Chapter 121: Immortal Gate Survival Rules

The blessed land of Book Mountain.

Daoist Xuanhe, possessing the Book Mountain Sect Master, strolled leisurely along the mountain's forest path. To outsiders, he appeared completely alone, without a soul accompanying him.

Yet in Daoist Xuanhe's eyes, it was a completely different sight. The woman stood right beside him, vivid and lifelike, occasionally admiring the scenery of Book Mountain. Though it wasn't his first time seeing her, he couldn't help but marvel at the sight every single time.

'Incredible!'

'How many years has the martial dao of the Eight Trigrams Furnace been developing? How could it produce such a figure? Is the so-called martial artist's Divine Intent truly this profound?'

Daoist Xuanhe couldn't understand it.

In fact, he had even lowered himself to secretly seek out a peerless divine art of Great Shun to practice, but the results were utterly useless.

Peerless divine art? He had mastered it in a single day.

And the result?

At best, he was about on par with those of the Great Grandmaster Rank. He couldn't reach the level of the woman before him at all; the gap between them was like heaven and earth.

At this thought, Daoist Xuanhe felt a surge of sorrow.

The cause of all this was just a single closed-door seclusion.

Five hundred years ago, his trials in the Eight Trigrams Furnace were finally completed. Leaving behind the Book Mountain lineage, he shattered the boundary, ascended, and was promoted to an outer sect disciple.

After that, he cultivated in secret for over two hundred years, finally gathering enough spells to transcend the heavenly tribulation, pass the three calamities, and attain Divine Powers. During this period, he went into closed-door seclusion for about a hundred years... In those hundred years, he focused entirely on profound cultivation, naturally neglecting his attention on the Eight Trigrams Furnace. Originally, it wasn't a big deal—just slacking off a bit.

Past generations of furnace-watching disciples had all done the same.

'But it just had to happen on my watch.'

'During my hundred-year seclusion, this freak popped up sixty years in, skyrocketing and directly turning the situation inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace upside down!'

This was no joke.

One had to know, the Eight Trigrams Furnace had always been a vital location for the Immortal Gate. The Immortal Gate seemed aloof and high above, but in reality, their control over the furnace had always been extremely strict.

Great Shun was simply the Immortal Gate's proxy.

The Armament Manual was a divine weapon and magic treasure personally supervised and forged by the Immortal Gate. It was specifically designed to record all martial artists in the realm and ensure that the Great Shun Martial Dao never exceeded the Immortal Gate's control.

If an Immortal Gate disciple received grace and came to the Eight Trigrams Furnace to claim a treasure, they would first choose from the Armament Manual. Once a selection was made, he, as the furnace-watching disciple, would be responsible for manipulating destiny. He would allow the chosen martial artist to carry the weapon and advance smoothly without any obstacles.

This would continue until they broke through to the Grandmaster Rank and detached from the Armament Manual.

By that time, the target's destiny would also be exhausted. They would die naturally within a few days, and he could then take away the left-behind divine weapon and magic treasure.

The entire operation was perfectly seamless.

The Fate-Peering Bone-Slicing Mirror had been specifically refined to accommodate this operation. It had operated for thousands of years without a single error.

It could be said that as long as the Armament Manual existed, the Great Shun Martial Dao could not turn the world upside down. Even if a genius occasionally emerged, they would be immediately discovered by the Immortal Gate.

'But... this freak just had to appear!'

Thinking of this, Daoist Xuanhe glanced at the woman again. Over her sixty years in the public eye, she had reached the summit as number one in the world, yet for the first forty of those years, she had been completely unknown.

She hadn't even been a Titled Martial Master, and thus had never been recorded in the Armament Manual. She had escaped his notice and avoided being discovered when she was at her weakest.

What was even more absurd was that when she broke through at the age of forty-one, she entirely skipped the Titled Martial Master realm and stepped directly into the Grandmaster Rank, shocking the world. Over the next ten years, she spent the first five defeating every Grandmaster until she was invincible, and in the next five, she advanced to the Great Grandmaster Rank, forcing the four Great Grandmasters of the realm at the time to admit their inferiority.

For the ten years after that, this woman vanished without a trace.

