Not until he had left the imperial capital and reached a stretch of open wilderness did Shen Yi summon the golden bead.
Fine golden threads wove themselves together once more, and a golden dharma form two zhang three tall stood impassively into being.
Its frame was far more powerfully built than before, and the vivid crimson patterns across its back were strange and terrible.
But what drew the eye most was the thick golden dragon coiled around its arm — fangs bared, golden eyes ferocious, as though it were a living thing.
The golden body abruptly lifted its arm, and the dragon shot out, spiraled once through the air in a strangling motion, then dropped back down and coiled around the arm again.
“Tch.”
Shen Yi’s expression turned faintly complicated.
The demon soul he’d just spent ten thousand years condensing had somehow simply vanished — turned into a Spirit-Transformation realm technique bearing the “Rare” mark.
At two zhang three, the golden dharma form looked like a small building, and yet it hadn’t even reached Minor Mastery. When he added it up, something didn’t quite fit.
For an ordinary Golden Body method, three zhang was Perfection.
This should be a good thing, then?
Shen Yi carefully tallied how much accumulated faith Great Qian held in total, and felt somewhat uncertain.
“Never mind. One step at a time.”
Feeling the golden body’s utterly undisguised, formidable presence, Shen Yi found himself a little more confident about the coming trip to the Eight-Direction Dining Hall.
Another twenty-odd days, collect the Cold Jade Mysterious Silk Hand from the Implement Sect, and his preparations would be more or less complete.
This stretch of time couldn’t be wasted either.
Shen Yi put the golden body away and rode a cloud toward the armory.
He couldn’t cultivate the techniques for now, but the War Temple had lost so many Spirit-Transformation cultivators over the years that there were bound to be records left behind.
That information was just as important.
The armory, the small loft.
Zhu Jue looked at Shen Yi standing before him in puzzlement — if he remembered right, the two of them had parted less than three hours ago. “Junior Brother wants to know what happened to the various seniors after they left Great Qian?”
Once he received an affirmative answer, Zhu Jue more or less guessed what the young man intended, and got a taste of what little Wu must feel.
Barely back, and off again.
This was no War Temple. It was plainly just an inn where the man stopped to rest.
“One moment, Junior Brother.”
Zhu Jue gave a helpless smile, left the small loft, and soon returned carrying an entire crate of books and volumes. “It’s all here.”
He picked one up at random and gave it a couple of pats. “No one’s looked at these in a very long time.”
Compared to martial techniques and precious medicines, it was actually these “travelogues” that revealed the true depth of a great power. The valuable experience recorded within had all been bought back with the lives of Spirit-Transformation cultivators.
“My thanks, Senior Brother.”
Shen Yi reached out, gathered up a stack of books, and settled into a corner.
Compared to abstruse martial theory, these read more like storytellers’ tales, and he found them thoroughly engrossing. Whenever he came across something recorded in insufficient detail, he simply asked Senior Brother Zhu beside him.
As time slowly passed, a rough map gradually took shape in Shen Yi’s mind — the distribution of the various powers, what killing techniques each excelled at, the many treacherous places that warranted caution…
“Senior Brother, this Xu family — why does every book mention them?”
“When a cultivator’s cave estate opens, it isn’t only us who know where the entrance is. The Thousand Demon Den knows too. To shake off their ambushes, you need to find another way in — and the Xu family is the great clan most skilled in formations.”
Zhu Jue went on slowly, “It’s only that they have a feud with Xuanguang Cave, so their people rarely travel abroad anymore. If Junior Brother happens to meet one, it would be worth taking some care to befriend them.”
“Xuanguang Cave has no use for them?” Shen Yi was a little curious — what kind of grave feud could make Xuanguang Cave keep hunting such a group down, heedless of its own disciples’ safety.
“It’s precisely because they’re too useful, and Xuanguang Cave wasn’t willing to pay the steep price every time. Back then Xuanguang Cave seized over a hundred of their clansmen, meaning to force the family arts out of them… Word is only a handful survived in the end. The rest of the Xu family, enraged past all limit, simply laid a formation and cut down one of Xuanguang Cave’s Spirit-Transformation Perfected Masters, then went into hiding, every last one of them.”
Zhu Jue looked somewhat ashamed as he told it — after all, nominally the War Temple and these immortal sects were still allies. “We don’t have the strength to intervene, and Wutong Mountain has no use for the Xu family. When those Perfected Masters want into a cave estate, they’re used to strolling right in through the front door.”
At this, Shen Yi shook his head inwardly.
Good thing he hadn’t acted rashly back then. Otherwise, with only entry-level Mixed Origin strength, had he actually made contact with Xuanguang Cave — never mind being taken in as a disciple, the far likelier outcome would have been getting seized and interrogated for his demon martial arts…
“That reminds me, Senior Brother.”
Shen Yi suddenly recalled something very strange. After going through so many books, he’d gained a rough grasp of this whole region — but not once had they mentioned a name for the place as a whole.
“Where exactly is the Great Qian dynasty located?”
“Where?”
A trace of blankness surfaced on Zhu Jue’s face, and he answered with some uncertainty, “Xianzong?”
“…”
Shen Yi waited a while before realizing the other man had already finished.
No prefix, nothing more — just the two words: Xianzong.
“Forgive me, Junior Brother. I’m only an ordinary divine spirit cultivator; I’ve hardly ever left Great Qian. Even that name I only happened to hear once, from the Ancestor’s own mouth.”
Zhu Jue gave him a faintly apologetic look.
After all, to anyone’s ears, “Xianzong” didn’t sound like a place name.
“I see.”
Shen Yi nodded, and for no clear reason recalled something Lady Qinghua had said earlier.
The cave estates left behind by cultivators all shared the habit of raising age-trees, as though their masters had come from the same school. Most of the cave estates lay within the Thousand Demon Den’s territory. And the immortal sect disciples’ road ahead was uncertain — they needed to seek the great way of cultivation inside those cave estates.
Put all of it together.
A flicker of surprise crossed Shen Yi’s eyes. Why did he keep getting the feeling that the War Temple, those two immortal sects, even the Thousand Demon Den — all of them were latecomers who’d taken up the trade halfway, then latched parasitically onto some colossal thing?
And if that were truly so, where had the cultivators who left those cave estates gone?
Shen Yi shook his head. These rumors and old tales were hardly something he ought to be worrying over right now.
He calmed his mind and worked carefully through the books in his hands, committing anything that seemed useful to memory, refining that rough map in his head bit by bit — until his hand came up empty, and the once brimming crate had been read through entirely.
“Junior Brother, more than twenty days have passed.”
Zhu Jue had stayed at his side the whole while, and the admiration in his eyes had deepened considerably.
Before, Shen Yi had simply been, in his mind, a Spirit-Transformation powerhouse of terrifying talent. But now, watching the young man diligently gather all this information, he saw — beyond the talent and the strength — a great deal of steadiness besides.
Neither arrogant nor rash. Possessed of both courage and cunning.
Little Wu’s worries had been entirely unnecessary.
For the War Temple to have a young man like this — even Wutong Mountain would be green with envy.
“I’m off.”
Shen Yi rose and stretched. He had a fair understanding of the outside world now.
It held no shortage of danger and excitement.
And now it was time to go experience those rumors and tales for himself.
(End of Chapter 251)