The question of whether he truly liked killing people was clearly a joke; Xu Huayi was well aware that Fellow Daoist Yu Bao had harbored ill intentions.
It was just that Gu Chengming's reaction was a bit too fast, and she truly hadn't expected that he would use the Burial Sword Tomb so soon after acquiring it.
However, Gu Chengming's explanation made sense: simply "lifting" the Burial Sword Tomb consumed a great deal of spiritual energy, leaving him with little to spare for deploying a sword array to engage in a prolonged fight.
—Crushing someone to death with a mountain was indeed the most convenient move.
Xu Huayi nodded in agreement, completely unaware that she seemed to have been deeply influenced by the Falling Snow Pass Murder Demon.
After explaining himself, Gu Chengming suddenly realized there was a scene his old friend Emperor Bai would love that he hadn't fulfilled yet.
He coughed twice and looked at Yu Bao's corpse, saying: "Even if I must support the Burial Sword Tomb with one hand, I remain invincible in this world."
【Hundred Bones Resonating's eyes sparkle as she hears this, shouting: Emperor Gu is mighty!】
【Hundred Bones Resonating favorability +10】
As expected, Emperor Bai loved this kind of thing the most.
Ignoring Xu Huayi's slightly subtle gaze, Gu Chengming thought to himself.
Xu Huayi didn't know how to comment for a long time; if she had to be honest, Fellow Daoist Gu's words weren't actually wrong.
—He truly did crush someone to death while supporting the Burial Sword Tomb with one hand.
About half a stick of incense after Yu Bao's death, Gu Chengming sensed something; he stood in place, looked down at his hand, and became lost in thought.
Xu Huayi had already put away her judge's pen and was waiting for him; seeing his pensive expression, she didn't rush him, simply turning slightly to give him space to figure things out on his own.
Gu Chengming carefully organized the new influx of sensations in his mind.
Interesting; he had originally thought the rule of "killing for fortunes" in Tianque was a crude, direct transfer: you die, and everything in your pockets moves to the killer, just like a robbery—clean and simple.
But in reality, it wasn't quite like that.
Only the few dharma artifacts Yu Bao had been carrying entered his sensing range; he could feel their specific locations, roughly in the nearby snow where they had been swept aside by the Burial Sword Tomb.
The rest was another matter entirely.
Those fortunes that had "already been used," such as pills consumed, cultivation arts practiced, insights half-realized, and meridians opened—these things were no longer on Yu Bao's person; they had long since merged into his flesh and blood, dissipating with his death.
Gu Chengming couldn't take them, nor could he directly inherit them.
The rules of Tianque were clearly a bit more sophisticated than that.
Those dissipated fortunes didn't just vanish; they were reclaimed by Tianque and, in a way Gu Chengming couldn't quite explain, underwent a process of reversing cause and effect to be regenerated within this secret realm.
Then, a strand of sensation would provide a vague direction to where the newly generated fortune was located.
For example, if Yu Bao had consumed a Spirit Origin Fruit in the past, Tianque would reverse the karma of that fruit and regrow one in the secret realm, located toward the northwest, waiting for Gu Chengming to go pick it.
Gu Chengming ran through this logic in his head and, once he had it sorted out, turned to look at Xu Huayi.
"The fortune rules of Tianque are a bit different from what I previously thought."
Xu Huayi: "Hmm?"
Gu Chengming briefly explained the sensations he had just felt, and Xu Huayi lowered her head to think for a moment after hearing it.
"So 'reversing karma' is meant literally,"
she murmured. "If a fortune is used up, Tianque recreates its 'pre-use' state and gives the killer a guide, but you still have to go get this newly generated fortune yourself?"
"Roughly so."
Xu Huayi's judge's pen spun half a turn between her fingers as she processed this information, suddenly saying: "So this rule of Tianque is actually a disguised way to encourage everyone to kill one another, constantly churning the fortunes of the entire secret realm so they concentrate toward the strong."
—It really is a battle royale.
Gu Chengming thought to himself; people always said secret realms in cultivation novels were the earliest form of battle royale, and now he was seeing it for real.
Thinking this, he turned and gathered the few dharma artifacts lying in the snow.
He took a quick glance at Yu Bao's assets; the quality was decent, with two pieces being quite handy, while the rest were the jack-of-all-trades styles typically kept by rogue cultivators—not outstanding, but practical.
There was also a storage pouch, bulging and full; it seemed that after staying in Tianque for two years, the man had accumulated quite a bit of wealth.
