Chapter 332 — Peering in Secret
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Shen Mu's gaze fell upon the dewdrop at his fingertip, and the dewdrop left him somewhat dazed. Could swordsmanship truly reach such a level?
The swordsmanship Lizheng had displayed this time was not the same as what he had shown when he taught Shen Mu in the past. In the old days, when Lizheng taught him "Sword Treads Mountains and Rivers," he had laid out the whole execution of the technique before him in exhaustive detail, so that he might know how the sword art was performed.
But this time, though the "Sword Treads Mountains and Rivers" Lizheng performed was the very same move he had passed on to him, there was something different within it.
It was as though he had enacted the creation of heaven and earth, bringing forth all things.
The Dao Sword of the Dao Sect used exhaustive analysis of the arts of number to dissect all natural things; the Fourteen Chapters of the Dao Sword used those arts to reproduce nature and all its creatures, and possessed immense power.
Lizheng's swordsmanship, however, seemed to walk an opposite road: he was creating heaven and earth and all things, using his sword art to expound them.
It was hard to say which of the two approaches was the more brilliant, but judged by their fundamental intent, the Dao Sword explained the Dao that follows nature, while Lizheng's sword diagram created nature — and so the sword diagram's intent should be the higher.
For to explain nature is still a form of learning, a learning from nature; but to create is to make something from nothing. Even by the Dao Sect's own supreme doctrine — that the Dao produces the One, the One the Two, the Two the Three, and the Three all things — Lizheng's sword diagram had grasped the Dao, and the Dao gives birth to all things. The Dao Sect's Dao Sword, by contrast, exhausted every possibility merely to expound all things.
Shen Mu stared at the dewdrop. It was crystalline, flawless, incomparably smooth, and upon its surface he could actually see the vast world refracted within it, every hair and thread revealed.
"Azure Empyrean Heaven Eye, open!"
Layer upon layer of array patterns spun in Shen Mu's pupils. Gazing with the Azure Empyrean Heaven Eye, he tried to see the finest threads of sword-light that composed the dewdrop, but to his disappointment the Heaven Eye could not make them out.
Yet he saw another wonder: the dewdrop refracted external things, and looking closely, he found that from the refracting surface he could see still finer detail.
Through the dewdrop's refraction he looked at Imperial Preceptor Jingping. The Imperial Preceptor had entered a wondrous state, his eyes seemingly vacant, but viewing his eyes through the dewdrop, Shen Mu saw that within them were countless shifting arrays.
Looking yet more closely, he saw that within these shifting arrays a world seemed to be taking shape.
Shen Mu roused his spirits and sustained the Azure Empyrean Heaven Eye, peering closer, seeing more distinctly: within the shifting arrays in Imperial Preceptor Jingping's eyes it was as though heaven and earth were being split apart, a demonstration of the marvel of creation!
He felt as though he were there in person, as though he stood within the world being born in the Imperial Preceptor's eyes, undergoing the Imperial Preceptor's process of enlightenment.
Imperial Preceptor Jingping was comprehending the Dao of the sword. The man was truly brilliant — no wonder Ancestor Mingmo, the Old Dao Master, and the Old Tathagata, upon first setting eyes on him, had been moved to cherish his talent and had poured out to him all the secret teachings of their holy lands.
Shen Mu was inferior to him in both insight and natural endowment. At his first glimpse of Lizheng's sword Dao, the man had grasped an analogous truth and comprehended a sword Dao of his own; such heaven-defying endowment and talent, Shen Mu admitted, he could never match.