Dao Repository

Pure Life Spiritual Sect

Glen Island Realm

Myriad Heavens Chaosverse

An old, distinguished-looking man wearing elaborate Daoist robes was alone in a large empty room with hundreds of thousands of characters, runes, and complicated circuit diagrams drawn and carved on the floor, wall, and ceiling. He had one hand held out and was fiddling with a holographic projection. He had white hair and a long, neat, white beard. This man was Xiao Feng, one of the current Grand Elders and the Head Librarian of the Pure Life Spiritual Sect.

Xiao Feng finished sealing the upper three levels of the Library and then provided updated formation keys for the lower six levels to the Elder that would be in charge of the Sect’s Library in his absence. He went through the procedures twice as this particular Elder wasn’t even born the last time Feng left the Sect grounds. 

Squinching up his face in a sceptical expression, he peered at the younger man. Was this okay? Because, to Feng, it seemed to him like it was just yesterday that he dangled a rambunctious twelve-year-old Outer Sect disciple boy by his ankles in a pocket dimension for half a day for eating food in the Library, and now he is supposed to trust him with his books?

As though the other man could read his thoughts, or more likely his face, he said, “That was over six hundred years ago, Grand Elder! Everything will be fine. I’ve been helping you here for two hundred years! You are my son’s godfather!”

Had it been that long? Feng mentally weighed six hundred years of good behaviour against greasy pork skewers around his books and scrolls. Then, finally, he sighed, “Fine! Yes, of course! Good luck, don’t let the brats go wild when I am gone. It should only be three to six months at the most.”

The younger man smiled, “What is so important that they’re sending you on a mission anyway, Grandpa Feng? There are dozens of Sacred Lord level elders the Sect Leader could send. Shouldn’t you be enjoying your retirement, anyway?”

Feng scrunched up his face again. It took him a moment to realise that perhaps it has been so long since he joined the Pure Life Spiritual Sect that most everyone has forgotten his actual cultivation. He wasn’t a Sacred Lord level cultivator but one large realm higher. 

At the culmination of the Sacred Lord level of cultivation, one must endure a particularly difficult Heavenly Tribulation. If one succeeded, then they stepped into the True Immortal realm. If one failed, then nine out of ten times their soul was destroyed irrevocably… however, if a person survived this failed Tribulation, they would become a False Immortal. 

While False Immortals have comparable strength with actual Immortals, their immortal path has been severed at that step, and it is impossible to take one step beyond it in their lives. Moreover, they must survive increasingly more strenuous Heavenly Tribulations approximately every thousand years. Feng had just recently overcome the last one and had a spring in his step for another thousand years of life. He did not publicise his age, which was over five hundred thousand years. Most False Immortals did not even make it to fifty thousand before they either killed themselves to be reincarnated or their soul was destroyed in a reoccurring Tribulation. 

Most people, out of politeness, refer to cultivators like this as Earth Immortals-- an Immortal that has failed to ascend to Heaven and must remain on Earth. Feng thought it was a nice platitude but refuses to call himself that.

The words False Immortal wasn’t enough for Xiao Feng, who went one step further. He only ever wore the badges and markings of a Sacred Lord on his clothing. Feng only took the compensation and honours of this level of cultivation from the Sect as a personal statement and reminder that attempting to face the Tribulation when he did was one of the worst decisions he ever made. Not only was it one of the worst decisions, but he made it for the worst possible reasons, and it predicated the very worst decision he ever made, which to this day makes his mind short circuit slightly thinking of that period of his life. So many people died, and was it even truly necessary?

He hadn’t even discussed this part of his life with his life and death brother Chen, the former Sect Leader three Sect Leaders ago, so he wasn’t about to discuss it with a greasy fingered brat. Feng barely trusted him with the Sect’s books, much less his personal reverse scale. He could practically smell the pork skewers on this boy, still!

But he needed to go. This was an emergency that required potentially the highest combat and formations power of the Sect and total discretion. Although the Sect had over two hundred Sacred Lord level cultivators, there were only three at the Immortal realm, Feng being one, the Sect Leader being the other, and the final one being the previous Sect Leader who might not even be in this realm anymore.

Feng decided to keep his reply simple, “It has to be me, sad to say. I have particular abilities that make anyone else a poor choice. Well, I’m going to be off.” Feng lowered his voice to a chilly octave, “Remember what I said! I’ll be checking when I get back!”

