Ten Paths of the Master - Chapter 7

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 7. The World Had Become Infinitely More Amusing
The Boy stared into the darkness.
The images and characters he had traced with his fingertips rose vividly in his mind.
“Could this person be Yu Sa?”
Among the three deities who govern the weather—Feng Bai, Yu Sa, and Yun Sa—only Yu Sa was missing, so a faint suspicion had taken root in him.
“Hmm! Whoever it is, the images and inscriptions are quite provocative.”
Behead Feng Bai, shatter Yun Sa’s skull.
‘Follow the commands of one who defies Heaven,’ it said as well.
In truth, talk of the Heavenly Realm’s essence stirred no feeling in him.
That was not a matter for human concern.
The Boy reasoned through it with his brilliant mind.
Did someone truly wish for Feng Bai and Yun Sa to be killed?
Or was it the mad ravings of a lunatic?
He couldn’t quite believe it, yet the tomb’s scale suggested it was no mere delusion.
“Behead him, shatter his skull, follow the command of one who defies Heaven…. It’s telling me to take a side, to make my allegiance clear, isn’t it?”
As he pondered this, he suddenly reached out and felt the head of the left serpent.
Indeed!
A hairline fracture ran between head and body.
When he touched the right serpent, it too bore a crack in the same place.
“Ah, a Mechanical Triggering System!”
Knowledge from books on mechanical triggering flooded through his mind.
The Boy reached out confidently and pressed hard on the serpent’s head—the one the man in the image held—but it wouldn’t budge.
“That’s not right. It should work.”
Muttering to himself, he felt across the ground until his fingers found a stone that fit snugly in his palm.
Then he located the left serpent’s head again by touch and struck it with all his strength.
Crack!
The serpent’s head shattered with a grinding sound.
He then smashed the right serpent’s head with the stone.
The moment he destroyed both serpent heads, something unexpected occurred.
The ground suddenly dropped away beneath him.
“Aaahhhhh—!”
The Boy’s scream echoed as the floor plummeted endlessly.
How long had he fallen?
With a heavy thud, stone met stone and his descent halted.
The Boy looked ahead with wide eyes.
Where a wall had blocked his way, a carved stone passage now lay open, and a soft glow emanated from within, illuminating the way forward.
Before entering the passage, the Boy glanced upward.
But the darkness above was absolute, and he could not gauge how far he had fallen.
“Will I be able to climb back out?”
He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head and moved forward.
Looking back would only torment him with what he could never reach, so he chose instead to abandon that thought and seek a new path ahead.
As he followed the passage for some distance, an extraordinary sight came into view.
Three massive square platforms, each roughly thirty meters on a side, descended like steps, and in the center of the platform that lay about fifteen meters below the surface, a colossal Stone Coffin rested.
‘Is this where the master of Byeongmachong was buried?’
After a moment, the Boy descended the stairs carefully.
Since this passage seemed to lead nowhere else, he meant to examine the Stone Coffin.
The stairs themselves were roughly three meters high, making the descent arduous.
When at last he reached the floor, he crept cautiously toward the Stone Coffin.
With both hands, he pushed against the lid, which was nearly thirty centimeters thick, but it wouldn’t shift.
“Wow! This is heavy. How am I supposed to open it?”
As the Boy pondered this and circled the coffin with a keen gaze, something happened.
With a deep, grinding scrape—
The Stone Coffin’s lid slid of its own accord to the side.
Then came a heavy thud as one end of the lid struck the floor.
It had opened completely.
At this wholly unexpected development, the Boy could only blink, bewildered.
Then a hand rose from the coffin, grasped the edge, and a man in strange garments slowly lifted himself upright.
When the Boy beheld the man’s eyes, which gleamed like stars, he gasped in terror and pressed his head to the ground, crying out:
“Divine Being! Spare this humble wretch! I harbor no ill intent! I lost my way wandering in darkness and came to this place by chance! I beg your magnanimity—forgive me and show me the way out!”
