Chapter 1035: Severing Fate, Decided by Me

In the secret treasury of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom, Cao Xuanwei and the old eunuch hung side by side on the Undying Divine Tree.

Roots like jade vines bound one of their feet, hanging them upside down. The roots possessed a mysterious and profound divinity... or perhaps demonicity.

That Undying Divine Tree seemed to be cast from a segment of time.

But compared to the bronze divine tree in the Western Wang Mu treasury gifted by Qian Chen, within the jade tree, the light of time flowed like a rainbow. Hanging upside down, one could even peer down at the River of Time below.

Being hung above the River of Time, even a Nascent Soul True Immortal could not escape...

"It is said that the Western Wang Mu Kingdom worshipped the tiger totem and the Undying Divine Tree!"

The old eunuch sighed gloomily: "Is this thing a divine tree? It is more demonic than any demonic object I have ever seen. We fell into this secret treasury, and the roots of this thing surrounded us from all directions in time, feeding on our time. If it weren't for the person behind the scenes holding back, only hanging us here, we wouldn't even know what that thing is!"

"A mere Yang Spirit True Person has only a few thousand years of lifespan. If this thing's roots truly drilled in, we would have been sucked dry long ago!"

Cao Xuanwei examined the jade tree with its inverted heaven and earth with interest, until the old eunuch beside him shook his body and bumped into him.

"Crown Prince! Think of a way!"

Cao Xuanwei said indifferently: "What way could I have? The first moment we encountered that thing, you made a move to forcefully keep me behind to contain them..."

The old eunuch coughed twice: "Crown Prince, I am already a person of the demonic path. The demonic path is selfish; you should be able to understand that."

His eyes shone: "In this life, I have lived half my life for others. When I was young, to exchange for a bit of silver to survive, I was sold by my parents to my foster father and entered the palace to become a eunuch; when I was young, I was servile, muddling along in the palace, providing for my foster father; in the palace, I was taught cultivation methods, and I practiced diligently, later being valued and cultivated by His Majesty; every day I was scheming, every day I was harming people or guarding against being harmed by others."

"The imperial palace is truly a place that eats people!"

"I cultivated into a Yin Spirit, became a great eunuch, monitored the court for His Majesty, and was sent out as a hunting dog for the Son of Heaven to bite people. All these years, I thought I was blinded by power, every day working for His Majesty, and skimming money for myself."

"Crown Prince, the Phoenix Marrow Incense you use for cultivation was something I painstakingly stole after destroying a sect on Mount Zhongnan; the three liters of sarira you used to refine the Great Treasure Accumulation Light Cloud were collected one by one by me in Chang'an temples, forcing monks and laypeople, and digging up Buddhist pagodas."

"Every time I used power and cultivation to suppress people and seize those spirit materials, I gave His Majesty thirty percent and kept seventy percent for myself. I thought I was living for myself."

"I thought I had found myself, and even cultivated into a Yang Spirit."

"But until these days, when I worshipped the Fallen Demon Lord, washed my body in the Yellow Springs, and opened the Divine Treasury, I finally realized! What do you call living for oneself? I was merely a parasite on imperial power. I thought I had cast off everything, but in reality, I was still a part of that distorted imperial power."

The great eunuch said excitedly: "I have realized it! Crown Prince! I want to live for myself!"

Cao Xuanwei was expressionless: "Is this your sudden enlightenment? How do you plan to live for yourself... from now on, skim ten percent, and not give a single cent to my father the Emperor?"

The old eunuch laughed: "Crown Prince, do you think His Majesty doesn't know about what we skim?"

Cao Xuanwei curled his lips: "He knows at most thirty percent, probably thinking you skimmed thirty percent and gave him seventy percent!"

"No, His Majesty knows we skimmed at least fifty percent!" The old eunuch said righteously: "I used to think His Majesty tolerated us skimming because he needed to keep us to counter the wolves and tigers in the court. Now I understand! Imperial power is not one person; it is all of us! The Emperor is not just His Majesty, but everyone in the court, in the harem, and us eunuchs!"

"Imperial power, it eats meat."

