Twelve Divine Forms

[Taiheng Realm history timeline compiled]

[Taiheng Realm mineral resources compiled]

[Taiheng Realm biological resources compiled]

[Taiheng Realm cities and national geography compiled]

Several notifications roused Yang Ning from his attempt at the Seven-Day Breathing Technique.

"Let's take a look first!"

The image of the Seven-Day Breathing Technique before Yang Ning instantly changed into rows upon rows of clear tabulated text. Since it had all been copied from the Taiheng Universal Records, it was inevitably somewhat incomplete, but it was already enough to give Yang Ning a relatively intuitive understanding of this world.

According to the Taiheng Universal Records, human history in the Taiheng Realm spanned a total of three hundred thousand years. Three hundred thousand years ago was known as the Dragon Era. Back then, humanity in the Taiheng Realm had been slaves ruled by the dragon race. Later, Nightmare Chaos erupted among the dragons, and humanity seized the chance to rebel. Eventually, the dragons withdrew from Taiheng, and from then on, humans became the rulers of the Taiheng Realm.

The great being who had led humanity's resistance called himself Taiheng. People of that era addressed him as Immortal Venerable Taiheng. The sect he founded was the present-day Taiheng Sect, and this world was named the Taiheng Realm after him.

"So this is actually a world with a legacy of more than three hundred thousand years. And its inheritance has remained orderly, there are cultivators, and nothing like civilization-ending disasters has ever happened. So why has scientific development stagnated? They haven't even invented a Curved Shaft Plow?" Yang Ning was somewhat puzzled. Earthlings had gone from the tribal era to the age of spaceflight in just five thousand years, yet this place was still an agrarian civilization, and an extremely underdeveloped one at that.

But it did not seem like the people of this world had suppressed technological development. When he invented the Curved Shaft Plow, the state had even rewarded him!

And then there was this Nightmare Chaos.

The character used in the Vast Universe Records was not the character for "nightmare," but a character that did not exist in Chinese. It referred to a disaster of unknown origin that caused immense harm to living beings. Yang Ning had selected a Chinese character with a similar meaning and shape, calling it "Nightmare."

When Nightmare Chaos erupted, not only did Nightmare Demons and Nightmare Beasts appear, but a kind of qi called Nightmare also permeated heaven and earth. It could erode ordinary living beings, turning dragons into Nightmare Dragons and beasts into Nightmare Beasts.

Yang Ning had no idea what such a scene would look like. For now, he could only imagine it as some kind of catastrophic event similar to a zombie apocalypse.

After the Taiheng Sect was founded, adhering to the principle that humans and dragons could not coexist under the same sky, it dealt frenzied blows to the remaining dragon race. It also trained disciples to establish sects throughout the land and support other human forces. By the point of two hundred and eighty thousand years ago, the last dragon in the Taiheng Realm had been slain. Thus, the era of the dragon race ended, and the world fully entered the human era.

Those twenty thousand years were called the Brilliant Ancient Era. It was not only because the dragon race had completely vanished and the number of human sects had increased dramatically, but also because some people discovered that after Nightmare Chaos, vast amounts of the dragon race's inheritances had been buried underground!

From then on, large numbers of dragon cultivation methods were unearthed and altered into techniques suitable for human cultivation. The Taiheng Realm entered a flourishing age of cultivation.

After three hundred thousand years of development, the Taiheng Realm had formed a landscape where the Ten Great Immortal Sects towered over the age, tens of thousands of sects bloomed in a riot of color, and countless small immortal sects and Lineages either clung to powerful patrons or formed alliances to survive. Conflict between them never ceased, and warfare was unending.

The only good thing was that, due to the suppression of immortal artifacts, no wars that swept across the entire world had ever occurred. The great sects had always maintained an overall state of peace with localized confrontation.

At least there was no need to worry about even children being sent onto the battlefield.

"All in all, this is a world where people struggle and strive to climb ever higher!"

Yang Ning let out a long breath. It was a wonderful world, but also a dangerous one. In a single book, countless geniuses rose to prominence, while countless more fell. There were endless regrets that would not sit right and emotions that could not be laid to rest.

This was a very standard cultivation world. It could not be called a criminal underworld, but neither was it fit for naïve sweethearts to survive in.

In short, it was a world where the weak were meat and the strong ate it, where the strong reigned supreme, where the multitude lived like pigs and dogs. Only a small number could leap beyond their confines and become cultivators, yet fewer still could reach the end of the road.

Over three hundred thousand years of history, only seventeen Immortal Venerables had been born—an average of one every twenty thousand years.

And according to the book's descriptions, when these Immortal Venerables ascended to immortality, the youngest had been three thousand years old, the oldest sixteen thousand, with an average of eight thousand years.

Eight thousand years. To natives of this world, that was probably nothing unusual. But to Yang Ning, a transmigrator from a world whose entire recorded history was only five thousand years—perhaps twenty thousand if the Classic of Mountains and Seas was included—it truly felt rather long.

Give modern civilization eight thousand years, and it would probably have already become a god-tier civilization, taking all of humanity beyond dimensions. Yet that was only enough time for a cultivator to go from mortal to immortal?

