Chapter 17
Chapter 17: A Gold Page
The Gray Cocoon trembled.
The hazy gray light it gave off dimmed slightly, as if it were drawing inward. Shao Heng checked carefully. The aura she showed outwardly now truly looked like someone who had only just entered the Qi Induction Realm.
Delight flickered through her.
“There’s another use,” she murmured. “If I need it later, this Gray Cocoon can help me hide my cultivation and catch people off guard.”
Using Elder Zhao Tang as a benchmark, the effect should fool even a Third Realm cultivator who had already transformed spiritual sense into divine sense.
The Gray Cocoon’s divine ability hadn’t even fully manifested, and it already had this kind of power. Combined with the fact it had once contended head-on with Azure Emperor, Shao Heng couldn’t help the curiosity that burned in her chest. What was it, truly?
She broke into a quick jog toward the Wondrous Dharma Tower, panic already painted across her face.
When she reached the gatekeeper, she bowed quickly and let her voice tremble. “Greetings, Senior Brother… I—I… that thunder just now…”
The young man in yellow soothed her at once. “That was probably an inner sect elder cultivating some top-tier immortal art. Don’t panic. The sect-protecting Grand Array of the True One Yuan Sect is an ancient inheritance. They say even a Seventh Realm great expert couldn’t shake it in the slightest. Inside the sect is the safest place.”
Shao Heng nodded along, wide-eyed, grateful. She thanked him, then slipped into the tower.
The moment she crossed the threshold, the panic vanished. Calm settled back into her bones as neatly as a cloak.
Climbing the stairs, she couldn’t help smiling to herself. “The things I learned from Jiang Yun Jiang are pretty useful.”
For more than a decade, she’d been spoiled and willful, used to barging through everything head-on. Acting the part of a frightened girl was an art—one Jiang Yun Jiang had wielded like a blade.
Because of the strange thunder, the Wondrous Dharma Tower was unusually empty. Her footsteps creaked softly on the wooden stairs. A clear breeze drifted through an open window.
Halfway up, Shao Heng suddenly paused.
Something brushed the air.
She looked up and reached out with her right hand.
A Gold Page drifted down into her palm, warm and faintly vibrating, as if it still held the tail-end of thunder.
Shao Heng stared at it. “Where did you come from?”
The disciples in the Wondrous Dharma Tower cast the Dust-Cleansing Technique every day. Not a speck of dust should remain, much less a sheet of paper hidden between stairboards.
After checking the stairwell and listening for movement, she unfolded the page just enough to glimpse it.
Blank.
Not a single word.
Shao Heng’s mouth twitched. “A wordless heavenly book?”
Despite the complaint, her hands moved fast. She snapped it shut and stuffed the Gold Page into her storage ring.
How familiar. Wasn’t this exactly like the storybooks—where the protagonist tripped over a lucky break for no reason at all?
That divine voice claimed she was some born clown. What nonsense.
As for whether the Gold Page belonged to the tower…
Shao Heng glanced at the open window.
Mm. Obviously blown in by the wind. If anyone came asking, that was what she would say.
Now wasn’t the time to study it. She hadn’t forgotten why she’d come. Shao Heng hurried up to the fourth floor.
The classroom door stood open. Elder Zhao Tang wasn’t teaching; she stood near the entrance instead, staff in hand, rare worry on her face.
The moment Shao Heng stepped onto the fourth floor, Zhao Tang’s gaze swept over her. “Why are you here…? You’ve entered the Qi Induction Realm?”
Shao Heng lifted her head, eyes wide and shining with admiration that was mostly performance. “Elder Zhao, I was sensing qi in my room. I finally had a flash of insight and entered the Qi Induction Realm. I hadn’t even had time to be happy before my whole body started aching. Then the thunder struck outside—so frightening. I almost got shaken unconscious.”
She swallowed and forced her voice steadier. “Only after it stopped did I dare to come out. I saw so many disciples collapsed on the ground.”
She glanced into the lecture hall. It was a total wipeout. Everyone lay sprawled across the floor.
She spotted Lu Shao Jia and Lu Shao Jing at once. The two had been sitting side by side; now they were foaming at the mouth, tongues lolling out, unconscious in a miserable heap.
Shao Heng snickered inwardly and kept her face perfectly normal.
Zhao Tang studied her for a long moment before speaking again. “You’ve been in the sect less than ten days, and you’ve already entered the Qi Induction Realm. No wonder I haven’t seen you in class lately. This kind of comprehension is not much worse than Mid Grade aptitude.”
