Failure was the mother of success.
For Feng Jiu, this saying that mortals used to console themselves had become an undeniable reality.
Through reincarnation, through each restart, he could try and fail again and again. He let himself run wild, attempting all sorts of things he would never have dared try in reality. There was nothing he dared not do.
His scope for trial and error was limitless!
Other cultivators could only follow one road into the darkness. If they took a wrong turn and suffered a Dao injury, their lives were more or less finished, unless they found Immortal Medicine or achieved their own nirvana and lived a second life.
But for Feng Jiu, taking the wrong path was nothing to fear. He could undo it.
Experience after experience like these had forged the extraordinary Feng Jiu of today.
Divine prohibition!
Even with the Myriad Tribulation Reincarnation Lotus helping him maintain a perpetual state of divine prohibition in an unconventional way, that very first breakthrough into divine prohibition had ultimately been Feng Jiu's own achievement!
How had he done it?
By trying again and again, utterly unafraid of death!
Throughout his endless reincarnations, he had once ignited all five great secret realms of the human body in a single breath, merging them into one, shattering the barriers between them, and redefining their relationships. He had wanted each to contain the others, all interwoven as one... predictably, he had dropped dead the next instant, and his death had been hideous. Yet in that fleeting instant between life and death, he had caught a trace of the indescribable mystery of the five great secret realms resonating together.
He had also entertained wild ideas about the four extremes secret realm, seeking to push it to the utmost and transcend its limits. Others cultivated four; he would cultivate five, walking a road no predecessor had ever taken.
Naturally, that had ended very badly. Even Feng Jiu himself refused to look back on the final outcome.
He had also become a Dao-obsessed madman, probing the very foundations of the five great secret realms. He severed his own limbs, or tore out his heart and lungs... with his body incomplete, he circulated his scriptures and contemplated the secret realms, exploring their existence at the wavering boundary between being and nonbeing.
Perhaps no one in all history had ever acted as recklessly as Feng Jiu.
Perhaps Longevity Heavenly Venerable, who had created Nine Secrets: Zhe in ages past, could barely have found some common ground with him.
Being unafraid of death and difficult to kill was itself a cultivation talent rarely seen throughout history. It represented the margin for error on the path of cultivation, and even granted the freedom to deliberately test mistakes.
Nine Secrets: Zhe governed vitality. Regenerating from a drop of blood was no great difficulty... but ultimately, Longevity Heavenly Venerable still could not afford to die.
Feng Jiu could!
He had willingly entered extinction and embraced death, undergoing Dao Transformation during his reincarnations more than once.
For no other reason than to see which of his five great secret realms could hold out longest, and which had the shallowest foundation.
Dao Transformation, returning to heaven and earth—this was like the fairest judgment in this universe, with heaven itself providing the answer. The part of the human body whose cultivation was most lacking would undergo Dao Transformation first.
Amid extinction, he glimpsed the possibility of new life; amid ruin, he pondered the hope of rising again.
Through reincarnation after reincarnation, Feng Jiu had come to know his five great secret realms all too well: sea of bitterness, Dao palace, four extremes, dragon transformation, immortal platform... finally, in a flash of inspiration, he had made the five great secret realms resonate and stepped into divine prohibition!
Seeking within himself, comprehending his own Dao-these were not mere words. He had truly done it!
On the path of cultivation, his own countless corpses had paved a road to heaven!
He had never cultivated Emperor Scriptures, but to the Feng Jiu of today, Emperor Scriptures no longer mattered. He was walking the path best suited to himself.
No Emperor Scriptures could compare to his own Heavenly Court Scriptures after Demonic Modification, which perfectly matched his body and his secret realms.
Such was his cultivation.
And such was his study of Nine Secrets: Xing.
During his reincarnations, he adjusted his foundations, starting with the sea of bitterness secret realm. Rather than merely comprehending Nine Secrets: Xing, he made it an integral part of his own foundation.
"If one day I create my own Emperor Scriptures, they'll probably be the greatest scriptures for the sea of bitterness secret realm in all history..."
"The sea of bitterness section of the Dao Scripture? It falls far short of mine!"
"I aimed my sword straight at the wheel of life, straight at the marks that heaven, earth, and time leave upon a person's lifespan. I've died again and again. Who could possibly compare?"
Feng Jiu was confident, and he truly had reason to be.
When a rune constructed from the patterns time had left upon his wheel of life finally stabilized, an astonishing manifestation appeared behind Feng Jiu. The river of time wound around his body, yet he seemed to have transcended it, trampling time beneath his feet!
Time encircled his body... the Heavenly Emperor trod upon time!
Within this manifestation, Feng Jiu felt as though he were about to transcend the world. His perception of time seemed to have reached a terrifying level. All things stood still, slowed severalfold, even dozens of times over in his senses!
"Heaven and earth haven't slowed down. I've been accelerated..."
"More than tenfold... but only my perception. If I actually want to move, I can't."
Feng Jiu pondered his newfound understanding with some regret.
Simply put, his neural responses had been greatly enhanced, but his actual movements remained much as before, at most a little faster.
Of course, that was already astonishing enough.
In battle and slaughter, even the slightest edge in speed could sometimes be the slender line between life and death!
In a clash to the death, a single instant could be enough for an instant kill!
"Besides, there are still four other secret realms I can adjust..."
A sliver of his consciousness emerged from the sea of bitterness and entered the Dao palace secret realm.
Here, the sound of scriptures echoed without end. Five Dao palaces stood side by side, with five illusory deities seated cross-legged. Dimly, there seemed to be a departed self praying for his present incarnation, and a Dao self comprehending the Dao for the self of this lifetime!
"The departed self... the Dao self..."
Feng Jiu examined them. "And the five elements..."
"The departed self is mysterious. Does this talk of past and present lives count as touching upon time?"
"The Dao self dwells in this world, comprehending the Great Dao. Could it resonate with the time of heaven and earth?"
"I've heard that the Jade Lake Holy Land's inherited scripture, the Western Emperor Scripture created by the Queen Mother of the West, is the most extraordinary in the domain of the Dao palace. If only I could read it..."
Feng Jiu sank into thought.
Unfortunately, that would be very difficult.
First, Jade Lake apparently did not accept sweet-smelling, soft-bodied male disciples.
Second, the Western Emperor Pagoda stood there. It was a genuine Emperor Weapon!
The Heavenly Court Organization, an Assassin Divine Dynasty, dared destroy ordinary holy lands, but never dared storm the gates of an Extreme Dao Holy Land.
Otherwise, when that Emperor Weapon came crashing down, you had better possess the cultivation and strength of the Heavenly Court Organization's first Lord of the Heavenly Court, and have comprehended Nine Secrets: Xing to the domain of time...
If not, your death would likely be rather gruesome. No one would be able to piece you back together!
"Perhaps I'm not entirely without a way..."
He suddenly murmured, and with a stir of his divine sense, a magnificent passage
of scripture appeared within his sea of consciousness.
"The Nüwa Emperor Creation Scripture!"
"The departed self, the Dao self... the self of this lifetime..."
On a small hill, golden blood energy surged toward the heavens. A young man sat cross-legged, seemingly pondering something.
Suddenly, his brows lifted, and he smiled.
"The fish has finally taken the bait..."
"Heavenly Court... I hope you won't disappoint me..."