Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 205. Inheritance of Immortal Blood Sovereign.

“This is…” Laien frowned ever so slightly as he held the blood-red jade slip in his hand. He could feel the presence of something similar to Intent within the stone, but unlike with the Ancient Tomes, he felt instinctually wary of establishing a connection with it. That being said, that wariness wasn’t associated with danger, or so was the conclusion Laien came to after a moment. If he had to describe this sensation in some way, it was akin to entering a forest to learn how to survive on one’s own instead of learning about survival tactics from books in a library. If anything, one thing was certain - whatever this jade slip contained, it was far beyond the level of Intent of the Ancient Tomes.

“Yin’s seems to be the same?” Laien noted as he and Yin exchanged their impressions through their Spiritual Link. “I guess there’s no need to cause a scene,” he assumed calmly. The three jade slips had appeared and felt mostly identical in his hand, before two of them had been taken away by Yin and Arslan. He had been slightly worried before consulting with Yin, but it looked like none of the three stone-like treasures carried any hidden dangers within. Well, it should only make sense since those three jade slips had apparently gone through the hands of thousands of people, but on the other hand, they had never been comprehended by anyone with their level of talent. Still, Arslan was still in the development stage, so he was unlikely to trigger anything scary, even if such a thing existed in the golden jade slip, since the likes of Mustafa and Kundar hadn’t happened to do so.

With his heart and mind calmed down, Laien sent his consciousness towards the forest-like entity within the blood-red jade slip. He did so carefully and slowly, but the very moment his awareness touched upon whatever was contained within the jade slip, his soul trembled in its very foundations.

“Divine Sense!” Laien uttered, his consciousness forming into an avatar within his soul-sea. “No wonder no one had been able to properly access those jade slips before,” he muttered quietly. It was one thing to comprehend an Intent, but to synchronize oneself with a strand of Divine Sense required one’s soul to not merely be powerful, but also incredibly pure in quality! “I wonder if one’s level of innate talent is somehow related to the purity of the soul? Or its quality, so to say?” he asked himself, not really sure how the entire process worked. Still, even though he wasn’t too clear on the details, at the very least the overall picture related to those jade slips started making sense to him.

“Come here,” he said with a slight smile and with but a thought, he pulled the strange of Divine Sense into his soul realm. The strand quickly formed into the shape of the blood-red jade slip, then allowed itself to be drawn into Laien’s hand. “Entirely harmless. It’s a good thing since had whoever left this thing had any nefarious intentions, he would have been able to kill me easily. Heh, I wonder if there would be anyone in this world who would be able to resist if a strand of genuine Divine Sense assaulted their soul,” he mused, his smile transforming into a smirk along the way. Luckily this time they had come upon a lucky chance, but they would have to be careful in the future.

“Anyway, as Mustafa said, this thing is called Immortal Blood Art,” Laien mused while twisting the manifested jade slip between his fingers. “But it’s not a sacrificial art that’s supposed to burn life force in exchange for Qi, that’s for sure,” he said absent-mindedly as he steadily increased his focus. For the moment, he wasn’t attempting to comprehend the ridiculous amount of insights and information this thread of Divine Sense carried but was steadily looking deeper into it to familiarize himself with its contents. Comparatively speaking, it was as if he was taking a brief look at the map of the Starlight Continent instead of paying attention to the innumerable amount of details drawn on it.

That being said, while accessing the broad scope of information in the jade slip sounded simple, the fact that Mustafa and all the other experts of Makarash had never been able to as much as slightly probe this jade slip was enough of an indication for how high the requirements for the strength and purity of one’s soul were if one wanted to successfully do so. Yet, with the multitude of factors boosting his soul to an ever-higher level, Laien found the process to be fairly easy. As long as it was ‘only’ learning some blurry information about what this strand of Divine Sense contained from beginning to end, he could pull it off easily enough. After all, not only was his soul unnaturally powerful in the first place, it had been repeatedly strengthened by many various factors.

