After Qing Ling met with Granny Hua Geng and returned to Baichun Valley with nine spirit fruits brimming with spiritual energy.
Although these nine spirit fruits were not innate spirit fruits, they were rare treasures of acquired spirit roots, fruits condensed by a primordial green plum tree that had accumulated for five thousand years.
Not to mention Heavenly Rank cultivators, these were precious fruits that even Golden Immortal Venerables could benefit from.
After all, the Xi Shan Snake Clan was an ancient clan that had been passed down for thousands of epochs. Even though the clan had declined for a long time, it still had some foundations. If nothing else, these nine thousand-year-old green plums would be extremely rare items for Golden Immortal Venerables in nearby smaller clans.
However, within the Xi Shan Snake Clan, they were only given to clan members who had a chance to break through to the Golden Immortal realm.
And that ancient beast, Zhan Mu, although it looked somewhat cunning, its combat power as an ancient exotic beast was definitely that of a Grand Unity Golden Immortal!
As for other clan secrets, he was unaware of them.
Qing Ling returned to Baichun Valley and did not go out again. Instead, he continued to cultivate in seclusion. Only by becoming powerful himself would he have more chances to survive.
His dantian's sea of qi required a long time to refine qi and nourish the spirit, and his Dao seed also needed long-term nurturing before it could sprout and grow!
As the clan member cultivated with the greatest power, Qing Ling had far more advantages than other Heavenly Rank clan members. Not to mention the abundant spiritual energy in Baichun Valley, he was also exempted from the thousand-year duty required of every Heavenly Rank clan member. Furthermore, he received personal guidance from Golden Immortal Venerables and priority access to rare heavenly treasures.
He was naturally grateful for the kindness of the Xi Shan clan, and thus Qing Ling had no intention of leaving Xi Shan.
Qing Ling returned to his stone chamber and circulated his qi for nine days and nine nights before stopping to recover his depleted primordial spirit.
Then, he picked up a green plum and swallowed it directly. Snakes ate by swallowing, so the fragrant green plum, upon entering his mouth, was swallowed with a "gulp" down his throat.
Qing Ling licked his lips and clicked his tongue, feeling speechless. He hadn't even tasted it yet. But the next moment, the green plum in his stomach instantly transformed into a vast and terrifying spiritual energy that raged within Qing Ling.
Instead of being alarmed, he was delighted, not expecting a single spirit fruit to contain such immense spiritual energy. He quickly submerged his consciousness into his body, circulating the energy through the meridians, bones, and acupoints according to the Divine Body Scripture. Under Qing Ling's guidance, the vast spiritual energy transformed into wisps of spiritual rain, long and nourishing the parched dantian.
In the world of his dantian, there was still a boundless, vast, and dry sea pit. The magical power that Qing Ling had cultivated for two thousand years was merely a small shallow puddle, only a dozen feet wide. Buried in the puddle was a wood seed with extraordinary Dao rhyme, receiving nourishment from the sea of spiritual energy.
At this moment, a drizzle began to fall from the sky in his dantian world. Every drop converged into the shallow puddle, slowly filling the vast sea pit.
The Dao rhyme seed sensed the falling spiritual rain and slowly floated out of the puddle, leaping joyfully in the drizzling rain, like a spirit full of sentience.
It took Qing Ling ten full years to refine and fully absorb the spiritual energy from a single green plum.
This unremarkable green plum had increased his magical power by nearly a thousand years, equivalent to nearly a thousand years of arduous cultivation. No wonder Granny Hua Geng had told him to consume them one by one and not to rush.
It seemed that cultivators throughout the world flocked to rare treasures, spiritual objects of heaven and earth, and innate spiritual roots in pursuit of advancing their Dao path!
After Qing Ling had completely refined it, he swallowed another green plum, beginning to refine the spiritual energy again and convert it into the spiritual water of his dantian's sea of qi.
Years passed by, and the Xi Shan Snake Clan continued to thrive, hunt, survive, or embark on the path of cultivation after awakening their intelligence.
