Chapter Thirty-eight: Nurturing

The set of cultivation techniques Kong Xuan had given Nanluo bore no grand title; they were merely ordinary methods. For those at the level of beings like Kong Xuan, such arts of concealment were of little use in their struggles. Only true divine abilities—such as the Five-Colored Divine Light, a manifestation of Kong Xuan’s innate mastery of the five elements—could prove decisive. Nanluo often pondered whether he, too, ought to cultivate some divine power, to serve as a trump card in future conflicts.

Thinking thus, Nanluo reflected on his current abilities. Of all he had mastered, only the Wu people's “Manifestation of Heaven and Earth” could truly be considered formidable in battle... As for the earth-escaping technique, it was of some use only for fleeing or launching a surprise attack.

The “Manifestation of Heaven and Earth”—even the name alone stirred Nanluo’s blood to excitement. He had used it once before, crushing the far stronger Blackwater King with a few thunderous stomps. It was, without doubt, a heaven-defying divine art.

What Nanluo did not know was that this “Manifestation of Heaven and Earth” was unique to the Wu people, a secret art granted only to the Great Wu by the Ancestral Wu. The Great Wu, in Daoist terms, were those who had reached the stage of refining spirit and returning to the void.

For the demon race, once they gained human form and cultivated an inner core, they too stood on equal footing with the Great Wu or the Daoist cultivators at the stage of refining spirit and returning to the void...

Since leaving the Supreme Palace these past days, Nanluo had come to realize that the Daoist path of cultivation was indeed distinctive. Previously, he had believed, as Kong Xuan claimed, that all beings simply drew upon the primordial energy of heaven and earth for their own use, but this notion was vague. Nanluo also knew that, whether Wu or demon, without some inherited tradition, it was exceedingly difficult to cultivate any formidable magic, let alone divine powers.

Though Kong Xuan had said that the innate divine arts understood at birth by primordial beings could be taught through expounding the Dao, such transmission was subject to the limits of physique and bloodline: one might be unable to learn them, or, if one could, the resulting power would be feeble...

Yet the “Treatise on the Supreme Purity’s Response” that Nanluo cultivated was different. The power it produced could drive both the Wu’s divine arts and the demons’ magical techniques with equal efficacy, losing nothing in strength.

Divine powers, magical arts—at this thought, Nanluo sighed and murmured to himself: What use is learning so many things? Without the power to drive them, all knowledge is in vain. He could not help but draw from his robe the book the white-robed boy had handed him before the Jade Void Palace. On its cover were written, in ancient, vigorous script, the words “Compendium of Jade Void Palace’s Magical Arts”...

He casually opened the first page and saw the words “Commanding Thunder,” beneath which was a detailed explanation of its use. Turning to the next, there was a method for controlling objects. Nanluo quickly flipped through; every page described a different spell, and there were no fewer than a hundred. Resolutely, he returned the book to his robe, and his hand brushed against the mirror the young green snake had stolen and gifted him.

As soon as he brought out the mirror, Nanluo remembered his upcoming journey to the Supreme Palace on Kunlun Mountain, tasked by Kong Xuan to pose a question to Master Tongxuan... Though he did not fully grasp the meaning of the question, the prospect of returning to Kunlun Mountain filled him with inexplicable joy. Gold Horn and Silver Horn were likely still lazing about and being punished! The little green snake—who knew whether she had finished refining the Blackwater King’s inner core she had swallowed? If she emerged and could not find him, how would she react? Nanluo recalled how she always called him “Master” with every breath, yet he had never taught her anything.

He could not help but laugh wryly. Truly, she was a little green snake of unclear origins.

Whenever idle, Nanluo would take out the mirror to examine it. After so many days of carrying it, it felt as though he bore a piece of warm jade at his side... And ever since he had this mirror, each time he sat to cultivate, he found his mind more tranquil, and the speed at which he absorbed the world’s primordial energy seemed greatly increased. Nanluo did not know if this was mere illusion or a benefit brought by the mirror itself.

Master Tongxuan had once explained there were three ways to consecrate a spiritual artifact. The first was to nurture it day and night with one’s own spiritual energy; this method was the slowest, but ultimately, it could allow man and artifact to merge as one, the artifact becoming an external embodiment of the self...

The second method was to forcibly imprint one’s spiritual will upon the artifact with power and mind, allowing one to command it at a single thought; however, this risked damaging the artifact, and if the item were an innate treasure, such forceful means could even diminish its power.

The third was the blood sacrifice method, the fastest of all; once completed, it granted the artifact immense might and made it impossible for others to seize. Yet, if it were ever taken, unless one willingly severed the connection, the destruction of the artifact would mean the owner’s death and the end of his Dao...

Not long since the world’s formation, it was not uncommon for artifacts to be born alongside the mysteries of heaven and earth. Such items, birthed with the world, were called “innate spiritual objects.” If a spiritual object was acquired and refined into a magical treasure, it became an “innate treasure.”

Nanluo did not know if the mirror in his hand had ever been successfully consecrated, but he was certain it had not been by the Blackwater King. When he came by it, there was not the slightest trace of the Blackwater King’s demonic aura upon it... The little green snake had said that Blackwater would breathe his vital energy upon the mirror day after day, yet Nanluo could not fathom why, after so much effort, the mirror bore none of his essence. In the end, Nanluo could only surmise that the Blackwater King did not understand the art of consecration, or else had done it incorrectly.

An innate spiritual object, being born of heaven and earth, was different from a crafted treasure made according to one’s will. Thus, once formed, innate treasures often had extraordinary appearances. A mirror as flawlessly crafted as this one was exceedingly rare. When Nanluo had first laid eyes on it, he had not dared to believe it was an innate object... But after so many days of nurturing it, he became certain that it was indeed such a treasure.

“It seems I owe the little green snake a great debt. My master always spoke of karma and fate—could this be what he meant?” Nanluo turned the mirror between his fingers.

Even under the low sun, the mirror’s surface remained shrouded in gray mist, reflecting no image. The patterns on its back were still those ambiguous shapes of flowers and beasts.

Seated atop the golden-winged roc, wrapped in a sheath of golden light, Nanluo felt nothing of the raging winds of their swift flight. He sat cross-legged, sword laid across his knees, hands open to the sky, his right palm supporting the mirror.

The internal energy circulating through Nanluo’s body had formed a perfect circuit with the mirror. The world’s primordial energy entered his body through countless pores, flowed gently through his meridians, and gathered in his dantian, where it spun into a cloud of energy.

The place where the influx of energy was strongest was his right palm. The primordial energy of heaven and earth flowed through the mirror into the Lao Gong point of his right hand, as though it had become a part of his body.

Nanluo opened his eyes, held up the mirror to examine it, and then sent his spiritual sense gently probing within. Instantly, a veil of gray mist devoured his strand of consciousness. Nanluo was unsurprised, only sighing quietly—he had tried this several times before, and always with the same result: his spiritual sense was swallowed up.

He closed his eyes once more, entering meditation and ignoring the mirror in his hand. Had he looked, he would have seen that whenever a bird happened to pass overhead in the high sky, the mirror’s surface would momentarily become clear as glass, capturing the bird’s form in its depths.

As the golden-winged roc shot away, the bird that had once been reflected in the mirror plummeted helplessly to the earth below.