Chapter 295 |
December.
Gongsun Xinlian and Zhang Yao both decided to join the Clear Wind Dao, receive Law Seals, and shore up their strength as they recovered from their injuries.
Zhang Yao's need was especially urgent. He had expended too much Evil Energy—most of it permanently lost after using it to lock down the Society Master of the Mingxin Society. He remained in a semi-crippled state and needed a surge of strength to offset his vulnerability.Once everything was prepared, Lin Hui chose not to conduct the ritual within Clear Wind Dao grounds, unwilling to cause unnecessary disturbances. Instead, he selected an unfamiliar stretch of sea far from Black Cloud City.
Gongsun Xinlian went first. The two faced each other alone, hovering above the water, while Xie Chang'an and Zhang Yao watched from a distance.
All four were on edge. Xie Chang'an and Zhang Yao were anxious about whether the two City Lords could successfully receive the Bestowal Seal and what the effects might amount to.
Lin Hui was nervous for a different reason—this was his first time bestowing seals on two Mistborn in succession. His previous subject, Pang Jiu, had essentially been a broken Mistborn, barely intact. This time was different.
In truth, he had no idea how far an unimpaired Mistborn might advance after receiving a Bestowal Seal. It was entirely uncharted territory.
"Prepare yourself." Lin Hui let his right hand fall to his side, a faint point of white light blooming at his fingertips.
"Remember—you must be entirely willing. You must accept yourself as a member of the Clear Wind Dao from the bottom of your heart."
Hiss.
Something cool pressed lightly against the center of her brow, right at the third eye. A moment later, an impossibly intricate white mark flashed and vanished into her skin.
Her body instantly began to expand. She forced the reaction down a second later.
"The first seal, Righteous Body, is complete," Lin Hui said with a smile.
He stepped back quickly, putting distance between them.
Whoosh!
A moment later, Gongsun Xinlian shuddered violently. A halo of gray-green light erupted from her, rippling outward in every direction.
Her aura climbed rapidly. The halos she emitted grew brighter and brighter, pulsing outward ring after ring. The phenomenon held for over ten seconds before she slowly opened her eyes.
"From now on, I suppose I must also call you Dao Master," she said, looking at Lin Hui with a faint smile.
"Welcome," he replied warmly, turning his gaze toward Zhang Yao.
The man stepped forward briskly, his expression solemn.
The Bestowal Seal process for both City Lords went quickly, and none of the strange phenomena Lin Hui had feared came to pass. Out of caution, however, both chose to accept only the Righteous Body Law Seal for now. They would wait until they had fully adapted before taking the subsequent seals.
Afterward, Zhang Yao used his Evil Energy to purge Lin Hui's drug resistance. The Black Emperor Pills—which had lost much of their medicinal efficacy—became effective once more, allowing Lin Hui to consume them in massive quantities to accelerate his progress.
The ingredients for the Black Emperor Pill were not rare treasures, a point of no small importance to Lin Hui. While his current evolution requirements meant he would need to consume far more than before, the pills were still viable. Ordinary materials moved in enormous volume through Black Cloud City; by contrast, even a single portion of a rare material could take ages to procure.
With the Bestowal Seal complete, Zhang Yao swiftly recovered the vast majority of his combat power. Even without his Evil Energy, his significantly enhanced physical strength, speed, and recovery boosted his close-quarters capabilities by a wide margin. He went from a ranged Mistborn who struggled in melee combat to the level of a close-combat master in a single bound.
As a result, Lin Hui's relationship with the three Great City Lords grew closer. On free days, they would invite him to the suspended mountain to share wine and tea.
In the blink of an eye, several months passed. His comprehension of the Sacred Form of Destruction was nearing completion, and he began preparations to comprehend the Sacred Form of Heaven.
At the same time, with the Mingxin Society fully exposed, the Taisu Federation began issuing arrest warrants for its members.