The man, looking down at the Boy’s bowed head, spoke:
“Rise.”
The clear, weighty voice resonated like thunder through the stepped tomb.
Only then did the Boy slowly push himself upright, peering cautiously at the figure before him.
The middle-aged man in white robes wore Blue Jade Plates woven with golden thread like armor across his chest.
Each jade plate, no larger than a palm, was square-shaped, and with gaps of roughly a finger’s width between them, it seemed an odd thing to call armor.
As the Boy stared blankly, the man asked him a question.
“Who are you?”
“Well, I… I seem to be a disciple of the Hao Sect, but I can’t remember who I am.”
In an instant, the man’s body vanished from the stone coffin with a sharp sound, appearing before the Boy to seize his head.
The startled Boy tried to speak, but the man released him first.
“You’ve been cultivating the Xiaoyao Sect’s Two-Element-Return-to-One Technique incorrectly. Where did you learn such flawed art?”
“Spirit, what I learned was the Divided-Spirit Technique of the Xiaoyao School.”
“Recite it for me.”
“When a person is born, the Advancing Spirit dwells in the Celestial Eye, while the Consciousness Spirit that thinks resides below, in the heart…”
As the Boy finished reciting the incantation of the Divided-Spirit Technique, the man shook his head in disapproval.
“Where did such a hybrid come from… So your Primordial Spirit has fractured. Tsk.”
“Pardon? What do you mean my Primordial Spirit has fractured?”
The Boy felt not merely confused but utterly bewildered at the notion that his Primordial Spirit could fracture.
According to Daoist teachings, the Primordial Spirit is the sacred spiritual essence bestowed by heaven and earth, and what cultivators practice is precisely the acquisition of this Primordial Spirit.
When Daoists train essence, breath, and spirit to reach the Heaven-Earth Exchange State, the Primordial Spirit is formed—but with his current internal and external cultivation, he cannot even follow a Daoist’s footsteps.
Moreover, there were no Daoist secret techniques in his memory, so such a thing was impossible.
“Your Primordial Spirit has split into two. That means two distinct personalities now inhabit one body.”
“No, Spirit. It’s not that I doubt your words… I have never created a Primordial Spirit.”
“What meditation method have you cultivated?”
“The Heart-Purity Elixir Technique—it’s the meditation method of the Hao Sect.”
“Recite the dharma for me.”
“When the mind becomes pure, essence is obtained; when essence empties, spirit is gained. Spirit realizes its true nature; advance toward the light…”
“It’s a Daoist longevity technique cultivating the Internal Elixir, though it seems only part has been transmitted.”
“Only part?”
“The technique bears the name Heart-Purity Elixir, yet there’s no mention of the elixir itself—clearly only the introductory incantation has been passed down.”
“Ah, so that’s what happened. I didn’t know.”
“It’s rare, but your Conception and Governing Meridians are open, as well as your Central Channel. Reaching the Primordial Spirit realm through the Heart-Purity Elixir Technique in that state was unrefined, but ultimately the flawed Divided-Spirit Technique fractured your Primordial Spirit.”
“Then what becomes of me?”
“There’s nothing for it but to live with two personalities until you reunite them.”
“Heavens! Is it possible to reunite them?”
“Cultivate the Two-Element-Return-to-One Technique, and it can be done.”
“Then, Spirit, if you would think of this wretched one and teach me this Two-Element-Return-to-One Technique, would you not?”
“There’s no reason I couldn’t, except that it belongs to the Xiaoyao Sect, which gives me pause…”
“Is there something troubling your mind?”
“Hah, you think I would be troubled by such a thing? It’s you who troubles me.”
“Me?”
“If it’s revealed that an outsider has learned the ways of the Xiaoyao Sect, do you think they would remain idle? They would erase not merely your body, but your Primordial Spirit as well, in a heartbeat.”
“As long as I don’t reveal it, I need only keep it hidden my whole life.”
