Chapter 1096: An Immortal King Takes Action!
Yi Qingwu furrowed her brows, yet she remained stunningly beautiful.
An Miaoli noticed her presence as well and simply offered a gentle smile. Although the two women had never met before, they had clearly heard of each other. An Miaoli nodded lightly toward Ye Chen and Yi Qingwu, then turned and returned to her cave residence, gracefully leaving the two of them alone.
Ye Chen breathed a sigh of relief. Even though he was already unmatched in this realm, if An Miaoli and Yi Qingwu were to quarrel, there would be nothing he could do despite all his power.
Seeing An Miaoli's magnanimity, Yi Qingwu's expression grew somewhat complicated. Without saying a word, she followed Ye Chen into the cave residence.
The moment they entered, before Ye Chen could even offer her any gifts, Yi Qingwu pushed him down.
"I should be the one to bear your first child!"
She was very direct and clearly wanted to compete.
Ye Chen quickly stopped his fiancée as she tried to sit on him and said with a smile, "Don't be impatient. Of course we will have children. But we should wait until you achieve the Chaos Immortal Body."
Seeing her frown, he continued gently, "The strongest physique will naturally give birth to the child with the most powerful bloodline. Neither of us has reached our peak yet. What's the point of rushing? We should compete in the quality of our child's bloodline. Among all my Dao companions, you have the highest potential and the brightest future. So don't worry."
Yi Qingwu's eyes flickered. She was clearly convinced. Indeed, strength reigned supreme in the cultivation world, and talent came first. She should wait for the best outcome. With the Chaos Immortal Body and Ye Chen's own physique, their child could very well become the strongest offspring in the history of the cultivation world.
Satisfied, Yi Qingwu calmed down and calmly summoned her demonic body.
Ye Chen felt a little helpless. He still had things to do—such as deducing his father's whereabouts and opening another immortal gate to visit the Jade Pool Immortal Sect. However, his fiancée had come a long way, and she had seen An Miaoli's pregnancy. It would be unreasonable if he did not comfort her properly.
…
Two full weeks later, although Yi Qingwu's main body had not gotten what she wanted, the shared sensations with her demonic body still left her letting out a long, satisfied sigh. Her eyes were slightly dazed.
Only after Ye Chen cast the final Mark Secret did everything finally come to an end.
He then took out the accumulated origins and presented them to his fiancée.
Yi Qingwu had never been polite with Ye Chen. She had long since considered herself his. Now that he had also spoken about their future strongest child, she accepted everything without hesitation.
After learning the origins of these essences, her expression became even more complicated. Even after going to the Immortal Realm, Ye Chen had still thought of her and killed powerful experts there to gather these origins for her.
Ye Chen truly loved her the most. No wonder he cared so much about their future child.
He really loved her so much!
"Congratulations, Host. Gift successfully given…"
"Gift: Origin Essence!"
"Fifteen-thousandfold feedback in progress…"
"Detected that the gift is extremely important to the recipient…"
"Triggering maximum critical hit feedback!"
"Triggering Heartfelt Strike feedback…"
"Feedback: 2% Primordial Chaos Supreme Body!"
"Host's current Primordial Chaos Supreme Body progress: 4%!"
Looking at the feedback, a smile appeared on Ye Chen's face. The increase in his fiancée's multiplier had indeed made the reward much richer. Although it was only 2%, it had actually doubled his previous progress. The terror of this physique was truly unimaginable.
After sending off his fiancée, whose fighting spirit burned brighter than ever, Ye Chen visited Senior An once more. He checked on the child and confirmed everything was fine before returning leisurely to his cave residence.
He had not immediately opened another immortal gate because he wanted to first deduce his father's whereabouts.
With the Nine Secrets fused into the Supreme Art, his divination ability had grown far stronger while its side effects had lessened considerably.
Ye Chen sat down seriously and recalled the image of his father, Ye Tianhe, from his predecessor's memories. He took out the low-grade flying sword his father had left him—the one he had once given to Lu Jing and later retrieved—and used it as a medium to activate the Supreme Art.
In an instant, a scene appeared before him.
It was the mountain peak where Ye Tianhe had disappeared. Ye Tianhe and the other Ye Family members had fought desperately with their artifacts against bandit cultivators, but they were ultimately no match. Only Ye Tianhe, with his superior strength, had held on until the end. Yet he was still surrounded and attacked by one ninth-layer Qi Refining cultivator and two eighth-layer cultivators. Defeat was only a matter of moments.
Just as Ye Tianhe was about to fall, the scene suddenly darkened, as if interfered with.
