Chapter 197: Mantra Axis Scripture
Inside a dimly lit hall, there were countless dark azure chains littered all over the ground, giving off a dark azure gleam under the light of the eerie green flames.
Seated on a black chair at the center of the hall, the zombie-like man was leaned forward slightly, and his face just happened to have been obscured by the shadows cast by the green flames, making it impossible to see his expression.
Right at this moment, the thick and heavy stone doors of the hall began to open inward from the outside amid a burst of dull rumbling, and the thunderous sound of churning sand flooded into the hall.
Standing at the entrance of the hall was a tall and imposing figure that was close to 10 feet in height.
The man had a square face with yellow skin, and there was an antiquated copper headguard on his head. He was wearing a dark yellow robe that resembled a cloak, and it was covered in yellow sand that seemed to have come straight from the sandstorm that was raging outside.
As the man made his way into the hall, the heavy stone doors swung shut again, shutting out all of the commotion that was raging outside.
The man strode into the hall with heavy footsteps, causing all of the dark azure chains on the ground to clatter and rustle incessantly.
He arrived before the black chair, then fell to one knee as he declared in a respectful voice, "Master, I've visited the place where Fang Pan met his demise."
"Did you find anything there?" the zombie-like man asked in a raspy voice as he leaned back slightly in his chair.
"I'm afraid not. His killer made sure to clean up the site very thoroughly," the man replied with a dark expression.
"Fang Pan's death most likely has to do with a powerful enemy that he was pursuing 300 years ago. I'll leave it to you to investigate this matter," the zombie-like man said.
"Yes, Master."
……
That night.
The courtyard on the summit of the Crimson Dawn Peak was brightly lit, and thanks to the efforts of Meng Yungui and the others, the entire place was inhabitable again.
At this moment, Han Li was in a secret chamber deep in the cave abode. He had already put on his Blaze Dragon Dao inner sect elder robe and was seated on a futon with his legs crossed.
Next to him was a palm-sized round metal plate, which contained the first level of the Formless True Axis Arts.
After some time, Han Li's eyes abruptly sprang open, and he made a grabbing motion to draw the spirit note badge into his grasp before pressing it against his own glabella.
The round metal badge flashed momentarily, and a passage of dense golden text instantly appeared in his mind.
The passage of golden text was split up into roughly two parts, the first of which was an introduction of sorts, while the second part was the actual first level of the Formless True Axis Scripture.
According to the introduction, the Formless True Axis Scripture was split up into a total of three levels, and full mastery of the cultivation art could allow one to attain an ability called the Mantra Treasured Axis.
When facing enemies in battle, this ability would allow one to slow down all attacks that came near the Mantra Treasured Axis, thereby robbing opponents of any speed advantage.
The nature of the ability didn't change from level one to level three of the cultivation art. Instead, it would still grant one the same ability, but to an increasing extent of potency.
Apparently, mastery of the first level of the cultivation art could allow one to unleash a Mantra Treasured Axis that roughly halved the opponent's speed. Mastery of the second level would allow one to reduce an opponent's speed by 90%, and as for mastery of the third level, the effect wasn't outlined, but it presumably would've made the ability even more astonishingly potent.
This was already an extremely stunning revelation to Han Li.
Even just slowing down an opponent's attacks by half was already an incredibly potent ability in battle, let alone slowing down enemy attacks by 90%. If he had already mastered his ability during his battle against Fang Pan, then he wouldn't have struggled anywhere near as much as he did.
He suppressed his excitement as he turned his attention to the second part of the passage, but his brows were soon tightly furrowed with befuddlement.
Having already mastered the golden seal text long ago, he was able to read the passage of text just fine, but when strung together, the words were completely incomprehensible to him.
For some reason, the usage of phrases and method of language formulation employed in the text was massively different from that of those pages of the Golden Jade Tome that Han Li had obtained, thereby making it extremely difficult to understand. [1]
Even after poring over the passage of text for a long time, he had still only read less than 1% of its content, and even then, the meaning of that tiny piece of text was still not entirely clear to him.
He was feeling rather disheartened, but he wasn't willing to give up as he carefully recalled what he had seen in the Golden Jade Tome while comparing it to this passage of text as he continued to read arduously.
The next morning, Han Li removed the spirit note badge from his glabella, feeling utterly mentally drained. He massaged his own glabella as a slightly frustrated look appeared on his face.
The cultivation art was far more profound than he had anticipated, and even after an entire night, he was still yet to even understand all of its content. He felt as if he had grasped onto something, but at the same time, he felt as if he understood nothing.
He shook his head as he flipped a hand over to stow the spirit note badge away, and he was just about to get up when a thought suddenly occurred to him.
As he was leaving the Merit Conveyance Palace the previous day, Elder Fang had told him that he could visit the palace anytime he needed something.
At the time, he felt like Elder Fang had been implying something, and it seemed that his intuition had been correct.
