Chapter 561: Dao Scripture!

【Although the Immortal Qi concentration inside the Origin Cave is higher, it is still relatively low overall, not enough to support cultivators beyond the Core Formation realm.】

【The cave twists and turns, extending deep into the mountain.】

【Jin Ding Zhenren led you deeper and eventually brought you to a fairly spacious cavern.】

【It had electricity and lights, so the entire place was brightly illuminated.】

【But at a glance, there was actually very little here. Apart from some murals and writing, as well as a stone stele towering in the center, there was nothing else.】

【“There used to be a lot of things here, all kinds of antiques. Later, we learned that those antiques were actually various magical artifacts. They had simply endured too many years and lost their spirituality, becoming ordinary objects.

The government took special measures to preserve the antiques. Once the cave was opened, it disrupted some kind of balance inside. If those artifacts were left here, they would weather into sand before long.”】

【At that moment, your attention was drawn to the writing on the murals and the characters carved on the stone stele in the center.】

【The writing looked extremely ancient, and it was difficult to match it with modern characters one by one.】

【You weren’t equipped with “Unrestricted Communication” right now, so you couldn’t make out what the writing meant.】

【But the writing wasn’t unfamiliar to you. You had seen it in many places.】

【“Divine marks! This is the script used for divine marks!”】

【Jin Ding Zhenren nodded in confirmation.】

【“That’s right. The writing we found in this cave was the same script later used when cultivating divine marks.”】

【To be precise, it was discovered 145 years ago.】

【It wasn’t just the Huaxia government. In those years, many countries discovered areas that “gave off unique energy fluctuations.” Later, these places all came to be known as “Origin Zones.”】

【Some were caves, some were lakes, some were forests, and so on. Their locations were rather random.】

【After these areas were discovered, a new power appeared on Earth: Immortal Qi.】

【Or perhaps we could call it the revival of Spiritual Energy.】

【But Immortal Qi alone wasn’t enough. Without knowing how to cultivate, people had no way to do so.】

【Fortunately, some Origin Zones contained remnants of ancient books, preserved using certain special artificial materials.】

【Some of these books contained cultivation methods, some described alchemy, some covered the cultivation of spirit plants, and others explained how to forge magical artifacts.】

【In short, they covered all kinds of subjects and touched on every aspect of the Immortal Dao.】

【Unfortunately, there wasn’t a single Source Stone on Earth, and not even a pound of spiritual materials suitable for artifact forging could be mined. Earth was also unsuitable for growing any spirit plants.】

【As a result, cultivators on Earth after the revival of Spiritual Energy could only cultivate in a vacuum. There were no methods for alchemy or artifact forging, and those disciplines existed only in theory.】

【The talismans and shuriken used by the cultivators from Sakura Country you saw earlier had actually been made using technological methods.】

【Among all the Origin Zones, this Origin Cave in Huaxia contained the greatest number of preserved antiques and ancient books. Its records on the Immortal Dao were also the most systematic.】

【Although modern people couldn’t read the ancient divine-mark script, it didn’t take long to decipher it after recreating and analyzing it with technology.】

【It was later confirmed that this script shared the same lineage as Chinese characters. The intervening stages of its evolution had simply been lost, which was why it was completely incomprehensible.】

【“The stone stele records a complete cultivation technique. It can take someone from the Postnatal Martial Artist realm all the way to the Dao-Steward realm. Almost all the cultivators in Huaxia cultivate using this technique.”】

【“The Dao-Steward realm...”】

【There were three realms after the Heaven-Linking realm: Rule Mastery, Domain Mastery, and Dao-Steward. They were better known by the titles Immortal Lord, Immortal King, and Immortal Emperor!】

【Under the appraisal of “Ominous in Old Age,” the stone stele before you was identified as a cultivation technique.】

【It wasn’t classified as Qi Refining Arts, Soul Refining Art, or Body Refining, nor was it Divine Art, a killing move, or a spell. It was classified as a “Dao Scripture”!】

【Its quality wasn’t ranked from first to ninth grade. It was “none,” with no quality rank at all!】

【Its name was The Martial Scripture!】

【“The Martial Scripture...”】

【Jin Ding Zhenren was surprised.】

【“Can you read the characters on the stele?”】

【“No. I only recognize the title.”】

【To understand the actual contents, you would need to have “Unrestricted Communication” equipped.】

【There was no need to wait a year for the trait tag to change, anyway. The Huaxia government had already deciphered it.】

【Jin Ding Zhenren sent you a digital copy right away.】

【Strangely, when you used “Ominous in Old Age” to appraise the contents of the digital copy, the quality of The Martial Scripture appeared as first grade.】

【“Huh...”】

【You looked up at the stone stele, then down at the phone in your hand.】

【A bold theory came to mind.】

【If you merely studied the contents of The Martial Scripture, it was equivalent to a first-grade Qi Refining Art.】

【A first-grade technique was already extremely precious. After all, even the “Triple-Origin Body Tempering Mystic Art” you currently cultivated was only third grade.】

【But if you studied it by comprehending the stone stele itself, it became a unique “Dao Scripture”!】

【“Can I take this stone stele with me?”】

【Jin Ding Zhenren smiled.】

【“Young people often tell a joke: if a roll of steel falls to the ground, whoever can carry it off gets to keep it. The same goes for this stone stele. If you can get it out of here, I doubt the government will object.”】

【The government had taken everything from the Origin Cave except for the murals and the stone stele.】

【That was because they had tried every method they could think of, but couldn’t remove the murals or move the stele.】

【You gently raised your right hand and gave a low shout.】

【“Shatter!”】

【Divine Ability: Shatter.】

【The stone stele separated from the mountain rock beneath it on the spot, then floated up under the pull of your divine power.】

【Jin Ding Zhenren’s eyes went wide.】

【“Good heavens...”】

【That’s what a Divine Ability can do, old man. Take notes.】

【Then you swept your left hand through the air, opened the Pot Heaven space, and drew the stone stele inside.】

【Jin Ding Zhenren was so astonished that his jaw trembled.】

【“A mustard-seed space? A folded dimension? Th-this...”】

【Clearly, the ancient books discovered on Earth contained no records related to Divine Abilities.】

【Perhaps the subject was too advanced, so there had been very few records of it to begin with, and even fewer had survived.】

【After putting away this unique cultivation method, you went over to the murals.】

【“So cultivators existed on Earth a long time ago. Then something happened, the cultivation civilization declined, and humanity went down the path of technological civilization instead?”】

【Jin Ding Zhenren pointed at the murals.】

【“These murals are actually the ancients’ way of telling the world what happened back then, and why the cultivators on Earth disappeared.”】

【“This part should have been deciphered, right? Tell me about it.”】

【“The year mentioned here can no longer be verified. There’s only a ‘Year 270 of the King’s Calendar.’ The first mural describes what happened in that year: some strange black smoke descended from the sky...”】