Even recalling off the top of his head, Laien could tell that his soul had always been quite powerful, in his own impression. He was pretty sure that his Visions had served to strengthen his soul, though ever since those two powerful Visions happened to him, they no longer seemed to ‘haunt’ him in form of nightmare-like dreams as they used to during his early childhood. Apart from them, however, there were Nine Refinements of Mortality which he partially mastered, there was the fact that his spiritual sense had been greatly enhanced by his rudimentary fusion of Qi and spiritual energy, there was also his Phantasmal World, which strengthened his soul, not to mention the Blood Pact with Yin and the subsequent growth of their both souls through Spiritual Bond and Spiritual Link.

Just by looking at all those factors, it would have been stranger if Laien hadn’t been able to access the strand of Divine Sense than if he had. Thus, without really knowing exactly how ridiculous the thing he was doing was nor being aware of how much of a monstrosity he had become along the way, Laien proceeded to scan the information contained within the strand of Divine Sense.

“Incredible,” Laien muttered, still within his soul realm. “So what lies above the Aspects, Principles, and Elemental Laws, is something called Concepts of Existence! And this jade slip contains the legacy of someone who called himself Immoral Blood Sovereign, it’s a legacy of the Concept of Life!” he said in disbelief, a silly smile present on his face. This particular inheritance, from what he could tell, had been made casually since apart from containing a seed of insights and a brief message, it described nothing else but the various techniques and abilities related to the legacy. So, it was left up to his own musings if ‘Sovereign’ was a moniker of that powerful cultivator or if it was an actual cultivation realm within the higher-ranked worlds. He wished he could have had learned something about them from this jade slip, but its creator apparently hadn’t bothered to leave any detailed explanations.

“It’s pretty mind-blowing regardless, heh,” Laien said with a helpless grin, then slowly released his focus and returned his full consciousness to his body. He opened his eyes and looked around, only to see Yin ‘waking up’ in a manner similar to him. “Did you find a message too?” he asked with a smile, even though he already knew the answer. With Mustafa here, neither of them felt like revealing too much about the capabilities of their Spiritual Link, so they had to keep up at least some appearances.

“Yeah,” Yin nodded, his heart thumping just as hard as Laien’s. He had just learned that Laien had found a legacy of the Concept of Life from Immortal Blood Sovereign, whereas he told Laien that his silver-platinum jade slip similarly contained a legacy handed down by the same person. However, it wasn’t a direct legacy, but something the man had come across in his life and had been unable to comprehend on his own, and had chosen to include in his inheritance. The jade slip actually was a copy of another powerful inheritance left by an unknown cultivator, and it was a legacy of the Concept of Death! For two of those jade slips to contain things that had no place in the Starlight Continent, it was no wonder no one had been able to comprehend them in the slightest.

“A message?” Mustafa couldn’t help it and inquired quietly, even though Arslan still had his eyes closed and seemed to be focusing entirely on the golden jade slip. He had never found any information within any of those jade slips apart from that one technique in the blood-red one which he had been able to comprehend a little bit. If those two were able to discover something new, then he really wanted to learn what it was and see if it would be useful to the boys.

“Let’s wait for Arslan,” Laien replied cheekily, to which Mustafa could only smile helplessly and nod. Indeed, there would be little point in Laien and Yin repeating themselves twice since they had to wait for Arslan to be done either way. Regrettably, this meant that Mustafa would be left with his curiosity for the next few moments, in the best-case scenario. The less ideal situation, albeit still a happy one, would be if Arslan managed to comprehend something from his golden jade slip and fell straight into a state of enlightenment. In that case, forget a few moments, they could as well end up stuck at this camp for the next few hours if not days, depending on the depth of enlightenment.