Ye Chen frowned. How could it end at such a critical moment?
He immediately surged his qi and blood to reinforce the Supreme Art. The scene instantly became clear again.
Ye Chen's eyes widened dramatically.
At the moment Ye Tianhe was about to die, a massive hand descended from the sky. It did not attack any of the bandit cultivators, yet merely its aura caused all of them to perish on the spot. Ye Tianhe himself fainted and was scooped up into the palm before the hand flew back toward the heavens.
Ye Chen vaguely glimpsed a crack opening in the spatial barrier.
The next moment, he spat out a mouthful of blood, his face full of disbelief. With his current foundation, he had still suffered a backlash just from divining someone else's fate—and it was quite severe. He would need at least three to four days of rest to fully recover.
This was outrageous.
Ye Chen now had a guess about the owner of that giant hand. It was very likely an Immortal King. An Immortal Monarch clearly could not have done this, otherwise Wang Xuanji would not have been so desperate when she fought the Eight-Crown King.
But how could his father be connected to an Immortal King? This was simply too absurd.
Ye Chen frowned tightly. He wanted to divine more specific information, but a strong sense of crisis naturally arose in his heart. Clearly, even indirect connections to an existence like an Immortal King could not be casually divined. He had already suffered a backlash. Any other True Immortal attempting this would likely have died instantly.
Ye Chen slowly calmed his qi and blood and set the matter aside for now. Although the Immortal Realm was vast, since his father had been taken away by an Immortal King, it was unlikely he had simply been killed. There was still a chance they would meet again. Or he could attempt another divination once he became an Immortal Monarch.
With that decided, Ye Chen sat cross-legged in his cave residence and rested for several days. Once he had fully recovered, he flew out of the Heavenly Evolution Holy Land. Standing high in the sky, he held the direct disciple token of the Jade Pool Immortal Sect and circulated his True Immortal laws.
An immortal gate opened at once, drawing the gaze of countless people. Many cultivators watched Ye Chen open the gate and finally depart for real, their hearts filled with complex emotions…
They believed that this time, the Heavenly Emperor's heir had truly left…
Chapter 1097: Huh?
The cultivators all looked up, watching Ye Chen's departing figure. They guessed that this time, the Heavenly Emperor's heir had truly left.
Of course, even so, none of them dared to entertain any bold ideas anymore. Whether it was Hua Yunfei or the Devouring true inheritor who had only revealed her real identity after completing her path of ascension, they no longer had the courage to provoke either of them.
Meanwhile, after passing through the dazzling immortal gate, Ye Chen once again set foot in the Immortal Realm. He gazed into the distance at the sect that resembled a great moon. Although its aura was not as imposing as the Supreme Hall's, it still carried a distinct immortal charm.
Ye Chen observed it quietly for a moment before summoning the Western Empress Holy Carriage and flying toward the Jade Pool Immortal Sect's mountain gate.
He had already decided: if the Jade Pool Immortal Sect turned out to be just as unpleasant as the Supreme Hall, he would simply not join any sect for now and would instead live as a rogue cultivator in an immortal city. After all, he could return to the lower realm at any time. There was no real problem.
When Ye Chen arrived, two Quasi-Immortal female disciples were guarding the gate. Both had multipliers—one at three thousand times, the other at four thousand five hundred times.
Upon seeing Ye Chen, they politely greeted him and asked his purpose. But the moment they saw the token in his hand, which was engraved with a hazy, graceful female figure, their eyes widened. They immediately turned and flew off to find an elder.
Soon, a graceful Celestial Immortal elder at the peak of her realm flew over. She was elegant and beautiful, with a multiplier of seven thousand five hundred times.
The elder gently stroked the token, her eyes filled with emotion. "This is indeed a token personally carved by Ancestor Western Empress and placed inside a secret realm to select personal disciples. Later, after the ancestor met with an accident, the secret realm was destroyed during a great war, and the token disappeared. I never expected it to reappear today."
After a moment of pause, the elder looked at Ye Chen seriously. "May I ask which female cultivator Fellow Daoist has come to seek a personal disciple position for? Although the ancestor is no longer with us, her eldest disciple, the Jade Moon Immortal Monarch, is still here. No matter the aptitude, she will surely accept the person as her personal disciple."
Ye Chen smiled slightly. Although the Jade Pool Immortal Sect seemed a bit weaker, with only one Immortal Monarch, it at least gave off a proper and upright feeling. Ye Chen preferred upright sects without too much scheming and infighting.
