The Four Great Principles of Conquering Another Realm

"Endure?"

Li Zhengjun thought:

I have to endure it! No matter how bitter or exhausting it is, if I can cultivate a superior Cultivation Method, I can bear any hardship!

"Hiss... that hurts!"

Before the words had faded, light suddenly blazed throughout Chongming Hall.

A wheel of brilliant dawnlight rose from Yuhong's palm. At first it was no larger than a fist, but then it was as if a blazing sun had fallen to earth, swallowing the entire hall in a boundless sea of light.

The light did not dazzle the eyes, but it possessed an irresistible power to penetrate. It reached everywhere, slipping through every opening. It washed over Li Zhengjun's skin like flowing water, seeped into his meridians, burrowed into his bones, and illuminated every place where a trace of spiritual essence lay hidden.

He watched helplessly as his body dissolved in the light. Skin, flesh, sinew, and bone turned layer by layer into golden motes, rising and dissipating like morning mist beneath the blazing sun.

Pain!

Pain that pierced his soul!

The agony did not come from burning, but from being utterly conscious as every inch of flesh was taken apart and every strand of his meridians was stripped away!

Li Zhengjun could even feel his soul being drawn from his melting body and left suspended in midair, watching helplessly as his flesh turned to nothing in the light.

Then the light began to reshape everything.

The golden particles gathered once more, as though an invisible craftsman were using dawnlight as his material, reforging Li Zhengjun's bones brick by brick and weaving his meridians strand by strand.

No one knew how much time passed. His entire body had been reforged as though in the rising sun. His newborn bones glimmered with a faint golden light, and a barely perceptible dawnlight flowed through his newly formed flesh.

But even with Yuhong's Divine Ability protecting him, Li Zhengjun felt every bit of the pain of being taken apart and remade with perfect clarity.

After several hours or so, Yuhong finally stopped.

Like a man who had drowned and finally caught his breath, Li Zhengjun collapsed to the floor.

Yet, mysteriously, the suffocating sensation from before had vanished, and he felt vigorous power surging through him.

This body was no longer merely flesh and blood. Li Zhengjun felt that he now possessed inexhaustible strength, like a morning sun compressed to its very limit, waiting to burst forth.

Yuhong walked several circles around him, looked him up and down, and nodded with satisfaction.

"The nine Immortal Foundation spiritual items I used to refine you were not wasted. Your body has reached the limit of your current realm, and every Spirit Root throughout your body has been refined, with your Great Sun Spirit Root standing out in particular. When you cultivate the Bright Yang Dao Lineage in the future, you'll achieve twice the results with half the effort."

"Nine Immortal Foundation spiritual items!?"

Li Zhengjun drew a sharp breath. Nine Immortal Foundation-grade spiritual items, used merely to refine the body of a Fetal Breath cultivator—it was far too extravagant.

Although he had been a direct descendant of the Lineage before, he had only been one by blood. He had not been nurtured as a Purple Mansion seed, so he could not imagine such extravagance.

Only after becoming the focus of the Lineage overnight did Li Zhengjun understand the sheer lavishness of a Purple Mansion immortal clan!

True Person Yuhong took out a Jade Slip and said:

"This contains the Double Radiance Bright Yang Breathing Scripture, along with the insights of the Lineage's predecessors through the generations. Study it as much as you wish, but there's no need to rush into cultivating it just yet."

Li Zhengjun accepted the Jade Slip, looking puzzled.

"Please enlighten me, True Person."

Yuhong said slowly:

"This method has a special requirement: only those in high positions can cultivate it. If someone in a subordinate position forces himself to cultivate it, he will defy the heavenly order. At best, all his meridians will be damaged; at worst, he will die an untimely death. You are now the most important person in the Li Household, but I cannot place you in the public eye. If I put you in a high position in the Yuyu Realm, it would only make you the target of everyone's arrows."

He looked toward Subduing Tiger Pass, his gaze deep.

"Therefore, you must go to the Great Scarlet Realm and become a ruler there. Once you lead the clansmen into the Great Scarlet Realm, you will be their patriarch. You must establish a new lineage there, wage campaigns, expand your territory, and build up your own imperial imagery!"

He paused, a note of desolation entering his voice.

"People say Bright Yang is hard to attain. That difficulty refers not only to Bright Yang spiritual items growing increasingly scarce over the past century, but also to the difficulty of shaping that imagery. The Yuyu Realm is already a pool of stagnant water; no one can stir up wind or waves. Never mind sweeping across the seven kingdoms-even ruling a single kingdom is a fool's dream. Under such circumstances, how could anyone speak of tempering Divine Abilities or pursuing Bright Yang?"

