Chapter 1558 — The First Rune

Shen Mu paid her no mind. He took out the two Qiankun Mirrors and held them up against the Dao patterns on the palace walls.

This journey to Miluo Palace had resolved one of his doubts: the trap of Jade Capital.

The trap of Jade Capital was no trap in the Jade Capital realm, but in the Lingxiao realm and the Imperial Throne realm. Judging from the layout of Miluo Palace's treasure halls, the seventy-two halls also included the Lingxiao Hall, the Zixiao Hall, the Taishang Hall, and others; and the master of Miluo Palace's Lingxiao Treasure Hall, the Third Young Master, had used the trick of passing a peach off for a plum, making the Lingxiao Hall the sovereign, turning it into a realm. The Third Young Master of Miluo Palace had deliberately led men astray, using the strength of the world's cultivators to swell his own, binding to his own war chariot every future mighty one of the universe who cultivated to the Lingxiao and Imperial Throne realms.

When men of the world cultivate the Lingxiao realm and the Imperial Throne realm, the foundation of their Dao arts and divine powers is none other than his Lingxiao Treasure Hall; to cultivate these two realms is to cultivate his great Dao for him, to raise his cultivation. What is more, the Lingxiao Treasure Hall governs the Dao arts and divine powers of every Lingxiao and Imperial Throne expert under heaven; all such experts must uphold the Lingxiao Treasure Hall, must uphold the Third Young Master, must stand on the same front as he, or their cultivation will be lost.

More crucial still: cultivate his Lingxiao Treasure Hall, and even one who sets himself against him can be slain by him with ease. And the key figure in the trap of Jade Capital was the Heavenly Emperor Taichu.

The true Jade Capital realm consists, apart from the seventy-two treasure halls, of Miluo Palace. Its master had already dissolved into the Dao, become the Dao itself; which meant that if one replaced the Lingxiao and Imperial Throne realms with Miluo Palace, the trap could be evaded.

That Shen Mu had stayed in Miluo Palace and never left was precisely for the sake of exploring this realm, Miluo.

The seventy-two treasure halls had been carved up among the Ten Heavenly Venerables, and the complete seventy-two were very hard to come by; Shen Mu had already explored more than ten of them, and the rest could only be seized from the bodies of the other Tianzuns.

Soon he grew absorbed in the Dao patterns of Miluo Palace's master, and then he discovered something wondrous.

When he examined the master's Dao patterns with the vertical eye at the center of his brow, he could actually see the inner structure of the Dao patterns; he could even see the Hongmeng primal qi runes of the deepest layer without the aid of the Qiankun Mirror!

Shen Mu's heart stirred faintly, and he tried to activate the vertical eye in his brow.

He had always taken this eye for nothing more than a sacred pupil capable of piercing the qi of chaos, unable to activate its other functions, because whenever he tried, the Taiji eggshell that formed the eye's retina would turn up chaotic qi and leave him staring into a murk in which nothing could be seen. But now, when he activated the vertical eye, that sense of murk vanished, and in its place the Dao patterns of Miluo Palace became incomparably distinct; in an instant he saw every last change of the Dao pattern, plain as day!

The Dao patterns Wei Suifeng had reflected with Kui Sou's Qiankun Mirror showed only their form, not the changes of the patterns; all was fixed and unchanging.

Yet now, looking with the vertical eye in his brow, Shen Mu saw at once that this one Dao pattern was changing at every instant of every moment! Dao patterns were already incomparably complex, holding nearly endless information, and extremely hard to comprehend.

And now, seeing the internal changes of the Dao patterns, Shen Mu was even more shaken.

Each instant's change in a Miluo Palace Dao pattern meant that the information the pattern conveyed was several times more than what a fixed, unchanging Dao pattern could convey! The Dao patterns reflected by the two Qiankun Mirrors were but one part in a hundred million million of the information hidden within the Dao patterns! When the vertical eye in his brow examined the structure of a Dao pattern, he could also see its course of transformation from Taiji to Taisu, to Taishi, to Taichu, to Taiyi!

He could not help watching, drunk and enchanted. The information hidden in the Dao patterns of Miluo Palace's master was immeasurably vast; a single Dao pattern could fill the boundless space of two Qiankun Mirrors.

Frightening as that was, what left him more awestruck still was the master's attainment.

The cultivation of a being of that order could no longer be put into words; his knowledge left even a Tianzun-level existence like Shen Mu gasping in admiration.

"Strange.

My vertical eye could never see such things before; why can it see them now?

" Shen Mu suddenly recalled that drop of tears, and thought: "Could it be that the teardrop on the Dao Tree of Miluo Palace's master awakened the power of my vertical eye?

" He fell silent.

Taiyi had used Dao dew to let the vertical eye in his brow see, to pierce chaos; and the tears of Miluo Palace's master had let him command the power of that vertical eye.

Both of these elders had treated him well, and yet the judgment Miluo Palace's master had passed on Taiyi was something he could not set down.

Then, all at once, Shen Mu broke into a smile: "Miluo Palace's master asked me how many tears I needed, and I, fool that I was, gave him no answer. Now it seems I should have asked for a good many more.

" His mood returned to what it had been; he did not go on brooding over Taiyi's identity.

Whether or not Taiyi was a Dao-achiever of prehistoric times, he no longer wished to fret over it.

The elders of Yincan Village had taught him since childhood that to know a man truly, one must not only hear his words but watch his deeds; not only look at what he says, but look at what he does.

One must never lose one's own judgment because of another's appraisal.

Whether or not Taiyi was a prehistoric Dao-achiever, all his deeds of the past had been to the benefit of this universe: he had cut down the World Tree, guarded Great Black Mountain, and kept the prehistoric Dao-achievers from descending, from invading; and that was good.

Taiyi had patched Great Black Mountain, helped Shen Mu resolve the problem of the World Tree, helped the Jingping folk gain a foothold on Great Black Mountain and in the Ancestral Court, and to this day still used the Dao dew from his Dao Tree to mend the cracks in Great Black Mountain; and that was good.

This was his grace to the world. That Shen Mu could open the vertical eye in his brow, that he could grow a World Tree inside his own body, was likewise bound up with him.

This was his grace to Shen Mu.

In repayment, in requital for all he had done before, Shen Mu would follow the map and save him regardless of his true identity. As for what stance the two of them would take toward each other once Taiyi was rescued, that would still depend on watching his words and his deeds.

"If his deeds do not conflict with my principles, and we still share the same purpose, then he and I are still fellow Daoists.

" Shen Mu smiled with easy candor, feeling that at last he could calmly face whatever changes the future brought; his heart was serene, his Dao heart clear and bright.

"But if his deeds conflict with my principles, if our purposes run counter, then he and I are enemies. " Having reasoned this through, there was no longer any knot in his heart, and he went on studying the Dao patterns of Miluo Palace's master.