The Grand Dao

"Eighteenth-rank Artifact Crafting: capable of forging pinnacle immortal artifacts!" Yaoguang absorbed the torrent of craft and insight brought by the rapid rise of his artifact-crafting level. At this moment, it felt as though he were a Dao Lord, or even an immortal who held supreme authority, spending boundless eons day after day, year after year, studying the forging and refinement of immortal artifacts. He analyzed origin immortal arts one after another until he understood them down to their very core. He completely decrypted the fundamental essence of one Grand Dao after another. He even saw straight through the barriers separating one origin immortal art from another. Ten thousand years, a hundred thousand years, a million years, ten million years... In this state, time seemed to turn into a meaningless symbol. Just as when someone devotes every shred of heart and soul into a single task, they lose all awareness of time's passage. During that period, he had been entirely immersed in such a state. Until one day, he finally grasped the true nature of the Grand Dao... "It is control," Yaoguang murmured. "The essence of the Grand Dao is rules! And the ultimate purpose of these rules is control! Controlling all living beings beneath the Dao, ensuring that every shift and movement across all sentient life operates strictly within the framework known as the Grand Dao, preventing them from ever straying beyond it!" The Three Thousand Grand Daos were an unbreakable web woven from three thousand different directions and three thousand distinct dimensions, asserting dominion over every life within its span. It compelled their birth, aging, illness, death, thought, consciousness, patterns of existence, and even their destinies to conform to the rules set within this vast web. So-called Dao Lords, so-called immortals, Immortal Venerables, and Immortal Kings—all were merely nodes within this mechanism of control. The true reason for their existence was nothing else... They were like tribulations stationed along the paths of all beings who sought to break through this web, preventing them from shattering the rules. And the currency governing this tribulation was shares of the Dao. To those already occupying high positions, if your share grew, theirs naturally diminished. Under such conditions, unless a superior was willing to sacrifice their own interests to elevate a subordinate, or even prepare to be toppled by them later on, the impasse could never be broken. Yet such a thing would never happen. It ran contrary to nature. It defied the ultimate purpose of life's existence—survival. Immortal artifacts, however, took an alternative path. Not every Immortal King or Immortal Venerable constantly maintained a state of all-out resonance with the Grand Dao. When Immortal Kings and Immortal Venerables were idle, their shares of the Grand Dao effectively lay dormant. The nature of an immortal artifact was to use naturally formed primordial materials—innate substances nurtured into existence by the Dao itself—as a foundation to tap into those unused, unsummoned Daos, thereby unleashing combat power capable of bolstering Immortal Venerables or even Immortal Kings. Because the primordial materials used to forge immortal artifacts were themselves emanations of the Grand Dao, they possessed the authority to resonate with it; they simply lacked the absolute control wielded by Immortal Kings and Immortal Venerables. Yet Immortal Kings and Immortal Venerables did not possess perfect mastery over the Grand Dao either. It was this gap that gave immortal artifacts a reason to exist. The relationship between a pinnacle immortal artifact and an Immortal King... Was much like that between a bank and a depositor. Although the funds belonged to the depositor, whenever the depositor was not using them, the bank was free to deploy and allocate that money as it pleased. The only difference was that compared to an Immortal King... An immortal artifact of the same rank was inevitably at a disadvantage. "No wonder artifact crafting has always been branded an unorthodox path. These methods truly struggle to prove the Grand Dao and can hardly grace the halls of true orthodoxy." As Yaoguang spoke, he thought of his own Human Immortal path. Looking at it now... That path also carried a hint of the unorthodox. However, using three immortal artifacts to replace essence, qi, and spirit made a cultivator far stronger than typical practitioners of unorthodox arts. It allowed them to more easily triumph over mighty opponents of the same rank, and by defeating them, claim greater shares of the Dao to advance themselves. Therefore, provided one possessed sufficient artifact-crafting skills, the early stages of the Human Immortal path were unquestionably smoother than the Heavenly Immortal or Divine Immortal paths. The only caveat... Was that the hope of becoming a Dao Ancestor was vastly lower than through those two paths. "Before attaining Dao Ancestor, the Five Classes of Immortals have no hierarchy of superiority or inferiority; there is only what suits oneself." Yaoguang composed his thoughts and focused his attention on the Dao Fruits born from reaching perfection in sixteenth-rank and seventeenth-rank Artifact Crafting. "Dao Master." Yaoguang glanced at the Dao Fruit granted upon perfecting the sixteenth rank. Dao Master: Nurturing Artifacts Through the Dao. By bestowing a Dao artifact upon another Dao Lord or immortal to wield, the artifact could rapidly learn and grow as they used it, eventually evolving into a pinnacle Dao artifact, a semi-immortal artifact, or even a true immortal artifact. This kind of innate divine ability... "Doesn't seem particularly useful," he murmured softly. Then a thought struck him. The Golden Book of the Grand Dao! Had the Golden Book of the Grand Dao continually transformed through this very mechanism, reaching its current state of being infinitely close to an immortal artifact? Was it only because it had never belonged to an owner of the immortal tier that it had remained stuck at the pinnacle semi-immortal artifact stage? Yaoguang estimated that even if he were not a Dao Lord of Void or Time, so long as he wielded the Golden Book of the Grand Dao for a few decades or a century with his Immortal Venerable and immortal-level comprehension of those two paths, its deep foundation would allow it to evolve into a genuine immortal artifact. "If I forge a pinnacle Dao artifact from immortal artifact materials, then given enough time, it could eventually evolve into a semi-immortal artifact... It would serve as an extra trump card for future generations, but for me..." It was of little practical value. Yaoguang