Yuhong withdrew his gaze and looked at Li Zhengjun.

"But you're different, Zhengjun. You can go to the Great Scarlet Realm, and you have a thousand years. One day, you will attain Bright Yang."

At the Purple Mansion level, relying solely on piling up resources would not work. It depended more on fortune and fate.

Li Zhengjun nodded solemnly and said:

"I will not disappoint your expectations, True Person."

He pressed the Jade Slip to his forehead and sent his Divine Sense into it. More than a hundred thousand characters of the Cultivation Method surged into his sea of consciousness with a roar. They contained not only exquisitely profound methods of circulating Qi, but also the annotations and insights of ancestors through the generations, densely packed, every word a pearl.

A breathing method for the Fetal Breath realm was actually this profound!

Taking advantage of the moment, Yuhong explained the key points of the Cultivation Method to Li Zhengjun one by one, striving to ensure that he understood every part thoroughly.

With a Purple Mansion True Person at his side to guide him patiently, the obscure passages suddenly became clear. Even when he occasionally failed to understand something, it would not hinder his subsequent cultivation.

"Once you reach the Great Scarlet Realm, if you have any questions about cultivation, you may return to me at any time."

True Person Yuhong, now in the twilight of his life, had finally recovered, in his remaining days, the spirit with which he had once nurtured the Lineage's younger generation.

"Over the years, I have personally nurtured quite a few of our young people. But as the saying goes, 'When fortune runs dry, Purple Mansion is hard to reach; when fate runs shallow, no Divine Ability can be gained.' Some lacked sufficient fate and fortune, while others met with ill luck and fell victim to the schemes of higher cultivators. Zhengjun, your life is of the utmost importance now. Since you have so much time to cultivate in the Great Scarlet Realm, the best course is to proceed slowly. By my reckoning, Zhengchen and the others should be ready by now. Before you leave, I have a few words to give you."

Li Zhengjun sat upright and said respectfully:

"Please instruct me, True Person."

Yuhong paused briefly, then began to speak slowly.

"I have lived for four hundred and seventy-eight years, keeping watch over White Jade Mountain. I watched the Li Household rise from obscurity to where it stands today, and then watched it slip toward the abyss, one step at a time, before my eyes. In this life, I have seen too much. I have seen geniuses fall, sects perish, and those who thought they had seized fortuitous opportunities end with not even their bones left behind. These four rules were bought with four hundred years. With every step you take in the Great Scarlet Realm, recite them silently to yourself."

"First: observe the heavens before entering the game."

"When you arrive in an unfamiliar world, your first thought should not be, 'What is here?' but, 'Who sits here?' In the lands of the seven kingdoms of the Yuyu Realm, Purple Mansion is heaven. Yet there are heavens beyond heaven, and above Purple Mansion, Golden Core cultivators look down upon all living beings. Since that is so, we might as well draw some conclusions about the Great Scarlet Realm. From what you've said, what you've seen so far is no more than one corner of the Ning Kingdom, yet a few Qi Refinement Devil Cultivators dare to pen up a kingdom's mortals like livestock. What does that tell you?"

He did not wait for Li Zhengjun to answer, but continued directly:

"It does not mean there are no high-level cultivators there. Quite the opposite. A group of Devil Cultivators chose not to cultivate where spiritual essence is abundant and instead sought out a remote mortal dynasty. That means there are stronger cultivators beyond the Ning Kingdom, and they had no choice but to find a crack to cultivate in. Furthermore, it means those true great powers disdain such meager blood food as mortals. They sit in higher places, watching the wild dogs below fight over bones, too indifferent even to lift their eyes."

"So the first thing you must do is not conquer, but observe. Find out what realm the strongest beings in and around the Great Scarlet Realm have reached, where their spheres of influence lie, and how much tolerance they have for outside forces. Until you know 'how high the heavens are,' you must never expand rashly. As for a tiny place like the Ning Kingdom, where Devil Cultivators have held sway for years without anyone paying it any mind, it may lie outside the sight of every great power. A place like that is the crack where you can make your start."

Li Zhengjun fell into thought. He had been planning to lead his clansmen in a great slaughter on all sides, but now that he thought about it, he truly should not take such risks.

If some old monster happened to be overhead, his conquest of the other realm would be over before it began.

Yuhong continued:

"Second: establish your cause before raising your banner."

