Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Peaceful days always went by very quickly.

Today, Tang Jie received a message from Xi Canhen.

He had arrived at Sageheart and formally joined the Basking Moon Sect.

When the elders of the Basking Moon Sect learned that Tang Jie wasn\'t dead and that he had turned around and killed off He Changan\'s group, they were elated. Although there were no contribution points for killing the people of Godhead Palace, considering He Changan\'s status and the ever-worsening relationship between Godhead Palace and the Basking Moon Sect, the Basking Moon Sect decided to make an exception and not just reward Tang Jie for eliminating Ao Chihu, Zhu Yun, and Feng Buzhi, but also give him extra contribution points for killing He Changan.

Of course, this wasn\'t announced to anyone.

But Wei Tianchong couldn\'t come to the Spirit Mountains for the time being.

This was because the Basking Moon Sect and the Beast Refining Gate were currently battling it out in the Transverse Range.

In truth, in this last year, Tang Jie had upset the entire structure of the Rosecloud Domain.

The Seven Absolutions Sect had long ago started up a border conflict with Godhead Palace, the two sides creating rivers of blood with their white-hot conflict. Wang Juemie already had the lives of many Celestial Heart cultivators on his hands. The Basking Moon Sect and the Beast Refining Gate had also lost several Celestial Heart cultivators apiece, and the battle was clearly intensifying.

As for the Thousand Passions Sect and Horizon Ocean Pavilion, it seemed that they didn\'t want to be left out after seeing everyone else going at it, and they were showing signs of activity.

The Basking Moon Sect wanted Tang Jie to head to the Transverse Range, but Tang Jie refused with the reason that he was searching for a secret within Godhead Palace. There were three reasons Tang Jie had refused, the first being that he needed to comprehend the Myriad Immortals Cauldron. Until he found a way to take it with him, he wouldn\'t leave this place. The second was that this wasn\'t the avatar, who cultivated arts, but the body refiner. If he went to the Transverse Range, his fighting style wouldn\'t be the same as the avatar\'s, which was hard to explain. Thirdly, he didn\'t have the Space Crystal to return to the sect.

Thus, after thinking it over, he had Xi Canhen serve as the go-between for him and the sect. If there were any matters, the sect could order him to do it, but there was no need to go back and see them. That would have to wait until the avatar returned from the Blood River Domain.

For the next few days, Tang Jie continued to comprehend Yin Yang and dismantle the palace.

Even once he comprehended Yin Yang, there was still a long way between comprehending the Dao and entering the Dao. This massive chasm needed the accumulation of time to cross, precipitation through cultivation. Tang Jie was in no rush. He had the time to patiently grind away.

But dismantling the palace was truly boring work.

The palace was too huge, and the materials were too tough. Even Tang Jie with his Diamond Body found it difficult to take apart. In the last two months, Tang Jie had only dismantled two palaces. Taking a look at the entire complex, Tang Jie estimated that even twenty years might not be enough time to take it all.

For the same reason, even if Wei Tianchong actually came, it might take even more time to make puppets—it was far more detailed work, after all.

In truth, the difficulty had far exceeded Tang Jie\'s expectations, leaving him somewhat at his wits\' end.

Today, he was dismantling a small pavilion.

This pavilion was made entirely from Violet Cloud Metal, and its foundation was made of Gold Lightning Jade. It was designed in a simple and dignified style, and one could tell at a glance that it was no ordinary building.

The Desolate Heavens Halberd shone as it struck a foundation pillar of the pavilion. There was a massive boom as a small crack appeared on the pillar. Tang Jie then mustered all his strength and brought down the halberd again and again, like a diligent woodcutter, each time making the crack slightly bigger. Just when it seemed like the pillar was to break, Tang Jie heard a crack from the Desolate Heavens Halberd.

Tang Jie was aghast, instantly knowing that he was in trouble.

Pulling back the halberd, as expected, he spotted a crack.

Although the Desolate Heavens Halberd was a top-class art relic, he had been using it like an axe and had been hacking away at buildings made of precious and tough materials, so the damage to the Desolate Heavens Halberd was understandable. After two months like this, the Desolate Heavens Halberd had finally reached its limit and showed signs of damage. Even though the damage would recover on its own, this meant that he wouldn\'t be able to use it for this time and that Tang Jie would have to be more careful in the future.

At this rate, even forty years might not be enough for this job.

"Shit!" Tang Jie threw the halberd to the side and punched at the building.

Bizarrely, there was no sound at all, and Tang Jie felt like he had punched at nothing. Startled, he raised his head.

