Chapter 863: Three Paths, One Dao (Patreon)

A/N

I read the comments about the confusion about what a Stellar Realm technique is, and the difference between a cultivation method and a cultivation technique, so I decided to include an explanation to make it more clear. Hope it helps! Also thanks for the technique suggestions, I appreciate it!

Chapter 863: Three Paths, One Dao

This was one of the many times that I was grateful for the existence of karma in this world.

Honestly, hadn’t it been for my actions in the Two Suns World, I wasn’t certain if the laziest man in the sect would have stood up and put most of the council to sleep for someone he hadn’t even had a proper conversation with.

Sure, Karma couldn’t puppet a cultivator, but it could give them a nudge in one direction or another. It was clear that Elder Lin Youran had been frustrated with the games of the Outer Elders for centuries, and all it required was a little nudge to work in my favour.

But the reasoning behind his actions didn’t matter, what mattered was that he had stood up for me when nobody else at that table dared to, and I had always been the type of person that didn’t feel comfortable owing someone, so there was no doubt that I would repay him.

I had an idea of what he needed. The only reason someone would bid over a jar of mystical lake mud was their inner world needed a treasure to spark the first life in their barren world, and Gong Ru had just taken the only jar the sect would see for twelve years. But that wasn’t an issue for me, my inner world was full of life, and I could already think of a few methods to help him without poisoning his inner world like my predecessor might have done. However, that could wait till after the meeting, when the elder was finally rested.

“Master,” Azure called out. “That elder could nap for a thousand years and still wake up tired...”

He wasn’t wrong, but before I could respond to that, I noticed the rest of the council was waking up. The first one to do so was Duan Hi, the scarred cultivator lifted his head as a thin line of drool stretch from his lip to the table before it snapped.

“Was there something in the tea?” he growled, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

“Why…why am I on the floor?” A voice came from beneath the table, followed by the scrape of wood as someone scrambled to their feet. “Who dared to move my chair?!”

“Nobody moved your chair, Elder Hou,” Qiao Feiyan said sweetly, sliding a bead across her abacus with a soft click. “You simply decided to lie down for a while. It seems that your age is catching up to you.”

They weren’t the only ones confused, one of Gong Ru’s old friends was staring at the brown stain spreading through his sleeve. “Why are my robes soaked?” he muttered. “Did the roof leak?”

“You spilled your tea in your sleep, Elder Bai,” Ma Gang snorted.

The old man opened his mouth to argue, but laughter from the Southern Flame Peak caused his face to redden and for him to lower his eyes, as though that would be enough for everyone to forget his embarrassing state.

“Eh?” one of the elders cried out, it was Elder Hou squinting at me. “What is the boy still doing here? I thought we made it clear that if he does not have anything to trade, then he is not welcome here.”

He let out a loud laugh and looked around at the elders beside him, waiting for them to join in, but when they realised that their leader Gong Ru was staying quiet, nobody did, causing Elder Hou’s laugh to trail off into a strained chuckle.

“Apologise,” Gong Ru commanded, fixing him with a hard glare.

“What?” an incredulous look crossed Elder Hou’s face like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Apologise to Elder Ke Yin.”

“Surely you are jok—” Hou let out an uncertain laugh.

“Now!”

The roar tore the grin off Elder Hou’s face, causing him to turn pale.

“This…this old one spoke out of turn,” he swallowed, cupping his fists towards me in a stiff bow. “I hope the esteemed elder can forgive me.”

I gave a wave of my hand to show that it didn’t bother me, but inwardly, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to hold back a smile because what I had witnessed just now demonstrated that these people were followers through and through, which was likely the reason why none of them had broken through in centuries.

The dao demanded that a cultivator walk their own path, which was difficult and lonely, so most people preferred to stay comfortable, even if staying comfortable meant becoming bitter, grumpy men who died of old age at the Stellar Realm.

“We move on,” Gong Ru said, pressing two fingers against the jade slip, which brought back the sheet of glowing green characters in the air. “Who wants Elder Ma’s Nine Furnace Palm?”

At once, the bargaining began.

