Guardians of Mountain and Sea - Chapter 12

After the jade pendant recognized its master, the technique was projected onto the firmament before descending in its entirety into Apu’s Sea of Consciousness, leaving only an oval, glowing jade egg in her hand.

Mo Xianjun turned back to the white-haired woman and asked, “Fellow Daoist, you mentioned earlier that you set a restriction on this world, requiring Junior Sister Lin to reach the Heaven Rank Voyage Realm to enter. Since it was accidentally triggered and opened by me this time, will she be able to enter and leave on her own in the future?”

Priestess Granny shook her head. “The restriction I set has not failed. This time was an exception. If Apu wishes to enter again in the future, her cultivation must meet the requirements.”

The girl had just joined the sect and gained six senior brothers and sisters. Her revered savior and senior sister, the Red Ribbon True Lord, had also changed her address to “Junior Sister.”

Growing up, Apu had only been close to Priestess Granny. Now, suddenly gaining a whole family of kin—with a Master and an Eldest Senior Brother who were already ascended immortals—she was overjoyed, grinning foolishly with delight.

She failed to notice the look exchanged between her two elders, nor the information they passed in those few brief sentences hidden from her.

When Priestess Granny originally set this restriction, it was because she did not want Apu to shoulder too much at such a young age. She couldn’t bear to press the blood feud of an entire era onto the girl’s shoulders, so she thought to wait until Apu grew up.

If the girl reached the Heaven Rank, she would undoubtedly be a great power of this world with a vast lifespan; she might one day face the Evil God, and telling her then would be appropriate. If she failed to reach the Heaven Rank, it would fulfill Granny’s wish to let this beloved child live a carefree life until the end of her days. She would not have to inherit the heavy blood debt Granny had carried for ten thousand years. She had chosen this child, yet she could not bear to burden her.

But now, through a twist of fate, Apu had learned of the White God prematurely, making the restriction useless. Priestess Granny could have easily abolished the restriction she had personally laid and stayed by the child’s side to watch her grow.

However, the restriction remained in effect. With the True Lord’s discerning eyes, it was not difficult to see that the white-haired woman was in this pocket realm in her true body, not just a shadow.

Combining various clues, the True Lord easily reached a conclusion: this white-haired woman was likely at the end of her rope.

Just as Mo Xianjun suspected, Priestess Granny’s faith was dead, and she could no longer cultivate. Her survival across these countless millennia relied entirely on this pocket realm and her own massive cultivation base. Since the start of the Third Era, she had sat in hollow silence for ten thousand years, spent another ten thousand searching the continent for divine ruins, and yet another ten thousand living among the clans in Great Mang Mountain.

By the time Apu was born and she chose the child, her cultivation had almost entirely dissipated.

The earlier bone-replacement she performed for the girl was essentially reversing the natural order, an act of defying the Heavenly Dao by snatching the world’s creation. Had she not been a remnant of the Second Era—not belonging to this current world yet being a true original inhabitant with a measure of the Dao’s favor—she would have died on the spot at the Mang Mountain ritual ground.

Even so, she had taken the backlash of the Heavenly Dao alone. She could only discard her decaying physical frame and let her Primordial Spirit flee into the divine pocket realm to survive.

Current-day Priestess Granny lacked the power to alter the restriction; in fact, she possessed not a single shred of magic power.

The white-haired woman shook her head slightly, and Mo Xianjun understood perfectly. She knew Granny did not want her to expose the truth to the girl. Although Apu was naturally bright, she was young and inexperienced. If she knew the Priestess’s Dao had vanished and that she would be trapped in this small world—like a prison—forever because of her, the little girl might never smile again.

Mo Xianjun averted her gaze and changed the subject. “If you leave this time, you must reach the Heaven Rank to return. In that case, stay in the pocket realm for ten years. I will watch over you as you enter the gateway of this ‘Vast Starry Sea’ technique.”

In any case, the True Lord’s true body had transformed into a boundary to seal the Chaos Sea, so there was no fear of demon ghost smuggling for at least two hundred years. As for warning the cultivation world about the hidden plots of the ghosts, after thousands of years, the human world could afford to wait another ten.

Apu had grown up wild in Mang Mountain, but with her Senior Sister’s command and her most cherished elder, Priestess Granny, staying with her—not to mention the blood feud of an entire era—the girl did not hesitate. She sat cross-legged, closed her eyes, and began to review the technique in her Sea of Consciousness.

After a short while, she opened her eyes and looked at Mo Xianjun with a strange, troubled expression.

“What is it?”

