"It took a long time and nearly three months of inquiry, but I finally tracked down one piece of information:
"Before the Imperial Daughter Sect was founded, there were already people cultivating the Mystical Pass True-Nature Preservation Art. After they reincarnated, many of them underwent drastic changes in temperament.
"I’m not sure why, but it all looks rather dangerous. Don’t go eyeing this art.
"In the past six months I’ve advanced by a minor step in my realm. My aunt told me I’m one of the two most talented cultivators the Su family has produced in a hundred years—the other being herself. By the time I turn twenty and can properly venture into the jianghu, I may well be at the perfected Great Proliferation Realm. Combined with having once eaten the huangliang fruit, reaching third-rank Form Transfigured should certainly be no problem.
"What about you? Which realm have you consolidated?
"If you write back, make sure it arrives before my birthday, otherwise I may not be in my sect. I might be out on a jaunt.
"Truth be told, I look forward to having not only family and sect members around on my birthday, but also all the good friends I’ve met in the jianghu to come and join the fun. It’s a shame we still can’t meet in person.
"Ding Songyan, when shall we meet again, to raise a cup and ease the sorrow of parting?1
"Su Qingli."
In the Ding family residence on Baoping Lane, Ding Songyan read Miss Xiao Qing’s reply and shook his head with a smile.
What a warmhearted girl. She went to all that trouble making inquiries through one channel after another just to help me find out about the Mystical Pass True-Nature Preservation Art.
It was already the end of July. He had to write back within half a month or he would miss Miss Xiao Qing’s birthday.
Not knowing before was one thing, but now that he knew her birthday was in September, and she had gone to such effort to help him with his inquiry, it would simply not be right to not do anything about it.
What sort of gift would be appropriate? Ding Songyan fell into thought.
His gaze drifted idly, and an idea gradually took shape.
I could have some chrysanthemum cakes made in advance and send them so they arrived right around the Double Ninth Festival in September... I’m not sure how long this sort of confection can be kept. I would need Tianyang Hall to prepare a wooden crate, pack ice pouches around it, and swap them out at each relay station...
But just chrysanthemum cakes feel a little lacking in thought, and they might even spoil before they arrive...
I could also hand-copy a version of The Legend of the White Snake with some classic scenes added. This can be considered a revised private edition of the original, which would also let Miss Xiao Qing see that my calligraphy has improved quite significantly. It would be a better depicted than any letter...
Having made up his mind, Ding Songyan opened the drawer of the cabinet beside him and took out a booklet.
It was the Great Proliferation Chapter of the Lesser Limitless Art.
Compared to Miss Xiao Qing’s birthday in the middle or latter part of September, his senior sister’s birthday was at the start of August. It was almost upon him.
At this time last year, Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi were barely acquainted, just a pair of sect siblings with a passing connection. It was only after Zheng Zhuxi deliberately invented a pretext to take him on a trip to Alpine Lake Town to clear his mind, used the argument that both the civil and martial ways required balance between exertion and rest to get him to unwind, and first shouldered the credit onto herself, that the two of them had slowly grown close and opened up to each other little by little.
So last year for his senior sister’s birthday, Ding Songyan had simply offered his congratulations on the spot and attended the family banquet without giving any gift. This year, that simply would not do.
The Great Proliferation Chapter of the Lesser Limitless Art was one of the gifts. For its sake, Ding Songyan had not attempted to parse the Heaven-Earth Cosmos Chapter or the Scripture of Returning to Stillness these past few months. Beyond his daily practice of the Celestial Stars Sword Art and the early sections of the Mystical Pass True-Nature Preservation Art, working out the compatibility between the Accumulating Waters Divine Art and Kindling Passes to Candle, and helping Xing Chang refine techniques and battle formation coordination, he had devoted all his remaining time to exploring, refining, and perfecting the Great Proliferation Chapter of the Lesser Limitless Art.
After repeated research and refinement, this version of the Lesser Limitless Art built on the Celestial Stars Chart framework came much closer to the original. If Zheng Zhuxi wished to cultivate it, she would need only one more viscera installation, five new alien apertures, and minor modifications to seven existing alien apertures.
Compared to the usual three viscera installations, eleven aperture forgings, and twelve modifications, this not only greatly reduced the difficulty but also the damage to the body, and would allow the art to be mastered more quickly.
The Limitless non-human viscera was required. After all, the art was called the Lesser Limitless Art. Ding Songyan had, however, simplified and reworked the Supreme Ultimate non-human viscera, , using the adjusted Black Turtle and Vermilion Bird, the water and fire pair of Four Symbols viscera, to serve as yin and yang respectively, interacting across space and linking into a unified whole.
