Chapter 324 - Transformed Dragon Pond
After Shen Lian had decided, he did not think any further and he just adjusted the speed of the shifting light to ten times faster as he was on his way back to the River God Temple. His light travel went through the sky, leaving a trail. Naturally, there was not anyone who dared to block his way.
Flying at full speed was an indescribable feeling. He felt that he could reach anywhere on heaven and earth.
When he arrived at the River God Temple, he saw the Empress was waiting for him. He lamented slightly about the fact that despite the Empress had gained the position of the River God in exchange for freedom, on the other side, her power had increased by a lot, especially in the river basin of Qingshui River, her power was even more unbelievable.
For deity to cultivate, it was easy in the beginning but it got harder later. At his level, other than the fact that he could not leave the heaven and earth, he had no other restrictions, but the Empress had to stay with this Qingshui River. To get rid of it, she would need an insurmountable amount of power and fortune.
Shen Lian landed from the light and smiled, "You are the River God of Qingshui, why are you by yourself? Why don't you gather some servants to dispel your loneliness."
At her cultivation level, she was naturally no afraid of loneliness, but it did not mean she enjoyed it.
The Empress looked at Shen Lian and said, "You remind me. Last few years I was trying to stabilize my position and had no time to consider about this. It is time for us to gather some servants and nominate some small deities to manage my thirty thousand miles of river basin."
The river basin of Qingshui River was wide and the number of living creatures were uncountable. Despite how powerful the Empress was, she could not take care of every one of them. It was natural for her to nominate some small deities along the different parts of the river.
It then saved her a lot of energy.
Shen Lian said, "This is good. Considering this, if I can't survive the Daoist trial, I probably will not live as long as you." The Empress smiled and she did not reply. She took it as a word of comfort from Shen Lian, as Qing Xuan had a lot of people who achieved Tianxian, heavenly immortal. They all had completed their cultivation here and eventually transcended beyond the mortal world.
Shen Lian's talent was not less than those people. Though his Tianxian state was not ninety percent, it was about eighty percent.
She did not cultivate the authentic techniques of Xuanmen so she was not clear, but these techniques pointed directly to immortality, but once one got there, they emphasized on the understanding of Dao.
The path that the previous generation had gone through was an easy one for the later generation before achieving immortality. Beyond that, there was some knowledge gap. The later generation had to have a breakthrough to gain something and be successful in stepping into the state of Tianxian. Chen Jianmei who managed to renovate the Shapeless Sword Incantation even before immortality was a rare genius. If not because of Shen Lian achieving immortality before him, in terms of talent, Shen Lian was not comparable to Chen Jianmei.
Humans had differences and they could not all be the same. The experience from seniors was more for reference than imitation.
This was the cause of the four main Daoist sects' wealth and knowledge. Throughout the generations, the talented students kept breaking new grounds, and hence they increased the secret methods or new techniques of the sect.
Qing Xuan was the leader with a hundred and eight techniques. Any slightly knowledgable Xuanmen cultivators in the Yuan Continent would have heard of it.
From this aspect, Xuantian Sect only begun to catch up with the rise of Lu Jiuyuan.
This was part of the reason for Guangqing was going after Qing Xuan.
While they had five celestials, their collection was less, and there were only ten plus techniques that pointed to immortality. There were less than ten techniques which were complete.
The Empress swung her hand and a suction force was produced. Shen Lian did not resist and he allowed the force to get on him. Soon he entered the divine region of the Empress.
The divine region was similar to the place of enlightenment of the celestials and Buddha, like an independent space in the heaven and earth.
Comparatively, it was easier for a deity to carve out a new divine region, especially for a deity like the Empress.
Shen Lian was not at the level for him to carve out a place of enlightenment.
Ruoxi was in the middle of the divine region and the Qi of vitality was dense in the surrounding, and it was all formed from the spiritual power of the river basin of Qingshui River. There was no impurity. She sat with her knees crossed, and despite that she was small, she did not seem childish. She grew to be even more otherworldly.
Her aura was dreamlike. If not because of Shen Lian being an immortal Zhenren, as his divine thoughts swept through, he could not detect the condition of Ruoxi.
He could feel that the Dream Heart Sutra from the old Daoist was something significant.
This sutra despite making an appearance in Taiwei Pavilion, it was not complete.
From the description, the ultimate success was to turn the life into a dream. As such, despite experiencing death or tragedy, nothing would actually happen as all of them were an illusion.
One would become inseparable from the void and could no longer be hurt by trials.
But to get there, it was afraid that even the Tianxian level was not enough.
While the old Daoist was powerful, Shen Lian knew clearly that he was not at the Tianxian level yet, else he would not pass away.
When Shen Lian and the Empress appeared, Ruoxi detected it and hence the Qi of vitality was dispersed. She opened her eyes which had no impurity. She looked at Shen Lian and gladly called him, "Uncle."
Shen Lian laughed and said, "Look at you, you are alright now. Let's say goodbye to aunty and we will return to the mountain."
"Shen Lian, are you implying this is somewhere dangerous? You do not even want to stay a while longer?" The Empress replied.
Ruoxi giggled. She did not imagine the cold-looking Empress could be joking.
Shen Lian, of course, did not behave in such a thick-skinned way to leave with Ruoxi on the day. He was discussing Dao with the Empress for a few days before he said goodbye. The Dao for the two were different, as one followed the celestial way and the other followed the deity way. To this day, however, they had a certain level of understanding of Dao, and hence it was not without fruition.
For the Empress, when Shen Lian left, she had one less person to talk to and hence she decided to gather servants quickly.
After she made the decision, she paraded the river basin of Qingshui River to demonstrate her authority. She went all the way to the sea and before she even got there, she found a lot of water demons. They had some cultivation experience and also mana.
The Empress' intention was to parade the water region and to solicit water clans. Along the way, she also saw some water clans who could breathe in and out of the Qi of heaven and earth, but she was not very satisfied. The water clan not only had mana, their Qi was not impure. It was apparent that they had gone through cultivation, but at the same time they did not take in too much blood or killing.
They were good people to be solicited and hence the Empress utilized her power to capture a few water demons. After she got the detail, she then knew these water demons were from Heishui Kingdom.
The water kingdom was built under the sea and the king was a fishman with a thousand years of cultivation experience. One dragon recently killed the fishman and crowned himself as king. As he was cruel, unlike the previous king, a lot of water clans were escaping.
She also heard another news, where the dragon was expanding his territory, to attack the Dragon Transformation Pond of the dragon clan of east sea.