Returning to Tianmen Peak, Lu Yang sat cross-legged atop the sword-qi boulder, opened his mouth, devoured spiritual energy, and focused his mind on cultivation.
A ceaseless stream of spiritual energy flooded into his body. Under the operation of the Art of Illuminating the Heart and Seeing Nature, it was refined into pure spiritual power that coursed through his meridians.
He slowly extended two fingers, and a zhang-long streak of azure sword qi condensed at his fingertips.
"Go!" He pointed forward sharply. The azure sword qi shot ahead, piercing straight through three trees and biting half an inch into a fourth before finally dissipating.
These were no ordinary trees seen in the outside world, but coiled dragon trees Daoist Buyu had deliberately planted on Tianmen Peak. Their roots were thick and gnarled like coiled dragons, and their bark overlapped in layers like dragon scales.
Legend had it that a great war once erupted in the Demon Domain. The Dragon Clan had taken part, and countless true dragons perished. True dragon blood dyed lakes crimson, and trees growing along the shores absorbed it, mutating and gaining the power of true dragons.
Such was the origin of the coiled dragon tree.
Coiled dragon trees commanded exorbitant prices. Second- and third-rate sects only dared purchase one or two to dress up their facade, unlike Tianmen Peak, where an entire grove consisted of them.
Lu Yang opened his eyes. Looking through the holes pierced in the three trees and seeing the half-inch puncture in the fourth, he felt a surge of joy.
Previously, he could only pierce three coiled dragon trees; by the fourth, his sword qi would lose steam, unable to even scratch the bark.
"All these days of cultivation really paid off!" Lu Yang felt his mastery over sword qi growing increasingly adept. A three-inch strand of azure sword qi wound around his fingertip, nimble as a serpent.
He could even use the sword qi to clean out his ears.
"It's a pity no one in my realm can compare with me in the sword dao. Otherwise, having a discussion on the dao with them would be quite delightful." Lu Yang shook his head with regret.
Though he had never matched his sword dao against anyone in the same realm, the confidence brought by the Invincible Core convinced him that he was the number one swordsman among his peers!
Immortal Fairy nodded secretly. *This is what invincible momentum is all about! Lu Yang has my style from back in the day; he's bound for greatness in the future!*
"By the way, Fairy, since Buddhism was made up by the five of you, do you know Buddhist Kingdom in the Palm?"
"What's Buddhist Kingdom in the Palm?"
"You haven't heard of this grand divine ability, Fairy? It's Buddhism's supreme spatial divine ability, a tier above the Six Supernatural Powers like the Heavenly Eye and Heavenly Ear.
"In the Buddhist Kingdom in the Palm, the palm contains a vast realm with infinite space. Once you fall into it, no matter how great your divine abilities or how swift your speed in the world, you cannot escape. When the palm descends, an entire nation comes crashing down, completely unrivaled.
"Some say the Golden Buddhist Kingdom in the west is actually a manifestation of Buddhist Kingdom in the Palm."
Immortal Fairy grew thoughtful. "I truly haven't heard of Buddhist Kingdom in the Palm. It must be a spell created by later generations, or perhaps an old spell from our era given a new name.
"For instance, I know a divine ability called Universe in the Palm. Within the palm, heaven and earth are contained. The stars across the sky are mere playthings in hand, and the sun and moon are just two ordinary spheres of yin and yang.
"Maybe Universe in the Palm is Buddhist Kingdom in the Palm, and later generations simply changed the name.
"Didn't they say the Ancient Nameless One refined the stars across the heavens into continents? It might very well have been this technique!"
Just imagining the Ancient Nameless One executing Universe in the Palm sent chills down Lu Yang's spine. Rearranging stars at will—what terrifying power was that?
Even natural disasters were like specks of dust before the mighty power of an immortal!
"Did you know the rotation of stars follows a pattern? Oh, right, you've never been to outer space, so you haven't seen how stars rotate."
Immortal Fairy spoke in a slightly boastful tone. "I once roamed the cosmos and saw meteorites orbiting stars, and smaller stars orbiting larger stars. I couldn't help but wonder: could smaller objects orbiting larger objects be the law governing how celestial bodies move?
"After observing, conjecturing, sketching diagrams, calculating, and verifying, in the end..."
"In the end, you calculated the law governing the motion of the stars, Fairy?" Lu Yang couldn't resist chiming in, thinking to himself that the Fairy actually had moments of intellect.
"In the end, Immortal Jiuchong told me someone had calculated the law of celestial motion long ago."
Lu Yang: "..."
Thinking about it, that made sense. One didn't need to be an immortal to go into outer space; cultivators in the Body Integration stage and Tribulation Transcendence stage could both enter the cosmos. Anyone with a mind to could just squat beside the stars for a few years and figure it out.
If someone proficient in time-based spells took a look, they might calculate it in half an hour.
"Back then, using the stars for fortune-telling was quite popular," the Fairy continued. "A grand diviner pointed at a nebula and said he had deduced that when the conjunction of nine stars occurred, the stellar region containing those nine stars would fall into chaos, the common people would be displaced, and the entire stellar region would be ruined.
"And according to the laws of celestial motion, the conjunction of nine stars would happen in just three years!
"That grand diviner was named Shi Cang, from the Shi Huang clan. He enjoyed great renown, and half of his divinations were accurate.
"You know how it is—among cultivators, some believe in fate while others don't. Everyone started debating how to respond to this catastrophe.
"Those who believed in fate thought Master Shi Cang was right and that the people on those stars should be evacuated immediately to other stars. There were plenty of habitable yet sparsely populated stars to choose from.
"Those who didn't believe in fate thought there was no need to displace tens of billions of living beings over one man's words. The evacuation would inevitably result in massive casualties, and once on a new star, starting over from scratch would take countless generations."
"So Fairy, were you among those who believed in fate, or those who didn't?"
"After hearing all that, I went ahead and smashed one of the uninhabited stars to pieces. That way, the conjunction of nine stars could never happen!"
Lu Yang gave her a silent thumbs-up, thinking that the Fairy was indeed formidable.
"Though I hadn't become an immortal back then, crushing a star or two was still quite simple.
"After smashing that star, I discovered an array hidden within the star's core. Puzzled, I went to check the other eight stars, and found identical arrays inside their cores as well.
"By my deduction, when the nine stars aligned in a row, the arrays would resonate with one another and trigger a massive explosion."
"It was intentional?!"
Immortal Fairy said viciously, "Exactly! It was that bastard Shi Cang! Under the guise of divination, Shi Cang sowed chaos to reap massive profits. In truth, every catastrophe they ever predicted was set up by them in secret!
"In a fit of fury, I slaughtered Shi Cang. Even when the Shi Huang clan stepped in to plead, apologize, and offer compensation, it was useless—I killed him anyway. Seeing that I gave them no face, the Shi Huang clan tried to obstruct my path to the Tribulation Transcendence stage."
Immortal Fairy huffed. "Obstruction was pointless! My talent is unique across all eternity. When it was time for me to reach the Tribulation Transcendence stage, I reached it!"
Lu Yang clapped enthusiastically.
The plots and schemes of the ancient era were truly beyond imagination. Moving celestial bodies as pawns in their calculations—how many people would have suffered?
Just as Lu Yang was marveling at how terrifying ancient secrets and conspiracies were, he heard Immortal Fairy ask:
"By the way, do you want to learn Universe in the Palm? I know it."
"Universe in the Palm? Me?" Lu Yang looked down at his small hand, feeling that the Fairy might be overestimating him just a bit.
Chapter 389