The pavilion was as normal, but there was a crack in the wall. More and more cracks appeared, forming a spiderweb that ultimately extended across the entire pavilion. At the same time, Tang Jie felt a massive amount of strength flowing out of him, as if something was devouring his physical power.

He was aghast.

The Weapon Mantra!

In that punch just now, he had inadvertently used the Weapon Mantra!

It was just that it hadn\'t instantly collapsed. Perhaps because it was too big, the pavilion\'s collapse process had taken some time. In this extended period of time, Tang Jie saw the pavilion breaking up, more and more cracks appearing on it. And to his shock, in these cracks, Tang Jie felt like he could see flashing Dao Runes.

Finally, when the cracks reached everything that they could, the pavilion collapsed in a rush, turning into countless motes of dust and only leaving behind the jade foundation.

Amid the drifting metal motes, he saw countless flashing golden points, like gold mixed into sand, entrancing Tang Jie.

Golden grains!

Tang Jie was stunned.

He had never imagined that one punch with the Weapon Mantra would produce so many of the Sovereign Blade\'s golden grains.

But this was wrong!

Tang Jie had long ago performed an experiment.

When a weapon was stripped of all its seals, using the Weapon Mantra to break it down would not produce any golden grains. At the time, Tang Jie had concluded that the Weapon Mantra needed to be used against weapons to work, and the difference between plain metal and weapons was the seals added to the metal in the forging process.

This was why the Weapon Mantra could work on art relics, even puppets—because seals were miniature formations. But it definitely would not work on ordinary metal. Tang Jie had already verified this.

Thus, Tang Jie had never used the Weapon Mantra on the palaces, having been treating it as impossible.

But today, his unintentional punch had not only destroyed the palace, it had also produced numerous golden grains. This left Tang Jie confused.

What was going on here?

Did the pavilion have seals attached to it? Was that why his punch had destroyed it?

He quickly found another pavilion. He closely inspected it, and after confirming that it had no seals or formation, he used the Weapon Mantra.

The earlier scene replayed itself, the Weapon Mantra causing cracks to crawl over the building, ultimately collapsing it into golden grains.

Tang Jie dropped to a knee and panted for breath. The weight of a pavilion was much greater than a weapon, and destroying two in a row had made even Tang Jie\'s Diamond Body feel an immense burden. But the shock to his soul was even greater.

It had really worked!

The Weapon Mantra had actually worked on an existence of pure metal without any seals. But why did it happen?

Could the Weapon Mantra be improved?

But he hadn\'t felt the Weapon Mantra improve in any way.

Tang Jie couldn\'t understand.

Amid his confusion, he went to go and collect those golden grains.

And then he made a strange discovery.

These golden grains were different from the golden grains he got from breaking down weapons.

They were larger, rougher, more numerous, and more stupid!

When he put together all the golden grains he had got from breaking down the buildings, they were about the size of a soccer ball. Breaking down the same volume of weapons definitely wouldn\'t have produced this many grains.

In addition, each golden grain was much rougher and coarser than the usual grains.

If the golden grains from breaking weapons were like fine sand, these ones were so rough as to almost be small rocks.

While fine sand was small, it could transform as Tang Jie willed, lengthening or shortening. The rough sand wasn\'t as flexible. When Tang Jie gathered up all the rough sand, he could sense that making them fuse took much more mental power on his part. The fine grains were like obedient and smart children, needing only a little instruction, but the rough grains were like naughty and stupid brats, needing repeated orders to finally listen.

Finally, and most importantly, the golden blade created by the rough sand wasn\'t unstoppable like the Sovereign Blade.

The golden ball became a little golden saber, and when Tang Jie swung at his wrist, it left only a white imprint.

This sharpness was only good for peeling apples, and Tang Jie was speechless.

The only good thing about this golden knife was that it was tough.

While Tang Jie could break the Desolate Heavens Halberd by using it as an axe against the Violet Cloud Metal pavilion, Tang Jie couldn\'t break this weapon from that golden soccer ball no matter what he did.

But if this was a manifestation of the Weapon Mantra\'s upgrade, Tang Jie could only say that this upgrade was pointless.

A weapon\'s importance lay in its sharpness.

The Weapon Mantra broke down art relics worth hundreds of millions of spirit coins to produce a weapon that could ignore all defenses. Putting aside the actual value, at least there was an actual goal here, a reason for it to exist.

