix weeping echoed through the heavens and the earth.
It felt as if a vivid and vast scene was pressing down.
In the void, a bronze divine tree seemed to materialize, vast and mysterious, transcending time and space, embodying boundless life and death.
On it perched phoenixes, golden crows, vermilion birds, and mysterious birds, each exuding an aura of dominion.
This was merely a phantom.
Yet it seemed to suppress the world.
“Bronze divine tree.”
“The Dao artifact of the Great Shang?”
Li Mo recalled a fragment he had seen in the “Chronicles of Divine Forms.”
He glanced at the girl’s back, knowing he couldn’t disturb her now.
“Xiao Bao, senior brother.”
“Hmm?”
“Let’s act according to the situation later.”
Ying Bing’s complexion was slightly pale.
The seventh realm is still the seventh realm.
No matter how one achieved the title of Martial Saint, they all possessed their own inner heavens, allowing their physical bodies to enter the void, traversing thousands of miles. A single strike could cause the land within a thousand miles to sink, like a human-shaped natural disaster.
Her guess was correct.
This Blood Phoenix Secret Realm was not a secret realm at all.
But rather, it was the inner heaven of a Master of Xuan.
Only, compared to a true Master of Xuan’s inner heaven, it appeared dilapidated and desolate.
Buzz—
On the phantom of the bronze divine tree, a divine bird cast its gaze.
It seemed to want to make this unknown girl submit.
Ying Bing met its gaze calmly.
With her other foot, she stepped onto the end of the stairs.
In an instant.
All the divine birds perched on the bronze divine tree turned to look at her coldly.
Some were fierce, some were cold, some were strange, and various overwhelming divine intents pressed toward her.
Countless pressures bore down.
Ying Bing’s hair danced wildly, her face like frost under the moon.
“Just a mere incomplete phantom.”
“Even if the true body descends, it should treat me as a deity.”
Ying Bing’s body shimmered with colors, surrounded by the aura of the moon.
The two energies spiraled around each other, as if the sun and moon were following each other, shining together, releasing countless radiance.
Xuan Dan realm.
And two Xuan Dans formed simultaneously.
Each, upon closer inspection, seemed to have a unique rhythm flowing within.
The girl was further highlighted, becoming as translucent as jade, the only light before the dark bronze hall.
“Retreat.”
Her figure still seemed small.
But wherever she walked, the phantom of the bronze divine tree receded like a tide.
After just two steps.
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