Free Web NovelChapter 1872: Following One’s Heart (III)
“Senior... if the supreme and Human King find out that you’re talking crap behind their back...” Li Hao laughed helplessly.
“They’re well aware of what I think and don’t care about what others say,” said the Exalted Blood Emperor. “I tell you this because you control time. You need a certain degree of drive and motivation to proceed in your cultivation. Once you come under New Martial’s banner and lose that drive... you won’t be able to part from time again!
“I actually do wish for you to walk out from the War Sovereign’s influence and the allure of time. But Number Two’s revival makes me worried that you’re deeply affected, that Number Two is treating you as the War Sovereign, and so has decided to descend upon this world.”
A thoughtful look entered Li Hao’s eyes.
“Don’t worry too much, just be yourself,” smiled the Exalted Blood Emperor. “Everyone has their own way of living. I’m just giving you some advice. If you think that the Dragon master is dangerous enough to warrant allying with New Martial, New Martial will not turn you down.” fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
“My thanks.” Li Hao didn’t inquire further. The Exalted Blood Emperor seemed to have come for just a look and not to actually do anything. But his presence brought some contemplation for the young man.
The thunder pillar in front of them bristled with thunder and lightning. The Thunder master and Fog Mountain were both defending against it. It was a unique experience to have two eighth ranks hold back a chaos tribulation for others.
“This should be great dao.” Li Hao changed the topic with a smile. “But how strong must it be to appear in a tangible form?”
“Is this different from being a world?” smiled the Exalted Blood Emperor. “I hear that you’ve manifested dao in the form of a world. Why can’t a thunder pillar be a world?”
Li Hao blinked and looked thoughtfully around them. “That’s true enough.”
“The pillars at the center aren't actually dangerous. The danger lies on the edge. The pillars around the perimeter are the equivalent of exits in a dao net. They are bound to be very sharp and designed to prevent people from leaving at will. So if you want to test them, you can try the ones in the center. Avoid the ones on the edge.
“You aren’t much weaker than me and may have seen just as much of the world as I have,” added the Exalted Blood Emperor. “These are simply my recommendations. In addition, your dao world seems to be outside of you. I don’t really understand your path, but I do know that the Human King turned his dao into an internal world!
“In contrast, your dao seems similar to that of the supreme’s. The supreme combines all of his replicas into a book of dao. One page corresponds to one dao and one page is tied to one replica.
“Your connection with your one thousand worlds might be closer, but I’ve found that you do not rein in your one thousand worlds, dao river, or dao domain. All of them seem to be external daos. Do you have other cultivation ideas in mind?”
The Exalted Blood Emperor didn’t say that Li Hao’s method was wrong. To be within reach of seventh rank in such a short period of time could not be an indicator that the young man was wrong.
It was just, the Exalted Blood Emperor was confused. Hence, he offered these reminders.
If the dao river continued to exist outside of Li Hao and the one thousand worlds remained in the river, that would create a flaw in the young man. He was getting by at the moment simply because not that many were scrutinizing him that closely. They felt that he was very powerful!
But was the young man himself strong?
No, not really.
If someone could seize upon this point and find a way to avoid the river of dao and sword of one thousand worlds, Li Hao wouldn’t be able to defend his primary body all that well.
Granted, a powerhouse of that level wouldn’t need to faff around with anything. They could just outright kill the young man. It was New Martial that emphasized being one with one’s strength.
The Human King’s internal world was the greatest manifestation of that. He didn’t really care about how strong Yin and Yang was. The world was just an external construct. What was more important was one’s internal fortitude.
Even if Yin and Yang really did fall to the enemy, the Human King wouldn’t suffer as grave a loss as one might think.
Li Hao gave it some thought, then decided to voice what he originally wasn’t going to say. “I am attempting some other cultivation methods at present. My ultimate goal is to return to the self and distill all daos back to their starting point. That starting point is me!
“Sending my dao river outside of myself is also to make it more convenient to cut it loose. It’s also easier to experiment with it this way, just in case I take the wrong turn on the path of cultivation.
“I have some thoughts, such as utilizing my blood as a river and bone as structure,” Li Hao further explained. “My dao meridians can be the world and my cells the world barrier. I can cultivate the chaos myself!
“My current dao river is a simulation of that method, so ultimately, I will give it up. Of course, I don’t know yet if I will succeed or not. This is just a thought...”
The Exalted Blood Emperor fell silent. He looked at Li Hao for a long moment before saying softly, “I have underestimated you. Perhaps the Human King and the rest have as well. It’s just, you will have to pay an even bigger price in terms of energy. Your dao river is already incredibly strong, so strong that it cannot be believed. You...”
“All of it is just power that I took from others.” Li Hao didn’t care about his current accomplishments. “It’s not a function of my own cultivation!
“The power within my river is a huge mixture that is not fully integrated with each other. They only became one after I devoured an eighth rank dao universe. It’s also given me more inspiration on how to transform my own body into a dao universe and seal myself away so that strength no longer leaks out.
