Chapter Ninety-Six: A Grand Scheme

The people of the Dawn Mist Tribe had grown impatient after their priest, Spring Voice, failed to return. They all said they would go into the mountains to look for him, but in the end they never did. Someone said that perhaps the priest had already been devoured by the demons in the mountains, and when several more days passed and Spring Voice still had not come back, that rumor seemed only more certain in the eyes of the tribe.

Yet what none of them had imagined was that, two days later, their priest, Spring Voice, actually returned. Not only had he returned, he had come back riding upon the clouds and mist.

The cloud was multicolored, dazzling beyond compare. In their hearts, only immortals could possess such a power. And he had not returned alone; with him was his elder brother, Spring Stone.

People crowded around to ask questions. Yet the priest, who in ordinary times always said exactly what should be said and nothing more, gave no explanation at all today. The more observant among them noticed that he kept glancing back toward the great mountain. They followed his gaze, but saw nothing there.

After his return, the priest seemed like a different person. He said nothing, but Spring Stone told everything he knew. What the crowd learned of his capture was more or less this: he had been taken away because he played the flute beautifully, and the Golden Sand King had actually spared his life, keeping him there to play day and night.

All the while, he lived in dread, thinking that the day the demon lord grew tired of the music would be the day he died.

For several days, the demons paid no mind to his food or drink, so long as he kept playing the flute without rest. If he had not possessed some cultivation of his own, hunger and thirst alone would have killed him. Just as he felt he could no longer endure it, that he might collapse at any moment, his sister came.

She arrived riding a cloud, though upon that cloud stood another figure as well: a man in a blue robe with his hair bound up, a long sword at his waist, his face cold and stern. He had openly and confidently come to take him away. The Golden Sand King naturally refused, and said many things, though Spring Stone could not make them out. Still, he did catch one name: the Heavenly Court.

That phrase was now known throughout heaven and earth. Though most people did not understand it fully, they at least knew its general meaning.

Could it be that this Golden Sand King was a servant of the Heavenly Court? Then all was finished. And the immortal his sister had somehow invited, one able to ride the clouds and mist, no matter how formidable he might be, surely would not dare offend the Heavenly Court.

Just as Spring Stone was thinking this, he heard the blue-robed man in the air say coldly, "So you refuse to let me take him away?"

"Yes. Not to mention you, even if it were—"

The Golden Sand King’s domineering voice cut off abruptly.

Spring Stone turned back and saw that the Golden Sand King, who in his heart had seemed nearly invincible, had already been severed cleanly in two. His head was still rolling about on the ground. Blood poured from the wound like a spring, and the surrounding demons scattered in terror.

On the way back, all he knew was that this man was called Southfall, a human, yet also a mountain demon king in his own right.

Southfall gave Spring Voice a multicolored cloud that could travel through the air, and also gave him a manual of cultivation. He said that if there was anything Spring Voice did not understand, or any difficulty he encountered, he could come into the mountains to find him. But how could he possibly bring himself to do that? It had been one thing when they had stood together all the time. Once they were separated, the very thought of seeking him out made her remember how completely he had seen through her. She could not bring herself to make the decision to go, and yet she also could not forget him.

Thus it came to pass that everyone in the Dawn Mist Tribe could see their priest had changed. He was always spacing out alone, always standing on high ground by himself, gazing toward that great mountain.

As far as Southfall was concerned, this was merely a small episode. Whenever a human ran into trouble, he would of course not hesitate to lend a hand. Yet he understood more deeply than anyone that if humanity did not produce more people of profound magical power, it would be hard for them to avoid being bullied in this world.

By now he had come to understand plainly that heaven and earth were fair. Humans were born weak, with short lives, but they were innately suited to the Way. No matter what kind of being cultivated, it would ultimately need to take human form before it could ascend to the summit of the great path.

They could not compare with those beings born together with heaven and earth. But if one set aside those ancient, naturally formed spirits and looked only at the beasts and creatures that had become demons after the fact, then humans as a whole were not inferior to them at all. What humans lacked were those peak-level existences.

He had been in Mount Falling Spirit for more than a year without realizing it. When he first arrived, Northern Spirit had summoned all the demons in the mountain who had awakened spiritual awareness or higher to come pay homage. It was only several months ago, after Northern Spirit brought Spring Voice here, that he had gone out once to kill that demon king called Golden Sand, and then he had entered a state halfway between seclusion and open cultivation.

He was refining the Lunar Stele.

This refining was not the same as refining a magical treasure. Rather, it was to refine the Lunar Stele so that it would merge into this mountain range as one body; more precisely, it was to fuse it with the spiritual vein of this mountain chain. All along, he had followed the refinement method written in that formula. After a year, he still had not fully managed even to make the strange material of that Lunar Stele blend faintly with the aura of the whole mountain.

It was not that he had not devoted himself to it. Rather, if he wanted to merge the Lunar Stele with the spiritual vein in the mountain, the vein first had to resonate with his own aura, and the Lunar Stele had to be refined into formlessness. Only then could he slowly fuse the Lunar spiritual vein that Emperor Jun had spoken of with this Lunar Stele.

Refining the Lunar Stele into formlessness was different from refining the Azure-Visage Sword and the Demon Moon Mirror into formlessness, into a state of boundless transformation. Even now, aside from steadily following the prescribed method of refinement, the only thing he could do was control its shrinking and restoration. It had no other special functions at all, or perhaps it did have such functions, but they were beyond his knowledge.

Still, although it looked like little more than hard labor, how could there be no benefit at all in merging one’s own aura with the spiritual vein? To feel the breath of the mountain, to nourish oneself with the Lunar spiritual vein, these advantages were immense. It was only that their effects would reveal themselves in the years to come. This was an improvement that seeped in quietly, like moisture nourishing all things without a sound.

Of course, there was a method for connecting with the Lunar spiritual vein as well, otherwise one could only endure it through long, grueling years. That method, naturally, had also been given by Emperor Jun. One could easily imagine how much Emperor Jun had invested: he had forbidden nine dragon sons with Taiyi seals to pull a palace-sized carriage through heaven and earth for three years, drawing the gaze of all living beings, while behind the scenes he had silently laid such a vast scheme. What exactly he was plotting, Southfall could not even begin to imagine.

Even those who helped carry out these tasks could reap immense benefits, with a strong chance of entering the realm of the Way and a sliver of opportunity to glimpse the sacred path. As for Emperor Jun himself? Whether he would achieve the sacred path, or some still higher attainment beyond it, Southfall had no way of knowing.

He did not know whether the great figures of heaven and earth had seen through Emperor Jun’s arrangement this time, but he had no reason not to do it himself. With so many benefits to be had, there was no reason not to devote himself fully to the refinement. The chance to enter the realm of the Way was one benefit; as for the other aspects of artifact refinement and restrictions, those were merely additional gains.

Although Emperor Jun had set no time limit, he had only said that if one could fuse it before the others, there would naturally be even more unexpected rewards.

Southfall did not know whether the others were all willing to do this for such benefits, but he himself felt little resistance toward it. At the very least, when the desire to grow stronger was present, many things became bearable that otherwise would not have been.