The World Is Like a Deep Pool

So many hidden secrets left Wei Yuan momentarily overwhelmed. After a pause, he said, "The history of the Shaman Clan that I know doesn't seem to be like this." "The human race has tens of thousands of history books. How many can actually be believed?" Wei Yuan could already clearly feel the faint pressure mounting around them. Seizing the moment, he asked, "What exactly is the calamity?" "The world is like a deep pool, and our native realm is just a bubble in the water. There are countless bubbles in the pool, as well as many things even we can hardly describe—such as the Heavenly Pillars, the otherworldly things that appear in the Shattered Lands, and the fiends of the Nether Cold Realm. What the immortals of the Liao Clan do is guide over bubbles representing calamities and cast them onto other races'... bod... ies..." Jiumu's voice suddenly grew halting, distorted, and stretched. He shot beams of bizarre light from his eyes, ultimately conjuring before Wei Yuan's vision a vast, squirming mass of darkness with countless frayed threads. Immediately after, Wei Yuan felt a searing spike of pain tear through his mind. Yaolan coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood, unable to sustain the barrier any longer. The instant the barrier broke, Wei Yuan felt his memories slipping away. But he had prepared in advance, directly replicating the relevant memories into eight copies and placing one in each of his grottos. "Just knowing about it carries such immense power?" Wei Yuan was genuinely chilled. Jiumu gave a bitter smile. "This is equivalent to the combined might of numerous Liao domain immortals joined with the calamity itself. Of course it's formidable. Among the current immortals of the Liao Clan, while none can rival the Ancestral Shaman, there are at least three or four who fall short by only a hair, each sufficient to stand alongside your human race's Venerable Masters. In the depths of the North Pole Nether Sea, a segment of the Ancestor of the Liao Clan's body is even said to lie slumbering." Wei Yuan had never imagined the waters of the Liao Clan ran so deep. No wonder the Shamans and the Liao had fought to the death for hundreds of thousands of years, while the human race had never been the primary force. "Above immortals, are there still different ranks and grades?" Wei Yuan asked suddenly. Jiumu sighed and glanced at Yaolan. Yaolan said, "For this question, I can only hold out for ten breaths." With that, she channeled the power of the Desolate Realm once more to erect a barrier. Wei Yuan was at a loss for words. It was bad enough that these almighty beings loved to erase causality at every turn, but now, if anyone wanted to share a few secrets, they had to withstand the crushing weight of their pressure. Wei Yuan mobilized his own authority over the Desolate Realm as well, joining forces with Yaolan to construct the barrier. Jiumu took a deep breath. All his eyes radiated bizarre light at once, first warping all local causality before he spoke: "According to the ancient ways, the stages above an immortal can be divided into three realms. The lowest is grasping a portion of the Heavenly Dao's authority over one's own path. The weakest grasp only a single authority, while others can command several. "Yet authorities of the Great Dao differ in strength—the gap between them is like clouds and mud. Furthermore, some Dao authorities are held exclusively, while others are shared among multiple beings. Therefore, the strength of immortals at this stage is worlds apart. Some are even pseudo-immortals elevated through temporary empowerment." Only then did Wei Yuan understand that stray immortals belonged to this tier, as did ordinary immortals. Even a formidable true immortal like Immortal Zhao Li was ultimately still at this level. Jiumu continued, "Above this realm lies the complete mastery of all the Great Dao authority belonging to one's path. This is what is commonly referred to as attaining a fruition. Fruitions are ranked in stature, and the degree of control over a fruition also varies in strength. The powerful can divide the authority of their fruition to empower others; the supreme can even shield and seal their fruition, preventing anyone under heaven from cultivating the associated path. Upon reaching this realm, one may be addressed as an Immortal Lord or Venerable Master. "Above Immortal Lords, several circumstances exist. One is cultivating multiple fruitions in tandem, having them coordinate with one another to step into an even higher realm. Another is transcending the fruition, feathering and ascending into the void to seek the door of liberation among the myriad realms of the highest heavens. The last is harmonizing one's Dao with heaven and earth, existing alongside the heavens themselves." "What did the Martial Ancestor do?" Wei Yuan asked abruptly. "When your Martial Ancestor was in his prime, internal strife suddenly broke out in Great Tang, sweeping up nearly every human Immortal Lord. Back then, the Martial Ancestor defeated every last one of them, then pursued two Immortal Lords all the way into the outer void, returning only decades later bearing their fruitions. "Upon his return, he re-established the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, henceforth prohibiting the emergence of any new human Immortal Lords. At the same time, he sealed all paths to liberation and ascension. From that point on, human immortal cultivation became flawed, and even an immortal's lifespan dwindled to a mere twenty or thirty percent of what it once was. "For reasons unknown, the other great races stood by back then and watched the Martial Ancestor re-establish the Heavenly Dao. Only an Immortal Lord of the Mountain Folk came forth to stop him, but he was slain by the Martial Ancestor. After that, no obstacles remained." Wei Yuan was already nearing his limit. In haste, he asked, "How did the Venerable Master survive? Does the human race still