“Interesting.” A few dozen seconds later, Yin started musing in his thoughts as he engaged in a wordless conversation with Laien. “I knew Arslan’s talent was great since he got to the peak of the second mortal realm in his martial practice while being just five years old, to top off which he gained insights into two Aspects, Desire and Awareness, and even created half-complete foundations for them. But to be honest, I didn’t expect him to be able to access a strand of Divine Sense. If that golden jade slip is at the same level as our two, then his soul must be uniquely powerful and pure to a ridiculous degree. Either way, he’s about to reap some serious benefits,” he mused in a mix of actual words and broad thoughts, seeing no reason to slow down the communication if it could be just as clear without being so bothersome. Since there were chatting with Laien using their Spiritual Link, he was of the opinion that they should be doing it to the full extent, even putting in some effort into the process, all in order to strengthen their connection a little bit more in a convenient way.

“Mhm,” Laien nodded ever so slightly. “I doubt there’s no strand of Divine Sense in his jade slip. it would be weird if they weren’t at a similar level,” he responded wordlessly, then went straight ahead to pondering. “I doubt it’s about one of the Concepts of Existence though, but who knows? I’d say that if he starts getting enlightenment, then whatever is in that golden jade slip must be highly compatible with Arslan’s natural disposition. I’d guess it would be something wind-oriented, thinking of Mustafa’s and Arslan’s talents. As for whether it’s a cultivation method or a set of techniques, or just pure insights, we’ll have to wait and see,” he thought leisurely, going along with Yin’s preferred method of training their Spiritual Link a little bit whenever an opportunity presented itself.

Be it as it may, once a few more minutes passed, Laien, Yin, and Mustafa all noticed that Arslan’s aura started changing. At first, it was just a barely noticeable increase in intensity, but soon it started surging in both quantity and quality. While Mustafa wasn’t all that familiar with the sensation which appeared first, he recognized that Arslan’s immature Qi that was being roused up began taking on heavy wind-element qualities. However, it were Laien and Yin, who had faced against and fought with a user of the Supreme Mystery of the wind element, the Profound Mystery of Heavenly Tempest, who recognized the phenomenon as soon as it appeared. Yet, compared to Reian’s Heavenly Tempest, which was wild and unrestrained and could simply be described as being the ultimate expression of freedom, they felt that Arslan’s Heavenly Tempest was vastly different.

“Amazing, it feels so nice,” Laien mused silently, a bit too embarrassed to say the words out loud. However, it was true that just standing close to Arslan filled him with a sense of calmness and steadiness, as if he had someone he could rely upon, someone who would fight together with him. Moreover, even though the realization startled him a little, one of those feelings included the sense that he could rely on Arslan and trust him to be a leader, someone who would shield all those around himself from harm and lead them towards the path to victory. He knew that those emotions were so strong only because the natural laws of the world were stirred by the initial breakthrough of Arslan’s, but those feelings… especially those latter ones weren’t things he experienced often, if ever.

“Hoah.” Meanwhile, Yin was feeling intrigued for another reason. “So insights into Elemental Laws can be so different depending on the person? I mean, that fiery-haired woman told us to make the insights from the Soul Imprint our own, but was this what she meant? It wasn’t just that we were supposed to comprehend them and learn how to use them without the Soul Imprint, but also to paint them in our own emotions, through the image we perceive the world with?” he wondered and the more he thought about the possibility, the more sense it made to him. After all, if he were to closely compare the elemental insights he and Laien had shared between themselves, as small as they were, there seemed to be some differences in how they perceived and applied them.

“Still,” Yin sighed secretly. “We might be a wrong case to make any comparison to as we’re just too unique, or too freakish would be a good description, too. We were able to share elemental insights only because we created our Phantasmal Worlds and were connected by, at the time, Spiritual Bond. To top it off, neither of us originally had any insights or deep impressions of water or lightning, whichever we gained from the other. Maybe because of that those shared insights ended up being very similar and why the case is almost the same with the Profound Mystery of Inferno. There just wasn’t much input on our part before we gained them,” he assumed after a moment of thought. As for whether he was right or not, he understood well that only time would show.

