Book 17 Chapter 8

Three encounters

-Yong Tianming, see wall

There was a strange buzz of excitement in the Tianmu Hall these days.

-The descent of the myth.

It's one of the most famous legends of all time, but as always, mythology never reaches out to the common man, always hanging out in the clouds like a sneaky cutie. A story is a story, but the reality is that it's as hard as picking stars in the sky. From this short but sad tidbit of common knowledge, it's easy to see that the three heavenly beings gathered together is not a sight to behold. So imagine three legends coming together. What an epic sight that would be, and they had already been in the same place for more than two weeks. This was the first time in the history of the Martial Kingdom that the three had stayed in one place for so long, and it hadn't happened in the last hundred years. Although they might have met each other individually, it was extremely rare for all three of them to gather in one place. Moreover, the presence of the powerful Xuemen Sect, with their eyes lit up and their actions scrutinized, was not without its inconveniences and annoyances.

The mere fact that they were now gathered together in one place, pressed together in silence, would keep the mouths of witticists busy for a decade. Speculation and rumor would run wild.

That's what most people talk about anyway.

A characteristic of people who don't know the truth, and who run their mouths anyway, is that they're not really interested in the truth. What they are interested in is not the truth, but a fiction that is pleasing and beneficial to them. Self-satisfaction can be a narcotic.

As always, they think short and talk long.

It's a wild night, with the crescent moon hanging precariously at the edge of the western sky like a yo-yo sword, threatening to plunge over the black horizon at any moment.

Yong Tianming knelt in front of the Nephrite Goddess Sword, the secret treasure of a master, with a mixture of reverence and sinfulness in his heart. Inside the room. The dark night was still and silent, with only a single lantern on the table burning quietly, its red flame flickering to and fro. At first glance, the dizzying array of dark shadows on the wall seemed to be a reflection of his own troubled mind.

Lately, Long Tianming had been plagued by a nagging doubt that he was truly worthy of this undeserved treasure, the Nephrite Goddess Sword, and that it had been temporarily entrusted to him due to some sort of mistake. This black flame of suspicion flared up without a sound, and burned maliciously in the recesses of his mind, showing no sign of escaping.

The Nephrite Godsword!

A symbol of authority in the Shaolin clan. A sacred object of the Great Shaolin Temple that could only be wielded by those who knew honor and pride and had attained immobility. To receive it was to be endowed with both great authority and sacred duty. Its authority is not secular, and it is immediately revoked at the end of the bearer's life, or when there is any suspicion of impropriety.

Those who possess it must act in a manner worthy of it. Just and proper behavior befitting the wielder of the Jade Goddess Sword.

But what about yourself in the volcano?

In that fiery inferno, where fire dragons raged madly and storms of flame danced in a frenzied dance scattering black ash, he himself was, by definition, pathetic.

You've been a helpless bystander, unable to think of anything to do about the situation, in a state of endless helplessness. There's nothing like the ugliness of incompetence.

His encounter with the volcano was a huge wake-up call, destroying the world as he knew it. He had to realize how small, narrow, and narrow-minded his world had been, and how insignificant he was as a person who had been living in a false sense of self-importance.

What he saw in the chaos of screaming flames was a world of true power on another level.

For the first time in his life, he felt the terror of death, along with an unending sense of helplessness and loss.

Confucius once said that I know what I don't know because I know what I don't know.

As he realized his limitations and ignorance, his eyes were mysteriously opened. The world had changed.

Then came another agony: once his eyes had been opened, once his vision had been altered, it had become impossible to return to those cruel days of ignorance. Having lost his resting place of oblivion, the only way forward was forward, but there was still the matter of espionage. No matter how much he devised, no matter how much he realized, if he couldn't put it into practice, it wasn't true. It is not true enlightenment. How many people have perished since Yue Yun, unable to follow their ideals, despairing at the gap, writhing in pain.

A concrete action plan of "how?" and the patience and willpower to follow through were essential, otherwise we risked being swallowed up by the vast abyss that lay between reality and the ideal.

As he meditated on the topic, the night had long since passed by his side, along with the moon, and disappeared into the first light of dawn. But the answer still eluded him.

Day three already.

Another sleepless night had passed.

