Chapter 10

On March 1, 2013, at the entrance of Tongshan Prison in Anxi City. Zhao Chaogang slowly walked out of the prison gate. After 11 years, he finally regained his freedom. It wasn't easy. Zhao Chaogang took a deep breath; the air outside was much better than inside. Without looking back, he walked forward.

Eleven years ago, Zhao Chaogang was a second-year student in the management department at Anxi University. On March 1, 2002, Zhao Chaogang had just returned to school from his hometown in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. As soon as he got off the train, a man suddenly rushed out and snatched the backpack he had placed on the handle of his suitcase. That backpack contained his tuition and living expenses for the semester, money his parents had worked hard to earn. In a moment of panic, Zhao Chaogang picked up the suitcase and threw it at the man, hoping to knock him down and retrieve his backpack. However, he used too much force, and the suitcase hit the man, causing him to fall off the platform onto the tracks. It also hit a staff member who was about to add water to the train, and both were killed on the spot by a passing freight train. Zhao Chaogang was sentenced to 15 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.

When he first entered prison, Zhao Chaogang was utterly despondent, feeling that his future was bleak. He was numb and just served his time in prison. If it weren't for the weekly letters from his parents, which comforted and encouraged him, and also talked about trivial matters at home, he would have broken down in prison long ago.

His parents came to visit him in prison every year during the New Year, spending the holiday with him there. They wanted him to know that the family always supported him and not to give up.

Zhao Chaogang's hometown was a two-day and two-night train ride away, and his family was not very wealthy. Each visit cost his parents about 1,000 yuan just for travel expenses, plus another 1,000 yuan for the holiday, totaling around 2,000 yuan. In 2002, earning 2,000 yuan in the countryside was very difficult. Thanks to his parents' care and encouragement, Zhao Chaogang was able to face prison life positively, work hard, and strive for early release to take care of his parents.

On October 20, 2003, at the stone factory in Tongshan Prison, Zhao Chaogang was working hard on the stones. The prison had a rule that if you could complete your tasks ahead of schedule, it would be recorded, and when you accumulated enough, you could get a sentence reduction. Therefore, Zhao Chaogang always completed his tasks ahead of schedule to get more sentence reductions.

That day, Zhao Chaogang had just broken a stone when the guard blew the whistle for a break. Zhao Chaogang sat down to rest and wipe the sweat, and he accidentally saw a colorful stone at his feet. Zhao Chaogang had always had a hobby of collecting various colorful stones, and today, seeing such a beautiful stone, he picked it up.

Upon closer inspection, the stone was very round, about the size of a thumb, and its colors were very distinct. It was divided into five parts by white, green, blue-black, red, and gray-yellow.

Zhao Chaogang played with the stone, and his finger, which had been cut while breaking stones, started bleeding. His fingers were always bleeding from the work, as he had never done such hard labor before.

While playing with the colorful stone, his blood inevitably got on it. However, he didn't notice that the blood was slowly being absorbed by the stone, and the wheel of fate began to turn.

The whistle blew again, signaling the end of the 15-minute break. Zhao Chaogang and the other inmates slowly resumed their work.

At 6 PM, the workday was almost over. Zhao Chaogang reluctantly hid the colorful stone in his usual work area. He really liked the stone; it was so beautiful. He felt a bit attached to it, but it didn't matter much because he would be working in the same place the next day. He had been working there for a month, and no one would notice such a stone.

After all, such beautiful stones were not uncommon in the stone field, and not everyone liked collecting them. Although he really wanted to take it back, the prison would not allow inmates to bring stones back to their dorms, regardless of their size.

On October 28, 2003, after lunch, Zhao Chaogang played with the stone he had picked up 8 days ago, feeling a sense of satisfaction.

That morning, while breaking stones, a new inmate in his group, who was not yet skilled, almost got injured by a stone he had just broken. If Zhao Chaogang hadn't reacted quickly and caught the large stone rolling towards his feet, the consequences would have been unimaginable. However, Zhao Chaogang himself was not unscathed; his right hand was cut by the stone, and blood flowed profusely.

Zhao Chaogang was injured while helping a fellow inmate, so the prison guards allowed him to rest until his wound healed before returning to work. Even if you were sick in prison, you still had to work with the other inmates; you couldn't stay in the prison alone.

Zhao Chaogang sat by the water barrel, washing the colorful stone with tea water. The blood from his wound had also stained the stone. As he hummed a song while washing the stone, suddenly, the colorful stone turned into a beam of light and shot into his forehead. Zhao Chaogang felt a sharp pain and fainted. It wasn't until someone came to get water that they noticed he had fainted.

The guards quickly took him to the infirmary. Fortunately, the doctor determined that he had fainted due to anemia and the blood loss from his injury. He just needed to rest, and he would wake up by that evening.

At 1 AM on October 29, 2003, Zhao Chaogang woke up. As soon as he woke up, he almost couldn't resist jumping up. Such good fortune had come to him.

It turned out that the colorful stone he had found in the stone field was a Five-Color Stone, a postnatal spiritual treasure that had been accidentally obtained by the Five Elements Sect of the Hao Tian Small Spirit Heaven.

The Five Elements Sect was overjoyed when they got the Five-Color Stone, thinking they had obtained the Five-Element Stone needed to create a secret realm. However, they didn't know that the Five-Element Stone was actually a low-grade variant of the Five-Color Stone, completely incomparable to the Five-Color Stone, much like the difference between a low-grade spirit stone and a celestial crystal.

To create a secret realm, you needed the Five-Element Stone, which naturally carried the Great Five-Element Spirit Array. Activating the array could absorb the boundless spirit energy from the chaotic void and supply it to all living beings in the secret realm, accelerating the cultivation of cultivators. With an endless supply of spirit energy, the secret realm could exist permanently, and the Five Elements Sect could also continue to thrive.

