Chapter 1700: A True Immortal Must Be an Originator of a Path

All the Ancient God Dao cultivators kowtowed reverently toward the hazy, terrifying figure atop the staircase.

No one was qualified to glimpse his countenance, let alone look upon him directly; the mere natural diffusion of his pressure severed the divine sense and gaze of every Void-Tracing Unity-of-Dao cultivator. The majesty of a sovereign of world clusters could not be defied.

"Li Zhong, go to Fire Spirit Mountain and set up this formation."

Jiang Ding tossed out a set of spatial teleportation formation sub-instruments refined by an immortal sect, hurling them to a Void-Tracing cultivator.

"Wang Zou, Liu Yin, Hu Li…"

"Go to the surrounding Minor Thousand Worlds and Zhong Senior Qian Shi Gao Jie and set up these formations. If things go smoothly, you may have part of your crimes remitted—at the very least, you won't face the death penalty."

Name after name was called out; no one knew how this existence knew the names of these cultivators.

What made one's heart grow even colder was that the formation each cultivator received was entirely within that cultivator's capabilities, without the slightest deviation—omniscient and omnipotent, as it were.

"Yes, Senior!"

"We accept the order!"

One after another, the Ancient God Dao cultivators each received their formation instruments and scattered to the four directions.

One cultivator after another departed.

Soon, the place became utterly empty.

Jiang Ding sat cross-legged amid the corpses carpeting the ground, continuing his cultivation, reading documents and contemplating Gong Fa, while pondering the various aspects of the Eighth-Realm Dao-Realm Sword Art.

"Children from poor households cannot compare to other people's children when it comes to magic treasures and Gong Fa inheritance."

"The only hope of surpassing them lies in sword souls and sword arts."

Jiang Ding's thoughts drifted to the Holy Land Dao-children such as the Desolate Fire Sword Child and the Zhenjun He Huan Saint Child.

Without any divination, he knew that the Gong Fa of these Dao-children must be far more profound than those of the Fallen Immortal Realm, and the same went for their magic treasures—having walked a greater distance toward immortality.

"I've done quite well with my sword soul. The Great Sun Immortal-Mortal Sword Soul was born within a spiritless universe; it is absolutely a unique karmic opportunity within the Immortal Dao universe. It certainly won't be inferior to others, and there's some possibility of surpassing Dao-children who have also undergone the four-step extreme Nirvana on the sword soul front."

"The other direction is sword art—Dao-Realm Sword Art…"

Jiang Ding silently contemplated this supreme-grade sword art.

The Eighth-Stage Sword Art requires using flying swords to draw upon the extreme power of a single rule branch; each sword represents the descent of a Great Dao rule branch into the world, making one the 'Dao Master' of that rule branch.

This demands that the sword cultivator possess absolute originality in some direction, reach the contemporary extreme, and push their own path to the point where it can support an Eighth-Realm Sword Art.

Originality.

The Dao Master of a single rule branch!

The sword cultivator is a traditional profession of the human race—one that has produced true immortals, more than one, in fact. It is by no means some obscure, niche path, but rather a grand, heaven-reaching Great Dao. It is traditional, validated by history—

—not the whimsical fancy of some sword cultivator ancestor.

In such an ancient profession, its Eighth-Realm Sword Art explicitly demands that the sword cultivator become the extreme of a single rule branch.

This inevitably makes one wonder: is becoming an immortal related to originality?

"Is this conjecture a fact?"

Jiang Ding's heart stirred.

"Could there exist such a possibility—that only cultivators who walk entirely new paths, the ancestors of a given Dao, only such beings and cultivators have a chance of becoming immortals?"

"Is every true immortal an originator of some path, or an inheritor of an ancestor's legacy who once again achieved a major breakthrough—an originator?"

"This requirement might be a basic one for true immortals."

This conjecture lacks high-grade inheritance and cannot be verified.

Jiang Ding committed his current conjecture deeply to memory, then continued pondering the Eighth-Realm Sword Art.

