I opened my eyes within a dream to the sight of a towering library. The Guardian Storage Room was silent and serene.
"This is..." Lu Xuan patted his head and gave a wry smile. "How did I fall asleep at a ti like this... It seems I’ve really overexerted myself ntally."
As he spoke, worry flickered in his eyes and he muttered to himself:
"Nothing should have happened, right? With Uncle Wu there, those people from Guangcheng Palace and Dragon Tiger Mountain shouldn’t be able to stir up any trouble for a little while..."
"What Guangcheng Palace? What Dragon Tiger Mountain?" a soft voice whispered by Lu Xuan’s ear.
Startled, he leaped back. Only after getting a clear look at the speaker did he finally let out a sigh of relief.
"Master." Lu Xuan bowed respectfully.
The old man was still dressed in a simple, ancient robe, his hair and beard flowing. The only difference this ti was the chipped Jade Ruyi he held in his hands.
"I just sensed your arrival." The Old Master sat down on a ditation cushion and said with a smile, "I had so business with you anyway, so I ca over."
Lu Xuan also sat down on a cushion, scratching his head and asking curiously:
"What is it you need? Please, Master, just tell ."
"Let’s not talk about that just yet." The Old Master’s expression was calm, but a hint of surprise flashed in his eyes. "What Innate Spiritual Object have you consud? You’re only at the eighth level of the Jade Tower, yet your Physique rivals its absolute limit... Hold on."
His brow furrowed.
"How is your Cultivation progressing so quickly?"
Lu Xuan flinched and said in confusion:
"I... I just kept practicing, and the barriers broke on their own... No, that’s not quite right. The great mystery of the kidneys was broken only after I ate a strange pearl a friend gave ."
"A friend..."
The Old Master lowered his eyelids, refraining from prying into what had happened to the young man.
’If I cast my gaze upon Lu Xuan’s point in ti, it would inevitably be detected by a few Fellow Daoists, and then...’
Although he didn’t look directly along the tiline, the Old Master swept his gaze over the threads of Cause and Effect and instantly understood.
He sighed, then imdiately smiled and said:
"It was a female friend, wasn’t it?"
Lu Xuan was shocked.
"Master, how did you know?"
"I noticed it a few days ago. I saw threads of affection entwined around you, indicating a possible love tribulation... Hmm??"
As he spoke, the Old Master stopped abruptly.
"You’ve severed your love tribulation?"
Lu Xuan looked around in confusion, not quite understanding what his Master was saying.
The old man carefully sized up his young disciple, growing more puzzled the longer he looked. ’It makes no sense...’
’It’s only been ten-odd days, yet his Physique has more than doubled in strength, and the threads of affection that were turning into a tribulation have settled back to normal... Strange. Very strange.’
Forcefully suppressing the urge to peer into his disciple’s point in ti, the Old Master stroked the Jade Ruyi in his hand.
Just then, Lu Xuan spoke up honestly:
"I’m not too clear on this whole ’love tribulation’ thing... but I can explain the increase in my Physique. It wasn’t so fortuitous encounter, I just reached a new level in my understanding of the diation of Creation..."
"Oh?" The Old Master’s interest was piqued. "What did you use Creation on? I can sense Immortal Spiritual Qi circulating within you. Was it an Immortal Fruit?"
"No, not at all!" Lu Xuan waved his hands, saying with so embarrassnt, "I only managed to create a tiny sliver of its flesh, finer than a strand of hair... It was that Peach of Immortality Senior Brother Zhang ntioned he wanted to try."
He added, a lingering fear in his voice:
"It was just the tiniest sliver, but it nearly drained dry."
The Old Master’s expression froze. Through the Jade Ruyi, the eavesdropping Primordial Celestial King’s expression also went rigid.
After a mont, the Old Master muttered to himself:
"A Peach of Immortality... Created through the diation of Creation, it would have to be an Innate Peach of Immortality, comparable to one from the mother tree itself... How much of the diation of Creation have you comprehended?"
"Not much," Lu Xuan said honestly. "I’ve just reached one hundred Great Dao Texts, and it’s getting more and more difficult. I have no idea how long the remaining seventeen hundred will take..."
The Old Master’s lips twitched. In the far distance, the eavesdropping Primordial Celestial King in his Daoist Palace also clenched his fist, squeezing several fine cracks into the White Jade Table before him.
"Oh, one hundred texts. That’s... acceptable, yes, acceptable..."
The old man took a deep breath, barely managing to calm himself, and said in a casual tone:
"I had originally intended to help you extinguish this love tribulation, but it seems that won’t be necessary now... It’s not that I’m protecting you from it, but simply that your realm isn’t high enough. You haven’t yet reached the point where you should be facing such a thing. The six tribulations and three calamities of a lifeti are all matters for the Earth Immortal Realm."
The Old Master was speaking the truth. The disciples he had accepted in the past, even his Registered Disciples, had at minimum the Cultivation of an Earth Immortal upon joining.
