Chapter 1074 — The One Who Rewrote the Laws of Realms

" came Dragon Qilin's voice. Shen Mu opened his eyes, exhaled a breath of turbid qi, and withdrew his Painting Dao primordial spirit from the Southern Heavenly Gate of the Painting Dao Heavenly Palace, pressing no further.

His painting dao was still far inferior to Kuisou's; even if he held on, he had no full confidence of breaking through this Southern Heavenly Gate and becoming a true god of the painting dao.

"Three elder brothers, the Ancestral Court is nearly upon us; let us go out," Shen Mu said to Dahong and the others.

Dahong, Gu Xiao, and Luo Xiao came forward, each turning his eyes on Shen Mu, and each showed astonishment. The Shen Mu of this moment was greatly changed from the Shen Mu of some months before; the aura he gave off carried a strange Dao resonance, and standing there he seemed cut off from the world.

It was as though a universe were stored within Shen Mu's body, sealed away from the universe outside, and within that inner universe were its own heavenly and earthly Great Dao, its own cosmos and primeval chaos.

"His path of cultivation is absolutely unlike that of other divine-power users and gods!

" Gu Xiao and Dahong thought to themselves.

Shen Mu's path of cultivation was unique.

Before the Longhan era there was no such thing as realms at all; in the long ages from the extinction of the Creator race to the founding of the Heavenly Court in the early Longhan years, it was the age in which the demigod races waxed mighty.

In that span people did not cultivate; bloodline alone decided strength.

Whose bloodline was stronger and whose lineage finer, his power stood higher.

In that span the children of the ancient gods ruled the races of the world, and demigods such as the Langxuan Divine Emperor and the Ancestral God King were the foremost among them.

Around the early Longhan years, the Seven Heavenly Venerates created the seven realms of the Divine Treasury; the Yutian Venerate died, and Shen Mu, improvising upon the spot, comprehended the art of longevity by which one becomes a god, and together with the Haotian Venerate passed down the seven realms of the Heavenly Palace and the Heavenly Court realm to the world. Only from then on was there any talk of realms.

Therefore it was no exaggeration to say that the realms were created by Shen Mu together with the other Heavenly Venerates.

Many in later ages never thought of this, and rashly measuring Shen Mu by realms only led them to false conclusions about his cultivation and strength; no few gods and demons had died by his hand for that very reason.

To the people of the early Longhan years, the Divine Treasury and Heavenly Palace cultivation system established by Shen Mu and the Seven Heavenly Venerates had not yet sunk into their hearts; the demigods and other races of this era cultivated the Divine Treasury and Heavenly Palace system mostly in order to win longevity like the ancient gods. The demigods cultivated the Divine Treasury and Heavenly Palaces only for long life; bloodline was what decided strength.

Yet in the long ages that followed, more and more people would discover the power of the Divine Treasury and Heavenly Palace system, and bloodline theory would gradually be pushed to the margins.

Bloodline no longer stood for strength; this was a subversion of the demigods and the ancient gods, and so the upheaval of the Longhan era was called the Longhan Revolution.

What it revolted against was the demigods and the ancient gods.

In the ages after, longer still, the Divine Treasury and Heavenly Palace system sank deep into people's hearts and rooted itself firm, until people neither doubted it nor pondered why it made them so mighty. Yet for Shen Mu and his peers, born a million years later, he and the pioneers of the Jingping Reform -- Jiang Baigui, Emperor Yanfeng, Xu Shenghua, Wang Muran, Lin Xuan -- had already begun to doubt this truth.

And so came the Heavenly River Divine Treasury, overturning the Divine Bridge Divine Treasury.

In this reform Shen Mu was the greatest subverter of the Divine Treasury system and the Heavenly Palace system.

After the Jingping Cataclysm he had neither soul nor spirit, holding on to life by divine consciousness alone and staving off death for a time; and so he created the Tribulation-Answering Sword, and with a single sword swept away his own Heavenly Palaces and his seven great Divine Treasuries, opened a new spirit embryo, and came to possess both soul and spirit. With one Primal Embryo Divine Treasury he evolved the cosmos and primeval chaos, evolved the ancient gods of all the heavens, wholly surpassing the Divine Treasury cultivation system; he had already walked out upon a road utterly unlike that of the sages who came before.

By realms alone, his achievements could no longer be measured. The Divine Treasury and Heavenly Palace realms known to the world were created by him and the Seven Heavenly Venerates, but they were also broken by him.

After reopening the Primal Embryo Divine Treasury, his cultivation could rival that of true gods -- even the heavenly gods of the Yaochi realm!

He could even cast aside the Heavenly Palace and Heavenly Court system altogether and seek out a road of his own, advancing without cease toward a realm of indescribable wonder!

Yet for the sake of swift growth he abandoned that road and returned once more into the Heavenly Palace and Heavenly Court system.

Still, after that transformation he was greatly different from the divine-power users and deities of the Divine Treasury and Heavenly Palace system.

To him, from first to last, there was only one realm: the spirit embryo realm. For his Heavenly Palaces -- or rather his Heavenly Court -- were not above the Primal Embryo Divine Treasury, but within it!

The Heavenly Palace realm and the Heavenly Court realm were merely two small realms inside his spirit embryo realm! And the seven realms within the Heavenly Palace realm were small realms within small realms!

This was the greatest difference between him and other divine-power users and deities.

All the realms of his Heavenly Palaces, even the Heavenly Court realm, were a single whole, unified within the spirit embryo realm.

Others were students following step by step, while he, after the Jingping Cataclysm, had already risen free of the very realms he himself had created. Realms were a framework the creators taught to ordinary people for cultivation; as a creator, he tried to leap beyond the bonds of realms.

Of course, Shen Mu still needed the wisdom of a million years of people, and even the wisdom of the reformers, to advance further. This too was why he had not abandoned the Heavenly Palace and Heavenly Court system.

He needed their wisdom in order to grow, and only so could he, in the shortest time, cultivate to a point where he might contend with the Ten Heavenly Venerates.

In this sense, he was not a thorough subverter.

Thorough subversion is revolution; without thorough subversion, there is only patching and mending, which is reform.

The Longhan era was revolution: it subverted the old determinism of bloodline and made cultivation the mainstream.

The Chiming era was revolution: it subverted the demigods' superiority over humans, so that humans could become as mighty as gods.

The Shanghuang era was revolution: it subverted human reverence for the gods, put forth the doctrine that human life outweighs heaven, and put it into practice.

The Kaihuang era was reform, carrying on the fruits of the Shanghuang era; had the Kaihuang era succeeded in branding the acquired Great Dao into the void, had Kaihuang, the Martial Combat Celestial Master, and the others become a new generation of ancient gods, then it would have been revolution rather than reform.

Jingping did not subvert the ages before it, but improved and perfected the Divine Treasury and Heavenly Palace systems; this too was why the Jingping Reform could not be called the Jingping Revolution.