But what was the point of this weapon that couldn\'t be shattered? Shaking his head, Tang Jie stopped dismantling for the day and went back to Xu Miaoran, his head full of questions.

Xu Miaoran was rather shocked to see Tang Jie coming back early, and she asked him why.

Tang Jie told her the whole story.

He no longer kept any secrets from Xu Miaoran, and he had told her about the matter with the Martial Lord long ago.

Xu Miaoran was also surprised when she heard about how Tang Jie had turned a pavilion into golden grains.

She held out her hand. "Let me take a look at that knife."

Tang Jie handed it over, and as Xu Miaoran took it, her hand suddenly plunged, almost dropping it. She immediately circulated spiritual energy, and as strength rushed out from her body, she managed to steady her hold. She blurted out, "So heavy!"

Tang Jie\'s Diamond Body was bursting with strength, so he didn\'t feel anything when holding the knife. But when Xu Miaoran held it, she instantly felt like it weighed tons.

She gazed in shock at the knife. As it glimmered before her, she suddenly realized something and said, "Mother Cloud Metal Essence! This is Mother Cloud Metal Essence!"

"What\'s Mother Cloud Metal Essence?" a baffled Tang Jie asked.

"This is the quintessence of metal," Xu Miaoran replied. "A king of metals, but it\'s not naturally formed. Rather, a cultivator has to use supreme divine might to process and forge various metal essences into a single whole. Mother Cloud Metal Essence is extremely heavy, but it\'s also extremely tough. If a little is fused into an art relic, it can greatly boost the art relic\'s toughness. It\'s extremely valuable! My father has a piece of Mother Cloud Essence Metal, but it\'s only half the size. My father treasures it like nothing else, and he usually doesn\'t let me touch it, saying that once I reach Celestial Heart, he\'ll use it to forge a top-class art relic for me."

"I see," Tang Jie muttered. "In other words, my Weapon Mantra was actually refining all the rare metals in that pavilion?"

"Correct!" Xu Miaoran confirmed. "In truth, I always suspected that that golden saber of yours was made from Mother Cloud Metal Essence. It\'s just that Mother Cloud Metal Essence emphasizes toughness, not sharpness, so I couldn\'t be sure. But I\'m certain that this is Mother Cloud Metal Essence!"

"In other words, the Weapon Mantra is actually a way of refining metals?" Tang Jie was somewhat in disbelief. "But what sort of method can skip the entire complicated process of refining metals and create Mother Cloud Metal Essence?"

Spell arts were not omnipotent. They were manifestations of spiritual energy, and it was for this reason that spell arts could not do what spiritual energy could not.

Processing the King of Metals was an immensely complex process, and it was impossible for spiritual energy to do it all. If this was true, there would be no need to specifically study how to refine pills and make weapons.

Surprisingly, Xu Miaoran replied, "Arts can\'t do it, but the Dao might."

\'The Dao\'?

Tang Jie was startled.

He suddenly recalled how he had seemed to see the flashing of Dao Runes as that pavilion cracked apart.

If it was really a Dao, then this did explain things.

Arts relied on spiritual energy. All arts had principles that could be found, traces that could be followed.

The Dao followed the principles of the heavens, and the Great Dao left no trace behind.

But a moment later, he shook his head. "This is not possible, nor does it make sense. The Dao cannot be transmitted, only comprehended. Only what can be experienced through one\'s own body can be considered a principle of the Great Dao. But the Weapon Mantra was passed through the Martial Mirror. Since it could be passed down, it can only be a spell art."

Xu Miaoran replied, "I\'m just making a hypothesis. If it was a Dao, would it make sense?"

"Yes!" Tang Jie immediately replied. "Daos are the origin, Daos are the laws. Daos give results, not the process. If the Weapon Mantra is a Dao, then when I use the Weapon Mantra, there is no change in spiritual energy, no casting process. All that happens is that the Great Dao commands, and all arts obey. How could mere lifeless metal resist the principles of the Great Dao? It naturally has to become whatever it\'s being told to become. Since metal can be processed into Mother Cloud Metal Essence, through the Great Dao, it can be directly converted into it."

Tang Jie took in a deep breath.

Ever since he had comprehended Wisdom, he had gained a greater and greater understanding of the Great Daos, including how Daos differed from arts.

Now that he thought about it, the Weapon Mantra was so powerful and unreasonable that it was clearly no art, but a Dao.

But…

How could a Dao be passed down as a spell art?

The thought made Tang Jie\'s scalp go numb.

This discovery already exceeded the value of the Weapon Mantra itself, for it meant a whole new world: Daos could be transmitted.

