The carved illustrations on the bronze plates brought an intense shock to Zhang Yuanqing, sending his thoughts exploding and stirring a tempest within his heart. In remote antiquity, extraterrestrial meteors had plummeted onto the earth. The first humans to come into contact with the meteorites acquired supernatural power, thenceforth becoming gods in the eyes of mortals.
This was entirely different from what Zhang Yuanqing had imagined. In his understanding, ancient gods were beings who comprehended the profound mysteries of heaven and earth, created cultivation techniques, harnessed the spiritual power of the world, and step by step became almighty figures in the eyes of ordinary people.
Who could have thought that the powerhouses revered as gods in antiquity were merely a group of lucky people who had gotten hold of meteorite fragments?
Even as Zhang Yuanqing felt his illusions shatter, an intense vigilance and awe rose within him. Where had that meteor shower come from?
After a long silence, he turned to look at the beauty beside him, only to find her gazing unblinkingly at the illustration, completely lost in thought.
Evidently, the contents of the image had shocked her just as deeply.
"Palace Mistress, what is shown in these carvings..." Zhang Yuanqing hesitated, then asked, "How credible is it?"
The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter said softly, "If I saw this anywhere else, I would be skeptical. But anything left behind by Empress Wa shouldn't be wrong. Yuanshi, Empress Wa's level is far higher than you imagine. She commanded the ultimate powers of two professions—Musician and Scholar—and held the supreme status in myth and legend."
Zhang Yuanqing nodded. "Truly unbelievable..."
"Palace Mistress, do you think the meteor shower in the carvings might be the source of us all—the source of ancient cultivators and spirit realm walkers?" He voiced a speculation that would definitely cause an ordinary walker's sanity to plummet. "Could the supernatural powers on our planet have been brought by extraterrestrial meteors?"
The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter pondered for a long time, then said, "The contents of the carvings are more symbolic. What descended upon the earth might not necessarily have been meteorites... I'm actually more curious about who dropped the meteorites."
An alien civilization? Higher-dimensional beings?
To resolve this puzzle, the two looked toward the next bronze plate.
They examined four in a row, all depicting the "gods" leading mortals to resist nature, reproduce, and thrive.
Having acquired supernatural power, the gods taught mankind how to use fire, redirected rivers to irrigate crops, instructed mortals in observing the celestial bodies at night, formulated calendars and solar terms, and so on.
Single-handedly, they guided a hunting civilization into an agrarian one.
Zhang Yuanqing suddenly spoke up, puzzled. "Strange. Why are there no evil professions?"
The relief carvings depicted nothing but thriving prosperity and harmonious scenes of racial propagation and development.
If the source of spirit realm walkers was these meteorites, there should have been evil professions as well.
"Right here." The Palace Mistress's gaze shifted to one of the final two bronze plates.
Zhang Yuanqing hurried over and focused his attention on the carved relief.
Just like the very first plate, a meteor shower rained down from a sky churning with black clouds, accompanied by raging flames, gouging through the earth.
Terrifying fissures cracked open across the land, subterranean fire and magma spouting out. Animals and humans mutated one after another into towering, gruesome monsters that ravaged the land and slaughtered living beings.
Against the horrific backdrop of a landscape strewn with corpses, a woman glowing all over soared into the sky.
The final image depicted the dark clouds dispersing, the sun shining brightly, and two streams of flowing light falling from the heavens.
Zhang Yuanqing drew in a sharp breath and quickly deciphered it:
"This should be the second descent of a meteor shower. Unlike the first, this one brought destruction and disaster. The meteorites corrupted a massive number of animals and humans, mutating them into monsters and causing unimaginable catastrophe."
The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter nodded.
"The power brought by the second meteor descent must belong to the evil faction. First, the first meteor shower fell, giving birth to the orderly professions; then, the second meteor shower fell, creating bloodthirsty monsters..."
She pursed her lips, her voice turning hushed. "Doesn't it look like someone was using Earth as an experiment?"
If the first meteor descent had created both evil and orderly "gods," that might have been an accident.
Yet this orderly deployment of two meteor showers—first building up, then destroying—seemed a bit too deliberate to be called a coincidence. It looked far more like an intentional design.