shook his head and turned his gaze toward the Dao Fruit born from perfecting the seventeenth rank. With just a single glance, his expression grew solemn. "Dao Sacrifice!?" Using the blood of Dao Lords to sacrifice and temper a Dao artifact, driving its evolution!? For an ordinary Dao artifact, slaying ten Dao Lords could sacrifice it straight into an immortal artifact. If it were a pinnacle Dao artifact crafted with immortal artifact materials, or even a semi-immortal artifact, sacrificing Dao Lords would shorten the time required to evolve into an immortal artifact even further. "This is... an evil path!" Yaoguang felt a chill in his heart. Sacrificing Dao Lords to temper an artifact—if this wasn't an evil path, what was? Yet his thoughts immediately turned to the cultivation of Dao Lords... A Dao Lord could only obtain the shares needed to advance by slaying other Dao Lords or waiting for Dao Lords of the same path to die. How was that any different from an evil path? In truth... The entire cultivation system of this world had already warped from the moment one reached Dao Lord. "Dao Sacrifice." Yaoguang looked at this divine ability Dao Fruit with a conflicted expression. After a long while, he turned his gaze toward the Human Sovereign Sword. With his artifact-crafting expertise now at the eighteenth rank, he could tell at a glance that the forging methods used for this pinnacle Dao artifact were crude. If he spent thirty to forty years slightly reshaping it, he could elevate this pinnacle Dao artifact into a semi-immortal artifact. If he supplemented it with other materials, spending a century or two to elevate the reshaped semi-immortal sword into a true immortal artifact was by no means out of reach. Right now... He possessed the ability to accomplish this. However... If he used the method of Dao Sacrifice... One or two Dao Lords would be enough to push the artifact into becoming a semi-immortal artifact. To evolve it into a true immortal artifact... He would only need to sacrifice six or seven more Dao Lords. Moreover, they did not even need to be Dao Lords of the same origin; any Dao Lord would suffice. Because... The Three Thousand Grand Daos were a single interwoven web that constructed the entire universe, inherently sharing common ground. After a lengthy pause, Yaoguang suppressed the stray thoughts in his mind and patiently began refining the artifact. If a Dao Lord crossed him... Such as those from the Ten Directions God Race or the Six Demon Sects, his blade would show no mercy. Yet to deliberately hunt down other Dao Lords purely to sacrifice them for a sword... He could not yet bring himself to cross that internal line. "The reason many people cannot scale the heights is not a lack of ability; in the end, it is their conscience." Yaoguang regarded the matter with calm detachment. "Still, with gain comes loss. By preserving their kindness and gaining peace of mind, they must endure physical suffering and tribulations. Meanwhile, those who cast aside conscience and stop at nothing attain physical luxury, yet struggle to rid themselves of internal torment... It is merely a difference in choice. There is no absolute right or wrong, no clear division between justice and evil." Nothing in this world was ever entirely flawless. Setting the thought aside, Yaoguang resumed reforging the Human Sovereign Sword. Furthermore, he intended to reforge the Wuji Sword, the Endless Tower, and the Bahuang Sky Mirror as well. ... Time drifted by. A century passed in the blink of an eye. A hundred years ago, the signs of the Dao Contention had already surfaced on Beihai Star, growing fiercer by the day. Yet following Yaoguang's unrivaled display in slaying four God Venerables of the God race and seven unaffiliated Void Dao Lords, all of Beihai Star had fallen into a strange, uncanny calm. Even though barely four to five centuries remained before the Gate of the Immortal Realm opened—a period when Dao Lords would normally settle old scores to avoid betrayal at the critical juncture of the contention... Beihai Star was astonishingly peaceful. Over the course of a century, aside from a few clueless Dao Lords clashing briefly, there were practically no life-or-death struggles between Dao Lords. In fact, whenever a skirmish broke out, before genuine fury could even ignite, other Dao Lords would step in to mediate. Their method of persuasion... Was remarkably simple. They recounted in painstaking detail the glorious battle records achieved by Yaoguang and Dao Lord Penglai in recent years. Instantly, anyone who had intended to flaunt their might as a Dao Lord on Beihai Star thoroughly behaved themselves. ... "The Human Sovereign Sword is complete," Yaoguang murmured. Looking at the semi-immortal artifact capable of drawing upon even greater origin power, he felt remarkably at ease. With eighteenth-rank artifact-crafting mastery paired with cultivation bordering on the immortal tier and an authentic Immortal Venerable realm, refining these semi-immortal artifacts—far more intricate though they were than pinnacle Dao artifacts—felt almost like a leisurely exercise. Rather than forging artifacts, it was more like taking a vacation. Over this century, not only had he elevated both the Human Sovereign Sword and the Wuji Sword into semi-immortal artifacts, but he had also reforged his own three semi-immortal artifacts, laying a far sturdier foundation to support his Human Immortal path. However... Despite accomplishing so much over the past hundred years, Yaoguang felt little ease in his heart. Because... That terrifying entity coiled at the end of the Grand Dao of the Void still remained, having never departed. "A whole century," Yaoguang murmured. "Without the slightest sign of moving." What worried him now was that the concept of time for Immortal King-level beings was vastly different from their own. To mortals, the past hundred years encompassed four or five generations. Even to a Golden Core cultivator, it accounted for a tenth of their long life. Yet to a Void Piercing cultivator, a century was merely an extended period. As for Dao Lords... A single journey through the starry cosmos might take over a hundred years just in travel. If that was true for Dao Lords, what of the immortals, Immortal Venerables, and Immortal Kings who had reportedly entered the Immortal Realm and attained eternal life? For an Immortal King, a century might be nothing more than several hours, or even a few minutes in mortal terms. In that case, lingering in one place for hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years was likely completely ordinary. If that was truly so... "To become a Human Immortal, I will have to find a way around him."