Feng left the Library via a formation; it was, in fact, the only way to enter and leave it at all. The Dao Repository was a Small World, or pocket dimension, Feng personally designed over a hundred thousand years ago. It was connected to the Sect Grounds in various mysterious and occult ways. Feng himself was so connected to the formations that made up the artefact that housed the Library that he could step in and out at will from anywhere in the Sect, but everyone else could only enter and leave from one particular spot.

Feng usually used this ability as a shortcut to walk around the Sect, especially to get the first bites from the disciples who were walking down the path of being an Immortal Chef whenever they handed out their practice creations. This time he stepped out next to the Sect Leader’s courtyard, sending a polite mental knock with his divine sense.

<Come in, Grandpa!> came the mental reply from the Sect Leader. The current Sect Leader was the great-grandson of his friend and a genuine prodigy. He reached the level of True Immortal in only 1,500 years and had led the Sect for almost twenty thousand years. Feng had been there when he was born, even changed the little brat’s diapers once or twice. 

Feng sighed. Twenty thousand years or so of the Sect Leader calling you Grandpa or Grandpa Feng and hardly anyone in the Sect called him anything else.

Feng stepped in, finding Sect Leader Chen doting on his daughter. The Sect Leader was a valiant-looking, externally youthful appearing sword cultivator. His daughter had recently achieved her twelfth birthday, but she barely appeared older than a kindergartener due to having started cultivating at such a young age. Thus, she would likely continue looking like a loli until she was thirty or more, which suited both him and her father just fine as it would delay the time boys started looking after her.

The Sect Leader had seven or eight sons, but this was his only daughter. She squealed, “Grampa!” and ran over to him, leaping up at him like a puppy. He couldn’t help but smile as he caught her, “Ohohoho, Meimei, you’re looking pretty good in those robes!” He congratulated her. She was wearing the dark blue robes of an Inner Disciple.

Generally speaking, the youngest the Pure Life Spiritual Sect would accept an official Disciple was 12, and that was as an Outer Sect disciple. However, the average was closer to twenty and with a cultivation close to reaching Foundation Establishment. Of course, the treatment of any son or daughter of an Immortal would be highly different even if they weren’t the daughter of the Sect Leader.

Feng used his divine sense to inspect Meimei’s progress since the last time he saw her. She was just as much a prodigy as her monster of a father was! She was already getting close to establishing her Foundation. It took Feng over thirty years to establish his Foundation so long ago, but he wasn’t as talented and hardly had any resources.

Honestly, a position as an Inner Sect disciple was probably a step down for her, considering she regularly got personal one-on-one instruction and advice from two Immortal level cultivators.

Meimei’s Qi was also very pure and unaspected. It was clear that she was still cultivating using the Pure Spirit Mantra, which all disciples were encouraged to use during their Qi Gathering and Qi Disciple phases before building their Foundation. Many times a person’s talents for a particular aspect of Qi weren’t readily apparent until close to Foundation establishment, so cultivating this neutral method kept the maximum number of doors open. 

While it was possible to somewhat infer such things using a Dao-path introspection formation, it wasn’t always a great idea to expose beginning cultivators, especially those without a Master, to the concept of Dao-paths. Except for those with an extreme affinity for something, usually weapons like swords or sabres, cultivators did not generally start looking for their own Dao until at least the Core Formation stage.

However, Feng could easily tell Meimei’s talents and ideal Qi aspect before entering the Qi Disciple realm. If he was honest, he could tell before she even started cultivating. He had expected her father to impart a new cultivation method before now. If little Chen had, then he wouldn’t be so conflicted. 

Feng had a perfect cultivation method for her, a complete one that she could take even past the True Immortal realm, and it was a higher grade than any currently in the Sect Repository. It was also a comprehensive technique, which meant that it had both a Qi cultivation method and a complimenting body cultivation method. Body cultivation was usually quite tricky, and Feng himself was a Qi-only cultivator. Therefore, this technique was likely the inheritance of some cultivator beyond this realm, although he did not know for sure.

He hesitated because he hated even thinking about it, much like any part of his life before roughly four hundred and fifty thousand years ago. But this part, especially. The moment he acquired this cultivation method while exploring a Small World was when his life went to shit. Even now, he still tried to fool himself into believing that acquiring this method started a causal chain of events that led to the estrangement of his wife, best childhood friend, the death of most of her family, and ultimately the end of his path as a cultivator. 