“You cannot hide it. Upon reaching mastery in the Two-Element-Return-to-One Technique, your eyes will turn golden.”
“Then I simply won’t reach mastery.”
“Only by reaching mastery in the Two-Element-Return-to-One Technique can your two personalities become one.”
“Ah! If it’s merely a matter of eye color, I can wear Colored Eye Protection Lenses.”
Colored Eye Protection Lenses were colored eye guards imported from the Western Regions.
Among the lords of Yukmun, there were those who wore them as a fashion.
“What are Colored Eye Protection Lenses?”
“They are devices brought from the Western Regions that shield the eyes from sunlight. If one wears them, no one will know whether the eyes are golden.”
The man fell silent in thought for a moment, then nodded readily.
“Very well. If you mean to bear the burden yourself, there’s no reason I cannot teach you.”
The man proceeded to recite the dharma of the Two-Element-Return-to-One Technique on the spot.
The Boy heard it once and memorized the entire thousand-character dharma of the Two-Element-Return-to-One Technique.
At this, the man regarded the Boy with an extraordinary look.
The Xiaoyao Sect’s Two-Element-Return-to-One Technique is not the sort of dharma one can memorize after a single hearing.
The fact that his Conception and Governing Meridians and Central Channel were open—this too marked him as far from ordinary.
“Tell me whatever you can recall about yourself.”
“I lived in Byeongmachong with children of my own age. I learned the Martial Arts of the Hao Sect from instructors, and read miscellaneous books in the library.”
“What sort of sect is the Hao Sect?”
The man wondered why the Hao Sect would raise children in a tomb.
“It’s a collective name for six schools of base occupations…….”
The Boy laid out the Hao Sect’s Six Branches and Hundred-Year Plan in meticulous detail.
“Then you were sold into it as well?”
“All I remember is what happened at Byeongmachong. Everyone says they were sold into it, so I must have been too.”
“You’d have no memory of your parents, naturally.”
“That’s right.”
“Amusing. The world has become far more amusing.”
The man regarded the Boy with fresh eyes.
At first, he’d been struck by the Boy’s extraordinary gift, but once he understood the truth of the Hao Sect, all he could do was laugh.
The Boy noticed the spirit’s expression soften and ventured a careful question.
“Forgive me, but might I ask you something, spirit?”
“What would you know?”
“Are you perhaps the master of this Royal Tomb?”
“No. This tomb belongs to a king I once aided.”
“Before entering here, I saw strange drawings and inscriptions. Did the master of the tomb leave those as well?”
“I left those myself.”
“Ah……, I see.”
The Boy didn’t press further, seized by an uneasy feeling.
The spirit had left an inscription saying “Defy Heaven”…….
It felt as though there were things better left unknown.
Seeing the Boy’s hesitation, the man’s lips curved upward slightly.
“Aren’t you curious why I left such drawings and writing?”
“No, sir. I wouldn’t presume. Absolutely not.”
Startled, the Boy denied it, but the man’s smile only deepened.
“You came all this way out of curiosity and disturbed my meditation, yet claim you weren’t curious?”
“Oh dear! If I interrupted your practice, please forgive me. I was simply lost and wandering…….”
“Don’t make excuses. Getting lost alone cannot explain why you crushed a serpent’s head. If it were just one, I’d say nothing. But you destroyed two. You can’t call that coincidence, can you?”
“That was……, yes, I acted presumptuously out of curiosity. But I truly had no intention whatsoever of disturbing your practice.”
“Don’t worry yourself. You didn’t disturb my cultivation. Perhaps your coming here was Heaven’s will.”
“Heaven’s will?”
“Long ago, I fought enemies and suffered grave injury to my original essence. So I hid here, donned the Golden-Thread Jade Burial Suit, and underwent the Sunset-Great-Water Resurrection Technique of the Taigo Sect. Time passed, and my Primordial Spirit recovered, yet my Consciousness Spirit remained trapped in Delusion. Then you touched the Stone Coffin and awakened me—so in truth, you are my savior.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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