Reborn as a Mountain: I Defy the Heavens with a Smile

'This pearl must have injured its spirit; no wonder it stayed with me obediently the whole time, and only when it found an opportunity to recover did it run away.' Ye Chen muttered in his heart.

Although he didn't know too much about the emperor void pearl and items with spirits, he could at least guess this as the souls and spirits were similar. Furthermore, if the spirit of pearl is really injured, then this was a great opportunity for him to refine the pearl, as it would be busy healing itself.

Of course, the pearl can defend against and attack him, but it won't be able to exert full strength unless it stops the process of healing, which might not be good if its spirit is really in a bad state.

But what if it was in good condition? Then Ye Chen would be in trouble.

However, if he won't refine this thing now, there will be even less chance of him doing this in the future.

Nevertheless, he didn't hurry and spread his spiritual consciousness through the whole cave. He wanted to know if there were any hidden mechanisms or tarps and also if there were any fierce beasts who were coming here.

The commotion before was too loud after all, and it certainly attracted many fierce beasts; however, because the griffin was dead, no one went after Ye Chen. He was, after all, a human, and soon he would leave, so why bother? Furthermore, the griffin had hidden the secrets of here, so who would fight with him for no reason?

They had, after all, their own treasures to protect; certainly no one would leave it unless they were bored and wanted to fight. Fortunately, there were no beasts who were bored, so after knowing the griffin was dead, they all went back.

This made Ye Chen feel relieved as he didn't want to fight with any beasts now; nevertheless, he didn't let down his guard and closed the entrance of the small cave with the boulder outside.

After this, he once again inspected for any mechanisms and traps; only after knowing there was nothing here did he focus on the emperor void pearl, which hovered above the unknown white lump.

Refining a weapon or items with spirit was not that difficult, but that could only be said for low-grade ones, which had weak spirits.

The higher grade has stronger spirits, and they decide on their master's themselves. Of course, they can get refined if they become weak or someone extremely powerful refines them. Nonetheless, this process could cost a grave soul injury despite the fact of successful refinement.

To refine the items with spirits, one had to after all bring the spirit into their sea of consciousness, which was no different than bringing an uncontrollable time bomb into your home.

Nevertheless, Ye Chen didn't hesitate and condensed a pure golden drop of blood between his eyebrows. This drop of blood was none other than soul essence, and only cultivators in the nascent soul realm and above can condense it.

But unlike Ye Chen, who did it casually, they had to pay a heavy price of vitality and sometimes even their own cultivation, as their soul was nowhere near as strong as his.

Swoosh!

As soon as the pearl sensed what Ye Chen wanted to do, it started to revolve furiously, trying to devour the white lump so it could recover.

But how could Ye Chen let this pearl have its own way? So, he didn't delay and sent his drop of soul essence flying on the pearl.

The moment the golden drop of soul essence landed, it illuminated brightly and merged with the pearl.

Immediately after that, Ye Chen's vision changed, and he was pulled inside this sea of consciousness.

Unlike the previous time, there was not only his main body but also an area with an eighty-mile-wide radius that he had control over that appeared inside the sea of consciousness. As for the countless Milky Way stars, they now hovered above this small area like stars.

However, Ye Chen's attention was not on this but on the opposite, where an endless plain filled with mountains, rivers, and forests appeared. This plane was millions of times bigger than what was behind him.

"Holy fuck! This pearl is not some spiritual item but a freaking spiritual world!" Ye Chen cursed loudly as he recovered from shock. Then his expression became grave.

One had to know that a spiritual world was an existence a spiritual mountain could become after evolving. However, this was no easy feat, as one must devour all of the spiritual mountains, spiritual regions, and so on in their world, which also meant that after evolving in the spiritual world, they would have hundreds, if not countless, divine abilities.

But suddenly Ye Chen noticed something, and his expression eased.

'This is not a spiritual world birthed by the heavens but an artificial one that had gained a spirit form by some coincidence,' he thought with a relieved look.

The reason was he could feel that the spiritual world did not have any resemblance to heavenly power like he did. Furthermore, if he remembered correctly, then this pearl was made by someone unknown. This meant the spiritual world might not have any divine powers that are bestowed by the heavens; even if it has, there would be only one or a few more.

So, the only thing left to worry about is soul power; however, from the looks of the faint, transparent plane in front of him, the world spirit was not doing too good.

This meant he could now attack and subdue it. As for devouring, he didn't think of it even though he knew he could evolve into a world spirit after taking control over the world plane.

The spiritual mountain's cultivation, after all, relied on how much area it controlled. For example, to evolve into a spiritual region, he needed to have control over a hundred-thousand-mile-wide radius. However, this could be said easier than done, because natural treasures that could extend the divine area or control area by a great amount (ten to a hundred miles) were extraordinary.

Furthermore, such natural treasures only appear once every hundred or two hundred years, later to be fought over by everyone else.

Ye Chen found this too absurd, so he just threw the idea of evolution behind his mind. After all, he needed to wait a few hundred thousand years just to evolve; wasn't this a big joke? But now a great opportunity to become a world spirit was in front of him; however, he didn't think of doing this.

The first thing was that the world spirit was an artificial one, and the second thing was that there was a law that no spiritual mountains, spiritual regions, or any such entity would appear once someone became a world spirit. There might be some that could exist if they had been born before the appearance of the world spirit, but still he wasn't keen on devouring as many things were uncertain.

'It would have been better if this was a spiritual region or province,' Ye Chen thought with a faint sigh, and then, without hesitation, he launched forward.

SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!

The pearl, which hovered in the distance, saw him coming, and it instantly formed a few protective shields around it as well as some fierce beasts for protection.

If it could express its anger and frustration, it would definitely curse Ye Chen and all of his generations; after all, the reason it was weak now was none other than him. The pearl had been flying peacefully through the river of space and time a few months ago, but who knows when a force started to pull him out of this river.

It got angry and retaliated. As for what happened next? It saw galaxy-like stars appearing, which forcefully pulled it into a wormhole and even attacked its spirit form, injuring it gravely so it couldn't resist. After this, the pearl landed in front of Ye Chen, who had no idea how the system fished for items.

With such trauma, it was no wonder why the pearl was obedient beside Ye Chen and feared his existence.

A pity that Ye Chen didn't know this; if not, he would've bluffed and subdued the pearl without any problem. Nevertheless, this wasn't a problem for him to do now; it was just that he needed to put some effort into it.

"Getting arrogant in my sea of consciousness? Looks like you will need a good lesson," Ye Chen chuckled as he saw the defensive measures of the pearl while it tried to heal itself in a hurry.

However, he had to admit that it was stronger, even more than Lu Feng; however, it still felt short to him. But it wouldn't take too long, and it will become as strong as him and even go further with how rapidly it was healing.

"Little pearl, you better be obedient now," Ye Chen stated as the golden mark between his eyebrows lit up.

CLANK! CLANK! CLANK!

The next moment countless golden chains as large as mountains appeared and firmly started to warp the endless plain of land before him.

However, this was still not enough to stop the pearl, so Ye Chen personally flew toward it as he destroyed the fierce beasts and protective shields with a wave of his hand.