*So the truth behind the birth of orderly and evil professions is that someone conducted an experiment on Earth? What a spine-chilling hypothesis...* Zhang Yuanqing continued to interpret:
"And Empress Wa, unable to bear the slaughter of all living beings under heaven, sacrificed herself to resolve the disaster. In myth and legend, when the heavens collapsed and the earth caved in, Nüwa smelted stones to mend the sky, after which the world was at peace and never suffered another world-destroying catastrophe... Hiss, maybe what she mended wasn't the sky, but rather getting rid of the experimenters from beyond the heavens?"
"A bold hypothesis." The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter nodded; she had been thinking along the same lines.
"Looking at it this way, Empress Wa's status is rather terrifying. Look, none of those other 'gods' appear in the carvings, only Empress Wa. That means she was the only one capable of resolving this disaster; the other gods simply weren't qualified. Well, we also can't rule out the possibility that the carvings she left behind deliberately glorified herself..." Zhang Yuanqing's train of thought grew clearer and clearer.
His mind whirred at high speed as he sifted through useful information. Suddenly, a thought struck him, and he blurted out:
"A world-ending disaster!!
"I just remembered something, Palace Mistress. The predecessor of the Xiaoyao Organization, the Xiaoyao Sect, once recorded a world-ending catastrophe. Could it have been this very one that Empress Wa went through?"
He did not explain what the Xiaoyao Sect was; the Palace Mistress definitely knew. This woman's understanding of the Xiaoyao Organization surely far surpassed his own.
"You actually found out about the Xiaoyao Sect." The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter smiled. Staring at the content on the bronze slab, she nodded. "Deducing from the available information, yes."
Zhang Yuanqing said, "So is the enemy in the war prophesied by the Compass of Light the 'experimenters'? Well, let's temporarily use 'experimenters' to refer to the ones who dropped the meteorites.
"Combining this with what's shown in the carvings, we can interpret the prophecy of the Compass of Light: a major catastrophe similar to that ancient era will occur again, and evil power will destroy the entire world.
"Yet what the Compass of Light spoke of was the sun, moon, and stars returning to their positions, and the pivotal profession is the Night Walker, rather than the Musician and Scholar controlled by Empress Wa. That's very odd."
The Palace Mistress pondered for a moment and said, "Perhaps the one who plays the role of savior next is a certain Night Walker. The Compass of Light saw the future, which is why it gave that prophecy."
*Is this why all the major organizations are investing in Night Walkers? Do they want to cultivate a savior? No, it's understandable for the orderly professions to do that, but why is Asura also investing in Night Walkers? Shouldn't the evil professions make destroying the world their mission?...*
Just as Zhang Yuanqing unraveled one mystery, he plunged into a new perplexity.
Moreover, an earlier speculation of his could now be proven false—that spirit realm walkers were the norm.
When he first learned of the world-ending records passed down by the Xiaoyao Sect, he had guessed that ancient cultivators were not the norm, but had evolved from survivors after the catastrophe.
Cultivators before the catastrophe might have been just like today's spirit realm walkers.
However, the carvings now refuted that conjecture. In Empress Wa's era, there clearly was no such thing as the Spirit Realm.
Evidently, the Spirit Realm really was a modern product.
"Wait, something's not right..." Zhang Yuanqing suddenly said.
"What's not right?" The Palace Mistress cast him an inquiring glance.
Zhang Yuanqing analyzed, "Empress Wa doesn't make sense, and neither do the experimenters... Palace Mistress, if you were an experimenter, would you deploy a power capable of fighting back against yourself? Empress Wa was unreasonably strong. As an ancient cultivator who grew up by coming into contact with meteorites, she actually took down the experimenters? Could our guess be wrong, and there are no experimenters at all?"
The Palace Mistress pursed her lips, thought it over, and shook her head. "Things certainly aren't that simple. Two carvings are brief and can't record much information. It's too early to draw a conclusion now."
With that, both lapsed into silence, speaking no further as they slowly digested this shocking information, before turning to the final bronze plate.
The content carved upon it was relatively simple, consisting of two images in total:
First: Atop a colossal bronze tree perched ten miniature suns, hovering over ten thick branches like suns hung from the treetops.