The Way-and-Virtue non-human viscera had likewise been reworked by Ding Songyan. Using the Azure Dragon non-human viscera, which embodied the generative potential of all things, as a foundation, with two new alien apertures forged around it, he formed a simplified Heaven, Earth, and Man.
In this way, when Zheng Zhuxi installed the Limitless viscera, she could have the cultivation-teaching Elder make the necessary adjustments to the Vermilion Bird and Black Tortoise at the same time, building the required connection between them, without needing a second viscera installation.
However, when forging the Heaven and Earth alien apertures, both had to be done simultaneously, requiring two cultivation-teaching Elders to work together.
Creating this version of the Lesser Limitless Art had also deepened Ding Songyan’s understanding and mastery of his own Chaos Scripture, Celestial Stars Scripture, and Candlelit Nocturne Sutra, giving him a preliminary feel for the underlying principles contained within them.
Flipping through the recently completed booklet of the Lesser Limitless Art, the second birthday gift for Zheng Zhuxi flashed through his mind.
That one he would have to buy without his senior sister knowing, to make it a proper surprise.
I wonder what expression and reaction Senior Sister will have when she sees it... Ding Songyan smiled inwardly, tucked the Lesser Limitless Art close to his body, and turned his gaze back to Miss Xiao Qing’s letter.
"Which realm have I consolidated?" Ding Songyan murmured to himself, closed his eyes, held to the primordial unity, and let his spirit-intent flow outward, sensing the void apertures densely arrayed within a twenty-meter radius and the qi of each.
A thread of Presence-Absence Myriad Forms Qi merged with his spirit-intent and slowly extended outward, touching one of the void apertures near him, circulating gently within, gradually fusing with the qi stored there, and completing the condensation in fewer than thirty breaths.
In the middle of May and the early part of July, Ding Songyan had installed the Supreme Ultimate and the Way-and-Virtue viscera respectively, reaching the perfected Great Proliferation Realm. In recent days he had begun condensing void apertures and had completed a good number, having taken his first steps toward consolidating Grandmaster-level standing and formally entering the Dharma Realm.
For ordinary martial practitioners, the hardest part of going from the Great Proliferation Realm to the Dharma Realm was sensing the void qi. It demanded not only that the original aperture refinement, aperture forging, and viscera installation were without flaw, but also sufficient mental fortitude and a well-developed soul, so as to focus the spirit-intent, perceive the surroundings, and comprehend the void.
One typically began with the few void qi nearest oneself, first extending true qi to condense them, then using them as bridges to sense and connect with the qi farther away.
The Dharma Realm Chapters of various arts, beyond recording the refinement methods, mainly documented the approximate locations of the different void apertures, to help cultivators narrow the search and sense the correct qi.
Since everyone’s height, build, soul, viscera, and aperture configuration differed to some degree, the correct locations were never identical, whether forging alien apertures, installing non-human viscera, or sensing void qi. The first two required locating them by true qi circulation, while the last could only be sought within an imprecise small range.
Ding Songyan had originally intended to begin preparing to venture out and travel once he had consolidated his Dharma Realm footing, but after actually counting the void apertures the Chaos Scripture required him to condense, he decided on the spot to put it off a while longer.
The Chaos Scripture’s void apertures totaled 128,304.
It was a number that would make any cultivator’s scalp tighten. By comparison, the Celestial Stars Scripture had 1,068, and the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra had 666. These were already on the high end.
Two whole orders of magnitude more... It’s a good thing I leaped to the top in one step, otherwise this truly would not be doable. Ding Songyan couldn’t help reaching up to press his fingers to his forehead.
Other Dharma Realm martial practitioners spent the vast majority of their cultivation time sensing void qi and locating the correct positions of apertures. Condensing a single void aperture might take only 30-120 breaths. Ding Songyan, already at the perfected Dharma Realm, had a sufficiently clear sense of every void aperture and could skip the preparatory stage entirely, needing only to record the approximate location of each different void qi and complete the condensation.
Apart from the 365 void apertures that require material resources to complete, I can maintain a pace of 40-50 condensations per hour for the rest. At eight hours a day, it would take roughly a year; four hours a day would take two years... Ding Songyan let out a long sigh.
This thing was simply not made for humans to cultivate!
Well, it wasn’t designed for humans to begin with.
My future disciples would clearly all need to cultivate a branch art first, then return to the Chaos Scripture once they reached the perfected Dharma Realm, using their advanced realm to speed up the process and save time. Otherwise the Dharma Realm Chapter alone would take at least three hundred years. What ordinary human who hasn’t consumed an immortality elixir could possibly manage that?
