Chapter 163 – The Divine Path
w.a.n.g Lin raised his head toward the old man and said, “Senior, don’t worry; once I finish reading the Divine Path, I will leave this place. After that, I shouldn’t ever have to come back here again.”
The old man stared at w.a.n.g Lin. After a long time, he waved his right hand and a piece of jade appeared in his palm. He slammed the jade into the slab of stone and white light spread across the stone slab. Then a clear light spread across the stone slab until its entire surface was like a mirror.
The old man didn’t turn around; he stepped into the mirror. The surface rippled as if he were walking into water. w.a.n.g Lin followed behind.
A cool and refres.h.i.+ng feeling entered his body the moment he walked through the stone slab. It was as if his face had been wiped with a cool, moist towel. After that, w.a.n.g Lin found that he had walked through the stone slab. He turned around to find that the surface of the slab on this side was the same as it was outside. The surface rippled like water.
w.a.n.g Lin put his hand inside and the cool feeling appeared again.
The red-faced old man calmly said, “This is the water mirror door created by my War G.o.d Shrine’s refining method. Without the jade to open, it’s impossible to enter unless you have reached the Soul Formation stage.”
After w.a.n.g Lin heard the words “refining method,” something stirred in his heart before he followed the red-faced old man.
The s.p.a.ce inside this stone temple was very large. It had a main hall in the middle and hundreds of stone rooms on the sides. Outside of each stone room was a stone wall. After carefully inspecting them, w.a.n.g Lin believed that each of them was also a water mirror door.
The old man saw w.a.n.g Lin stare at the doors and said, “There is a total of 365 stone rooms here. Every one those stones are water mirror doors. Making a water mirror door is a symbol that a disciple is no longer a novice in treasure refining.”
w.a.n.g Lin looked for a while before withdrawing his gaze. They had arrived in the hall in the middle. Before them was a shelf with four layers. There were some tokens on each layer.
Aside from the top layer, which only had one token, the other layers had quite a few tokens on them.
w.a.n.g Lin’s gaze fell on the token at the top. It read: “War G.o.d Shrine Founder —- Gong Mo”
“Ancestor Gong is the founder of my War G.o.d Shrine and is also the person who found the Divine Path.” The red-faced elder bowed toward the token before turning toward w.a.n.g Lin.
w.a.n.g Lin pondered for a bit and then bowed.
The red-faced elder turned and walked forward. He stopped before a green wall that was covered in countless small words. These words had all been carved on this wall. At the top of the wall, w.a.n.g Lin could clearly see the two words “Divine Path”.
However, after looking down, his heart sank as it read: “Disciple Chen Chong carved this from memory. Future disciples need to cultivate with caution.”
“Disappointed?” The red-faced elder looked at w.a.n.g Lin and sighed. “The second year after my ancestor found the Divine Path, there was a traitor, so the news of the Divine Path suddenly spread far and wide. Soon after, the rank 4 cultivation country, Tian Gang, arrived. After secretly talking to ancestor Gong, they took it away. Ancestor Gong then left the War G.o.d Shrine and never came back.”
“This Divine Path is the most strange cultivation method I have ever seen in my life. Anyone that sees it can comprehend it, but they cannot remember it. It is as if there is a mysterious force preventing them.”
“Ancestor Chen Chong’s talent was very ordinary, and he was the weakest of ancestor Gong’s disciples. But he was able to use his memory to do something no one thought was possible: carve the Divine Path. After he finished carving, he died. Just before his death, he said that this cultivation method is very powerful. His own life span wasn’t enough and he could only carve down 10% of it, so future disciples have to cultivate with caution.”
“In truth, ancestor Chen Chong was worrying too much. How could this Divine Path be so easily comprehended? Since then, only about 30 people have managed to comprehend it at all, and only half of them successfully entered the Nascent Soul stage.”
“As for the Divine Path the other sects of Hou Fen saw, it was fake, so the number of outsiders that have comprehended it is even lower.”
As w.a.n.g Lin heard the red-faced old man’s words, he looked at the green stone wall. He could picture a weak, young man using his life to carve on it.
“You can look at it yourself. I’ll wait for you outside. Don’t trespa.s.s into any of the water mirror door rooms.” After the red-faced old man finished speaking, he turned around to leave.
w.a.n.g Lin looked at the stone wall and read every word on it. The words were difficult to understand, and some parts seemed to contradict each other. As he read it, he slowly began to frown.
After a long time, he sat down in the lotus position with an unsettling expression on his face. However, he didn’t blink even once as he stared at the stone wall. The words written on it slowly appeared in his mind.
