Chapter 469: 469, [Discussing Reason with Heavenly Dao]
“Negotiating with the Heavenly Dao…?” Lu Xun pondered his mentor’s words, dumbstruck.
Just as his mentor had said earlier, Heavenly Dao is an unparalleled existence, a type of rule. It neither has mercy nor does it favor anyone, treating all beings equally. Therefore, it naturally wouldn’t take reason into account.
Consequently, the ‘negotiation’ his mentor mentioned mustn’t involve persuading the Heavenly Dao through speech, it must resemble the regular ‘negotiations’ he conducts on a daily basis!
“Master, what… what happened next?” Lu Xun stuttered just like his second senior sister once did.
“And then I became a cripple.” The mentor laughed indifferently, seemingly not considering it as a big deal.
Lu Xun then recalled that his mentor lost his cultivation base due to certain reasons after the ancient cataclysm and only then began to cultivate anew, practicing the Qi Consumption Technique and the Nameless Five Elements Cultivation Method.
So, the so-called special reasons were related to the Heavenly Dao!
The mentor didn’t reveal the details but the outcome sounded quite devastating.
Lu Xun recalled, “If I remember correctly, the mentor said that he became a cripple after losing his cultivation base, depending on Elder Gui for his daily needs. This suggests that not only did he lose his cultivation base, but his body was also severely damaged.”
The mentor continued to gaze at the sky, saying, “You are already aware of the events that followed, your second senior brother began creating a cultivation technique for me and I began to cultivate anew.”
“This second cultivation took an extremely long time, but fortunately, I managed to progress more in the end.”
“Then, your second senior brother and I discovered a new problem.”, the mentor said.
“What problem?” asked Lu Xun.
“The limit of ordinary cultivators.”, the mentor calmly stated, “At that time, I had already reached my own limit.”
He strode a few steps forward, standing beside the brook, and explained to Lu Xun, “Before your second senior brother and I, the mainstream method in the cultivation world was Qi refinement, but we chose Qi consumption.”
“From the perspective of limits, actually, the limit of Qi refinement is even further because the total amount of spiritual power that a cultivator’s body can withstand always has a cap. The concept of turning oneself into heaven and earth is overly difficult, at least, I couldn’t achieve it,” the mentor stated.
Listening to his words, Lu Xun gave a slight nod. This was easy to understand. It is like filling an empty bottle with water – once it is full, it’s full. There will always be a limit.
His mentor glanced at him, saying, “But you, refining the sword through your body and strengthening your constitution, might possibly go further than me in this regard.”
A modest smile crossed Lu Xun’s face, as he thought to himself, “Is this new mode that I inadvertently stumbled upon really that amazing?”
The mentor continued recounting his past, saying, “When I reached my cultivation limit, your second senior brother and I began discussing it. Ultimately, we turned our attention to the most mysterious part of a cultivator – the Qi Sea.”
Upon hearing this, Lu Xun immediately understood and asked, “Master, is it… Qi Luck?”
The mentor displayed an approving expression, nodding his head, and said, “Indeed, the Qi Sea cannot store spiritual power, but it can contain Qi Luck. As for your current Sword Fate, it’s one type of Qi Luck.”
Lu Xun felt like his mentor and second senior brother were ruthlessly experimenting on him.
One daring to innovate and the other to put into practice.
Surprisingly enough, one functioning as the literary scholar, always coming up with new ideas, and the other as the martial artist, always achieving his goals!
Lu Xun muttered to himself, “And they are so bold, aren’t they scared of demonic possession?”
However, on second thought, he believed that his mentor and second senior brother were on the right track.
Since the spiritual energy one could store in the body had reached its peak and it was hard to break through in this regard, why not try absorbing some power other than spiritual energy!
And the Qi Luck within the Qi Sea, when viewed from its status, was actually a notch higher than spiritual power.
Lu Xun couldn’t help but recall the towering pillar of Qi emanating from his mentor’s body, at that time.
