After hearing that Liu Bai had gone into seclusion, True Person Huang Long secretly resolved to work hard at his cultivation so he could repay Senior Brother Liu Bai. While cultivating with Xuan Qing, he also sensed a mutually reinforcing connection between them. As a result, a strange phenomenon appeared on Kunlun Mountain: whenever True Person Huang Long cultivated, more than a dozen members of the Human Race would gather around him and practice together! As more Human Race disciples joined the Three Sects, the gatherings grew larger and larger.
In this life, thanks to Jiang He, Primordial Heavenly Lord had formed a rather favorable impression of the Human Race. A large proportion of the disciples he took in were members of the Human Race. The original Twelve Golden Immortals had become the Twenty-four Golden Immortals, with the other twelve all belonging to the Human Race!
Since the Interception Sect did not discriminate based on one's origins, and had Liu Bai as an insider, large numbers of the Human Race joined it. Disciples from other races made up an ever-smaller proportion. The Interception Sect was practically becoming a sect of the Human Race!
Among the Three Pure Ones, only Laozi had consistently taken just one disciple, Xuan Du—and he, too, was a member of the Human Race!
Jiang He had no idea what he would think if he knew all this!
But right now, Jiang He had no time to think about such things. He had run into a problem that was giving him a serious headache!
As the Dragon Clan merged into the Human Race, his cultivation seemed to have loosened up. Ever since Feng Li Yue and he had become Great Luo Golden Immortals, their power had changed. No matter how much they meditated or studied the laws, they made no progress at all. Any extra cultivation they gained would inexplicably disappear! He had gone to Empress Nuwa specifically to ask for an explanation, but all she could tell was that their bodies had absorbed their cultivation. She had no idea why.
Afterward, he had decided his role was to be a tool, with everything guided by the principle of advancing the Human Race. As for his own strength, he would just have to leave it be. He had already given up, but now he could feel his cultivation improving again. He hurried to Nuwa Palace to explain the situation to Empress Nuwa!
Nuwa Palace
Jiang He had lost count of how many times he had come here. As usual, he walked right in and called out for Mom—but this time, something unexpected happened. A girl of about sixteen stopped him!
"Who goes there? No one may enter Nuwa Palace without permission!"
Her words left Jiang He dumbfounded!
Wait, I have to report before I can go into my own home?
Jiang He immediately felt as if he were about to fall out of favor. Come to think of it, he had indeed been back to Wa Huang Tian less often lately, usually communicating through the statue of Nuwa instead! The last time he came was the last time!
Looking at the girl, Jiang He said, "What do you mean, enter without permission? How can it be trespassing if I'm going home? Move aside. I need to talk to Mother Goddess!"
With that, Jiang He strode straight inside.
"Hey, hey, you can't go in! I haven't announced you yet!" The girl panicked and hurried to stop him, but she couldn't catch up. She followed him all the way in!
"Mother Goddess! My cultivation seems to have loosened up!"
As soon as he saw Nuwa, Jiang He got straight to the point.
After examining his condition, Nuwa said, "Tell me exactly what happened."
"It's like this..."
Jiang He started rambling on about everything that had happened over the years!
Just then, a little head peeked in at the doorway. The person seemed to want to enter but felt too awkward to do so!
"It should be the Fortune Force. As the leader of the Human Race, you're now bound to its fortune. When the fortune of the Human Race grows, your cultivation loosens up as well.
"Your power may have stagnated all these years because the strength of the Human Race was growing more slowly."
Nuwa continued, seeing the confusion on Jiang He's face. "Your cultivation rose so quickly before because many spiritual treasures were used when you were created, along with a drop of my blood essence. All of that made your power grow rapidly. Now that your strength has stopped advancing, it means the power you were born with has been exhausted!
"It's like how Primordial Sacred Beings are born at the Great Luo Golden Immortal level, but they take tens of thousands of years or even longer to gestate. You and Yue'er should also have been born at the Great Luo Golden Immortal level, but you had no time to gestate, so your strength could only increase little by little after you were born. Now that your energy has run out, your cultivation is naturally slowing down!
"As for the cultivation disappearing from your bodies, it's because the two of you have awakened special physiques. Yours are one yin and one yang, and together they form a pair of unique physiques between Heaven and Earth: the Sun Body of East Prince Gong and the Moon Body of Queen Mother. When you return, the two of you should study them carefully!