"Whoa, suffering in an alcove doesn't always lead to pointed solutions. Shall we go for a walk?"

It's been three days since I've breathed fresh air.

It was time for a change of scenery.

By the time he left the room, the sun was high in the sky.

The sun, which he hadn't seen in three days, was dazzlingly bright to his eyes, which had been buried in darkness. Long Tianming unconsciously frowned slightly. The two stinging eyes felt like nature's rebuke to a foolish human who had turned a blind eye to her all these years.

"I'm out, but where do I go from here?"

At that thought, a bitter grimace formed on his lips.

"I don't know where I'm going, even for a short walk… I feel like I'm wandering around with nowhere to go. What am I supposed to do from here?"

What can I do? How can I pull myself out of this quagmire? Before the thick black mud up to my neck chokes me up.

"It is easy to make nothing happen; all you have to do is stand still. Unlike in the Realm of Truth, in the world of phenomena, nothing that stands still produces anything. If you want to be something, if you want to have something in your hands, set yourself in motion to accomplish that something."

Suddenly, the words of his teacher, who had sat him down and spoken quietly, flashed through his mind. A tiny seed had been planted in his mind's field by his revered teacher, and now it was about to come to life and sprout.

"Let's take a walk, shall we?"

That's right. Master was right. Even a final struggle was better than staying put. He decided to walk wherever the path led.

He may have been subconsciously anticipating the new connections his footsteps would lead to.

Yong Tianming decided to clear his mind and go with the flow of nature. He was tired and wanted to forget everything. He wanted to let the wind blow, the clouds drift, and just go with the flow.

Several people walked by him and said hello. But he didn't recognize their presence at all, so he didn't return their greetings. No, he couldn't; their greetings were events that never existed in the first place.

It was an unthinkable behavior for the normally neat and sociable man, but now he was practicing it himself. A few people around him chattered at his uncharacteristic behavior, but none of the gossip was anywhere near his ears. He just kept walking and walking and walking.

The first beings to burst into his unguarded awareness were a pair of lovers. Arm in arm, they strode proudly past him. Not to brag, but he was still without a lover.

They said hello first.

"How are you, big brother Yong?"

"Whoa! What's up, Dragon Confucius?"

He knew them both. In fact, they were such famous lovers that there was probably no one in the Heavenly Martial Academy who didn't know them. The Thunder Sword Dragon Namgung and the Amulet Peak Spirit. In some circles, they were even referred to as the 'strongest lovers' of the Heavenly Martial Academy. Few people recognized the unknown pairing of Bi Ryuyeon and Na Yerin as lovers. Most would simply turn their heads and look away.

But it was not because they were his giggling lovers that Yong Tianming took notice of them.

'The Thunderbolt Sword Dragon Namgung Sang. Three sons of the Southern Palace family, one of the Kowloon, and the master of the Zhu Clan.

Information about the opponent in front of him flashed quickly through his mind.

It's definitely stronger. A sparkle returned to Long Tianming's clouded eyes. His mind was fully aware of the existence of the Southern Palace Master and the True Spirit. These two had been chosen for the Nine Dragon Peak from the beginning. There was no way they weren't strong. However, they were no match for him. It wouldn't be difficult to find someone stronger than them in the Nine Long Peaks alone. However, at a certain point, they became distinctly different. They weren't the only ones. The same was true of the Zhu Jia Clan, which had always been considered the lowest of the Four Great Divine Clans. He was no longer the same old greenhouse cilantro, or… it was a feeling that he couldn't quite put into words. It's hard to find the right words because he hasn't had the same or similar experience in his life.

Yes! He, and she, had experienced something he had not. Only now could he be sure of it, only now, as he lay drowning in the swamp, could he realize it for sure. The vague, indescribable sensation he had felt for the members of the Zhu Clan, including the Southern Palace Master and Qin Lie. It was that they had stumbled out of a swamp of trials and setbacks. They were no longer greenhouse plants, but plum blossoms that had survived the winds of spring, the storms of summer, the cold frosts of fall, and the blizzards of winter, and had blossomed proudly on the cold earth of winter.

"How is that possible?

