Chapter 1074 — The One Who Rewrote the Laws of Realms
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 4 of 5
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.