"The Dragon Clan's fortune made your cultivation surge this time, which made you feel your realm loosening. It's simply that your cultivation had grown so quickly before that you assumed cultivation was always that fast. The Dragon Clan's integration into the Human Race raised its fortune, and when you felt your own cultivation rise, you got the wrong idea!
"In fact, such a sudden surge in cultivation is rare and precious. The slow growth you're experiencing now is what's normal."
After hearing Nuwa's explanation, Jiang He understood at once. "Then, Mother Goddess, what is this Fortune Force? I've been developing the Human Race all these years, so why hasn't its fortune increased?"
Hearing this, Nuwa nearly laughed in exasperation. "You've been around for so long. How do you still not know what fortune is?"
She reached out and tapped him on the head with a pale finger. "From now on, put your mind to proper matters. Look at what you've turned the Human Race into! Obsessed with material things, complacent, and indulging in comfort!"
"Huh? Mother Goddess, it can't be that bad! I just wanted the people to live better lives!" Jiang He knew what Nuwa meant by being obsessed with material things, but he hadn't realized it was this serious!
"Can't be that bad?" Empress Nuwa's expression grew stern. "I've always thought you were levelheaded, and you've devoted yourself to the Human Race all these years. I never brought many things up because I thought you already understood. Yet you've made such a simple mistake!"
"First of all, fortune is a term reserved for powerful races. Only the strong can speak of fortune; the weak can speak only of luck. This has been an unchanging truth in the Primordial World since time immemorial. What determines whether a race is powerful? Its fortune. And what makes fortune grow? Not population, but the strong! The creatures with the greatest population are the ants on the ground!"
"And the strong rely on themselves. What you cultivate yourself, no one can take away! All these years, you've relied on external things to let ordinary members of the Human Race stand against the strong. But its fortune hasn't increased at all—instead, it's gradually grown unstable! That's what happens when no strong cultivators are there to stabilize its fortune. Someone could knock you back to where you started in a single day. External things are still external things; they're just a minor path!"
Jiang He felt as if a sudden revelation had struck him. Ever since the Red Dust Pearl had become available to everyone, he had grown increasingly dependent on it to retrieve knowledge from his previous life. Without realizing it, he had been steering the Human Race toward the path of his previous life, instinctively assuming that its technological path suited the Human Race.
But was that really true? The technological civilization of his previous life had existed for barely a century, yet humanity had already begun to regress. Some might say human intelligence had evolved, but was that really the case? In many ways, modern people were no better than the ancients. Even in today's developed world, as many as eighty percent of people followed a religion—and humanity still hadn't figured out the I Ching, written thousands of years ago!
Meanwhile, human greed, violence, and desire kept expanding without end. Perhaps technology wasn't a blessing for the future of the Human Race. It might even be the key to its destruction!
Thinking of all the doomsday predictions from his previous life, Jiang He couldn't help shivering. Technology had existed for barely a century in his old world, yet humanity had already teetered on the brink of destruction several times. Damn! No wonder the ancestors had warned against clever contrivances! (Don't hate me! I'm just trying to survive here!)
Seeing Jiang He's frightened expression, Nuwa knew he understood the path ahead for the Human Race. She waved for the person outside to come in, then said to Jiang He, "This is my new disciple, Jin Feng! She's the daughter of the current Clan Leader of the Phoenix Clan. She and I were close before I became a saint, so they sent her here to wash away her karmic burden. I thought the girl was quite nice, so I kept her here to keep me company. At least she's not like certain people, who haven't come to see me in ages!"
Hearing the sourness in Empress Nuwa's voice, Jiang He laughed awkwardly. "Hehe! Mother Goddess, I've just been busy! I'll have Yue'er come keep you company as soon as I get back!"
"Forget it. That girl Yue'er can't stay here for more than a few days before she wants to go home. I think the two of you might as well have a child soon and let me raise the little one!"
Well, there it is—I'm being pressured to have a child! Mothers really are the same everywhere...
Jiang He said he'd make arrangements as soon as he got back! They'd never considered having children before—not because they couldn't, but simply because they didn't want any! As for whether they could still have a child with their cultivation so high, that was ridiculous. Had they forgotten what his Mother Goddess did for a living? If she wanted a grandchild to dote on, who would dare stop her? The Heavenly Dao?
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