“The Tempering Hall will take it,” an elder named Shen called out. “Our disciples have been begging for a fire palm technique to temper their bones. Elder Ma, I can give you five ingots of Emberheart Ore.”

“Five ingots for a complete Stellar Realm palm technique?” Ma Gang folded his thick arms. “Elder Shen, did you leave your senses on the floor beside Elder Hou? I will accept nothing less than nine.”

“Seven with a jar of Peak Stellar Realm beast marrow,” Elder Shen said through gritted teeth.

“Elder Ma, my nephew in the Technique Pavilion has been teaching the fire disciples for two springs now,” Qiao Feiyan said, tapping a painted fingernail against her abacus. “Those poor children deserve a proper palm technique. In exchange, I can offer you the Crimson Lotus Step, which I believe you’ve been hunting for these past twenty years.”

Ma Gang’s eyebrows shot up, and Elder Shen’s face turned red.

“The disciples of the Tempering Hall bleed for this sect every day!” Duan Hui cut in, slapping the table. “We’ll add a Bone-Forging Elixir on top.”

“Your disciples bleed because—” Ma Gang began.

“Because they punch boulders, yes, yes, we have heard it all before, Elder Ma,” Qiao Feiyan sighed.

Despite half of them being damp from their own tea, they had thrown themselves straight into using their disciples as excuses to buy techniques that would cripple them immediately if they attempted to use it.

But as funny as I found their bickering, I turned my attention to the Complete Sets with a blank expression, remembering Elder Lin Youran’s advice. It was good that I did because I noticed from the corner of my eye, Qiao Feiyan’s gaze linger on me before returning to her abacus.

“Master,” Azure warned. “I would be wary of that one.”

I agreed with that completely. Someone like her could provide a lot of benefit, but usually whatever they could offer came with strings attached, and unfortunately, it seemed that I had already drawn her attention.

Shaking the thoughts from my mind, I focused on what was before me.

There was a difference between a cultivation method and a cultivation technique. This was something that cultivators got mixed up with. The main focus of a cultivation method was to develop the inner world, it was what allowed breakthroughs. As for a cultivation technique, the main focus was taking the power that the inner world generated and using it to perform acts that mortals would see as miraculous.

Then there was the question of what a Stellar Realm technique even was, because there was a lot of misinformation spreading through the lower ranked cultivators. Quite a few believed that Stellar Realm elders fought by dropping moons on their enemies and hurling stars at each other, since the realm was named after them. But that wasn’t true. Had it been the truth, then every cultivator who reached the Stellar Realm would fight in the exact same manner, and that certainly wasn’t the case.

The simple reality was that Stellar Realm techniques were the same as the techniques from the realms below, the only difference being that they were designed to be powered by Stellar Realm energy. And that wasn’t a small difference. The energy from stars burning inside a cultivator’s soul was far denser than anything from the Elemental Realm, which made these techniques catastrophic enough to destroy cities.

In fact, Elder Ma Gang could probably turn an entire village to ash with one palm, which wasn’t something an Elemental Realm cultivator could do without expending multiple techniques. Honestly, they couldn’t be compared.

However, as impressive as that sounded, I wasn’t one to focus only on the offensive aspect, my real problem was that I lacked a complete manual that suited my fighting style, that would fill the holes in this new cultivation level.

But that wouldn’t be the case for long because I had narrowed the choices to three that I found had a relationship with the Dao of Connection, the dao which I seemed to be leaning towards more and more. And after seeing the simple yet devastating performance by Elder Lin Youran, I knew that the sound decision to make right now would be something that related to my dao. That would not only give me an edge over others, but more importantly, it would pave the path forward in seeking the dao.

The first technique was the Dragon Capillary Thicket Arts.

The second was the Myriad Stars Heavenly Endowment Art.

And the third was the Primordial Dao Tree Scripture.

In the past, when I had come across cultivation techniques that had names which were so ridiculously exaggerated, I had been embarrassed to say them out loud, yet having read the descriptions of these three, I knew that their names hadn’t exaggerated a thing. They were the real deal.

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