Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

The young lady looked highly disappointed to hear that Gu Suihan was not interested in worldly pursuits. She nodded slightly, and her excitement died down as she fell silent.

The middle-aged man motioned to one of the maids to take care of her while he and the other men quickly left with Hang Chulong’s head.

Over the next few days, shocking news rippled through all of Fan City. One of Fan City’s rice merchants, the Hang family, had learned that Hang Chulong, an internal disciple of the Seven Kill Sect and their family’s pride and powerful backer, had died unexpectedly. Worse still, his head was sent back to the Hang family by their competitor, the Wan family.

Everyone in Fan City talked about this, pointing fingers at anybody from the Hang family. The news of this excited everyone who was so incredibly bored from their daily routines, and they couldn’t stop trying to find out more about what happened.

As the saying goes, no wall is truly solid. It didn’t take long for the citizens to piece together all the information they could get their hands on.

It turned out that the Hang family was forcing the Wan family to hand their daughter over in marriage so aggressively that the Wan family had no choice but to run away and seek refuge from the family in another city. Along the way, they had come across a man who was on the brink of death, and this young man was coincidentally also a disciple of the Seven Kill Sect.

After the head of the Wan family had said these things, he pulled out Hang Chulong’s head. So, the young man that the Wan family saved must have been the one who killed Hang Chulong, which also meant that this young man was more formidable than Hang Chulong.

Some shook their heads, saying the Hang family had finally received retribution for being such arrogant pricks who threw their weight about. Others noted that the Wan family was incredibly blessed since the random person they had saved not only resolved their problem but had also won a fight against an internal disciple. The family was definitely going to prosper significantly in the future.

The more times the story was told, the crazier it became. Several other versions started making their rounds. Some said that the young man was the future son-in-law of the Wan family. Some said that the young man was a childhood friend of the Wan family daughter. Some even said that the young man had rescued the daughter from some disaster. The stories were so detailed that they all seemed to be true.

The Hang family had no choice but to shut their house to visitors and insisted that the severed head was not Hang Chulong’s. The family claimed that Hang Chulong had sent a letter from the sect not too long ago, saying that he was going into seclusion for a while.

At the same time, the Hang family began to hate the Wan family even more than ever and decided that they had to find a way to seek revenge. They wanted to reinstate their absolute power in this city, but they also wanted to kill the young man who had given the Wan family this severed head.

“Father, why don’t you go out there and stop those people from spreading the wrong version of the story?” asked the young lady in an upset voice as she ran into the room and hooked the arm of the middle-aged man.

He laughed and patted her little hand as he said in a relaxed manner, “If I do that, then those silly people will become suspicious about what truly happened, and that would be terrible for our family. This is the time to make sure the rumors are as awful as they can be, so that we can get rid of the Hang family completely. Otherwise, once that young man leaves, our entire family will be wiped out.”

The young lady wanted the rumors to stop because every time she went out, many passersby would point at her and look at her strangely, which made her feel really embarrassed, and her face would feel as though it was on fire.

But after she realized the severity of her father’s words, she suddenly became a little frantic. She suddenly remembered something and said anxiously to him, “I heard that Hang Chulong is not a member of the Hang family who belongs to the Seven Kill Sect. Apparently, the family has just sent another three daughters to the sect. They’re only external disciples now, but that’s still too much for us ordinary people to handle.”

“What?! Is that true?” The middle-aged man’s expression instantly fell. He stood up with a start and paced the room anxiously before suddenly turning back to his daughter and saying, “Why haven’t we heard anything about this?”

“I just heard about this today from a good friend of mine who’s on pretty good terms on Hang Wanling. The Hang family looks like they have a lot on their plate, but my friend didn’t look worried about it at all. When I asked her why she told me that the Hang family had secretly sent Hang Wanling to the Seven Kill Sect, and the family was only going to announce this after Hang Wanling had become an internal disciple.”

“What!” The middle-aged man gnashed his teeth. It was obvious that the Hang family was already preparing their revenge plan. They were probably going to rely on using Hang Wanling’s eventual status as an internal disciple to oppress all their rivals in Fan City, including the Wan family.

“Or…why don’t we ask him for a favor?” the young lady asked very softly as she tugged at her dress.

But her father immediately waved his hand to dismiss the idea. He knew better than his daughter that these cultivators did not care about worldly affairs. In fact, they made sure to stay far, far away from such matters, and concentrated on their pursuit of the Way, so they avoided getting entangled with the rest of the world.

On top of that, the young man they had saved seemed sensible and kindly, but the look in his eyes told the middle-aged man that this young man did not care about anything in the world at all. The family had to count their lucky stars that he was grateful to them for saving him and did not bring trouble to them.

Perhaps… there was another way to deal with this situation. The middle-aged man suddenly thought of an idea after pacing the room some more.

He comforted his frantic daughter gently, “Don’t worry, your father will find a way to deal with this.”

And so, while everyone in Fan City was still focused on the feud between the Wan and Hang families, another piece of news hit the streets. The third daughter of the Hang family had apparently joined the Seven Kill Sect as well.

The Hang family had lost Hang Chulong, but they had another member to count on. Once Hang Wanling successfully leveled up and became an internal disciple, the Hang family’s position in Fan City would be virtually untouchable.

