Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 394: The Mountain River State Diagram

Xie Fengtang had spent several dozen days to make just three Free Roaming Talismans, but now he had given one of them to Tang Jie. This was a sign of just how much he favored Tang Jie.

Tang Jie was profuse with gratitude, to which Xie Fengtang indifferently replied, “If there’s nothing else, you can return.”

Tang Jie hastily said, “This disciple has a request.”

He gave a brief summary of Mu Yi’s situation. Of course, he didn’t say that he was going to treat Mu Yi, only that he had become friends with Mu Yi during the Immortal Fortune Conference, and they had empathized with each other. This time, Mu Yi had come over to pay him a visit.

There was no grudge between the Seven Absolutions Sect and the Basking Moon Sect. Their mortal foes were Godhead Palace and the Beast Refining Gate respectively. Rather than disputes, they had a shared enmity against a common foe. Thus, even if they counted as neutral to each other, their relations tended toward friendly, and there was no problem with disciples of the two sects becoming friends.

Xie Fengtang found this rather amusing. “Didn’t you just have a battle on the border of Duskland?”

Tang Jie chuckled. “We each have our own masters. After fighting, we can still be friends.”

Xie Fengtang nodded. “The Seven Absolutions Sect has been striving to become greater in the last few centuries, trying to escape from the bottom of the six major sects in terms of martial power as well. Two hundred years ago, they produced talents like Wang Yuzheng, Tang Fengjie, and Yuan Nanning, and in the last one hundred years, they have had people like Gao Qianjun and Wang Juemie. This Mu Yi is also a decent talent of the Seven Absolutions Sect. He might even become a seedling like Wang Juemie. It will benefit you to associate with him.”

“‘Seedling’?”

“Oh, this is what the sects call talented individuals who have only been cultivating for less than one hundred years. While you might seem very impressive in the academy, able to summon the rain and control the winds, in truth, is there any disciple of the Basking Moon Sect within these two thousand years that was not an outstanding student of Basking Moon Academy? Out of ten thousand students, only ten a year can enter the inner sect, and a hundred into the outer sect. For one to say that the sect is bursting with talent would not be exaggerated at all. Only after entering the sect and once more gaining the reputation as a mighty one can one truly be considered a king, someone who the Basking Moon Sect will focus on nurturing in the future, a future supporting pillar of the sect. When that time comes, you actually won’t have to worry about resources anymore, for the sect will provide you everything. Do you understand now?”

Tang Jie quickly replied, “This disciple understands.”

“Good. I don’t object to you making friends with Mu Yi, but there are places in the academy that he’s not allowed to go, so keep an eye on him.”

“This disciple knows.”

“Right, I heard that Shi Jingzhai went crazy?”

“Yes. This disciple feels that while this person is crazy, he is still useful and can be controlled, so I decided to keep him at my side.”

Xie Fengtang gave him a deep look before finally chuckling. “You certainly have a way of thinking. There is no problem with you keeping him. But since he is now nothing more than a mad dog, you must keep a leash on him and make sure he doesn’t bite the wrong people. In addition, it would be best if you keep him hidden when you can. If too many people see him, my Basking Moon Sect might be accused of treating people as dogs. While their opinions are meaningless, a great sect places great weight on its majesty, so it must ensure that its members act appropriately.”

“This disciple will keep that in mind!”

“Then go.”

After leaving Westwatch Pavilion, Tang Jie brought Mu Yi and Shi Jingzhai inside. The two of them first went to Spirit Wonder Market to buy some medicines for treatment. Tang Jie had just gotten a huge sum of money, so he was very liberal in his spending. In a flash, he spent more than seventy thousand spirit coins, leaving Mu Yi flabbergasted.

Although he knew that Tang Jie had struck it rich because of the Stone Gate Sect, he didn’t know exactly how much Tang Jie had made.

Unlike Tang Jie, when Wang Juemie and the others had been making the plan, they had done it together, and when executing the plan, Mu Yi and the others had taken on a lot of the work, including laying down the formations and contacting the other party. In addition, Wang Juemie didn’t care about money too much. Thus, whereas Tang Jie had taken 25% all for himself, the Seven Absolutions Sect disciples had divided everything almost evenly, with Wang Juemie and Mu Yi getting a little extra.