The girl held the oval jade pendant and looked up. “Senior Sister, the general principles say that to practice the Vast Starry Sea, I must first hatch ‘Wanxiang’…”

“Ah,” Mo Xianjun recalled something. “No wonder. Master’s dharma name was Lingque (Spirit Sparrow) because he kept a divine bird named Wanxiang by his side. I thought ‘Vast Phenomena’ was just a name he gave the bird.”

She looked at the jade pendant in Apu’s hand, and the girl nodded with a bitter face.

“This is Wanxiang’s egg. But I am a human; I don’t know how to hatch an egg.”

The country bumpkin girl lacked common cultivation knowledge. she did not know that cultivators hatch rare beasts by infusing them with their own spiritual power to catalyze growth.

Mo Xianjun couldn’t help but laugh, so she asked about the first three chapters of the technique’s principles to explain them first.

The Vast Starry Sea technique is divided into two parts: “Vast Phenomena” and “Starry Sea.” Since the latter is a Geng-Gold archery technique, one must naturally refine the path of the bow and arrow.

The bow and arrow originally evolved from the spear. To improve accuracy, ancestors added tail feathers to spears, creating the first javelins. Then the bow appeared, and those feathered javelins slowly evolved into arrows.

Thus, the “Starry Sea Arrow Art” focuses on archery but also includes supplementary training in spears and throwing. Before learning any of this, one must first learn how to craft spears and arrows.

An arrow consists of a head, a shaft, and fletching. Anyone with skill can make the head and shaft, but the fletching must be taken from birds. The biggest difference between this technique and others lies in the added fletching.

The name “Vast Starry Sea” (Wanxiang Xinghai) comes from the myriad phenomena of the heavens (Wanxiang), which is also a homophone for the spirit bird “Wanxiang.”

According to the records, “Wanxiang” is a divine spirit bird that gathers the strengths of all rare fowls. Wanxiang has no fixed spiritual form; it grows as the master’s Dao progresses. It can be a common bird, a celestial fowl, or a divine phoenix.

The power of the archery increases as Wanxiang grows and changes, providing different fletching to enhance divine power. The deeper the practitioner’s Vast Phenomena cultivation, the more types of spirit birds Wanxiang can manifest. Correspondingly, as the fletching level of the “Starry Sea Arrow Art” rises, so does its power.

This was why the Daoist Lord, despite not having mastered the technique himself, bragged about it to his disciples. If practiced to completion, the Wanxiang spirit bird would follow the master to mastery, truly manifesting and blessing the myriad phenomena of the heavens. At that point, the practitioner would connect with the stars, and Wanxiang would add its power to the Starry Sea, guiding the stars of the sky to fall as a rain of meteors—a truly world-destroying divine power.

…But let us not wander too far. Let’s look at what’s in front of us.

In the current world, the only little one practicing the Vast Phenomena technique had just condensed her Dantian and Sea of Consciousness. As a minor cultivator in the Dust’s End stage, she had taken her first step on the immortal path.

Apu followed her sister’s instructions, infusing the thin spiritual energy stored in her Dantian into the oval jade egg. When tired, she meditated to recover. When hungry, she had high-level Fasting Pills of all flavors that her sister dug out from her thousands of years of accumulated treasures.

When bored or weary, she looked at Priestess Granny, who had raised her and was like her own grandmother. She didn’t have to think about the heavy blood feud; Granny didn’t want to pressure her by mentioning it constantly. But simply to make the white-haired Priestess happy and proud, Apu was willing to do anything.

After an unknown number of days and nights, just as Priestess Granny was hand-kneading longevity noodles for the girl’s fourteenth birthday, the jade egg cracked.

Apu stared blankly at the divine bird Wanxiang in her hands.

It had soft, fluffy yellow down feathers, a tiny sharp beak, and two pink, tender three-toed claws. Two bright black bead-like eyes stared at the girl curiously. With a flutter of its fluffy wings, little Wanxiang stood up unsteadily. It gripped Apu’s right thumb with its claws to steady itself. It was tiny, and as it opened its beak, it chirped a tender, high-pitched “Cheep, cheep, cheep!”

“Was Master’s Wanxiang also a little yellow chick when it was born?”

“His Wanxiang was a blue bird at the start.”

Mo Xianjun looked at her little junior sister’s slumped head and depressed look, suppressing a smile as she stroked her hair. “Master was already a True Immortal when he practiced this technique, so he was naturally different from you. Wanxiang will grow as your cultivation increases; it won’t be a little chick forever.”

“Cheep, cheep!”