However, a change occurred: every five hundred years, a Spring God would ascend to the summit of Mount Taichong, sowing seeds of vitality and reviving all things.
A small spring every five hundred years, a great spring every three thousand years. After nine cycles of great springs, the vast territory of the Xi Shan Snake Clan underwent a miraculous transformation.
Xi Shan gradually lost its winter. Or rather, the biting winter winds could no longer descend within Xi Shan.
While other tribes endured the extreme cold and had to hibernate and sleep, the Xi Shan territory remained a place where all beasts bred and all spirits cultivated.
The changes year by year were too brief, and perhaps nothing significant could be seen. However, after ten thousand years of accumulation and change, a significant transformation was undeniable!
In the Xi Shan territory, all sentient beasts knew that on the highest peak of Xi Shan, a Spring God would appear once every five hundred years to dispel the winter and usher in spring.
Qing Ling's Spring Law gradually altered the celestial phenomena of the Xi Shan territory. The alternation of spring and winter turned Xi Shan into a warm beast park that was perpetually spring-like.
The Xi Shan Snake Clan also multiplied in large numbers. The number of snakes alone had expanded several times, leading to hundreds more Earthly Rank clan members.
As for Heavenly Rank clan members, only a few could be produced in a mere tens of thousands of years.
However, when the base of Earthly Rank clan members was large enough, even if one in a hundred broke through to the Heavenly Rank, Heavenly Rank clan members would appear more readily!
Spring passed, winter came, and thirty thousand years elapsed.
Qing Ling experienced his longest period of secluded cultivation. The nine green plum spirit fruits took a hundred years to refine, granting him ten thousand years of magical power.
He then cultivated arduously for another thirty thousand years, accumulating magical power like an abyss day and night. In the world of his dantian, a spiritual rain had fallen for thirty thousand years. Even with the finest rain and the vastest dantian, the spiritual energy water had now formed a river, which flowed into a lake, growing from a shallow puddle of a dozen feet wide to a lake covering a thousand feet.
Every drop of water in the shimmering green lake was the result of his day-after-day, year-after-year arduous cultivation. Each drop of spiritual energy water forged Qing Ling's robust and vast foundation!
The green lake shimmered, and a gentle breeze stirred the water, causing it to ripple. The Dao seed in the center of the lake also swayed with the ripples.
However, at the tip of the Dao rhyme spiritual seed, a subtle bulge was visible, within which an image of Dao was gestating, about to emerge from the seed!
During these long thirty thousand years, apart from occasionally fulfilling his duty as the Spring God, Qing Ling only chatted with Qi for some time, so he wasn't entirely cut off from the outside world.
Granny Hua Geng had gone into secluded cultivation ten thousand years prior, a life-and-death seclusion! All clan affairs were handed over to Qi's father, Venerable Wu, to handle.
As for Venerable Chi Li, who had ridden his armor to the East Sea Dragon Palace, he encountered an opportunity on his way back. He had not yet returned, only sending word of his safety through a secret clan technique.
As for the Primordial World, the overlords of this era, the Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin tribes, thirty thousand years was but a fleeting moment to them. The territories of the three tribes remained untouched. The Qilin tribe, leading all beasts, surrounded Buzhou Mountain and ruled the four directions of the land.
The Phoenix tribe governed all birds, residing in the Southern Volcano and occupying more than half of the land south of Buzhou Mountain.
The Dragon tribe's territory encompassed the Four Seas and a vast expanse of land forty-nine billion li from the East Sea coastline. Although extremely vast, it was still considered the East Sea coastal region of the Primordial World.
Qing Ling emerged from seclusion not because he had encountered a bottleneck, but because his primordial spirit sensed that the celestial nexus had stabilized!
After thirty thousand years of bestowing spring's blessings and receiving the worship of all Xi Shan beasts, his manifestation of luck had transformed into a green python image twenty-six feet wide, naturally indicating a significant increase in his fortune.
When luck surges, destiny arrives, and opportunities appear. The mysteries of fate are quite remarkable.