The Water Blade Art was a Dao art created by the human ancestors, its earliest origins preceding even the emergence of the first Immortal Monarch. In the beginning, the Water Blade Art was actually a water-controlling art, a technique used to draw water to irrigate fields. Later on, people began using it to spray and sweep courtyards during major ceremonies, festivals, and sacrificial rites, and its use gradually spread.
The first book in Wei Yuan's hands recounted this very history.
Naturally, an Immortal Monarch would never write a book in a dry, monotonous fashion; along the way, he had included several corresponding spells from those early years as well. Thus, Wei Yuan also learned the Water Drawing Art, the Water Spraying Art, and the Spring Gushing Art.
Wei Yuan exercised his patience and flipped open the second volume. In the blink of an eye, he finished reading it, and his expression turned somewhat strange.
The second volume described the earliest iterations of the Water Blade Art. When the ancients used the Water Spraying Art, in order to clear stubborn grime, they made the stream of water narrower and narrower, faster and faster. Once it breached a certain limit, the water transformed into a blade, capable of severing stone and parting metal.
The entire book detailed the Dao art structure of this most primitive version of the Water Blade Art. The Dao art structure of the contemporary Water Blade Art Wei Yuan had learned was exceedingly delicate and ingenious, its core no larger than a bean. The so-called learning of a spell merely meant memorizing the entire Dao art structure, constructing it without the slightest deviation, and then channeling Dao power into it to unleash one or several water blades.
As for why the Dao art structure was shaped that way, it was just like one plus one equals two; everyone assumed it was simply how things ought to be, and no one ever asked why.
The more Dao power was channeled into the Water Blade Art, the greater its power. However, a Dao art structure had an upper limit; once it reached a certain threshold, it could no longer contain more Dao power. Channeling any more would cause it to collapse and explode, harming the caster's Origin Soul instead.
Yet in the two books before Wei Yuan, the Dao art structure was astonishingly complex—it was as massive as a house!
Even with Wei Yuan's formidable divine sense, he had to read through it three or four times before he could truly memorize it. One had to know that after turning ten, when his cultivation had made some modest progress, Wei Yuan had only needed to read through a ten-thousand-word historical record once to memorize it word for word. At the time, five or six of his classmates had achieved a similar standard, while the few dullest in the entire class had required three readings to commit it to memory.
And so, through dedicated effort, Wei Yuan learned a somewhat potent Rushing Water Blade Art—it was just a bit overly grand and unwieldy.
A faint sense of unease rose within Wei Yuan's heart. He opened the fourth volume, read through it slowly, and then started from the beginning once more. Only after repeating this process five times did he understand about eighty percent of it.
Wei Yuan knew that the remaining twenty percent was the real essence.
Wei Yuan composed himself and picked up the fifth volume. This time, thirty percent of it eluded his understanding. That proportion seemed small, but Wei Yuan knew his own situation: basically, everything in the book that wasn't filler went straight over his head.
These two volumes explained the Dao art structure of the Rushing Water Blade Art in meticulous detail, dissecting it into dozens of components large and small. The fourth volume pointed out that certain structures were actually useless, serving nothing more than a decorative purpose. At this point, comprehension dawned upon Wei Yuan. No wonder he had felt the Dao art structure of this spell was so majestic and magnificent—it even incorporated patterns of birds, beasts, and insects, looking rather handsome.
Decorative structures were not merely useless; they also successfully drove up the difficulty of casting this Dao art. To put it vividly, this spell had originally been something a disciple from a fourth-tier sect like the Red Tide Sect could learn, but with these embellishments added, it required a high cultivator from the Palace of Grand Beginning to comprehend it.
Immortal Monarch Pei Hai speculated that in that ancient era of master-disciple lineages, where teachings were passed down by word of mouth without being written down, these decorative structures were likely devised by masters as a safeguard against their disciples.
That way, it was perfectly normal for a disciple to spend decades studying without mastering it. When the master was on his deathbed, if the disciple was still dutiful and filial, the master would teach him the Dao art stripped of its decorative structures. If the disciple proved unfilial, he would be left to live out his days clutching this grand yet useless Dao art.
However, unexpected storms could strike from a clear sky. A master of some forgotten generation must have died prematurely before he had time to pass down the secret, and thus the Dao art structure laden with numerous decorations was handed down through the ages. Still, this Dao art structure did have its merits: it looked aesthetically pleasing, and one could tell at a glance that it was hard to learn, exuding an authentic flair of immortal arts.
What Wei Yuan could not understand was why the Immortal Monarch considered certain structures decorative when they clearly served functional purposes.
The fifth volume specifically addressed three small structures, asserting that one could be removed and two could be improved, detailing the underlying principles at length. After a single read, Wei Yuan mastered the improved version of the Rushing Water Blade Art. Its power increased by ten percent—the improvement was immediate and tangible.
Just like before, Wei Yuan had learned the spell, yet he had not understood the principles in the slightest. An Immortal Monarch truly was an Immortal Monarch; over the simple matter of whether a single stream of Dao power should curve upward or downward, he could actually write several thousand words.
Fortunately, out of consideration for studious descendants, Immortal Monarch Tinghai had left a sentence at the end of the book: 'If anything remains unclear, one may redeem my humble work, Principles of Dao Art Structures.'
At this moment, Wei Yuan felt only a slight ripple in his heart. He immediately sacrificed Nether Soil to redeem the Dao scriptures. Yet this Principles of Dao Art Structures actually required three consecutive redemptions to obtain the complete set.