Mu Yi didn’t know the situation and mistakenly believed that Tang Jie had decided on essentially the same distribution method. Neither did he know that Tang Jie had also plundered the Stone Gate Sect’s storeroom. Thus, he believed that the best Tang Jie could have gotten was eight hundred thousand coins. This was exactly why he had said that Tang Jie would have to pay compensation of one hundred thousand spirit coins if Tang Jie failed to treat him.

If he knew that Tang Jie would get five to six million in one go, he would have never set such a price.

When he saw Tang Jie spending eighty thousand coins, he was shocked and believed that Tang Jie was treating him too well. To this, there could be only two explanations. The first was that Tang Jie had gotten far more money than he had imagined, and the second was that this guy had something else to request of him.

Sure enough, after that frenzied shopping spree, as Tang Jie was leading Mu Yi back to the Carefree House, he directly said, “I won’t hide it from you. The sect rewarded me with 3.75 million.”

Thud!

Mu Yi almost threw up blood.

His mind rapidly worked, and he quickly reached an answer. “If you were to convert all this money into medicine for cultivation, you could spend an entire year just taking medicine. From your appearance, you’ve already almost reached completion of Hundred Refinement. If you have enough medicine, getting through Nine Revolutions won’t be a problem, but Cognitive Creation will be somewhat problematic, as it’s not something that just medicine can get you through. But given your intelligence, I’m sure that it would take a year at most for you to complete it. As for the Three Withering Tribulations, the money you have left should be enough. Which would mean… peak Mortal Shedding!”

Mu Yi almost shrieked those last three words.

It was like his voice had changed.

No student since the establishment of the six major sects had reached peak Mortal Shedding in ten years, or even the first level of Nine Revolutions, and certainly not the even more difficult Cognitive Creation Tier and the Three Withering Tribulations.

It appeared that Tang Jie wanted to set a record, a super record.

Tang Jie chuckled. “If setting a record could get me another three million, then I would be willing to try, but I’ll pass if there’s nothing in it.”

“So does that mean that you don’t plan to use this money on cultivation?” Mu Yi said, picking up the tone in his words.

“Oh, that’s why I asked for you. I have something that I need your help on.”

“What is it?”

“Let’s go inside first.”

They arrived at the Carefree House, and Tang Jie opened the door and invited Mu Yi in.

Even though Tang Jie had been gone for many days, the Carefree House was still neat and tidy, and the spirit plants in the garden were still thriving. Mu Yi only needed a cursory inspection to see what was going on. “A Raincloth Formation, a Dust Expel Formation, and a Spirit-Gathering Formation. Brother Tang is very meticulous. This small piece of the world has all the needed formations.”

Tang Jie indifferently replied, “It’s just a small trick not worth mentioning. There’s simply no comparing it to the Seven Absolutions Sect’s Mountain River State Diagram.”

“‘The Mountain River State Diagram’?” Mu Yi was startled when he heard this term, and he gave Tang Jie a weird look. “Your reason for treating me was this?”

Tang Jie chuckled. “Yiyi, go boil the water.”

“Mm.” Yiyi rushed off.

Tang Jie waved his hand, and a stone table and two stone chairs appeared in the yard. A go board had been carved into the table, and there were two urns holding go pieces on the table.

Tang Jie pointed at the stone table and said, “Sit and we can chat. It will take a while to boil the water.”

Helpless, Mu Yi could only sit down. He played a black piece and said, “What’s your interest in the Mountain River State Diagram? Do you realize what sort of item it is?”

“A High Antiquity divine treasure, right?” Tang Jie grinned.

Magic items were divided into spell weapons, art relics, divine treasures, and Dao armaments. Normally, spell weapons were sharp and tough, and they could boost one’s power in a certain aspect. Art relics usually had their own kind of power, but no matter how strong an art relic was, it was subordinate to its owner and would follow their will.

