"Could it be that the Nine Dragons Emperor's Art I learned is a counterfeit, and what that cowherd learned is the genuine one?"

Ling Yuxiu was at a loss. The Nine Dragons Emperor's Art Shen Mu had passed on to her belonged to the Ling family, and only its opening stance was theirs; everything that followed went beyond the scope of the Ling family's Nine Dragons Emperor's Art — beyond it, and above it.

What frightened her most was this: the Ling family's Nine Dragons Emperor's Art looked like a branch grown out of that opening stance, while the Nine Dragons Emperor's Art Shen Mu had transmitted looked like the trunk — and the branch was merely one possibility of the trunk.

The most primitive Nine Dragons Emperor's Art was like a sapling just breaking through the soil. The Ling family's perfected Nine Dragons Emperor's Art was like a tree whose trunk had snapped, leaving only a single branch to grow. Shen Mu's Nine Dragons Emperor's Art, by contrast, had grown the trunk itself.

The Nine Dragons Emperor's Art had been perfected by generation after generation of the Ling family, and in Emperor Yanfeng's generation it had finally reached great completion — but it had also reached its limit, with no possibility of unearthing further potential.

Shen Mu's Nine Dragons Emperor's Art, however, showed her boundless potential!

Only — how was it that the unremitting efforts of so many generations of the Ling family could not compare with a few short moments of Shen Mu's "enlightenment"?

Could he too be a sage who appears once in five hundred years?

Shen Mu, for his part, gave it little thought. The Nine Dragons Emperor's Art he had comprehended from the True Dragon's Nest was itself incomplete; he had merely passed on what he had grasped to Ling Yuxiu, which counted as a kind of compensation to the Ling family.

There was no way he would return the Jade Register of the Heavenly Emperor to the Ling family. It was a treasure the Lame Elder had given him, and by the rules of the Desolate Ruins, a thing given away is never given back.

Besides, the True Dragon's Nest and the Jade Register of the Heavenly Emperor were a pair, neither complete without the other. Even if the Ling family obtained the Jade Register, it would be of no use to them; the complete Nine Dragons Emperor's Art could be seen only when the true dragon entered its nest.

After Shen Mu retrieved the Jade Register of the Heavenly Emperor from the dragon nest, the pressure on the flood dragons and dragon-kylins vanished at once. They rose one after another, and the look in their eyes as they regarded Shen Mu held a trace of awe.

Shen Mu ordered them to continue on toward the Heavenly Dragon Star Palace. He glanced at the dragon nest, and something stirred in his heart. Smiling, he said, "For cultivating the Nine Dragons Emperor's Art, I happen to know an excellent place. Sister Yuxiu, come with me — let us jump into this dragon nest." With that, he seized Ling Yuxiu's hand and leaped toward the nest.

Ling Yuxiu's heart lurched. She was just wondering how they could possibly jump into a potted landscape so small when suddenly the "potted landscape" beneath their feet grew larger and larger, and their bodies plunged downward at a furious rate, as though falling from a height of several thousand zhang.

And the "potted landscape" had become a vast space over twenty li across!

The circumference of the ninth level of the dragon nest alone was more than ten li!

The two had barely landed when a startled cry came from the air — Si Yunxiang had jumped down as well. Only after she landed in the space of the True Dragon's Nest did she discover that it concealed a whole other world, and she could not help but be astonished.

When Xue Hu'er saw the three of them vanish from the dragon's back, she hurried over in a series of hops and bounds, craned her head, and peered into the "potted landscape." Shen Mu and the other two were as tiny as ants, seeming to have become part of the potted landscape itself.

Yet the three of them were still moving and speaking, though their voices seemed to come from dozens of li away, faint and indistinct.

The three looked around, deeply curious about this place. Shen Mu had entered the dragon nest before, following the Dragon-Rearing Lord, but at that time most of the nest had been submerged in magma, and he had not seen it whole from the inside.

Only now could he take in the interior of the dragon nest at a single glance.

The nest was divided into nine levels, and each level held many glowing columns — some like stalactites, some like dragon teeth, some like pillars. On the ground and on the pillars, written characters and patterns flickered and shifted without cease, concealing some unfathomable mystery.

Ling Yuxiu drew a breath of air and immediately felt an incomparably rich dragon qi surging toward her, and she could not help but cry out in surprise.

The dragon qi of this True Dragon's Nest was richer than the dragon qi of the capital, and compared with the dragon qi here, the Nine Dragons qi of the capital was as earth to heaven — their quality could not be mentioned in the same breath!

The dragon qi here seemed of a higher order altogether, far surpassing the Nine Dragons qi. After all, the Nine Dragons qi was formed by the convergence of nine dragon veins, whereas the dragon qi here gathered the dragon qi of dozens of dragon veins from the Kingdom of Jingping and the Desolate Ruins, forming the dragon qi of the True Dragon Lord!

"Cultivating here is faster than in the capital!"

Ling Yuxiu activated the Nine Dragons Emperor's Art Shen Mu had taught her, and at once felt her cultivation advance by leaps and bounds, her vital essence growing purer still!

The Great Nurturing Nether Demon Sutra also contained methods for contemplating the divine dragon. Si Yunxiang made a tentative trial, and felt dragon qi pouring in without end; in but a short moment, this art had advanced as though she had cultivated bitterly for dozens of days, and she was badly startled.

If one could cultivate here for a dozen days or so, it would be the equivalent of decades of bitter cultivation in the outside world. Were it not for the limits of cultivation realms, the heights one could reach in arts and divine abilities would be beyond anything previously imaginable!

Of course, even with the limits of realm, it was no small matter — this was absolutely a holy land for cultivating dragon-type arts and divine abilities.

"A pity it is of little use to me." Si Yunxiang shook her head.

Her main cultivation was the Chapter of Creation within the Great Nurturing Nether Demon Sutra, transmitted to her by the Young Patriarch. The Young Patriarch had developed the seven chapters of Creation to their utmost as well, passing on to her all his various insights. And Shen Mu had poured out the whole of the Great Nurturing Nether Demon Sutra to her, though he had not taught her the Great Unification Art. Even so, Si Yunxiang counted among the handful of top experts of the younger generation.

Shen Mu was also drawing in true dragon qi. Unlike Ling Yuxiu, who cultivated the Nine Dragons Emperor's Art, he was trying to merge the body-tempering portion of the Nine Dragons Emperor's Art into the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art.

The strength of the Nine Dragons Emperor's Art lay in its magic power, no less mighty than that of the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, and in its supremely overbearing body-tempering methods. The Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art happened to lack body-tempering methods, and the Nine Dragons Emperor's Art could make up for that flaw.