"Though their energy, realms, and identities differed, the beings of both worlds pursued the most fundamental goal: immortality and ascension."
"This was not the Red-Dust Immortal Path, but the True Immortal Method of the Chaotic Ancient Era. By borrowing the power of heaven, earth, and the universe, one could attain eternal life. This was also the most common and orthodox method of becoming immortal. Throughout the River of Years, the Red-Dust Immortal method of transcending the universe and relying on oneself for imperishability was the true aberration."
"Immortal Two could ascend to the Immortal Realm, while Saints could remain Imperishable Through Ten Thousand Tribulations. This was not a method that relied on oneself, but one that relied on the Immortal Realm for immortality."
"The Eight Extraordinary Skills, along with the Eclosion Ascension and Secret of Immortality behind them, might be related to Unifying with Heaven and Earth. The Twenty-Four Solar Terms Tongtian Valley was a Qi Configuration."
"All sought immortality. There would always be paths in this world that crossed. There was no question of which was superior or inferior; they merely happened to meet from time to time."
Lin Xian fell into thought. Although he was currently only in the Wheel of the Sea Secret Realm, he viewed matters from a great height, knew many secrets, and had absorbed the essences of two worlds. This gave him some insights of his own into becoming immortal.
To verify his conjecture, he closed his eyes again and focused wholeheartedly on cultivating the Tianxuan Scripture.
Though the Tianxuan Scripture was an ordinary Wheel of the Sea cultivation manual, the minimum standard for creating a method in the Shrouding the Heavens Universe was the Saint Realm.
A Saint of ancient times could crush mountains and rivers with a drop of blood, slay Great Powers with a single hair, and create small worlds with every gesture. They were beings akin to gods.
To Great Emperors and True Immortals, scriptures created by Saints were crude and beneath notice. Yet to ordinary cultivators, they were supreme scriptures.
"Silent, reaching the source of nothingness. Empty, standing atop the kalpa peak. Vast and open, the scripture of the mysterious cavern. Who can fathom this remote nether..."
Lin Xian recited the scripture, cultivating the great Saint method through Qi-State Origin-Flow and comprehending its profundities.
Within his Sea of Bitterness, an emerald wheel radiated both the breath of life and a dark, extinguished Sea of Bitterness, forming a stark duality. A Life Spring ran through them, blossoming with platinum divine light. It was the source of magical power, sometimes transforming into countless divine swords, sometimes evolving into a dazzling great star.
The great star reflected the Qi Infant, guiding it in ascension as it settled within and transformed into a Primordial Spirit. Immortal mist swirled around it, and vaguely, a divine figure could be seen seated there, named Tianxuan. He wore a Seven Stars crown, red shoes, and robes of Zixia, supremely noble as he suppressed the Sea of Bitterness.
Around Star Lord Tianxuan, countless divine lights flickered within the dark Sea of Bitterness, as though he bore the starry heavens upon his back and stood above the Netherworld Capital.
Streams of divine light shot into the sky, evolving into innumerable divine chain shackles that clanged and rang, suppressing the mind and forming a vision—the All-Heavenal Star-Dipper Diagram.
Qi-State Origin-Flow could transform all kinds of qi, and Innate Supernatural Abilities could dissolve them. Then... what about stellar force?!
In an instant, Lin Xian opened his eyes. His starry gaze shone brilliantly as he looked toward the sky, toward the most glaring, most magnificent, most luminous star in the depths of the universe.
The great sun. Solar Yang. A star!
Perhaps this world had never lacked energy. What it lacked were means to use that energy.
The multitude of living beings lowered their heads in search of a path, struggling and fighting all their lives. But had anyone ever gazed at the stars and yearned for that silent, profound universe?
He, too, was an obsessed fool. The Great Dao had never been beneath his feet. The Great Dao was in the heavens!
Only today did he understand the vastness of the universe and the boundlessness of time and space. What was the Old Celestial Master? What was Zhang Huaiyi? What was Wugensheng? They were nothing but ants and dust.
Lin Xian attained enlightenment. No longer troubled, no longer doubtful, he softly said, "The Great Dao lies in the heavens, shining like the morning star."
At this moment, he held the universe in his heart.
After staring at the great sun for a long while, until his eyes had turned bloodshot, Lin Xian slowly withdrew his gaze and sat cross-legged once more. Xia He, Innate Supernatural Abilities—he cast them all to the back of his mind.
All things and all methods ultimately had to be rooted in oneself, with oneself held supreme. Qi-State Origin-Flow was merely a tree, a branch of the Great Dao. At its root, one needed roots of one's own.
