Sage Monarch

'Ai. Breaking through to monarch godhood is going to be really difficult. I spent a huge amount of effort to get god pills and further my cultivation. Don't tell me that I'm still going to fail at this point.'

As Yang Qi searched for an appropriate mountain to land on, he thought back to everything he had done so far in his attempt to complete his monarch godhood. In the Pill-King's temple ruins, he had consumed a Chaos-Cavern Grand-Magnate Pill. Then he ran a scam to get even more pills, and today he slipped the Ten-Directions Many-Heavens Pill off of the White-Haired Boxer King.

Although he hoped he would succeed, he wasn't one hundred percent certain he would.

Thus, he found this remote place to settle down for a time and work on his cultivation.

Thankfully, he was very familiar with the mountains near the mines. In fact, there was nowhere in the god world that he was more familiar with. The ghostface monkey-god, the serpent goddess, the wolf god, the moon-eating lion king, and the ox god all had devil embryos in them. Because of that, he knew about all of the activities of the Demonfolk in these mountains. And he also knew that there were no experts stronger than a Common God here.

Even if the most heaven-rending, earth-crushing events were to play out in these mountains, no one from the outside would notice.

As he flew along, he looked around with his Lord's Eye. After a few hours passed, he identified a mountain range that resembled a dragon, a tiger, or perhaps a black turtle. The mountains seemed desolate, but there was a swirling destiny there that seemed to imply powerful entities or treasures lurked there.

In fact, as Yang Qi peered closer, he noticed that thirty thousand meters beneath the soil beneath the mountains, there was thriving life force.

It wasn't the vital energy of living ore, but some other type of life force that seemed to indicate dramatic transformations would occur here in the future.

In the Scripture Pavilion, he had read a few geography books, and thus recognized that this location of converged life force was something called an innate lifeland. If a sect were to be established here, and spell formations erected, future generations would definitely produce top geniuses.

That said, most innate lifelands were located a few thousand meters below the surface of the earth, whereas this one was located thirty thousand meters down. Not even Greater Gods would be able to detect such a place. Only Yang Qi could, thanks to the God Legion Seal.

'This place is amazing. Nine dragons spitting water. The full moon shining brightly. The white tiger like metal. The vermillion bird in dancing flame. The black turtle diving into water....' Yang Qi had studied a lot about geography, so as soon as he studied the place, he could see how amazing it was. Waving his finger, he sent out a stream of sword energy that felled some of the trees and hewed open a cistern. Sweet water immediately bubbled forth, releasing the strong aroma of innate life.

'Incredible. It seems like a scraggly and rugged place, but it actually has deep springs of water. This should be a great place to work on my cultivation. Instead of staying on the surface, I'll go down thirty-thousand meters, then use the life force there to help perfect my monarch godhood.'

Exhaling deeply, he used streams of godpower to create something like a shell around him, a defensive barrier that was as strong as steel.

Then he shot into the ground, boring down noiselessly and leaving no trace of his passage.

The world beneath the surface of the ground was a very different place. For the first few meters, it wasn't very noticeable. It was all a tangle of roots, as well as hidden creatures such as snakes, bugs, rats, ants, and the like. Further down, there was a network of waterways and subterranean rivers. Then came a layer of rock, followed by pulsing baleful energy. As he burrowed deeper, Yang Qi used his psychic power to 'see' everything around him for several kilometers.

Things were constantly transforming around him. Sometimes it was hot, sometimes cold. Sometimes it even seemed like there was wind. In the impure lands, there was only earthflame beneath the surface of the ground, but not so in the god world. There were numerous layers, some that had fire, some that had ice. There were sections of metal and rock, and tunnels dug almost as if by earthworms. There were also creatures that lived there, including devils and dragons.

However, the area Yang Qi was moving through was very calm and peaceful.

He went downward for a night and a day until he was thirty thousand meters down. There were deeper depths beyond, but what lay there, he couldn't tell.

Having reached his target destination, he hewed out a cave for himself, roughly thirty meters in height, length, and width. Using his psychic power, he turned the soil into stone bricks to line everything.