"The wolves and tigers in the court, the officials and bureaucrats are its body; we are its sharp claws and fangs; His Majesty is its brain and Yellow Court; you, Crown Prince, are its nipple; the clans are its testicles. It feeds on the flesh and blood of the common people; it is a parasite in the imperial court!"

"Having realized this, I finally know that I eat people, and others are eating me too."

"Crown Prince, I want to eat people so much! No matter how bitter, I want to eat! It was only after becoming a demon that I knew that even after leaving imperial power, I can still eat people!"

The old eunuch cried bitterly: "I used to eat people against my conscience, now I can eat them to my heart's content! From now on, I won't skim! I'll give your father seventy percent of the ten, and I'll only keep thirty percent. But, I will eat imperial power, I will eat the clans, I will eat the righteous path, I will eat the demonic path, when the Buddhist sect comes, I will eat the Buddha bones, when the military families kill, I will eat the military blood... Crown Prince, there's no way, I really want to eat people too much!"

Cao Xuanwei sighed: "You are truly crazy!"

The old eunuch laughed: "Crown Prince, if you have any ideas, just say them, and give me a bite to eat."

Cao Xuanwei looked at the inverted Undying Jade Tree and muttered: "This thing is a living creature created by the people of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom using the Kunlun Mirror to refine time!"

"Refining the time of their own civilization's existence into a life form..."

"It should have been achieved with the help of the two great sacred objects of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom, the Kunlun Mirror and the Undying Divine Tree."

"I still overestimated Yingzhou, thinking their Two-Yi Yuan Magnetic Array could already distort the light of time, and that over time, like water dripping through stone, they could somehow punch a hole in the time sealed by the Western Wang Mu Kingdom."

"But now it seems, that sealed time is alive!"

"The Two-Yi Yuan Magnetic Array punching through time, the power to wear down the seal, I fear, has all become nourishment for this tree. All invaders, all external forces, can have their light of time absorbed by this Undying Jade Tree, and the time within it can even grow."

Cao Xuanwei said solemnly: "The people of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom are truly strange. They seem not to measure wealth by what they possess, but by the time of what they possess; similarly, they do not measure themselves by life, death, or external objects, but by the time they possess."

"So when the Immortal Qin broke the Western Wang Mu Kingdom, they did not fight desperately to repel the foreign enemy, nor did they burn everything to the ground, but extracted the time they possessed and refined it into this jade tree!"

"So... this tree is not draining our lifespan, nor the lifespan of all things, but the time of existence?"

"If this Undying Jade Tree is truly as I thought, then it is too terrifying!"

"This is indeed the 'past', the 'ruins'. In order not to let their 'wealth' fall into the hands of the Immortal Qin, they decided to spend all their 'wealth' in advance!"

The old eunuch was slightly startled: "What do you mean by spending all their wealth?"

"The wealth of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom is time. How we spend money is how they spent time. So-called 'spending money' is exchanging the unknown possibilities of an equivalent for a definite material. And the way the people of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom spent money was to turn the unknown time of the future into known time. Only in this way could they cast the time of all 'people' into this Undying Jade Tree!"

"At the moment this tree was cast, the people of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom fixed their own time, overdrawing the future. For all the time that followed, they used it for a definite purpose, enjoying themselves step by step."

"No wonder there isn't a single person here, because every person of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom had no 'leisure'. Their time was already dead!"

The old eunuch seemed to understand a little.

He said blankly: "So, there are actually no living people here, only the shadows of their past. When the people of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom condensed this tree, they enjoyed all their time in an instant. Leaving behind only the 'external' time they hadn't finished spending! This place is a huge tombstone, and what flows inside is the time of the past..."

Cao Xuanwei shook his head.

"No, there are still some people whose 'wealth' is infinite."

The old eunuch realized: "It's the Nascent Soul!"

"It's the Nascent Soul!" Cao Xuanwei said: "When the people of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom cast this tree, they overdrew all the future, becoming the past, thus cutting off all other 'possibilities'. As far as I know, the human race cannot do this. The Supreme Dao Ancestor, as the leader of the human path, would not allow this!"

"So they turned into other races!"

Cao Xuanwei's eyes flickered slightly; there were still many things he hadn't said.

