“There’s a place for tempering and advancement — a very special one. Perhaps you two could… but now is not yet the time.” The one who spoke was the white-clad maiden holding the silver grimoire; she left her words unfinished, as though holding something back.

“Very well. I trust the day will come when we meet the requirements — no harm in speaking of it then.” Yue Yang smiled faintly.

He’d long known the final trial wouldn’t be so easy to pass. If it were, then across the ages some genius warrior among the forebears would surely have met the requirements and reached the goal long ago. And looking at it from the opposite angle, the more difficult a trial, the rarer it was — and the reward for completing it was surely the finest of all. That the three envoys were willing to stay and quietly await the moment’s arrival was, to Yue Yang, already half the victory in itself. Compared to Ji Wuri and the others, who sought results by bargaining with the evil god, Yue Yang and Mingzhu were, beyond doubt, striding forward on the right road — lacking only that final trial, the evil god’s revival.

Mingzhu knew they wouldn’t speak now, but unwilling to let it go, couldn’t help probing: “Could you give us just a little hint — even a single line? Is it about Earth Valley and Heaven Valley?”

The leading maiden in the middle of the three smiled and said nothing, only lightly stroking the grimoire in her hands.

The valiant, striking one made to speak, then stopped.

It was the sweet round-faced one who, seeing Yue Yang playing pitiful off to the side to back up Mingzhu’s probing, couldn’t bear it and consoled him: “In truth, this place isn’t some secret that absolutely cannot be spoken of. We’ll tell you sooner or later — it’s only that the time isn’t right yet. If we told you now, it might, on the contrary, affect your mood and your state of mind.”

Yue Yang and Mingzhu exchanged a glance, nodded in perfect understanding, and together thanked the sweet round-faced maiden.

She hadn’t said it outright. But Yue Yang and Mingzhu had already guessed a little.

Earlier, the envoys had said that when the evil god returned and no one could stop it, they would simply leave on their own… At the time, Yue Yang had wondered: if Human Valley — with only a single evil god’s seal — couldn’t be held and would fall, then Earth Valley and Heaven Valley, which sealed countless evil gods, how could they possibly be spared?

If living in Earth Valley or Heaven Valley couldn’t spare one from calamity either, then where would the envoys go?

What place, in the end, was truly safe?

On top of that, Yue Yang had grown suspicious about those secret places — Human Valley’s “Tower Beyond the Tower,” Earth Valley’s “Mountain Beyond the Mountain,” and Heaven Valley’s “Heaven Beyond the Heaven.” Not that these places didn’t exist — but after the battle in the Tower Beyond the Tower, a suspicion in Yue Yang’s mind was all the more confirmed. After discussing it in the Grimoire World with Princess Qianqian, the Divine Punishment Empress, and the others, and extending everyone’s line of thought, Yue Yang reached a conclusion, and came out to share this bold surmise with Mingzhu, namely: the Ancient Pavilion Terrace that stood in Human Valley now was, in fact, the “Tower Beyond the Tower” — and the “Tower Beyond the Tower” where the great battle with the evil god had been fought was, on the contrary, the original Ancient Pavilion Terrace.

The two had, for some unknown reason, swapped positions.

The evil god’s soul, stripped from its body, was sealed in the Tower Beyond the Tower — which was really the original Ancient Pavilion Terrace.

Most likely, in order to separate the evil god’s soul and body into different locations, the ancient powers had swapped the spaces of the Ancient Pavilion Terrace and the Tower Beyond the Tower.

This was one reason why, upon entering the Tower Beyond the Tower, people found it identical to the Ancient Pavilion Terrace — and especially vast, ten times larger than the Ancient Pavilion Terrace outside. Another reason was this: Yue Yang had once, at the four peaks of the Ancient Pavilion Terrace, produced Divine Stones, entered the ancient sealing space, and retrieved the ancient relics. Those Divine Stones, hailed as an endless energy source, had not originally existed. After sealing the evil god, in order to leave behind “ancient relics” to restrain it, the ancient powers had deliberately manufactured, at the four peaks, the transport gates and the energy-supplying Divine Stones… Yue Yang, possessed of Heaven’s Eye of Wisdom, had discovered before the Divine Stones were even in hand that the Law’s restrictions at the four peaks of east, south, west, and north had no need of transport gates at all.

What’s more, even if there were transport gates, they had no need whatsoever of Divine Stones to supply the energy to run them.