A wry smile appeared on Han Li's face as he stood up and exited his secret chamber, then flew out of his cave abode as a streak of azure light.
……
The light of the rising sun was shining down upon the Imperial Dragon Peak, basking the entire mountain and the Merit Conveyance Palace in a warm, golden glow.
Han Li descended out of the heavens onto the white jade plaza in front of the Merit Conveyance Palace in his elder robes, and his entire body was giving off a golden sheen under the radiance of the sun, giving him an ethereal appearance.
After landing on the plaza, he immediately made his way into the palace without pause.
Just like the day before, the palace was quite empty, and Fang Zhuan was still seated behind the table, poring over the same ancient azure-covered text.
The only slight difference was that there was a purple clay teacup, which was filled with green tea that was releasing a faint aroma across the entire palace.
Upon spotting Han Li making his way into the palace, Fang Zhuan set down the book in his hand, then took a small sip of tea as he smiled and said, "Welcome back, Elder Li."
"I presume you already know why I'm back, right, Elder Fang?" Han Li asked as he cupped his fist in a salute toward Fang Zhuan.
"To tell you the truth, everyone who's previously exchanged for the Formless True Axis Scripture has come back to the Merit Conveyance Palace within seven days. You're among one of the fastest to come back," Fang Zhuan replied in a casual voice.
"Why is that?" Han Li asked.
"The content of the Formless True Axis Scripture is extremely difficult to understand. Without the accompanying annotation scripture, it's virtually impossible to even comprehend the scripture, let alone cultivate it. All of the people I mentioned have either come back to switch to other cultivation arts, or have returned for the annotation scripture," Fang Zhuan explained.
Han Li was a little speechless upon hearing this. "Why didn't you inform me of this yesterday, Elder Fang?"
"In the past, I informed everyone of this, but my words mostly fell upon deaf ears, and a lot of people regarded me as just a Grand Ascension cultivator who was speaking out of turn, so I eventually stopped. Once they discover the problem on their own, they'll naturally come back to me, and I'll no longer have to convince them of the validity of my claims," Fang Zhuan explained with a smile.
A wry smile appeared on Han Li's face upon hearing this, and he replied, "I suppose that does make sense. How many merit points are required to exchange for this annotation scripture, and is it actually useful?"
"It costs exactly 10 merit points. The annotation scripture is a collection of all of the insights derived by those who have attempted to cultivate the scripture in the past, so the content varies in quality and consistency. As for exactly how useful it is, that's not known to me," Fang Zhuan replied.
"Alright, I'll take it," Han Li said as he handed his elder badge over to Fang Zhuan.
After securing the copy of the annotation scripture, Han Li chatted with Fang Zhuan for a while longer before returning to the Crimson Dawn Peak.
Upon his return, he wasted no time, entering his secret chamber right away.
He studied the annotation scripture for half a day, and only after seeing the annotations made by many past cultivators of the Formless True Axis Scripture did he finally develop an understanding of what the cultivation art was about.
As it turned out, the original name of the Formless True Axis Scripture was the Mantra Axis Scripture, and the content of the original cultivation art was even more difficult to understand. The barrier to entry was extremely high, and just the hurdle of manifesting the Mantra Treasured Axis was enough to keep out 90% of cultivators.
Among the remaining 10%, even those who were fortunate enough to manifest Mantra Treasured Axes were only able to cultivate this scripture to the second level at the very most, but at that level, it was impossible to master the laws of time through the cultivation art. At the very least, no one from the Blaze Dragon Dao was known to have cultivated the scripture to the third level.
Among the many cultivators who had previously encountered bottlenecks in the cultivation art, some had inadvertently discovered a shortcut that allowed one to avoid the hurdle of having to manifest a Mantra Treasured Axis.
Those people used materials that contained the power of laws to craft a Mantra Treasured Axis, then engraved some special runes that they had derived onto the treasure, thereby allowing them to unleash all types of unforeseen abilities through it.
Due to the vast contrast between this method and the conventional cultivation method, the Mantra Treasured Axes refined had almost no effect when it came to slowing down attacks. However, it was able to unleash other abilities depending on the different law powers contained in the materials used to refine the axis.
For example, if the materials used contained the power of metal laws, then the sharpness of the axis would be significantly enhanced. If the materials used contained the power of speed laws, then the speed of the attacks unleashed by the axis would be greatly elevated.
Following the discovery of this "shortcut", virtually everyone chose to employ this method over the original cultivation method, and it was exactly because of this that the cultivation art's name was altered from Mantra Axis Scripture to Formless True Axis Scripture, denoting the fact that it had no set form and could be molded as the cultivator saw fit.
Han Li fell into deep thought upon hearing this, and only after a long while did he continue to slowly read through the text while consulting the annotations.
1. For more information on the Golden Jade Tome, please refer to RMJI Chapter 1166: Golden Jade Tome. ☜
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