But things were different with divine treasures.

Each divine treasure had a unique power and effect, and this power was far greater than what a cultivator could possess. Theoretically, a divine treasure was more powerful than a Celestial Heart cultivator unleashing all their power at once.

The reason Wang Juemie’s Seven Inferno Heaven Treasures hadn’t displayed this power was primarily that they had just been projections, and most of them had been defensive in nature. If he had the real deal, then the Heavenfire Sword alone would have been enough to sweep through the three Celestial Hearts. Of course, whether Wang Juemie could actually use that power was another thing entirely.

The Mountain River State Diagram was a divine treasure from High Antiquity. It was said that it could create a small world that could contain ten thousand kilometers of mountains and rivers. Of course, Tang Jie knew that what this really meant was that it could store a great formation.

It was a divine-treasure-grade formation diagram!

The formation diagram Tang Jie had obtained before could only be used with Grade 2 formations. As Tang Jie got stronger, it gradually became useless, and Tang Jie had been seeking out a replacement. This need became even more dire after Tang Jie found that he needed a teleportation formation.

There were many difficulties when it came to setting up a teleportation formation. The first was the large amount of money and resources needed, and this was now resolved.

The second difficulty was the formation diagram. Without a formation diagram, a teleportation formation could only be installed in a fixed location. For Tang Jie, no location was safe enough, and the best way was to carry it around on his person at all times. This was exactly why he needed a top-class formation diagram, as not just any formation diagram could let him lay down a teleportation formation. After all, the formation he was laying down would break through the barrier between domains!

The Mountain River State Diagram was one of his choices.

“You know, and you still want to try and get it?”

“Why not? It’s a useless item. If someone is willing to buy it, why not consider selling it?” Tang Jie casually asked.

Mu Yi was startled. “As expected, you also know of the problem with the Mountain River State Diagram.”

“It’s not like it’s some secret,” Tang Jie replied. “The Mountain River State Diagram’s strongest attribute is the ability to create a small world and hold within it a small area of land. This is exactly why using the formation first requires taking a piece of land into the formation and then laying out the formation on this land. And the area of the land would be so great that one can lay down more than one formation. When facing a powerful enemy, one simply needs to lay out the Mountain River State Diagram, and the world within the diagram will emerge, and the formation will activate with such power that the world would pale and even the rivers would run in reverse. But…”

Tang Jie trailed off, and then he laughed. “Devouring up the land like a voracious tiger, the Mountain River State Diagram has power even greater than that of Dao armaments like the Seven Inferno Heaven Treasures. Alas, achieving such majestic power from this divine treasure of High Antiquity does not come easily. The Mountain River State Diagram must acknowledge its master before it can be used, and whenever it acknowledges a new master, everything in the diagram is destroyed, and everything has to be redone. And with each restart, one must take in another section of mountains and rivers…”

Tang Jie stopped there, and Mu Yi sighed.

Taking in another section of mountains and rivers essentially meant scooping out a piece of land from the world. Doing this was like a person slicing away at their own flesh. It dealt enormous damage to the world, for there was no restoring the land that was cut away.

This practice would eventually send the world into an irrecoverable state.

It was said that the Rosecloud Domain was much larger in the past, but use of art relics and divine treasures of this nature caused the area of the domain to shrink. No one knew where this disappeared land ultimately went.

This was exactly why all the orderly worlds of the Great Stellar Chiliocosm had a common rule that banned the use of such magic items to avoid further damage to their worlds. Those who broke this rule would become a public enemy!

In this way, the Mountain River State Diagram became a useless treasure. After its last master died, it was tied up and put into storage.

And now, Tang Jie was unexpectedly showing interest in it.

Mu Yi looked at Tang Jie in a daze. “Since you know that it’s useless, why would you want it?”

Tang Jie replied, “It’s not like I plan to take ten thousand kilometers of mountains and rivers into the diagram, and besides, do you really think I have that ability? I just need an area a bit bigger than the Carefree House. That should be fine, right?”

