Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 136: A New Idea

Snowflakes mixed with icy fragments drifted down, thinly coating the ground and the tips of branches.

Ding Songyan, dressed in a cyan padded jacket, walked along the shore of Alpine Lake, which had not yet frozen over. He reflected that in his obsession with perfecting the Dream Sword and practicing the Celestial Stars Sword Art, he had actually forgotten to spend lifespan to master the Great Proliferation Chapters of the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra and the Celestial Stars Scripture.

Senior Sister is almost ready for her first viscera installation. I need to see what form the false viscera and alien apertures produced by the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra’s Great Proliferation Chapters take when they actually operate, and what their qualities are. Then I can compare them against the corresponding aperture forging and viscera installation techniques and see if I can suggest any improvements...

Without reaching the Heaven-Man Realm, it’s hard to fully deduce and complete the Brightnight Sect’s arts. But finding even one flaw is worth it, and it can only help Senior Sister’s cultivation that much more, Ding Songyan exhaled a puff of white breath, murmuring silently to himself.

If there were problems with the alien apertures, they were relatively easy to adjust even after being forged. But viscera installation had far more wide-ranging effects on the body. If flaws could be identified and addressed beforehand, so much the better.

As for Senior Brother Wan and the others, they had all completed at least one viscera installation already. It was too late for them.

No sooner had the thought come to him than he acted on it. The next morning, after breakfast, Ding Songyan first went to the scripture repository and checked out the Great Proliferation Chapters of the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra, then headed straight to Kindling Hall to retrieve the corresponding aperture forging and viscera installation techniques from the underground chamber.

He had already forged 36 alien apertures himself, but that didn’t affect his cultivation of other arts.

He first visualized the Flame Heart at his ancestral aperture, instantly transforming the apertures throughout his body and converting all his true qi into Candleflame True Qi. Then, he methodically used the Celestial Heart imprint to split his focus into two. With one half he read and memorized the Great Proliferation Chapters of the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra, while the other used it to visualize within his sea of consciousness, gradually reshaping the corresponding alien apertures through the circulation of Candleflame True Qi until they condensed into the form prescribed by the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra.

This was considerably harder than the aperture refinement Chapters.

Eventually, the Chaos force within Ding Songyan manifested something from nothing, condensing four sets of non-human viscera out of thin air: the Vermilion Bird, the White Tiger, the Black Turtle, and the Azure Dragon.

In the dim room, his eyes changed rapidly, a new pupil splitting open within each one, the two partially overlapping and partially offset.

Candlelight blazed in the depths of those double pupils, illuminating the entire meditation chamber.

In one fell swoop, Ding Songyan used the Celestial Heart Art to deceive himself, spending three years of lifespan to let his body commit the current state to memory and treat it as one of its instincts.

From then on, all it would take was igniting the Flame Heart at his mystical pass and everything would instantly manifest again.

Rubbing his throbbing, hollow-feeling head, Ding Songyan simultaneously perceived the operation of the non-human Vermilion Bird viscera and the corresponding alien apertures while leafing through the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra’s aperture forging and viscera installation techniques, carefully observing, comparing, and discerning.

After a while, he picked up his brush and, by the dim candlelight, began writing down the problems he had found and his ideas for correcting them.

”Using three different materials containing Li Fire to forge the Vermilion Bird viscera is correct. The original choices were ’wood feeds fire,’ ’fire melts metal,’ and ’water extinguishes fire.’ That’s fine for the Celestial Stars Scripture, but it doesn’t quite fit the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra. Going by the process of my cultivation and the flow of true qi, the three choices should instead be ’full,’ ’half,’ and ’remnant’...”

”Full” meant Li Fire needed to be abundant and dominant; ”half” meant Li Fire occupied exactly half the material, coexisting with another force in a balance of two polarities; ”remnant” meant the corresponding material contained only a trace of Li Fire, with the vast majority belonging to something else.

