Third-Level Law Domain, A Thousand Miles in a Day
Over the next few months, orders were issued continuously from above.
Every day at noon, the black-armored deacon would appear precisely at the entrance to the first floor and hand Old Zhou a scroll of names. The scroll grew thicker and thicker, with more and more names appearing.
Old Zhou frowned more and more as he looked through the list, but said nothing. He simply handed the list to Chen Du and nodded to him. Chen Du then picked up the Divine Prison Blade and walked toward the execution platform.
One after another, vicious criminals from the Fourth Realm, evil cultivators from the fifth realm, and demons from the Sixth Realm.
The quantity was several times greater than before, but the grades never reached the Eighth Realm or Ninth Realm again.
Chen Du killed them one by one with a single, clean stroke.
Killing a Fourth Realm cultivator can accumulate about ten years' White Qi or Black Qi.
Killing a fifth-level cultivator takes twenty or thirty years.
There are more than Sixth Realms, and it takes forty or fifty years.
Over the months, the White Qi in his sea of consciousness grew thicker and thicker, roughly calculated to be over a thousand years old.
The Black Qi had been accumulating for over five hundred years.
This is the second time Shen Xing has accumulated this much Black Qi since the five hundred years ago.
Without hesitation, he went all in.
Deep within the sea of consciousness, White Qi like mountains, and Black Qi abyss, as both forces simultaneously surged into [Heaven's Way's Gift].
His talent suddenly surged, and a moment later, two things appeared before him.
A small white jade Internal Elixir that shimmered with a deep blue light; it was Ninth Tier pill, capable of increasing one's cultivation by a hundred years.
Another ball of light entered his sea of consciousness and dissolved instantly. It was his current condensed understanding of the six cultivation techniques that others had learned, each of which contained the essence of ten to a hundred years.
He swallowed the pill, and its medicinal power surged like a celestial river flowing backward, cleansing his meridians and soul.
At the same time, he incorporated that insight into each of the six martial arts techniques.
The Netherworld Prison Dragon Python Art, the Prison-Suppressing Qi-Breaking Scripture, the Resentful Soul Spirit-Devouring Art, the Xingtian Prison-Suppressing Art, the Nine Serenities Prison-Cage Scripture, and the Nether Breath Soul-Devouring Record.
The six Ninth Tier cultivation techniques, each incorporating insights accumulated over ten to a hundred years, surged, settled, and solidified within his sea of consciousness.
He kept his eyes closed and remained motionless.
A whole night passed, and as the morning light peeked through the cracks in the rocks, he slowly opened his eyes and exhaled a breath of stale air.
Each of the six techniques has made significant progress.
Although it is still far from perfection, it is already a world of difference compared to the previous state of three years of fruitless comprehension.
He stood up, stretched his shoulders and neck, and walked towards the door. It was time for patrol.
Chen Du genuinely felt that this Divine Prison was a good place.
The inheritance of the Divine Prison is a whole level higher than that of the Celestial Masters' Mansion, so the things obtained by activating one's talent are naturally a level higher as well.
In addition, there are endless prisoners to kill, and each kill brings in a sum of White Qi or Black Qi. As these accumulate, the rewards from [Heaven's Way's Gifts ] become continuous.
He spent sixty years digging in the Celestial Masters' Mansion and only managed to unearth a few dozen Eighth Stage cultivation techniques. But here, in just a few years, he obtained six Ninth Tier cultivation techniques containing Lower Second-Level Laws.
The Heavenly Dao Rewards for killing prisoners were something the Celestial Masters' Mansion's Mansion wouldn't even dare to dream of.
A year has passed in the blink of an eye.
During that year, he patrolled during the day and cultivated his spiritual practice at night.
The power of that Ninth Tier pill, accumulated over a century, has not yet been fully refined. Each of the six cultivation techniques incorporates the condensed insights of others accumulated over a century.
These insights surged and settled in my mind, interacting and corroborating each other.
[Divine Revelation Reading] is now in full swing!
[The Divine Revelation Reading is operating at full power. You use the century-long cultivation of a Ninth Tier elixir as fuel, and the condensed insights of others accumulated over a century in six Ninth Tier cultivation techniques as a reference, to systematically analyze, verify, and deduce all the laws governing your own cultivation.]
[The Tianshi Law - The Taiyi Zhengyi Xuanhuang Qingyuan Tianshi Law. This law is formed by the fusion of the Taiyi Xuanhuang Grand Celestial Master Position and the Orthodox Unity Clear Source Celestial Master Position. It is the foundation of your Dao Resonance and Divine Status. Previously, you only comprehended its form but not its essence.]
[Now, reflecting upon the insights gained over a century from the six cultivation methods, you have finally glimpsed their path, which you call the "First Realm." You have advanced it to the Second Realm, within which the Dao Resonance energy cycles naturally, and the power to suppress the Dao is multiplied.]
[Low-level, fourth rank of the Lingwu Law... Spirit Martial Realm Divine Status. You perfected this law in your early years, and after years of refinement, it has long been stable at the Ninth-Level Domain the realm. Within this realm, the power of an entire realm is under your control, and all laws revolve according to your will.]