The Five Elements Sect gathered all its resources, led by its nine Great Tribulation Elders, and spent 100 years to create a secret realm spanning 100,000 miles.

The Five-Element Stone naturally carried the Great Five-Element Spirit Array, continuously absorbing spirit energy from the void. Although the spirit energy in the void was abundant, it was chaotic and difficult for ordinary cultivators to use. Absorbing it would cause the spirit energy in their bodies to become chaotic, leading to a loss of control, a drop in cultivation, and even permanent damage, preventing them from advancing to higher realms.

Only cultivators who had reached the Soul Formation stage could avoid this, as the infant fire in their bodies could burn away the unnecessary spirit energy, leaving only the useful part. However, they couldn't keep the void open for long; their cultivation would be exhausted in half an hour. The Five-Element Stone had no such time limit; as long as it wasn't destroyed, it could continuously absorb spirit energy from the void.

The Great Five-Element Spirit Array rearranged the chaotic spirit energy and released it at a gentle pace (it wasn't just five types of spirit energy, but a simplified term). The most important array stone for setting up the Great Five-Element Spirit Array was the Five-Element Stone.

Other sects' secret realms could only be opened once every 60 years or 100 years, absorbing spirit energy from the Hao Tian Small Spirit Heaven. The density of spirit energy in the Small Spirit Heaven was much lower than in the void, making it almost incomparable. The Five Elements Secret Realm could be opened every 10 years, and the spirit energy was so dense that it often turned into mist.

It's important to note that when a cultivator breaks through to a new realm, the denser the spirit energy, the better. A large amount of spirit energy is needed to break through, and many cultivators fail due to insufficient spirit energy. Even if they break through, they need a lot of spirit energy to stabilize their new realm, preventing the risk of falling back.

The spirit energy in the Five Elements Secret Realm was virtually inexhaustible, and the Five Elements Sect benefited greatly from this, rapidly increasing in strength and becoming the undisputed top sect in the Hao Tian Small Spirit Heaven.

One day, 100,000 years later, the Five Elements Secret Realm opened again. About 100,000 cultivators entered the secret realm. Over the 100,000 years, the secret realm had gradually become known to other sects, who paid a high price to gain entry. Breaking through bottlenecks in the secret realm was extremely easy.

As the Five Elements Secret Realm continuously absorbed spirit energy from the void, it became increasingly prosperous, and many spirit stone mines appeared within it. However, the Five-Color Stone was not comparable to the Five-Element Stone, a spiritual treasure in the cultivation world. It was a postnatal spiritual treasure, a treasure even Great Law Golden Immortals would fight over, capable of creating a much larger secret realm than the one in the Hao Tian Small Spirit Heaven.

Over the 100,000 years, the Five-Color Stone not only absorbed a vast amount of spirit energy but also a large amount of spatial energy. It instinctively wanted to evolve into a small world. Today, it had finally absorbed enough spatial energy to begin its evolution. With a loud noise, the Five-Color Stone started to transform into a small world.

A large amount of spirit energy and spatial energy entered the Five Elements Secret Realm from the void, but the amount of spirit energy was still insufficient. The Five-Color Stone instinctively absorbed spirit energy from the secret realm, instantly draining the spirit energy of the many cultivators who had entered, causing them to die, and even emptying the spirit stones in their storage bags and rings.

The massive absorption of spatial energy and spirit energy by the Five-Color Stone caused a spatial collapse, forming a spatial storm that directly destroyed the Hao Tian Small Spirit Heaven. The Five-Color Stone was sucked into a spatial rift and didn't escape until much later. It was eventually brought to Earth by a meteorite 1 billion years ago, moving through the Earth's crust over time until it appeared today.

Due to Zhao Chaogang's continuous blood sacrifice for 9 days, the Five-Color Stone勉强 reached the conditions for recognition. The Five-Color Stone recognized him as its master.

The conditions for recognizing the Five-Color Stone were extremely difficult. One way was to reach the Celestial Immortal stage, where one could use immortal spirit energy to refine it over a long period, gradually making it recognize its master. The other way was through blood sacrifice, but it wasn't easy. It required 81 days of continuous blood sacrifice using heart blood to make it recognize its master. Cultivators who recognized the Five-Color Stone this way were often not very powerful and could easily be taken over by stronger cultivators.

The Five-Color Stone had 36 restrictions, with the first one being the most difficult. However, due to the long time it spent in the spatial rift, being hit by spatial turbulence, the first restriction was 99% broken. Therefore, Zhao Chaogang was able to successfully recognize it with just 9 days of blood sacrifice. Otherwise, it would not be so easy for a postnatal spiritual treasure like the Five-Color Stone to recognize a master. Once recognized, a set of Five-Element Techniques automatically imprinted in Zhao Chaogang's mind. Only by cultivating these techniques could he refine the remaining 35 restrictions and fully control the Five-Color Stone.

Zhao Chaogang barely controlled his excitement, but his heart was still pounding. Fortunately, it was 1 AM, and he was the only one in the ward. Otherwise, others might have thought he was insane.

Zhao Chaogang knew that this secret must remain in his heart to be safe. Otherwise, the danger of possessing a valuable treasure would not be just a saying.

During his year and a half in prison, Zhao Chaogang saw many injustices. Many people were not in prison because of their own crimes but were framed. For example, inventors who refused to cooperate with others, families with valuable antiques, beautiful wives coveted by rich young men or officials, families with ancestral secret formulas, and business owners who refused to sell shares. Such examples were common in prison. Some inmates even threatened others to get money from visits.

The only benefit for Zhao Chaogang was that he became more cautious and gained a deeper understanding of society and human greed.

Zhao Chaogang would not be foolish enough to reveal his secret to get out of prison early or