At this moment, he had only one thought: forge an artifact that belonged to him, an artifact capable of drawing in the stellar force of the All-Heavenal Star-Dipper.
"What is above form is called Dao; what is below form is called artifact."
Use an artifact to bear the Dao!
This was also the unique aspect of the Shrouding Method. Though Wheel of the Sea cultivators could refine four artifacts, most Great Emperors and Ancient Emperors would temper a single artifact as their life-bound object, pursuing the supremacy of one artifact, using one artifact to break ten thousand methods.
An Emperor Artifact was not merely a weapon. It was also the continuation of a Great Emperor's life and the embodiment of his Dao Fruit.
Divine runes, like divine chains, coiled through the sky above the dark Sea of Bitterness, rising and falling alongside the Life Wheel. This was their primordial form, condensed from life essence.
Lin Xian did not rashly forge an artifact. Cultivators could sacrifice "divine runes" into all kinds of shapes. Something as simple as the fifty-meter greatsword he had wielded before was the most straightforward and brutal use of divine runes.
But forging an artifact required numerous, intricate divine runes.
When tempered to the deepest level of Dao, they could even give rise to Dao and principle, becoming the foundation of Saint Weapons and Emperor Weapons.
Thus, tempering primordial "divine runes" into an "artifact" was extremely important to cultivators. Everyone had to treat it seriously, because it was the foundation for their future ability to control objects.
The form of the divine runes often determined one's eventual life-bound weapon. If the final divine rune of a generation's Supreme Being was sword-shaped, then his Emperor Weapon would certainly be a sword, such as the Immortality Sword or the Primordial Emperor Sword.
"What should my weapon, my artifact, be?"
"Sabers, spears, swords, halberds, axes, polearms, hooks, forks, staffs, maces, whips, rods, hammers, claws—or perhaps bells, cauldrons, pagodas, seals, and the like?"
"None of them. To use an artifact to bear the Dao, it had to carry my Great Dao, my soul, my life. It would be almost like reshaping another me."
"And what form am I?"
"The Xuanhuang Cauldron, unrivaled upon the Emperor Path? The bloodthirsty Undying Saber? The Beginningless Bell, peerless throughout eternity? The Goddess Furnace, surrounded by a vast harem? No, none of them are right. I am a being that encompasses all things and embraces every river."
"I am a diagram, a Universe Diagram that contains the All-Heavenal Star-Dipper and the myriad phenomena of creation."
"Even if I am trapped within this mortal shell, I still see myself as the king of the infinite universe!"
With that thought, Lin Xian determined the form of his "artifact." He did not use too many divine rune chains, first drawing out two of them: one symbolized the dark Sea of Bitterness, and the other symbolized the Life Wheel.
Between the cycle of life and death, Yin-Yang was opened. This was the mystery of the Wheel of the Sea Secret Realm, a truth that Sage Tianxuan had only understood after becoming a Saint. Unfortunately, his foundation had already been set, and regret came too late. He could only annotate this point in his own scripture.
He hoped that Tianxuan's descendants who obtained his scripture would not repeat the path of his mistakes.
"Yin-Yang opens, and the path reveals itself!"
Borrowing the power of life and death, Yin and Yang opening apart, a Life Spring erupted forth like a heavenly river suspended overhead. Against the backdrop of the dark Sea of Bitterness, it resembled a Milky Way in the profound black universe, white silver light and golden divine power gleaming in mutual brilliance.
"When stars enter the heavenly river, the pure-water Saint emerges."
Lin Xian was invigorated. Giving it his all, he refined this incomparably exquisite painting. Borrowing the intent of separation between life and death, Yin and Yang, he guided forth a certain mysterious concept of the universe.
Life and death, Yin and Yang, space and time.
The so-called universe was time and space. Life and death did not merely generate and restrain one another; time and space were likewise existences that depended on each other while contradicting each other.
The great universe of heaven and earth, the Human Microcosm, the nether Sea of Bitterness, and the Life Wheel were another layer of universe.
Yet the concepts of universal time and space were too profound. Without reaching the Saint Realm, one could not comprehend them.
As a Wheel of the Sea cultivator, Lin Xian could not touch even the slightest part of them. Being able to gain a trace of insight was already thanks to the Saint scripture. He could only sample it briefly. The painting he sketched could only be seen as a heavenly river of brilliant starlight.
Only by taking another step closer and examining it carefully would one discover that a dark, silent universe wrapped around the river of stars. This was not a painting of a heavenly river, but a Universe Diagram.