Identification successful

Cultivators generally had good memories, and Li Yu soon found the origin of the tablet among his childhood recollections.

Li Fulai, the founding ancestor of the Yiyang Li lineage, had been a disciple of Jiang Taiyi, a Nascent Soul True Lord of the Five Lotus Sect. After Jiang Taiyi failed to reach Spirit Transformation, Li Fulai, his youngest disciple, received only the Yiyang Cave Abode, a secondary residence with a fourth-tier spirit vein. That was how the Yiyang Li lineage began.

The Heaven-Questioning Pavilion had once been the heart of the Yiyang Cave Abode. When Jiang Taiyi led an army against the White Lotus Church, he had used it as his residence. At its peak, its spirit vein had approached the fifth tier. Later, however, Jiang Taiyi refined away more than ninety percent of that spirit vein to cultivate a supreme divine ability, leaving the Heaven-Questioning Pavilion's spirit vein at its present level.

For that very reason, after Li Fulai acquired the Yiyang Cave Abode, he enshrined the Heaven-Questioning Pavilion, its former heart. Ostensibly, this was out of respect for his master; in truth, he simply thought its spirit vein was too low-tier.

After Li Fulai passed away in meditation, the Li lineage split into seven branches. Li Luo, the ancestor of the fourth branch to which Li Yu belonged, received the third-tier spirit vein where the Heaven-Questioning Pavilion stood.

Li Luo had no intention of enshrining the Heaven-Questioning Pavilion. He simply used it as his own cultivation abode.

Of the things Jiang Taiyi had left in the Heaven-Questioning Pavilion, Li Fulai had already taken away all the treasures rich in spiritual energy. Everything remaining was an ordinary mortal object, so Li Luo gathered it all up and put it in a secluded storage room.

As a mischievous child, Li Yu had sneaked inside and seen this tablet on a wooden shelf. Later, he had asked his father, Li Yue, about it. His father had not been certain either, saying it was probably Ancestor Jiang Taiyi's paperweight.

Judging by its shape, this rectangular tablet did not seem particularly suitable as a paperweight.

But apart from that, he had no idea what purpose it served.

After recalling this, Li Yu set the tablet on the table, then picked up a scroll and opened it.

It was a moving painting of a strikingly handsome young man in yellow robes riding a majestic black eagle, soaring above mountain ranges and among white clouds.

The signature at the side was Li Fulai's, and the inscription read: "Painted in remembrance of my honored master, Jiang Taiyi."

It seems this young man in yellow is Jiang Taiyi, Li Yu thought, a trace of longing showing in his eyes.

The strongest people he had seen in this life were Golden Core cultivators, and they were already like cloud-dragons in the heavens. He could not imagine how imposing the Nascent Soul True Lords above them would be.

At that thought, Li Yu felt a pang of resentment. Without some heaven-shaking stroke of fortune, he would be stuck at Qi Refinement for the rest of his life.

"Ah!"

A sigh of resignation rang out.

Without a powerful master's backing, and now abandoned even by his lineage, merely living out the rest of his days in peace and dying a natural death would be an enormous blessing.

Once Yin Ya finished dealing with Wang Xiang, he would find an assignment elsewhere and leave Hanging Moon Peak.

Looking thoroughly dispirited, Li Yu set the portrait in his hands on the table.

Beep!

What was that sound?

Li Yu sprang to his feet, wondering whether Zeng Yang or Li Hun had come to deal with him, when another strange voice sounded: "Facial recognition successful."

What was successful?

Li Yu looked toward the sound and discovered it had come from the table.

He lifted the portrait, revealing the rectangular tablet beneath it.

The tablet, which had originally possessed no spiritual energy whatsoever, now seemed connected to another mysterious world. The side facing Jiang Taiyi's portrait glowed with a soft, jade-like radiance. Strange patterns, seemingly symbols, flickered across it like stars in the sky.

Li Yu's face lit up with excitement. He felt he might have stumbled upon an opportunity of immense proportions.

Recalling the strange voice he had just heard, he looked at the portrait in his hands.