Back when the Li family's Xiliang Kingdom fell, Li Bao surrendered to Great Wei with the Xiliang secret treasury, and all the secret treasures within also belonged to the Cao family. Therefore, the Cao clan knew some things about the deeper secret treasury of the Xiliang Kingdom that even the Li family didn't know.

It was just that at that time, Cao Lin was at the height of his power, and all sixteen kingdoms of the North were destroyed by him. He obtained too many things!

He didn't care much about the secret treasury of the small Xiliang Kingdom.

Later, as the Cao clan gradually lost power, the things in the inner treasury were spent in large quantities to cultivate the next generation of the Cao clan.

Cao Xuanwei had taken and used many of them.

The Li family's several great inheritances: "True Scripture of Shooting the Tiger", "Yi River Cold", "Lord in the Clouds", "Book of Pingyi", he had read them all.

Even the old eunuch beside him had practiced a portion of the "Yi River Cold" chapters.

"Chapter of Celestial Transformation..."

Cao Xuanwei instantly recalled the remnant scripture he had read.

Even among the classics offered by Li Bao, this piece of scripture was not very conspicuous. It seemed to be a remnant part of a complete inheritance called the "Feathering Scripture", which focused on shedding the mortal body and entering a fetus gestated by primordial energy to become a Celestial.

It was said that it could greatly increase lifespan.

But Cao Lin had imperial approval—stupid beyond compare! The human body is the essence of creation, a natural Dao body; all things take becoming human as an achievement. How stupid to use a human to become another thing!

A portion of the descendants of the Five-Colored God Race turned into Celestials, becoming the indigenous race of the Heavenly Realm, but because of this, it was difficult to cultivate a Nascent Soul. Many Celestial soldiers and attendants in the Heavenly Realm were from the Celestial race, but no matter how great a power this race had, they could only practice the Divine Path and were abandoned by the Immortal Path!

Cao Xuanwei was thoughtful.

Now it seems that in the Daoist traditions of the Earth Immortal Realm, there seems to be a consensus—cultivating the Dao with a human body is the right path.

All other paths are lowly, and even the many Celestial races of the Heavenly Realm are mostly looked down upon.

The Demon race can cultivate a Nascent Soul, and the Human race can cultivate a Nascent Soul.

Even the Nine Li Witch race, although they practice the immortal body and many practice the Martial Path, if they want to cultivate a Nascent Soul, they must cleanse their bodies with clear qi, leading to the degradation of the Witch body, but they can also cultivate into a Nascent Soul.

Only Celestials are rejected by the Nascent Soul.

If you want to cultivate into a Nascent Soul, you must first "become human"!

"What if a Nascent Soul reincarnates as a Celestial?"

Cao Xuanwei pondered: "After the Nascent Soul, the best way to practice the Dao Seed is the Tiangang and Earthly Fiend method created by the Fangxian Dao."

"Using great divine powers as seeds, integrating one's own Dao path into them, and cultivating exclusive great divine powers."

"Deriving the Law into the Dao, opening up a Law Domain, experiencing many tribulations, grinding away the various Dao traces in one's own Law Domain, and finally confronting the Great Dao in the Tribulation of Transforming into the Dao, to distort it into a Dao Seed!"

"The thirty-six Tiangang great divine powers and seventy-two Earthly Fiend small divine powers opened up by the Fangxian Dao are the right path among them."

"Whether it is mastering the Five Thunders, moving stars and changing battles, or reversing Yin and Yang... they are all grand avenues between heaven and earth."

"It is said that the great debate initiated by the Creation Dao of the Earth Immortal Realm back then was to open up the Dao path after the Nascent Soul!"

"Before this, whether it was the Earth Immortal Law, Heaven Immortal Law, Ghost Immortal Law, Golden Immortal Law, or True Immortal Law, they were all too testing of personal aptitude and comprehension. The Dao Seed barrier often took hundreds of thousands of years of accumulation to achieve in one go."

"The great Fangshi, True Person Guiguzi, wanted to open up a thoroughfare above the Nascent Soul and find a shortcut to condense the Dao Seed."

"Only then did they exhaust the foundation of the Creation lineage of the Earth Immortal Realm, creating the prosperous age of the thirty-six Tiangang methods and seventy-two Earthly Fiend methods."