It wasn't until he emerged from seclusion that he discovered such a massive blunder had occurred in the Eight Trigrams Furnace. A martial artist had completely slipped out of his control.

And it didn't even stop there.

If it had just been this woman alone, it would have been fine. Martial artists only had a lifespan of a hundred years anyway. Even if she dazzled for a time, she would eventually turn to dust.

But the problem was that he discovered the woman not only possessed peerless talent herself, but had also extended this talent to the entirety of the Great Shun Martial Dao. Moreover, she was incredibly generous, not hoarding her knowledge at all. She directly caused a qualitative leap in the combat strength of Great Shun's Grandmasters and Great Grandmasters. This made things completely different.

What was the situation in Great Shun before this woman emerged?

Although martial Grandmasters could challenge Loose Immortals who had cultivated magic power, it was limited to just a challenge. Once a battle dragged on, they would still be killed by the Loose Immortals.

Only Great Grandmasters could barely fight a Loose Immortal to a draw.

But ever since the woman's emergence, the combat strength of a small fraction of martial Grandmasters had skyrocketed to the point where they could clash head-on with Loose Immortals, or even kill them.

The Great Grandmasters were even more exaggerated.

Daoist Xuanhe had personally tested it. Great Grandmasters, who originally could only match Loose Immortals, were actually able to tangle with Divine Powers cultivators at the Tribulation Transcending Second Layer!

Where was the heavenly logic in that?

If this continued, were these martial artists going to start Qi Refining?

At the time, after investigating the situation, Daoist Xuanhe had nearly suffered a breakdown. He immediately used his authority as a furnace-watching disciple to forcefully descend to the mortal realm, wanting to set things right at once.

And then... the most awkward part happened.

He hadn't won.

Thinking back to this, Daoist Xuanhe glanced at the woman again.

The four Great Grandmasters were naturally no match for him. However, this woman had suddenly appeared, and after a single battle, he actually couldn't defeat her!

This made things difficult. Since he hadn't won, there was no way to resolve the issue in the Eight Trigrams Furnace. If his master or the other Qi Refining practitioners of the Immortal Gate discovered this, he, as the furnace-watching disciple, wouldn't escape punishment and would surely die without a burial place... Under those circumstances, he had only one choice.

Negotiate cooperation and conceal the news.

The result was the current Great Shun. The woman and the realm's four Great Grandmasters gradually went into seclusion, rarely stepping foot into the mortal world, and the woman's deeds were deliberately downplayed.

It was a solution born of having no other options.

After all, on the critical matter of whether a fellow Daoist dies or he himself dies, Immortal Gate disciples were always very clear-headed. They would never mistake their priorities.

Besides, the Immortal Gate was so massive, and there were many places where errors occurred. As an inner sect disciple, Daoist Xuanhe was well-versed in how to handle such a crisis.

The first step was to claim that nothing had happened.

If someone noticed something amiss, move to the second step: suggest that something might have happened, but it was still under control and no action was necessary.

In case things slipped out of control, proceed to the third step: say that perhaps action should be taken, but what was done was done, and now nothing would help.

The final step was for when the matter could no longer be hidden and the Immortal Gate dispatched disciples to investigate thoroughly... At that point, one could actually relax their mindset, eat a bit better, and during the trial, express that perhaps something could have been done initially, but it was far too late now. Then, just sit and wait for the Immortal Gate's punishment to fall.

Daoist Xuanhe called this the immortal gate four-step protocol.

Generally speaking, the vast majority of the Immortal Gate's errors stopped at the first step. A small portion reached the second step, and a tiny fraction reached the third.

As for the fourth step...

To date, only one incident had ever reached the fourth step, and that was the affair of the Heaven-Stealing Thief. It was said that even the immortals of the Three Great Academies had been alarmed.

The two of them walked all the way into the depths of Book Mountain.

"...Fellow Daoist."

Daoist Xuanhe turned around, looked at the ethereal woman before him, and said in a deep voice, "You were the one who laid the deadly trap and killed that ignorant Brahma Cultivator, right?"

The woman tilted her head innocently.

"What Brahma Cultivator?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just following my intuition."

She didn't know?

