Ren Qing's Heavenly Dao Crack was sufficient to support the consumption of five thousand years of lifespan, yet when faced with the critical moment of advancement, his state of mind simply could not calm down.
He decided to take advantage of the Spring Festival being celebrated in the Stomach World and rest properly for several days.
After meeting Huang Ming, Ren Qing's conviction in attaining immortality and comprehending the Dao had become even firmer. The opportunity to break through the bottleneck seemed to be right before him.
He immediately returned to the outside world and, carried by the Ghost Shadow, headed several thousand meters underground.
The cave dwelling had already been excavated. Various protective magical artifacts had been placed inside, and even the Forbidden Corpse had been dragged deep underground.
Ren Qing had not deliberately directed the Ghost Shadow, yet it seemed perfectly attuned to his intentions.
The Ghost Shadow's intelligence was not an independent consciousness. It was somewhat similar to the bacterial soul in the Mud Pellet Palace, but the connection was far closer than the master and subordinate souls of No-Difference.
Ren Qing instructed the Ghost Shadow to protect him during his secluded cultivation while also keeping watch over the Longevity Forbidden Zone and the Forbidden Corpse.
The Ghost Shadow immediately split into multiple streams and hid within shadows everywhere. It even paid attention to the movements occurring in Jingzhou outside.
[Would you like to advance to Ascension Ladder? This will consume five thousand years of lifespan.]
Ren Qing was somewhat nervous. After all, the advancement of the The Taotie Method involved the Stomach World. Any mistake could affect more than a million people.
Thus, he had secretly left a passage within the Stomach World. If things truly went wrong, he could temporarily transfer everyone into the Longevity Forbidden Zone to prevent unexpected disasters.
What Ren Qing had not expected was that the breakthrough to Ascension Ladder was completely uneventful.
Time flowed faster within the Stomach World. The residents of its towns were admiring lanterns, and children were gradually being brought home to rest.
Everything remained peaceful and prosperous.
Aside from that, there was not the slightest disturbance.
Ren Qing was momentarily stunned before falling into the scenes from when the technique had been created, experiences that seemingly belonged to Meat and Wine Taoist.
He was extremely curious about them, especially regarding the The Taotie Method itself.
**The Taotie Method**
**The Taotie Method is engraved upon the stomach of the exotic beast Taotie and was obtained by Meat and Wine Taoist. Cultivating this technique requires consuming vast amounts of food until the stomach expands to more than six times its normal size. Only then can it be mastered.**
He did not know what exactly Taotie was. Could there truly have existed some exotic beast known as Taotie thousands or tens of thousands of years ago?
Ren Qing focused his attention on Meat and Wine Taoist's memories.
The scene was filled with darkness so complete that one could not see a hand before one's face. Only the faint sobbing of a boy and unconscious groans of pain could be heard.
Ren Qing noticed that Meat and Wine Taoist seemed to be trapped within an extremely confined space, unable even to move his limbs.
A moment later, light finally shone into the darkness, revealing a youthful face.
Only then did Ren Qing discover that Meat and Wine Taoist had actually been a child raised inside a clay jar, his expression overflowing with uncontrollable fear.
After feeding Meat and Wine Taoist some dry rations mixed with water, the evil cultivator sealed the clay jar once again.
Meat and Wine Taoist fell back into darkness, able only to hear faint rustling sounds from outside as endless loneliness awaited him.
He began imagining that a beautiful world existed within the darkness. His mind gradually became distorted, and he immersed himself in those fantasies every day.
The crying inside the clay jar became less and less frequent.
Instead, eerie laughter began to emerge.
Even the evil cultivator found it unsettling and would frequently beat Meat and Wine Taoist. Yet the latter paid no attention, merely staring blankly into the shadows.
As time passed, the evil cultivator stopped feeding Meat and Wine Taoist altogether. He threw him into the woodshed and ignored him, focusing all his attention on alchemy.
Within days, Meat and Wine Taoist had nearly starved unconscious and was simply waiting for death.
Fortunately, the evil cultivator had not only raised Meat and Wine Taoist. There was also a spiritually intelligent human-faced dog that actually stole food to help sustain him.
The two gradually became familiar with each other.
Meat and Wine Taoist would occasionally tell the human-faced dog stories about the world in his fantasies.