"Allowing us to transform all kinds of spells into seeds of the Tiangang and Earthly Fiend methods, cultivate great divine powers, and then transform the Law into an Alien Law!"

"Such as the Shenxiao Sect's Mastering the Five Thunders—five kinds of true thunder transform into one kind of divine thunder, five kinds of divine thunder transform into one Heavenly Mansion divine thunder, and finally five kinds of Heavenly Mansion divine thunder, cultivating a divine thunder exclusive to oneself. Then ascend to the Shenxiao Thunder Mansion, experience the Nine-Fold Thunder Tribulation! Polish that divine thunder exclusive to oneself into a Thunder Seed, achieving the Dao Seed. Heaven and earth also gained a kind of thunder..."

"The thirty-six kinds of divine thunder of the Shenxiao Heavenly Mansion are thirty-six Tiangang Dao Seeds!"

"After the Creation Dao opened up this method, the path after the Nascent Soul suddenly became smooth, so a First-Rank Golden Core must condense a great divine power seed, and when it reaches the Nascent Soul, it lays the foundation for opening up a great divine power exclusive to oneself."

"My 'Zhou Yi Can Tong Qi' is based on the Six-Jia Qi-Men great divine power, deriving the Zhou Yi Great Dao, the sixty-four hexagrams."

"Finally, when impacting the Nascent Soul, calculate a hexagram exclusive to oneself, derive an exclusive great divine power, and merge with the Dao Seed with one's body. It is said that Lady Wei passed down this scripture, and it still contains the positions of forty-one Dao Seeds and two Dao Fruits."

"Only then can it be considered an inheritance of the Dao Lord level!"

"The Great Treasure Accumulation Light Cloud also left behind forty-nine Dao Seed paths. According to my master's secret words, thirteen paths remain, but there is no path for the Dao Fruit. That is why I chose the 'Zhou Yi Can Tong Qi' as the foundation."

"The Great Fragrance Accumulation Wonderful Cloud is said to still have a Dao Fruit position, which is a Buddha Fruit in the Great Fragrance Accumulation Buddha Kingdom."

"The thirty-six Tiangang methods are said to encompass the Great Dao of heaven and earth, but the paths that can reach the end are also limited."

"Which great divine power end positions are occupied by others, which paths have been walked almost to the end, which paths are left for people to open up—these are all secret transmissions of Dao Lord-level traditions! A true master's word is worth a thousand! In this world, only the true transmissions of the Three Religions, or those under the Dao Lord, know—the paths ahead are all numbered!"

"The seventy-two Earthly Fiend methods, on the other hand, focus on sublimation and accumulation. Walking one path to the extreme and accumulating it into the Dao, although it requires more hard work, can go further!"

Although Cao Xuanwei's thoughts turned this way, he had no determination to step onto this path.

The thirty-six Tiangang methods are a great road. Although the positions at the end of the great road are limited, the path is smooth and unobstructed.

But the seventy-two Earthly Fiend methods are a path of mountain climbing. Walking to the end, it is the mountain peak.

It requires you to leap, learn to fly, and then fly to the highest point. Naturally, it is open and unobstructed, and heaven and earth can accommodate you.

The person who flies the highest can encompass heaven and earth and achieve the Dao Fruit!

The thirty-six Tiangang methods, one person per position at the end, is a game of grabbing seats.

The seventy-two Earthly Fiend methods, however, are a ranking game of flying to the highest point and stepping on everyone else... The great powers walking in front will truly strike ruthlessly to eliminate Dao disputes.

"Although these are true secret transmissions that are not passed to the ears of others, when the Creation Dao announced the Tiangang and Earthly Fiend methods back then, they had no selfishness!"

"The more Tiangang great divine powers ranked in front, the wider the path behind."

"Reversing Yin and Yang is said to have three hundred and sixty Dao Seeds and thirty-six Dao Fruits; while 'Mastering Creation' can be called the foundation of creation! Once cultivated, one can master the true Dao Seed foundation and possibly cultivate any Dao Seed in the world!"

"So this number one great divine power is called the foundation of the Great Dao. A small achievement condenses a Dao Seed, and a great achievement will inevitably become a Dao Fruit. Even the Dao Fruit path is a hundred times smoother than others!"

