Yang Qingxuan stood high above them, speaking calmly. Below, Shi Yan, Bao Zhuang, Qianji, Guan Xing-all these heirs to the Orthodox Dharma looked shaken.
What he revealed overturned everything they had known.
Dugu Wuwu, Netherbone, and the other three heard these secrets with eyes wide open, their minds reeling.
The Immortal who had descended into this world had taken away the spirit vein, leaving only a few scraps behind.
Yet that tiny remnant husk had become dragon veins great and small, giving rise to this world's Orthodox Dharma and Outer Dao systems of supernatural true qi cultivation.
If the original spirit vein had remained intact, how dazzling might the path of cultivation have been?
"Once a spirit vein takes shape, its qi is mystic yellow, its supple majesty that of a dragon..." Yang Qingxuan continued leisurely. "Perhaps that was precisely why the founding patriarchs of the Eight Orthodox Lineages mistook it for a true dragon and independently left records of it."
"Still, though the Immortal took the spirit vein away, he did possess a compassionate heart. He left behind methods for drawing in numinous energy and opening the eight great spirit apertures, so at least he did not sever humanity's path to the supernatural..."
A faint smile touched Yang Qingxuan's lips. He emphasized "compassionate," though whether in praise or mockery was unclear.
"But there was something even the Immortal never anticipated. That spirit vein gathered the spiritual splendor of heaven and earth and the creative essence of all things. Through thousands upon thousands of years of gestation, a spark of true nature had already been born within it, though it remained ignorant and muddled, like a fetus within its mother's womb."
"The spirit vein as a whole was far too immense for that ignorant spark of true nature to control.