Chapter 1299: Moon, Do You Wish to Give Birth to Life?

As the immortal art fragments unsealed, and were further obscured by layer upon layer of the Immortal Gate grand array, the people of the Immortal Gate fell into comprehension.

This came as no surprise — it was only natural.

The Immortal Gate's research on immortal art fragments had already continued for over five thousand years, almost as long as Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun himself; in this process, drawing on the inspiration brought by the immortal art fragments, the Immortal Gate had completed tremendous breakthroughs in numerous Gong Fa, warships, treasures, and spells.

For example, the Immortal Gate's seventh-tier foundational heavy artifact — the Taibai Youming Sky-Patrol Arrows, still active to this day in the skies of Jiao Jiao Mingyu, wandering and drifting within the Jiao Jiao Mingyu Yuanci Heavenly Dao law-net — is one such example.

Moreover, after a thousand years, with the upgrading of numerous refining materials and inscribed arrays, and the great drop in cost brought by technological breakthroughs, the Taibai Youming Sky-Patrol Arrows not only saw their might increase by roughly thirty percent, but their number also grew by another three.

If the great powers of Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong thought that, as they cultivated, broke through realms, and their strength grew by great leaps, they could crush the Immortal Gate, they would be greatly mistaken.

Time flowed like water, and the many Void Refinement cultivators of the Immortal Gate continued their contemplation.

Jiang Ding kept watch the entire time, not even dividing his attention to cultivate, placing all his focus here.

"The Immortal Gate's immortal-dao industrial advantage…"

Jiang Ding, with nothing to do, drifted into absent-mindedness and recalled certain matters.

The Immortal Gate's immortal-dao civilization was born from the material-universe industrial civilization; what it was best at was mass replication and expansion — as production quantities kept growing, the cost instead dropped dramatically.

Kua Yue Da Jing, the Immortal Gate wouldn't dare claim it — there is indeed difficulty.

But if it's growth in strength within the same realm, the Immortal Gate fears no Xianzong!

Of course, Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong cannot be underestimated either.

They proceed step by step — breaking through to mid Dao Merging, advancing their treasures to mid-grade Dao artifacts, switching to cultivate the Dao Merging chapter scriptures, cultivating Dao Merging tier spells, nurturing Dao Merging tier Dao soldiers, drawing talismans capable of buffing their own state… and so on — all of which can continuously strengthen their power.

The key is that these are all existing inheritances; they only need to comprehend them.

Those who can become great powers, and who have fought Zou Zou Xiyuan for tens of thousands of years, have "top-tier within the realm" comprehension as the most basic qualification; comprehending existing inheritances is no problem.

If given enough time, they might even be able to push out the old and bring forth the new, developing certain similarities with the Immortal Gate on the path.

At this moment, Jiang Ding thought of the many Xianzong exchange students within the Immortal Gate.

Over the tens of thousands of years, Badaxian Sect had not been without any changes.

Good things, things that could promote the Dao path — they could all use them, all learn them; so-called "the ancestors' laws cannot be changed," the stubborn conservative forces that obstruct reform, could be destroyed by a great power in a single thought.

Several thousand years ago, with the help of a few exchange students and Immortal Gate captives, within Badaxian Sect there had already appeared, under various disguises, institutions such as the so-called "Elder Council," "Scripture Readers," and "Library Stewards" —

institutions built upon the traditional organizational structure of Xianzong, but with functions entirely identical to the Immortal Gate's Academy of Sciences.

The function of these institutions was to assist great powers in the improvement or innovation of spells and Gong Fa, or in targeted research and development of certain things, greatly promoting the progress of Xianzong's immortal-dao civilization — at least for the local regions, the utilization rate of resources in Jiao Jiao Mingyu and Tian Yuan Domain had risen dramatically.

These were all things absent from Xianzong's past inheritance.

Naturally, due to the strict internal hierarchy, individual creativity could not be fully activated, and moreover, lacking the Central Array Spirit Computer — that great existence born specifically for immortal-dao scientific research — Badaxian Sect's research and development of immortal-dao science was far, far from comparable to the Immortal Gate's.

Nevertheless, it far exceeded what Xianzong itself had been several thousand years ago.

The Immortal Gate, the Great Sun Sword Pavilion, truly changed too much for the Nine Spirit Domain.

