Mysterious diagrams and cultivation formulas appeared in Luo Bei's mind as though branded there.
In the Extreme North, upon the grayish yellow frozen soil that seemed to join heaven and earth, stood a Snow-Covered Black Mountain. Atop one Bitter Cold Peak stood a White-Walled Yellow-Tiled Temple like a snow lotus upon a lofty mountain. The Black Yak Wool Prayer Flags, having endured over a thousand years of bitter cold and frost, had long since fallen into ruin. Yet only half an incense stick ago, when the enormous waterfall and the entire mountain split apart to reveal that grand hall, within this temple thousands of miles away from Luofu, an old lama sat beneath dim Butter Lamps. Half his body was bare, and he wore a Red Buddhist Robe and a Goose-Crown Yellow Velvet Hat. His skin was purplish black, his features withered, and as he ceaselessly turned a golden Prayer Wheel while practicing bitter meditation, he suddenly lifted his head. "This is Heaven's will." His murmured sigh startled several Vultures from the temple roof, sending them soaring into the sky.
Yuan Tianyi pointed one finger at Luo Bei's brow.
A glimmer like a speck of golden sand flashed at Luo Bei's brow, then vanished.
"I have planted the Mind Curse of the Empty Sea within you. Should you violate the rules I have spoken of, both body and soul shall be destroyed!"
"After entering the world, do not act solely for profit and desire in all matters. Otherwise, you will be executed."
"Do not divulge any of Luofu's techniques. Before you return to Luofu, you must not let anyone know that you are a Luofu disciple. Otherwise, you will be executed."
"Cultivating the Eternal Life Sutra of Delusion is a nine-deaths-one-life endeavor. The suffering it brings is a hundredfold worse than cultivating the Mahākāla Secret Method. After entering the world, you may choose not to cultivate it, but you must not speak of it to anyone. You must not even allow doubts about this art to arise in your heart. Otherwise, you will be executed!"
Within the Mountain Belly Grand Hall, Luo Bei, still filled with shock, committed every instruction to heart.
Though he did not know whether every Luofu disciple underwent such trials and received such rules, Luo Bei could tell that Yuan Tianyi would never harm him. He could also sense the extraordinariness of the Eternal Life Sutra of Delusion Yuan Tianyi had bestowed upon him.
All living beings were equal!
Though Yuan Tianyi had given him so many arduous trials, ever since bringing him to Luofu, he had never looked down on him because of his aptitude, nor had he ever treated him with lofty superiority.
"Master, when will I be able to return?" Luo Bei asked reluctantly atop the nameless mountain peak, gazing toward the great mountain in Luofu that had already closed once more.
"Perhaps ten years, perhaps twenty." Yuan Tianyi answered Luo Bei, "The Luofu Technique is unrivaled beneath heaven, yet reaching great mastery is as difficult as ascending to heaven. Shushan Flying Swords borrow the power of external objects, but they are still extraordinarily formidable. If you can cultivate sword essence, you will at least be able to protect yourself. The day you cultivate your Natal Sword Essence, you may return to Luofu and see me."
"What is Natal Sword Essence?" Luo Bei asked, puzzled.
Yuan Tianyi said nothing. Luo Bei, who had already come to understand his master's temperament, suddenly cried out, "Master, wait."
"What is it?" Yuan Tianyi paused, only to see Luo Bei looking all around as though searching for something.
"Where is Old Zhao Nan? I want to say goodbye to him." Luo Bei's gaze fell upon his coarse hemp garments. Though these clothes were crude and simple, they were the first clothes anyone in this world had ever sewn for him stitch by stitch.
A trace of warmth also flashed through Yuan Tianyi's eyes. "He had business outside the mountain as well and will not return for a while. But when you return to Luofu, you will see each other again."
Luo Bei stood stunned. This pure-hearted youth, who had once risen in the middle of the night to cover Old Zhao Nan with a blanket, had never imagined that just as he had begun to feel the warmth of a home, he would face such a parting.
"A cultivator must endure true loneliness." With a faint sigh, Yuan Tianyi stepped into the void. An invisible, transparent dome immediately enveloped him and Luo Bei, carrying them through the empty and lonely skies at a speed that shook heaven and earth. What surprised Luo Bei, who had grown accustomed to Yuan Tianyi's cultivation and speed, was that the familiar giant mountain appeared before his eyes once more.
From where one came, one returned.
Yuan Tianyi had actually brought Luo Bei back to Bashu, to Mass Grave Hill, only a hundred li from the Shushan mountain gate that Kongtong, Miro, and the others had spoken of.