It would have been hard to find a trial that would have been enough to break his body and mind in a place where everything was guaranteed……. At its best, it was a "hall of martial arts," but at its worst, it was a greenhouse where cilantro was grown in an artificially manipulated environment. The walls of the greenhouse were too thick to withstand the trials of rain, wind, and snow from the north, so they were not prepared for the unexpected real-world events of the last volcanic eruption. The flames from the volcano sometimes seemed to be a stern warning to those who had turned their backs on the rigors of reality. And he himself was no exception.

He resisted the urge to ask the Southern Archon how he was able to do so. It wasn't a secret he could share with others, most likely a secret buried deep within his own mind, and his pride, not yet fully dead, prevented him from doing so.

So Yong Tianming nodded and greeted them lightly, trying to make up for his regret, and the two of them walked past each other. After walking past them for about five steps, Qin Lie turned his head slightly and glanced at Long Tianming's back as he walked away.

"What's troubling Confucius the Dragon these days? I don't think he's ever looked so unhinged before. He must have something very troubling on his mind."

"No one can help you fight your own battles."

Namgungsang had a general idea of the condition of Long Tianming, for he had been through it himself. If he hadn't experienced it, he wouldn't have had this confidence; it's not something that can be understood by describing it in words. It lies in the realm of experience, in the realm of experience that can never be known unless it is experienced.

"Yeah, we've been there, too. All sixteen of us."

I didn't want to feel that way again, but there was still so much more to come.

I was at the point of thanking the heavens that I was still alive.

"Someone like Yong, who's been on the brightest path, has probably never had to deal with that feeling of inadequacy before, and it's very hard to get out of it."

There is nothing anyone can do to help you in your fierce battle with yourself. You have to do it yourself, and they know it, so they walked arm-in-arm to get on with their lives.

They should enjoy it while there is still peace, while the eyes of their arch-enemy have not yet fallen upon them.

The peace of the interlude was precious to them, as they had been swept up in huge events time and time again.

May this peace continue…….

Nangongshang and Jinling. Passing by the two men, a pair of lovers, Long Tianming continued to walk, never breaking stride. He didn't know how many sijin had passed since he started walking, and he didn't care. If there was only one thing that mattered to him now, it was walking.

Another wave of people passed by his side, but because of the great shadows of the Southern Palace and the Qin Clan, they never stepped into his perceptual field.

The second person who stepped into his cognitive horizon was the famous and well-known junior, Mo Yonghui.

One who stays by the side of legends. His position as the grandson of the swordsman Mo Yongzhengtian was such that even Long Tianming himself, who had been touted as the next heir to the Great Boreal Forest, sometimes found himself unable to hide his gaze. Mo Yonghui, already a handsome, compliant man with a reputation as a genius swordsman at the age of twenty, was the one whose skills and background had prompted an urgent emergency meeting to be called for fear that his arrival would upset the balance of power between the narrowly dominant Guzheng Society and the Gunwunga Family. Mo Yonghui was an unassuming young man, to say the least, but his current state didn't seem happy at all.

"It's like me!

Yong Tianming knew it intuitively.

He didn't look as well as he felt. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that he was in worse shape.

Long Tianming's feeling was accurate. Mo Yonghui was also struggling with his own anguish after his shocking meeting with the old man. Neither his background nor his appearance had helped his troubles. Mo Yonghui wasn't the kind of person who could rely on such things.

As far as Long Tianming could tell, Mo Yonghui didn't even seem to be aware of his existence right now. His body was here, but his mind was somewhere else entirely.

"Kill… kill… kill… kill……. How? How? How? How?"

Mo Yonghui was walking down the street, mumbling some unintelligible words with a blank stare, as if he had lost his identity.

She wanted to try talking to him, but this time he was in no condition to talk to her at all. It was only the third day, but judging from the state of Mo Yonghui, it had been over five days.

'He's always been known for being unusually neat and tidy, and to see him unravel like that……. No, no, no, no, that can't be right!

Long Tianming shook his head vigorously and simply walked past him without a word of greeting, for that was the only courtesy one could extend to another in pain.

His reasoning, briefly sparkled by the external stimulus, was once again clouded, and Long Tianming strode on with a blank stare, once again ignoring the greetings of many. Without knowing where his feet were heading, he was carried by the wandering wind.