The more he looked at it, the more confused he became. This Divine Path was completely incomprehensible. He frowned even harder until he finally finished reading it all. Then he just closed his eyes and recalled everything on the stone wall.
Time slowly pa.s.sed. w.a.n.g Lin still didn’t understand anything. He slowly opened his eyes and let out a sigh before looking back toward the stone wall. However, at that moment, his pupils shrank as he muttered, “Something is wrong!”
When he looked toward the wall again, all of the words he had memorized suddenly disappeared from his memory as if they had never been there. w.a.n.g Lin looked at the familiar words he had memorized earlier, but now it was as if there was something missing in his memory. All of it had disappeared.
w.a.n.g Lin took a deep breath and became focused. This Divine Path was simply too strange. No wonder no one was able to make a copy of it. Back then, he asked Zhou Zihong to make a copy for him, but she said that whenever she tried, she would forget. He didn’t take it too seriously back then, but now that he had experienced it himself, he immediately became very serious.
w.a.n.g Lin again looked at the words “Disciple Chen Chong carved this from memory. Future disciples need to cultivate with caution.” He was even more shocked than before. Although he had heard it from others, this was the first time he had experienced for himself how difficult recording down the Divine Path was. He memorized the name Chen Chong in his heart.
w.a.n.g Lin took a deep breath as his eyes went past those words and back onto the Divine Path. After one hour, w.a.n.g Lin memorized all of it again, but what happened before occurred again after a little while.
After repeating it a few times, w.a.n.g Lin’s face darkened. This time, he stared at the wall and didn’t attempt to memorize it but continue to read it over and over again.
The first time w.a.n.g Lin read through the Divine Path, it took him three hours, but now it only took him one hour. His eyes became faster and faster. Now it only took him half an hour to read it all.
Time slowly pa.s.sed and w.a.n.g Lin’s reading speed became faster and faster. From reading it one time in half an hour to three times in half a hour. His eyes moved faster and faster. At some point, he began to feel pain pulsating from his eyes.
After an unknown amount of time, w.a.n.g Lin unconsciously closed his eyes, but the stone wall still seemed to be darting past his view.
Those words began to move even faster, and even after w.a.n.g Lin closed his eyes, they still hurt. Soon, two streams of blood flowed down from his eyes, but just at that moment, w.a.n.g Lin opened them. His eyes were completely bloodshot and filled with shock.
w.a.n.g Lin clearly saw the words on the wall slowly disappear and a figure wearing white suddenly appeared. His face was blurred, so w.a.n.g Lin could only clearly see his hands form several seals. The figure then became two figures, and then three.
The difference between the original and the avatars in most cases was that the avatars were a bit dull. Every movement they made would only be a mimicry of the original’s movements.
But the avatars of the white-robed figure were all very smart and nimble. w.a.n.g Lin felt like he couldn’t tell which one was the original body.
In truth, what w.a.n.g Lin didn’t know was that the old man’s avatars were created from a powerful magic treasure by force and not a powerful avatar technique.
After some time, the white-robed figure began to slowly dim until it dissipated.
w.a.n.g Lin closed his eyes again. His face was pale and he began to ponder. A few chants mysteriously appeared in his mind. After a.n.a.lysing them for a bit, w.a.n.g Lin opened his eyes and let out a bitter smile. He finally understood a bit about the Divine Path.
This was a technique to cultivate an avatar. As for how it could increase the chances of reaching the Nascent Soul stage, it was to use the avatar. One could cultivate with the main body along with the avatar and then fuse back into one to help increase the success rate of reaching the Nascent Soul stage.
However, this technique was incomplete and contained fatal flaws. The avatar created would have no cultivation and had a lifespan of less than 30 years. As a result, this technique was more like a burden.
Along with the chants, Chen Chong also left some messages. Along with the fact that the technique was incomplete and he didn’t have a long enough lifespan to carve it all down, he also left a solution.
The solution was to use the technique to create an avatar and use its 30 year life span to consume pills. Stockpile as many pills as possible and push the avatar’s cultivation to the highest level possible. No matter what, when you fuse back together, it would increase your chance of breaking into the Nascent Soul stage by a bit.
If enough pills were saved up, then it would be possible to reach the Core Formation stage on the avatar, thus increasing the chance of forming one’s Nascent Soul by a lot.
w.a.n.g Lin pondered for a bit before bitterly putting away the thought of using the Divine Path. He didn’t have that many pills to give to his avatar. Even if he were to obtain pills, he didn’t even have enough to use on himself, so how could he be willing to give them to his avatar?
Instead of using this technique, it would be more reliable to find some pills that could increase his chance of forming his Nascent Soul.