The contents were bizarre and horrifying, as his worldview had been completely twisted by the evil cultivator.
Ren Qing suspected that this was the moment when Meat and Wine Taoist accidentally came into contact with the Heavenly Dao.
The more extreme a person was, the easier it was for their soul to perceive the existence of the Heavenly Dao. Through gazing upon indescribable things, they could comprehend various techniques.
Yet before Meat and Wine Taoist could descend into madness under the influence of the Heavenly Dao, the human-faced dog that had been listening to him speak went insane first.
Its body grew increasingly massive. Fangs protruded from its mouth. Its fur became ragged and ruined, revealing human skin fused with flesh beneath.
Meat and Wine Taoist noticed none of the abnormalities and continued telling stories of his imagined world.
Finally, one day, barking echoed endlessly through the Daoist temple.
The smell of blood spread everywhere.
Fresh blood dyed the vegetation in the courtyard a vivid crimson.
The human-faced dog appeared to have engaged in a fierce battle with the evil cultivator. Several walls had even collapsed.
Ren Qing realized that Dao techniques had also existed in ancient times. The human-faced dog was far from an ordinary beast, yet the evil cultivator was likewise no ordinary person.
When the human-faced dog returned to the woodshed, it was already on the verge of death.
Its appearance had become even stranger.
Its body was covered in dark green scales. Its limbs resembled those of a human. Its head remained beast-like, yet another human face hung beneath its jaw.
Using the last of its strength, it shattered Meat and Wine Taoist's clay jar before collapsing to the ground.
Having spent so long trapped inside the jar, Meat and Wine Taoist's bones had become deformed and twisted. He crawled over to the human-faced dog and continued telling stories.
Little did he know that the dog had already died.
Its stomach and intestines had spilled from a wound in its abdomen.
The The Taotie Method was recorded upon the human-faced dog's stomach.
There was no need to know how to read.
The contents of the technique drilled into Meat and Wine Taoist's mind like a living creature.
The human-faced dog had suffered Heavenly Dao corruption after hearing Meat and Wine Taoist's stories. Naturally, the The Taotie Method became filled with the bizarre absurdities from Meat and Wine Taoist's fantasies.
This perfectly demonstrated Meat and Wine Taoist's obsession with nurturing a real world.
The scene before Ren Qing shifted to the experiences behind the Food-Consuming Immortal Technique.
By this point, Meat and Wine Taoist had restored his body to normal through cultivating the The Taotie Method, though he still walked with a slight limp.
However, he had become even more obsessive.
The newly born Stomach World had failed to meet his expectations.
Meat and Wine Taoist attempted to recreate the circumstances under which he had obtained the The Taotie Method by wandering everywhere and telling others stories about his fantasy world.
As a result, many people died.
On one occasion, he directly drove tens of thousands of residents in a city insane.
In a sense, the evil committed by Meat and Wine Taoist was even more terrifying than that of the evil cultivator.
The number of mortals who died by his hands was beyond counting.
In such a mental state, he comprehended the Food-Consuming Immortal Technique, a technique that used humans as ingredients for cooking.
The next scene was the Wine God Technique.
Meat and Wine Taoist stood before a lake.
Corpses floated throughout its waters.
The aroma of human flesh was so enticing that the people gathered on the shore could barely suppress their hunger.
The comprehension of the Wine God Technique came naturally, as though the Heavenly Dao were rewarding him for his evil deeds.
Ren Qing found it absurd.
Yet this world itself was pieced together from irrational things.
Even the Heavenly Dao might not be the true source.
Before he could recover from the complicated emotions brought about by Meat and Wine Taoist's memories, a familiar figure appeared within the scene.
Broad shoulders.
A head full of white hair.
Heavenly Daozi looked vigorous and spirited.
As the headmaster of Wuwei Daoist Temple, he had spread the Dao lineage throughout Jingzhou and stood only a step away from the Heavenly Aberration realm.
He sat cross-legged within a bamboo grove filled with sandalwood fragrance, writing furiously.
The sandalwood incense appeared to stimulate the insight of Heavenly Dao technique cultivators, but in reality, it caused the Heavenly Dao Insect within their bodies to secrete saliva and interfere with their thoughts.
After creating Dao Dao Dao, Heavenly Daozi's expression remained calm as water.
