A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality: Immortal Realm

Shortly thereafter, Han Li returned to the White Head Valley.

After hearing what the village chief had to say earlier, Han Li had determined that faint time law powers within the spring were able to alter the bodies of the villagers bathing inside, either restoring their youth or accelerating their deaths.

If he were to cultivate his Great Five Elemental Illusion Mantra here, then there was a very good chance that he would be able to make a breakthrough in a shorter time, thereby making him better equipped to deal with the likes of Qi Mozi.

However, the time law powers in the spring seemed to be rather inconsistent, and according to the village chief, it only appeared for short windows once every over a hundred years, so if he wanted to make use of it, he would have to find the root of the time law powers first.

Upon entering the valley, Han Li began to examine the jagged rocks on either side of it instead of immediately venturing deeper into the valley.

It didn't take long for him to notice that there were many golden seal text runes engraved onto the surrounding rocks.

Some of the runes were still relatively intact, while others were far less so, but all of them had already lost their original spiritual nature.

No wonder I detected some time law power fluctuations earlier, but I can't detect them now that I'm in here. It's quite remarkable that these runes have such a strong concealment effect even in their current state, Han Li thought to himself as he stroked one of the runes on a nearby giant rock.

All of a sudden, a thought occurred to him. If the concealment effect in this place was so potent, then why didn't he make this his new hiding place?

Over the past two years, even though he hadn't been caught by his Immortal Palace pursuers, they were constantly hot on his tail, keeping him constantly on edge. Every once in a while, he would release a puppet that bore a hint of his aura to try and confound his pursuers, but even so, he was still unable to truly shake them off.

With that in mind, Han Li began to carefully examine the White Head Valley while occasionally extending a finger to trace the runes engraved onto the rocks around him.

Only as the sun began to rise did he finally sit down onto a large rock, feeling thoroughly exhausted at this point.

After an entire night of work, Han Li manually restored most of the incomplete runes and also moved around many of the large rocks in the valley to restore the array inside as much as possible.

In the instant that his work was done, a cloud of mist instantly began to rise up, concealing the entire valley within it.

Han Li flew up into the air, then examined the valley with his spiritual sense for a moment to discover that he was no longer able to detect even the slightest bit of time law power fluctuations.

If even he couldn't detect anything with his spiritual sense, then it was extremely unlikely that anyone else would be able to.

After descending back into the valley, Han Li began to make his way toward the spring.

Upon arriving at the triangular archway, Han Li discovered that there was currently a layer of white mist over the spring as well. However, all of the mist was condensed under the two giant rocks, and none of it seeped out into the surrounding area.

Han Li swept his spiritual sense across the valley, upon which his expression changed ever so slightly, and he hurriedly flew over to the spring, where he spotted the elderly men that had been placed in the spring the night before.

All of them were looking extremely wizened and atrophied, clearly having already perished long ago.

Furthermore, the clothes on their bodies began to rapidly decay right before Han Li's eyes, following which their flesh also disintegrated, revealing the skeletons underneath.

"Looks like they weren't so lucky this time," Han Li sighed, then reached a hand into the spring before giving the water a gentle stir.

The water was cool to the touch, and it didn't appear to be remarkable in any way.

A perplexed look appeared on Han Li's face, but right at this moment, he suddenly felt a faint burst of warmth coming from somewhere deep within the spring. This warmer water was wrapping itself around his hand, and it was clearly smoother than the other water around it.

As soon as this burst of water came into contact with Han Li's hand, he immediately detected a burst of time law power fluctuations, following which the fine hairs on the back of his hand began to rapidly grow before falling away, and the cycle was repeated over and over again.

So the water here is capable of accelerating the flow of time. It looks like there really is some type of treasure hidden here.

With that in mind, Han Li swept a sleeve through the air to pick up the skeletons before setting them down beside the spring, then waded into the spring himself.

Upon arriving at the source of the burst of warmer water in the spring, Han Li bent down to discover a small hole at the bottom of the spring.