The warrants, however, were virtually useless. The major urban districts were essentially self-governing and semi-independent. Coordinating with the Inner Court to pursue the Mingxin Society was out of the question.
Worse, the Inner Court clearly had illicit ties to them. After issuing the initial warrants, nothing further came of it—as if the matter had never existed.
Meanwhile, in Purgatory, the Federation pressed forward relentlessly. The Inner Court dispatched personnel, surrounding urban districts cooperated to open new fronts, and both sides arrayed their forces, channeling power into their champions as the fighting intensified.
Nearly every day, refugee ships from the warzone arrived at Black Cloud City. Given the vast distance and treacherous sailing conditions, the sheer numbers still reaching port meant countless others must have died or gone missing along the way. The figures at their time of departure had to have been staggering.
Because of this, Black Cloud City had no choice but to expand housing in the Outer City to accommodate the influx.
…
Meanwhile, inside the Clear Wind Dao Academy.
Lin Hui sat cross-legged, listening as Liu Xiao recounted the situation of the newly arrived refugees.
Nearby, Lin Xiaoliu practiced her swordwork at a measured pace. Opposite her stood a handsome, cool-tempered youth in white who occasionally stepped in to offer pointers and correct her technique.
The youth was none other than Tao Changsheng, now only slightly younger than Lin Xiaoliu. The only son of the late Tao Xuehai, he had been raised by Mingde and Weiwei after arriving in Black Cloud. His aptitude was everything his father had hoped for—the product of enormous resources and precious medicines poured into him since birth.
After coming of age and joining the Clear Wind Dao, his sword practice advanced by leaps and bounds, far outpacing the unhurried Lin Xiaoliu. Even in the Inner City, where talent was plentiful, he would be considered exceptional.
Recently, he had awakened his Called One talent and officially begun following Liu Xiao to cultivate the Rain Palace's Divine Method.
"The world grows more chaotic by the day," Liu Xiao sighed. "Refugees aside, a few days ago, a Vice Palace Master of the Rain Palace handed in his notice."
"Resigned?" Lin Hui asked.
"Naturally not. He has reached his limit…" Liu Xiao said softly.
Lin Hui understood her meaning. At the level of a Vice Palace Master, one possessed the strength of a martial artist approaching the Luminous Extreme. Their lifespan should have been at least several hundred years; for a Called One, even longer.
"I recall there being two Vice Palace Masters…"
"It's the older one. But it's still too soon. By our estimates, he should have had at least another fifty years. Now… his end has come far too early." Liu Xiao shook her head.
Lin Hui fell silent. From the regular Clear Wind Dao gatherings and daily exchanges over the Wind Chime, he had already heard of quite a few similar cases.
Corruption was accelerating. The devastation it wrought was beginning to make itself felt.
"If a Vice Palace Master succumbs to Corruption, they'll need Luminous Extreme experts to intervene, won't they?" he asked quietly.
"Yes…" Liu Xiao nodded. "This time they even called in the Blood Ancestor from Extreme Desire Heaven."
Given that a Corrupted victim's strength generally surged by an entire major realm, failing to suppress them would lead to catastrophic destruction.
"I worry about the Corruption spreading at this rate…" Liu Xiao said softly, leaning a little closer to Lin Hui. "The world is in chaos. Even Black Cloud probably won't stay peaceful much longer. From what I know, many urban districts within the Federation have already collapsed into anarchy. Rogue Mistborn have banded together to assault entire districts, and some pantheons of Mist Gods have gone mad—hurling themselves at the cities without any regard for casualties…"
"Don't be afraid. With me here, everything will be fine." Lin Hui's face remained calm as he gently reached out and took her hand.
"Are you kidding? Of course, I'm not afraid. I'm just… worried about what the future holds," Liu Xiao said stubbornly.
"No matter what happens, as long as it doesn't touch us, living well on our own terms is enough," Lin Hui said quietly.