It seemed this tablet, devoid of spiritual energy, needed Patriarch Jiang Taiyi's face to reveal its mysteries.

Li Yu immediately picked up the tablet to see just what sort of treasure it was.

Something connected to a Nascent Soul True Lord, and requiring such a miraculous means of unlocking it, could not possibly be an ordinary object.

On the side of the tablet that had revealed its mysteries, the various icons had exquisitely fine strokes and vivid colors. They were arranged in perfectly aligned rows and columns, with not the slightest discrepancy in their spacing. They did not look like anything a human hand could draw.

Li Yu studied them for a long time, but could not discern the meaning hidden in these icons.

It seems my comprehension is lacking. I cannot understand the heavenly book Patriarch Jiang Taiyi left behind! Li Yu sighed inwardly, already regarding the tablet as a heavenly book containing wondrous arts and secret techniques.

Still unwilling to give up, Li Yu reached out and touched the first icon on the tablet.

It was a pen. Presumably, the true meaning of the heavenly book lay within it.

The moment his finger touched it, the pen suddenly expanded to fill the entire tablet, revealing another, different page.

Li Yu was filled with joy, feeling he might have found a way to decipher the heavenly book.

He carefully examined the page that had opened from the icon and discovered a blank sheet of paper, with a line beneath each row. There was a pen on the far left, which seemed to allow him to write.

Forcing down his excitement, Li Yu cleared his throat and tentatively said, "Patriarch Taiyi, your disciple failed to establish his foundation and suffered grievous injuries. How can I recover quickly and ascend another floor?"

There was no response.

After fiddling with it for a long time, Li Yu gave up. He discovered that swiping a finger along the bottom of the tablet returned him to the original page full of icons, so he began exploring them one by one.

Soon, he tapped the second icon.

It was a river of stars.

As soon as it opened, Li Yu's eyes widened. He saw a beautiful, fair-skinned girl with her hair pinned up by a sword-shaped hairpin, holding a flying sword glittering with starlight as she spoke rapidly:

"Everyone who just came in, don't swipe away yet! Today's livestream sells directly from the source sect, with no middlemen. These are all exclusive livestream prices. You absolutely won't find high-grade flying swords this cheap anywhere else. If you haven't followed yet, tap the top-left corner! Give it a tap for benefits and more!"

"These are from the latest batch of Dao Void Swords forged by our Starry Dao Void Sword Sect's Granduncle-Master Wang Jiankong. Eighteen swords per furnace, every single one a masterpiece, with a ten-year after-sales warranty."

"Everyone else uses ordinary materials. Our sect's granduncle-master specifically went to the river of stars beyond the heavens to gather half a tael of Celestial Pivot Star Sand to upgrade the Dao Void Swords. Everyone, look at the details-point the camera at the blade. Look at these richly textured star patterns!"

"Next, I'll demonstrate the power of this Dao Void Sword for everyone..."

As soon as she finished speaking, Li Yu saw the girl with the sword hairpin form a sword seal with her free hand. The Dao Void Sword resting in her palm suddenly blazed with brilliant starlight and shot into the sky.

The view on the tablet, originally centered on the girl, stretched out in an instant, closely following the streak of starlight formed by the flying sword so the audience could see every detail.

Li Yu saw with his own eyes how the flying sword was like a

brilliant meteor, tearing through the firmament and cleaving the cosmos. It sheared the top off a mountain a thousand miles away, then, guided by the girl's sword seal, flashed back into her palm in an instant.

"Everyone, my cultivation is only average, so I can only flatten one mountain. If Granduncle-Master Wang Jiankong wielded this Dao Void Sword himself, he could cut down a star from the heavens and give you all a fireworks show."

"Besides combat and magical duels, our flying swords are also incredibly fast. You won't have to worry about being late on your daily journeys. They're absolutely worth every penny."

"Today is our Starry Dao Void Sword Sect's first livestream since joining the Star River platform, so I specifically asked the sect master for the best possible deal. No gimmicks-we're cutting the price straight in half!"

"Stock is limited! Junior brother, get ready. Three, two, one-put up the link!"