He sat down in his subterranean cave and looked at the stone walls, upon which pulsed a greenish energy flow. It was none other than the pure subterranean life force in the area. With energy like that, plants on the surface would flourish; without it, the area would turn into a desert.

It was a huge conglomeration of life force that stretched thousands of kilometers from end to end. Right now, it was the reason the mountains above contained towering, ancient trees. However, after Yang Qi absorbed it, it ensured that, in the years to come, the area overhead would eventually wither up and turn into a desert of bare mountains.

'Don't disappoint me, Ten-Directions Many-Heavens Pill!' he thought, pulling out the pill. Smiling, he exhaled some vital energy to ignite the pill. Obviously, he wasn't just going to consume it directly. He needed to test its medicinal properties first. As the saying went, be careful, and you can pilot the same boat for ten thousand years.

Thanks to the fire, intricate designs appeared on the surface of the pill, which were warding spells put in place by the White-Haired Boxer King to protect it.

With hardly any effort at all, Yang Qi removed the warding spells and continued the burning process until the pill was nothing more than a crystalline expression of godpower, shining with dazzling light.

Wham!

At that point, Yang Qi consumed it, causing his entire body to shine with scintillating beams of light. The light connected with the vital energy of heaven and earth in these depths, and the life force. Innumerable streams of energy started flowing into his nascent monarch godhood, until it rumbled loudly.

It was like hearing all living beings speaking at the same time, and all the musical instruments thrumming together to form a single word.

"Monarch!"

"Monarch!"

"Monarch!"

Yang Qi knew that if he succeeded in this effort, he would be a god. No matter how strong he had been in the past, he hadn't been anything more than an immortal. A human. Not a god. But when he formed actual godhood, his life force substructure would change, and he would become part of the legion of gods. Then, the true nature of the God Legion Seal would be revealed to him. After all, what he had access to right now was only the tip of the iceberg.

'The moment of truth has come.' Even as he absorbed the medicinal strength of the pill, the God Legion Seal was drawing deeply on the essence of the god world.

This was definitely going to be the most important and critical breakthrough attempt in his entire life. If he succeeded, he would no longer be an ordinary person....

**

In the god kingdom of the House of God Ordainment, in a mansion grotto atop a mysterious mountain peak, the White-Haired Boxer King was adjusting his breathing to heal himself and extrude the poison from within him.

'I didn't get anything after killing Yang Qi, other than revenge. But that's what happens to people who cross the Dragon Society!' At the moment, he was still pretending to be in seclusion, hoping to avoid any fallout from Jadefall from having killed Yang Qi.

As far as anyone was concerned, he had been here this entire time and had never left his mountain.

'That brat Yang Qi didn't even want this amazing Ten-Directions Many-Heavens Pill, not even in his death. Well, he might not want it, but I do. I wasted a lot of godpower in this effort, probably ten years' worth of cultivation. This pill will be perfect to restore my reserves.' With that, he began patting around in his robe.

However, after a moment, his face fell. 'My medicinal pill! Where did it go? It was right here in my robe! How come it's gone? That pill is incredibly expensive! And I only had one of them! Impossible. Impossible!'

Shooting to his feet, he began frantically searching for it, but couldn't find any traces.

Anyone who could have seen the White-Haired Boxer King in this moment would have been shocked. Normally, he kept his composure perfectly, always looking elegant and handsome, which was why so many female disciples fell for him. But right now, he looked like a crazed, stray dog.

'Did I drop it back on the Toxic Continent? A divination should reveal the details!' He immediately performed a divination, but didn't get any results.

SNICK!

He spat out some blood which formed into a mirror, except that it didn't reveal any information at all. It was almost as if he had never even possessed that medicinal pill to begin with.

1. In Chinese, an "immortal" is 仙人 whereas the single-character for person/human is 人. So as you can see, the term "immortal" has "person/human" in it. It makes perfect sense visually to say that he was "just an immortal, a human".