Chapter 48 The Great Transformation

He frowned slightly, and a wisp of his Divine Sense probed inside.

Inside the heaven-reaching tower, in the deepest Chaos space, Lin Qingyue sat cross-legged. Immortal light swirled around her, and her aura had actually stepped into the True Immortal Realm.

Gu Heng looked at the white figure in silence, his mind racing.

The time flow inside and outside the tower was one to ten thousand.

From his Ascension from the Lower Realm to being "enthusiastically" brought to this mine by those two Cultivators, it had only been a few hours at most in the outside world.

A few hours meant several years inside the tower.

In these few short years, she had rushed all the way from Soul Transformation to True Immortal?

This Cultivate speed was even more outrageous than his own cheated one.

If it continued at this speed, and he gave her a few more months—which would be several hundred years inside the tower—would she charge directly to Immortal Emperor?

Gu Heng's expression gradually became somewhat subtle.

A word came to mind: stifling a Genius.

As soon as the thought popped into his mind, he shook his head and dispelled it.

It wasn't because he was soft-hearted. Gu Heng was never soft-hearted when it came to a potential threat.

The reason he dismissed this idea was because—he suddenly thought of a crucial question.

From the Lower Realm until now, the attitude of the Empress's faction toward him had always been ambiguous.

He had refined the heaven-reaching tower in front of the Divine Envoy, which could be said to be slapping the Divine Court and the Empress in the face publicly. That high and mighty Empress had even taken action herself, stirring the River of Time to cover the three thousand worlds, and the commotion was so great that even he, having just ascended to the Devilish Qi region, knew about it.

But then what? Then there was no then.

No one came to hunt him down, and no one came to take back the heaven-reaching tower.

That Empress seemed to have no intention of taking this divine object back at all.

At the time, in the boundary passage, Gu Heng just assumed he had run fast enough and that she couldn't reach him, so he hadn't thought much of it.

But now—he looked at the woman in the tower whose Cultivate speed was unreasonably fast, and suddenly felt that everything made sense.

It wasn't that they wouldn't pursue, it was that they couldn't. It wasn't that they didn't want to take back the heaven-reaching tower, it was that they dared not.

Because Lin Qingyue was inside the tower.

When he refined the heaven-reaching tower, Lin Qingyue was inside. If the Empress's faction were to forcibly take action to seize the heaven-reaching tower from his hands, or even destroy it, what would happen to Lin Qingyue, who was inside the tower?

Afraid to harm the rat for fear of breaking the vase.

When this phrase popped into Gu Heng's mind, he found it somewhat absurd.

The dignified Empress, the eternal number one person who ruled all worlds and ended the dark turmoil, would actually be afraid to harm the rat for fear of breaking the vase because of a Personal Disciple, all for him, a True Immortal who had just ascended?

This was simply a fantasy.

No.

Gu Heng narrowed his eyes, his gaze landing on the white figure shrouded in immortal light inside the tower.

His logic became incredibly clear at this moment.

The key to the problem was not "because of a Personal Disciple." It was because of "this Personal Disciple."

Lin Qingyue must be hiding something that even the Empress had to be wary of. Or rather—something that even the Empress would go to any lengths to protect.

He remembered the rumors he had heard in the Lower Realm from the fragmented words of Prime Minister Turtle and Old Ancestor Qingxuan: that the Empress, who never appeared in eternity and never took disciples, had made an exception and took her; the Empress had personally paved her path of Cultivate and arranged all the Cultivate resources; the Empress had even gone so far as to cause such a huge commotion in the Lower Realm, stirring the River of Time, just to confirm her safety.

Each and every one of these things seemed unusual.

And now, Lin Qingyue was in seclusion in his tower, and her Cultivate speed was unimaginably fast—this speed was simply not something a normal Cultivator could possess.

Innate Dao Bone?

Gu Heng shook his head. He had seen many Innate Dao Bones, but compared to the one before him, it was like the difference between a firefly and the bright moon, completely incomparable.

Then there was only one explanation. She had a secret. A secret so big that even the Empress had to be careful, and would even risk waking the Demon God Emperor to protect it personally.

"So that's how it is..." Gu Heng withdrew his Divine Sense and exhaled.

"So the reason I'm still alive and kicking here is not because I ran fast, but because she is in my tower."

He muttered to himself, understanding dawned on him.

At this moment, he truly realized just how heavy the weight of this trump card he had inadvertently obtained was.

If Lin Qingyue died—he imagined that scene.

Without Lin Qingyue acting as a "hostage," what would the Empress's faction do?