Mu Yi blankly nodded. “That still shouldn’t be legal, but the laws are dead while people are alive. A small area like that wouldn’t be much of a problem. But what would you need an area as small as that for? Great formations are known as great formations because of their size, you know.”

The six major sects had all of the Rosecloud Domain under surveillance, looking out for any shifts in the world. But this sort of surveillance was restricted to large-scale activity. Tang Jie taking up a piece of land around the size of the Carefree House wouldn’t be easily detected, and just as Mu Yi had said, even if it were discovered, there wasn’t any guarantee that someone would follow up.

This was exactly why there was really no problem if Tang Jie even took away the Carefree House. Cultivators lived such long lives that they used one thousand years as a benchmark. Over ten thousand years, the loss of this little land would do no harm to the academy.

Tang Jie smiled and said, “There are still high-grade formations that would be worth putting into it. It’s not all formations that are better the larger they are. The larger the formation, the greater the costs to lay it out. While I might be a millionaire, that still might not be enough.”

Mu Yi chuckled. “That’s true. It seems like you’ve already got a plan in mind. If that’s the case, I can go and speak with the sect for you. How much do you plan to buy it for?”

“What about one million?”

Mu Yi immediately frowned. “Isn’t that too cheap?”

Spell weapons were costed in the thousands, and art relics in the tens of thousands, with prices going from several tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands depending on grade. Divine treasures were costed in the millions, and there was no upper limit.

As for Dao armaments, they weren’t something money could buy. Of course, this didn’t include pseudo–Dao armaments like the Seven Inferno Heaven Treasures.

The Mountain River State Diagram had power comparable to a Dao armament, making it extremely rare, even among divine treasures. But Tang Jie’s first bid was one million. Mu Yi’s frown was understandable.

Tang Jie replied, “If you can make the six major sects lift their restriction and let me take in a vast piece of the world, then it would naturally go for billions. But right now…”

Mu Yi pursed his lips. “Keep dreaming.”

Tang Jie laughed. “It’s not like there’s only the Mountain River State Diagram. If you’re not willing, I’ll just try for the Basking Moon Sect’s Qian Purity Diagram. Although it’s only a top-grade art relic, not a divine treasure, it doesn’t have all those restrictions. It should be enough for my purposes.”

Mu Yi furrowed his brow. “That’s true. The Basking Moon Sect does have magic items like the Qian Purity Diagram. While it might not be a divine treasure, as it doesn’t require taking land, it doesn’t have all those restrictions and you can just buy it from the sect. Why seek from afar when you could settle for something almost as good from close by?”

“I have my reasons,” Tang Jie replied. “Brother Mu, please relay my message.”

Mu Yi shook his head. “It’s difficult. The Seven Absolutions Sect isn’t some small sect, and no matter its use, the Mountain River State Diagram is still a High Antiquity divine treasure. Even if we can’t use it, we would lose face if someone found out we sold it for only one million.”

“What if I added a three-thousand-year Whitefiend Lotus?”

Mu Yi shuddered, a look of disbelief on his face. “A thousand-year Whitefiend Lotus? How? How could you have such a thing?”

In the Rosecloud Domain, thousand-year items basically only existed in the paradises and blessed lands belonging to the various sects.

But everyone knew that the history of the six major sects was less than three thousand years old, and none of them became dominant until two thousand years ago. Thus, it was impossible for their paradises to have spirit items that were three thousand years old, let alone something as rare as a Whitefiend Lotus.

Three-thousand-year Whitefiend Lotuses were legendary objects, something that money truly couldn’t buy.

This made the price of this item difficult to estimate. While it naturally couldn’t match up to the Mountain River State Diagram value-wise, in terms of rarity, it was far above, so it was enough to save face.

Tang Jie coolly said, “I don’t have one now, but I know where they are. If your sect is willing to give me the Mountain River State Diagram, I can help get you one.”

He was essentially trying to get a loan.

But Mu Yi’s attention was on what else these words had divulged. “From your tone, it seems that there’s more than one?”

Tang Jie nodded. “If the deal goes ahead, so long as the Seven Absolutions Sect can offer the appropriate price, I wouldn’t mind selling you a second one.”