"After all, once the path ahead is occupied, wanting to break free and recreate a position from the void is a hundred times more difficult than blindly cultivating oneself and not walking the Tiangang and Earthly Fiend path!"

"And the paths that 'Mastering Creation' can walk are infinite!"

"But no matter which path, the Dao Seed is a seed that distorts the Great Dao with the self! The so-called exclusive divine power, the closer it is to the 'self', the easier it is to condense, but the closer it is to the 'Great Dao', the wider the path. So one must use the Tiangang great divine power to anchor the Great Dao of heaven and earth, and use the self of seven emotions and six desires, and one's own various loves, hates, and thoughts, to distort the Tiangang great divine power, derive the Law into an Alien Law, in order to cultivate a great divine power exclusive to 'me'."

"And according to the message left by Ancestor Lin, apart from the Nascent Soul Great Dao, there is no other right path to longevity in heaven and earth."

"The Witch Dao has the calamity of turbidity and destruction, Celestials have the calamity of Dao transformation, Heavenly Demons have the backlash of bloodlines, the Divine Path has the disaster of losing the self... They are not incapable of longevity, but after longevity, sooner or later they cannot be 'human'!"

"The 'Chapter of Celestial Transformation' also hints that after becoming a Celestial, the spirit and Dao are the same, the six desires gradually disappear, the spirit is clear and the heart is bright, and one forgets both things and the self!"

"Ancestor Lin even hints that apart from the Nascent Soul, other paths cannot condense the Dao Seed because their self is not stable..."

Some people have walked the wrong path!

The Supreme Dao Ancestor opened up the 'New Heaven', only then was there Nascent Soul longevity and Dao Seed roundness.

All cultivators struggle between their self and the Great Dao. Have you seen a paper kite played with by children? The Great Dao is like the sky; we exist within it, lost in the boundless, drifting in the void. The path of the Primordial Spirit opened by the Supreme Dao Ancestor is the only line we can hold onto to maintain our self!

Cao Xuanwei finally connected all the clues.

In order to get rid of the Immortal Qin, the Western Wang Mu Kingdom cast its own time into a jade tree and transformed the people of the kingdom into Celestials.

But Celestials have the calamity of Dao transformation!

At the end of the time occupied by the people of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom, the Nascent Soul Celestials had nothing to rely on for humanity, so they gradually transformed into the Dao, and in the end, they were ignorant and unconscious, turning into a kind of existence called Celestial True Soul.

Back then, Li Gao of the Xiliang Kingdom used the Celestial True Soul to achieve the Nascent Soul, but in order to take this step, he was too hasty and took a shortcut!

In order to solve the hidden dangers, he returned to the ruins of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom...

But all this might be the layout of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom back then—those Nascent Soul Celestials, with no path ahead and the calamity of Dao transformation, would sooner or later have to become human again!

Then Li Gao is...

Cao Xuanwei raised his head, staring at the River of Time below and that Undying Jade Tree that reached the sky and the earth.

His gaze seemed to have penetrated the jade tree, seeing the dozens of immortal fruits on the tree, and the cold, arrogant Celestial Queen in the fruit at the highest point!

"The ruins of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom are not a treasure at all, but a trap..."

"A layout to bring back the Western Wang Mu Kingdom!"

At this moment, Cao Xuanwei finally realized that within that towering jade tree, under the gathering of endless light of time, after the countless citizens of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom exhausted their own time in enjoyment, their souls transformed into the Dao, gathering into a spring eye for the Undying Jade Tree, gestating a river.

Just like the Dan water flowing out of the Undying Divine Tree.

It is also the essence of the Celestials within, transformed by the true souls of the sentient beings of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom. Its name is—Child-Mother River!

Li Gao looked down at Li Zhong with an indifferent expression, standing with her hands behind her back: "Have you thought it through?"

"Cao Lin was a hero of his generation. He could escape fate, an existence I admire! I didn't expect his descendants to be better than mine, actually seeing through the truth of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom's secret treasury."

"Just as I said, Cao Xuanwei will sooner or later discover the Li family's layout."

"If you retreat, you are placing life and death in the hands of others!"

Li Zhong gritted his teeth, struggling bitterly: "No!"

