Across the various floors of the Stone Continent, the kidnapped people began to awaken.
"Ugh, my whole body hurts."
"Argh, my head, where are we?"
"I don't know last thing I remember; I was peacefully cultivating and the next thing I knew all I could feel was endless falling."
One by one the various Gu Masters woke up and interacted with one another.
"Hello, my name is Ren Yi, what's yours?"
A young man offered his hand.
"I'm Mo Li." He said as he shook his hand.
"Well Mo Li I've never seen you before, so which force are you from?"
"I'm a lone cultivator."
"I see…"
Ren Yi became a little warry of Mo Li, after all, he could very well be a Demonic Cultivator that was pretending to be a lone cultivator:
"I have to be on guard, there are 6 of us here, the other 5 of us are familiar with each other but this guy is completely random. Is he part of the kidnapping or…"
As his Ren Yi's thoughts began to run rapid Mo Li interjected himself:
"So where are you from?"
"Huh? You don't know me?" Ren Li was shocked.
Mo Li simply shook his head.
"…"
"Hello?"
Ren Li was too stunned to speak, how could anyone at their level not know who he was?
He was one of the 10 children of Human Path, chosen by the 2 Heavenly Court Immortal Kings to be nurtured as a Gu Immortal Seed.
A genius of this generation, and this old uncle didn't know who he was? Impossible! Unless…
"Hey Mo Li, you're not from Central Continent, are you?"
!!!
This piece of news stunned Mo Li: "No. I'm from the Western Desert are you from Central Continent?"
Ren Yi nodded: "Mhm, in fact," he gestures for the other 4 to come to him: "The 5 of us are from the Central Continent."
Mo Li had noticed the presence of the other 4 people but had thought they were doing their own form of checking people out as well.
But now he knew all 5 of them were close, or at least, knew one another. This made things complicated:
"What if they decided to jump me altogether?" he thought.
"Relax, they wouldn't do that, you see how they're only putting up a bravado of unity but deep down they all want to surpass the other."
Who else would chime into Mo Li's thoughts but Peng Da!
Strangely enough, he had just woken up as well, whatever method was used to bring them here also put him to sleep like everyone else.
"This should be the doing of an Immortal, and a powerful one at that," Peng Da commented.
Mo Li began sizing up the 5 Children who stood before him, their auras were oozing with arrogance and confidence, the smiles plastered on their face was no better than a mask, all of them were well dressed and were incredibly handsome or beautiful.
There were 2 Guys and 3 Girls.
"Are you all from the same faction?" he asked, but he could tell they weren't due to the different robes they wore.
He just asked to be polite and to seem stupid so they would underestimate him.
And just as he predicted it worked, the girls giggled a little, while the boys had an increase in the cockiness around them.
"Haha, no we're not from the same sect, I'm from Combat Immortal Sect,"
"I'm from Black Heaven Temple,"
"Spirit Affinity House,"
"Spirit Butterfly Valley,"
"Immortal Crane Sect,"
!!!
Mo Li may not know the names of these Gu Masters but he certainly knew the names of the 10 Great Ancient Sects!
"No wonder they have an air of arrogance around them, these are most likely Gu Immortal Seeds of the 10 Great Ancient Sects! I wonder how much loot they have on them?"
Mo Li began to have an audacious thought.
"Don't even think about it! These aren't the people of the Western Desert they are the Young Masters of the 10 biggest forces in the Central Continent and are directly linked to Heavenly Court!" Peng Da warned.
After all, if Mo Li died so would he.
"Just quietly play the role of the simpleton and we'll get through this."
Mo Li was a little against not looting the 5 children, but he did agree to play the part of the fool.
Meanwhile, the 5 Children were having a discussion amongst themselves using a Human path technique.
"This guy seems to be a complete buffoon; we can use that to our advantage!"
"Guys we shouldn't take advantage of the less fortunate, it is already considered very good to make it Rank 5 in the Western Desert even if he is quite old."
"Well let's play the situation by ear, it'll cost us nothing to befriend him and if we need to we can sacrifice him if need be."
While the girls weren't comfortable with such a plan, they did tacitly agree to it by not voicing strong dissent.
After all, who would value a stranger's life above their own? More so a random old man with seemingly no future.
The strange group of 6 began to turn amicable all of a sudden as they chatted about various things, while each side secretly had bad intentions.
On the other side,
A similar situation was playing out, this time with Shang Xin Ci,
She quickly surveyed the surroundings and found that the other 5 people with her were close to one another, meaning they were at least on good terms with each other.
"Seems I'm the odd one out," Shang Xin Ci began to analyze: "Hmm, they seem younger than me, but their cultivations are all at the peak of Rank 5! How have I never heard of them before?"