Compared to that pillar, Lu Xun’s Sword Fate appeared insignificant.
Beyond that, Lu Xun could sense that his mentor’s Qi pillar was incredibly complex. It wasn’t possible that it just contained the Knife Luck he previously admitted, there had to be more!
Immediately, his mentor provided the answer himself.
“Little Five, although your second senior brother was unskilled in the field of cultivation, he was skilled in wielding the sword, which is what we refer to today as a Natural Sword Embryo.”
“I’m different from him. While I have no talent in the Sword Dao, I am capable of learning other techniques quickly.”
“However, precisely because of this, I am unable to reach perfection.”
“Just like when I practiced the knife Dao and absorbed the world’s Knife Luck, it ended up being insufficient due to my inability to reach perfection, resulting in my inability to retain too much Knife Luck.”
“For this reason, I decided to absorb a variety of luck from different categories.”
Lu Xun: “…”
So much information in a few sentences!
Lu Xun had thought that it was unprecedented for both a mentor and disciple to possess a Sword Embryo, but it turns out that his second senior brother and the Sword Mountain Elder were indeed a mentor-disciple pair with Sword Embryos!
Moreover, mentor’s words were thought-provoking.
He could even imagine the scene!
First, his mentor absorbed Knife Luck, kept absorbing it until he felt that he had reached his limit, facing the same problem as when absorbing spiritual power.
Although his mentor grasped everything upon a slight contact, he wasn’t a perfectionist. It felt like his Knife Dao talent was at 9.
Then, his mentor began to practice spearmanship, halberd techniques, talisman techniques, and such, starting to try and absorb other types of Luck!
“Going by what my mentor has said, doesn’t he have a talent of 9 in everything else except Sword Dao talent?” Lu Xun quantified his mentor’s talents in his heart.
This gave him the impression of having a collection of Knife Dao Talent 9, Spear Talent 9, Talisman Talent 9… and so many other talents in one body!
“That’s terrifying! How many special attribute points does he possess?” Lu Xun was dying of envy.
Even if he himself carried a variety of special attribute points, most of them were below 5 points, which was still quite low.
His mentor looked up to the sky, declaring, “In the blink of an eye, countless years have passed. By then, I had exhausted the Qi Sea to its limit. With so many sources of Qi Luck in this world, I had already absorbed all that I could.”
Lu Xun: “…”
“Master is awesome!” Lu Xun shouted in his heart.
However, the mentor said so much at once, yet still didn’t speak about Heavenly Dao.
It seems that these cultivation experiences were laying the groundwork for the second ‘negotiation’ with the Heavenly Dao.
Next, it should be the climax of this past event!
As expected, what the mentor said next left Lu Xun dumbstruck once more.
The mentor gazed at the sky at an angle of forty-five degrees, maintaining this posture he felt was quite swashbuckling, and said, “Upon cultivating anew, I first absorbed spiritual power, then Qi Luck. After absorbing a large amount of Qi Luck, your second senior brother and I had a common thought – can Heavenly Dao be absorbed?”
“And the Foreign Race Spirits, during the final phase of the ancient cataclysm, seized a wisp of the Power of Heavenly Dao, which is the Pearl of Heavenly Dao you possess. This allowed your second senior brother and me to understand that Heavenly Dao is not impenetrable. It seemed that we could give it a try.”
Upon hearing this, Lu Xun’s heart seemed to skip a beat.
The result needs no further explanation, his mentor must have succeeded!
He swallowed a fragment of Heavenly Dao!!!
How he managed to do it, Lu Xun didn’t know, but he had accomplished it!
His mentor no longer looked to the sky, but turned to face Lu Xun.
This time, he didn’t just sneak a glance and then look away, he met Lu Xun’s gaze directly with a rather gentler look in his eyes.
The mentor smiled and said, “Little Five, you asked me: ‘Is there any justice in this world?'”
He pointed to himself and calmly said, “There wasn’t before, but there is now.”
…