The third person Yong Tianming met was a tight-fisted man, also a fellow Shaolin student. He was a master, one of the masterminds.

The people he met today had one thing in common: they were all connected in some way to this one man. Why were they the only ones in his world? Did they subconsciously care, even if they appeared nonchalant and unconcerned?

"Or is this a connection?

"……."

Without uttering a word of protest, he bowed to the ground with one hand. In honor of the Yizo master Hui Gao, who, in the spirit of the Yizo mantra, renounced even his own body in order to save the Dharma, cut off his own arm and left behind the famous saying, "Hui Gao Danbi," the Shaolin Temple disciple did not join the other disciples in saluting, but raised only one hand to his chest. Long Tianming did the same.

'You are indeed as reticent as rumored.

But he expected a word of greeting, so he waited for it, but that was all. As if no more words were worth saying, the duke of Yilan simply walked past him, his mouth tightly closed, and continued on his way. Suddenly dumbfounded, Yong Tianming stared at the shining back of the duke's tight hair as he walked away. For the first time since leaving the room today, he was curious, so he decided to follow.

The land owned by the Tianmu Academy was quite large. There were even a few caves in the back, man-made caves for students who wanted to train privately and independently. However, with the popularity of training grounds where everyone could swing their swords and extend their fists, the Wall Pavilion was not a very popular place. Probably the biggest reason is that sitting far away from the wall for a hundred days, or closing your eyes and immersing yourself in the darkness, doesn't give you much of a sense of strength, so this place was also quiet today.

Upon arriving at this poorly maintained, dusty, and uninhabited place, he hesitantly entered one of the caves. The front of the cave was dusty, and the color of the rock beneath stood out more clearly than elsewhere. The color of the rocks below was more pronounced than the others. Long Tianming silently followed him in, leaving Qi Qi dead. It wasn't that he didn't know that spying on others' cultivation was a taboo among taboos. Normally, he would never have done this, but the fact that they were classmates and he was the senior member of the academy weakened his reluctance. The man-made cave was wider and deeper than I expected.

Once inside the cave, Sun Duke turned to face a comfortable wall, sat down, and began to meditate.

"Is it cotton wall water lilies?

Face wall practice literally refers to the practice of facing a wall. In other words, it's called wall practice, and that's where the name comes from. This was the practice made famous by the Dharma Master, who practiced it for nine years, not simply facing a wall, but looking through it into the infinite depths of the Dharma realm.

Long Tianming had also broken the taboo and followed them this far, but it was not his place to interfere any further, so he too sat back and waited.

As he stared at the duke's back, a strange sensation of being drawn into his world gripped Long Tianming. It was as if he was blending into this world and disappearing. He was entering a state of forgetfulness.

* * *

Despite its reputation as a martial arts sect, Shaolin was actually a Zen sect.

If you ask the question, "What is Zen?" you'll get a myriad of answers, but it's clear that it's not fistfights. Paradoxically, however, the current Shaolin Temple has become more famous for its martial arts than for its Zen teachings, and most people only recognize it as a Shaolin sect. As Shaolin's ranks were gradually filled with people who wanted to practice martial arts, its spiritual legacy was fading away.

And a long time passed.

"…Bae, sir… Yong, sir……."

Long Chen Ming's eyes snapped open at the sound of someone calling out in the distance. An unfamiliar landscape greeted him with a sinister smile.

"This is an alternate……."

He snapped out of his reverie and looked at the person who had called him, and the face of the reclusive duke came into view.

"Huh!"

He closed his eyes and fell asleep in meditation. It was the best sleeping pill ever. It cured me of the insomnia that had plagued me for three days and three nights.

'How much time has passed? How long have I been asleep? Yikes!

Realizing his true situation, Long Tianming jumped to his feet. He had been sleeping soundly when the subject who had secretly followed him to the training grounds came along……. Truly, unimaginable things in everyday life were happening far too often today.

"Oh… that… me……."

Obsessed with the need to say something here, Yong Tianming desperately tried to say something, but he was at a loss for words. Even if he had a hundred mouths to feed, he couldn't think of anything to say.

It was he who saved Yong Tianming from his predicament.

"You've been waiting a long time. You've been waiting for me to finish my penance, thank you. Amitabha Buddha!"

"No… well… thanks……."