He was currently unable to break through the peak of the Seventh-Realm Sword Dao, the Heavenly Sword Sword Art, but he could still draw closer to the Eighth-Realm Sword Art—and the method was to continue rule-fine-tuning Nirvana.

The limit for Void-Tracing cultivators is six rule-fine-tuning Nirvanas; this is the exclusive domain of Dao-children-grade beings with incomparably deep foundations.

The limit for ordinary Unity-of-Dao cultivators is six rule-fine-tuning Nirvanas.

When a conventional Unity-of-Dao cultivator reaches the peak of Unity-of-Dao and pushes every aspect to its extreme, they will begin rule fine-tuning. Each rule fine-tuning is a narrow escape from death; the instant it triggers rule backlash, their soul will be utterly annihilated.

Thus, after undergoing six rule fine-tunings, the Unity-of-Dao cultivator thoroughly masters a rule that differs from the rules of heaven and earth—a rule uniquely their own—and thereby advances to Heaven-Human.

It should be noted that the number of rule fine-tunings is not fixed.

Some cultivators, sufficiently brilliant or sufficiently fortunate, may find a single fine-tuning enough to advance to Heaven-Human.

Take Jiang Ding, for instance—a single fine-tuning on his part can equal more than six for an ordinary Unity-of-Dao cultivator. Each alteration he makes to the rules is of enormous magnitude, nothing like the cautious, tentative approach of ordinary cultivators; it is more than sufficient for advancing to Heaven-Human.

Among the prodigies of the realm domains, take the past ancestor of the Thunder Yang Heavenly Sword Realm—he advanced to Heaven-Human with a single fine-tuning, far surpassing ordinary Unity-of-Dao cultivators.

But how does he compare to beings who are also realm-domain prodigies yet have undergone multiple fine-tunings?

Inferior.

The rivals of a realm-domain prodigy have always been other realm-domain prodigies, not ordinary people.

It can be said that although Ancestor Thunder Yang was indeed one of the unparalleled prodigies of the Fallen Immortal Realm over tens of millions of years, having founded an immortal sect, his Immortal Dao had nearly reached its limit, and taking another step forward was exceedingly difficult.

This is the difficulty faced by sect-founding ancestors; the ancestor of any immortal sect is the same.

"I can now undergo my first Unity-of-Dao Nirvana."

"Very easy—I just need to verify my calculations for a few more decades."

(Note: source line 52 is a fragment; translated in sequence with 51–53.)

Jiang Ding took stock of his own path.

In fact, he felt that a one-time rule-fine-tuning Nirvana of three times over would be more than enough; he possessed ample foundation on the Law-Extinguishing Rule path. Nevertheless, this was a life-or-death matter after all, so caution was the wiser course.

Although after advancing to Unity-of-Dao, he already possessed a not-inconsiderable ability to withstand rule backlash head-on.

While pondering these matters, Jiang Ding's gaze suddenly turned toward a Minor Thousand World in the distance, and he shook his head slightly.

There, a Void-Tracing cultivator of the Ancient God Dao, thinking himself concealed, had set an explosive spell upon the formation. He must have possessed no shallow attainment in spatial teleportation formations, having placed it at a critical point; if it detonated while a super teleportation formation was operating, triggering the annihilation of over half of an army corps currently in transit would have been entirely possible.

"Not bad."

"The Ancient God Dao has been passed down for hundreds of thousands of years, yet there are still die-hard elements."

Jiang Ding said calmly.

A streak of sword qi flashed and vanished, traveling along the thread of karma until it disappeared.

The next instant, the sword qi crossed the vast starry river and struck the head of this Void Refinement cultivator, piercing through his skull and annihilating both body and divine soul.

New orders were issued, and other Void Refinement cultivators of the Ancient God Dao went to take over the formation.

And so, under the efforts of numerous Void Refinement and Soul Transformation cultivators of the Ancient God Dao, along with a great number of disciples, after merely several decades, the super long-distance teleportation formation connecting to the Immortal Gate was completed.

Hum!

Streaks of spatial formation patterns bloomed forth.

Under Jiang Ding's gaze, the Seventh Front Army fleet of the Immortal Gate arrived at the battlefield.