Chapter 479: Branches

Among the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects, every single faction held at least one Dao Lord. Any faction without one would become second-tier within a single Dao Contest cycle, or would attach itself to a top-tier great sect it was on good terms with.

Still, the Three-Qing Temple remained the one with the most Dao Lords. The Taiwei, Taiqing and Taixuan Dao Lords all stood under the same banner, and it was precisely this that had built the temple's formidable prestige over these tens of thousands of years and made it, in name and in fact, the number one sect of the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects.

Through his exchanges with the Central Heaven Dao Lord, the Sovereign Radiance Dao Lord, the Taiwei Dao Lord, the Azure Crow Dao Lord, and the others, Yaoguang's understanding of the circle of Dao Lords deepened.

The Gate of the Immortal Realm on the North Sea Star had transmitted forty-nine Great Dao, and more than a dozen of those had not produced a Dao Lord in a very long time.

In any given cycle, only thirty-or-so Dao Lords actually managed to ascend into the Immortal Realm. Yet those who took part in the Dao Contest generally numbered one or two hundred, and on the busier occasions could reach three or four hundred. On those busier cycles, the odds of ascending were not quite one in ten, but they weren't much higher.

In a war involving as many as one hundred Dao Lords, if not more, a single Dao Lord standing alone was inconsequential.

Naturally, Dao Lords who feared for their lives banded together of their own accord to improve their odds of survival, and over time groups—large and small—made up of those who shared the same values took shape on the North Sea Star.

There was the alliance of thirteen Dao Lords within the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects, the alliance of five Dao Lords of the Three Great Martial Dao Sects, the alliance of six Dao Lords of the Four Great Immortal Dynasties, the alliance of nine fiend sovereigns of the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects, and so on.

These small alliances and cliques would, as a rule, sign mutual defense treaties before a Dao Contest arrived, agreeing that if one party came under attack, the others were bound to support it.

This cycle was no exception. But since the Dao Contest had not formally started yet, the Dao Lords of the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects had not gathered to re-sign their defense agreement, which was why some of them had not lifted a hand when Yaoguang was attacked.

Once the exchanges were over, each Dao Lord returned to his own sect, welcomed home by its sect master. Even those who had been away the least had still been gone for over a thousand years, so naturally many matters awaited them.

Anything they genuinely needed to discuss could wait until each of them had cleared his own affairs and they met again at Yaoguang's Dao Lord celebration.

Besides, with the Dao Contest drawing near, the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects would generally convene a meeting for all their Dao Lords to attend, and that would be another precious chance to talk.

***

On the warship returning to the Heavenly Dao Sect, the Central Heaven Dao Lord was still feeling emotional. "I've heard news of you, Dao Lord Yaoguang, more than once. From Zong Wenxian, from Zhen Xuanyuan, and from the Golden Book Venerable as well. The details differed, but every one of them said the same thing: that your talent was rare in this world."

The Dao Lord was delighted and rueful at once. "I wondered back then whether the Heavenly Dao Sect's next Dao Lord might turn out to be you. But at the time I thought that even if you reached the Dao Lord Realm, it would take at least a thousand years, or at the very least a few hundred more. And here we are! It's been hardly any time at all, and you've already made it all the way to this point, becoming a Dao Lord entirely on your own without help from anyone in the Heavenly Dao Sect. It's honestly hard to believe."

Yaoguang caught the trace of unease in his words.

He had risen from the Heavenly Dao Sect and had even taken its sect master, but the sect had never given him much help with his cultivation.

Even when Yaoguang became a Dao Lord, the Central Heaven Dao Lord, who should've been his number one protector, had not fully taken that duty upon himself.

Under those circumstances, if Yaoguang decided to cast off the Heavenly Dao Sect and set up on his own, no one would have the standing to say a word. But...

"In that battle just now, if you hadn't stepped in while we were surrounded by four Dao Integration cultivators at once—the Extinction Dao Lord, the Kunpeng Demon Paragon, the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign, and the Light Divine Venerable—our position would have been fairly dangerous. I'll keep the favor in mind," Yaoguang said, and then added, "It's just that achieving Dao Integration this quickly took me a little by surprise. I'll see how things stand when the time comes. If the void Dao Contest isn't fierce this cycle, I'll try my luck at an opportunity to ascend to the Immortal Realm. If it turns out too fierce, I'll simply wait for the next one."

Hearing that, the Central Heaven Dao Lord understood. Yaoguang would ascend sooner or later, so what did it matter whether he was willing to remain in the Heavenly Dao Sect as one of its Dao Lords?

For a moment, he felt regret. But at least Yaoguang had accepted the favor, and with his position as sect master of the Heavenly Dao Sect on top of that, their relationship remained friendly. The two of them becoming allies to secure mutual benefits later was hardly out of the question.

"Haha, ascending to the Immortal Realm is what all of us pursue. If the chance comes, of course you should seize it," the Central Heaven Dao Lord said with a laugh.

He then produced a storage treasure and handed it over. "I mentioned before that I obtained a rather good set of immortal artifact refinement materials thirteen thousand years ago. I'm giving them to you now, as a gift to congratulate you on achieving Dao Integration. I hope you will like them."

"Immortal artifact materials?" Yaoguang was caught off guard.

Immortal artifact materials generally started at a hundred billion, and amounted for a sizeable part of a Dao Lord's entire fortune. To hand over materials of that grade so casually...

He glanced at the Central Heaven Dao Lord and realized the man clearly wanted to repair and warm their relationship as quickly as possible. After thinking it over, he did not refuse the goodwill being offered.

