After Han Ming encountered the soul of Duan Lingchen, he sent the golden cell into Duan Lingchen's spirit. Streams of golden energy permeated every particle of the nearly dissipated soul, like the final thread holding his remaining existence together, preventing it from vanishing into the void.
Duan Lingchen was fully aware of everything. He watched the entire process unfold without uttering a word of protest. There was no resistance, not even doubt in his eyes only a calm acceptance born of understanding. After all, even if he wished to resist, he lacked the strength to do so.
Once the golden cell had fully embedded itself, Han Ming raised his hand, drawing upon his own fortune and channeling it into Duan Lingchen's fading soul. A faint golden radiance shimmered gently, wrapping around the soul like the warm light of dawn.
Han Ming observed the scene with detached indifference. All the luck he had acquired from Wu Zhao and all his prior endeavors had now been spent. He had even been forced to threaten the Heavenly Tao of this world to obtain more fortune, solely to revive Duan Lingchen. When Duan Lingchen had recovered slightly, Han Ming sat down before him and began to speak.
They talked for some time, until Han Ming asked what Duan Lingchen planned to do next. Duan Lingchen's answer was simple. He did not wish to return to life. What he desired was to pass on his will and legacy to Han Ming, and if Han Ming were to one day encounter his descendants, he hoped a portion of that legacy could be passed on to them as well.
Han Ming already had a plan in mind. He spoke subtly, gradually guiding Duan Lingchen toward his intentions.
He proposed to open the hidden tomb within the next two days, setting certain conditions anyone entering would be required to have a limited level of cultivation. Duan Lingchen did not oppose the idea, as his ultimate goal was to find a successor.
In truth, this hidden tomb was not merely a vault of treasure. It was a god-tier weapon forged in ancient times, though now it lay in ruins, barely retaining its original form. At first, Han Ming had planned to give it to one of his disciples in exchange for a reward from the system. However, his system had rejected the attempt, claiming that it was currently incapable of providing divine-level rewards. The system's level was simply too low to keep pace with Han Ming's rate of advancement.
He tried arguing with the system for a while, saying he didn't need a divine-grade weapon as a reward. Eventually, he sighed and gave up, but the system, as an apology, granted him three chances to receive a ten-thousandfold reward and immediately initiated its own upgrade.
After failing to convince the system, he returned to his conversation with Duan Lingchen and proposed that the hidden tomb be opened without any restrictions no selection, no screening. Anyone with the ability and fortune to enter should be allowed to do so freely, letting fate itself determine who was worthy of what lay within.
Duan Lingchen slowly nodded in agreement. He, too, did not wish to go against the heavens. In truth, he quietly hoped that someone bearing his bloodline would step into this place to inherit what he had once built.
With everything settled, Han Ming immediately began preparations.
He used the resources he had earned from investing in his disciples and from the system, converting them into energy to restore and activate the hidden tomb. He used up nearly everything he had except for a portion of herbs and some puppets. Everything else, including weapons, manuals, rare flames, and other treasures, was sacrificed as fuel to repair and reactivate the tomb. At that moment, Han Ming couldn't help but feel a faint sting of loss.
Once the tomb was operational, he set the cultivation limit for entry no one above the Heavenly Immortal realm would be permitted. Additionally, within the tomb, all participants would have their cultivation temporarily equalized at the Saint level. As soon as these restrictions were finalized, the remaining energy within the tomb was nearly exhausted.
Han Ming had to borrow power from the Heavenly Tao once again to establish another rule: anyone who had absorbed immortal energy from the Upper World for more than three years would be unable to use their special physiques inside the tomb, and their combat strength would be suppressed. With that done, Han Ming departed from the hidden tomb for a short while.
He went out and captured countless spirit beasts from across the land rare breeds, wild beasts difficult to tame, and even creatures that should not have existed in this world at all. They were dragged in and scattered across the different zones of the hidden tomb. At first, they resisted, but after encountering the environment here, they began to settle down.
The beasts that cultivators had fought earlier were not originally part of the hidden tomb. Every last one of them had been brought in by Han Ming himself.
His goal was simple to create as much chaos within the hidden tomb as possible, so that he could move with fewer eyes watching him. Everything he did served one single purpose... the fortune of those who entered the hidden tomb. He had invested a great deal, but the outcome was bound to be worth it. That confidence came from his own divination.
Two days after the hidden tomb opened, he asked Duan Lingchen to send out a call across the world, including the Upper World. However, it seemed that Duan Lingchen's voice could not reach the Upper World. Still, everything moved forward. Cultivators from all corners of the world flocked to the hidden tomb, and Han Ming was among them. As the battles began and the scent of blood filled the fractured earth, Han Ming paid little attention to the chaos. He sent his disciples to collect the fortune of his future enemies before heading once more to the heart of the hidden tomb to meet with Duan Lingchen.
