Chapter 10
Chapter 10: Immortal Arts, Divine Abilities, and Methods
Zhao Tang first led the newly admitted disciples to the Wondrous Dharma Tower so they would not get lost later. Only after everyone had memorized the route did she bring them to the disciples’ courtyard.
They called it a courtyard, but the One Yuan Sect ruled an immense stretch of land. Two immortal mountains had been leveled and reshaped into residences. Even from a high vantage point, it was difficult to take in the boundary at a glance.
From the gate, bamboo groves and rockeries framed the view—quiet, orderly, and refined.
“Male disciples live in the east courtyard. Female disciples live in the west.
“Each of you gets one room. Any stone pillar at a doorway without a name marks a room you may choose freely.
“Once you choose, take out your token and press it to the pillar to leave your imprint.”
With that, Zhao Tang turned and left without lingering.
Shao Heng went straight into the west courtyard. There was nothing to weigh, no reason to hesitate. Within minutes she found an empty room, pressed her disciple token to the stone pillar, and watched her name appear at once. A thin network of spirit-patterns surfaced around the doorway as well—formations that the room’s owner could activate to keep other disciples from barging in.
She pushed the door open and triggered the formation in the same motion, sealing off peeping eyes and interruptions.
The curtains had been pulled back. The room was broad, bright, and spotless. There were no blankets on the bed—only a large yellow meditation cushion placed squarely at the center, meant for daily cultivation.
Two sets of yellow outer sect robes lay neatly to one side.
Shao Heng crossed the room and lifted one. The fabric slid through her fingers like water. Even the finest satin in the mortal world could not compare.
She loosened the cloth ties, shrugged out of her old clothes, and changed into the new robe. Afterward, she tied her long hair back with a ribbon and let out a slow, satisfied breath.
“Heaven Granny,” she muttered, smoothing the sleeve. “This feels ten times better than hemp.”
She sprawled onto the cushion for a moment, limbs stretched out as if she could melt into it, eyes drifting closed.
She had lived pampered for fourteen years. More than a month of hardship had scuffed her, yes, but it had not yet scrubbed the extravagance out of her bones.
A moment later, she sat up. She folded the second set of robes and stowed them in her storage ring, then stepped out and headed for the Wondrous Dharma Tower.
The tower was a bamboo structure, five floors tall and bright green as spring. Shao Heng had seen bamboo towers before, most of them weathered to a dull brown-yellow with age, but this one looked freshly grown—vivid, lively, almost glowing.
It covered an astonishing area. By her rough estimate, it took up at least twenty mu.
Even at dusk, it was not quiet. Yellow-robed disciples flowed in and out—some alone, heads lowered, footsteps brisk; others in pairs or small groups, murmuring to each other as they walked.
At the entrance, Shao Heng verified her identity with her disciple token. The gatekeeping disciple handed her a book list.
She glanced down, and her mouth twitched.
The first floor alone held more than 130,000 volumes. As expected of a great sect’s accumulation.
“Even if I never forget a thing,” she thought, “and I read day and night without stopping, I still couldn’t finish in two or three years.”
She steadied herself, then set a clear goal.
[I need to gather information in two directions: innate divine abilities and Human Clan aptitude.]
Tomorrow she still had to attend the outer sect elder’s lecture, if only to see what it was like. But Shao Heng already had cultivation. As long as she circulated spiritual power, fatigue would wash out of her body. An all-nighter here was no problem.
Following the index, she moved quickly through the shelves, pulled down a heavy stack of books, and piled them onto an empty table.
Thump.
She tried to place them gently. Even so, the weight still landed with a dull, solid sound.
At the center of the first floor, an old man sat in a rocking chair. He had been resting with his eyes closed, but the noise made him open them and look over.
He saw a young female disciple hugging a thick book to her chest, her eyes moving so fast they seemed to skim ten lines at a time.
An eyebrow lifted. Then he shut his eyes again, turned slightly in the chair, and settled in more comfortably, as if the matter had already ceased to be interesting.
Night thickened. Clouds smothered the stars, but the bright moon still hung high beyond the window.
Shao Heng paused mid-page, staring at a snow-white porcelain bottle placed on her desk. She had assumed it was decoration. Now crimson patterns crawled across its surface like veins of light. The bottle floated up, and a strange flame bloomed within. The glow pierced the thin porcelain, bright enough to illuminate the entire tabletop.
“Not bad,” she murmured, genuinely impressed.
Then she lowered her head and kept reading.
By the time she finished Madam Li’s Cultivation Essentials, she did not immediately reach for another book.
She had always known the danger of stuffing knowledge into her head without chewing it. Reading without thinking led to confusion; thinking without reading led to emptiness. If she did nothing but memorize, she would never have written such graceful prose in the mortal world.
She had already finished fourteen books related to Human Clan cultivation. The scattered details in her mind were enough now to be turned into something clean and clear.
She took out prepared draft paper and a brush, wrote three headings, and began sorting her notes beneath them.
Immortal arts.
Divine abilities.
Methods.
“Pills, talismans, formations, and artifacts are called the four arts of cultivation,” she murmured as she organized her thoughts. “They can enhance training and also be used to fight and kill.”
She tapped the brush against the paper once, then continued. “But setting those four aside, the ways cultivators duel really fall into three categories.”
Immortal arts.
Immortal arts came from innate evolution, or they were created by great experts. They were divided into three grades: lower, middle, and upper.
Low-level tricks like the Water-Avoidance Charm or Dust-Cleansing Charm did not even count. True graded immortal arts had a core outline that could evolve into many different variations.
One text—Jing Chuan Chronicle—used a famous lower-grade immortal art as an example: Water-Command Art. Once mastered, it could congeal water into ice, stir rivers and seas, summon water into mist, drive clouds, and bring rain…
Divine abilities.
Divine abilities had no grades. They were bestowed by the Dao when a cultivating being entered the Fourth Realm, shed its mortal shell, and forged an immortal foundation. Each being only got this one chance.
Compared to immortal arts, divine abilities contained unfathomable rules and truths. Their power often defied common sense—yet the randomness was so great it could feel almost cruel.
One record mentioned a cultivator who specialized in fire techniques but was granted a divine ability called Concealed Water. It strengthened immortal arts while in water, forcing that cultivator to master both water and fire together.
Methods.
Methods also had no grades, and only high-realm cultivators were qualified to even touch them.
The same immortal art could be cultivated by many Human Clan cultivators. Even within the Great Thousand Divine Ability Rankings, only the top hundred divine abilities were truly unique to the present age. Across history, it was not rare at all for different cultivators to possess the same divine ability.
But methods were different.
They were born from a cultivator’s own comprehension, perfectly matched to the self, and they could not be cultivated by anyone else. Their room to grow was even greater than immortal arts.
When Shao Heng finished sorting everything, she finally understood why the Divine Voice had called Yun Jiang gifted beyond measure.
An innate divine ability meant being born already blessed by the Dao—already possessing a divine ability from the very start.
And once Yun Jiang advanced into the Fourth Realm, she would receive another.
Two divine abilities.
Shao Heng’s chest tightened, half awe and half something sharper.
[So that’s what monster talent means. An omen, an omen… an omen!]
Her eyes widened. She caught the thread of that thought before it could slip away and yanked a long-blurred memory back into focus.
It was far too long ago, when she had been four or five.
Shao Heng had once overheard a maidservant in the Marquis of Pacifying the South’s manor say that more than fourteen years ago, an omen had appeared in Bian Capital as well.