Perhaps, if they had never entered that Small World, he might not have needed to take the actions he did to get stronger so quickly. A lot of people who died might not have. His failures as a cultivator were nothing compared to his failures as a human being, and this wasn’t simply the subjective opinion of a grousing, emotional old man. To this day, he still had over a hundred metres of baleful sin-light surrounding his body if anyone had the ability to see it with karmic techniques. The funniest thing about it was the method was incredibly unsuited to him personally.

But he couldn’t put it off any longer. Feng set Meimei back down and looked up, “Little Chen, I have a cultivation method I want to impart to Meimei. I think it would suit her very much. Would you take a look?”

The Sect Leader blinked, “Really? I’ve been trying to make a decision myself, but I have been having some indecision. I thought we’d have more time to pick, but little Mei surprises us all.”

Meimei grinned her dimples proudly, “Heh-heh! Meimei is the best!”

Feng made a gesture with his finger, and his divine sense projected the entire contents of a cultivation method called Heavenly Dance of Moonlight Scripture directly to the Sect Leader’s mind. It was such a Yin-aspected cultivation method that perhaps only men who were eunuch’s could utilise it properly.

Sect Leader Chen rocked on his heels, shocked. “This isn’t from the Library.” But he didn’t say anything else. Little Chen knew enough about my past that he knew I didn’t like talking about it.

All Feng said was, “En.”

“This is perfect, though. Better than anything we have, and not just because it suits Little Mei so well.” Chen rubbed the back of his head, “I don’t suppose you have anything at this level that is… well, suitable for men?”

Feng shook his head dourly, “No. All the other orthodox cultivation methods and techniques I know of I’ve long since logged into the Library, I had personal reasons for trying to forget this one existed. But before I came here today, I placed a copy on the top floor of the Library, under a seal only you can access. I confer this to you personally and to the Sect generally.” Feng trails off before finishing, “... I should have done so a long time ago, too.”

Speaking in terms of orthodox cultivators’ traditions and ethics, conferring a technique is a level more intimate than simply teaching or giving it to someone. If you confer a method to someone that offers them the right to do with it what they will, to teach or confer it to others. If you simply teach or give a technique to someone, then it is generally taboo for them to teach it to someone else without your approval or satisfying some condition inside the method. Many common techniques include a clause that considers anyone with a certain level of mastery to have been conferred the technique. But these are usually low-quality products.

Meimei spent the conversation looking between Feng and her father, slowly getting more annoyed at being ignored. Hands were already at her hips, and she might stomp her foot at any moment, so the Sect Leader made a gesture, “Go ahead and give Meimei the manual up to Core Forming, then. I’ll figure out an appropriate value and credit you with Sect contribution points for the donation.”

Feng snorted. He hadn’t bought anything using contribution points in twenty thousand years. His balance was already considerable, and undoubtedly an appropriate value for the cultivation method would have the Sect accountants nervous if Feng got a wild hair up his butt and decided to spend everything at once. Although it might privately amuse Feng to cause the Sect a temporary liquidity crisis, it would be in poor taste.

“Come here, Meimei.” Feng made a come hither motion, and Mei walked up next to him. Memory transfer by a senior cultivator’s divine sense is another privilege most new cultivators can’t hope to receive. Although the cost is small, it permanently uses up a portion of a cultivator’s divinity field, and one accumulated that much slower than one did Qi. Normally only perhaps a day of natural growth for someone like Feng. However, Feng charged his finger with at least a week’s worth of energy before flicking Meimei right in the forehead.

“Owe! Grandpa! That hurt!” Meimei complained. She rubbed her forehead and glowered up at Feng, then got a look of concentration on her face and started staring off into space.

Feng chortled and smoothed out his beard absently. Except for those who cultivated the soul specifically before the Nascent Soul realm, cultivators were more or less limited by such fleshy concerns as remembering things and thinking with their brains instead of their souls. Needless to say, the speed of your soul was significantly faster than the speed of thought — this was one of the main reasons it was almost impossible for even a peak Golden Core cultivator to cross realms and fight the crappiest of Nascent Soul cultivators. And your memory was essentially photographic, too.

One of the fundamental truths a cultivator has to know to face the Tribulation separating Golden Core, and Nascent Soul is that a person is a soul that has a body, not a body that has a soul. You have to know this down to your bones, too, and not just intellectually, or you will die a dog’s death. It sounds like a subtle nuance, but it is nothing of the sort.

By infusing and surrounding the memory with his own divinity field, Meimei would have more or less a total recall of the entire cultivation method for as long as that energy lasted, just like a Nascent Soul cultivator. The duration might be as much as a year for her with as much energy as he put in that forehead flick. It’s not like Feng can grow his divinity field any further anyway, and it will refill in a week.