However, Ren Qing noticed that at the cuff of Heavenly Daozi's sleeve were the words "Tianshu" hastily written in charcoal.
Dao Dao Dao had nothing to do with the Tianshu Acupoint.
It had been created entirely under the guidance of the Heavenly Dao Insect.
Clearly, Heavenly Daozi had already grown suspicious.
Ren Qing could not help feeling somewhat regretful.
Had Heavenly Daozi not been shackled by Heavenly Dao techniques, he likely would have broken through to the Heavenly Aberration realm even earlier than Chen Changsheng.
The two had been close companions.
If Heavenly Daozi had protected Chen Changsheng during his breakthrough, or if Chen Changsheng had not yet thrown himself into the Longevity Forbidden Zone before Heavenly Daozi had been forced into cultivating the Beast Pen Method...
The fates of both the Restraint Officers' Hall and Wuwei Daoist Temple would have been rewritten.
The two would not have ended up as mere remnants of souls, surviving miserably within the Stomach World.
Such is fate...
The memories behind the Rebirth Technique were comparatively unremarkable.
The cultivator who created the Rebirth Technique was named Longevity Dao Lord.
He was simply an old Daoist obsessed with pursuing immortality.
Even if he merely heard rumors that an immortal had appeared somewhere, he would travel thousands of miles to investigate, even if it ended in disappointment.
When he reached old age and sensed that his lifespan was nearing its end, his behavior became increasingly extreme.
Longevity Dao Lord specifically sought out the tombs of nobles and dignitaries, hoping to uncover scriptures recording methods of becoming immortal.
He became a renowned tomb-moving Daoist.
Because he had no interest in gold or treasure, he was greatly respected among tomb-moving Daoists.
When Longevity Dao Lord had become frail and aged, a younger generation member gifted him a manual describing an immortal method.
According to the manual, if one neither slept nor ate until saliva began flowing from the mouth, one could absorb the spiritual qi of heaven and earth.
The immortal method was certainly fake.
Yet Longevity Dao Lord believed it wholeheartedly.
Supported by his unwavering faith in attaining immortality and comprehending the Dao, he came into contact with the Heavenly Dao and created this strange technique that "absorbed vitality into the body and transformed the flesh into a corpse."
After digesting the contents of all five techniques belonging to the The Taotie Method, the Heavenly Dao descended.
For the third time, Ren Qing's soul was dragged into an even deeper underground realm.
What would have been unimaginable for other cultivators had already become commonplace to him.
Ren Qing could not help wondering which of the Three Dao Ancestors would appear next.
So far, Daode Heavenly Venerable had never appeared.
Yet he felt that the The Taotie Method did not particularly align with Daode Heavenly Venerable.
Most likely it would still be either Lingbao Heavenly Venerable or Primordial Heavenly Venerable.
Ren Qing waited for a long time.
Gradually, the sound of Dao scriptures being chanted echoed out.
"Without origin and without superior."
"Yet alone capable of being the beginning of all things."
"Therefore called Primordial Beginning."
"Guiding all Dao to supreme exaltation."
"Yet forever dwelling within the Two Purities."
"Existing above all heavens."
"Therefore called Heavenly Venerable."
It was actually Primordial Heavenly Venerable again.
However, for Ren Qing, it mattered little which of the Three Heavenly Venerables appeared.
After all...
"Dao child, why do you not bow before the Heavenly Venerable?"
"Dao child, why do you not bow before the Heavenly Venerable?!"
Countless voices seemed to repeat those words throughout the darkness.
Ren Qing could not help feeling alarmed and uncertain.
Why had an unexpected change appeared during his second encounter with Primordial Heavenly Venerable?
Suppressing his distracting thoughts by force, Ren Qing reminded himself that he had already made thorough preparations in advance. It should not take long to comprehend the Ascension Method.
Yet when Primordial Heavenly Venerable finally appeared, Ren Qing still lost focus for several breaths.
Primordial Heavenly Venerable no longer possessed the appearance of a clay statue.
Now he seemed fashioned from fine jade and flesh alike.
He wore authentic Daoist robes, while seven-colored spiritual light enveloped the crown of his head.
The pearl in his hand symbolized a time before heaven and earth had taken form, before chaos had opened, before all things had come into existence.