Chapter 11
Chapter 11: [Azure Emperor]
That omen had been too strange. The imperial family forbade the common people to discuss it, fearing panic and unrest.
Shao Heng closed her eyes and searched her memory, dredging up the maidservant’s voice as if it had been pressed into the walls of the manor.
“Let this old woman tell you—one moment the sky was fine, and the next it turned dark as ink! You looked up and it was nothing but stars, but you could still see both the sun and the moon. Terrifying!”
“And the plants on the ground—flowers, grass, trees—they grew like they’d gone mad, like they’d turned into spirits. Then suddenly they withered by themselves. But once the sky went back to normal, guess what? Those flowers and grasses sprouted again!”
The maidservant had lowered her voice then, laughter bubbling under it.
“I shouldn’t say this, but don’t tell anyone else, all right? Our manor’s madam happened to be giving birth that day too. She was probably scared badly enough that…”
Back then, little Shao Heng had not cared about omens. What she had cared about was the maidservants gossiping about her mother.
She had stormed out on her short legs to complain to her father. He had sold those old maidservants out of the manor on the spot.
But now—
Sun and moon together, a sky full of stars in the darkness.
That was exactly what she had seen when her consciousness drifted during the aptitude test.
And the talk about flowers and grass…
Shao Heng looked inward, toward the bluish-gold sigil hovering near the pale yellow sprout in her qi sea dantian. Her voice came out low, almost wary.
“The withering and flourishing of plants?”
Green belonged to wood. Earlier, she had coaxed out a single drop of bluish-green liquid. The scent had been unmistakable—fresh, leafy, alive.
The thought landed in her mind with stunning ease.
“That omen came for me.”
She accepted it before she could even doubt it. And the moment she accepted it, her confidence snapped back into place, sharper than ever.
[If it didn’t come for me, who else could it have come for?]
With that, she returned to the shelves.
She flipped through the book list and searched for anything related to the Great Thousand Divine Ability Rankings. She moved quickly but kept her steps light, weaving between shelves without disturbing the other disciples.
After several minutes, she found it.
A hefty parchment scroll.
Shao Heng did not bother carrying it back to her desk. She sat cross-legged on the floor right there and unrolled it across her knees.
Across more than a dozen great cycles of recorded history, no fewer than a million divine abilities had appeared—each different, each strange, each carrying its own terrifying logic. That was why the Great Thousand Divine Ability Rankings existed. Only the ten thousand strongest divine abilities could enter it.
Countless cultivators advanced into the Fourth Realm. When the Dao bestowed their divine ability, many prayed theirs would make the list.
Shao Heng’s eyes skimmed downward. She expected a long search.
She did not need one.
On her very first glance, her gaze locked onto the line at the top as if it had been carved there for her alone.
“Sixth place: Azure Emperor—grace the four directions, frost covers the world.”
Beside the line was an ink drawing. Only black strokes, yet it resembled a tree so vividly it seemed ready to burst off the parchment. Its presence was vast and heavy, pressing against the eyes.
Shao Heng’s breath caught.
Wasn’t that exactly like the bluish-gold sigil in her qi sea dantian?
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
And it should. It absolutely should.
If she had not been inside the Wondrous Dharma Tower, she would have jumped up and shouted until her throat cracked, thanking Heaven Granny for her mercy.
She had an innate divine ability too.
And it was Azure Emperor, ranked sixth on the Great Thousand Divine Ability Rankings.
Shao Heng forced the heat down, one slow breath at a time, until her thoughts stopped spinning.
At the same time, another thought snapped into place with awful clarity.
[Then that Gray Cocoon… could it also be a divine ability?]
The Gray Cocoon had once fought with the Azure Emperor sigil inside her body. Their auras had felt eerily similar. She was more than eighty percent certain the cocoon was a divine ability made manifest.
The realization should have been joy.
Instead, it sharpened into danger.
[Even if someone is born with an innate divine ability, at most they’ll have two. In all of history, no cultivator has ever possessed three.]
If the little cocoon truly was another divine ability, then the moment the truth leaked, she would become a prize painted bright red.
Where had the Divine Voice come from?
What divine ability was the Gray Cocoon the manifestation of?
And why had it appeared in her body out of nowhere?
The Azure Emperor felt like something that had always belonged to her bones. The Gray Cocoon did not. It had been acquired after birth—less intimately bound, less stable.
She could feel their connection deepening. One day, she would certainly take full control of it.
But before that…
Could another cultivator forcibly seize it?
The thought made her stomach turn.
Her earlier wild delight drained away, leaving her face tight and cold. Her breathing grew heavy, controlled by sheer will.
The alarm in her mind rang without stopping until every question hardened into a single conclusion.
Absolutely no one could be allowed to know the Gray Cocoon existed.
She was within the One Yuan Sect—one of the foremost immortal sects. But so what?
The secret of possessing an extra divine ability was enough to drive most cultivators mad. Even high-realm cultivators would not be immune.
If it were exposed, leaving aside the truly vicious, would the sect’s kindly-looking elders and seniors really feel no greed at all?
Shao Heng did not need to imagine an answer.
She only needed to look at herself.
If she were in their position, could she swear she would not be tempted?
She could not.
Greed moved the human heart. Profit was a blade hanging overhead.
[If I tell the sect I possess an innate divine ability, they’ll verify it. They’ll investigate. And the cocoon will likely be revealed as well.]
At that point, the sect might treat her as a genius, elevate her, and shower her with resources.
But it might also…
She did not finish the thought. She did not need to.
She had joined the sect two days ago. She could not entrust her life entirely to it—not when the cost of being wrong was so high.
More than that, she could not stand the possibility of the Gray Cocoon—already stamped with her imprint—being ripped away and worn by someone else.
[If my divine abilities can’t be exposed and my aptitude is still unclear, then I can only stay in the outer sect for now.]
A year from now was the outer sect disciple tournament. That would be her path into the inner sect.
Even if the inner sect’s cultivation resources were far better, the One Yuan Sect’s statistics said a High-Grade Aptitude usually needed three years to reach the late stage of the First Realm.
Shao Heng’s mouth curved faintly, not with humor but with certainty.
[With the speed I trained at before, there’s no way I’m Lower Grade aptitude.]
She had cultivated for only a few days, and the yellow sprout already held three furnaces of spiritual power. Yet when their spirit ship arrived at the One Yuan Sect, Yun Jiang—who was High-Grade Aptitude—still had not even entered the Qi Induction Realm.
Shao Heng was confident she was at least High-Grade Aptitude.
As for why the Source-Appraisal Jade Disc had not detected it…
Well. The Gray Cocoon could take the blame for now.
It was only a year.
She was sure she would not lag too far behind Yun Jiang, who would be entering the inner sect in the same period.
Once she made the decision, the panic eased, leaving behind a cold steadiness.
She scanned her surroundings. At night, fewer disciples remained in the Wondrous Dharma Tower, and this section of shelves was empty. No one had witnessed her momentary loss of composure.
“What great luck,” she whispered.
Then she drew a breath, tucked the scroll closer, and continued reading line by line.
Ten thousand divine abilities—neither too many nor too few.
After half an hour, when she reached the end, Shao Heng went very still.
“Could this be Yun Jiang’s innate divine ability?”
Her fingertip hovered, as if she did not quite believe the ink beneath it.
“So… that’s what it does?”