Second: When they left the boughs, they transformed into ten Three-legged Golden Crows.
"So Three-legged Golden Crows truly perched upon the Fusang tree in antiquity." The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter looked at it for a few moments. "Another myth and legend verified."
Having said that, she turned to look at her little gigolo beside her, only to see him staring blankly at the first image, brows knit tightly.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"The suns on the branches look somewhat familiar. I've seen them..." Zhang Yuanqing said in an uncertain tone. "The miniature sun the Demon Lord used to counterbalance the Fallen Holy Grail was very similar to them."
Of course, it was only a visual resemblance; he couldn't confirm whether they were identical.
After all, this was merely a carving, devoid of actual aura.
Under her mask, the Palace Mistress's lovely eyes darted as she pressed a finger to her lips, striking a pensive pose. "Empress Wa nurtured this Bronze Sacred Tree seemingly to provide a perching place for the ten Golden Crows. To be valued so highly by Empress Wa, the level of the Golden Crows must be extraordinarily high. I actually think it's precisely the miniature sun you spoke of."
"Empress Wa was truly extraordinary to gather so many terrifying items," Zhang Yuanqing marveled.
Soaring into the sky alone to resolve a world-ending catastrophe, mastering the supreme objects of two professions—Musician and Scholar—and raising the ten sun crows within a blessed grotto-heaven.
No wonder Empress Wa was said to be the only figure in myth and legend confirmed to have truly existed.
Furthermore, the Demon Lord had once said that the miniature sun was an item of the highest tier in the Night Walker profession, and the miniature suns were the Golden Crows. Following this logic, gathering all ten sun crows was equivalent to commanding the "sun" from the Compass of Light?
Just as Zhang Yuanqing's imagination ran wild, he suddenly heard the Palace Master of Halting Slaughter let out a delighted "Ah!"
"The Bronze Sacred Tree was where the Golden Crows perched, scorched by the divine power of the sun year in and year out. It must have absorbed their power. Yuanshi, this Palace Mistress will give you a gift."
With that, she hoisted her skirts and dashed out of the hollow of the tree.
Zhang Yuanqing had no idea what she planned to do, but he followed closely behind, rushing out of the cave together.
Coming outside, he saw the Palace Mistress riding the wind away, her skirts and hair fluttering like Chang'e flying to the moon, landing on the lowest branch.
Zhang Yuanqing imitated the President and snapped his fingers: "Starlight Concealment."
Transforming into dreamy starlight, he appeared beside the Palace Mistress and asked, "What are you going to do?"
Even if the trunk of the Bronze Sacred Tree had been scorched by the Golden Crows and become material infused with the divine power of the sun, they still couldn't haul away this heaven-propping giant tree.
Last time he explored Takamagahara with the executives of the Thousand Cranes Group, Zhang Yuanqing had tested the hardness of the bronze tree—it was indestructible.
Nor did he believe that a sacred tree refined by Empress Wa to house the Golden Crows could be damaged by a Dominator. If a Dominator could accomplish that, the ten sun crows symbolizing the pinnacle of the sun's divine power would have incinerated the tree long ago.
In a sense, this sacred tree was definitely a treasure, only one they couldn't claim or utilize at their current stage.
"I can make it give birth," the Palace Mistress smiled mischievously.
*What?*
Zhang Yuanqing's head filled with question marks.
The Palace Mistress offered no explanation. She reached out, and red strings erupted, spreading densely across the trunk like a red carpet with no visible end.
The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter said:
"Gestating is the core skill of an Arbiter of Fate. So long as I wish it, I can make anything in this world pregnant, and then through the Nurturing skill, bring the 'child' safely into the world.
"The child will take away part of the mother's power, causing them to drop in level. You encountered the Holy Infant in the Sea of Yashan, so you should understand this intimately."
"Intimately, and I never want to experience it ever again." Recalling the scene from that day, Zhang Yuanqing still felt lingering terror, his lower abdomen twitching.
She gave an "Mm." "I will have the bronze tree give birth to the divine power of the sun."
As she spoke, Zhang Yuanqing felt the branch beneath his feet begin to swell, just like his rapidly bulging lower abdomen had back then.
