Chapter 663 — Contesting Wits Across the Void
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Ling Yuxiu's heart gave a small jolt. She lowered her voice: "The Great Venerable has lived for ten thousand years. He has all but mastered every divine art of every holy land! And he has been to the Western Land — he must have learned its arts as well; he has been to Taihuang Heaven, and Taihuang Heaven's arts and dharma could never have escaped him either. If the Divine Son Chiming starts from him, he can more or less survey the whole range of Jingping's principal arts and divine powers!"
Shen Mu was still scrutinizing the stone statue. Slowly, unhurriedly, he said, "When he looks at an art, he looks at its form. From the Great Venerable he cannot see Jingping's essence, spirit, and vitality. There is no such thing in the Great Venerable; his character is too soft. If he wants to see Jingping's essence, spirit, and vitality..."
He raised his head, pressed his lips together, and smiled a smile that was not quite a smile. "He should look at me!"
Ling Yuxiu laughed. "Boasting!"
The First Ancestor, the Human Sovereign, laughed too. "Girl of the Ling family, Shen'er is not boasting. I can let you see his essence, spirit, and vitality."
With that he touched the center of Ling Yuxiu's brows, lightly. Her eyes went dim at once, yet the point between her brows gradually brightened, and in a hazy blur she could make out a figure ahead.
"Look at Shen'er," said the First Ancestor.
She looked at Shen Mu, and at once she saw essence, spirit, and vitality like a roaring blaze — fearing neither heaven nor earth, daring to act and to answer for it, daring to break through and to fight!
Her heart quivered. After a moment her sight slowly returned, and only then did the aura about Shen Mu fade from view.
"If you were to look at your Imperial Father, Emperor Yanfeng, you would see the same sight — even more intense than Shen'er's."
The First Ancestor, the Human Sovereign, spoke with deep meaning: "He who founds a dynasty is not necessarily the strongest in power, but he is always the one with the greatest spirit and the greatest breadth of mind. Emperor Yanfeng is such a man. He has great perseverance and a great spirit, greater even than Shen'er's. I once saw the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping from afar; even he did not possess such a blazing essence, spirit, and vitality. Emperor Yanfeng stands for the spirit of an age!"
Ling Yuxiu was startled. Never had she imagined that a being like the First Ancestor, the Human Sovereign, would hold her father in such esteem!
In cultivation and strength, Emperor Yanfeng was no match for the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping; in aptitude and comprehension, no match for the Imperial Preceptor or for Shen Mu. He stood out among men, but he was not of the very highest rank.
Yet Emperor Yanfeng had been the central figure in the Imperial Preceptor's reforms — it was Yanfeng who pushed the reforms through with all his strength, shattering the gods in the temples of the heart, making the divine arts serve the common people, making the gods serve the common people. Only his radiance had been eclipsed by the Imperial Preceptor's.
"I will be a person like Father — no, better than he!" she vowed silently.
Ten days later, Bangong Cuo was again invited into the imperial palace to contend once more with these practitioners of the divine arts from the Xuankong Realm. This time it was not only those of the Life-and-Death Realm; several thousand of the Heaven-and-Man Realm and the Seven Stars Realm had come as well, a dark swarming mass of adepts with three heads and six arms.
Once again it was a Life-and-Death Realm practitioner who challenged Bangong Cuo. In ten days these practitioners' cultivation and strength had actually surged enormously. Nor that alone: they even brought out the very divine arts and dharma Bangong Cuo had used before, executed with consummate skill, as though they had steeped in them for decades!