Li Qiye has been staying at Sky Pit for several dozen days. He would only lie there to look at the sky in a daze without moving at all. Occasionally, he would do so next to a marking, as if wanting to imprint the mark on his body. At other times, he would sit in the meditative pose as if he was cultivating.
The truth was that for ordinary cultivators, this place was no secret. There were no hidden treasuries, occult cultivation, and it wasn’t even a good place for training.
This place was useless unless people were at the same level as Origin or Deepsouth. However, these two emperors didn’t come here for dao comprehension. They only wanted to read the future and the wish of the heavens.
Of course, Li Qiye was aware of the secret hidden here. One that only he knew of and it was useful to him only.
The nine worlds had many interlinked and disconnected aspects with the tenth. For cultivation, worldly energy could be refined into chaos energy and grand dao power could be polished into primordial energy.
However, the latter was much purer. Even though one could still use the cultivation method from the nine worlds here, the speed could be as slow as a snail’s pace. Without a doubt, people would think that they’re too dumb for cultivation.
Because of this, Immortal Emperors would make minor changes to their cultivation despite wielding the immense Heaven’s Will. There were two paths for them to take. The first was to strengthen their Heaven’s Will. The second was to take in the wills from the tenth world.
As for the hundred races in the tenth world, they couldn’t cultivate these imperial arts so they had their own. Some arts were stolen from the three races or at least derived from them. Of course, some wise sages spent generations to create new merit laws.
One Immortal Emperor must be mentioned on this topic, Immortal Emperor Wan Gu.
He was the first emperor from the ghost race so he ascended to the tenth world very early. His achievements were not on the same level as Immortal Emperor Jiao Heng and Immortal Emperor Gu Chun since he didn’t win any territory for the hundred races nor fought against the Grand Emperors.
He spent his time cultivating like a hermit searching for the grand dao. With that, he was able to create a path for Immortal Emperors to fuse the two types of Heaven’s Wills. This was a matchless achievement for cultivation.
He also spent his time creating suitable merit laws for the hundred races. Ultimately, few surpassed him in terms of contribution towards cultivation.
In the thirteen continents, many mortals from the hundred races would normally start with the best and most common entry cultivation method, the Myriad Law Art. [1]
This method was created by Immortal Emperor Wan Gu. It was suitable for humans, ghosts, charming spirits, and many others. It was one of the most widespread merit laws.
Many vagabonds and new cultivators couldn’t join the big powers to train with the best merit laws or imperial arts. Because of this, they could only pick the most common and suitable merit law, which was usually the Myriad Law Art.
If Myriad Law was the most suitable for all races, then the Mortal Reversion Art was the best for humans. This was the second law of the three most popular ones.
Of course, other races could also cultivate with the Mortal Reversion Art but humans had the best result. It had countless copies. Each of them was different because later generations would make adjustments, for personal use or future use.
Despite its popularity, no one knew who created this particular method. It came out of nowhere in an ancient era.
Some people believed that it came from Immortal Emperor Jiao Heng or other wise sages of the human race.
The truth was that its creator was the Dark Crow. After coming to the tenth world, he pondered about a cultivation method up here. He didn’t only create it for the humans but he took it to a higher level, culminating in an art to punish the heaven.
Later on, with increased proliferation and more editions, very few people could use Mortal Reversion and turn it into the Heaven Punishing Art.
Li Qiye chose Mortal Reversion as his entry method this time around. He didn’t pick something from the nine worlds because they weren’t suitable in the upper realm.
Even though his memories regarding Mortal Reversion have been erased, he created it back then inside these pits. Thus, he returned to this old place in order to look at the markings. Memories of the art surfaced again.
He had his reasons for doing so. Though there were many editions of Mortal Reversion around in any streetside shops, he needed the purest of them all, not the ones that have been altered.
Moreover, the Heaven Punishing Art that came after was best learned in this place. These pits contained secrets about an ancient expedition not known by others.
As he continued his research, a few cultivators glanced at him with derision. Cultivators who cared about their face wouldn’t attack a mortal. Otherwise, someone would have thrown a human beggar like him away already.
After seeing his actions, the cultivators thought that he was insane. Many geniuses came without finding anything but a mortal like him wanted to learn the dao here? That’s the behavior of a lunatic.
Of course, some people paid attention to him too. There was a skinny old man with a goatee and two youths behind him, one boy and one girl.
The boy was dashing while the girl was enchantingly pretty, a rare beauty she was. They were the old man’s disciples and stood behind him while watching Li Qiye.
The old man was very interested and had been following Li Qiye for the last ten days. He noticed Li Qiye was studying the marks.
The boy asked: “Master, what’s so special about this mortal?”
“There are many masters in this world, hidden dragons and crouching tigers everywhere. Our Steel Pillar Gate is only a tiny sect, lacking the insight to recognize real experts. Thus, we need to be meticulous and observant. Maybe we’ll even gain something from it.” The old man explained.
“Master, your teaching makes sense, we should carefully observe other cultivators but this man is only a human mortal. He is just having some strange ideas coming to the Sky Pit for dao comprehension, even the geniuses from the three races can’t get anything from this place, is he daydreaming?” The beautiful girl felt that Li Qiye wasn’t worth their time since they came here to train.
They couldn’t be blamed for thinking like this. Li Qiye’s cultivation has been destroyed so everyone else saw him as a mortal.
“You can’t put it like that.” The old man shook his head: “Such strange ideas are why we have Immortal Monarchs. In the beginning, humans didn’t cultivate either but the wise sages had dreams and strange thoughts, heralding our prosperity in the present, creating the myriad sects and merit laws for our human race. Sometimes, these strange ideas are essential for pioneering achievements.”
1. Wan Gu = Myriad Bones