The Penglai jade talisman at my fingertip pulsed with a warm, lustrous blue glow, resonating with the tides of the Eastern Sea in an uncanny harmony. I stood upon the reef as sea wind rolled in carrying the salt-damp air, and the Sea-Suppressing Sword trembled faintly against my chest.

"Rookie, grip that jade talisman tight — spatial tearing is no pleasant ride," the System Elder's voice carried a note of mockery. "Don't go emptying your stomach all over the place."

I drew a deep breath and channelled my spiritual energy into the talisman. The pale-blue radiance surged violently, ripping open a spatial rift roughly a zhang wide before me. Beyond the rift lay no mere darkness — instead, seven-coloured radiance streamed through it, and the ghostly silhouettes of jade towers and crystal pavilions shimmered within. Spiritual energy so dense it was nearly liquid seeped out through the tear, setting even my mid-Nascent Soul cultivation stirring with restless hunger.

"Move!"

I leapt into the rift. A fierce wave of dizziness crashed over me at once — as though I had been stuffed inside a spinning drum and set to tumble at full speed. Spatial turbulence scraped across my protective spiritual aura like blades. The Sea-Suppressing Sword activated its master-protection instinct on its own, and a golden-blue dual-coloured barrier of light formed around me, sealing out the chaos that could have shredded a Core Formation cultivator to ribbons.

I had no sense of how long it lasted before solid ground finally met my feet. The instant I opened my eyes, I couldn't help drawing a sharp breath —

Before me stretched an immortal landscape without end: mountain sanctuaries and jade towers reached in every direction, rare flowers and strange grasses bloomed throughout the woods, every petal cycling with a halo of spiritual light. In the distance, a waterfall dissolved into spirit-liquid as it fell, pooling into crystalline orbs of condensed spiritual energy in the basin below. Most breathtaking of all was the sheer density of spiritual energy in the air — a hundredfold richer than the Guixu Secret Realm. A single breath left my dantian bloated with fullness, and my Nascent Soul turned joyful cartwheels through my sea of consciousness.

"So this is what the true cultivation world actually looks like..." I murmured to myself, fingertips brushing the leaves of a spirit herb as luminously green as jadestone. The System's chime sounded at precisely the right moment:

"Stop fawning over the flowers and shrubs," the System Elder's voice cut off my wonder. "Look up."

I tilted my head back. The sky was thick with stars — even in broad daylight they glittered with faint light. These were no spectral images; they were runes woven from spiritual energy, slowly rotating to form one vast formation array — the very remnant scripture of the "Circling Heavens Star-Dipper Array" that the Kunlun Immortal Sect had spoken of.

Crack.

A shattering sound erupted beneath my feet. I looked down and found I had stepped through a stone slab engraved with star-patterns. In that same instant, the stellar runes overhead blazed into frantic acceleration, and a shaft of silver-white starlight shot toward me like an arrow. I twisted sideways on instinct; the starlight grazed my shoulder and flew past, blasting a crater half a chi deep into the ground where it landed.

"Well, well — this restriction hasn't quite finished dying." I tightened my grip on the Sea-Suppressing Sword. "Looks like every single step needs to stay within the talisman's coverage."

I pressed the Penglai jade talisman flat against my palm, and sure enough felt a gentle force of spatial energy envelop my entire body. The star-patterns that had been surging with aggression seemed to find their natural nemesis and retreated on all sides. I advanced carefully, keeping each footfall within the circle of radiance cast by the talisman. The spirit-plants along the path grew stranger with every step: some vines bore fist-sized fruits of blazing gold that radiated heat like alchemy fire; ancient trees whose trunks wept amber sap that formed pearls of spirit-liquid wherever it dripped.

Ding! "Crimson Blaze Fruit" detected — contains Fire-attribute spiritual energy; capable of strengthening physical constitution.

Ding! "Spirit-Marrow Wood" detected — its sap can repair meridian damage.

The System alerts chimed one after another, yet I dared not let my focus wander for so much as a moment. The residual power of the Circling Heavens Star-Dipper Array was still very much alive — had that starlight from moments ago struck a vital point, even a Nascent Soul cultivator's body would have been stripped of a layer.

End of Chapter 96: The Jade Talisman of Penglai