Chapter 311: Book of Life and Death
Chapter 311: Book of Life and Death
Tianyi’s wedding with Daoyi was scheduled for five years later. Mengfei wanted a year at max, but Sect Master Xia wanted it to be a sect-wide event to boost morale upon hearing of the news.
We’re in a war? What war? It’s so easy that we can hold a grand celebration in the midst of it.
Sect Master Xia almost failed, but only after promising Mengfei it would be the grandest event in the recent history of the Buzhou Immortal Sect did she agree. While Sect Master Xia had been begging, Tianyi just sat at the side with a surrendering expression.
After that debacle was over, Tianyi spoke separately to Sect Master Xia about his experiences in the different timeline. More specifically, he spoke about the continued survival of Emperor Begonia and how he turned into Boddhisattva Begonia. He would let Sect Master Xia worry about all this mess, he didn’t want to hold over a position of power for this reason, after all.
Having successfully passed the hot potato to Sect Master Xia, Tianyi made his way to Broken Heaven Valley. Behind him, Mengfei followed. When the two reached the entrance, they felt an invisible force blocking them.
Tianyi and Mengfei waited for the force to disappear. When it did, they entered, and Tianyi saw the vestiges of the once-grand Immortal Court. The two walked through the solemn yet silent grounds before finally reaching the central palace.
There, outside of the palace, stood Immortal Court Spirit.
“Grand Elder Xi, Elder Xi,” Immortal Court Spirit greeted, giving a slight bow to Mengfei in the process.
Staring at Immortal Court Spirit, Tianyi felt a chill crawl up his spine. Noticing Tianyi staring at him, Immortal Court Spirit looked over. “I trust my other self passed the message on to you?”
‘Did the other Immortal Court Spirit not come to this timeline and die there? Either way, the base is still the same, and I have to be careful if, for some reason, he decides to blow up this Huang Realm.’ Tianyi managed to force a smile. “Yes, he did. I’m here to deliver the Three Lives Stone.”
“Excellent, I didn’t expect you to actually succeed,” Immortal Court said. He turned around and said, “Please follow me.”
Tianyi and Mengfei followed behind the artifact spirit. They didn’t fly through Immortal Court, so the trek took several hours. During this time, no one spoke a single word. However, Tianyi did notice Mengfei’s constant stare.
He had thought it was his imagination, but now, he was quite sure that his mother’s eyes had never left him for the past few hours.
Tianyi tried to ignore Mengfei’s gaze to the best of his ability. He looked for anything that would distract him. He saw a magnificent palace with a plaque above the entrance. ‘Oh, Heaven Bearing Palace.’
“We’ve arrived,” Immortal Court Spirit said as he stopped to enter Heaving Bearing Palace. “Come inside.”
Tianyi and Mengfei followed. When they entered the gates, they didn’t see any rooms but rather a bleak landscape under perpetual twilight.
“This is the Nether Realm?” Tianyi asked. Having visited the Nether Realm before, he couldn’t be more familiar with the landscape.
“To be more precise, it’s nothing more than a miniaturized replication,” Immortal Court Spirit said. He waved his hands, and Tianyi and Mengfei instantly arrived at Youdu Palace within Heaven Bearing Palace.
Tianyi couldn’t feel that space had shifted. Even if it was the Law of Space at the divine level, he should have been able to sense it. Since he couldn’t, it meant that they were transported through other means.
“I’ve sealed this place from the Heavenly Dao and any external perception,” Immortal Court Spirit said and opened his hand. “You can hand over the Three Lives Stone now.”
Tianyi nodded and walked over. He held his hand in front of Immortal Court Spirit’s. A portal appeared, and a giant stone appeared. To his shock, when the stone touched Immortal Court Spirit’s hand, it turned into a book.
On the front, Tianyi could read “Life and Death.”
“Are you surprised?” Immortal Court Spirit asked.