Everyone couldn’t stop talking about this, and they were all keeping close tabs on this matter. After all, this would affect the price and supply of rice in Fan City, which in turn would affect their daily lives. This was something of great concern to the residents.

While all these things were happening in the city's streets outside, Gu Suihan remained in the room, clueless as to what was happening. He was focused on recuperating as quickly as possible.

Right now, he was struggling to make a decision. After fighting so many battles, he had suddenly noticed something strange about this Extreme Ra-Asu Breach that he had been cultivating.

According to the manual, this technique was described as “Nine Iterations of Ra-Asu, never to perish, never to be destroyed”. That showed how powerful this cultivation technique was supposed to be.

But there was also a significant problem that was never mentioned—the change to his bone structure.

“Could it be that when one reaches the highest level of this technique, one will turn into an asura? So…I won’t be human anymore?” Gu Suihan started thinking as he tapped a finger against the bed frame.

According to ancient historical records and the records of certain demonic cults, asuras were very low-level creatures. They were domineering and powerful, sure. But there were two sides to these creatures.

Asuras were born out of blood. They were naturally born with connected meridians and a body with a high level of aptitude. Once they reached adulthood, their bodies were practically magic weapons in themselves. Male asuras became invincible in their attacks, while female asuras became incredibly attractive. The former were ugly, ferocious, and incapable of logical thinking, and the latter were beautiful, and highly intelligent but filled with evil schemes.

None of this was really a problem for Gu Suihan, but he was worried about losing his ability to think straight.

Even though it was also recorded that high-level asuras could also experience enlightenment and become wise in all aspects, those records were just legends and could not be verified. He hadn’t seen such a creature before either.

The Extreme Ra-Asu Breach had already caused a change in his bones and blood right from the start, and everything he went through looked more like he was cultivating himself to become a cultivating cauldron of sorts. He felt like he was becoming a weapon or piece of equipment that a cultivator would cultivate to take possession of it.

“It’s an ancient cultivation technique, after all. It’s little wonder that there’s so much hidden within it,” said Gu Suihan with a bitter laugh. His bone structure had already been changed, so he had to revert his skeleton to a human’s if he wanted to do something else. That wasn’t going to be easy.

In fact, he did know a few other cultivation techniques that could improve one’s skeletal structure over time, like the Geng Gold Sword Mantra or the Five Element Heaven and Earth Breach. The former converted spiritual energy into sword Qi, and it would also change one’s bones into Geng Gold Sword Bones in tandem with one’s level of cultivation. When that happened, they would be one with the sword, and the glow of their sword would be more apparent.

The latter would work with or against the five elements and neutralize yin and yang accordingly. One would be able to learn any sort of magic spell and technique very easily and amass more than ten times the amount of spiritual energy than an ordinary cultivator at the same level.

But the reason why Gu Suihan had not chosen these techniques was that he was only left with a remnant of these techniques. Some of the advanced levels of these techniques had already been lost.

It was true that he would probably be able to work the missing sections out if he was given a significant amount of time to do nothing else but study the techniques since he had so much knowledge from his time on Earth. But the one thing he lacked right now was time. He couldn’t wait to become that invincible being he once was to return to Earth – that place filled with mysteries – and search for that deep and boundless Way of Heaven so that he could understand the history that had been lost for so many centuries.

That was his obsession, heart, and pursuit of his life.

“Damn it!” Gu Suihan lay back down on the bed in frustration. This was the first time he wished he didn’t have all those years of memories. It would have been so nice if he were really new to cultivation and just worked on one cultivation technique according to that one manual. Then he wouldn’t have to consider so many factors.

“So, I’ll have to cultivate the Geng Gold Sword Mantra?” muttered Gu Suihan to himself. The good part was that his attacks would become virtually unstoppable. Also, even though his body now had the bones of an asura, he would still be able to reverse that process if he started cultivating in the Geng Gold Sword Mantra. Or perhaps he could achieve a combination of both, even though the chances of that happening were really slim.

But whatever he knew of this technique stopped at the Nascent Change stage. In other words, if he cultivated the Geng Gold Sword Mantra, not only would he need a considerable number of treasures and rare items to refine and strengthen his body, but he would also need his soul to recover as quickly as possible. On top of that, he had to endure the torture of being cut by sword Qi, and then once he made it to the Nascent Change stage, he would have to rely on his own efforts to get to the next stage.

On the other hand, the Five Elements Heaven and Earth Breach needed one to have a Spiritual Root with more than one element. In short, a low-level Spiritual Root with all five elements was the best. The five elements could interact with each other and improve one’s level of aptitude, skeletal structure, and even meridians. It took a lot of time to get there, at least ten times more than the Geng Gold Sword Mantra. The only good part was that Gu Suihan had the full notes for the Nascent Change and Origin Soul stages, which would save him a lot of time and effort.

“I’ll have to go with that, then,” grumbled Gu Suihan as he sensed a chill down his spine. That stab from Mo Yuluo’s sword had nearly frozen him to death, and the frozen Qi from her sword was still trapped in his body, haunting him from time to time.

“Damn it, after thinking about it for such a long time; I end up going down the road of a weapons cultivator. And worse still, it’s the one I despise the most – sword cultivation,” cursed Gu Suihan with a frown.