Chapter 978 — Sloth in Youth, Vain Grief in White Hair
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 5
Of the Heavenly Court's masters who had come to Taixu, only the Fire Heavenly Venerable and the Void Heavenly Venerable were confident of leaving alive; the others — even an existence like Yue Tingge — had no sure confidence of walking out of this place alive. Here, so long as he avoided the Fire Heavenly Venerable and the Void Heavenly Venerable, he could visualize the Ark of the Other Shore to his heart's content, and then sail it across the Void Bridge! "But before that, I must first raise my cultivation and advance to the Heavenly Palace realm.
Then I can attempt to cultivate the Tai Emperor's Daluo Supreme Divine Consciousness. With the Daluo Supreme Divine Consciousness, visualizing the Ark of the Other Shore will be far swifter!
" Shen Mu acted the moment the thought came. He had never before opened a Heavenly Palace, but he had opened divine treasuries no fewer than twenty or thirty times, and was well versed in the work.
In the Longhan era, however, people had opened their Heavenly Palaces by resonating with the Longhan Heavenly Court and borrowing the power of its ancient gods; only thus could they open a Heavenly Palace within their bodies. In that age the Longhan Heavenly Court still dwelt in the mortal world.
Though it stood high in the heavens, men and gods shared one realm, so it was easy to sense the Heavenly Court and to borrow its power and the power of the ancient gods. When a divine ability practitioner opened a Heavenly Palace, the Southern Heavenly Gate, the Jade Pool, the God-Slaying Platform, the Jade Capital, the Lingxiao Hall, and the other structures within it were all imprints of the corresponding structures of the Longhan Heavenly Court, which made matters very convenient.
In Taixu, however, there was no such convenient path.
So Shen Mu resorted to visualization: he visualized the layout and structure of the Heavenly Court, first sketching out its whole form, and then opening the void to carve out the realm that was the Heavenly Palace. They were dwelling in the last gathering place of the Creators, and Luo Wushuang stood guard over him, watching for any enemy that might come.
Shen Mu sat in silent meditation for a long while, visualizing without cease, and within his Primal Fetus Divine Treasury a Southern Heavenly Gate of glassy jade gradually emerged, the runes and veins upon it slowly growing distinct.
Then the Green Wave Bridge, spanning the Heavenly River, appeared; golden dragons with the great sun in their jaws danced, and phoenixes crowned with vermilion perched upon it. Further in lay the Longevity Star Terrace, the Heavenly Street, the Heavenly Market, the Imperial Carriage Way, the Water Palace, the Three Terraces, the Heavenly Rampart, and the Three Preceptors; following the Heavenly River deeper still came the Jade Terrace, and then the broad Jade Pool, the jade seas and divine mountains, all surging into being.
Past the Jade Pool came the ten great imperial guards — the Left and Right Feather Forest, the Left and Right Dragon Martial, the Left and Right Divine Martial, the Left and Right Divine Strategy, the Left and Right Divine Might — and then the God-Slaying Platform.
Only after the God-Slaying Platform came the Jade Capital City and the Lingxiao Hall. The first Heavenly Palace Shen Mu visualized was modeled on the specifications of the present-day Heavenly Court.
He had some understanding of the Dao runes of each of the ancient gods, and the runes imprinted upon the palaces and halls of the Heavenly Court were likewise the Dao runes of the ancient gods; his would only be more complete and more perfect than the Heavenly Palaces of old. Yet visualization was only visualization; by visualization alone he could not make the Heavenly Palace real.
He still had to open the void and carve the Heavenly Palace into being.