"You participated in the establishment of the River God's divine palace faction. During this process, you came into contact with a large number of the Demon Clan. Through interacting with the auras of various Demon Cultivators, you gained an understanding of the patterns behind these auras."
"You have entered a state of low-level epiphany and comprehended a special spirit-eye technique: the Profound Spirit Jade Eyes!"
"When the Profound Spirit Jade Eyes are activated, your pupils turn the color of jade!"
"This technique allows you to observe an opponent's strength level and their inherent nature of good or evil based on the aura they emit."
"Under the Profound Spirit Jade Eyes, the auras of living beings rise like pillars of smoke. The taller the smoke pillar, the stronger the being. For those Refining Essence to Transform Qi, the aura smoke pillar reaches a maximum of three inches; for those Refining Qi to Transform Spirit, a maximum of one foot; for those Refining Spirit to Return to Void, a maximum of one zhang; and for those Refining Void to Integrate with Dao, a maximum of one li."
"An aura smoke pillar exceeding a height of one li resembles a divine pillar and is inscribed with divine patterns. Even the lowest Human Immortal possesses an aura divine pillar exceeding one li in height!"
"If the aura smoke pillar leans toward a golden-red hue, it indicates a benevolent person, an immortal cultivator of great merit, with an even temperament!"
"If the aura smoke pillar leans toward a grayish-black hue, it indicates a black-hearted wretch laden with karmic hindrance, full of craftiness and deceit!"
"By presiding over the trials, you have gradually grown familiar with the secrets of the Illusion-Heart Array."
"You gained insights from this and created a minor soul-based divine ability: the Heart-Bewitching and Mind-Confusing Finger! At the same time, you comprehended an incomplete soul-strengthening technique: the Yin-Yang Divine Transformation Art!"
"With a single point of the Heart-Bewitching and Mind-Confusing Finger, you can construct a bewitching domain within a hundred-meter radius around yourself, plunging surrounding life forms into whatever illusions you wish to project."
"The more lifelike and detailed your illusions become, the more powerful their bewitching effect grows."
"The Yin-Yang Divine Transformation Art allows one to cultivate and divide the soul into four stages of the Yin Spirit and nine stages of the Yang Spirit."
"The four stages of the Yin Spirit constitute a soul-strengthening method for those below the Immortal Realm, capable of hardening the soul into a Yin Soul."
"The nine stages of the Yang Spirit represent the soul's transformation at the Immortal Realm, evolving the soul into a Yang Spirit. However, the nine stages of the Yang Spirit exist only as a theoretical embryonic form and require further refinement."
After completing the construction of the River God's divine palace, Li Qi also reaped massive rewards under the blessing of supreme fortune.
He had comprehended the spell Profound Spirit Jade Eyes, the minor divine ability Heart-Bewitching and Mind-Confusing Finger, and the soul cultivation technique Yin-Yang Divine Transformation Art!
Once the River God's faction was established, Li Qi entered the routine, arduous seclusion typical of cultivators.
To thank Li Qi for his help, Honghong bestowed upon him a portion of the River God's heritage.
The River God's heritage was vast, and Honghong imparted a portion of these spells to Li Qi.
This granted Li Qi access to a large number of foundational spells.
Examples included basic minor spells such as Fire-Conjuring, Water-Conjuring, Cloud-Climbing, and Wind-Riding.
At the same time, he also learned fundamental knowledge of immortal cultivation from Honghong, covering basic array formations, basic artifact crafting, basic alchemy, and basic talisman making.
For ordinary wild Demon Cultivators, encountering even a tiny fraction of such knowledge would be considered a monumental stroke of fortune.
Within major factions, however, these were simply the foundational methods of the immortal path, taught to disciples to help them build their roots.
As a water god faction of the Heavenly Court, the River God had taken advantage of her position, and her inheritance naturally included these arts.
Moving forward, aside from occasionally handling River God affairs, Honghong spent all her remaining time studying these inherited knowledge and spells.
