The Origin of Droppings

The old tortoise remained silent, simply staring at the tiny youth with lingering confusion in its deep green eyes.

Descending by sitting on droppings?

It found the concept somewhat difficult to grasp.

Xu Xian did not waste words. With a light flick of his hand beneath his sleeve and a movement of his divine sense, the mecha forged from Shadow Soul Stones manifested out of thin air, hovering above the watery expanse.

"Look, it is this thing."

The giant tortoise’s head, suspended in the ten-colored sky, extended its neck further forward as a glow flickered in its eyes, shifting its gaze between the mecha and the youth several times.

"You made this?"

Xu Xian gave a humble smile. "You flatter me!"

The giant tortoise pondered for a moment before asking, "Can you condense the Nine Void Nether Fire?"

Xu Xian nodded. "I have some meager skill in it."

The giant tortoise nodded its massive head, making it seem as if the entire firmament was moving with it.

"Interesting. A mere mortal being actually condensed the Nine Void Nether Fire. It seems you truly possess some talent."

Xu Xian said nothing as he had always known he was exceptionally gifted.

He took the opportunity to ask, "May I ask who you are, Senior, and why you are here?"

The giant tortoise answered with a question of its own. "What do you think? Why do you think I am here?"

Xu Xian spoke bluntly. "If I am not mistaken, you must have been imprisoned here, Senior."

It was merely asking what was already obvious.

The little book spirit had already engaged in a deep discussion with Xu Xian regarding the giant tortoise during that brief moment.

Even the little book spirit did not know who the tortoise was, but one thing was certain.

The giant tortoise was sealed here.

Much like the divine swords in the Divine Sword Pool, the entire Nether Pool was a vessel used to suppress the giant tortoise. These iron chains were forged from the same ore as the ones in the Divine Sword Pool.

Same technique, same material.

The little book spirit suggested that the person who sealed this giant tortoise likely shared an inexplicable connection with its former master.

It was even possible that the descendants of its former master were responsible.

Xu Xian strongly agreed with this.

He suspected that this matter might even be related to his cheap master, Li Taibai.

The Sword Mound and the sword steles were all brought to the Wendao Sword Sect by Li Taibai.

He had previously made inquiries and found that stories of his master, Li Taibai, had been circulating in Fanzhou for ten thousand years. However, all those tales of his life and rumors began from the struggle in the Northern Borders onward.

Further back, there was no information at all.

His master, Li Taibai, seemed to have suddenly appeared out of nowhere, entering the world with a sword on his back, sweeping across the Eight Desolations and making a name for himself.

However, the Demon Abyss had a long history of at least a hundred thousand years, and the Nether Pool within the Demon Abyss birthed Nether Beasts and demons.

This was enough to prove that this Old Ghost had been suppressed here for at least a hundred thousand years, if not longer.

Meanwhile, his master had only appeared a mere ten thousand years ago.

Claiming there was a connection felt a bit forced.

The only thing the little book spirit could confirm was that this giant tortoise must have been incredibly powerful in the past.

Xu Xian agreed and offered his own perspective.

He felt that this old tortoise was not only powerful but also definitely hard to kill.

Otherwise, why go to such great lengths to imprison it here instead of just killing it?

There was a story here, a very complicated one.

But Xu Xian was not very interested in it. Such stories were from too long ago, so distant that the people who imprisoned it might have forgotten about it themselves.

All Xu Xian could think about now was how to get it to produce at least seven hundred and fifty thousand tons of droppings for him.

The giant tortoise did not respond to Xu Xian’s words. Even a fool could see it was imprisoned here and had been for a very long time, so long that even it did not know how much time had passed.

The world changed and life passed like a dream. Was it a hundred years, a thousand years, or ten thousand years...

Who knew?

It had only recently woken up.

"Young mortal being, for what reason have you come here?" it asked slowly, voicing its own confusion.

Xu Xian spoke directly. "To be honest, Senior, I came here for your droppings."

The giant tortoise’s massive brow furrowed slightly.

Droppings? Droppings again.

I mentioned it in passing, and you really cannot get over the droppings, can you?

"I can see that you truly do like droppings."

It was a topic that even it found boring and vulgar.

Xu Xian smiled and said, "To you, Senior, these are just droppings and are worth nothing, but to the living beings outside the Nether Pool, they are heavenly treasures. They are money. I do not think anyone dislikes money, right?"

The giant tortoise chuckled, finding the explanation reasonable. These "droppings" were indeed good things.

Or rather, everything about it was a treasure.

"How much do you want?"

Xu Xian hesitated, wondering if asking for seven hundred thousand tons would be too much.

However, looking at this fellow’s size—its head alone was this massive, and its entire body was like a mountain range—producing seven hundred thousand tons should be nothing.

So, he had to be a bit conservative, and he held up a finger to give his price. "If possible, I want one million tons."

"Hmm?" The giant tortoise was stunned, feeling as if it had not heard correctly, and instinctively asked again, "How much?"

"One million tons," Xu Xian stated firmly.

Light flickered in the depths of the giant tortoise’s emerald eyes. It did not say yes, nor did it say no, and it certainly did not say it could not produce that much.

This gave Xu Xian a glimmer of hope. At least it had them, and whether it would give them to him was a matter for later.

He hoped it would show some mercy.

Xu Xian waited quietly while the giant tortoise pondered in silence.

"Do you know how my droppings are formed?" the giant tortoise asked out of the blue.

How are they formed?

How else could they be formed?

Xu Xian responded honestly. "They are pooped out, of course."

The giant tortoise said unhurriedly, "This pool beneath your feet emits the nether breath of the Ruoshui at all times. My physical body also absorbs this nether breath constantly, just as mortals eat and drink. This nether breath is my food."

"And the 'droppings' you speak of are the parts of the nether breath that I cannot absorb, or rather, the impurities that are expelled from my body."

With just a few words, the giant tortoise explained the origin of the "droppings", the Shadow Soul Stones.

A standard answer: where they came from and how they were formed.

It was not difficult for Xu Xian to understand. Simply put, the nether water was constantly releasing nether breath, which was the demon qi Xu Xian used when practicing the Nether Fire Secret Art.

The giant tortoise absorbed the massive amount of energy from the world to sustain its life, and finally, the impurities in the demon qi were compressed by its body into Shadow Soul Stones and expelled.

That was all.

In the world, all things have impurities. Even for cultivators, the spirit qi and demon qi they cultivate contain impurities.

The so-called breathing and meditation, in every breath, is the filtering and purification of impurities.

The core of a cultivation method is to teach you how to absorb spirit qi into your body, keep the good for yourself, and spit out the bad.

The reason this old tortoise was like this, Xu Xian thought, was likely because its cultivation was shackled by these chains and suppressed by some restriction spell, making it unable to perform normal breathing and meditation.

And a body as massive as its required a vast amount of energy to survive.

Therefore.

It absorbed demon qi through special means and pooped out Shadow Soul Stones.

This also explained why Shadow Soul Stones could float in the nether water without sinking.

Because both were essentially the same thing.

Similarly, it explained why Shadow Soul Stones could be salvaged every day, because this old tortoise was always pooping.

It was very logical.

"I see," Xu Xian murmured.

The old tortoise changed the subject and asked, "So, even though they are droppings, only I can produce them. Why should I produce one million tons for you?"