"The Li Household must expand sooner or later; we must open up territory in the Great Scarlet Realm. But you must never set your mind on 'conquest.' The word is simple enough to say, but if you truly appear as a 'conqueror,' every inch of land you take will earn you another inch of enmity. In the end, you'll find the entire Great Scarlet Realm has turned against you. No matter how strong the Li Household is, it cannot afford that."

"So do not conquer. 'Punish the wicked'! The Devil Cultivators of the Ning Kingdom refine mortals into blood pills—that is your banner. You kill them not to seize territory, but to set the Heavenly Dao aright and slay evil devils. When you save a kingdom's people, their loyalty will be your first line of defense. When you wipe out a Devil Cultivator stronghold, even if righteous sects do not help you, they will find it hard to openly obstruct you. You can weigh for yourself how great a difference that banner makes. As the saying goes, a campaign needs a just cause. That cause is more useful than a Law Treasure."

Li Zhengjun nodded in agreement and added:

"The Li Household has Cultivation Methods and the hundred arts of immortal cultivation that the Great Scarlet Realm lacks. Once we occupy a region, we can teach our methods and allow the cultivators of Great Scarlet to cultivate more efficiently."

Because resources were limited in the Yuyu Realm, generations of cultivators had continually improved their Cultivation Methods, all to squeeze more cultivation out of every wisp of Spiritual Qi.

If the Li Household raised the banner of "teaching the methods" high, why worry that no one would come to join them?

Yuhong smiled faintly and continued:

"Third: nurture your power with people, and nurture your lands with power."

"Once you've gained a foothold, the next step is to consider how to defend your home. No matter how strong you are alone, you cannot defend an entire territory. The larger your domain, the more people you will need. Right now, you can only take ten clansmen with you, and their realms cannot exceed yours. What does that mean? It means that in the beginning, you simply cannot spare anyone to guard any piece of land."

"What can you do? For now, there are two paths."

"First, use what is at hand. Among the Ning Kingdom's mortal martial artists, teach those with decent Root Bones some basic Cultivation Methods and first train a local core of your own. The Devil Cultivators already regard them as blood food. If you save their lives and grant them a chance at immortality, their loyalty will be beyond question."

"Second, put down roots in the other realm. The first clansmen to go with you must be prepared to spread their branches and leaves. They cannot return, so they must marry, have children, and pass on their bloodlines over there. Fifty or a hundred years from now, there will be a new Li Household in the Great Scarlet Realm. Only when the lineages in both realms exchange what they have and supply what the other lacks will the Li Household have truly put down roots in the Great Scarlet Realm."

"After you take the Ning Kingdom in the Great Scarlet Realm and improve your cultivation, I will select a second group of the Lineage's young people to go over and help you establish your lineage. Of course, the specific measures must wait until we have gathered information about the Ning Kingdom."

Li Zhengjun accepted it all. Professional matters should be left to professionals. The Lineage already had six hundred years of history, with capable people emerging generation after generation and who knew how much experience in managing a household. How could a youngster like him, who had lived only twenty years, compare with the accumulated foundation of a Purple Mansion immortal clan?

"I will leave everything to your judgment, True Person."

True Person Yuhong continued:

"Fourth: nibble away like a silkworm; do not swallow like a whale."

"Time flowing ten times faster is your greatest advantage. You have ample time to make plans, try and fail, and grow. With every territory you take, build cities, set up formations, move people in, and educate them. Turn it completely into your foundation. Once that foundation is secure, plan for the next piece. In the Great Scarlet Realm, we have no retreat. Every inch of territory must be forged from iron. Do not imitate those sects that blaze like meteors, glorious for a century and reduced to ashes overnight."

Li Zhengjun understood. The difference in the flow of time between the two realms was the key to turning things around. He had hundreds of years to reach Purple Mansion and did not need to rush.

The Li Household had had no foundation in its early days, yet through the lingering efforts of six generations, it had finally become a Purple Mansion immortal clan. Now he had a Purple Mansion immortal clan supporting him from behind, so why should he worry about failing to reach Purple Mansion in a few hundred years?

After laying out the four principles, True Person Yuhong sighed, and his tone became very calm.

"No one knows how much of my lifespan remains, but everyone wants to know. Zhengjun, I won't hide it from you. At most, I have twenty-three years left."

"Twenty-three years!"

Li Zhengjun was stunned. He had not expected his grandfather's situation to be even worse than he had imagined.

Yuhong shook his head and said with a smile:

"It's all right. Those twenty-three years will be two hundred and thirty in the Great Scarlet Realm, enough time for you to reach Purple Mansion."