Gu Chengming put these away, stood up, and brushed the snow off his knees.
"Fellow Daoist Gu's technique is quite practiced," Xu Huayi teased.
Gu Chengming didn't refute her, smiling: "Let's go; we need to find the main force first."
After walking for about half an hour, the terrain began to change; the snowfield gradually transitioned into hard basalt ground.
In the distance, several massive rocks towered, their silhouettes strange as if they had been forcibly twisted by some power and then frozen in that posture.
Xu Huayi slowed her pace, reconfirming their direction, and turned her head: "The last sensed position of the Daqian main force was roughly to the east, but the techniques within the secret realm are unstable; the error margin might be quite large."
Gu Chengming acknowledged this, then couldn't help but glance toward the northwest.
Xu Huayi followed his gaze but saw nothing but the continuous grayish-white snowfield; she thought for a moment and realized: "The fortunes scattered from Yu Bao just now?"
"Yeah." Gu Chengming retracted his gaze. "The sensed direction is that way, but there's no rush; let's regroup first."
"How many spots are there?" Xu Huayi asked casually.
"Three."
Xu Huayi mentally calculated Yu Bao's two years of accumulation; three scattered fortunes wasn't a small amount.
Combined with that bulging storage pouch, it seemed this Fellow Daoist Yu's life in Tianque had been quite comfortable.
At least, it was until today.
She didn't say more, simply keeping pace as they continued east.
In Tianque, with the Dao Throne Decree, fortunes belong entirely to the killer.
Fortunes include inheritances, insights, and karma.
Thinking of this, her train of thought veered off in a strange direction for some reason.
—According to the rules of Tianque, would the benefits gained from dual cultivation count as "already used fortunes"?
...
Deep within Tianque.
No one knew what this place was called.
The space inside Tianque was a world of its own, with mountains and rivers displaced and directions chaotic; ordinary maps were as useless as waste paper here.
Any cultivator who had stayed in Tianque for a while understood that there were very few places within this secret realm that could truly be called fixed.
And the place before them was one of them.
In the exact center of a clearing stood a stone table; three people were currently seated around it, with another two standing.
Seated on the left was an extremely burly man with broad shoulders and a thick back; his hands rested on the edge of the stone table, veins faintly visible on the backs of his hands, making it obvious at a glance that he followed the path of a body cultivator.
He hadn't said a single word since taking his seat, only occasionally looking up to scan the crowd with a somewhat nonchalant air.
Seated on the right was a female cultivator who appeared quite young; an old wooden hairpin was tucked into her hair, and her clothes were plain, save for a ring of extremely fine silver thread embroidery at the collar that was barely noticeable unless one looked closely.
Seated in the center was an old man with white hair and a white beard; a Go board sat before him with most of the pieces already played, the black and white stones interlocking in a somewhat chaotic situation.
But if one looked closely, the position of every piece had its logic—order within chaos, where moving one piece would affect the whole.
The old man held a white stone that had yet to be played, hovering just above the board; it had been there for an unknown amount of time, never landing.
The two standing figures were positioned at either end of the stone table.
One was a male cultivator of medium build with ordinary features that were hard to remember.
At the Fifth Realm, being able to polish one's aura to this extent usually meant they had traveled far enough on a very specific path.
The other was a person draped in a dark cloak, the hood pulled very low to hide their face, revealing only a clear outline of a chin; one couldn't tell their gender or age.
The five came from different forces, but unlike other cultivators, they didn't seem to care about the fortunes each had acquired, nor did they have any intention of seizing resources from one another.
After all, the higher one went, the rarer such combat became.
If Fifth Realm experts fought, it would be a case of mutual destruction in the truest sense; the winner might not have much left.
So everyone was waiting for a more suitable opportunity—waiting for a window where they could seize the greatest benefit with the smallest cost.
Ultimately, it was the medium-build male cultivator who spoke.
"In seven days," his voice wasn't loud as he spoke, "the rules for the third phase of Tianque will officially begin."
The old man's finger twitched slightly, but the white stone still didn't land.
"Seven days." The female cultivator holding the tea spoke, her tone light: "Did you receive some news, or did you calculate it yourself?"
"Both."
"Then there's no need for details." The female cultivator looked down at the tea in her cup: "In that case, let me speak for everyone's thoughts."
"Whether it's Tianque fortunes, inheritances, dharma artifacts, or insights, there are too many valuable things; but as for what we truly want in the end, I'm sure everyone is very clear."
