Waves crashed ceaselessly against the stone ground, submerging and shattering every pebble and stone spike.
The stone gullies had long been flooded, and now the underwater forces surged even more violently, crashing repeatedly to widen and expand them.
Crackling sounds echoed throughout the blessed land as the once-solid, unified stone ground was torn apart under the relentless hydraulic pressure.
The fragmented stone ground formed five large stone islands and several dozen smaller ones.
With this step achieved, Meng Qiuzhen exhaled a long breath, a sense of accomplishment rising in his heart.
Getting to this point had been no easy feat.
In the beginning, this dream realm blessed land was overwhelmingly dominated by Earth Path Dao Marks, while the Water Path, Wind Path, Lightning Path, and other Dao Marks were far fewer. The disparity was enormous, causing the initial terrain to be a single, cohesive slab of stone that was extremely difficult to break apart.
The stone ground had clear advantages and disadvantages. It could produce abundant stone materials and nurture mineral deposits, and it was beneficial for the survival and reproduction of Stone People — but it was detrimental to the growth of plants and trees.
The blessed land's terrain itself was not a bad thing.
However, when Meng Qiuzhen scouted the three upcoming earthly tribulations, he discovered that the first was a Force Path disaster — a Four-Armed Fierce Ape, the second was a Fire Path disaster — a downpour of fire rain, and the third was a Transformation Path disaster — the Flying Swarm Tribulation.
Meng Qiuzhen immediately understood that this dream realm blessed land's tribulations were not oriented toward Earth Path. Developing along the Earth Path direction held little promise.
So Meng Qiuzhen decided right then to reshape the terrain!
After a Gu Master ascended to immortality, very few people began by altering the terrain of their own immortal aperture blessed land.
This step was exceedingly difficult.
Fortunately, this was a dreamscape, and Meng Qiuzhen wielded the power of a land spirit.
He first worked to break apart the solid stone ground, but lacking in Force Path Dao Marks, he could not complete the job entirely.
After that, he employed dream creation techniques to form stone spikes, using the gullies and caves to slay the Four-Armed Fierce Ape.
This step had actually been very difficult.
Without dream creation techniques, Meng Qiuzhen would have had no stone spikes, and the Four-Armed Fierce Ape could have persisted for a very long time. He would have had to wait until it starved to death, then slowly digest it through the immortal aperture blessed land to gradually obtain Force Path Dao Marks.
With the stone spikes, Meng Qiuzhen quickly dispatched the Four-Armed Fierce Ape.
But due to Dao Mark repulsion, the immortal aperture blessed land could only absorb the majority of the Force Path Dao Marks. Fortunately, this portion was already sufficient, and Meng Qiuzhen was finally able to successfully fracture the solid stone ground.
After that came the meticulous work.
Meng Qiuzhen chose one large island and began grinding down the stone surface around its outer perimeter, creating large quantities of gravel.
This work was extremely arduous.
He first had to accumulate thunderclouds to unleash lightning bombardments, then follow up with fierce winds and crashing waves to continuously scour the surface.
With Force Path Dao Marks in place, the wind and waves were far more powerful than before, but using them to crush stone was still inefficient. He expended enormous effort for relatively little results.
Actually, there were plenty of good methods — for instance, first heating with fire, then dousing with water, which made solid stone far easier to crack and crumble into fragments.
But this dream realm blessed land had no Fire Path Dao Marks, which greatly frustrated Meng Qiuzhen.
His current efforts were like using a small knife to carve a tree trunk — the tools were entirely wrong for the job.
He toiled away at this grinding work, spending many days before all the large islands had gravel around their perimeters. These fragments were further worn down by wind and water forces until they became very fine, their surfaces smooth — like miniature pebbles.
With the first large island complete, Meng Qiuzhen set off for the second large island and continued his work.
Between the islands lay seas formed from accumulated rainwater.
To be more accurate, they hardly qualified as seas — at most, they were large lakes.
Normally, Meng Qiuzhen was too lazy to stir up wind and waves, so the water surface remained smooth as a mirror. Only when he needed to grind down stone or travel across the water would he deliberately raise wind and waves.
This dream realm blessed land had no Space Path Dao Marks yet, so its area was limited, and as a land spirit, Meng Qiuzhen could not teleport.
He continued modifying the islands one by one, and time flew past.
When Meng Qiuzhen had finished transforming all the large islands and had also modified seven or eight small ones, the Fire Path tribulation arrived.
Fire rain poured down in torrents.
Each drop of fire rain was the size of a washbasin, and thousands upon thousands of them hammered down with tremendous momentum.
Many fire rain drops smashed onto the stone islands, violently scorching the stone ground and gravel. Some of the smaller pebbles melted entirely, the stone turning into magma that flowed slowly but inexorably toward the lake bottom.
Over time, the stone islands — once tall and steep at their edges — rapidly changed under the onslaught of fire rain. All the island perimeters sank, the outermost edges plunging deep underwater, the middle sections leveling with the water surface, and the rear portions rising slightly above the lake, forming gravel beaches.
Most of the fire rain fell into the water, and the clash of fire and water generated tremendous steam. The misty vapor rose upward, gradually forming a thick cloud layer that blanketed the entire blessed land.
Meng Qiuzhen hid underground, where the dense Earth Path Dao Marks granted him, as a land spirit, the ability to burrow through the earth.
He let the fire rain rage unchecked, only occasionally checking on the stone islands.
The fire rain tribulation lasted a very long time before it finally dissipated.
Meng Qiuzhen returned to the surface and immediately felt the air temperature had risen several-fold, humid and scorching.
The entire blessed land was covered by a thick blanket of clouds overhead. After the torrential fire rain that had just fallen, it was like being buried under a quilt with a stove lit inside.
How could it not be sweltering?
Meng Qiuzhen used wind force to blow the clouds apart, bringing immediate and refreshing relief.