“This has been one of my more successful attempts.” Li Hao waxed eloquent since this was a rare encounter with a New Martial powerhouse. “Senior, the daos within time are ever-shifting and time itself passes onward. Human cells continuously split off from each other and change. The new replaces the dead. This is the key to a decreasing lifespan!
“Are there commonalities between the two?” asked the puzzled young man. “If there are, doesn’t that mean time and lifespan are great daos, and that dao itself stems from the human body? If cells become the great dao and are stabilized, does that mean one is then undying?
“They say that the great dao vanishes with the death of the body, but is it the dao that is gone or the person itself?”
The ten thousand daos of time were shifting and ever-changing. Human cells were also constantly splitting, dying, and being born. Both concepts marched inexorably forward.
Dao meridians originated from the body and were the root source of Silver Moon’s dao. This also represented one thing—that the origin of dao was within the human body!
The dao universes only existed because the human body was too weak to support the great dao. Power leaked outward and needed a place to be situated. The great dao’s home was within the human body.
When one spoke of the great dao fading away after one’s death... that was because the body was dead, so naturally the great dao would not exist anymore. It did not mean that one died because the great dao had been extinguished!
The Exalted Blood Emperor paused and studied Li Hao. The young man... really did think about a lot of things.
“I cannot give you more advice,” he said after a long exhale. “You seem to have been pursuing your own ideas all along and never deviated from them. Perhaps the Human King and I have misjudged you.”
They might have really mistaken the young man. This was not someone fixated on time, but someone studying it and ultimately distilling its unique properties into his own cultivation system.
Was Li Hao really just a Silver Moon citizen, and a particularly young one at that? Or had he inherited War’s potential and will, perhaps even his intelligence?
Or one might say, his thirst for knowledge!
Someone like him seemed to love delving into the great dao and reducing it to commonplace concepts. He fully tied the great dao to the human body. In Li Hao’s eyes, the human body was the real treasure and true source of dao!
Based on Li Hao’s explanation, everyone’s greatest treasure was not the dao universe, but their own body!
This was a frightening concept.
“I also have another thought,” Li Hao continued. “One that I couldn’t materialize before, nor did I have a chance to. Now that the senior is here, and Senior Fog Mountain and Senior Thunder master...
“Since everyone is here, I’d like to give it a try. Will the seniors give me a hand?”
The group turned toward him, still immersed in the notion of the human body being the source of dao.
“Senior Dao Chess.” Li Hao looked at the treasure. “I’d like to place my one thousand worlds within the chessboard squares. And then... I’ll crack open time a bit and put it in the appropriate square. After that, I’ll enter the chessboard and line it up with the relevant dao meridians...
“Then I want the seniors to completely tear me apart! I’d like everyone to bury me under the thunder pillars according to the order that I lay out. I’d like to try if I can encompass the Thunder Region with my auras then and temporarily become its owner. I will be able to observe its specific structure then...”
Even the Exalted Blood Emperor paused with brief astonishment.
“It’ll take too long and complicated to study them one by one!” Li Hao explained. “Don’t worry, this isn’t a death wish. I just think that all daos must have some commonalities since they are all one in the end.
“I won’t die that easily—I’ll just lose a physical body at most. If I succeed, I might have a deeper understanding of the human body afterward!” Li Hao grew excited at this part of the analysis. “I’ve always felt that whether it is the great dao, chaos, or worlds... including worlds, actually. These are all just derivative products.
“The real treasure is within the body! It’s ourselves! What we cultivate is not dao, but the excavation of our own potential. Humans, or rather, life is born at the world origin. Then life itself is the beginning and the end...”
He spoke of such abstract concepts, but the group listened with rapidly shifting expressions.
“The Human King focuses on yin and yang for external cultivation and a world for the internal being,” the Exalted Blood Emperor said after a while. “He also believes that the human body is our greatest asset, but he’s not as crazy as you and wouldn’t take this kind of risk. There are too many unknown factors involved!
“For the moment, you have more important things to do...”
“No, I do not.” Li Hao shook his head. “The Human King’s goal is to safeguard New Martial. But I... I do not have a concrete goal in mind. If I had to say something, then I... would like to know... what is dao?
“I profess that I do not owe anyone anything,” laughed the young man. “Alright, I do owe a few dao universes to different people. Let’s set that aside. I do not have an absolute responsibility or obligation to protect everyone. Not to mention, I don’t think the Dragon master will be a big threat when New Martial is around!
“I should simply like to... seek the dao, attain the great dao, and comprehend the dao!” Li Hao gave a long exhale. “Perhaps I’d like to trace the origins of the great dao and fully understand what it means by the past, present, future, life and death, order, disorder, creation, and armageddon!
“That way, it will be me who cultivates the great dao, not the dao cultivating me!” The young man laughed. “Meeting the senior has helped me clarify one of my life’s goals. You and I are not War, and I do not wish to become War.
“However, I cannot deny that he has influenced me. His dao might be the strongest, most complex, and invincible dao that I have seen thus far. Thus, I’d like to see how he did it. How did he transform such a complicated dao into time? freёwebnovel.com
“I’d also like to make a similar attempt. He was a sixth rank, I am a sixth rank. Why can he grasp so much and I can only follow his designated path?”