"So cultivation is definitely something I have to pursue. I can't abandon the strength of the individual, and cultivation is also my dream. But since I have a Golden Finger suited to scientific research, I can't put science aside either. Or rather, cultivation is itself a kind of science that makes use of spiritual qi, so cultivation and science don't conflict."

Yang Ning quickly determined his path: science as the foundation, cultivation as the application. He would not abandon his greatest advantage, while also pursuing the Great Dao of this world.

[Ding!]

Deep Blue roused Yang Ning from his thoughts. When he opened his eyes, he realized class was over!

After leaving the Spirit Realm, Yang Ning felt a weight settle on his shoulder. A hand had already landed there.

"How was it, Yang Ning?" A delicate-looking face appeared before Yang Ning, but the faintly upturned corners of his mouth proved that this boy was not as calm as he appeared.

Yang Ning's eyes lit up. "You got started?"

The youth immediately waved his hands. "Ah, I wanted to show off properly to you. How boring!"

Yang Ning shrugged. "Can't be helped. My eyes are as sharp as torches!"

Besides, I secretly guided you so many times. It would have been strange if you still hadn't gotten started by now.

The youth was speechless, yet he had no way to deny it. After all, he knew full well about the rise of the person before him. Yang Ning had always been the other people's child in his parents' mouths.

But being young at heart, he did not feel jealous. Yang Ning's identity when boarding the ship had determined that he would inevitably become his support in the future, and naturally, the more capable that support was, the better.

The youth was none other than Xun Hu, the Eighth Prince of the Yue Kingdom. Yang Ning had been able to come cultivate immortality by taking advantage of the quota to serve as his page.

As a prince, Xun Hu had naturally inherited generations of genetic improvement and was exceptionally handsome. His mother came from a family of military generals, and under her constant teachings and influence since childhood, he had also developed a trace of sharp, imposing bearing that made him stand out from the crowd.

"Since you've already gotten started with the Breathing Technique, you'll be learning the Divine Forms next, right?" Yang Ning asked.

"Yeah!" Xun Hu nodded, anticipation written across his face. "After learning the Divine Forms, I'll be able to fight. Then I'll beat Zhao Bu up first. I've been sick of the sight of him for ages."

The Breathing Technique was a stillness exercise. After getting started, it also required movement exercises to aid the circulation of qi and blood—the so-called Twelve Foundation-Building Divine Forms.

Tiger, deer, bear, ape, bird, snake, ox, dog, pig, dragon, along with fire and water.

The last two clearly did not fit with the first ten. That was because they came from different origins. The first ten had been created by imitating animal postures, while the last two had been seized from the Taiyin Sect. That sect also had things like Thunder Form and Cloud Form.

The Divine Forms were part of the Foundation Establishment Method, but that did not mean they could not be used in battle. On the contrary, since they were techniques created by cultivators, they were even stronger than those supreme martial arts techniques of the mortal world. And because the cultivators were all eleven- or twelve-year-old youths, full of youthful spirit, disputes among them were naturally unavoidable.

The Taiheng Sect did not forbid disputes among disciples either. After all, if one did not dare to fight, what kind of immortality was one cultivating?

"Zhao Bu!" At the thought of this person, Yang Ning merely shook his head lightly.

The Taiheng Sect's territory was divided into four great regions: Eastern Victory, Southern Forest, Western Splendor, and Northern Plains. Each region contained seven or eight, even more than a dozen nations, as well as sects of all sizes attached to the Taiheng Sect. With the Taiheng Sect keeping them in check, these nations and sects did not dare wage great wars, but secretly sending troops to seize something or conduct a border raid was certainly not something anyone would bother with.

The Zhao Kingdom and Yue Kingdom both belonged to the Northern Plains and bordered one another, so friction between them was naturally inevitable. In the past, Yue had been weak while Zhao was strong, and Yue had constantly been bullied.

After Yang Ning became Minister of Works, he improved smelting techniques and invented the Yang Family Repeating Crossbow and Yang Family Trebuchet, greatly strengthening the Yue Kingdom's military. The balance of strength between the two nations immediately flipped on its head.

As a prince of the Zhao Kingdom, Zhao Bu naturally inherited the hatred between the nations. In fact, compared to Xun Hu, he hated Yang Ning—who had turned the tide of the war—even more. The key was that the Zhao Kingdom had once been strong, so it had many lackeys, while the Yue Kingdom had only just risen and had not yet had time to conduct diplomacy.

As a result, a group of people followed Zhao Bu around all year long, and whenever they got the chance, they would mock Xun Hu and the other four.

Yang Ning was someone who had lived thirty or forty years across two lifetimes, yet he had to face the dirty looks and foul language of a bunch of little brats every day. It was both irritating and amusing.

The key was that, through looking into history, he discovered that the Xun Clan and Zhao Clan had been one family four hundred years ago. It was only later that a branch of the Zhao Clan had migrated elsewhere, changed its surname, and founded a nation.

There was truly no need for the two to fight. What was more, everyone's goal was cultivation. Before they had even taken the first step, they were already trying to beat each other to death. Wouldn't it be a huge loss if one of them suddenly died?

Just as they were talking, two more people came over to them.

One male and one female. The male was Su Bai, son of the Minister of Revenue. The female was Ning Rong, an outstanding descendant of the Yue Kingdom empress's lineage. Together with Yang Ning, they made up the four-person cultivation group sent by the Yue Kingdom.