No one responded, but no one refuted her either.
The female cultivator took this silence as agreement and continued: "The news that the inheritance of the Zhou Rites Heavenly Rectifying True Monarch is within Tianque is becoming known to more and more people."
The cloaked figure shifted, adjusting their posture against the rock they were leaning on.
Zhou Rites Heavenly Rectifying True Monarch; back then, he had used his cultivation to deduce the heavens and humanity, establishing order over the world with rites.
Rumor had it that the inheritance he left behind wasn't an ordinary cultivation art, but rather the path of deducing the Dao Throne itself.
Deducing one's own Dao Throne.
To an ordinary cultivator, these words might be a distant, nearly absurd concept, but for those present, these words represented a completely different weight.
A Dao Throne was a gift from the Heavenly Dao, an imprint that naturally condensed once a cultivator reached a certain realm; what kind of dao heart led to what kind of path, and what kind of path bore what kind of Dao Throne—this process was always something to be followed, not forced.
To be able to deduce one's own Dao Throne—
"There's no point in saying this..." The medium-build male cultivator tucked his sleeves, pulling the topic back: "What's most urgent right now is the third phase of the rules."
"At that time, Tianque will, in some way, cause everyone's Dao Throne to manifest. From then on, the flow of fortunes will no longer rely solely on killing, but on the gambit between Dao Thrones."
The superficial peace between them was still maintained, but the things surging beneath that peace were no longer hidden.
The cloaked figure pulled their hood down further: "Speaking of intelligence, there have been some new faces in Tianque lately; have you all noticed?"
"People from Daqian have entered..."
The female cultivator was dismissive: "We knew that long ago. They took two years to enter, and the rules changed the moment they stepped into the secret realm; the timing is certainly precise."
"They've arrived." The old man finally let the stone fall, producing a crisp click: "But whether they're in time is another matter."
Silence returned to the plateau.
Auras were retracted, receding to their respective boundaries, redrawing that invisible line that no one was willing to cross first.
Cooperation existed.
But before the moment of the final closure truly arrived, this cooperation was as thin as a layer of window paper, ready to be poked through at any time.
The old man's voice drifted over with an ambiguous casualness: "Everyone, take care of yourselves."
No one responded to those words.
...
On the other side.
The two had walked for nearly an hour and found nothing.
Xu Huayi reconfirmed their direction with the judge's pen in her palm, her brow furrowing slightly; after a moment of silence, she finally spoke: "The sensing is a bit off; the spatial distortion within the secret realm is more severe than I anticipated. The current position of the Daqian team is hard to pin down."
Gu Chengming gave an acknowledging sound and didn't rush her, simply stopping to look around.
The terrain in this area was open, with the basalt ground extending to the horizon; occasionally, jagged stone pillars grew from the ground in varying heights, looking as if some giant creature had once left claw marks here.
The sound of the wind was low, occasionally mixed with a few extremely fine, light sounds that seemed like something resonating in the distance.
Gu Chengming listened carefully but couldn't identify them.
There were too many strange things in Tianque; it was truly difficult to study every single one.
"We won't find them by just continuing to walk; we might as well slow down and wait for the sensing to stabilize first." Xu Huayi scanned the surroundings and, confirming there were no obvious signs of danger, walked over and sat down.
Leaning against a stone pillar with her judge's pen held upright on her knees, the two sat on the open basalt ground, and Gu Chengming finally had time to interact with his cultivation arts.
【Huiyuan Sword Manual is still thinking about the Burial Sword Tomb from earlier, thinking: Our family is finally rich; from now on, we can take dharma swords in batches and batches.】
【It then thinks: Should I work harder after this and research some new things? Otherwise, it feels like a waste.】
Gu Chengming thought to himself: No wonder the bond for the dharma sword array can only stack up to ten; so this is where the restriction was.
But thinking about it, it made sense; if there truly were no restrictions, he could just raise his arm and call out, and an entire Burial Sword Tomb's worth of swords would form an array that could crush people to death through sheer numbers.
—Stats are for losers.
【Hundred Bones Resonating agrees: Emperor Gu is right! We don't play with stats; a true powerhouse must rely on a physique forged step by step through their own efforts!】
【Hearing this, Huiyuan Sword Manual puffs out its cheeks in annoyance.】
—That was just my way of comforting myself, Emperor Bai; if we're talking about stats, aren't you the most stat-heavy one?