Feng smirked down at Mei; he knew that expression on her face. At this age, it might be hours before little Mei came up for air. If it were Feng, it might have been months, not that Feng got any sudden bouts of enlightenment anymore on anything except the Dao of Avoiding Work. He sighed in jealousy. He would never admit it, but he was deeply envious of each and every new disciple in the Sect, even if the life of a young disciple in most Sects made slavery seem like a good deal.

Feng stood up a little straighter, and his voice carried the tone of a subordinate reporting. “Sect Leader, I’m going to head out now. First, I want to get there quickly and confirm reports. Then, if they’re true, I’ll set up concealment and protection formations around the whole area. After that, you’ll have to start thinking about whether we want to swallow this whole pie ourselves or who we’ll rope in if it’s big enough to cause us to choke.”

The Sect Leader nodded, “En. But, first, we need to know if the reports are true. There is a world of difference between a simple, high-grade spirit stone mine and an immortal spirit stone mine.” 

Sometimes Feng felt that Little Chen had a natural gift for stating the obvious. High-grade spirit stones were the regular highest grade currency generally used in the third level of realms in the Myriad Heavens, such as the one they were currently residing in, The Glen Island realm. Immortal spirit stones were the regular currency of the next realm higher. To find an immortal spirit stone mine in this realm is like going to a mortal country and finding an imperial princess mucking out shit from a stable — it is theoretically possible but highly improbable. 

Also, a spirit stone mine was only finite in its dimensions. It had a defined cubic in the earth. Still, unlike a traditional mineral mine, the spirit stones removed from a spirit stone mine would regenerate over time, so even finding a regular spirit stone mine would provide income for generations to anyone who could hold it. Over thousands of years, occasionally, a spirit stone mine would get played out, but it was the considered opinion of scholars that at the same time, a new one would form somewhere else.

Feng manfully avoided rolling his eyes at his sworn liege and nodded. He vanished from the room, stepping a foot in the Library briefly before appearing near the front gate of the Sect. He followed proper procedure in signing himself out of the Sect before vanishing again.

The ways for high-level cultivators to move quickly without some sort of travel-related treasure like a flying boat are as varied as high-level cultivators themselves. Many flew either bodily or on a flying sword or something similar; some just can run tens of thousands of li an hour and zip by you before you even hear the sound of their passing if you’re using mortal senses. As for Feng? He folded space. 

If Feng could see a place with his eyes or divine sense, he could twist spacetime and instantly appear there. The only way to detect this movement at all, as far as Feng knew, was the telltale flutter of his divine sense as he locked in a destination and the vibration of spacetime itself that preceded his arrival. That, or being well-versed in the same Dao of Spacetime, the Dao of Qiankun, or various prediction or numerology Daos. 

In combat at close range, he found that simply moving quickly was quicker and more effective against an opponent who knew about and expected Feng’s ability, which is why Feng tried to make sure to both propagate the idea that his abilities weren’t valuable for combat as well as ensuring any enemy who saw him use it in battle died. Although it has been so long, he doubts many people remember him at all. Hell, the only one he spars with regularly is Little Chen anyway.

In ideal conditions, the maximum he can sense without a prolonged delay is a little more than a thousand li in all three directions. Although at that distance his divine sense couldn’t tell a person from an ox that didn’t change the fact that Feng’s way of travelling remained, perhaps, the fastest of any cultivator in his realm, except those who are more highly attained in the Dao of Spacetime than him and can simply open portals from one place to another at will. Or that asshole from the Winter Falls Realm who could be in several places at the same time, somehow. It had been a long desire of Feng’s to learn how to open portals, but living the hikikomori lifestyle in the Sect gradually made him forget about it.

It was a general rule of thumb, although not a universal one, that the larger a natural realm was, the denser its qi. Although the scale is not linear at all. The Glen Island realm that housed the Pure Life Spiritual Sect was far larger than the first tier realm Feng was born into, to such an extent that it was essentially impossible for him to even guess how many people lived here, despite it consisting of over ninety per cent unpopulated wilderness. And this was just one realm out of billions in the entirety of the Myriad Heavens.

So, even travelling as fast as Feng could move, it still took him a week to get to the reported site of the spirit stone mine. Of course, he could have used a teleportation formation to the nearest city, but this was such a hot potato that discreetness was essential. Plus, hardly anybody realised how fast Feng could move when he was motivated. So he got there with plenty of time to conduct the survey.