The mountains remained as they had been, but who knew how many more graves had appeared across this Mass Grave Hill? Luo Bei could no longer tell where he had encountered Kongtong that day. Though the blazing sun still hung overhead and crows still wheeled through the air, an indescribably mournful air permeated the entire Mass Grave Hill.
"Ten li south of here lies a Mountain Town. There is a sect called Purple Micro Daoist Temple. You need do nothing. Simply go to that Mountain Town, and the people of Purple Micro Daoist Temple will take you as their disciple. We of Luofu never act according to convention. If others wish to take you as their disciple, simply agree." Yuan Tianyi paid no heed to how Luo Bei felt upon returning to this old place. Just as on the day he had first brought Luo Bei beneath that nameless mountain peak, he spoke coldly and calmly. "Bandits are rising everywhere in the world now. If anyone asks, say you are a local villager who was attacked by bandits and wandered there. No matter what changes you encounter in the future, so long as you remember the rules I have given you, you will gradually come to understand what Natal Sword Essence is."
The cultivation sects that ordinary people once envied, the immortal abodes said to be unattainable even if sought—there was one merely ten li away. Yet upon learning this, Luo Bei felt not the slightest joy. Even if he had never seen Luofu's scripture-transmitting grand hall, vast as heaven and earth, Luo Bei had lived with Yuan Tianyi long enough to know that a sect which had not discovered—or had not dared to investigate—the spell battle here that day could not possibly be first-rate.
But Yuan Tianyi gave another instruction at this moment. "From this day onward, forget as much as you can of everything related to Luofu. The more you remember, the greater your danger. Apart from the scriptures I have imparted to you, it would be best if you remained as you were when I first met you that day."
As ignorant as he had been that day, knowing nothing of the world beyond merely filling his belly?
Luo Bei firmly engraved every word Yuan Tianyi spoke into his heart, for he knew every sentence from Yuan Tianyi carried meaning. Yet as he stared deeply at his master in white robes, Luo Bei could not help wondering, Could I possibly forget?
Luo Bei suddenly knelt and kowtowed heavily to Yuan Tianyi nine times.
That day, when Luo Bei had feared ghosts and gods, he had also kowtowed nine times. But now, Luo Bei feared neither ghosts nor gods. He also knew that the path of cultivation was one of nine deaths and one life, and that he might never return to Luofu. These nine kowtows were simply because Yuan Tianyi was the master he revered—and because Yuan Tianyi had given him the... chance to control his own fate!
After heavily kowtowing nine times, Luo Bei rose to his feet and walked toward the Mountain Town to the south, as Yuan Tianyi had indicated.
Yuan Tianyi remained where he stood. Luo Bei walked farther and farther away, turning back again and again in reluctance, until his figure finally vanished from sight.
Luo Bei trusted Yuan Tianyi completely. He knew only that every Luofu disciple had to leave the mountain for experience. In his simple-hearted innocence, Luo Bei even imagined that those mysterious manuals and arts which had not originally belonged to Luofu had all been obtained by successive patriarchs while training abroad, just as he was now.
He did not realize that Yuan Tianyi had sent him away from Luofu only because Luofu had already encountered an unprecedented great calamity!
And the Eternal Life Sutra of Delusion Yuan Tianyi had passed on to him was Luofu's most powerful—and most difficult to cultivate—peerless divine art!
Even with Yuan Tianyi's temperament and aptitude, despite attaining such accomplishments, Luofu's Previous Sect Master had not dared to bestow the Eternal Life Sutra of Delusion upon him, passing down only the Empty Life Extinguishing Sea Glazed Art, which stood beneath the Eternal Life Sutra of Delusion.
From this, one could see that although Yuan Tianyi had never offered Luo Bei a single word of praise, he regarded this disciple of his, whose aptitude had originally been unremarkable, with great importance and even a measure of pride.
But the future was illusory and intangible, ever-changing and impossible to predict. Even with Yuan Tianyi's cultivation and divine abilities, he could only perceive the shifts in the world's fortunes; he could not see the future.
The more vast an art's power, the more its cultivation was a path of nine deaths and one life. And leaving aside the world's three thousand realms of mortal dust, even this cultivation world that transcended the multitude of living beings—was it not also a great dye vat that confused the true heart at every turn?
Who could know what would become of Luo Bei after this parting? Luo Bei, now pure-hearted and kind, unyielding in hardship, and unwilling to judge good and evil by birth or beauty.
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