Tianyi nodded. “I thought the Three Lives Stone and the Book of Life and Death were two separate artifacts.”
Immortal Court Spirit shook his head. “No, they are one of the same. However, the Book of Life and Death could only reveal its true power when it is connected to the Heavenly Dao. In this sealed space, it has limited uses.”
“Then why have me bring it?”
“Of course, it still has its uses,” Immortal Court Spirit said. “It is left unsaid that you need to keep this a secret.”
Tianyi nodded. “I won’t tell anyone in the Huang Realm.’’ ‘But that doesn’t apply if they are outside of it.’
Not long later, Tianyi and Mengfei left Broken Heaven Valley. As he was still in his Monarch Nine Heavens guise, he flew toward Nine Heavens Peak.
“Mother, you can’t follow me like this,” Tianyi helplessly stayed as he watched Mengfei practically glue herself to him.
“I’m not letting you leave me sight again,” Mengfei simply said.
‘I have a feeling that she’s being literal.’ Tianyi thought with a grimace. He decided to endure it for now. After all, he had disappeared for over a hundred years. To him, it might have been a few decades in a timeline with a faster time flow, but crossing the River of Time distorted the point of time he returned.
Tianyi directly teleported himself and Mengfei into Nine Heaven Palace. From there, he split off an incarnation to enquire what Jinshu was up to. After synchronizing with Ba Shifang, Tianyi felt that he had a good understanding of the current situation in the Huang Realm.
Thanks to Ba Shifang, Tianyi also knew that Xi Ri was doing better. His personality had become all gloomy, but he no longer locked himself in his room anymore. On the other hand, his Emperor-Uncle seemed to be in quite a frail state, but his mother was on top of that.
Daoyi was still in the Nine Heavens Universe. Compared to the Huang Realm, maintaining a solid connection to her divine avatar allowed for faster progress.
Once everything came together, Tianyi bunkered down and cultivated. He needed more strength and fast. He got trapped inside an alternate timeline because he was too weak and almost failed to return because of Bodhisatva Begonia. He wouldn’t allow himself to lose the initiative again. Inside the Nine Heavens Universe, his Past Incarnation studied Caishen’s soul that he crammed into an orb.
For a divinity, he was disappointingly weak, almost too weak. Past Incarnation Tianyi could already imagine his original outcome had he not appeared. Caishen would try to take over Peng Yun, only for Peng Yun to consume him and use what he gained to rise to the peak of the Huang Realm.
The child-like Tianyi shook his head and began to dissemble Caishen’s soul. Normally it would be impossible, even if he was just one step away from mastering the Law of Death, one of the top laws regarding souls, but who told Caishen to be inside his Nine Heavens Universe?
Tianyi sped up the time around his Past Incarnation so his comprehension of Caishen’s soul would go smoother. From Caishen’s soul, he discovered the Law of Probability, the Law of Purification, the Law of Accumulation, and numerous other concepts related to the five elements.
“Trash,” Tianyi finally said. “For a divinity who lived so long, he only mastered these laws? I mastered more than him!”
He sighed and began to comprehend the laws. The Law of Purification and Accumulation were easy, but the Law of Probability gave Tianyi some trouble. Aside from comprehending all laws in Caishen’s soul, Tianyi began to scour through his memories.
Tianyi had to say that Caishen really was a tiny fish. Before becoming a divinity of faith conferred by the Immortal Court, Caishen hadn’t even become an immortal monarch. Utter trash! The information while he was the God of Wealth was useless as well!
And finally, he also dissected his rudimentary system. Tianyi had to say he was very disappointed. It was like looking at a stone statue only to discover that the inside was hollow. Good to look at, but nothing substantial.
“Forget it. What use do I have for a system? It’s not like I’ve become powerful enough to create a system to give to a newborn or cultivator for fun. If I had time for that, I better think of a way to leech other cultivators’ experiences. Ahem, I mean, have them share their experiences with me. But to do that, I would need to introduce them to my Nine Heavens Universe. But there’s no way I can reveal my secret like that.”