While Mustafa, Laien, and Yin all had their own thoughts about what they were seeing and feeling, Arslan’s aura surged one last time as he broke through to the third mortal realm before it started calming down. A few seconds later, Arslan opened his eyes and smiled brightly, only to be greeted by the three other people present looking at him in amazement, albeit with smiles, too. It took him a good long second or two to understand that his cultivation advanced and that his newly gained insights had likely manifested themselves in some way when he had been gaining them. However, once he did realize this much, he could only smile a bit awkwardly. The whole experience came as a total surprise to him, so he couldn’t bring himself to immediately start bragging about his gains.

“Did you get a message?” Laien asked Arslan once a moment passed, choosing to start the conversation since no one else appeared to be in the mood to do so.

“Yes,” Arslan responded clearly after giving the question some thought. Most of his mind, even now, was occupied with the new insights and knowledge he had just obtained, but somehow the very moment he tried to remember about the message he was sure he had heard, it appeared vividly in his memories. “It went like that,” he said and took a deep breath, then recited all in one go, all the while mimicking the deep, booming and ancient-like voice of an elderly man.

“Those fated to obtain my Heavenly Wind Inheritance may attempt to cultivate it as they wish. All of you can take your chances and attempt to ignite your own spark of insight into Heavenly Tempest by meditating upon the Origin Spark which I left for you. Those who are capable martial artists may attempt to cultivate my Heavenly Wind Art, but they shall be forewarned that the path awaiting them will be gruesome and full of obstacles. Yet, those who manage to reach the Demigod Realm using my Heavenly Wind Art can be considered Honorary Disciples of me, Immortal Blood Sovereign.”

“As I thought,” Laien said with a laugh once Arslan finished, cutting in before Mustafa could voice the questions which were already beginning to pile upon his lips. “It was related to wind element after all, eh? But to think it included martial art too! We could tell you managed to comprehend something about the Supreme Mystery of Heavenly Tempest, but was there anything else you got?” he inquired hopefully, thinking that it would be great if it was so. Not only would it be greatly convenient since Arslan was yet to form his Martial Realm, but according to the scale the azure-haired youth had told them about and going by Laien’s own observations, the best Arslan could hope for under normal circumstances of the Starlight Continent would be a High Martial Realm.

In the end, the Starlight Continent didn’t have more than that to offer. Sure, for Arslan, there existed the option of gambling with self-creating a Martial Realm like Laien himself had done with the assistance of the mysterious technique given to him by Shire, but it was quite a risky endeavour. If one was fortunate like Laien and already possessed an Absolute Bloodline, he could end up with a great result. Some other lucky people might as well self-create Heavenly, Extreme or High Martial Realm. Yet, there would also be people who despite their talent would end up forging mere Mid or Low Martial Realms for themselves, as such dooming any hopes for future progress. On the other hand, even if its cultivation was supposedly hard, something called ‘Heavenly Wind Art’ should at the very least be at the level of an Extreme Martial Realm and perhaps could turn out to be a genuine Heavenly Martial Realm if the one cultivating it was able to meet all of its requirements.

“Uh, I think so.” Arslan shook his head and gave Laien a troubled look. “There’s too much all about it in my head so I can’t really tell what is what, but I seem to have learned how to cultivate the early levels of this Heavenly Wind Art. There was also something about it creating an ‘Extreme Martial Realm’ for those who cultivate it that would then have a possibility of evolving endlessly into stronger and stronger versions of itself by assimilating ‘Heavenly Wind Essence’ and ‘Heavenly Wind Origin Essence’. Apparently, once you assimilate strong enough versions of those two things it will evolve into a ‘Heavenly Martial Realm’,” he half-recited again, not really sure what most of the terms he was uttering really meant. What he didn’t know, though, was that the chaos and lack of clarity in his mind were an aftereffect of his soul being a bit too weak to take in all that information at once.