[The seven emotional laws—anger, sorrow, joy, fear, love, hatred, and infatuation—are all of the lowest level, the second grade. The Law of Anger was the first to be broken through. You have come all the way from the Celestial Master Realm, Achieving the Dao Through Anger and Enlightenment Through Anger. Anger has long been ingrained in your bones.]
[During this seclusion, the Law of Anger broke through to the Threefold Domain. Within this realm, anger transforms into fire, incinerating all things. Among the other six emotional laws, the Law of Sorrow also made progress, reaching the first realm.]
[The principles within the six martial arts techniques: Netherworld Prison Dragon Python Art's Netherworld Prison Soul Lock, Prison-Suppressing Qi-Breaking Scripture's Qi-Breaking, Resentful Soul Spirit-Devouring Art's Spirit Devouring, Xingtian Prison-Suppressing Art's Xingtian, Nine Serenities Prison-Cage Scripture Cage Scripture's Prison Cage, and Nether Breath Soul-Devouring Record's Soul Devouring.]
[You deduced each step meticulously, and finally succeeded in comprehending one of the Soul Devouring Laws from the Nether Breath Soul-Devouring Record, reaching the first level of the Domain. Within this domain, Netherworld energy surged, devouring the souls of enemies.]
Chen Du slowly opened his eyes and exhaled a breath of stale air.
The second-level Tianshi Law of the second realm, the Lingwu Law of the fourth-level Ninth-Level Domain, the second-level Law of Anger of the Threefold Domain, the Law of Sorrow of the first realm, and the Soul Devouring Law of the first realm.
In addition to the laws he had comprehended in the Azure High Martial World, the number of laws and the level of his domains now far surpass those of others of the same level.
Several days later, Chen Du felt more and more that his decision to stay in the Divine Prison was the right one.
With several talents working together, [Become a Saint on the Spot] and [The World as a Book] allowed him to extract Dao Resonance from every inch of the Divine Prison's stone walls and every array pattern, condensing it into a powerful technique.
The concepts of "Heaven's Way of Righteousness," "Heaven's Way of Evil," and "Heaven's Way's Gifts " allow him to avoid working in isolation; every execution is a gain.
His cultivation progress here can almost be described as rapid.
The longer he stays in the Divine Prison, the stronger his foundation becomes. When he leaves, he will have gained a completely transformed strength.
Heavenly Dao has opened a convenient door for him, so of course he should make good use of it.
That day, after finishing his patrol, he returned to the entrance of the stone house and saw Old Zhou squatting at the corner of the corridor, smoking a pipe.
The old man didn't drink today, and his complexion was more somber than usual. He held the pipe between his fingers, not taking a puff for a long time.
Chen Du walked over and squatted down next to him.
Old Zhou remained silent for a long while before finally saying in a low voice, "Another batch has arrived."
"Is it a lot?" Chen Du asked.
"Quite a few." Old Zhou tapped his pipe. "More than a dozen people. One of them is being held alone in the innermost iron cell; he's at the Ninth Realm of cultivation."
He paused, as if considering his words, but finally spoke, "His surname is Gu, and his name is Gu Changqing. He used to be a member of the Imperial Medical Office of the Divine Dynasty, but later resigned and practiced medicine among the common people."
Chen Du remained silent, waiting for him to continue.
Old Zhou took a puff of his cigarette and slowly said, "This man is a kind person, a truly kind person. After resigning from his official post, he traveled around for decades, healing wherever he went."
He would not charge the poor a penny for medical treatment, and would even pay for the medicine himself. One year, a plague broke out in the Northern Border, killing hundreds of thousands of people, and the imperial physicians sent by the court were helpless.
It was him who, carrying his medicine kit, entered the plague-stricken area alone and stayed there for a full six months. Later, he found a formula that suppressed the plague. That time, he saved countless lives, and the people of the Northern Border called him "Gu Bodhisattva."
"Then how did you get in?" Chen Du asked.
Old Zhou gave a bitter laugh, "Because he saved a person in the epidemic area. That person was an exiled criminal. The court said he was a traitor and issued a warrant for his arrest, regardless of whether he lived or died."
Gu Changqing was unaware of all this. He only saw that a person was about to die, so he treated him. The illness was cured, but the crime was committed. The prime minister's men brought him back, and the charge was 'treason'.
Decades of good deeds couldn't outweigh this one. The great physician of the Ninth Realm was imprisoned in the Divine Prison, locked up in the same place as those he had saved and those he hadn't.
Chen Du remained silent for a long time before finally asking, "Which cell is he in?"
Old Zhou glanced at him, shook his head, but didn't ask any further questions. He just gestured towards the back of the corridor. "The innermost room, the one around the corner. But don't go there. Although that person is at the Ninth Realm, he hasn't said a word since he came in, and he hasn't eaten either. He's just like that Shen Du from before. If you go and provoke him, what if..."
He didn't finish speaking; he simply slammed his pipe on the ground twice.
Chen Du nodded and said nothing more.
But his gaze had already passed over Old Zhou's shoulder and landed on the dimmest light in the depths of the corridor... yet another Ninth Realm prisoner wrongly accused.
The thought in his mind could no longer be suppressed.
Chen Du wanted to see that person.
Not for any other reason than the merit of those decades of going door-to-door without taking a penny, and for the hundreds of thousands of people he saved during that plague.
Such a person shouldn't just rot away in the Divine Prison.
Perhaps he underestimated the significance of his talent.