That high and mighty Empress would have no more scruples and could take action directly. That Divine Envoy who had been angered to death by him in the Lower Realm wouldn't need to search the world for him either, and could take action directly.

He was merely a True Immortal, facing an eternal Empress who had lived for who knows how many epochs, plus a Divine Envoy at the Quasi-Immortal Emperor level, and the pursuit of the entire Divine Court...

Gu Heng sighed; just thinking about it made his scalp tingle.

"So, this woman cannot die for the time being."

He looked at the heaven-reaching tower in his storage ring, his expression becoming extremely complex, "Not only can she not die, but she must also be well-served, fed, and taken care of."

He probed his Divine Sense into the tower again and glanced at the beautiful figure sitting cross-legged, suddenly feeling it was somewhat absurd.

Back in the Lower Realm, Lin Qingyue was the high and mighty Personal Saintess of Piaomiao Palace, the unreachable white moonlight in the hearts of countless Cultivators. And he was just an unknown Utility Disciple of the Qingyun Sect.

He had never thought that one day, his life and safety would be so closely tied to this woman. She had to live for him to live.

Gu Heng started walking again, took two steps in the mine tunnel, but then stopped.

"But having said that..." He rubbed his chin, his eyes becoming somewhat subtle. "If I let her continue to Cultivate like this in the tower... that won't do, will it?"

Although Lin Qingyue was his amulet now, this amulet was also a double-edged sword hanging over his head!

With her current Heaven-Defying Cultivate speed, today she was a True Immortal, tomorrow she might be an Earth Immortal, and the day after she would be a Heavenly Immortal...

When she finished Cultivate for a few hundred years in the tower and came out with Immortal Emperor cultivation, that scene...

By then, I'm afraid that before he was found by the Empress, he would be slapped to death by the grand-auntie he had raised in the tower.

At the thought of that scene, Gu Heng couldn't help but shiver.

The treasure he had worked so hard to refine had ended up becoming a custom-made Cultivate accelerator for someone else, and in the end, he had raised an existence that could crush him to death at any time?

He wouldn't do such a losing business.

"No, absolutely not!" Thinking of this, Gu Heng muttered, "To prevent such a terrible thing from happening, then don't blame me for being... cruel."

At this moment, the Old Dragon King, who had just finished expressing his loyalty and was still immersed in the joy of surviving a disaster, and the laborers who were trembling and kneeling on the ground in the mine tunnel, were all still waiting for the new "Overseer" to dispose of them.

But then they saw Gu Heng move his mind. Hum—the space rippled slightly.

The next moment, a white figure shrouded in immortal light appeared in this dark, damp, and foul-smelling mine tunnel.

He pulled Lin Qingyue directly out of the heaven-reaching tower.

Lin Qingyue, who had just achieved a Breakthrough to True Immortal and whose Realm was not yet fully stabilized, was suddenly pulled out of her Cultivate state by a force and appeared in a completely strange environment, her brows furrowing slightly.

She opened her eyes, a flash of vigilance in her cold eyes. She observed the surrounding environment.

What met her eyes was a dark and sunless underground space, with thick Devilish Qi permeating the air. There was also a group of laborers with numb expressions, looking as if they had seen a ghost.

And... the young man in white standing in front of her, with a playful expression on his face.

"My goodness!" The Old Dragon King's dragon eyes instantly widened like copper bells, and his mouth opened wide enough to fit an egg.

A living person out of thin air! And conjured out of nothing!

If it were to accommodate a living person, it would have to be at least a Small World-level spatial Magic Treasure! In other words, this mysterious Senior was actually carrying a Small World on him?

At this moment, the last trace of reluctance in the Old Dragon King's heart completely vanished.

What kind of terrifying existence could own a Small World? Let alone being a mount, even being a grandson would be aiming too high!

Meanwhile, the laborers on the side and the overseer who had been smashed half-dead were also completely stunned.

The overseer even forgot the severe pain in his body, just staring blankly at the immortal shadow that had appeared out of thin air and did not belong to this filthy world at all.

After her Breakthrough to True Immortal, Lin Qingyue's temperament became even more ethereal.

She stood quietly, as if thousands of immortal lights were gathered on her, and a faint, silvery-white mark on her forehead flickered with a soft radiance, holy and noble.

"Gulp." The Old Dragon King subconsciously swallowed a mouthful of saliva, his heart filled with wild joy.

This mount, he was determined to be! Following such an unfathomable master, why worry about not being able to return to his Peak?

In this dead silence, Lin Qingyue finally spoke. She seemed a bit puzzled, her gaze falling on Gu Heng.

"Is Young Master Gu... here in the Devilish Qi region to mine?"