This made no sense!

Xu Miaoran had also realized this.

They gazed at each other in silence.

They realized that this was no simple matter, and that it was better if word didn\'t get out, lest it sow chaos in the world.

Tang Jie carefully put away the golden knife. "Don\'t tell anyone else."

Xu Miaoran nodded to indicate that she understood.

"But it\'s strange." As the two of them sat down, Tang Jie voiced a new question. "I\'ve tried to use it on metal before, but it didn\'t create Mother Cloud Metal Essence. Why did it work now?"

"Questions regarding the Dao ultimately have their answers in the Dao," Xu Miaoran replied.

Tang Jie\'s heart trembled as he raised his head and said, "The Myriad Immortals Cauldron! I\'ve been researching the Dao of Yin Yang recently. That could be related."

"The Weapon Mantra is related to the Dao of Yin Yang?" Xu Miaoran asked.

"Probably not, but it probably has to do with the Dao of Metal. Processing metal is part of the Metal Dao, and the Metal Dao belongs to the Five Elements…" Tang Jie mumbled.

"And the Five Elements is intricately linked to Yin Yang," Xu Miaoran continued. "Yin Yang represents the two sides of the world while the Five Elements make up all things. The two are complementary."

Tang Jie immediately stood up and strode over to the Myriad Immortals Cauldron.

His eyes sparkled as he stood in front of the cauldron. "I know what I\'m missing. The Dao of Yin Yang is a part of the Five Elements. These two rely on each other, so how could they be separated? That which governs Yin and Yang, divide the Five Elements!"

As he spoke, the cauldron erupted with light while Immortal music resounded.

The myriad Immortals upon the cauldron all radiated transcendent light, the insides of the cauldron becoming its own world as all the Immortals came to pay respects to the Court of Myriad Domains.

More Dao Runes began to flash. This time, what they displayed were not the principles of Yin and Yang, but the laws of the Five Elements.

Among them, the golden light was the most radiant, the Dao of Metal.

These Metal Dao Runes were ones Tang Jie had never seen or comprehended before, and he studied them all.

But to his shock, he found these never-before-seen Dao Runes to be extremely familiar, and he comprehended them as easily as breathing, as if he had learned about them long ago.

As he drank in this knowledge, he found that much of the contents of the Dao of Metal was extremely similar to the Weapon Mantra.

But the Great Dao was ineffable, whereas the Weapon Mantra could be described in mortal words. The former was infinitely profound while the latter forthrightly described the mysteries of the Great Dao. This contrast between complexity and simplicity seemed like Yin and Yang, the two sides of the world, describing the same principles and leaving Tang Jie amazed.

Most shocking of all was that the Weapon Mantra seemed to have even more contents than the Dao of Metal.

When he reached the end of the Metal Dao Runes, the Weapon Mantra still had more, and it seemed like it could delve even deeper. This was the sublimation of the Dao of Metal, and in this deeper secret, Tang Jie saw the rough tending toward the fine, the Mother Cloud Metal Essence transforming into the Martial Lord\'s Sovereign Blade.

"This is…" Tang Jie took in a deep breath.

This was the Martial Lord\'s Dao!

He suddenly understood.

He took out the Martial Mirror.

His mind sank into the Martial Mirror.

He once more saw that scene.

In the desolate void, an enormous giant wielded an enormous axe against countless Immortals. In the distance was a huge palace complex from which even more Immortals poured.

That giant was arrogant and savage, fearlessly facing down tens of thousands.

He furiously roared, his axe cleaving through the heavens and striking that resplendent palace.

Those countless Immortals couldn\'t hold him off for even a moment.

At that moment, the blurry image of a law wheel suddenly appeared in the distance. This law wheel was infinitely vast, its mere manifestation instantly filling the skies, and all the world resounded with chanting and humming.

And then that giant flew up, chopping his axe at the law wheel.

Light filled the world.

He saw that giant falling…

"Agh!" Tang Jie shouted as he staggered back, his face turning ghastly pale.

"What happened?" Xu Miaoran hurried over to support Tang Jie.

Tang Jie was shaking.

To her shock, Xu Miaoran realized that he was shaking in fear.

Tang Jie was afraid!

The fearless Tang Jie was afraid!

Who was he afraid of?

Xu Miaoran looked at him in shock.

After a long while, Tang Jie muttered, "I understand!"

"What do you understand?"

Tang Jie squeezed out:

"The Parting Classic… goes against the Dao!"