Chapter 364 - 258: Roaming the Cosmos, Mastering the Myriad Things

The Great Snow Mountain was the primary ancestral range beyond the pass, stretching for thousands upon thousands of miles. Its peaks were exceedingly high, its landscape crisscrossed by glaciers.

Thus, it was revered as a spiritual totem by the hundred barbarian tribes, who had worshipped it for generations.

Legend had it that ten thousand years ago, a high god descended here and passed down Dharma Gates for Cultivation.

The Great Snow Mountain thus became a sacred land of the Martial Dao.

Jiang Yi teleported thousands of miles from the Water Moon Grotto Heaven, setting foot on the summit of the Great Snow Mountain.

The moment his figure landed, it was as if a towering, divine mountain had crashed to the earth. The world around him shook violently.

’This world truly cannot contain me...’

After his Divine Sense soared into the Foundation Establishment Realm, Jiang Yi faintly felt as if an immense weight was pressing down on his head, a stifling feeling of being unable to stretch out.

’In the Yanfu Vast Land, Daoist Monarchs rarely manifest themselves. This must be the reason.’

’The world is like a small hut. The higher one’s cultivation, the more cramped it feels, making it difficult to move freely.’

Jiang Yi was lost in thought. He had not yet truly stepped into the Foundation Establishment Realm, yet this mortal world could already no longer contain him, and a faint sense of suppression was beginning to emerge.

No wonder the great ancestral masters of the various Daoist Lineages all eventually journeyed beyond the cosmos.

The feeling of being needlessly suppressed by the Celestial Lord was truly unpleasant.

’If not for the Celestial Book’s warning, I would have already shattered the void and ascended.’

’Now, I can only let the world’s grand masters of spirit refining go first...’

Jiang Yi flicked his sleeves and stood with his hands clasped behind his back, retracting the Divine Sense that lay dormant in his Primordial Gate.

The immense aura radiating from him slowly subsided, all of it receding back into his Cultivation Furnace.

"This humble monk pays his respects to the High God! Your presence on the Great Snow Mountain truly brings it great honor!"

Grand Master Red Sun was the first to step forward in greeting, immediately dropping to his knees to kowtow.

Although he was the National Preceptor of the Liyang Kingdom, hailed by the world as a great sage of supreme virtue and a Living Buddha of the Human World, a man with an incredibly respected status laden with honors, when faced with a High God from beyond the heavens, this grand master of spirit refining—known as being "second only to the emperor"—remained utterly humble, not daring to show the slightest disrespect.

Grand Master Red Sun’s secular name was Si Jiancan. He was the son of a herder, sent by his parents to the Sakya Monastery to practice Cultivation since childhood.

By a fortunate turn of events, he revealed his talent and was taken as a Disciple by a Venerable One to study Buddhist doctrine and Martial Arts.

By the age of ten, young Si Jiancan had mastered the Greater and Lesser Five Vidyas.

The study of the Five Vidyas was originally founded by the ancestral masters of the Bön religion, later becoming a required curriculum for Buddhist disciples.

The Greater Five Vidyas consisted of astronomy, medicine, grammar and rhetoric, logic and reasoning, and the inner understanding of Buddhist principles.

The Lesser Five Vidyas included rhetoric, prosody, drama, calendrical science, and lexicography.

By fifteen, he had read voraciously and consumed the entire collection of sutras. The monks in the monastery all praised him, calling him a living saint of his generation.

What truly made Si Jiancan famous throughout the land was what happened when he was twenty-two.

He had a chance encounter with the contemporary Walker of Vulture Peak Palace, and they arranged to debate the Dao on Coiling Serpent Mountain.

The two talked for seven days and seven nights, discussing everything from the origins of martial studies to the mysteries of the human body. Finally, they clashed with their Qi Mechanisms to test the depths of their Power.

Si Jiancan gained profound insights from the exchange and created the "Seven Buddhas Grand Hand Seal." With a single move, the "Great Sun Buddha Seal," he narrowly defeated his opponent.

From then on, his fame resounded throughout the lands within the pass. He came to be revered as Grand Master Red Sun, while his birth name was seldom mentioned again.

For such a legendary, peerless figure to willingly bow his head in submission to Jiang Yi...

...showed just how fatal an attraction the promise of ascension held for Cultivators of the Twelve Transformations of the Mortal Realm.

When Jiang Yi suddenly appeared on the Great Snow Mountain, his presence was astounding, and countless monks raised their eyes to look at him.

Not even the profound sight of Grand Master Red Sun prostrating himself could draw their gazes away.

It was as if in the vast expanse of the world, only Jiang Yi existed—standing alone, detached from the world, with an ethereal, immortal air about him.

"I pray the High God will show mercy and grant Si Jiancan the Dharma Gate of ascension."

Grand Master Red Sun’s expression was deferential.

He was the closest to Jiang Yi, and he could feel the High God’s unparalleled power more clearly than anyone else.

That figure was like a vast ocean, like the sun and moon in the sky—his grandeur and brilliance were beyond description.

Jiang Yi walked forward slowly, his gaze lifting toward the magnificent temple on the summit of the snow mountain.

The Spiritual Energy here was thin yet orderly. Presumably, a Spiritual Aura had once been established here for Cultivation.

"The Dharma Gate of ascension? So you understand that mortal Martial Arts are a dead-end path."