Her staff tapped the floor once. “After entering the Qi Induction Realm, you’ll need to prepare to cultivate the ‘Origin-Nourishing Qi-Raising Art.’”
Then her gaze sharpened. “Let me ask you—have you ever heard of the Three Classics and Five Canons?”
Shao Heng shook her head. “I haven’t.”
It was the truth. She said it plainly, with an earnest expression and no trace of strain.
Zhao Tang nodded, voice lowering as if the walls could listen. “The True One Yuan Sect traces its inheritance back to ancient ages. And within that inheritance, the greatest are the Three Classics, Five Canons, and the Seven Arts.”
“The Three Classics and Five Canons refer to eight top-tier techniques. Legend says they can lead straight to the Ninth Realm, with endless wonders.”
“And the Seven Arts refer to seven top-tier immortal arts, each with the power to move mountains and overturn seas.”
She narrowed her eyes, remembering the shock that had rolled through the air. “When the thunder roared just now, I probed with divine sense. I suspect it was an omen caused by the manifestation of the ‘Cavern Mystery Jade Pivot Thunder Scripture,’ one of the Five Canons—or the Thunder-Descent Divine Light Art Record, one of the Seven Arts.”
These were sect secrets. Ordinary outer sect elders wouldn’t know them. Only because Zhao Tang had advanced to the Third Realm—and had acquaintances in the inner sect—had she learned them by chance.
As Shao Heng listened, something hungry stirred in her chest. Desire crept into her eyes before she even realized it.
She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Elder Zhao… do we have any chance to cultivate those inherited techniques and immortal arts?”
“If I advance into the inner sect at next year’s outer sect disciple tournament, would I have a chance?”
Zhao Tang tightened her grip on her staff. If others heard those words, they would laugh—call Shao Heng delusional, say she didn’t know her place.
But Zhao Tang only answered calmly, “The Three Classics and Five Canons haven’t appeared in a long time. They say such wondrous scriptures have spirits of their own. They can choose a master.”
“They’re within the sect, but their whereabouts are unknown. I only know they manifest when they resonate with heaven and earth’s qi—some with great fanfare, some in utter silence.”
“Even in the inner sect,” she said, “where heavenly prodigies gather, everyone longs for them. Yet no one can obtain them.”
“As for the Seven Arts, you must make a huge contribution to the sect before the Sect Master will grant them.”
Zhao Tang had centuries of experience. She looked into Shao Heng’s eyes and saw the desire there—thick, open, completely unhidden.
“If you truly want the qualification to cultivate the Seven Arts,” Zhao Tang said, “then give it everything and win next year’s disciple tournament.”
Shao Heng nodded, then asked, “But Elder, I’ve heard some disciples come from cultivation clans and are taught from childhood. They’ve already entered the Qi Induction Realm before joining, so their cultivation is naturally higher.”
“If people like that compete with us in the outer sect tournament, isn’t that unfair?”
Zhao Tang chuckled. “Outer sect disciples are all Lower Grade aptitude. Even with ten extra years of cultivation, they still couldn’t reach mid First Realm. Their cultivation wouldn’t be that much higher.”
“And how could family resources compare to the sect’s? Joining late only harms themselves.”
Because the whole hall had fainted, Zhao Tang had no students to wrangle back into order. Forcing them awake after an outside shock could injure their spiritual sense, so she was unusually patient.
After a moment’s thought, she said bluntly, “And even if you think it’s unfair, so what?”
“Since when has the world ever been fair?”
Shao Heng pressed her lips into a thin line, as if she wanted to argue, but she stayed silent.
Years gave what talent alone could not: experience, time, weight.
Zhao Tang watched the struggle flicker across her face and asked, “What do you really want—fairness, or to win?”
Shao Heng jolted as if waking from a dream.
In the space of a breath, she heard her own thoughts as clearly as a voice in the room:
[When you’re thirsty, you drink. When you’re hungry, you eat. No one needs to teach you that.]
[Isn’t all this talk about fairness only because the world is unfair to begin with?]
[When I was the marquis’s pampered daughter, ordering servants around, why didn’t I think about what was fair then?]
[Wanting “fairness” now is just paint I slap over my ugliness.]
[What I want isn’t fairness. What I want is to win—to always stand above everyone else.]
[Whether others give or refuse doesn’t matter. I’ll take it myself.]