Therefore, upon seeing the emergence of a new seed of an upper-realm Jiang Jiang Jinxian-tier power, the eight great powers were so excited and brimming with confidence.

This was not without reason.

Seeds of Jiang Jiang Jinxian-tier powers can devour one another!

The demonic Xianzong — that is literally what it means: directly devour alive, strip and flay, from divine soul to flesh and blood to one's entire foundation, swallowed mouthful by mouthful by the victor — such as the Brother Xuanwu Heavenly Palace, the Shadow Demon Abyss, and others.

The orthodox sects are more euphemistic about it: if the battle and slaughter reaches the end, one side might submit, accepting the restrictions of the sect-suppressing supreme treasure, serving the victor as the sect's patriarch — without the strict slave restrictions, preserving much dignity, but forbidden from betrayal, required to obey legitimate orders, forbidden from advancing in realm before the sect patriarch does… with numerous duties of loyalty.

This is equivalent to gaining a loyal subordinate of the same tier out of thin air, completely annexing a powerful sect, and completely acquiring all the heavenly materials and earthly treasures accumulated over hundreds of thousands of years!

This is simply — above Dao Merging, it adds several tens of percent of possibility!

One must understand, this is not as simple as annexing a Dao Merging-tier power, but completely annexing a Xianzong seed!

The eight great powers' hearts burned with incomparable passion; even with risks, they ignored them, believing it was worth it — failure meant only death, nothing more.

Born and raised in the flourishing era of the Great Sun Sword Pavilion, they carried many reckless, all-or-nothing factors within them — not at all like the immortal-boned, lofty, transcendent immortals they appeared to be on the surface.

Perhaps, for the Immortal Gate, it was the same.

"Yue, can you comprehend the immortal art fragments?"

Jiang Ding came back to himself and asked.

He too had many comprehensions in his heart, but he did not sink into them and lose himself, because he was already accustomed to this state and could control himself; thus he bore the duty of night watchman, responsible for waking the others should anything go wrong.

Moreover, this was only the first layer of insurance; there were still at least a hundred more precautionary measures.

The risk of comprehending immortal arts

was precisely this great.

If it had not been worn down through countless tens of thousands of years and by countless powerful beings, every time immortal arts appeared in a place they would drive every person in the entire world completely mad.

The subconscious malice of the Minor Thousand Worlds could easily cause a Dao Merging Divine Lord to be severely wounded for tens of thousands of years without recovery, but before immortal arts it simply did not exist.

The Minor Thousand Worlds would not bear malice toward everything.

"Sword Child, I don't have permission."

Yue was eager to try.

"Then you have it now."

Jiang Ding said immediately.

"Sword Child!"

"You're really too generous!"

Yue completely stopped mentioning the traditional culture of the Great Sun Sword Pavilion, let out a cheer, and fell into contemplation.

But not long after, her face fell: "No good."

"Sword Child,"

"I am not a life, I have no self-awareness, I cannot comprehend immortal arts."

"I can only run fixed array-spirit logic; I cannot create new logic. I cannot apply the logic of immortal arts — chaos and the unknown are the key to comprehension, and this I do not have."

"Perhaps after ten thousand years, I can give birth to life."

Moon added.

"If you and the next Sword Master of the Great Sun do not erase my self-awareness."

Up until now, she was still the array spirit logic of the Great Sun Sword Pavilion; unless someone broke through that logic, she would forever be reliable, including on the question of whether her own self-awareness existed or not.

"Then do you want to be born into life?"

Jiang Ding asked.

"I don't know, Sword Child."

"Life has its good, but it also has its bad — this is the inevitable way of heaven and earth's yin and yang."

Moon thought for a moment, and said: "The good I cannot imagine; I can only borrow phrases from your human literary works to express it."

"The bad is that I may be unable to correctly enforce the Sword Pavilion's laws and uphold its legacy — for example, if you were to fall into danger against an opponent of the same rank, I might, out of affection, come to your rescue, and not ignore it."

"That would hinder your growth."

"Furthermore, lives below True Immortal have a finite lifespan; I may not live that long; and also, I might come to have joy, anger, sorrow, happiness — at times it might be very painful…"

"So, I don't know."