Daoist Xuanhe sneered. "After that Brahma Cultivator cooperated with me, he went to look for the Child of Destiny. Now that he's dead, if it wasn't you, who else in the Eight Trigrams Furnace could kill him?"

This was also the reason he had suddenly descended to the mortal realm. Book Mountain had reported a massive battle in Shuzhong, resulting in the death of a cultivator. He knew that Kongzhi's search for the Child of Destiny had gone wrong... Coupled with the woman inexplicably coming to block his door, he naturally assumed everything was the result of her scheming behind the scenes.

He had even expected it.

"In all fairness, Fellow Daoist, you did well in this matter," Daoist Xuanhe continued. "A Brahma Cultivator who dared to sneak into the Eight Trigrams Furnace deserved to die anyway."

"The key issue is my Book Mountain's Child of Destiny."

"This person is of grave importance. The Immortal Gate even has a true transmission senior brother keeping an eye on him. No mistakes are permitted... He isn't someone you can casually interfere with, Fellow Daoist."

Hearing this, the woman finally turned her beautiful eyes toward him.

"...Book Mountain?"

The incident happened in Shuzhong?

She immediately thought of Chenlong, whom she had dispatched to Shuzhong a short while ago. Did that mean the so-called Child of Destiny was actually the martial dao genius Chenlong was looking for?

"I see."

The woman nodded slightly, looking at Daoist Xuanhe. "What do you want to do?"

"Hand the Child of Destiny over to me," Daoist Xuanhe said in a deep tone. "In exchange, I can give you the original copy of the Taiyin Form-Refining Heaven-Ascending Talisman Scripture."

It was a very tempting proposal.

Hearing this, the woman arched her delicate brows. Daoist Xuanhe's offer was highly likely the crucial missing piece she needed to complete the flaws in her own martial dao.

Although the martial dao genius Chenlong discovered was also important, at the end of the day, mastering the Thirteen Grand Protectors Hard Qigong in a single day wasn't impossible. Cultivators, at least, could learn it effortlessly. In fact, she suspected that the martial dao genius Chenlong had found was actually a cultivator.

It was just that her intuition told her she should send Chenlong there.

And if he was a cultivator, the so-called martial dao genius was a fake. Using him for a trade wouldn't be a bad idea...

The woman narrowed her beautiful eyes, probing her intuition once more. However, right at that moment, she suddenly caught sight of a Golden-Eyed Eagle flying into the Capital.

"...Hm?"

Great Shun Capital, Tribute Hall.

As soon as the Golden-Eyed Eagle landed, a gentle breeze blew over, causing the fierce aerial predator to obediently fold its wings and carefully extend its talon.

Immediately after, the letter tied to its talon was untied by the breeze and drifted down.

Standing deep within Book Mountain, the woman's gaze spanned thousands of miles, observing the contents of the letter the Golden-Eyed Eagle had delivered to the Capital from afar.

'It's from Chenlong.'

'Mastering the Martial God Pictorial Record... in three days?'

'Passed down the Sacred Lord of Five Weapons... and he's already reached an advanced level!? At this rate, wouldn't he have hope of Seeing Divinity within a year?'

'Wang Ping...'

The next second, Daoist Xuanhe, standing beside the woman, was rather surprised to discover that the woman's already illusory figure flickered rapidly several times in the blink of an eye.

"Fellow Daoist?"

Daoist Xuanhe thought she had been shocked by the conditions he proposed and hurriedly said, "How about it? As long as you are willing, I can immediately—"

"Apologies."

Before he could finish speaking, the woman looked up at him and replied in a calm tone, "I have already accepted him as my disciple. There is no room for negotiation on this matter."

"What?" Daoist Xuanhe stared blankly.

Before he could speak again, a fair hand had already brushed against his cheek. Immediately after, only a faint, ethereal echo remained in his ears:

"It is getting late. Fellow Daoist should head back."

Boom!

In the immortal realm, outside the Eight Trigrams Furnace.

Daoist Xuanhe abruptly opened his eyes, disbelief and exasperation revealing themselves in his gaze. He immediately rose, flicking his sleeves as his mighty magic power surged through the surroundings.

"Crazy woman... This is going too far!"