Chapter 28: Heavenly Mandate

Cultivation was about truths. When one continued to explore the mysteries of the body and the surrounding world, and reached a certain level, many truths were common.

For the cultivators who already possessed unimaginable experience, they only needed to know the method of certain things.

For example, the paths of primal energies of the universe around them. They knew of the existences of those paths and were not like ordinary cultivators who did not even know where the paths were. They only needed to know the method, which of those paths were useful, and how to touch those paths.

In the past, numerous exceptional cultivators had tried to touch those paths in different orders and at different strengths to test the responses.

Most of them did not succeed because this process of experimenting was related to luck. A rare few managed to find powerful methods, and left behind astounding works to the future.

For cultivators who had equal or more experience, when they gained such an astounding work, they could spare the process of experimenting.

In the eyes of everyone in the Min Mountain Sword Sect, Ding Ning was a cultivator who had just stepped into the door. He needed to understand these simple seal scripts, and the things that this book without many characters described. He would need a long time to learn the related primal energies of the universe and paths.

Many geniuses of Min Mountain Sword Sect in the past spent half their lifetimes but failed to comprehend the true meaning of the Heaven Replenishing Divine Art.

No one would think that the Heaven Replenishing Divine Art was just a door to Ding Ning. He could easily push open this door this morning.

Pushing the door open only took moments, but it had taken many years to see the door represented by the Heaven Replenishing Divine Art.

He was very emotional. The most noble mistress in the imperial palace, Zheng Xiu, had not ever seen this precious method of Min Mountain Sword Trials. Otherwise, she would have detected that this method had both similar and mutually opposing parts with the method she cultivated. She would have tried to obtain or destroy this method at any price.

If that person’s ties with Baili Suxue had not turned for the worst, he could enter Min Mountain Sword Sect in his lifetime. If that person had been able to enter the Min Mountain Sword Sect, then Zheng Xiu would have been able to see this method too, what would have happened then?

So this was fate. And fate was the hardest to predict.

Ding Ning took a deep breath. His gaze moved from grief back to calm.

He slowly rolled up the green jade book and put it into the box. The moment he closed the jade box, energy stopped coming out of the Heaven Replenishing Divine Art. His dancing hair fell back down. But the Last Flower remnant sword hanging from his waist started to tremble.

His vital energy started to flow through his body. The numerous sword threads at the end of the Last Flower sword started to shine slightly. The fine white flowers bloomed as usual, and the tips of the sword threads started to become transparent and shined like starlight.

Ding Ning’s body originally had violent energies. The energies in his five organs spread out like boiling water from a pot and his organs started to dry up like water at the bottom of the pot. After the water boiled away, the pot would break. His organs would reach their end.

Ding Ning’s energies started to burn violently in his energy sea. The heat produced caused his energies to radiate even more. The water in the “pots” appeared to be on the verge of evaporating.

But then these burning energies collided together in the narrow space of the energy sea and compressed. In the intense heat, silver dots of light formed like numerous stars forming among the explosions and flame.

The star energy in the vast world around him started to shake.

As those small silver stars were compressed inside Ding Ning’s body, they were like magnets that attracted these star energies. These star energies, of similar nature to the silver stars, flowed along invisible paths and permeated his body like unseen rain.

His energies were still being forced out of his organs and burning up, but the star energy coming in from all directions outnumbered the burning energies.

So the “pots” of water in his body did not dry up and the water increased.

The parched meridians and flesh of his body grew fuller as they were nourished and gave off fresh vitality.

This was the feeling of truly leaving death and obtaining new life.

The countless little silkworms hiding in the deepest part of his body were also nourished by the rain and cheered.

The flickering human-shaped mark on the Human Sovereign Jade Annulus seemed to sense something from its place on his body and surged madly.

Ding Ning’s eyes were closed but his eyelashes fluttered.

He was shocked.

This was a cultivation speed even he could not imagine. The Nine Death Silkworm and the Heaven Replenishing Divine Art displayed astounding effects. The Human Sovereign Jade Annulus was also stronger than usual!

As time passed, the trickles of vital energy that flowed through his body grew larger, and started to rush like little rivers. His parched organs seemed to accumulate water like springs.

Even when he had been suppressing his cultivation intentionally, he had just reached realm four during the Min Mountain Sword Trials, and had not had much time to cultivate after receiving his serious injuries. But to his shock, he sensed that he was not far from intermediate realm four.

“The Heaven Mandate gathered in Changling.”

In the serene depths of the palace, the empress, Zheng Xiu, stood in front of the spirit lotus pond in her study. She looked at the spirit energy the white and flawless lotuses gave off and said slowly to Palace Attendant Rong who was standing respectfully with her head bowed, “Back when the Qin defeated the Han, there was such a saying in the world. Because the brightest stars in the sky were right above Changling. In the past many years, we have always had the advantage of land and timing. This has always confirmed this saying. The Qin has eight hundred miles of rich earth. We have had good weather for successive years, and never encountered a calamity. In the past, I worried the most about the Zhao. After the Zhao Dynasty was destroyed, I was not worried about the Chu, Yan and Qi. All I had to worry about was the matters of Changling itself.”

“One must have might before people will fear you.”

“Just like the rules of Min Mountain Sword Sect, you have to let people feel you have rules, that you will retreat and tolerate the talents of the Qin, this way, everyone will put the Qin first. With everything out in the open, people will just feel I am authoritarian at most, but think nothing else.”

The empress finally looked up at Palace Attendant Rong after saying this. “You fear Ding Ning’s talents. You fear that his cultivation speed will be faster after he obtains the Heaven Replenishing Divine Art. You fear one day, he will really challenge and kill you. I can only tell you, since you did these things on my behalf, I will not allow him to have a chance to challenge you. I will not allow such a thing to occur. As to the Heaven Replenishing Divine Art… If it is in his hands, obtaining it from him will be easier than from the Sword Tower of Min Mountain Sword Sect.”

Palace Attendant Rong was not as fearful as other people in front of the empress. She nodded quietly. “I understand.”

“In these years, this wine shop youth is the only one you truly felt fear of.”

Seeing Palace Attendant Rong respectfully bow and retreat, the empress smiled and said, “I am increasingly interested in this youth.”

Palace Attendant Rong bowed her head even more. She thought, admitting terror was better than her actual death.

“The Heavenly Mandate gathers at Changling. But the person who truly receives the Heavenly Mandate is not set.”

After Palace Attendant Rong’s figure disappeared from this cold hall, the empress’ faint smile disappeared, and her eyes became absolutely cold again.

She spoke coldly to herself and then her body suddenly shook. She frowned and looked up towards the sky through the roof opening.

When her gaze touched the blue sky, her senses had stretched further into the sky.

In the past years, those cold stars had seemed to be her own toys. No one else could touch the star energies she could not touch.

But at this time, she could clearly sense the star energies in the world had changed slightly. But she could not detect where the change originated and the cause.

For a moment, she thought it was just an illusion.

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