The Chessboard of Heaven and Earth

She steadied herself, supporting her still slightly weak limbs, and tried to jump off the bed towards the spirit-gathering prayer mat placed on the side of the room…

“Ngh~!”

Her legs suddenly went soft as if she had stepped on cotton, and her body swayed.

“Plop!” Lu Qiancha landed squarely on the cold floor!

“…” Lu-Qiancha glared speechlessly at her uncooperative legs.

Resigned, she sat cross-legged on the spot.

She formed a seal with her paw, and a clear, misty light screen of a seclusion formation instantly rose, enveloping her room.

Then, Lu Qiancha began to refine the masterless spiritual energy in her body.

“Crack.”

A crisp sound, like a piece of jade shattering, echoed in the depths of her soul.
The tenacious realm barrier broke in response to the surging impact of spiritual energy.

The majestic spiritual energy flowed unimpeded into the new realm, and her body felt instantly transparent.

Lu Qiancha had successfully broken through.
Realm—Mid-stage Void Refining.

The moment her realm was completely stabilized—

Om!

A very strange point of dark light, whose shape could not be accurately described in words, was born from nothingness and appeared out of thin air within three feet of Lu Qiancha.

It seemed both real and illusory, neither smoke nor mist, its shape constantly changing, but its aura was incomparably profound and obscure.

At its core, black and white could be seen entwined and flowing, faintly outlining an ancient and bottomless chessboard.
A deep aura unique to the Great Dao spread out.

“This is… a Dao Resonance?!”

Lu Qiancha’s spiritual sense touched the dark light, and her heart was thrown into a stormy sea.

A Dao Resonance is the supreme crystallization born from the interaction of one’s own comprehension with the Dao path left by predecessors when a cultivation method is cultivated to its ultimate perfection.

For later generations, it is an unparalleled treasure for comprehending the origin of the cultivation method, pointing directly to the core of the Dao, and building the foundation for future enlightenment.

However, such a treasure is profound and unpredictable.
Only those who have cultivated their various techniques to the later stages, approaching the peak, and whose Dao has reached a state of transformation, have a slight chance of nurturing one.

But she had only just begun to cultivate the Guiyuan Manual.

This Dao Resonance came too strangely and too early.

Suppressing the astonishment in her heart, Lu Qiancha focused her mind and carefully examined the ever-changing dark light of the Dao Resonance—black and white entwined, a chessboard of myriad possibilities.

A cold, aloof, and indifferent aura of placing pieces on a board and treating all living beings as chess pieces rushed towards her.

Lu Qiancha’s brows furrowed slightly.

This Dao was completely different from the life-based foundation of her Peach Blossom Spring and the natural nourishing Dao rhythm carried by her Mountain God Talismanic Edict.

To forcibly comprehend this Dao was tantamount to self-destructing her foundation.

With this in mind, Lu Qiancha no longer hesitated.

Her paw lightly tapped her storage ring, and the cube, entirely purple-black and with countless fine runes flowing across its surface, instantly appeared in her paw.

Lu Qiancha carefully separated a wisp of pure spiritual energy, wrapped it around the suspended chessboard Dao Resonance, and slowly moved it closer to the cube.

The moment the wisp of spiritual energy wrapped around the Dao Resonance touched the surface of the cube.

“Pop!”

With a soft sound like a bursting bubble, the strange dark light containing the Great Dao of the chessboard, as if drawn by an invisible force, sank into the deep interior of the cube without any hindrance.

On one side of the cube, a chessboard of myriad possibilities appeared.

Lu Qiancha’s paw lightly released a stream of spiritual energy, and the warm spiritual energy flowed like a gentle stream into the cube in her hand.

“Kaka-ka.”

The cube floated in mid-air, rotating and assembling on its own.
In just a few breaths, it transformed into a small chessboard of black jade.

It was palm-sized, just right to be held steady by one of Lu Qiancha’s paws.

The moment the chessboard was in her paw, a stream of profound information flooded her sea of consciousness—”Heaven and Earth Chessboard.”

‘With a single thought, the heaven and earth become the board.
Since ancient times, the Heavenly Dao has been like a chessboard.
When one game ends, the desolation is seen.’