Everything, all of it, was a disguise.

A trial for the wise, a testing for those who came after — only the cleverest, most elite students could find the ancient relics, while ordinary people would never perceive the workings of heaven, and would never even have the chance to take part in the trial of seeking the ancient relics.

That the Tower Beyond the Tower was the true Ancient Pavilion Terrace — Yue Yang felt there was another point that could corroborate it.

That point was divine power.

In the battle with the evil god, the terrifying divine power the god displayed was beyond all rivalry — and even in a weakened state, wielding a mere one percent of its divine power, it had beaten Yue Yang into ceaseless groaning. The time-crosser could be said to have erupted with his inner cosmos, transforming into a Super Earthling, and even so hadn’t been able to fully withstand it, very nearly getting instantly wiped out by a single finger of the evil god… By contrast, in the battle at the Western Peak against Jinji and Wanmo — facing Jinji, who held one hundred-thousandth of the evil god’s power, and Wanmo, who held one-thousandth — although the fighting had looked as if it cost him no small effort, in fact Yue Yang felt that battle had been a great deal easier than he’d imagined.

Had he instead fought the evil god in the “Tower Beyond the Tower,” one-thousandth of its divine power would absolutely have put him through the wringer.

Why was the gap between the two so vast?

The reason was that the Ancient Pavilion Terrace was the true Tower Beyond the Tower — the Ancient Pavilion Terrace created entirely by the gods for the elite’s trials, where the Law’s restrictions were stronger.

So the evil-god power of Jinji and Wanmo, who fought Yue Yang at the Western Peak, had a portion of it imperceptibly suppressed by the Law, weakened considerably — otherwise the might they’d have unleashed would surely have been more than that little.

Had Jinji and Wanmo fought Yue Yang somewhere else — anywhere at all in Human Valley — then even though they were fated to lose, they wouldn’t have lost so badly.

If the divine power the evil god traded out had no effect at all, would the god, having already fought Yue Yang once, still hand it over knowing it was useless? It surely meant to constrain Yue Yang — only the evil god never imagined Jinji and Wanmo would fight Yue Yang at the Western Peak, and so a portion of that divine power was squandered for nothing, and Yue Yang battered them to a pulp besides.

Most important of all, Yue Yang had already discerned a portion of the secret of the evil god’s power. No longer as lost and clueless as before!

Because of the “swap” between the Ancient Pavilion Terrace and the Tower Beyond the Tower, and because of the three white-clad maidens’ earlier attitude, and drawing on the scant information Yue Yang had gathered from Empress Vivienne along with Princess Qianqian’s and the others’ reasoning, Yue Yang arrived at a supremely bold guess. If it truly didn’t matter whether Human Valley fell, if it didn’t matter whether Earth Valley and Heaven Valley fell, then they must surely be fakes… otherwise the ancient gods could never have built a testing ground where those who came after had no hope of ever reaching the goal!

The true Human Valley, Earth Valley, and Heaven Valley were, in all likelihood, held in the hands of these three white-clad maidens.

Only by passing their own personal selection — only the very best candidates — would be qualified to enter.

The ancient gods could never have handed the trial of ascending to godhood over to the ambitious schemers or the evil gods of later ages to manipulate; could never have let brutish powers control it; and least of all could have let those who came after — those with genuine hope — stray onto the wrong path.

Therefore the crux of everything lay with these three white-clad maidens. To some degree they represented the will of the ancient gods. At the very least they selected, on the ancient gods’ behalf, the qualified inheritors — the ones who would challenge to become the true master of the Divine Codex…

If the present Human Valley was a fake, and the Earth Valley and Heaven Valley that had to be cleared next were fakes too, then where were the real ones?

“You’ve got a truly frightening way of smiling — don’t you go getting any ideas about me, I won’t be saying a thing right now.” The sweet round-faced one was a little afraid to meet Yue Yang’s gaze, because the time-crosser, dashing beyond all reason when he smiled, was preparing to focus his point of breakthrough on her. The round-faced maiden was the softest-hearted, and had the most goodwill toward Yue Yang, which was precisely why she was the one most likely to let a secret slip.

“All right, stop looking like the big bad wolf eyeing a little lamb — wipe the drool off the corner of your mouth already!” Even Mingzhu could hardly bear to watch. Using a bit of charm to coax out information was one thing, but you’re not about to force yourself on her, are you, kid?