Ding Songyan identified a total of seven flaws and proposed approaches for correcting them based on his own experience.

These were all the relatively obvious and serious ones. The subtler flaws with smaller effects would have to wait until he reached the Heaven-Man Realm before he could deduce them.

Emerging from the underground chamber, weary and weakened as though he had just completed a viscera installation himself, Ding Songyan found cultivation-teaching Elder Hu Chengzong and handed over both the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra’s aperture forging and viscera installation methods and the page he had written.

Hu Chengzong accepted them with care and gave them a casual glance. His expression suddenly froze.

What is this?

Is this person revising the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra’s aperture forging and viscera installation methods?

Hu Chengzong had no idea what divine object Ding Songyan had consumed. He only understood that he was evidently a Grandmaster who had ascended in a single leap and had been working in reverse to feel out his own arts, blazing his own path through aperture forging, meridian condensation, and viscera installation one step at a time.

But what does that have to do with the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra?

Could it be that he is a once-in-a-millennium prodigy who, while developing his own aperture forging and viscera installation methods by drawing on the Celestial Stars Scripture and the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra, had drawn insights by analogy and identified flaws in the Brightnight Sect’s arts?

Or could this be the reincarnation of some forebear?

Suppressing the excitement and bewilderment in his heart, Hu Chengzong said to Ding Songyan, ”This matter is of great importance. I must report to the sect master at once.”

This cultivation-teaching Elder was beginning to vaguely understand why Tao Wenshu and the other Grandmasters held Ding Songyan in such high regard.

This is the Brightnight Sect’s hope!

”Of course.” Ding Songyan smiled and gave a nod.

Before long, the three Grandmasters currently within the sect—Tao Wenshu, Wang Zhou, and Yan Jingxian—had gathered in the secret chamber of Kindling Hall, with Hu Chengzong and Ding Songyan beside them.

Yan Jingxian was close to forty, yet looked no older than twenty-eight or twenty-nine. Her double pupils were a brownish hue, her eyes long and narrow, her hair loosely pinned in a falling-horse bun, giving her a decidedly languid air. She looked at the paper before her, her face lighting up with pleasant surprise, and said with a smile to Ding Songyan, ”Martial Nephew Ding, when will you get to revising the Celestial Stars Scripture?”

Within the Brightnight Sect, the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra demanded a higher standard of character and offered less variety in sword arts than the Celestial Stars Scripture, which excelled at offense, attack, and spectacular displays. Every generation had relatively few disciples who took it as their primary scripture. Of the sect’s current five Grandmasters, only Elder Sun Tie, who currently oversaw external affairs, was a primary practitioner of the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra.

”A few more days, a few more days.” Ding Songyan had just expended three years of lifespan and naturally needed some time to recover.

Seeing that not one of the Grandmasters showed the slightest surprise at Ding Songyan revising the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra, and in fact seemed full of praise and anticipation, Hu Chengzong felt increasingly settled in his understanding. He said gravely to Tao Wenshu, ”Sect Master, Songyan’s proposed revisions still need to be verified. Only after confirming them can disciples use them for aperture forging and viscera installation.”

His meaning was clear: they needed to find willing volunteers to try, to see if the revisions had any major problems.

Tao Wenshu trusted her own disciple implicitly. She pondered briefly.

”Zhuxi was already due to install the Vermilion Bird viscera. Let her be the one to try.”

She didn’t ask her daughter’s opinion because she knew her daughter would agree without question.

As sect master, Tao Wenshu saw no reason to let someone else go first and only send her daughter once everything proved safe.

”Zhuxi has cultivated her own Candle Heart and has every prospect of becoming a Grandmaster. There’s no need for her to take this risk,” Hu Chengzong said, actually somewhat opposed to the idea.

Tao Wenshu smiled slightly.

