In an instant, Qin Ming seemed to hear the breathing of mountains and rivers, see a resplendent sun turning, behold a pristine moon suspended high, and discover a sky full of stars.
The four doctrinal texts, totaling over two thousand characters, hung within his consciousness. They imparted such an immense sense of awe, as though they were tangible objects!
He guessed that the four short texts were likely four fundamental doctrines.
As Qin Ming chanted them silently in his mind, he found them exceedingly obscure and profound. He estimated that comprehending them would be immensely difficult.
He realized his natural aptitude had met a challenge—something he had not experienced in a long time. The last thing to stump him had been the silk book method.
With the patriarch right before him, there was no reason not to seek guidance.
"Mm, these four texts are still too early for you. Most are true scriptures you can only begin to ponder after the third or fourth realm," the gaunt old patriarch said.
Then, pointing to one text, he said, "Only this one can be studied from one's youth. As your cultivation realm rises, you will be able to comprehend its wondrous depths more thoroughly."
The old patriarch explained that this was the Physical Body Chapter. The trick to practicing this scripture was to refrain from using heavenly light force whenever possible, relying purely on one's body of flesh and blood to confront an opponent.
Qin Ming took on a grave expression. Tempering oneself like this was exceptionally dangerous!
After all, whether heavenly light or conscious spiritual light, breaking through flesh and blood was never particularly difficult.
Certain sect-defining supreme arts in particular—such as Tathagata force or pure yang consciousness—could shred a physical body as easily as tearing paper.
Even a body tempered through the silk book method would likely be unable to withstand them and would be sliced open once stripped of its protective heavenly light.
The old patriarch said, "This is merely a method of tempering. It doesn't mean you must take attacks head-on under every circumstance. Certain goals can only be pursued; they can never be truly reached."
Qin Ming nodded. Had the old man not shared the secret to practicing this scripture, he would inevitably have taken many detours, putting in twice the effort for half the result.
According to the old patriarch, the silk book method was rooted in numerous doctrines, but it could not encompass everything.
Just like these four texts, not all of their "nourishment" had been extracted.
The old patriarch said, "No matter how time washes over them or how the fires of the mortal world burn them down, texts that still leave behind 'pure gold' in the ashes after countless classics have been battered must be taken seriously."
Qin Ming pondered the Physical Body Chapter right there. He recalled when he first attained Newborn. Far from the level of heavenly light force back then, he had gripped a woodcutter's cleaver, braved heavy goose-feather snow into the mountains, and slaughtered the nine mountain patrollers who terrorized the area—an act of sheer, bloody courage.
"Without heavenly light force, relying purely on the power of the flesh—if one can keep walking that path to its utmost limit, that might also be a way forward."
He quickly pulled himself back to the present and asked for guidance on the other three chapters.
Sure enough, each of these true scriptures had its own distinct key to cultivation.
After their exchange, the old patriarch's eyes dimmed, his spirit and vitality severely depleted.
"Patriarch, I have auspicious beast blood here." Qin Ming produced a piece of transparent crystal, inside of which was sealed blood resembling a blazing golden sun.
The old man shook his head. "Even if you extracted the heart-blood essence of an auspicious beast, it would be of little use to me now."
Qin Ming spoke again: "I have a Destiny-Altering Scripture. If you can comprehend it, Patriarch, it might have miraculous effects. It can alter one's constitution and extend lifespan."
"Hmm?" As the old patriarch listened to him recite the scripture, a pensive look crossed his face, and he nodded repeatedly. "This is a doctrine that has withstood the test of time, extraordinary indeed. But for me, it comes too late; my destiny can no longer be altered."
Seeing the youth before him striving so earnestly to prolong his life, the old patriarch felt deeply gratified, but in the end he shook his head, making it plain that his final hour had come.
Qin Ming sighed. "Patriarch, your cultivation rivals the workings of creation—can you not undergo nirvanic rebirth and revive? Our Newborn path is currently in a dire plight and needs someone like you to carry the banner."
"Nirvanic rebirth, becoming Newborn... easier said than done!" The old patriarch sighed softly. He had accomplished it before, but who could guarantee maintaining it through every major realm?
Especially at a level as high as his, it was exponentially harder.
"Patriarch, not long ago, I attained Newborn in the mid-stage of the second realm..." Qin Ming shared his insights and experiences.
The old patriarch looked at him, a smile appearing on his face. Showing no fear of the encroaching shadow of death, he seemed relieved instead. "You are very good!"