The white-haired woman arrived with the noodles, smiling as she called the girl to eat. “Since its name is Wanxiang, it is a divine bird that can follow its master’s heart to manifest the myriad phenomena of the heavens. Apu, think about it—growing up, aside from the chickens raised in town, what birds have you actually seen?”

They had been attacked by a crane demon when leaving Mang Mountain, but it happened so fast; the crane was slashed by the True Lord’s avatar and then the tiger bit its neck. The girl hadn’t even seen what it looked like.

Thinking about it, among the birds Apu had seen aside from small birds like sparrows and owls, the most powerful and impressive one in her memory was indeed the big rooster in town.

In that case, the fact that Wanxiang manifested as a chick was actually her own fault for letting it down. Apu looked guiltily at the chick on her thumb. She extended her left index finger to scratch little Wanxiang’s neck. Seeing the chick close its bead-like eyes in enjoyment, she felt a wave of remorse.

The girl slurped her noodles, finding Wanxiang cuter the more she looked at it. The chick stood on the rim of the bowl, its fluffy head chirping as it occasionally dipped into the bowl to peck at a noodle.

“Senior Sister, the pocket realm doesn’t belong to the Great World and has no Heavenly Dao to send down thunder and fire tribulations. No matter how much I practice, I can only go from Dust’s End to Mortal Shedding. You said I’ll reach Mortal Shedding soon after Wanxiang is born; should I leave early?”

Mo Xianjun took the noodles offered by the white-haired beauty and smiled her thanks. Even though she had long since ceased eating, she was willing to take a few bites as a gesture for her junior sister’s birthday.

“Slow down. I didn’t choose ten years at random.”

“Do you know why a Great Sect is honored as a ‘Heaven Sect’ (Tian Zong)?”

“Because the disciples are elites, and the powerful ones are countless, crushing other sects?”

Mo Xianjun smiled. “That is one point. But with only that, one can only be called a ‘Tyrant Sect’ or a ‘Great Power’; one cannot earn the title of a Heaven Sect.”

“The cultivation world has many sects and countless practitioners, all practicing for themselves. But a Heaven Sect is different. To be a Heaven Sect, one must shoulder the responsibility of the Heavenly Dao. Practitioners snatch the world’s creation to seek their own enlightenment, so they ought to give back to nature and all living spirits. We do not demand this of our fellow Daoists in other sects, but the general code of the six Great Sects contains one rule: sect disciples must harbor chivalry, support the world, and protect all living spirits.”

The girl nodded repeatedly, engraving her sister’s teachings into her heart.

“Techniques are easy to practice; follow the steps, go into seclusion, and even the most dull-witted can achieve results with focus. The hard part is to be proficient in the ‘Dao’ and research the ‘Arts’ (Shu Fa). Many cultivators discard external things and focus only on internal techniques to ascend. But a Heaven Sect cannot do this. To slay evil and defend the Way, one must master the Arts.”

Apu nodded seriously. “I understand, Senior Sister. In the next nine years, I will practice the Starry Sea Arrow Art here. I won’t leave until I succeed!”

“Mhm.”

Mo Xianjun nodded. With a wave of her sleeve in a display of expert poise, the vast white jade ritual plaza was suddenly filled with stacks of various types of wood. The elegant Red Ribbon True Lord looked at her little junior sister with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Then start by learning to polish and craft spear and arrow shafts.”

“A practitioner must understand the tools they use. A bow can be found as a ready-made artifact, but arrows are consumables; you must know how to make them for a rainy day. Once you have used up all this mulberry and cudrania wood, you will be familiar with crafting spears, bows, and arrows, becoming a qualified artisan.”

The girl was stunned. She turned to look at the side, only to see the white-haired beauty nodding in agreement. With a wave of her right hand, the distant mountains of divine statues shifted back several dozen fathoms, expanding the plaza even further. A target range rose from the ground.

“Fellow Daoist Mo is absolutely right. Since you must face the thunder and fire tribulation when you return to the Great World at the Mortal Shedding Realm, it just so happens I have some purple cedar ironwood and rare ores. Doing this will help temper your sinews and bones.”

As she finished, countless more bundles of neatly stacked wood appeared out of thin air, piled high and spread out all the way to the foot of the distant divine statues.

Added together, there were likely tens of thousands of bundles!

Apu stared blankly, her eyes glazed over. The little yellow chick fluttered its wings and flew onto the girl’s head. It trotted around with its claws and sat down lightly like a small ball, pecking at her hair with a “Cheep, cheep, cheep” to comfort her, almost like a sigh.

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