Chapter 1028: The Taiping Essential Arts

Chapter 1028: The Taiping Essential Arts

After escaping Wu Guangbi’s grasp, Qi Xuansu continued to wander through the endless, identical corridors.

In truth, Qi Xuansu had a strong intuition that following Wu Guangbi and Li Tianzhen would have been the wisest course. After all, the Heavenly Court had long been entrenched in Nanyang, so their understanding of the Dragon Palace was surely profound. Moreover, with Wu Guangbi personally escorting Li Tianzhen here, it only meant that they had a clear plan to locate the Heavenly Empress’s legacy and were not merely relying on luck.

To ordinary mortals, heaven’s will was unpredictable, its workings beyond human reach.

But to Immortals, heaven’s will followed patterns. There were subtle messages hidden beneath countless outward signs. Those who could see through the appearances were said to hold the secrets of heaven and earth in their grasp.

By the same reasoning, the Dragon Palace might appear mysterious, but it was still a divine kingdom created by an Immortal. Thus, its workings must obey laws as constant as the rising sun and the shifting tides, but they were probably concealed beneath illusion and form. Those of lesser cultivation could not see through these illusions and thus mistook everything for mystery and fate. However, the Heavenly Court had the Golden Patriarch, and the Li family was guided by the Imperial Preceptor, who was surely capable of seeing the subtle patterns.

Great Sage Lan had spent months divining the exact coordinates where the Dragon Palace would surface and entered it without hindrance. He even found precisely what he sought. Such precision could never come from luck alone.

However, Qi Xuansu’s current cultivation was limited. He could flee, but not fight, let alone shadow his enemies to reap any spoils. But if Madam Qi had been here, things might have been different.

At this point, Qi Xuansu no longer hoped for any grand fortune. He would be pleasantly surprised if he could obtain even one practical treasure.

Along the way, he crossed paths with several others, including Spirit Guards from the Daoist Order and a few lucky wanderers who had stumbled into the palace from elsewhere. But Qi Xuansu paid them no mind.

He came across a few more chambers, but each one was empty, clearly ransacked by others before his arrival.

By counting the simulated heartbeats of his body spirit, Qi Xuansu estimated that about five hours had passed. According to Spirit Guard Ding Chou, the Dragon Palace remained open for only eight hours at a time. That left him with about three hours to explore.

Qi Xuansu abandoned all thought of gain or loss and pressed onward.

After another two hours of silent wandering, he finally came upon a special chamber. Inside was a table that had a single book placed upon it.

He picked it up and saw four bold characters on the cover that read, “The Taiping Essential Arts.”

Qi Xuansu’s expression immediately turned strange.

The Taiping Essential Arts

certainly had some connection to the Taiping Sect. Its alternate name was

Taiping Qingling Records

.

Qi Xuansu could hardly believe what he had just obtained. Though he had failed to find the Heavenly Empress’s legacy, he had stumbled upon the Taiping Sect’s legacy.

During the days of the Yellow Turban Uprising, the Taiping Sect preached across the realm, and this book became its core scripture and doctrine. Strictly speaking, this

Taiping Qingling Records

was not the same as the Taiping Qingling Sutra. The latter was a perfected method, whereas the former was an entire lineage system, much like how the Holy Xuan later established the Five Immortal Lineage, which in turn inspired the Rogue Cultivator and Banished Immortal lineages.

Thus,

The Taiping Essential Arts

contained the Taiping Qingling Sutra, but not vice versa.

After the Yellow Turban Uprising failed, the Taiping Sect splintered. The Great Teacher perished, and

The Taiping Essential Arts

vanished. Perhaps each remnant branch preserved only a fragment of it. Legend says there were actually 57 volumes in the general compendium and 10 sections, each section with 17 volumes. This brought the total to 227 volumes.

By the end of the previous Wei Dynasty, the Five Daoist Sects had divided into two major camps—the Righteous and the Heretics. The Righteous possessed the general compendium, which was broken into two portions. The beginning was held by the Shen family, called

The Taiping Sutra

, the latter portion was held by the Li family, called

The Qingling Sutra

, also known as the Xuanwei Method. Later, the Holy Xuan mediated between them and unified the two, producing what was now known as

The Taiping Qingling Sutra

.

The other parts fell into the hands of the Heretics.

The division between the Righteous and Heretics resembled the ancient split within the Confucian School. There was once an elder called Patriarch Yang, born after the founder of Mohism but before the Second Sage. Patriarch Yang taught the doctrine of preserving one’s true nature and esteeming the self above material gain. His famous quote was, “The sages of old would not yield even a hair’s breadth if it did not benefit the world, nor would they accept the offerings of all under heaven if it served only themselves. If every person refrained from harming even a hair, and none sought to profit at the world’s expense, then the realm would be well governed.”

𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Yet later generations misunderstood it to mean, “The sages of old would not yield even a hair to benefit the world.”

Patriarch Yang’s philosophy bore resemblance to the Primordial Daoist Ancestor’s words. “He who cherishes his own being as the world may be trusted with the world. He who loves his own life as the world may be entrusted with its care.”

They seemed identical, but there was a subtle divergence. Daoist Master Nanhua disagreed with it. Thus, the divide between the Righteous and Heretics arose.

When the Holy Xuan later rebuilt the Daoist Order, he acknowledged Patriarch Yang’s status.