He was a man without grand ambitions. He couldn't stop the changes sweeping the world; he could only protect the peace around him. He had no intention of sacrificing himself for the fate of the world or the Federation's grand cause. At a fundamental level, he didn't even think of himself as a citizen of the Federation. Deep within his consciousness, the memories of his past life still formed the bedrock of who he was.
"Mm…" Liu Xiao nodded.
Today, the heart of the Clear Wind Dao was Lin Hui. As long as he was here—steady and unmoved as ever—everything felt as though it would hold, going on just as it always had.
He was an immovable pillar, constantly smoothing the anxious ripples in the hearts of those around him.
They chatted a little longer about smaller matters, including the recent flood of refugees offering incense and praying to the gods. The tide of desperate prayers washing over her divine statues had taken a quiet toll on Liu Xiao's mind.
Though she had once been a Divine Officer Called One who killed without batting an eye, she still considered these refugees her people. Absorbing the mental and spiritual despair of hundreds of thousands in such a short span had left her subtly pessimistic.
As they spoke, she leaned against him, slowly closed her eyes, and drifted to sleep.
Noticing this, Lin Xiaoliu and Tao Changsheng exchanged a glance. They quietly halted their practice, bowed to Lin Hui, and slipped out of the room without a sound.
Lin Hui leaned back against the pear tree, tilting his head to gaze at the sky through the gaps in the leaves.
The grayish mist hovering above the Clear Wind Dao had thinned somewhat—a change he had noticed lately. The leakage from the Wind Disaster's power seemed to be growing worse.
Fortunately, backed by a massive accumulation of medicine, the remaining evolution time for the Wind Disaster Seal's secret method was running short.
"Brother Lin, the private territory you applied for has cleared review. It's in the southern part of Black Cloud's Outer City, near Wolf Fang Bay—a small valley the locals call Emerald Valley. It produces some low-quality jadeite." Gongsun Xinlian's voice chimed in from the Wind Chime.
"Many thanks," Lin Hui replied with a smile.
That piece of land was the comprehension site he had prepared for the third layer: the Sacred Form of Heaven.
The Sacred Form of Heaven demanded stable mastery over the atmosphere across a one-million-square-meter area—and further required that this mastery be exercised from the perspective of an incarnation of heaven's will, a rather vague condition. Judging from the cultivation memories infused by the Blood Seal, this "mastery" in practice meant the regulation of all energy mechanisms within the region.
Beyond that, it required completing the cyclical flow of all atmospheric qi mechanisms within those bounds. He expected this stage to take an extremely long time.
The Sacred Form of Heaven was the most crucial bottleneck in the Star Breath Sword Canon. The earlier Life and Destruction stages were simply stepping stones, preparing the cultivator for this very hurdle.
"Come to think of it, I had no idea the Clear Wind Dao possessed a communication secret art as convenient as the Wind Chime until I joined. The Dao truly hides its depths. I've tested it—within a radius of fifty thousand li, it works flawlessly. Remarkable." Gongsun Xinlian's admiration came through plainly. "Dao Master Lin, just how many more treasures and secret arts are you keeping to yourself?"
"None at all. The entire foundation of the Clear Wind Dao is right before your eyes," Lin Hui laughed.
"I'm sure there's more," she replied with a smile. "By the way, I've been invited to a joint tea gathering hosted by the neighboring urban districts next month. Would you like to come along and take a break? You must be going stir-crazy, cooped up in that courtyard all day."
"I appreciate the invitation, but I have arrangements coming up and won't be able to break away," Lin Hui said, declining politely.
The world was too turbulent, and with Corruption accelerating, he needed to prepare early. Emerald Valley was the new base he planned to establish near Black Cloud City—when the time came, he intended to transport the entire maze ruins from Tuyue City there in batches.
Gongsun Xinlian was mildly disappointed but didn't press the matter. After carefully describing the location, population, and terrain of Emerald Valley, she severed the connection.
Lin Hui gently carried Liu Xiao into the bedroom and tucked her in. Then, leaving the Dao Academy behind, he took to the sky and flew toward his new private territory.