”Master Uncle Hu, the Brightnight Sect never compels anyone in matters like this. Neither your word nor mine is final here. It’s up to Zhuxi herself.”

......

The last month of the year arrived in the blink of an eye.

Ding Songyan stood in a corner of Kindling Hall and said to Zheng Zhuxi, who had changed into a loose pale-green dress, ”Don’t be nervous. Even if something goes wrong, the worst case is switching to my Diagram of the Great Change, Way Attainment, which can also accommodate the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra.”

Zheng Zhuxi looked at Ding Songyan for a few breaths, a faint dimple showing.

”I’m not nervous at all.”

Then she smiled, radiant and lovely.

”I have full confidence in you, Junior Brother.”

Ever since she had quietly confirmed what her junior brother had consumed, piecing it together from his various behaviors and the contents of the Secret Classic of Mountains and Seas, Zheng Zhuxi had been anticipating this day.

Born and raised here, she had a deep and fervent attachment to the Brightnight Sect.

Ding Songyan set his worries aside and watched as his senior sister followed a female cultivation-teaching Elder into the viscera installation chamber behind the hall.

He began to pace back and forth inside Kindling Hall.

He was confident in himself, but some worry was unavoidable.

Would that cultivation-teaching Elder be unfamiliar with the revised viscera installation method?

Do the corresponding materials truly meet the requirements?

Could Senior Sister have some hidden particularity that could cause an unexpected complication during the installation...

Quickly, Ding Songyan forced his thoughts to shift to the matter of the Diagram of the Great Change, Way Attainment.

His intention for Zheng Zhuxi to supplement her cultivation with this art was no impulse. He would need to reach the Heaven-Man Realm before he could fully deduce and refine the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra and the Celestial Stars Scripture. For now, he could only identify the more obvious flaws. By the time he did, if his senior sister had already become a Grandmaster, some of those problems might have become too deeply entrenched to reverse, leaving her unable to advance further. Only by also cultivating Ding Songyan’s Chaos arts could she accommodate and correct the flaws without affecting her future progress.

The Diagram of the Great Change, Way Attainment and its subsequent Great Proliferation Chapters together require over 15 years of cultivation. The best approach would be to wait until reaching the Dharma Realm, when cultivation is less urgent and lifespan has grown longer, allowing one to take it slow...

I had originally thought to separate out the Manifesting the Way and its Virtue trait and shape it into a relatively independent art to see if the cultivation time could be reduced. But the reason Manifesting the Way and its Virtue is what it is, is precisely because it encompasses everything and contains all human and alien apertures...

Right, it does have six key apertures—the Way as One, the Two Polarities, the Three Talents, and the rest. But to evolve and accommodate other arts, the other apertures can’t be skipped either... Wait. What if the goal isn’t to evolve all things, but only to accommodate a portion, say ten or twenty arts?

Using the six key apertures as the foundation, with the human and alien apertures of the Celestial Stars Scripture and the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra as the framework, could there be a simplified version of Manifesting the Way and its Virtue? It would only be able to derive arts whose apertures fall within that framework, but for someone as focused as Senior Sister, that would be enough. Later, once she reaches the Heaven-Man Realm through it and has a long lifespan, she can cultivate the full version.

This approach has merit. If a new art can truly be created from it, it should be called the Lesser Limitless Art.

If the Lesser Limitless Art can truly be made to work, then the ’Establishing the Six Directions, Dividing the Four Seasons’ trait could be extracted as well, and so could ’Bringing All Things Into Unity.’ As for ’Banishing Demons and Warding Off Evil,’ it’s hard to say whether that one can be separated out...

That way, those who cultivate my art could specialize in one trait first, spending only a year or two more than they would on other martial arts, then supplement the remaining traits once they’ve reached the Dharma Realm or even the Heaven-Man Realm.

Ding Songyan grew more and more excited the more he thought about it. If his senior sister weren’t still undergoing viscera installation, he would have wanted to go back and start working on the art right then.