Lu Qiancha’s heart was filled with awe.

This was currently the only Dao Resonance that had appeared in her hands in an almost complete form.

It was completely different from the fragmented space and slaughter Dao Resonances that the cube had previously devoured.

She could clearly sense that the Dao of this Heaven and Earth Chessboard was profound and complete.

And its evolution seemed to have not yet ended.

Her spiritual sense sank into the depths of the chessboard.

A profound meaning of a battle method called “Three Moves to Settle the Game” was branded into her consciousness like starlight.

“Three moves, and the universe is bound.
When cultivated to a high level, it can make a Golden Immortal fall to the mortal world, and ghosts and spirits weep on the path of illusion.”

She had glimpsed this description in a book in the sect’s scripture pavilion.

Lu Qiancha herself had also roughly tried this technique.
Although the name sounded profound and unpredictable.

But in fact, it was a binding technique with no killing power.

Its effect was only about half that of a slow potion, and it took a long time to practice, with strict requirements for talent.
If one couldn’t reach the legendary high level, its practical significance in combat was better than nothing.

And this was precisely the reason why Lu Qiancha had given up on cultivating this battle method.

Instead of cultivating this, she might as well refine a few more bottles of slow potion.

As her thoughts churned, Lu Qiancha’s spiritual sense looked inside her dantian.

The Mountain God Talismanic Edict glowed with a dark light, reflecting the current situation of the Peach Blossom Spring:

Devotees: 67

Incense: 174 (including: Taiyin Wealth Incense 30 | Peach Tree Pure Incense 144)

Enlightenment Consumption: 134

The data that automatically appeared in her mind made Lu Qiancha even more suspicious of whether there were any natives left in this cultivation world.

The Mountain God Talismanic Edict’s statistics were actually in Arabic numerals.

She was seeing ghosts.

After looking at the Mountain God Talismanic Edict, Lu Qiancha sent her spiritual sense into the Peach Blossom Spring, preparing to enlighten the next peach tree.

But just as her spiritual sense entered, a sudden change occurred.

The little white Moon Rabbit was actually chasing a newly enlightened little tree spirit all over the ground.

Between the opening and closing of its rabbit mouth, it was already chewing on several tender green peach leaf tips.

“?!?!”

Lu Qiancha was greatly alarmed.
Her figure instantly disappeared from its original spot, and her true form descended into the Peach Blossom Spring.

The Heaven and Earth Chessboard in her paw erupted with brilliant light, and three chess pieces of condensed, solid spiritual energy, silent but faster than lightning—in the positions of heaven, earth, and man, were fixed in the void.

“Om!”

A golden triangular prison woven from the pure power of Dao principles instantly formed, trapping the offending rabbit firmly at its core.

“Jiji!”

The Moon Rabbit jumped up and down in the cage in a panic, its white fur standing on end.
It desperately clawed at the seemingly illusory but indestructible wall of light, but it was ultimately in vain.

“You’re not allowed to eat your colleagues!”

Lu Qiancha floated down in front of the light cage and unceremoniously gave the bristling rabbit head a light but warning rap with her paw, her voice turning cold: “If there’s a next time… I’ll pull out your tail fur and make a felt blanket!”

“Jiji!”

The Moon Rabbit shrank its neck, its wet red eyes looking at Lu Qiancha, it was unclear whether it truly understood or was just pretending.

Lu Qiancha tentatively assumed it had learned its lesson and, with a thought, the golden light cage dissipated like a bubble.

The little rabbit, still in a state of shock, jumped a few times on the spot, buried its head, and quickly nibbled on a few innocent weeds nearby, then stood there in a daze.

And the few little tree spirits who had been hiding not far away, seeing the rabbit in a daze, finally dared to cautiously move closer.

But the Moon Rabbit completely ignored them and hopped into the peach grove on its own, searching for fallen peaches to eat.

Seeing this, Lu Qiancha’s suspended heart was truly at ease.
It seemed this rabbit understood the principle of not eating its colleagues.

Returning to her room, Lu Qiancha entered seclusion again, concentrating on refining the masterless spiritual energy in her body.