【Huiyuan Sword Manual hums: Chengming is right!】
【Hundred Bones Resonating assumes it's all praise for herself and puffs out her chest.】
Gu Chengming found it amusing; as his gaze left the dialogue box and he raised his head to stretch his neck, his movements suddenly froze.
The sky had changed.
Deep within the firmament, an invisible axis was being gently turned by an unseen hand.
There was no blooming of dawn light, no shifting of clouds—but the spatial texture of the entire secret realm was undergoing a fundamental shift, as if some dimension that had always lurked in the folds of reality was slowly seeping through a gradually clearing "mirror."
Gu Chengming and Xu Huayi stood close together; they both retracted their gazes from the sky at almost the same time and looked at each other.
No words were spoken in that glance, but none were needed.
They both understood.
At the moment the Dao Thrones manifested, Tianque communicated the rules to everyone.
Gu Chengming sorted through it in his mind.
【Each person needs to select an object with which they have a deep connection and a sufficiently strong obsession, using it as an anchor for visualization.】
【Tianque will assign corresponding "Trait Tags" to the visualizer based on the characteristics and history of this object, attaching them to the Dao Throne; this will determine each person's combat tendencies and methods of acquiring fortunes in the upcoming phase.】
【What the anchor object has killed, what it has experienced, and what it has accumulated—all of these will become quantifiable entries attached to the visualizer.】
【Then, in the time to follow, the person who acquires the most fortunes—】
【Will obtain the Dao Throne.】
So you really have to become the King of Kills?
Gu Chengming complained internally.
The primary method of acquiring fortunes had become quite clear after the second phase rules were established.
—Kill others, obtain the guidance for their fortunes, then go take them, then continue killing; fortunes would snowball onto the strongest person.
The rule-maker of Tianque clearly wasn't very interested in the concept of "subtlety."
Gu Chengming tilted his head toward the girl beside him: "These rules of Tianque are truly crude and simple; it's practically writing 'survival of the fittest' across the sky. The deeper your background, the more you can snatch."
After all, the deeper one's background, the more powerful the object they visualized would be.
Xu Huayi laughed, showing a bit of nonchalant freedom: "Look on the bright side; at least we don't have to wander around this crappy stone ground like headless flies anymore."
Her eyes curved, her bright pupils reflecting the light and shadow of the sky's transformation: "Since the rule is the strong take all, then we'll just fight our way through; looking at that Fellow Daoist Yu just now, there's no need to hold back in this secret realm."
"Though this 'visualizing an anchor object' is interesting; I'm quite curious what Fellow Daoist Gu will visualize."
After a brief discussion, the two began to choose their own objects of visualization.
A moment later, Xu Huayi had already closed her eyes.
She was visualizing one of the guardian treasures of the Tianting Sect—
—the "Myriad Phenomena Fixed Needle."
She had seen that dharma artifact countless times; from her first day of cultivation at the Tianting Sect, that needle had stood in the exact center of the sect's main hall. Its body was entirely black and extremely thin, yet it could support the operation of the entire main hall's array; while the sect's sect masters changed over generations, the guardian treasure had always remained that one piece.
And according to the regulations of the Tianting Sect, if her cultivation was successful and she returned to the sect in the future, the responsibility of guarding that artifact would fall to her.
Thus, that Myriad Phenomena Fixed Needle was quite closely related to her.
Xu Huayi traced the outline of the artifact in her mind—the body, the tip, and that extremely fine pattern at the tail—and then began the visualization.
The rules of Tianque descended precisely at this moment like a seal, gently tapping against her brow.
Immediately after, two tags appeared above Xu Huayi's head.
【Array power increased by twenty percent】
【Damage to body cultivators increased by thirty percent】
These were already quite powerful entries; after all, what she visualized was a guardian treasure of the Tianting Sect. That artifact had been saturated with the spiritual energy of many generations of sect masters and had accumulated years of array prestige; any bit taken from it was more than an ordinary object could compare to.
Xu Huayi opened her eyes, gave the tags above her head a quick glance, and then retracted her gaze. Her expression was the same as usual, and she didn't say much, only turning her head to look at Gu Chengming.
Gu Chengming was still thinking about the problem of the anchor object.
The rules of Tianque stated clearly that the anchor object must have a "deep connection" and "sufficiently deep obsession"; these two conditions combined usually meant that the item had either accompanied you for a long time, or had experienced something significant, or both.
Gu Chengming ran through everything he could think of in his mind.
His first thought was Hundred Bones Resonating.
