Jiang Chen made a few rounds of Veluriyam Palace, inspecting anything and everything. He knew this ancient palace was where he was meant to be. His base of operations would shift from the Sacred Peafowl Mountain to this palace.

The formation around the palace was several hundred times better than the one keeping the mountain safe.

Although Jiang Chen had reinforced the mountain’s defensive formation, it’d started out as a great emperor legacy. Therefore, it had potential, but it wouldn’t be of much help in the future.

The ancient Veluriyam Palace, on the other hand, had been a leading faction in the ancient times. Its strength was easy enough to imagine.

Jiang Chen spent a long time getting to know the layout of the palace and the other areas. Only when he knew the place like the back of his hand did he return to the front yard.

It was time to consume an Eternal Amaranthine Fruit.

The fruit he selected was crystal clear with a faint green glow. Its supreme heavenly energy calmed Jiang Chen as he considered it.

“I’m relying on you to ascend to divinity!” Jiang Chen closed his eyes and entered a meditative trance.

The Eternal Amaranthine Fruit was no regular fruit. Before consumption, he had to first inspect its properties and make the necessary preparations. After all, it was listed in the heavenly rankings.

After four hours, Jiang Chen finally emerged from his meditation. It was time.

In less than fifteen minutes, he finished refining the fruit, guiding the tremendous energy into his internal organs, his meridians, and every part of his body.

Even in the ancient times, divine cultivators had to be careful when they consumed an Eternal Amaranthine Fruit. They had to consider if the fruit’s energy would be too great for them to take and backlash instead.

That was why Jiang Chen was exercising such caution.

The energy started a cascade of reactions. He felt as if he’d been thrown into a cauldron, being refined by the fruit’s energy.

A myriad of thoughts entered his head. Vivid memories from his past life surfaced one after another, mixing with his memories of the present life. It became almost impossible for him to differentiate between the two.

His physical body continued to change and evolve.

His transformation had been stunning enough when he entered ninth level empyrean. Now, what the fruit’s energy was doing to him was even more wondrous.

Doors to new territories opened before him.

His empyrean decree gradually melted and metamorphosed as he was refined by the energy.

Jiang Chen perked up. It was time for him to refine his divine decree!

Once he succeeded in overcoming this challenge, he’d officially be a divine cultivator.

It was challenging and time-consuming, not unlike drilling through a stone with droplets of water. Nonetheless, Jiang Chen prepared so long for this precise moment.

He had to be patient and careful.

Irrelevant thoughts faded out of his mind as his consciousness guided the creation of his divine decree.

Without the fruit, the process would take at least three to five years. It might even take decades or centuries, and would certainly be a thorny threshold to cross.

Jiang Chen’s pursuit of martial dao had been too smooth. He’d encountered almost no bottlenecks. What others had trouble overcoming, he overcame with ease.

Reaching divinity was the most important turning point in his martial dao.

Time flew by quietly.

Three days, five days, ten days, a month, three months...

Refining a divine decree was a prolonged process. That was something every divine cultivator had to face. The longer the process took, the higher the chance of success.

A short refining time meant a premature failure. Jiang Chen wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

Six months, a year...

Finally, Jiang Chen could sense the mist in his consciousness dissipating. After his empyrean decree had melted, it’d slowly taken shape as a new divine decree in his mind.

Finally!

He was ecstatic. He’d finally ascended to divinity! He was a true, blue, bonafide god!

He wanted to crow his glee to the world. All sorts of emotions and thoughts flooded his mind. The various ties of fate, destiny, and karma from past and current lives crystallized in sentiment.

“Success, success!!” The first thing he thought of was his father in his past life, the Celestial Emperor. He would’ve been so greatly thrilled and gratified.

Jiang Chen’s greatest regret from his past life was the fact that he couldn’t cultivate. Not only could he not shoulder his father’s burden, he’d been a burden instead.

If his father hadn’t refined the Sun Moon Pill to alter his son’s destiny, perhaps there wouldn’t have been a catastrophe in the heavenly planes.

That had always weighed on Jiang Chen’s conscience.

Now that he’d finally ascended to divinity, he was capable of helping his father to some degree, but how was he going to find his father?

Did the Taiyuan Plane still stand?

Did his father still live?

He suddenly recalled the chain seal in his consciousness. He’d always suspected that the seal had something to do with his past life. Perhaps he’d be able to gain some insights after ascending to divinity.

He wanted to give it a try.

The seal yet remained in his consciousness; the only change being that it’d become even more material. Nine droplets of light encircled it like a bracelet, creating a chain link. They too seemed to have become more pronounced.

Feeling out the terrifying might of the seal once more with his consciousness, it felt like there was an ancient demon or beast trapped within it. Once freed, it could destroy the entirety of Divine Abyss Continent.

“I wonder what’s behind it?” Jiang Chen carefully approached the seal with his consciousness, trying to understand it.

His caution turned out to be warranted.

As soon as his strand of consciousness got close to the seal, a tremendous force shot out in reaction, blasting him away. If he hadn’t been careful, that wouldn’t have ended well for him!