Shang Xin Ci realized that sitting where she was wasn't going to achieve anything by sitting around, so she walked towards the group.
"Hello, my name is Shang Xin Ci, I am the Clan leader of the Shang Clan." She greeted formally, doing a curtsy, and raising her hand for a shake.
The 5 looked at each other with a little confusion, one of them stepped forward and shook Shang Xin Ci's hand.
"My name is Er Ren, I'm not familiar with a Shang Clan where is it?"
"It's located at Shang Liang Mountains,"
But this location confused the 5 Children even more,
"I'm sorry I've never heard of the Shang Liang mountains."
Shang Xin Ci could see the genuine confusion in their eyes and quickly put things together: "Might I ask where you are all from?"
"Well, I am from, Wind Cloud Manor,"
Er Ren then gestured for the others to speak:
"I am from Myriad Dragon Dock,"
"Heavenly Lotus Sect,"
"Heaven Envy Manor,"
"Ancient Soul Sect,"
Shang Xin Ci had a similar shocked expression as Mo Li, she easily recognized the names of the top 10 Sects of the Central Continent.
"Oh. I see it is no wonder then, I'm from the Southern Border."
!!!
This instantly alerted the 5 Children.
"So then are we in the Southern Border?" Er Ren asked.
Shang Xin Ci smiled wryly: "I don't know in fact; I was about to ask you if we were in the Central Continent."
The 5 children shrugged as well.
The 6 of them began to chat and were a lot easier going and cordial than the other group.
Suddenly, the room began to shake, the 6 Gu Masters tried hard to balance themselves as they saw one of the walls start retracting down.
A seemingly out-of-place dirt road appeared before them, one leading up, the other leading down.
It was the Secluded Domain of Heaven and Earth: Upslope Road Downslope Road!
The 6 Gu Masters were shocked.
"Is that really the mythical Upslope Road Downslope Road?"
"But I thought it was in the Myriad Fusion Color Beast World? How did it end up here?"
The Gu masters weren't wrong to assume so, because they had no access to Treasure Yellow Heaven.
Neither was the information made public, only the people who were there knew.
They only knew a bit because of what their Sect Masters said of their journey.
It was so far beyond the scope of what these Gu Masters could believe that they chose to omit the fact that it was the Path of Ascension, not Upslope Road Downslope Road.
After all, the Path of Ascension was a Pseudo-Rank 10 Secluded Domain of Heaven and Earth, just shy of Quasi Domains such as Space Cave, River of Time and, the Doors of Life and Death!
But if they were here, they would quickly notice that it had reverted to Upslope Road Downslope Road.
On the opposite side, the Gu Masters were also shown Upslope Road Downslope Road.
"Whoa! It's actually a Secluded Domain of Heaven and Earth!"
This group was particularly excited to test their strengths and almost immediately ran towards the Road.
In the River of Time,
The Pink Fog was still going strong as it kept the 4 Venerables trapped.
But it also prevented the other Venerable's Killer Moves from finding a target, so they just stopped in place, waiting.
Giant Sun had managed to dispel his own Killer Move before Endless Night hit, so they only had, Spectral Soul, Paradise Earth, and Heaven Refining Demon Venerable aka Fang Yuan!
Sitting peacefully among the Fog was Fang Yuan, who spent the time formulating plans for every possible outcome.
In the meantime, his clones were busy supervising the entire Sovereign Immortal Aperture.
At any given point in time, the Gu Immortals of the Sovereign Immortal Aperture were like bees in a hive, bustling about.
In fact, even ordinary Gu masters were being put to good use.
Nothing was wasted.
Ever since Fang Yuan looted the entire Central Continent, his subordinates had been busy installing them into the Sovereign Aperture.
In fact, because there were so many Resource Points, his clones had actually been falling behind in setting up the formations of the Dao Veins!
For every 1 Dao vein they set up, 5 Resource points would be successfully added into the Sovereign Aperture.
Of course, this was a good problem to have!
The Sovereign Immortal Fetus Aperture was developing smoothly and was at 75-80% completeness prior to the introduction of the Myriad Fusion Color Beast Heaven, which knocked him down to 70%!
There was no choice, the Myriad Fusion Color Beast Heaven was too big!
It disrupted the balance of the Dao Marks, thankfully the Dao Veins were enough to hold back from any strange incidents happening.
"A little more and soon the Dao Marks of the Aperture would be completely balanced," Fang Yuan thought to himself.
He couldn't wait to see the qualitative change a 100% would bring to the Sovereign Immortal Aperture.
"Once I achieve 100% I can use the Primordial Domain to boost all my Attainment levels and start annexing Blessed Lands and Grotto Heavens once again!"