Chapter 1830 — The World-Opening Great Bell

Shang Jun's departure from the Ancestral Court for Jingping this time had been by Shen Mu's order: he had come back to the Yuan Realm to pass on his arts, and to take in the fruits of Jingping's reforms besides; he had not come out of any particular wish to visit Zhu Santong and the other four. Only just before setting out had he learned from Shen Mu's own lips that Dong Yang and the rest had already been reincarnated. That Zhu Santong, Dong Yang, and the others had been reborn without the memories of their former lives was something he had not known at first, and once he did know, he did not take it much to heart.

Zhu Santong had recovered a portion of his memories; his former life now seemed to him a thing of drifting mist and cloud, at once himself and not himself, and only when he thought of how Shen Mu had duped the five of them did the resentment rise in him and refuse to settle.

"If we had our memories of the past life," he complained to Shang Jun, "why would we ever have needed to take so many detours? " Shang Jun was ordinarily a man of few words, but before these five old friends his words could not help but grow plentiful.

"Dao brother," he said, "think it over. The techniques and divine powers you had in your former life, are they still of any use to you in this one?

" Zhu Santong carefully recalled the arts and powers of his past life, then weighed them against what he had learned since, and his mind went blank.

The techniques and divine powers of his former life were of an entirely different order from Jingping's present cultivation system. With some alteration the divine powers could still serve, though they now seemed crude by comparison, but the techniques themselves were wholly useless!

The methods of cultivation in Jingping today all followed the Great Divine Treasury system, and the Dao arts encompassed by each realm, from the Spirit Embryo to the Ancestral Court, were far grander than anything he had cultivated in his former life.

A cultivation system is a basket: however large the one who opens a realm makes that basket, that is how much later cultivators can put into it. Some cultivators cannot fill the basket, some can, and the latter travel farther than the former.

In Jingping's Ancestral Court Dao-realm system the basket was larger than the baskets of Zhu Santong and his companions in their former lives, and held more. Had he carried his former memories from the very beginning, he would have suffered a barrier of preconception, cultivating according to the experience of a past life and unable to set down the old basket, which would have been no kindness to him at all.

"In truth, the Seventh Young Master meant well in having you reincarnate. He only feared you could not accept it, and so did not tell you that reincarnation would erase your memories of the past life.

" Shang Jun said, "I rather envy you.

You can cast everything aside and begin again.

That you were able to reincarnate at all is because we fought and killed in the Ancestral Court and won for you the chance to grow. I have never been reincarnated, and I possess the realm of one who has attained the Dao, yet after years of struggling in the Ancestral Court I feel more and more how my strength is limited.

Once I have passed on my Dao arts and divine powers, if the chance comes, I too will reincarnate and begin again. " He was silent for a moment, then said, "And when I begin again, I do not wish to awaken the memories of my former life.

" Zhu Santong understood his choice. Shang Jun had lived too bitterly; the memories of the Sixteenth Epoch were a burden to him, and there had been few hours of joy in them. If there was a next life, he chose to live it more lightly. "You have come back from the Ancestral Court. Does that mean the fighting there has died down?

" Zhu Santong asked.

Shang Jun shook his head. "It grows ever fiercer.

The reason I could return is that the Two Ancestors attained the Dao, and the pressure on me eased greatly.

" "The Two Ancestors attained the Dao?

" Zhu Santong was baffled.

"Who are the Two Ancestors?

" "The two founding patriarchs who created the Ancestral Court Dao-realm system have attained the Dao.

" Shang Jun said, "Lan Yutian and Xu Shenghua have attained the Dao, and their battle strength is above mine; that is why I could steal a little leisure and come back to teach my Dao arts and divine powers and seek inheritors.

Heavenly Venerable You has attained the Dao as well; he came back with me and has gone on to Youdu. " Zhu Santong was dumbstruck. Even he could only marvel at the profundity of the Ancestral Court Dao-realm system; for these two old patriarchs who had founded it to attain the Dao, what fearsome achievements must be theirs?

As for Heavenly Venerable You, he had heard only the legends of the man and had never met him. "And the Seventh Young Master?

Has he attained the Dao?

" Zhu Santong pressed.

Shang Jun's face turned strange, and he shook his head. "His case is rather particular.

If he attained the Dao through primal chaos, then he would be the Seventh Young Master of the legends, but to this day he has never managed to attain the Dao through primal chaos.

" "The old scoundrel has his day too! " Zhu Santong roared with laughter, mightily pleased; Dong Yang, Jun Xieyu, and the others did not know what they were talking about, but seeing him laugh so heartily they joined in with a laugh or two.

Shang Jun's face was strange. "Though the Seventh Young Master has not attained the Dao through primal chaos, his attainment through Guixu and through the World Tree has grown deeper and more far-reaching.

" Zhu Santong was dumbstruck again.

Shang Jun went on, "His Guixu lotus throne has already reached the sixth grade of the Dao, and on the World Tree there have bloomed dao flowers and formed dao fruits, and not merely one flower, nor one fruit. " Zhu Santong was dumbstruck yet again.

He scratched at the pig bristles behind his head and said doubtfully, "That cannot be right. The Ancestral Court Dao-realm system is not cultivated that way.

.

.

" "He is not in the basket," Shang Jun said. It was as though thunder rolled through Zhu Santong's mind, and at once he understood.

The one who fills the basket of the Ancestral Court Dao-realm system is a genius; the one who creates that basket is a founding patriarch; but the one who leaps out of the basket early on cannot be measured by any basket at all! Shen Mu was the first to leap out of the basket, and before Lan Yutian and Xu Shenghua and the new generation of Heavenly Venerables had even made the basket, he had already leapt beyond it!

There are many baskets in this world: the Miluo Palace's method of attaining the Dao is a basket, the Heaven-Openers' method of attaining the Dao is a basket, Elder Wuyai and the other prehistoric beings have baskets great and small, and the Ancestral Court Dao-realm system of Lan Yutian and Xu Shenghua is a basket as well! But Shen Mu is in none of these baskets! No basket can hold Shen Mu!

He could attain the Dao by the Guixu method, or walk the Miluo Palace's Dao-realm system, or attain the Dao through the World Tree; he is even well versed in the Heaven-Openers' art of opening the heavens.

Yet none of these roads is the road he means to walk.

His road is one alone: attaining the Dao through primal chaos. Shang Jun rose to leave.

"Having seen you all, my mind is at ease.

I go to pass on my Dao arts.

" Zhu Santong hurried after him.

"Shang Jun, may I go to the Ancestral Court?

" Shang Jun halted and looked him over. "Only when you have cultivated to the point where you are one step short of attaining the Dao may you go to the Ancestral Court. The Ancestral Court today is exceedingly perilous; with your present strength, going there would be no more than throwing your life away.