Immediately afterward, the "red carpet" blanketing the branch bulged upward, sending up sizzling plumes of greenish smoke. A fist-sized ball of golden flame burned through the red carpet, slowly floating out and hovering midair.
The surrounding temperature surged rapidly, warping the air as suffocating waves of heat rolled over them.
Zhang Yuanqing felt his facial skin begin to burn, while his eyebrows and hair swiftly singed and curled.
The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter hurriedly brought out the Demon Refining Pot, opened the lid, and drew the golden flame inside.
Then, repeating the trick, she made all ten branches conceive and give birth, wringing out the divine power of the sun stored within the tree and taking it into the Demon Refining Pot piece by piece.
"This divine power of the sun is top-tier material. You can flatter Empress Sandao and present it to her, or beg her to refine it into items for you. The only problem is that its aura is too domineering and cannot be preserved in nature for long. Ordinary items can't store it, so it can only be kept in the Demon Refining Pot." The Palace Mistress wound red strings around the Demon Refining Pot, slung it onto her back, and said with a beaming smile:
"I'll hold onto it for you first."
*Why do I feel the sorrow of a middle-aged man who earns money only to have his wife confiscate every penny?...* Zhang Yuanqing muttered inwardly.
Yet what she said made total sense, leaving him with no room to argue.
*Having reaped genuine Life Essence, a substitute clay doll, and ten wisps of divine power of the sun, I've made a massive profit. When I need these things, I can just ask her for them...* Thinking this, Zhang Yuanqing cheered up again.
Next, Zhang Yuanqing returned to the hollow of the bronze tree and used Little Red Riding Hood to store the six bronze plates.
Fu Qingyang was still waiting for his news. Although he hadn't said it aloud, Zhang Yuanqing could tell the boss was filled with curiosity and a desire to explore Takamagahara.
The information on these bronze plates was enough to shock even the Money Prince.
"Let's go!"
He couldn't wait to return to the country.
***
Du, Soup-Brewing Province.
His belly stuffed full of chicken soup and congee, Xiahou Aotian bid farewell to Brother Red Chicken and took a taxi to the old town.
Following the route Brother Red Chicken had given him, he navigated through a web of crisscrossing alleys, gradually leaving the commercial shops behind until he arrived at a secluded alleyway.
Heading dozens of meters deeper into the alley, he spotted a small convenience store bearing an archway plaque that read "Wanbao House."
Xiahou Aotian squinted. His eyesight pierced through the illusion, seeing the scene inside the shop.
—The illusion at the shop entrance was merely at the Transcendent stage.
When there was a vast gap in rank, even someone like him who didn't understand illusions could see through the falsehood with the naked eye.
"This is the place."
Xiahou Aotian retrieved a human skin mask thin as a cicada's wing and gently draped it over his face. The loose human skin touched his facial features and swiftly tightened, warping his facial contours.
In the end, it turned into an ordinary face.
Brother Red Chicken.
"The ordinary Brother Red Chicken won't draw attention wherever he goes; he's a born side character." Satisfied, he touched his face and was about to enter when he suddenly remembered that Brother Red Chicken had also attended Qinfeng Academy.
Thus, he hurriedly rubbed the skin on his face and changed into another appearance.
This time, it was Xiahou Tianwen, who had been dead for several months.
A dead man was the safest.
Xiahou Aotian was just about to enter the shop when he realized that although Xiahou Tianwen was dead, he was still a member of the Xiahou family. Wouldn't disguising as him be practically protesting too much?
So he rubbed his face vigorously again, altering his appearance.
Yet as he rubbed and rubbed, he froze. Who should he disguise as?
He didn't seem to have any friends.
Normally he didn't think much of it, but when he needed to disguise himself as someone whose facial contours he was familiar with, he realized he couldn't think of more than a handful of acquaintances.
Yuanshi Tianzun had indeed been showing up in front of him frequently lately, but as a member of the loot-splitting team, he certainly couldn't use his face. By the same token, the other three were ruled out as well.
Just as Xiahou Aotian was racking his brains, a lazy female voice drifted out from the shop:
"Friend outside, quit your monkey show and come in."
Chapter 451