As for Li Qi, he truly entered a state of arduous seclusion.
Cultivation in this world required special resources; those below the Immortal Realm used spirit stones, while powerhouses at the Immortal Realm required Immortal Crystals.
The River God of the Aolai River had left behind a quantity of spirit stones.
Honghong no longer needed these spirit stones. Aside from using a portion to pay salaries, she handed half of the remainder over to Li Qi to serve as resources for his cultivation.
Yet, after they had lived in peace for about a year, the river patrol water forces came rushing in with a report.
"Report, Lord River God! The one hundred and eight mountain gods of Huaguo Mountain and the seventy-three city gods of the Aolai Kingdom have sent divine posts!"
A stack of purple divine posts, brimming with the scent of incense, faith, and divine energy, was delivered into Honghong's hands.
Honghong opened them to take a look and discovered that the surrounding deities and city gods had all learned that the newly appointed River God of the Aolai River had achieved the realm of a Human Immortal.
Had Honghong failed to attain the Immortal Realm—
The hidden mountain gods of Huaguo Mountain and the city gods within the Aolai Kingdom might not have harbored ill intentions toward her, but they certainly would not have thought much of her.
However, now that Honghong had achieved the status of a Human Immortal, the implications were entirely different.
An immortal represented longevity and infinite possibilities.
Cultivators below the Immortal Realm all had limited lifespans, and even those who reached the bottleneck of a breakthrough had an infinitesimally small probability of surviving the Lightning Tribulation to become immortals.
Once a cultivator became an immortal, it meant that the world gained an eternal existence.
As long as they did not continue seeking further breakthroughs, they would not have to face the subsequent trials of wind and astral fire.
Thus, as long as one maintained their standing at the Human Immortal Realm, they were essentially an eternal being.
Aside from a handful of monstrous prodigies, all mighty figures below the Immortal Realm were weaklings when facing an immortal, easily eradicated.
After all, the power of immortal dao dharma operated on an entirely different level.
Furthermore, those who survived the Lightning Tribulation to become immortals through their own strength, rather than relying on artifice to avoid the calamity, enjoyed a success rate of over seventy percent when facing the subsequent wind and fire tribulations.
This signified the future birth of an immortal dao powerhouse, a prodigy of the immortal path.
Since Honghong had attained immortality by surviving the tribulation, the surrounding mountain gods and city gods had undoubtedly taken note.
Consequently, getting on the good side of a potential immortal dao powerhouse in advance was definitely a worthwhile investment for them.
As the saying goes: wealth in deep mountains brings distant relatives, while poverty in a bustling market attracts no notice.
When Honghong was not yet an immortal, a century passed without a soul asking after her; but upon achieving immortality, ten thousand deities came to visit. Even then, they did not barge in directly; instead, they waited for Honghong to set a date so they could politely arrive and offer their congratulations.
The world of immortals was no exception to the ways of human society.
"Reply to them with a divine post on my behalf. Tell them congratulatory gifts are unnecessary, and treat it instead as a banquet I am hosting for everyone to gather and get acquainted. Let's set the date for the second day of the second month, two years from now!"
Honghong made her decision regarding this meeting, scheduling it for the second day of the second month, two years later.
By now, she had grown accustomed to her duties as the River God and understood many things.
The world was vast, and immortals all had their own matters to attend to. Pushing the date of the banquet for the deities of the Aolai Kingdom further back would also give them adequate preparation time, ensuring they wouldn't find themselves overwhelmed by scheduling conflicts.
This would leave everyone with the impression of a well-mannered host, making it easier to build good relations for the future.
Two years later, the mountain gods and city gods gathered within the grotto-heaven divine palace of the Aolai River to hold a joint banquet with Honghong.
Until this point, Li Qi had remained in a state of deep closed-door cultivation.
Honghong was fully capable of handling this banquet on her own.