His next step was to upgrade the three top-tier Dao Artifacts he carried to immortal artifacts, and he needed exactly these kinds of materials, so the gift had come at the right moment.

"Thank you, Dao Lord." Yaoguang paused to consider. "I've only just achieved Dao Integration, and I'll need to consolidate my cultivation and settle into the Dao Integration Realm properly. I plan to push the Dao Integration celebration back a little, and hold it a hundred years from now. Once I've stabilized my attainment, I'll have good news for you as well."

"Haha, good news? Then I'll start looking forward to it a hundred years early," the Central Heaven Dao Lord said, laughing.

Yaoguang nodded slightly.

Seeing the Heavenly Dao Sect drawing closer and closer, the Central Heaven Dao Lord said, "Well then. Now go and enjoy the congratulations and the cheers of all the elders and peak masters, Dao Lord Yaoguang."

Yaoguang smiled, and under the envious, reverent eyes of Zhen Xuanyuan, Gu Li, Ni Chang and the rest, he flew out of the warship. As he emerged, the honor guard originally assembled to receive the Central Heaven Dao Lord cried out in unison, "Congratulations to Sect Master Yaoguang on achieving Dao Integration and becoming a Dao Lord!"

Powerful waves of psychic thought spread across the Heavenly Dao Sect, ringing through every last corner.

***

A full hour later, Yaoguang returned to Heaven-Forsaken Valley.

He did not go straight back to the southern domain. He still had a great deal to settle at the Heavenly Dao Sect, and at the very least, he had to hand over the sect master's seat.

For another, he genuinely liked the artifact refinement conditions here in Heaven-Forsaken Valley.

Beyond that, he needed to sort through his recent gains properly, and going to the Southern Capital would inevitably mean spending a day or two of accepting congratulations from all over the Nine Cauldrons Sect.

"Watch the valley for me. I won't be seeing outside guests for a while," Yaoguang instructed Tang Fenghua the moment he landed.

"Yes." Tang Fenghua gazed at him with fervor, and after answering, bent into a long, deep bow. "I shall obey your decree, Dao Lord."

Seeing the somewhat theatrical bow, Yaoguang knew the man was simply too excited, and did not reproach him. He only smiled. "All right, off you go."

Tang Fenghua rose swiftly into the air, and even after watching Yaoguang activate the arrays and vanish once more into Heaven-Forsaken Valley, his excitement refused to settle for a long while.

He had never once doubted that Yaoguang would become a Dao Lord. He held an almost mindless conviction that nothing in this world was beyond Sect Master Yaoguang's ability.

And yet, learning that he had now crossed the final barrier on the cultivation road, that he needed only to seize an opportunity to ascend to the Immortal Realm, the worship and fervor in Tang Fenghua's heart still climbed to a height it had never reached before.

If one day he could achieve even a ten-thousandth of what Sect Master Yaoguang had, he would die without regret.

In Heaven-Forsaken Valley, Yaoguang sat at the edge of a cliff, quietly watching the magma churn below, stirred endlessly by the underground fire flowing through it.

Achieving Dao Integration smoothly had been within his expectations. And integrating with the Dao, truly arriving at the summit of the universe, had brought him many benefits. The most important of them was...

"A new branch has grown."

Yaoguang gathered his mind. Just as the Alchemist branch had grown when he advanced to the Void-Piercing Realm, now that he had reached the Dao Integration Realm, a new branch had sprouted once more from the glazed tree. The moment it emerged, it grew quickly, its progress pushed straight to perfection.

[Stats]

Void-Shattering (Time)

Progress: 100%

So what does this mean? Don't tell me I can integrate with the Dao a second time, on the Great Dao of time? Confusion and expectation flickered in his eyes.

He then focused his psychic mind on the Dao Fruit that this new branch had borne.

Second Life! Yaoguang sensed this ability.

Second Life. A special-type ability. Only someone who held two souls in a single body could use it. Through the Second Life Dao Fruit, the second soul in the body could be stripped away and transferred into a time Dao Seed, then one could use that Dao Seed as the body to form a second life.

"Two souls in one body." Yaoguang turned the phrase over.

This was not a split personality. He quietly searched through everything he knew that touched on cultivation, and in the end he found that the immense database of information he had gathered in his mind, approaching the immortal venerable level, did hold a very small number of references to "two souls in one body."

Certain unusual beings possessed one extra ethereal soul, or one extra corporeal soul, beyond the standard three ethereal and seven corporeal.[1]

If such a person knew the correct method, they would have the innate potential to refine those extra souls into an avatar, and that avatar would amount to a second life for the cultivator.

His own case of two souls in one body, though, was clearly not innate.

"Su Yaoguang," he said inwardly.

The lesser half of the two souls was Su Yaoguang. When he transmigrated to this world, Su Yaoguang's soul merged with his own.

Now, with the Second Life ability, he could strip that soul out again and put it to use, pouring it into a Dao Seed of the Great Dao of time and refining it into a second life with the Dao Seed as its body.

An avatar, in other words. Except that the Second Life ability was more complete and more useful than an avatar.

"I had been hesitating over whether or not to ascend to the Immortal Realm. Well, this settles the question."

1. Hun and po are types of souls in Chinese philosophy, traditional medicine and religion. Within this ancient soul dualism tradition, every living human has both a hun spiritual, ethereal, yang soul which leaves the body after death, and also a po corporeal, substantive, yin soul which remains with the corpse of the deceased. Some controversy exists over the number of souls in a person; for instance, one of the traditions within Daoism proposes a soul structure of sanhunqipo (三魂七魄), i.e., "three hun and seven po". ☜