Patriarch Yang had gathered the greatest techniques and secret arts of the world, refined them, and compiled them into a collection because it encompassed all paths and schools, many of which did not originate from the Daoist Order. Thus, he left it unnamed. Later generations called it the

Ten Nameless Volumes

. When the Heretics later split into ten lineages, each lineage held one volume and refined its own methods from it.

Of course, not all ancient techniques were superior. Geniuses of later generations often refined and perfected older methods. For instance, the Beidou 36 Sword was merely a high-attainment method, but after Li Daoxu’s refinement, it became a perfected method, standing equal to the Cihang Sword Sequence and the Taiyin 13 Swords.

Thus, the

Ten Nameless Volumes

were revised over time. The Heretics eventually merged the ten sections of

The Taiping Essential Arts

into the

Ten Nameless Volumes

. Now, they had been reclaimed by the Daoist Order, but they were still known as the

Nameless Volumes

and had never been reintegrated with the

Taiping Qingling Sutra

.

Back in the day, Song Zheng, with the backing of Xu Wugui, compelled the other sects to hand over their own copies of these volumes, thus restoring the complete book of what Patriarch Yang had once compiled and naming it the

Heavenly Volumes

.

Later, it was entirely thanks to these volumes that Tantai Yun managed to advance to the Longevity stage before the age of forty. In that sense, the

Heavenly Volumes

could also be regarded as a perfected method.

In short, the combination of today’s

Taiping Qingling Sutra

and the

Nameless Volumes

together constituted

The Taiping Essential Arts

.

However, it was not anything particularly rare. The Daoist Order already had it.

Given Qi Xuansu’s current rank and status, obtaining either of these perfected methods would not be difficult.

The real issue lay in their difficulty of cultivation. As Qi Xuansu himself often said, he had yet to fully master even the Daoist methods, so to forcefully learn other methods would be meaningless.

From that perspective,

The Taiping Essential Arts

was not that precious to him. Yet upon reflection, Qi Xuansu realized it was not entirely useless. Both the

Taiping Qingling Sutra

and the

Nameless Volumes

had been heavily revised over the generations. Though they did not lose their essence, they were far removed from their original form.

This was especially true after the Holy Xuan created the Five Immortal Lineages, which separated cultivation methods from divine arts. As a result, most modern perfected methods retained only the divine arts, while their foundational cultivation methods were lost or sealed away. The original methods must still exist somewhere, but few ever come across them.

This rendered many perfected methods impossible to practice properly. For instance, the Longevity Maiden Sutra’s original foundation lay in the dual cultivation between man and woman. It refined one’s essence and preserved vitality, known as the method of ascension through embracing 3,000 beauties. But this cultivation path had been excised, so no one dared touch it again.

The Holy Xuan’s reform purged the impure and preserved the essence, greatly raising the baseline for cultivation. Those who would once have never become a Heavenly Being could now achieve it through methodical progression, following a set of precise formulas that minimized detours. But this also lowered the upper limit, as the cultivation paths became too fixed, leaving no room for innovation.

For true geniuses, it was far better to study the original, unabridged texts to grasp the author’s original intent and achieve a deeper understanding and mastery. Simply put, only by knowing what was wrong could one truly understand what was right.

Zhang Yuelu practiced the original versions of the Five Thunder Celestial Heart Method and the Dragon-Tiger Sword Technique, hence her flawless mastery. Part of that was because it was her own family’s lineage, but much of it was due to her own talent.

If this version of

The Taiping Essential Arts

were indeed the complete original, it would be invaluable, as it might contain lost content from the

Taiping Qingling Sutra

and the

Nameless Volumes.

Though this was just a single book, it could be a pocket realm in itself, housing the content of a few hundred volumes.

In any case, Qi Xuansu could study it himself or share it with Zhang Yuelu. Either way, it was not a total loss.

After all, Qi Xuansu had only received the Green Cloud thanks to Zhang Yuelu. Otherwise, why would the Heavenly Preceptor entrust the top-tier semi-immortal object to an outsider with no family backing? Thus, he reasoned that sharing

The Taiping Essential Arts

with her was perfectly reasonable. Moreover, this book would greatly benefit a natural-born Banished Immortal like her.

Natural-born Banished Immortals relied entirely on later learning and accumulation. Conversely, the manmade Banished Immortals had their growth path preordained from conception.

It was not strange that the Heavenly Empress would possess

The Taiping Essential Arts.

Since ancient times, Daoism and Wuism have been inseparable. Even though the Ancestral Heavenly Preceptor had extinguished Ancient Wuism, the Eleven Great Witches were the Heavenly Emperor’s subordinates. So essentially, it had been an internal strife.

Before the Heavenly Empress had ascended, she was known as a goddess. The Eleven Great Witches were also known as goddesses. A witch and a goddess were essentially two faces of the same coin.

Thus, it was clear that the Heavenly Empress had Wuist origins. However, she had been accepted by the Three Religions, allowing her to rise above all other sea gods.

When

The Taiping Essential Arts

first appeared, it was during an age when the Confucian School dominated the realm. The Confucian scholars of the time dismissed it as a collection of occult gibberish.

Therefore, it was entirely within reason that the Heavenly Empress would have

The Taiping Essential Arts

.