Today, he had a clear objective. He needed to persuade Duan Lingchen to accept the use of cultivators' blood to heal himself, to restore his spirit that was slowly fading away.
But on the way, he sensed something unexpectedly interesting Ye Lin, the young man to whom he had once given a golden cell, had also entered the tomb, hidden among the ranks of the Wu clan. When Ye Lin was attacked by a centipede spirit beast Han Ming had released, just a little of his blood spilled. Yet, in that very moment, the scent of his blood made Han Ming pause.
It wasn't just the smell of ordinary blood. There was a faint trace of Duan Lingchen in it. And soon, that feeling became so clear he could no longer deny it. He fell silent for a moment... then smiled.
He immediately realized that this would be the key to convincing Duan Lingchen to cling to life, and the plan worked better than he had ever expected.
After bringing Ye Lin to meet Duan Lingchen and completing the inheritance process, with Ye Lin entering a moment of enlightenment, Han Ming began to explain the benefits of using the blood of cultivators. Duan Lingchen remained calm and unmoved. He had no interest in killing his fellow humans. He knew full well that the man before him was using him as a tool, and at first, he refused to comply.
However, when he sensed Ye Lin's power and caught glimpses of the boy's past the memories, the struggles, the loneliness, the cruelty he had endured, and his unyielding will that mirrored his own youth Duan Lingchen began to waver. And in the end, he agreed.
The primary reason wasn't Han Ming's persuasion. Han Ming knew the real reason: Duan Lingchen genuinely wanted to help Ye Lin. By passing on all of his life's knowledge and experience, he hoped to guide the boy before his own existence faded away forever.
In truth, Duan Lingchen's true body had long since reached the end of its lifespan and could no longer be restored by any ordinary means. What remained was nothing more than a fragment of will, more fragile than a speck of dust. Han Ming understood clearly that no matter how skilled he was, no matter what system he had, he could not find a cure in time. The only remaining method was to use the life force of those who perished within the hidden tomb.
Once Duan Lingchen gave his consent, Han Ming acted at once. He sent his immortal puppets to spread across the entire tomb, installing a special formation he had prepared in advance the Heaven-Devouring Blood Formation. It was a formation he had created for his own use in the future.
This formation would break down all corpses into pure spiritual energy and absorb the lifespan of the dead to sustain Duan Lingchen's soul. It could draw about one-tenth of the lifespan from ordinary cultivators. However, for those with higher cultivation levels, such as Emperors or Immortals, the formation could only draw about one-thousandth or even less, depending on the depth of their cultivation.
However, Han Ming had not placed the Heaven-Devouring Blood Formation two days earlier, only choosing to create it today. He understood that the cultivators entering the tomb this time were not ordinary. Each of them possessed keen senses and formidable abilities. If he had set the formation beforehand, it could have easily drawn suspicion. So he waited until after the tomb had opened, allowing everything to appear as natural as possible.
Everything proceeded nearly exactly according to Han Ming's plan. Fate seemed to favor him. The life force of the cultivators who had perished, the spiritual energy that flowed endlessly into the tomb, and even the bonus gains from the high-level spirit beasts he had placed earlier all of it fused together into an overwhelming flood of fortune that poured into his hands without much additional effort.
But then, everything suddenly came to a halt with the arrival of a man in golden robes a variable that had never appeared in Han Ming's prophecy. His very presence nearly unraveled all the plans Han Ming had meticulously put in place. Yet in misfortune there was fortune still, as the arrival of the Zhou clan's ancestor helped stall both the man in gold and the one in black just long enough for Han Ming to clean up the mess once the golden-robed man's cultivation was crippled by the Zhou clan elder's poison.
Even with victory in hand, Han Ming did not feel secure.
He had not destroyed the corpses or blood of those two men. And, of course, he dared not make use of them or feed them to Duan Lingchen. Because what he had killed… was merely an avatar. Not their true bodies.
He knew well that the true forms of those two were still alive, silently stalking him in the shadows like soundless ghosts. They were watching him, waiting for something.
But Han Ming did not panic. He acted as if he knew nothing, for he was fully aware that the time to deal with them had not yet come. Within the tomb, their cultivation was suppressed to the level of Great Emperor.
More importantly… he always had contingencies in place. If everything spun out of control, he could call upon the Heavenly Tao of the upper realm for assistance. And if even that failed, he could open a portal and drag them into the system's special dimension at once. In that place, he was certain he could defeat both of them without fail.