“That’s amazingly great!” Laien said excitedly, glad that Arslan would able to make use of this Inheritance instead of learning some other martial art. “Yin, what message did he leave in your jade slip?” Laien asked straight away, once again not waiting for Mustafa to speak up and thus leaving him to continue getting helplessly flabbergasted with every sentence that was spoken in front of him.

“A shorter one,” Yin replied with a laugh. “And a less pompous one, too,” he mentioned playfully. However, before saying anything else, he stopped briefly to consider if they shouldn’t take pity on Mustafa and fill him in on the subject. After all, the expression on that man’s face was simply too pitiable… but at the same time, it would also be inconvenient to disrupt their talk in the middle just to provide some explanations. Well, he felt sorry for Mustafa, but the man would have to wait until they were done before asking any questions, pretty much just as was Laien’s intention.

“Anyway, it goes like this: I, Immortal Blood Sovereign, happened upon this Nameless Inheritance in my youth. I never managed to gain any insights from it so now that I ascended to the Sovereign Realm, I’m leaving its copy alongside the two pieces of my own Inheritance. Perhaps one day someone fated for it will comprehend its secrets and emerge as a Sovereign of Death.”

“Hoh!” Laien exclaimed contentedly, even though he already knew most of what Yin said. “So ‘Sovereign’ is not just a moniker, but the name of a cultivation realm, huh? There was a mention of a Demigod Realm in Arslan’s message, too,” he said happily. He had been curious about what laid beyond the Realm of Heroes for a long time, but this was the first opportunity to learn anything about those detached, faraway concepts. Although it wasn’t anything systematized or detailed by any means, he was satisfied enough with what little bits of information he had gotten his hands on.

“So it seems,” Yin agreed with a nod and a smile. “Overall my jade slip seems to be about the Concept of Death and it seems to contain a seed of insights for it too, just like Arslan’s jade slip has one for Heavenly Tempest. On the side note, I still haven’t tried to really comprehend anything from it since that would take a lot of time to attempt. Not that I’m confident in being able to understand anything from it,” he said straightforwardly. “What about you, how did it go?” he inquired, giving Laien a chance to say his piece for Arslan and Mustafa’s sake.

“Same as for you,” Laien responded with a grin. “Mine seems to be an Inheritance of the Concept of Life with a provided seed of insights. I also didn’t try to attempt to get any deeper comprehensions yet, while as for the message, it went like that,” he explained briefly, then went ahead and recited the message in a manner similar to the one in which Arslan and Yin had spoken their parts.

“I, Immortal Blood Sovereign, was able to reach my current accomplishments thanks to an Inheritance of an ancient senior upon which I happened in my early days. Now I’m leaving my Immortal Blood Art Inheritance to those fated to obtain it. Be forewarned, though, that without accomplishments in the Concept of Life, you won’t be able to cultivate my Immortal Blood Art.”

“Well,” Laien added right afterwards. “If I were to mention something, this thing is called ‘Art’ but it’s not a martial art but a set of techniques of various levels of difficulty. I suspect the Art becomes vital to the process of cultivation at higher realms and that’s why it’s called Immortal Blood Art and not Immortal Blood Techniques, but for us, it’s irrelevant for the foreseeable future,” he elaborated and shrugged his shoulders a little. “By the way, I’m not confident in understanding anything from it either. I could probably force myself to master the most basic technique from the set, but I would end up with the same ‘sacrificial technique’ which you learned instead of the proper one,” he mentioned and gave Mustafa a weak smile. Needless to be said, if Mustafa could gain insights into the Concept of Life, he would be able to prolong his life almost indefinitely. However, that happening was quite unlikely if he wasn’t even able to perceive the secrets of the jade slip, much less master it.

“You guys,” Mustafa groaned, only to mull his tongue in consideration. Finally, after a moment of inner struggle, he sighed and gave up for the time being. “I’ll save my questions for after we’ve arrived in the Holy Union since I’ve got a feeling it won’t be a short conversation. If you have anything else that you want to do or say before we leave this place, then hurry up,” he said all the while attempting and failing to sound patient and unshaken by the events of past minutes.