“Do I look like that kind of lecher in a hurry?” Yue Yang nearly fainted. Mingzhu, whose side are you even on — why defect right in the thick of battle?

“You don’t look it — but you are!” Mingzhu felt that strict precaution was never wrong. What if this kid used the public cause for private ends and turned the play into the real thing?

“Fine, you win.” Yue Yang, dejected, squatted down and drew circles on the ground; he didn’t want to quarrel with Mingzhu.

Mingzhu, like a proud peacock, held his head high. He so seldom won against Yue Yang — if he didn’t show off now, then when!

The white-clad maiden holding the silver grimoire sat in quiet meditation inside the temporary tent Yue Yang had pitched. She kept her composure well, utterly unconcerned with whatever Yue Yang and Mingzhu got up to. The tall, valiant white-clad maiden glanced at Yue Yang and Mingzhu a few times, then went into the tent to rest as well. Only the sweet round-faced one cocked her head, seeming very much to enjoy the sight of Yue Yang getting his comeuppance, wearing the adorable look of someone wanting to sneak a laugh and desperately holding it in.

That night, Yue Yang lit a bonfire. He caught some fish and shrimp from the sea and made a lavish grilled-fish supper. The three white-clad maidens weren’t much interested in the food, but they did drink some of the sprite-spring water Yue Yang had brought from the Sky Tower.

Mingzhu outwardly criticized Yue Yang’s cooking, but in fact ate very contentedly, all smiles — and suddenly, full of eager interest, began asking about Yue Yang’s affairs in the Heaven Realm. What he most wanted to ask about, of course, was everything to do with the Sky Tower, though Yue Yang generally touched on it only lightly, unless it was a topic he couldn’t get around.

“The Sky Tower — they say there’s a divine tomb there, a true divine tomb!” The sweet round-faced one knew quite a lot, it turned out.

“And a Divine Codex!” The valiant white-clad maiden took a sip of sprite-spring water and joined the conversation.

“You’ve seen the Divine Codex?” Yue Yang’s eyes lit up as he asked.

“The Divine Codex exists in the heart of the one who can see it… The one with the affinity can obtain it; the one without cannot even see that it exists!” The white-clad maiden holding the silver grimoire smiled gently, as though wordlessly asking Yue Yang: do you think you’re the one with the affinity, or the one without? Her words carried another meaning too — the Divine Codex was not something you could obtain merely by wanting to. No matter how much effort you poured in, no matter how great a price you paid, some people would never obtain it, because the Divine Codex chose its master.

The Divine Codex chose its own master. It absolutely could not be seized by force from without — no matter how great the power, it was impossible!

Yue Yang, in truth, had never considered this question. The time-crosser possessed a “Sacred Codex” of his own — whether or not it was a true Divine Codex he didn’t know — that he’d never had the chance to use. Where the Divine Codex was concerned, his thoughts ran more toward keeping others from obtaining it than toward obtaining it himself. Of course, if the Divine Codex chose him of its own accord, Yue Yang wouldn’t stand on ceremony either.

Yue Yang didn’t want to discuss this topic too much, because that Sacred Codex, which he’d never been able to summon, made him worry he might let something slip — especially in front of Mingzhu and the three white-clad maidens. If his mind wandered and he carelessly said it out loud, he’d be finished. So Yue Yang steered the conversation toward the three Valleys — Heaven, Earth, and Human: “If Human Valley’s tempering is for reincarnating into human form, then surpassing the self, then ascending to godhood, then what about the tempering of Earth Valley and Heaven Valley that comes after?”

He asked the question idly, not out of any intent to probe. It was an entirely natural reaction, something he wanted to raise for discussion. The moment the words were out, even Yue Yang himself felt it abrupt, and hurriedly thought to change the subject.

To his surprise, the white-clad maiden holding the silver grimoire — the leader of the three envoys — cast aside her usual manner and answered directly: “There’s no harm in telling you, actually. The true meaning of Earth Valley’s tempering is destruction, and Heaven Valley’s is creation.”

“…” Yue Yang and Mingzhu were dumbstruck, staring at each other, too astonished to speak for a moment.

Why would she reveal the truth?

And most baffling of all — Heaven Valley’s creation, fine, but Earth Valley’s tempering being destruction? He hadn’t misheard that, had he? Could destruction really count as a kind of trial?

(End of Chapter)