He spoke directly, "It is not for any female cultivator. It is for myself. I wish to become a personal disciple of the Jade Pool Immortal Sect."
The moment Ye Chen finished speaking, the elder's expression froze. Her bright, spirited eyes went blank.
After a long pause, she spoke with a troubled expression, "Fellow Daoist, our Jade Pool Immortal Sect is a female-only sect. To this day, we have never accepted any male elders or disciples. This… does not conform to the rules."
Ye Chen pointed at the token. "It doesn't say that on the token."
The corners of the elder's mouth twitched. Back when the secret realm was created, only disciples of the Jade Pool Immortal Sect could enter, so there had been no need to specifically write "male" or "female."
The elder looked rather helpless, momentarily at a loss for words. Ye Chen's request had gone far beyond what she could handle, yet he had indeed come with a legitimate token. The Western Empress herself had once declared that anyone holding the token could become her personal disciple.
The elder gave a bitter smile. "How about this, Fellow Daoist? Please follow me to the Western Empress Peak to meet the Jade Moon Immortal Monarch. Let her decide."
Ye Chen nodded casually. Following the elder's invitation, he strode into the Jade Pool Immortal Sect.
The deeper he went, the more it felt like a true immortal paradise. The spiritual Qi was dense and misty, like fog drifting through the surroundings.
Inside the sect, spiritual flowers bloomed across every mountain peak, filling the air with fragrant scents. Female cultivators in colorful robes flew gracefully between the peaks. Since this was a female-only sect, the Welcoming Peak was located near the outer gate, so the disciples inside dressed quite freely and lightly.
Even with his firm Dao heart, Ye Chen could not help glancing over a few times.
Perhaps because the Jade Pool Immortal Sect forbade marriage—requiring anyone who wished to marry to leave the sect—the female cultivators Ye Chen saw all possessed multipliers. Several even reached twenty to thirty thousand times, which was quite impressive.
However, when the female disciples noticed Ye Chen, they all frowned. They were not used to seeing men inside the sect. Even though Ye Chen looked clean and strikingly handsome, neither effeminate nor greasy, the women still instinctively covered their chests or long legs and moved away from him.
In the spirit pools, female cultivators who had been playing and laughing quickly submerged themselves upon sensing his presence.
The elder leading the way glanced at Ye Chen with some helplessness. Although she said nothing, her meaning was clear: a male cultivator coming to the Jade Pool Immortal Sect to become a personal disciple was truly inappropriate. At the very least, it would be extremely inconvenient.
Yet Ye Chen acted as if he had noticed nothing at all. He maintained a perfectly upright and dignified demeanor, seemingly unconcerned by any of it.
The elder grew even more helpless.
In this somewhat chaotic atmosphere, the two flew past numerous immortal mountains. Suddenly, Ye Chen's eyes lit up as his gaze fell upon one particular female cultivator.
She was exceptionally pure and beautiful, with delicate features and an elegant, graceful figure. Her long legs were straight and slender like fine wine stems. Her entire aura felt like clear spring water, gentle and non-threatening. Yet within her body, Ye Chen sensed a suppressed volcanic power, as if it could erupt at any moment.
Most importantly, a system notification sounded in his mind.
"High-compatibility gift recipient detected!"
"Nangong Wan: one hundred thousand times!"
This multiplier made Ye Chen's eyes shine brightly. Nangong Wan was only the second female cultivator he had encountered with a multiplier above one hundred thousand. Although it was far below Wang Xuanji's five hundred and eighty thousand times, it was already more than enough for him now.
Ye Chen glanced at the woman named Nangong Wan a few more times. She noticed his gaze as well, but unlike the other female disciples, she did not make a fuss. Her eyes looked particularly downcast and empty. After a brief glance at him, she simply continued toward her own cave residence.
Ye Chen raised an eyebrow. This girl seemed to be carrying quite a lot of worries.
No matter. She would soon have a considerate senior brother. Whatever troubles she had, whatever treasures she needed, her senior brother would do everything in his power to help her solve them.
The elder also saw Nangong Wan and could not help sighing. She said nothing more and continued flying forward.
Soon, a towering peak appeared before Ye Chen. It resembled an immortal tree, brimming with vibrant life energy. At the top of the peak, an immortal palace floated in the air, radiating divine light while lush greenery flourished around it. Just looking at it made one feel refreshed and revitalized, as if their lifespan had been extended.
The elder led Ye Chen straight toward the peak's summit. They soon arrived before the heavenly palace.
The elder raised her hand, and the token in her palm slowly floated upward…