Even his first disciple, Xuandu, though he had yet to begin cultivating when taken in, was born with the Cultivation of an Earth Immortal because he was the very first human personally molded by Nuwa.
This was truly the first ti he had ever accepted a disciple like Lu Xuan, whose Cultivation was practically zero.
Normally, one only begins to face the various tribulations after reaching the Earth Immortal Realm.
As he spoke, the Old Master adopted a casual air and asked, as if it were an afterthought:
"By the way, Xiaoxuan, what have you been through recently? Normally, once the Tribulation Qi manifests, the tribulation itself should begin. It’s not sothing that can be so easily dispelled."
Lu Xuan looked confused. After pondering for a long while, he said with so uncertainty:
"A love tribulation... If it has to do with emotions, then it’s probably related to sothing I comprehended from the Supre Foundation Establishnt Chapter."
The Old Master paused, slightly taken aback.
"The Supre Foundation Establishnt Chapter? What could you possibly have comprehended from that?"
After a pause, he added with a smile:
"This is for the best. I won’t be needing this Jade Ruyi, and I won’t have to overstep my bounds... Go on, tell . What was it you comprehended?"
Lu Xuan scratched his head and gave a simple, honest smile.
"I can’t explain it very well. While I was with my friend, I suddenly felt a wave of lancholy, thinking about how feelings eventually co to an end. That led to wonder, if I were to walk the path of ’Only I Am Venerable’ and bring ’World Clarity,’ would I be swayed by my emotions if I ever reached that point? And so..."
The young man recounted simply as he recalled the mory:
"And so, I accidentally had an epiphany. In that mont of enlightennt, I recalled the concept of ’Forgetting Emotions’ ntioned in the general outline of the Supre Foundation Establishnt Chapter, and I ended up comprehending it."
The Old Master’s expression froze and his hand trembled. The eavesdropping Primordial Celestial King’s breath hitched, his face a mask of disbelief.
After a long mont, the old man asked in a strained voice:
"’Forgetting Emotions’... What kind of ’Forgetting Emotions’?"
"This one, right here."
Lu Xuan closed his eyes, then snapped them open. A vast, boundless aura emanated from him. His eyes turned utterly cold and impartial—possessing emotion, yet transcending it; reaching ultimate indifference, yet also ultimate benevolence...
Like the vast, indifferent heavens; like the boundless, nurturing Earth.
Heaven and Earth.
He summarized in a perfectly calm voice:
"’Forgetting Emotions,’ or perhaps I should call it ’Supre Forgetting Emotions,’ is the principle I comprehended."
The Old Master instinctively leaned back, a dazed expression flashing across his face. He subconsciously tightened his grip on the Jade Ruyi, muttering, "Good! Excellent!"
Far away, in the Daoist Palace, the White Jade Table before the Primordial Celestial King exploded into dust. He shot to his feet, pacing back and forth and roaring in a low voice!
"Supre... What have you done to deserve this!"
"What have you done to deserve this!"
The Daoist paced back and forth several tis, his thoughts a chaotic ss as he gnashed his teeth.
’No! He learned my Primordial Body, so he’s half my disciple already... The Three Pristine Ones are a single entity. It’s perfectly normal for the Supre’s disciple to acknowledge as a master as well!’
As he spoke, the Primordial Celestial King’s right eye went blank while his left eye blazed with light, reflecting all causes, all effects, and all phenona. A Great Banner and four smaller flags materialized behind him, while a Cyan Lamp floated before him, its candlelight illuminating the entire cosmos.
He used these treasures to conceal the past, present, and future. Then, he plucked a sliver of Cause and a sliver of Effect, analyzing, perceiving, comprehending, and finally, understanding.
As the Cause of All Fruits, by using the Path of Cause and Effect to determine Lu Xuan’s location in the Current World, he would not be detected by the other "Fellow Daoists."
Having done all this, the Primordial Celestial King pointed a finger, using his power of Creation to form a simple Jade Box. He then composed a Celestial Book and sealed it inside.
’No, this isn’t secure enough. I have to make it a done deal!’
With that, a thought stirred in the Primordial Celestial King’s mind. He inverted the cosmos, reversed effect and cause, and ignored all paradoxes of space and ti to reverse the sequence of events.
He swapped the event of ’creating the Jade Box and sealing the Celestial Book’ to a point *before* he ’eavesdropped on the conversation.’ Then he hurled the Jade Box three thousand years into the future, sending it to the Guangcheng Zi who would, at that ti, have just established the Guangcheng Palace’s Daoist Lineage.
After finishing all this,
he rubbed his nose and muttered to himself, feeling rather guilty:
"This way, I won’t have to worry even if the Supre finds out... Mmm, the cause has been set, the effect is complete, the die is cast. Besides, like I said, The Three Pristine Ones are one body. There is no high or low, no you or I. His disciple is my disciple. That’s perfectly reasonable, isn’t it..."
"Yes, perfectly reasonable!" the Primordial Celestial King answered himself, breaking into a satisfied, yet guilty, smile.
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