Speaking of connection, Hundred Bones Resonating was one of his earliest cultivation arts and had been with him throughout his body tempering; the connection was deep enough. Speaking of obsession, Hundred Bones Resonating herself was an existence with an obsession deep enough to fight heavenly gods in a phantom realm; there was never a need to worry about that.
Using Hundred Bones Resonating as an anchor object made logical sense, and with her personality of constantly talking about "conquering the heavens," once the Dao Throne rules were applied, the things that would appear in the tags—
Thinking to this point, Gu Chengming suddenly felt this might be a good idea.
【Hundred Bones Resonating seems very happy】
【Emperor Gu thought of me first at a time like this; our bond truly is indestructible!】
Gu Chengming found it amusing; he closed his eyes and began to attempt the visualization.
Then the rules of Tianque descended on time with a boom, as if something were trying to fit Hundred Bones Resonating's massive, undisguised aura into a fixed framework—and that framework held for about half a breath before it cracked.
Visualization failed?
【Hundred Bones Resonating is a bit dejected】
This was also outside of Gu Chengming's expectations; although he guessed that Emperor Bai might be very powerful, he hadn't expected her to be powerful to the extent that the "Dao Throne rules simply couldn't contain her."
He lowered his head again and thought for a moment.
At this time, the dialogue box in his mind moved.
【Zhou Rites Heavenly Rectifying Art noticed the current situation and, after pondering for a moment, spoke: Chengming.】
【Its tone was the same as usual, the only difference being that it sounded a bit more proactive.】
【Try me.】
Gu Chengming looked at this line of text and thought about it.
The Zhou Rites Heavenly Rectifying Art had always been the quietest among his many cultivation arts; it didn't usually speak up and didn't easily express its stance, only occasionally saying a few words on matters involving "ritual systems and order."
Its offering itself was quite a rare occurrence.
Gu Chengming didn't think too much about it; he closed his eyes and restarted the visualization.
This time, the Dao Throne rules descended and got on the right track.
The aura of the Zhou Rites Heavenly Rectifying Art smoothly interfaced with those rules; it didn't burst through, nor did it collapse. Instead, at the moment of contact, something began to slowly overflow, like an opened classic where the handwriting on the pages seeped out line by line—seeping into the rules of Tianque, into the framework of the visualization, and into the process that would ultimately condense into tags.
What was the Zhou Rites Heavenly Rectifying Art?
It was ritual, it was order, it was "hierarchy and harmony without uniformity"; it was an extremely systematic framework of morality regarding how people should interact with one another.
What was accumulated in this art was its creator's entire understanding of "what is the righteous path"—who was loyal and righteous, who was wise and ritualistic, who was benevolent and filial. This art knew these things better than Gu Chengming himself, knew them to a near-harsh degree.
The rules of Tianque quietly received all of this, digested it, and then began to output.
Above Gu Chengming's head, tags began to manifest.
Xu Huayi stood nearby, close enough that her gaze naturally fell that way; the first line of text clearly entered her sight—
【Damage to non-Daqian cultivators increased by thirty percent】
Xu Huayi was curious.
Huh? What is he visualizing—a Daqian dharma artifact?
She had originally thought Gu Chengming would visualize some dharma sword from the Wenjian Sect, or failing that, the Burial Sword Tomb from earlier would have been good.
Then the second line: 【Damage to those with a lower official rank than oneself increased by thirty percent】
Xu Huayi paused for a moment, becoming increasingly puzzled. Could it be some dharma artifact of the Daqian Imperial Family? But why would Gu Chengming have a connection with an artifact of the Daqian Imperial Family; wasn't it supposed to be an object with a personal connection?
Still, these two being paired together was quite reasonable.
Immediately after, the third line began to manifest:
【Damage to female cultivators increased by thirty percent】
Xu Huayi: "..."
She stared at this line for about two breaths, then mentally withdrew the words "quite reasonable."
Then a series of tags began to manifest.
【Damage to the disloyal and unrighteous increased by thirty percent】
【Damage to the disrespectful and unwise increased by thirty percent】
【Damage to the unkind and unfilial increased by thirty percent】
【Damage to those who don't like eating pancakes with scallions increased by thirty percent】
【...】
【To...】
Tags continued to pop out, line after line, densely arranged downward; in the space above Gu Chengming's head, the text almost stacked into a wall.
Finally, a sentence appeared:
【The above damage increases can stack】
Xu Huayi stood in place, her head tilted back, her brain once again entering a state of complete shutdown.
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