Looking at the full twenty volumes before him, Wei Yuan opened the first one with the mindset that he could only die once.
This volume served as the general outline, narrating the evolution of Dao art structures from ancient to medieval times, listing thirty-six core structures and seventy-two unorthodox structures. If one could understand all twenty books, Wei Yuan ought to be able to learn a hundred and eight Dao arts—the most essential early Dao arts of the human race were all gathered here.
If he could understand them, that is...
In truth, whether he understood them or not, he could still learn the Dao arts, but Wei Yuan was unwilling to leave it at that.
These twenty books had already moved beyond the Water Blade Art, beginning to explain the foundational principles of Dao art structures, drawing somewhat close to the Great Dao.
Wei Yuan's mind became calm as still water. He flipped through them book by book, simply reading through without seeking deep comprehension. After finishing them, Wei Yuan discovered that, sure enough, he still needed to redeem four more sets of books.
Wei Yuan sacrificed Nether Soil and redeemed the Dao scriptures, bringing ten more books before him.
Wei Yuan opened them and saw that books were prized for quality rather than quantity. Any single volume among these ten was harder than all twenty preceding volumes combined.
These books started from the principles of heaven, earth, and the five elements, explaining the essence of Dao power, how to construct Dao art structures with Dao power, and various techniques for building Dao art structures.
Although Wei Yuan did not understand, he marveled inwardly: this was the Great Dao. As expected, the closer one drew to the Great Dao, the more difficult it became. The techniques discussed later were merely practical arts, not worth mentioning compared to the Dao itself.
Yet all the upcoming books to be redeemed were further explanations of those practical arts.
Sacrifice Nether Soil, redeem Dao scriptures.
Then Wei Yuan discovered that practical arts were not simple in the slightest. Just how difficult they were, Wei Yuan could not say—in any case, they were exceedingly, brutally difficult. This time, among the thirty-odd volumes, not only was there no repetition, but there was also no fluff whatsoever. Every bit of hard substance left Wei Yuan completely baffled, without even knowing why he could not understand it.
For instance, the principles governing the internal structural changes when a water blade transformed into an ice blade made Wei Yuan begin to doubt the entire world, giving him an instinctive urge to smash everything within reach just to inspect the pieces.
At this moment, the immortal laurel branch was quietly planted beside Jade Mountain, enjoying the peaceful passage of time.
Then Wei Yuan saw that cursed sentence once more: 'If anything remains unclear, one may redeem my humble work...'
Sacrifice Nether Soil, redeem Dao scriptures.
Sacrifice Nether Soil, redeem Dao scriptures.
Sacrifice Nether Soil, redeem Dao scriptures...
With the new Dao scriptures in hand, Wei Yuan finally realized that the Dao of technique was not yet considered difficult; the extreme of technique was where true difficulty lay.
For example, in one volume explaining how to elevate the power of a single water blade to the absolute peak, the Immortal Monarch had specifically researched the flight process of a water blade.
In the Immortal Monarch's eyes, at that stage, wind was water, and water was wind. When the water blade reached extreme speeds, the wind became an enormous obstacle. The entire book was dedicated to how wind flowed around both sides of a water blade, what kind of forces it would exert, what shape of water blade was best suited to piercing the wind, and even how to harness these forces to alter the water blade's trajectory, and so on and so forth.
These several volumes were all written after Immortal Monarch Tinghai had attained immortality.
By this point, Wei Yuan had expended over twenty thousand merit points and redeemed more than two hundred and seventy Dao scriptures, filling half the room. Wei Yuan suddenly realized that these two hundred-plus Dao scriptures were a complete Great Dao of Ascending to Immortality.
The Immortal Monarch had withheld nothing, laying out his entire Great Dao in full before everyone. Any disciple of the Palace of Grand Beginning with enough merit points could redeem them, and not a single book in the entire set required heavenly merits. It was just that everyone across the Palace of Grand Beginning chose to turn a blind eye, never uttering so much as a single word about it.
After all, being inferior in strength was no disgrace, but being inferior in intellect was truly humiliating. Walking the path of Immortal Monarch Tinghai made it far too easy for one's Dao heart to waver and for inner demons to breed.
Wei Yuan silently set down the volumes on the extreme of technique in his hands, arranging them neatly, and then bowed respectfully to the entire collection of books. Before this mountain of Dao scriptures, Wei Yuan felt as though he lacked the thing called a brain, fit only to serve as a mount for an immortal.
He suddenly remembered Xu Wenwu boasting endlessly about the so-called advanced mathematics and advanced physics of his world—compared to this Immortal Monarch's Dao path, they were probably nothing to write home about.
Only after composing himself did Wei Yuan begin to reflect on why he had ended up redeeming an entire Great Dao of Ascending to Immortality. In the beginning, he had merely wanted to learn an advanced Dao art.
Had he learned Water Blade Storm? Yes, he had. Had he understood it? No, he had not.
Leaving things half-understood was a major taboo in immortal cultivation. That was why Wei Yuan, driven to comprehend it, had kept redeeming books all the way until he was forced to face the cold reality that his intellect was simply inferior.
Wei Yuan suddenly realized that perhaps there were countless other advanced Dao arts similar to Water Blade Storm.
Now Wei Yuan understood where Immortal Monarch Tinghai's resources for attaining immortality had come from.
At this moment, within the Palace of Grand Beginning, who knew how many seniors had a bookshelf in their studies specifically set aside for these Dao scriptures? Wei Yuan was certain that the vast majority of them were brand-new.
Chapter 226