Tianyi suddenly stopped. His child-like form stared at Caishen’s soul and then at Sixth Heaven. Several flashes of light appeared in his eyes before the corner of his lips curled upward.
He wholeheartedly began to focus on creating a system. It was not a system attached to a single person but applied to anyone who entered the world. Tianyi almost couldn’t wait.
A hundred years of sped-up time later, Tianyi finished the better version, but he needed beta testers to test it out first. And he had the perfect candidate.
-line break-
Jinshu walked toward Nine Heavens Palace with some confusion. After his master had returned, he appraised Jinshu’s progress with satisfaction and allowed him to visit his mother.
He had thought his mother would be a hundred years closer to death, but he discovered that while a hundred years had passed for himself, only ten had passed for his mother.
That was nearly a year ago. Jinshu had thought the next time his master would summon him would be at least a few more years, not now.
Still, he obediently greeted his master, Monarch Nine Heavens.
Monarch Nine Heaven’s expression didn’t change. He waved his hand, and a rectangular jade slip appeared in Jinshu. Jinshu took it and saw it was a Xiyi Talisman.
During the hundred years, Xiyi Talisman exploded in popularity. The thing the disciple most liked to do was watch fights between immortals, and such fights weren’t rare nowadays. Those scions with immortal elders begged them to record their fights with the Xiyi Talisman, and then the scions would upload them.
Naturally, Jinshu also had one, and the top-of-the-line one too. So, why would his master give him another one?
“I recently had an inspiration and constructed a false world. There, you can become another person and experience another life. From the Qi Gathering Realm, you can reach the Mortality Shedding Realm even if your true self is not in that realm. But the most important feature is that you can experience death without truly dying,” Monarch Nine Heavens explained to Jinshu. Seeing him still confused, he said, “Go experience it. You will understand.”
Jinshu nodded and returned to his abode. Inside his cultivation chamber, he took out the new Xiyi Talisman. He inputted his spiritual sense into the talisman and activated it.
Instantly, he felt this consciousness darken. When Jinshu regained awareness, he discovered that he was in a simple hall with windows but no doors. At the front, he saw a beautiful lady dressed in an attendant’s uniform.
The strangest thing was that he couldn’t release his spiritual sense or feel his qi. It was as if he had returned to being a mere mortal. However, Jinshu didn’t panic. He had confidence that his master wouldn’t hurt him.
Jinshu first walked to the window and looked outside. There, he discovered that the building he was in was actually floating high in the sky, and he could see a vast expanse of land filled with different biomes, including the sea.
He walked over and greeted the girl that had not moved. Had it not been for her lifelike features, Jinshu would have thought that she was a statue. In fact, he couldn’t get rid of the suspicion that she was an artifact, like a puppet.
[Welcome to Cultivation Online. You can call me Youxi. Are you ready to register?]
Jinshu furrowed his brows but still said yes.
[Okay, begin registration. Pulling up information. You are Disciple Jinshu, a World Mergining Venerable of the Buzhou Immortal Sect. Gender, male…]
As the attendant continued on, Jinshu had to hit back the creeping feeling crawling up his back at how much the unknown girl knew.
[Begin registration. First of all, what username would you like to use?]
“Lushu,” Jinshu said after a moment of thought.
[What gender would you like to play as?]
Jinshu’s eyebrows nearly reached his hairline. What kind of question was this? “Male!”
Youxi asked several more questions, and after the twenty-fifth question, an illusion of the new body Jinshu customized appeared.
[Here is your avatar, would you like to make any changes?]
Jinshu shook his head.
[Okay, would you like to enter the new and exciting world?]
Jinshu hesitated for a moment but finally nodded.
[Okay, preparing to transfer consciousness. Transfer complete. Player Lushu, please enjoy Cultivation Online.]