He reminisced, "We too once deduced that attaining Newborn in every major realm might allow this path to break free from its impasse. But seeking life through death is easier said than done. One of us tried throwing himself into desperate bloodbaths, fighting a hundred battles and leaving no retreat in hopes of nirvanic rebirth amidst extremity. He succeeded by chance once, but in the end, he still perished."
Afterward, the old patriarch asked, "Did you come here alone to fish in the dead of night for baleful substances?"
Qin Ming nodded. He simply had not expected that instead of finding the legendary dragon-shaped heterogeneous substance, he would end up reeling in a patriarch!
"After so many years, the baleful grounds in my memory have probably long been dug hollow by others," the old patriarch mused.
Then, he casually rattled off a long list of place names.
"Some of the legendary baleful substances were things even we couldn't obtain in our youth, and later our disciples lacked the confidence to refine them. One way or another, some traces should remain."
The heterogeneous substances the old patriarch mentioned were undeniably among the most formidable in the night mist world.
For some could simply not be refined, being exceptionally hazardous.
After that, he spoke of those baleful substances that could be fused and refined.
Qin Ming was thoroughly astonished; the things the old man described sounded almost fantastical.
For instance, a white tiger had once descended from beyond the heavens, which was actually heavenly light that had already taken form before even reaching the mortal world.
There was also a peril where five-element heavenly light was too dense to disperse, endlessly generating in an independent system.
In that Five-Element Perilous Domain, a heavenly god was said to be suppressed!
Qin Ming listened enraptured. Among the many place names the old patriarch mentioned, Black-White Mountain was unexpectedly included.
However, the old patriarch had only guessed that a legendary baleful substance existed there based on its topography and energy, never having searched for it in person.
"I must go, or I won't even have the strength left to bury myself." With that, the old patriarch stood straight up.
He acted decisively, picking up the two mad gods and walking off.
"Patriarch!" Tonight had profoundly moved Qin Ming; he had actually met a founding patriarch of the silk book method, yet the old man was about to pass away.
"No need to see me off. I am going!" After speaking, the old man took a single stride and vanished at the far edge of the horizon.
Moments later, amid the thick darkness of the night, a blinding beam of light pierced heaven and earth. The old patriarch vanished from the world, burying himself.
"Senior, safe journey!"
...
That very night, Qin Ming left the borderlands between Kunling and Great Rui.
He wanted to travel ten thousand li on foot to experience the night mist world firsthand.
Four days later, Qin Ming frowned. Traveling alone at night was truly far from safe.
The distances between cities were vast; stretches of tens or hundreds of li without a single human soul were commonplace. Today, when crossing between two regions according to his map, the eight hundred li in between were entirely desolate no-man's-land without so much as a village or town along the way, which was genuinely chilling.
During his journey, he had drawn his mutton-fat jade iron saber several times to frighten off bizarre entities.
In places with abundant human presence, they did not manifest. The more deserted and uninhabited the region, the more likely anomalies were to appear, bringing fatal perils.
Crucially, even cultivators could not see those things; they were formless and soundless.
Even using his Newborn eyes, Qin Ming could only see vague silhouettes of every imaginable shape.
Under his special vision, some of those things glowed, while others appeared as shadows.
In such an extraordinarily bizarre and immensely dangerous night mist world, it was simply too difficult for ordinary people to travel far; normal mortals could only live by pursuing fire.
"No wonder even figures of the patriarch level said that the night mist world is full of the unknown, and that being incomprehensible is only normal."
In the deep night, Qin Ming ran into peril!
An icy chill struck, instantly washing over his entire body like an invading cold spring—slimy, with a bone-piercing freezing aura that sought to freeze his very soul.
The experience was dreadful; Qin Ming felt his consciousness freezing over, suffocating him.
With a roar, he channeled the silk book method. All of his heavenly light force fused into one and erupted in full force, like a sun exploding in the night mist with dazzling brilliance.
That slimy, bone-chilling horror penetrating straight into his consciousness receded like an ebbing tide, yet Qin Ming's body remained taut.
Employing his Newborn eyes, he could only vaguely sense something ahead without discerning what it was.
What he encountered tonight far exceeded anything prior, proving exceedingly tricky.
Qin Ming slashed his saber several times, clearly feeling that he had struck the entity based on his intuition, yet it produced no effect whatsoever.
In the next moment, he was submerged in extreme cold once more—clammy and wet, his flesh going numb as the chill invaded his entire body.
Only by unleashing his special heavenly light force again did he tear himself free. This time, he unleashed the Yin-Yang Heavenly Light Diagram and summoned his pendant—the miniature exotic metal sword.
Faintly, he seemed to hear a shrill shriek from another world. The power of a "boundary" seemed to separate them, but it had been momentarily pierced.