This makes it embarrassing to say no.

"It's been a while."

"Yes, it's been a while."

As students of the same Shaolin master, they knew each other.

"What were you looking at?"

"I looked at myself."

It turns out he wasn't just staring at the wall.

"Yourself?"

"Yes, I saw my weak self."

"Are you saying you did a facewall to look at yourself?"

"That's not true, what I saw was just part of the process."

"Some? If so, what were you facing for?"

The king replied with a rather unintelligible face.

"That's a given, isn't it?"

"No wonder?"

Both parties became unintelligible. In order to prevent the conversation from running parallel, one of them had to change direction.

He didn't get the answers he was expecting from Liu, such as, "To get stronger, of course," or "To get stronger martial arts.

"I just wanted to understand the Dharma Master better."

"Master Dharma?"

"Yes."

"So what do you mean by better understanding?"

"The great Dharma Master left behind many martial arts and many related sutras, but even after hundreds of years of study, his teachings have not been fully grasped. His 'Reverse Root Sutra' and 'Sesshoumaru Sutra' alone are still divided in interpretation, and many of the martial arts he left behind are in a state of practice."

"But much of what he wrote has survived intact to this day. Locked away in the deepest recesses of the Great Hall."

The first prince shook his head.

"They're just things that remain on paper, in the form of strokes and designs… A martial art that doesn't manifest itself in this life in a human body is just theory. How is that any different from the state of practice?"

It was the same, directly or indirectly, in that it could not be experienced, in that it could not be manifested.

"What does that have to do with face walls?"

"I was practicing meditation."

Sitting down, closing your eyes, and looking at yourself was the most common, if not the most common, method of practice that any Zen Buddhist student would know. Of course, the correctness of the method does not lead to the same results.

"No, weren't you practicing martial arts?"

The Duke shook his head again.

"No, I was self-studying," he replied, "and because the shadow of the original Mu is so deeply cast over the place, the Mu Gong in his mythical sutras is all the more emphasized, but in reality he is the founder of the Middle Way Zen, so how can I, as a practitioner who wishes to understand his teachings, leave out the core of those teachings? Shaolin is not just a group of chi kung practitioners who swing their hands and feet, who are invincible, who break bluestone floors, who are kung fu nahan, who paint bronze all over their bodies, who break stones with their foreheads. I believe that the essence of Shaolin lies in 'Zen'."

"You, who are usually so reticent, open your mouth, and you are more poignant than any apologist; is that why you remain silent?"

"I just want to see the Dharma Master."

Is it like practicing silence?

"So what are you going to do with the Dharma Master?"

A curious Yong Tianming asked.

"Kill him, Amitabha!"

Ilgong replied in a firm voice.

"Yeah, kill… what… what?! Kolokolokolokolok!"

Long Tianming's eyes widened at the unexpected answer. The shock was so sudden that he couldn't stop coughing. After pounding on his chest, he finally managed to calm his cough by pointing out a few acupuncture points.

"That's a horrible story. Are you out of your mind? These are not the words of a Shaolin disciple, and with those words alone, I can summon you to the disciplinary center. Do you realize that?"

"Of course I know. That it is always possible, as long as you carry that sword."

"And yet you're so proud to say it?"

Yong Tianming glared at him in a tone of clear reproach. The first prince replied.

"Someone once said to me, 'When you meet a god, you kill a god; when you meet a Buddha, you kill a Buddha.'"

"Uh, uhhhh, that's a pretty… radical statement."

As an unbeliever to the core, it was hard for him to resist.

"And then he said something like this."

For some reason, this was not what he wanted to hear, so Yong Tianming remained silent.

"……."

However, the message was not lost on the monarch.

"Hey, you dumbass, you need a raft to get across the river, but will you still need a raft when you're across the river? Even after you've crossed the river, do you still need to drag it around? I don't know that the Buddha ever said, "Worship me, ummins! Of course, I think idolizing Buddha is a great sales strategy. It's profitable, and it's much easier to understand. I admire that, too. I'm almost sorry I didn't get a head start on it. All you have to do is believe, and you're saved. You pay a lot of money, and you're saved. How great is that? It's easier to grasp than the more difficult to understand "become a Buddha yourself." Well, with all due respect to the Buddha himself, who demonstrated that you can become a Buddha yourself, but I don't think it's going to do much business, cancer, that's just the way it is."