Like the most devout of believers, Grand Master Red Sun shuffled forward on his knees, following closely behind.

"For decades, Si Jiancan has been in seclusion, contemplating the will of heaven day and night, yet I have never dared to take that final step of shattering the void."

"Every time the thought arises, a great terror washes over me."

"I have meditated on it for many years to no avail and can only seek answers in the stories of my predecessors’ Cultivation."

Grand Master Red Sun’s face was etched with sorrow. He considered his innate talent to be unparalleled in the current age, and he had long ago reached the very end of the Martial Dao path.

Decades had passed. This grand master of spirit refining had sat in seclusion practicing ascetic Zen, his Power accumulating and deepening, yet he remained unable to advance a single inch, unable to see the path ahead.

Such torment was like that of a gravely ill person lying in bed, simply waiting to die.

Jiang Yi smiled but said nothing. Mortal Martial Arts were equivalent to cultivating only "life," but not "nature."

No matter how abundant one’s qi and blood, or how indestructible one’s physique, the body was still just a Furnace Cauldron.

It could neither refine a Treasure Medicine for immortality nor nurture a divine elixir for Feathered ascension.

Moreover, the mortal world was a land devoid of spiritual phenomena. Lacking the nourishment of Spiritual Energy, it was impossible to open the Primordial Gate and nurture the Brain God.

’The so-called "shattering the void" is simply breaking the shackles of this world and crossing into the spirit realm alone.’

’But with only a body and no spirit, one’s five senses can easily be wiped out by the chaotic currents of the void.’

’Even if the ascension is successful, one is left as nothing more than an ignorant, senseless puppet.’

’Red Sun’s hesitation to take this step is, indeed, well-founded.’

As these thoughts flowed through his mind, Jiang Yi’s eyes glinted, and he asked softly,

"Rise, Si Jiancan. Do you know what the upper realm is like?"

Grand Master Red Sun was draped in a simple kasaya, without a single ornament of gold or jade, appearing no different from an ordinary ascetic monk.

He slowly rose to his feet and shook his head.

"I do not know."

"Even so, you still single-mindedly seek ascension, your resolve unwavering?"

Grand Master Red Sun nodded firmly, his eyes resolute.

"We who seek the Dao only wish to travel farther and climb higher. As for what the ’Dao’ truly is, that is not our concern."

Jiang Yi was slightly surprised, as if he hadn’t expected such an answer.

He strode into the magnificent temple as if on a leisurely stroll. Enshrined within the hall was not the golden statue of a deity, but a single, suspended character—

Enlightenment!

"Was this left by a previous ’True Inheritance of the Eight Sects’?"

Jiang Yi stared at it intently. The character for "Enlightenment" was not written particularly well; it looked somewhat sloppy.

Yet its spiritual resonance was rich and flowed without cease. If one carefully extended their Qi Mechanism to perceive it, they could almost hear waves of Zen chants and see rays of Buddhist light.

If one studied it with intense focus, every stroke of the character seemed to evolve, revealing the myriad forms of Arhats and Bodhisattvas.

’Buddhist Dao Cultivators? How did they get to the Juku Continent?’

Jiang Yi felt a flicker of doubt but said nothing more, simply raising his hand in a light wave.

The massive character for "Enlightenment" enshrined in the temple suddenly began to CRACKLE, like weathered sandstone, and slowly eroded away until it vanished without a trace.

As Grand Master Red Sun witnessed this, he felt both a sense of shock and an acceptance that this was exactly as it should be.

The Great Snow Mountain had worshipped this character for "Enlightenment" for over a thousand years. Generations of Grand Masters had used it to comprehend divine techniques, fathom the will of heaven, and refine their true forms.

The character’s spiritual resonance was so abundant and profound that not even a peak expert of the Twelve Transformations of the Mortal Realm could have erased it at will.

The previous Grand Master had even once asserted that even if the Great Snow Mountain itself were to collapse, this character for "Enlightenment" would endure for all eternity.

"The Great Enterprise has reclaimed the lands within the pass, and the hundred tribes of Liyang are once again scattered like loose sand. You contributed a great deal to this."

Jiang Yi collected the essence of the "Enlightenment" character, planning to integrate it into his own Dao Foundation later, and then spoke softly.

"Today, I too shall leave a character behind to reconnect the dead-end path of mortal Martial Arts."

"How much you can comprehend from it will depend entirely on your own destiny."

Jiang Yi placed one hand behind his back and, using his finger as a brush, drew a stroke like a soaring dragon and another like a dancing phoenix, emitting a brilliant golden light.

In an instant, he had branded a large character for "Dao" into the void.

The character hung in midair like a blazing Great Sun, emitting a faint, mysterious, and auspicious glow.

Grand Master Red Sun held his breath and stared up at it. With a single glance, he was completely captivated, unable to pull his gaze away.

He fell to his knees on the spot and, without eating or drinking, silently contemplated it for three whole months.

Finally, from within the character for "Dao," he comprehended a core principle—

"Flowing through the six voids, making use of all things... I see!"

Grand Master Red Sun’s face was flushed. Though his body was withered and haggard, his spirit was incredibly invigorated.

The temple was empty. He was the only one there.

The High God had already departed.

He immediately strode out of the temple and announced in a booming voice:

"Send word across the land! The Great Snow Mountain invites all fellow practitioners to come and bear witness to the Dharma Gate of ascension!"