have any other Immortal Lords?" There was no longer time for Jiumu to speak; he projected the answer directly into Wei Yuan's sea of consciousness: "The original human Immortal Lords were either slain by the Martial Ancestor or fled far into the outer void to drag out an ignoble existence. How the Venerable Master escaped that fate, I do not know, though presumably it was nothing more than the usual trick of feigning death after grievous injury." "Why did the Martial Ancestor re-establish heaven and earth?" "I do not know." At that moment, another throbbing headache seized Wei Yuan, and Yaolan reached the end of her strength. As the barrier shattered, the relevant memories instantly began to vanish on their own. But Wei Yuan had prepared well in advance, concealing copies deep within his grottos as before. The causal erasure wrought by almighty beings was not omnipotent; it all depended on the relative status and attainment of the parties involved. Though Wei Yuan's personal cultivation was modest, the status of his mindscape world was extraordinarily high, and each of his grottos was more abstract than the last. By scattering and preserving his memories, he felt confident that at least one copy would endure. If that failed, there was still a clumsy alternative: designating a dedicated zone within the Splendor of the Many Realms solely to duplicate memories. Causal erasure took a sliver of time, and he could exploit that brief window to keep the memories intact. However, this method could only serve as a temporary measure. Leaving aside whether Wei Yuan could bear the cost over an extended period, it was highly likely to draw the attention of the relevant mighty beings. The two shamans and the human sat facing one another in silence. Then came a crisp snap, as if something had shattered within Jiumu's palace. Jiumu stood and swept up a pile of porcelain shards from a shelf in the inner hall. Only three identical red jade vases now remained on the expansive shelf. Judging from the shards Jiumu gathered, another red jade vase had just broken. Jiumu tossed the shards aside and sighed. "These vases were crafted from the eyeballs I shed during my molting back in the day, made specifically to preserve hidden secrets. What I just told you was stored within those vases. Once retrieved, the vessel shatters. Now, I can only recount these matters to three more people." With the barrier gone, Wei Yuan probed through indirect questions about peripheral matters, finally piecing together the rules governing this phenomenon. Speaking of these secrets to one person counted as one use; otherwise, if Jiumu assembled several hundred thousand people to make a public proclamation, how could it remain a secret? The mighty beings of antiquity would never have left such a loophole. Probing into hidden secrets meant crossing those ancient figures, and generally speaking, anyone not tired of living would steer clear of doing so. This time, shielded by the Desolate Realm's barrier, and with Yaolan being a Heavenly Shaman who already knew most of what Jiumu said, the final causal settling had only broken a single vase. Wei Yuan turned the subject back toward matters concerning the calamities. So long as it did not touch upon those few great beings of the Liao Clan, they could still discuss it in roundabout terms. Back then, the Shaman Clan had not yet been particularly powerful. After being struck by the calamity, the Ancestral Shaman had no choice but to forcibly merge with the Heavenly Dao. Jiumu vaguely suspected that this fusion had likely left behind lasting complications. Yet the Liao Clan had also paid a staggering price: all three great beings capable of rivaling the Ancestral Shaman had fallen into deep slumber. Seizing the opportunity, the Shaman Clan mobilized in full force and mounted a ferocious offensive, seizing over a hundred thousand li of territory from the Liao domain. Converting these lands into the Wu domain weakened the Liao domain's power accordingly, stripping the Liao of at least two immortals' worth of strength. With the Liao domain's supreme figures asleep, the remaining immortals were hard-pressed to resist the Heavenly Shamans' onslaught, taking a beating that lasted for thousands of years. Later, the Shaman Clan turned the human race to their side, supplying key resources to enlighten the human race's first Human Sovereign. The First Human Sovereign attained the status of Immortal Lord the moment he stepped into immortality, coordinating with the Shaman Clan to deal the Liao Clan a devastating blow. From that point on, the human race achieved independence. The second attempt to divert the calamity likewise failed due to the human race's refusal to cooperate. According to Jiumu, the Human Sovereign had readily agreed at the time, even sending four of his sons and two of his daughters to the Liao domain as hostages. In doing so, he won the Liao Clan's trust and gained access to the workings of the calamity. Yet at the critical juncture, the Human Sovereign did something unforeseen, causing the Liao Clan's effort to drive the calamity to fail. From then on, the Golden Feather Realm appeared within the Liao domain. After that battle, the Liao Clan was furious. They chopped the Human Sovereign's children into mincemeat, brewed it into a broth, and sent it to the Human Sovereign. In the presence of the emissary, the Human Sovereign ate a large bowlful and even commended the Liao Clan's culinary skill. This latter episode was recorded in the human history books, but the reason given was entirely different. The histories claimed that the Liao Clan had ambushed and captured the Human Sovereign's children, seeking to coerce the Human Sovereign into reducing the human race once again to a vassal state of the Liao. The Human Sovereign refused outright, laughing as he partook of the broth. Thereafter, a great war broke out between the humans and the Liao; united by shared enmity, the human race secured a momentous victory.