"That… that blasphemy!"

Long Tianming was indignant, as if he had finally met the enemy of the Buddha Gate today.

"Yes, that's what I thought at first, too, but then I thought about it and realized that he had a point: neither the gods nor the buddhas he encountered on his path prevented him from becoming a god or a buddha himself. Perhaps, as he said, the reason the Buddha was so great was that he was a human being, not a god."

"Did he say that?"

"Yes, he said that we should honor the Buddha not because he was a god, but because he showed us that it is possible to be a god in a human body while still being a human being, and that his true achievement was to push the boundaries of human possibility into the realm of the divine. Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Chuang Tzu are also pioneers in that regard, and are truly worthy of respect and emulation. He also told us that a thousand years ago, a man was born in the west who did something similar, and he traveled across the Gobi Desert on the Silk Road, a distance greater than the Celestial Axis."

After listening to this far, Long Tianming himself became confused. These were all very unfamiliar perspectives, the kind of things he couldn't accept.

"Dharma Master, the tower of truth you have built is as solid as diamond. Do you intend to challenge the thousand years of authority that Shaolin has built?"

All he could do was get angry in a threatening tone.

"Do you know what they do when they cut diamonds?"

Long Tianming shook his head in response to Il Gong's question. Diamond (Diamond). The jewel of jewels, it also symbolizes absolute and immutable truth. It is so strong that it cannot be scratched by any steel. Because of this, it is regarded as a symbol of truth.

But how could such a diamond be fashioned to suit the tastes of the world? It was clear that what we see is not what we get.

Jewelry was not his specialty, nor was it his interest.

"I don't know."

The First Duke smiled quietly and said.

"That's mud."

"Mud?"

Long Tianming's eyes narrowed.

"Why, don't you believe it?"

Are you kidding me? Isn't mud everywhere? It was the softest dirt of all.

"The softest soil governs the hardest soil, what a marvel of nature!"

Ilgong said with a gentle smile.

"Are you saying that it's called soft power?"

The First Duke nodded.

"The hardest substance, diamond, is said to be cut from the softest mud."

Long Tianming said in a trembling voice.

"Would you rather be the clay that can polish the diamond than the diamond that shines bright?"

Ilgong simply smiled and answered the question.

"I think I've been talking too much today. Although I am not a practitioner of silence, many words can undermine sincerity, so I will leave you now, Amitabha Buddha."

"Amitabha!"

Yong Tianming also formed up in formation and chanted a mantra, his gestures very reverent. He looked at the first prince again.

How did he reach such a level at his age? In terms of martial arts skills, he was confident that he was at the top, but his mental training was far behind.

Long Tianming felt the world he had known and clung to shatter. A shiver swept through his limbs. Suddenly, his entire body seemed to be drained of strength.

"What have I been doing?

Maybe I was looking in the wrong place.

He had forgotten the most important thing. As the table was washed away, my eyes were opened [開眼].

Now it was time to start over. He was at a new starting line.

He staggered back to his room.

Long Tianming had never been discouraged in his life; his path had always been bathed in brilliance, and no hardship had ever troubled him.

At the age of five, he took the hand of Gong Shim, one of the two elders of Shaolin Temple, and was initiated into Shanmen, where he officially became a Shaolin disciple. But it wasn't according to Buddhism; Master Gongsheng didn't shave his head, saying it wasn't time yet. He was encouraged to make his own decisions about his life when he was judgmental enough to do so.

Ambassador Gongsheng's allotment was actually one allotment higher than the Shaolin master, Ambassador Huizheng. There was no one in Shaolin higher than him, except for Ambassador Emptiness, who was equally distributed. Furthermore, Ambassador Gongsheng was the human treasure trove of Shaolin martial arts, the person who knew the most about Shaolin martial arts in Mount Song. The essence of Shaolin martial arts was profound, but the intelligent and hardworking Long Tianming had absorbed it into his body like a dry cotton ball absorbs water. The boy loved his master's smiling face, which always flashed a benevolent smile at him when he learned and understood a martial art faster than he expected. He worked even harder to see that face. Even the profoundly esoteric Shaolin martial arts didn't get him into trouble. As he would later discover, his rate of achievement was unrivaled, and by the time he was fifteen, even his brothers in the academy, who were more than a decade older than him, were no match for him. He became the youngest person in Shaolin history to pass the Shaolin Eighty-Eight Nahankuan, and a year later he became the youngest person to pass the Shaolin Four Great Gold Rivers, one level above the Nahankuan.