But Li Zhengjun said:

"You needn't worry, True Person. Once the Li Household has put down roots in the Great Scarlet Realm, we will find a Secret Method to extend your life."

Yuhong, however, placed no hope in it and merely said:

"The Dao of Bright Yang is the Dao of emperors. How difficult it is for an emperor to extend his life! Throughout the ages, how many emperors have sought eternal life, only to meet a sudden death in the end? I no longer think about those things. Zhengjun, as long as you can reach Purple Mansion, as long as the Li Household can continue, I can die without regrets."

Li Zhengjun said nothing more, but held the thought even tighter in his heart.

The Great Scarlet Realm is different from the Yuyu Realm. There must be a way to extend his life. Grandfather is the sea-calming divine needle of the Lineage. No matter what, I must keep him alive...

Having made up his mind, he continued studying the Double Radiance Bright Yang Wheel-Nurturing Scripture. Before he knew it, two days had passed.

During that time, Yuhong personally made a trip to Subduing Tiger Pass and brought back Li Chenfeng and the six Fetal Breath cultivators he had carefully selected.

All six were Immortal Foundation seeds from Subduing Tiger Pass. Whether in talent, temperament, or combat strength, they were among the very best of the younger generation.

Li Zhengchen also acted quickly, bringing four people to Chongming Hall and putting all the necessary spiritual resources in order.

On the third day, just as dawn broke, everything was ready.

Yuhong ordered the ten Fetal Breath cultivators into the hall. It was the first time in their lives that the ten had met their True Person ancestor, and every one of them was so excited that they prostrated themselves before him.

Li Zhengjun looked them over and saw that all six behind Li Chenfeng had extraordinary bearing. Though they were only at the Fetal Breath realm, every pair of eyes was as resolute as iron. They all cultivated Fetal Breath methods of the Bright Yang Dao Lineage, and a fighting spirit lay hidden within them, waiting to be unleashed.

Rarer still, they had grown up at Subduing Tiger Pass since childhood, were all within five degrees of kinship, and had a desire to win merit and build a name for themselves carved into their bones.

The four selected by Li Zhengchen were noticeably different in style. Unlike the cultivators from Subduing Tiger Pass, they were not so young. The youngest had only just reached twenty, while the oldest was already approaching sixty.

Li Zhengjun knew the youngest among them. It was none other than Li Yuankai, the eldest son of his clan elder brother Li Zhengchen!

"Patriarch, are you sending Yuankai to the Great Scarlet Realm?"

The Li Household's generation names were:

"Bright light heralds fortune, opening the vermilion firmament; upright origins penetrate and illuminate the azure heavens.

"Brilliant dawn shines clear, radiant without limit; the sun's harmony forever sustains the world, renewing its blessings."

Li Zhengjun was a little younger than Li Yuankai, but belonged to the generation above him, so he addressed him as Yuankai.

Was a true direct descendant of the Li Household also going to the Great Scarlet Realm?

He did not voice that question in front of the other cultivators.

Li Zhengchen's expression did not change as he said:

"These ten are the first people from the Li Household to set out for the other realm, so their assignments must be well balanced. They need not only people to provide martial strength, but also someone to handle routine affairs and put everyone's worries at rest."

For some reason, he looked at everyone except his own eldest son.

Li Yuankai watched his father, but in the end never received an encouraging glance.

"Yuankai has spent these past years helping me manage routine affairs. He has a steady temperament, a comparable cultivation realm, and is well versed in the Dao of formations. For those reasons, I included him and entrusted him with the position of governor, responsible for logistics and routine affairs as we open up territory in the other realm."

Li Zhengjun, Yuhong, and Li Chenfeng all understood. In truth, there was no shortage of people who met those criteria, yet Li Zhengchen had deliberately chosen his eldest son, Li Yuankai.

This was a pill to set the other nine cultivators' minds at ease.

After all, the Great Scarlet Realm was another realm, and there was no return once they went.

With life and death uncertain ahead, what would the other clansmen think if not a single direct descendant of the Li Household charged to the front?

Would distracting thoughts arise and affect the clan's unity?

By personally sending out his eldest legitimate son, the patriarch had shown everyone the attitude of the Li Household's leadership.

That attitude carried more weight than any words.

Li Yuankai stepped forward and bowed to Yuhong, Li Chenfeng, and Li Zhengjun in turn.

"This junior will not fail the trust placed in me. I will lead our clansmen in gaining a firm foothold in the Great Scarlet Realm and do everything I can to support Your Excellency's cultivation!"