He cleared away all of the small rocks around the hole to fully reveal it, but it didn't appear to be remarkable in any way.

How strange. Even my spiritual sense isn't able to detect anything out of the ordinary here...

Han Li's brows furrowed slightly as he looked up at the two giant rocks above, and in doing so, he discovered a ring-shaped rune inscribed onto each rock, but the two runes weren't giving off any spiritual power fluctuations.

Han Li activated his Infernal Devilish Eyes, and the runes immediately displayed a change in his eyes.

Deep within the giant rocks where the two runes had been engraved were two rings of golden light that were revolving incessantly in opposite directions.

An intrigued look appeared in Han Li's eyes upon seeing this, and he rose up into the air before pressing his hands against the two ring-shaped runes.

At the same time, he channeled his Great Five Elemental Illusion Mantra, and two bursts of golden light flowed out of his hands before injecting themselves into the ring-shaped runes.

The two runes instantly lit up as they began to revolve several times faster than before, and they each released a burst of golden light that came together to form a golden light barrier, which completely encompassed the space underneath the stone archway.

At this point, Han Li had already preemptively backed out of the stone archway, and he was observing the door of golden light before him with a wary expression.

After a brief moment of contemplation, he conjured up his True Extreme Film before flying into the light barrier.

The golden light barrier instantly vanished, and shortly thereafter, the water in the spring slowly seeped into the ground.

The entire spring gradually dried up, leaving only the skeletal remains of the elderly men laying on the loose rocks nearby.

......

There was a lone mountain standing on the border between the western and central regions of the Golden Origin Mountain Range.

At this moment, Qi Mozi was standing on the mountain summit with a broken puppet beneath his feet, looking into the distance.

"This is already the 136th puppet. Even though he left his blood essence on this puppet, he also planted a blood incinerating mark on it, so his blood essence would immediately be incinerated into nothingness as soon as we caught this puppet, leaving no trace behind for us. You were right, Xiong Shan, he really is a very cunning man," Qi Mozi mused.

At this moment, there was a young man standing behind Qi Mozi, and it was none other than Xiong Shan in his new body.

"I've had first-hand experience with Han Li's cunning and resourcefulness, and I paid a heavy price for my lack of preparedness. Even so, never did I think that he would develop so quickly, to the point that he's now posing a threat to the Heavenly Court," Xiong Shan said in a grim voice.

"I was originally planning to take him down in secret, but he stormed into the Golden Origin Immortal Palace and even killed Dongfang Bai, so there's no way the Heavenly Court will remain oblivious to him. Having said that, I suppose this also benefits me as I can now openly pursue him on behalf of the Immortal Prison," Qi Mozi mused.

"Judging from the route that he's taken, he appears to have traveled into the central area of the Golden Origin Immortal Region. The situation is very complex there, so we may not have the easiest of times pursuing him," Xiong Shan said in a hesitant manner.

"The Heavenly Court has already been discontent with the central area of the immortal region for a very long time, so if any sect dares to oppose us at this juncture, then it'll be a perfect opportunity to set an example. Rest assured, the leaders of all of the powerful sects and clans in this area are sly old foxes who would know that it's wise to stay out of our way.

“In fact, they'll most likely do everything to prevent Han Li from sneaking into their territory just to avoid getting caught up in this mess," Qi Mozi harrumphed coldly.

"That's true. Han Li always likes to act alone, so he most likely won't go into hiding in any sect or clan. Hence, I think we should focus the majority of our efforts on searching the areas that aren't overseen by any prominent powers," Xiong Shan said, and Qi Mozi nodded in agreement with this sentiment.

"Let's go. I detected his aura earlier, and he should be heading southeastward. Let's see how long he can keep running for!" Qi Mozi said as he swept a sleeve through the air, releasing a red flying boat with crimson flames burning around it.

The two of them leaped onto the boat, which then immediately flew away into the distance, quickly vanishing out of sight.