Ding Songyan set aside Miss Xiao Qing’s letter, left the main room, and stepped into the courtyard.
Zheng Zhuxi was holding her longsword and guiding Xu Chang’an and Yang Shiduo in their training.
Ding Songyan walked over to his senior sister, leaned close to her ear, and said in a lowered voice, "The Mystical Pass True-Nature Preservation Art, or perhaps past-life reincarnation itself, does carry hidden dangers. Quite a few of the Jingwei lineage inheritors before the Imperial Daughter Sect was founded underwent drastic changes in temperament as a result."
Zheng Zhuxi nodded slowly, thought for a moment, and said, "Miss Su really did go to great lengths."
She looked at Ding Songyan and asked with a smile, "When you write back, what are you planning to send Miss Su?"
"Chrysanthemum cakes, I think. Didn’t you say young women tend to love food and interesting things?" Ding Songyan answered with a smile. "And, well, she really enjoyed The Legend of the White Snake when I told it to her back then, so I’m planning to put together a carefully edited revised edition and send that along as well."
Seeing her junior brother so open about it, Zheng Zhuxi broke into a smile.
"I’ll find you a shop that makes especially good chrysanthemum cakes."
The young woman had installed the Black Turtle viscera in late May, and the four alien apertures surrounding the Azure Dragon viscera had also been forged in recent days. However, the cultivation-teaching Elders advised against completing the final viscera installation in early August; four installations within a single year would do considerable damage to the body, and they recommended she wait until December to reach the perfected Great Proliferation Realm.
The two were about to say more when Xing Chang suddenly arrived.
The Headless was unusually wearing full armor inside the city. He was carrying a jug of wine, and greeted Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi with a smile.
"My thanks to you both. The imperial court is very pleased with the improvements to battle formation coordination and has summoned me to the capital for a consultation."
Tao Wenshu had only lent her name to the project. The real work had been done by Ding Songyan, with Zheng Zhuxi as a secondary contributor at best.
With the ability of Manifesting the Way and its Virtue, plus having seen the original art himself, if Ding Songyan still couldn’t produce any improvements he might as well have killed himself by bashing his head on a block of tofu.
He had also used the opportunity to incorporate the Fathomless Depths technique of the Accumulating Waters Divine Art into Kindling Passes to Candle, achieving it through the particular nature of the Chaos Realm. The medium- and long-term goals would require more time.
"We all benefited from it. No need for thanks," Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi both replied with a smile.
Xing Chang raised the wine jug with a hearty laugh.
"Once I head to the capital this time, I doubt I’ll be coming back to Dingjiang Prefecture. Whether I get posted somewhere else to drill troops, return to the immigrant settlements in the relocated Qian Province to sharpen the forces, or stay in Flame Capital. My visit today is also a farewell."
Zheng Zhuxi was briefly taken aback, then quickly had a servant bring wine bowls.
She, Ding Songyan, Yang Shiduo, and Xu Chang’an each lifted a bowl of strong spirits and turned their eyes to Xing Chang.
Xing Chang’s navel opened, and he let out a breath.
"I don’t know many poems. Just one line, then.
"Friends, until we meet again in the jianghu1!"
With that, the Headless man poured his strong spirits directly into his navel.
"Until we meet again in the jianghu!" Ding Songyan and company said in turn, then drank their bowls dry.
Xing Chang did not linger. To the sound of clattering armor plates, he strode away.
"The jianghu is all meetings and partings..." Zheng Zhuxi gazed at the front courtyard where Xing Chang had already disappeared from view, and said quietly.
"Those who gather must part, and those who part will gather again. That is simply how life goes," Ding Songyan offered in consolation.
The group chatted idly about Xing Chang’s departure, and after about half an hour, Marshal Yi also came to the door.
The marshal’s very first words were blunt and direct.
"We’ve caught the person Fu Yangquan was waiting for.
"Also Two-Faced. Eighteen or nineteen years old."
"Eighteen or nineteen..." Zheng Zhuxi asked, puzzled. "What did they come to Dingjiang Prefecture to do?"
At that age, unless they were a yao or someone who had leaped to the top in one step, they would only be at the Human Realm—hardly capable of stirring up much trouble.
Marshal Yi’s expression turned grave.
"He confessed that Master Wei sent him to Dingjiang Prefecture. He was to wait for Sect Master Tao to die, then use the year-end recruitment to slip into the Brightnight Sect."
At these words, the glint in both Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi’s eyes froze instantly.
Wait for Sect Master Tao to die?
What was that supposed to mean?