At the banquet, those mountain gods—whose genetic origins traced back to demon cultivators such as tigers and leopards—had been appointed as mountain gods after submitting to the Heavenly Court and undergoing trials.
As for the city gods, the vast majority were actually the souls of deceased humans who had been canonized as deities.
Most mountain gods were spirits and monsters. This was because the establishment of the mountain god system was closely tied to the ancient supreme deity, the Queen Mother of the West.
Consequently, mountain gods were largely spirits akin to the Queen Mother of the West.
Meanwhile, while the city gods nominally belonged to the Heavenly Court, they actually constituted an important branch of the Underworld.
Their most crucial task was not guarding the mortal realm, but guiding wandering souls—especially the souls of human beings.
Every city god temple served as a miniature entrance to the Underworld.
However, city gods lacked the authority to appoint earth gods; although earth gods fell under the direct jurisdiction of the city gods, they were appointed directly by the Heavenly Court.
Therefore, while mountain gods, city gods, and earth gods appeared closely linked, they could actually be viewed as branches of three mutually entangled factions.
Together with the River God, they had long formed the foundation of the entire divine dao system within the Primordial World.
The notion that incense fire was poisonous was a widely accepted consensus in the Primordial World; after all, since one's power derived from the masses, one would inevitably be constrained by them.
Yet, as long as one forged an incense divine body to serve as an external avatar, one would remain unaffected.
The Primordial World was naturally not lacking in methods to counter the poison of incense fire, unless the deity was someone who had been directly canonized after death, whose very foundation was rooted entirely in incense.
This gathering served a dual purpose: on one hand, they wished to befriend Honghong, while on the other hand—as Honghong only learned after the banquet concluded—was to discuss how to allocate incense fire among themselves and avoid conflicts arising from its distribution.
An unwritten rule and tacit agreement already governed this allocation.
Namely, the incense fire of the mountains belonged to the mountain gods, the incense fire associated with water belonged to the river god, and all other incense fire belonged to the city gods and earth gods.
Honghong had no objections to this arrangement.
She cared little for incense fire. Having experienced the rewards of Heavenly Dao merit, she understood that merit was far more important.
Her own personal cultivation was even more crucial.
Incense fire was merely something she distributed as salaries to her subordinates, and only the leftover scraps would be used by her to condense an incense divine body avatar.
Once this avatar was successfully condensed, it could assist her in handling miscellaneous chores.
In reality, all true immortal deities used incense divine body avatars to manage their daily divine duties.
Acting on Li Qi's advice, Honghong resolved to focus her genuine efforts only on tasks that yielded merit, such as dredging water channels and stabilizing the operation of the Primordial World.
At the banquet, seeing that Honghong was so reasonable and understood the bigger picture, the various mountain gods and city gods successively expressed further goodwill toward her.
A new river god who was willing to abide by established rules and conventions was, at the very least, easy to get along with and would not bring trouble to the others.
Moreover, a deity with such a sense of propriety was destined to go much further within the immortal bureaucracy.
The banquet proceeded very smoothly.
Yet, just as it concluded and everyone was preparing to leave, a massive phenomenon formed by five bright moons suddenly manifested within the River God's grotto-heaven!
And above the Aolai River, a moon—half-real and half-illusory—slowly rose from the pool beneath the waterfall of Huaguo Mountain!
Every single mountain god and city god present was knowledgeable and understood what this scene signified.
An immortal dao prodigy was ascending to immortality!
Only those born with extraordinary bloodlines or supreme immortal dao prodigies defying the natural order could trigger such a magnificent phenomenon upon achieving immortality.
Honghong, however, knew even better that this phenomenon originated from her close friend.
Li Qi!
He had finally completed the ultimate transformation prior to the immortal dao, stepping into immortality in a single bound.
At that exact same moment, an old turtle from the East China Sea Dragon Palace, alongside an immortal emissary from the Heavenly Court, arrived at the upper reaches of the Aolai River.
They, too, witnessed this breathtaking sight.