"Stupid thing!"

Li Gao waved her sleeves helplessly, saying: "Then let me choose for you!"

Having said that, the roots of the Undying Jade Tree rolled up, intending to completely drain Cao Xuanwei's time. Wisps of faint light were extracted from Cao Xuanwei's body by the Undying Jade Tree, and under Li Gao's weaving, they moved toward a predetermined fate.

The light extracted from Tuoba Chi Nu's body intertwined with Cao Xuanwei's, slowly tying a knot.

That was Cao Xuanwei's future, dying at the hands of Tuoba Chi Nu, the fate bound by the Undying Jade Tree...

At this moment, a blade light flashed past. The broken blade brushed against Li Gao's cheek, and strands of hair like ink jade were severed by the sharp edge. Li Gao's beautiful face was both shocked and angry, but the broken blade moved forward without hesitation, severing Cao Xuanwei's 'fate'!

"Disobeying your ancestor..." Li Gao said coldly: "Great rebellion!"

The Four Spirits Style blade technique severed the power binding Li Zhong.

At this moment, even the time condensed by the Undying Jade Tree and the bound fate were severed by the demonic shadow of this blade.

"My fate..."

Li Zhong caught the hilt of the broken blade and struck back...

Within the blade light, the shadow of someone appeared.

"His fate..."

"Is decided by me (him)!"

The blade light split the dome.

The Undying Jade Tree suddenly cracked open a gap. Li Zhong leaped out from it, the blade light in his palm slashing out repeatedly, severing the roots that hung everyone on the Undying Jade Tree one by one.

Cao Xuanwei only felt an unrivaled will rushing toward him.

His time seemed to be extracted bit by bit, and his future was being refined by the Undying Jade Tree.

Just as he caught a glimpse of his fate inevitably entangling and reaching its end, a blade light severed everything...

Opening his eyes again, the roots of the Undying Jade Tree had already been slashed off.

Li Zhong came before him with the blade, smiling bitterly: "We bumped into a ghost!"

He Basheng shouted: "Quick, grab a handful and retreat..."

As he spoke, Li Zhong slashed off a jade branch of the Undying Tree and stuffed it into his bosom: "Don't touch the main trunk. These side branches are the time of items not occupied by the people of the Western Wang Mu Kingdom. Return to the bronze divine tree in the Western Wang Mu treasury, and you can open it and take out the things sealed within!"

He Basheng listened, confused, but that didn't stop him from raising his blade and hacking at the branches of the giant tree.

But the standard military blade of the Immortal Han left not a single mark on the jade tree.

Li Zhong was slightly stunned, looked at the broken blade in his palm, and said: "Your blade must be able to slash through fate and time..."

Crack!

Li Zhong looked back and saw Cao Xuanwei reach out and snap off a branch.

Seeing him look over, Cao Xuanwei smiled: "Using all my strength, I could only snap off one branch."

Li Zhong looked back and chose to slash off several jade branches containing the spirit pills and classics that Qian Chen had sent in.

In the crown of the jade tree, dozens of Nascent Soul auras soared into the sky. When the green phoenix came diving down, shouting and screaming, he led everyone to leap into the River of Time below.

Inside the Heavenly Gate, dozens of figures rolled out. Those lawless military warlords were all pale, terrified by the experience of being hung on the branches of the Undying Jade Tree without any power to resist.

They didn't look back, rushing toward the army formation.

Only Li Zhong, when he stepped out of the Heavenly Gate last, turned his head.

Behind the Heavenly Gate, Li Gao was dressed in red, wearing a golden crown, looking at him with eyes devoid of joy or anger. She turned around, waved her sleeve, and the Heavenly Gate suddenly closed.

"Little boy, with your stupidity, you should have caused my Li family's ancestral temple to cease to exist and my clansmen to die without a burial place."

"But the backer behind you is truly tough!"

"Then go as you please... If there is someone above you, retreating a bit might not be bad."

"I have done my best, and my conscience is clear."

?? Almost seven thousand words, couldn't reach ten thousand.

? I said I would make up for the day before yesterday, but I'm still short by more than three thousand.

? I will continue to work hard tomorrow.

? (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 1036 =====