The Shaolin were astonished again when even the Eighteen Nine Hands, the best of the Shaolin, proved to be inferior to them, and they praised him for finally producing a description that captured the spirit of the Shaolin. A chant of thanks echoed throughout Shaolin.

Now he had only the Four Great Treasures, the Shaolin Master, and the Master and Master-in-Charge to contend with. His talent was recognized by the Master, who granted him permission to take the Four Great Treasures of Shaolin. Shaolin planned to use this opportunity to restore Shaolin's lost prestige once and for all. He wondered if a person of the Zen sect should have a clear mind and body, not tainted by worldly reputation or honor, but no one would dare to say such a thing. If there were any such people, they would always have to be careful to make sure that they were not bald within a hundred steps. If they did, they might be sniped at from a distance by the Hundred Steps Divine Authority.

He was right, and Shaolin's ideas were effective. Yong Tianming quickly became the most brilliant divinity in the Heavenly Academy, a place where all the gifted of the Martial Kingdom gathered. The people called him the Celestial Dragon and placed him at the top of the Nine Dragons. The talents of the Nine Sects gathered around him, and he seized the opportunity to establish the Nine Sects' gifted gathering, the Gu Zheng Society, which rose to the expectations of the masters. Although he had a bit of a falling out with the Eight Great Sect and the Military and Fire Fighting Sect's gifted group, he found the Eight Great Sect Master Maharishi's behavior rather endearing. It didn't matter.

He would stand on a solid, unshakable foundation, and his path would always be filled with Buddha's favor and radiance. Frustration would be a thing of the past.

But what did they say about the mysteries of human connection? He tasted failure for the first time in his life on a volcano that wasn't even a sublime mountain. He had no resistance to failure, and no matter how many times he told himself that it was only once, it was not easy to get up again.

When he became the youngest person ever to pass the Shaolin Eighty-Eight Hall, it wasn't as hard as it is now. It was hard, but he wasn't frustrated. He had faith that he could do it then, but now he honestly wasn't sure.

Long Tianming's trembling gaze fell on the faintly green glow of the sword in his lap.

'Master…….'

When he received the green sword at the bottom of the mountain, a symbol of true authority over all of the family's affairs, he had been filled with dreams of blue skies, but now, like the ashen clouds of the rainy season, they had faded.

My confidence in myself was crumbling like a sandcastle in the waves.

"I thought it was hard rock, like granite, but it's fine sand that slips through my fingers… I'm so pathetic, so pathetic."

Even at Shaolin Temple, the highest holy place in the Wulin Empire, many people called him a genius, praised him, and cherished him as the one who would carry the torch for tomorrow. He was always proud and honored to be a Shaolin Temple disciple.

-Conduct yourself so that you are not ashamed to be a Shaolin disciple!

He had broken that promise. He couldn't forgive himself for that.

It wasn't until he faced off against the Three Immortals at the Volcano Conference that he realized he was a frog in a well who was sitting in contemplation. It is said that even a frog in a well doesn't know how big the world is, but he knows how high the sky is, and his well was covered with a lid.

I never thought I would be so powerless.

I also played against him, but was unable to completely overpower him. He was merely outmatched. How strong is his master, the Grand Duke Bi, then?

The Nephrite Goddess Sword, the Dharma Thirty-Three Sword, is a sword of immortality. The wielder of the Nephrite Goddess Sword must cultivate the ability to subdue his opponent without drawing his sword. But what was the result? The sword was drawn, and blood was shed. He had no gain from such a sacrifice. He was merely a bystander.

Yong Tianming quietly turned to face the wall, reclined, placed his clasped hands on the dais, and quietly closed his eyes. Then he quietly began to sink into himself.

What will you see when you get there? Will all the martial arts you've been practicing be different? You won't know until you go.

That's what experience is.