That dangerous and bizarre entity was wounded, struck in succession by Qin Ming's Yin-Yang Heavenly Light Diagram and the miniature exotic metal sword, before fleeing far into the distance.
Even so, Qin Ming's heart remained heavy. Even the mutton-fat jade iron saber, capable of slaying unknown entities, had proved ineffective.
This night mist world was mysterious and treacherous, harboring many incomprehensible things. He now cast aside any thought of traveling alone at night or exploring uninhabited zones.
"No wonder there weren't any towns along the way; this was rigorously filtered out by the ancestors." He swiftly departed.
At last, he arrived safely at a great city and checked into an inn to rest.
Qin Ming tossed and turned, contemplating that unknown entity.
"Could it be... a ??"
Back on the ninth floor of the Shanhe Academy library, he had browsed numerous rare volumes and miscellaneous texts, among which the Nine Inquiries of Longevity mentioned a kind of creature—or rather, a mysterious phenomenon.
"The ??, separated by two realms of dust, attaches to a ghostly form and then bedevils the living."
His heart fluttered. It was most likely that kind of thing!
The ?? rarely manifested in the mortal world; only by possessing a ghostly body could it make mischief, which made it terrifying and troublesome.
And the ?? was likely just one among many mysterious phenomena in the uninhabited reaches of the night mist world.
On the fifth day, Qin Ming directly booked a ticket to take an airship toward Black-White Mountain.
Of course, airships currently took off and landed only between great cities, so there was no direct route to Black-White Mountain.
When registering his name, Qin Ming casually gave the name Zhou Wubing.
In fact, Zhou Wubing often borrowed his name as well.
Only recently had Erbingzi abandoned the habit.
When traveling abroad, one gave oneself an identity. Zhou Wubing had grown accustomed to calling himself Qin Ming, which resulted in unpredictable twists of fate and led to him being hunted down for a time.
"What's going on? I only went to stay in some ruins for a while. How did the outside world turn upside down by the time I came back? Even the name Qin Ming can't be used anymore—has it become taboo? Master Xu... save me!"
Once Erbingzi was safe and looked into the situation, he was soon left dumbfounded. He had just learned that Qin Ming had become renowned across Kunling City, with word spreading to lands far away.
"Holy crap, someone wants to deal with him, and I took the blame! And this place is... the territory of the aristocratic clans!" He felt deeply wronged. Wounded and bleeding, he could no longer borrow his fellow villager's name.
Had Master Xu not been nearby, he would have been in grave danger.
Then, he wailed again, "What did I miss all this time? Auspicious beast blood appeared in Kunling?! Ahhh..."
Master Xu said, "Mm, the foreign race has arrived; we should go take a look as well."
...
Aboard the airship, Qin Ming sat quietly, looking at the pitch-black sky and the dense clouds flanking him. It no longer felt as novel as during his first long voyage.
Along the journey, heaven and earth were black as ink. The airship cut through heavy clouds and mist, occasionally halting to allow passengers to gather "celestial essence" descending from beyond the world.
This time, Qin Ming's voyage was peaceful; it was impossible for sky-falling accidents to happen every time.
After the airship landed at a great city, Qin Ming did not head to Chixia City where Meng Xinghai was stationed, but instead detoured to neighboring Maple Leaf City, from where he made his way toward Black-White Mountain.
Returning this time, besides wanting to fish for the legendary heterogeneous substance at Black-White Mountain, he also wanted to slip into Twin Trees Village to check on old friends.
Most importantly, at the baleful ground in Kunling, he had seen the thatched cottage and papers left behind by that exceedingly high-ranking godkin creature who had escaped from Yujing, filling his heart with suspicion.
Was Old Man Liu of Twin Trees Village related to the person who had fled Yujing five hundred years ago?
By this time, Wu Yaozu had long since arrived at the Dayu imperial capital and met the Tathagata renegade Xiang Yiwu. Traveling together, the two fully experienced the prosperity and splendor of this celebrated city.
Historic monuments and scenic spots abounded here: a four-thousand-year-old ancient tree said to have been planted by the first-generation path-opening patriarch himself, a thousand-year-old palace, a two-thousand-five-hundred-year-old Sky-Piercing Divine Tower—it had everything.
Yet none of these drew as much attention at present as the elven delegation from a mysterious faraway realm.
A race born bathed in solar fire essence had formally arrived on a visit from the depths of the night mist world.
...
Qin Ming had a smooth journey and had now arrived outside Twin Trees Village, where he was surprised to find that the Fire Spring was significantly brighter than before, and the Black-White Twin Trees had grown noticeably taller and stouter.
Chapter 266