249: Chapter 249 Expansion, Meeting the Lord of the Underworld.

Seeing Councillor Simu so impatient, Councillor Yixiu shook his head helplessly. He unhurriedly approached the riverbank, released his Zen staff Dharma artifact to protect himself, and began to refine the imagery of this place.

Time passed bit by bit.

Although the two had to return to the mortal realm every month to absorb enough Yang to maintain their soul bodies and prevent them from falling into the Netherworld, after gradually getting the hang of it, they discovered that this work of refining Yellow Springs River water was quite helpful for perfecting and comprehending their own imagery, so they often came here.

Meanwhile, with the birth of more and more Dao Foundation Cultivators and Nether Generals, an increasing number of people were taking on this task.

In the entire Netherworld, apart from the Nine Great Domains and the main stream of the Yellow Springs River flowing from the Nine Springs, every important resource production area had guided out hundreds of Tier-1 tributaries due to the increasing amount of refined Yellow Springs River water.

Ten years passed, and the entire Netherworld expanded to a limit.

It reached three times the surface area of the Blue Star. The increase in land area gradually slowed down, and the subsequent construction of Yellow Springs River tributaries slowly came to a halt.

Only then did the two manage to scrape together the 30,000 Merit points required to request guidance from the Lord of the Netherworld.

It was not that they had only earned this much Merit over the past ten years. They keenly realized that although this project had a long duration, it would eventually come to an end, and being able to earn it so easily was, for them, nothing short of an opportunity.

Therefore, the two did not hoard their Merit. Instead, they exchanged it for spiritual pills needed for imagery cultivation and materials to upgrade their life-bound Dharma artifacts, simultaneously increasing their cultivation strength while continuing to take on this task.

Until today, when the Lord of the Netherworld manifested a million-zhang-tall Dharma image that supported the heavens, using immense divine powers and magic to refine the entire Yellow Springs River flowing through the Netherworld. From then on, the Yellow Springs River, which had previously been turbulent due to the gathering of soul fragments, completely calmed down.

One could even fly over the Yellow Springs River without relying on specially crafted river-crossing Dharma boats.

It could be said that the Lord of the Netherworld had completely transformed the entire Yellow Springs River with just his own power.

At this moment, in the eyes of Councillor Simu, the Yellow Springs River was like the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers on the Blue Star, where water veins converged. Although it was a Tier-2 water vein river, it no longer possessed its former danger and strangeness.

He even boldly used his spiritual power to carefully perceive the periphery of the Yellow Springs River, discovering that some imperceptibly fragile lives had actually appeared, living in the Yellow Springs River like mayflies.

"The methods of the Lord of the Netherworld are truly beyond our understanding. With just this single move, the Yellow Springs River, which was originally a forbidden zone for life, has actually begun to give birth to life. The wonders of creation are profound, and the Great Dao is boundless."

Hearing Councillor Simu's exclamation, Yi Xiu agreed.

"Such a great divine power to turn decay into magic and transform dangerous lands into sources of vitality is likely something that cannot be achieved by ordinary Tier-2 levels."

For Councillor Yixiu, who often read the vast amount of knowledge Wang An brought from the Bronze Academy, he could rely on some superficial judgments to perceive its extraordinariness.

"Dao brother, perhaps that one has already achieved the laws of defining heaven and earth."

"Alright, old monk. Thinking so much is useless. We should take advantage of the fact that the Lord of the Netherworld is present to quickly seek our path forward. For such a powerful being with great divine powers, a single seclusion could last ten or several decades, and we don't know what we would become by then."

The two packed up the residential array they had set up there and headed straight to the Zhoujue Yin Heavenly Palace to pay their respects to the Lord of the Netherworld.

The process of requesting an audience was not very complicated; one simply used Merit in the Merit Division to exchange for a guidance opportunity and waited outside the Zhoujue Yin Heavenly Palace for a summons.

After the two finished the series of procedures and returned to the periphery of the Heavenly Palace, they already saw several Transcendent Lives who also served in the Netherworld system waiting outside the hall.

It seemed some people had taken a step ahead of them and applied for this opportunity early on.

The main hall of the Zhoujue Yin Heavenly Palace was the place where the Lord of the Netherworld's Shinto Incarnation resided year-round. No one dared to talk casually here, so Councillor Simu and Yi Xiu communicated secretly using their spiritual power.

"Old monk, I didn't expect others to arrive before us. I just don't know who these people are. Heavenly Talisman Dao Foundation Cultivators shouldn't need to spend such a cost to request guidance for their path forward."

"Dao brother, looking at the spiritual aura around them, it is somewhat similar to the Inner Scenery Method of the Earth Immortal Dao. This type of method is good at cultivating and capturing the spirituality of all things. By staying in one place year-round, it is of great help for cultivating various mineral veins, spiritual beasts, and spiritual plants. I did not expect that there were already cultivators who had attained the Earth Immortal Dao."

"Nowadays, Master Tianhe is in seclusion year-round, so he naturally cannot answer their questions about their path forward. That is why they, like us, accumulated Merit to request help from this Shinto Incarnation of the Lord of the Netherworld."

"Old monk, as a Daoist, I know that I cultivated my original Taiyin imagery into a Bright Moon imagery that is close to the Netherworld, which is why I went down the wrong path. I really don't know in what aspect you need the Lord's guidance."

Originally, for cultivators, what kind of Dao Foundation they cultivated and the specific situation of their imagery cultivation were things that needed to be kept secret to avoid being intentionally targeted by malicious people.

However, the two had been friends for many years, so even without speaking of it, they could observe and guess the general situation while getting along.

Yi Xiu was silent for a while, and just when Councillor Simu thought he didn't want to say, he transmitted information to him.

"The Pure Land imagery I have been cultivating has no deviations. It is just that due to my insufficient aptitude, I need to make a trade-off between the Golden Body and Zen Heart. Limited by the perspective of a low-level cultivator, I do not know how to choose, so I came here to ask the Lord of the Netherworld to clear up my confusion."

Hearing Yi Xiu say this, Councillor Simu understood what problem he was facing.

After Master Tianhe created the Heavenly Talisman Dao Foundation Cultivator system that unified the three treasures of Essence, Qi, and Spirit, countless geniuses also wanted to embark on this path, but after several attempts, they were all blocked by the immense difficulty involved.

They had to create new systems with a ratio of one as the main and two as the auxiliary.

Even the Martial Dao system, which takes Essence and Qi as the main and Spirit as the auxiliary, has many flaws after creating a Transcendent system.

Therefore, the deeper one goes into this field, the more one reveres Master Tianhe for creating the Heavenly Talisman Dao Foundation Cultivator system.

Time passed, and soon it was Yi Xiu and Councillor Simu's turn.

With the status of the Lord of the Netherworld, guiding the cultivation of Tier-1 lives was naturally a simple matter.

Usually, it was done by using very few words to point out the key points and dissecting a part of the direction for the path ahead.

Yi Xiu and Councillor Simu also stopped a few fellow Daoists who had finished their guidance to understand this, so they had some preparation for what they needed to ask.

This time, it was Councillor Simu who went in first.

Taking a step into the Zhoujue Yin Heavenly Palace, he sensed the dense Netherworld Dao charm within the internal space filling the entire main hall.

This hall was made of profound black and dark gold materials, surrounded by floating cloud stairs and Netherworld spiritual mist. There were no sun, moon, or stars, but there was natural Nether light illuminating it, with auspicious energy and Yin energy blending together.

There were no architectural decorations or patterns found in the human world; apart from those that looked like law rune patterns at a glance, there were no other carvings or murals.