Mu Yi sternly said, “It’s not possible for Rosecloud to have a place that has three-thousand-year Whitefiend Lotuses that no one knows about!”

“I didn’t say it was in Rosecloud,” Tang Jie casually replied.

The immense significance of these words made Mu Yi gasp.

He looked at Tang Jie and abruptly said, “I recall that Godhead Palace once sent a large number of people into the Basking Moon Sect, exchanging students with Basking Moon Academy for three years. Apparently, it was to find a person called Tang Jiye, as this person had the clues for some secret ground. Later on, Gu Changqing even took you hostage because of it, but later on, it was proved that you weren’t Tang Jiye…”

His eyes suddenly bulged.

Goddamnit!

Is Tang Jie telling me that he’s Tang Jiye?

This was the only explanation for how he could acquire a Whitefiend Lotus. There was no doubt that he knew about an area akin to the paradises of the six major sects, and if the reaction of Godhead Palace was anything to go by, this paradise might even be larger than the paradises of the six major sects.

But why had he exposed himself now?

Tang Jie had basically fooled the entire world. With Gu Changqing’s death, the entry of Tang Jie’s original body into the formation, and the silence of Godhead Palace. even the most paranoid person in the world would not believe that Tang Jie was Tang Jiye.

Why had he suddenly jumped out now?

As he looked at Tang Jie, Mu Yi suddenly understood something. “I see… If you have Whitefiend Lotus, it means that that paradise is in your hands. No wonder you’re willing to expose yourself. The value of the open treasury must be priceless. No, that’s not right. If that was the case, why would you be so desperate to take those goods from the Stone Gate Sect… Yes, a teleportation formation!”

Mu Yi stood up. He finally understood why Tang Jie had participated in that battle, why he had wanted to peruse the Profound Heaven Treatise, and why he wanted to buy the Mountain River State Diagram.

All of this was for the sake of a teleportation formation!

He stared at Tang Jie. “Tang Jie, do you know the significance of what you just said? If I tell the sect about this, what awaits you won’t be the Mountain River State Diagram, but danger!”

Tang Jie chuckled. “Not at all. Firstly: I never said that I was Tang Jiye. This is all your speculation. Considering the current situation, it’s more like I’m putting out bait. If the Seven Absolutions Sect really sends people to catch me, it had best be careful that it doesn’t fall into a trap of my Basking Moon Sect, just like Godhead Palace.”

Mu Yi froze. To tell the truth, this really was possible.

Tang Jie continued, “Secondly: even if your speculations were true, the Seven Absolutions Sect had best not think about using the Mountain River State Diagram to threaten me. At worst, I can just seek out the Qian Purity Diagram instead, or even just find a place to set up a one-time teleportation formation, though it would be somewhat of a waste. But regardless, nobody can stop me from what I’m about to do.”

Mu Yi nodded. Just as Tang Jie said, if all he lacked was the teleportation formation, then there really was no way to stop him.

“And finally and most importantly…”

Tang Jie continued, “If I remember correctly, the mortal foe of the Seven Absolutions Sect is Godhead Palace, and it’s said that Tang Jiye hates Godhead Palace the most…”

The cold look in Tang Jie’s eyes made Mu Yi mentally shudder.

He finally and completely understood what Tang Jie was trying to do, blurting out, “You want to deal with Godhead Palace?”

If he didn’t have Godhead Palace start suspecting him again, why would they send people to their deaths in trying to get him?

The current Tang Jie was no longer the Tang Jie who was too weak to hit back. Most importantly, he now had someone he could work with.

“I would prefer to explain it as: I would like to work together once with the Seven Absolutions Sect in order to cheaply obtain a divine treasure from High Antiquity. Using me as bait to kill Godhead Palace… don’t you think this would be a better way to tell the people of the Seven Absolutions Sect?” Tang Jie profoundly said.

He suddenly cocked his ear and listened. Smiling, he said, “The water’s done boiling. Sir, please enter the basin.”

Tang Jie’s finally revealed his secret! Of course, no one can be sure if he’s telling the truth…