Destiny in Cinders

Beginning, Formation, Abiding, Destruction—the four epochs and five tribulations! The wonders of the Fortification Realm are said to be formation bases, but they in fact represent either five different streams of spirit or lethal qi of different aspects or one united formation base of a single pure type of spirit or lethal qi. Together, they form the initial formation, a kind of augmented fey core! It can be considered the primordial state that preceded the creation of heaven and earth.

Once the tri-formation world of heaven, earth and man is derived from the initial formation, one’s cultivation reaches the Clearing Realm, marking the Beginning of the microcosm in the body.

Sages of the Treasures Realm have properly formed tri-formation worlds in their bodies, within which they forge the three divine treasures of essence, breath and psyche, establishing a link to the outside world, initiating the cycle of concretizing the abstract to bring the microcosm into complete Formation.

In the Sanctification Realm, the internal formation world of the body unifies with the larger world outside, anchoring itself in a persistent manner, becoming fully realized. Even after the death of the venerated, the area upon which their internal formation world had been outwardly projected eventually becomes a blessed land or spirit mountain, creating a stronghold where the venerated’s legacy will remain, ever Abiding.

As for the Pure Yang Realm, I don’t really understand it yet. But the Abiding Epoch has two tribulations, so that should mean that the Pure Yang Realm has two tribulations. The Destruction Epoch should only come during the Soaring Realm. Does it mean that the microcosm will be destroyed in that realm?

Upon reaching that point, he fell deeper into thought. If Void Embrace’s martial path is an aggregate of all these different cultivation techniques with aims to replicate heaven and earth on a smaller scale in the body, the Soaring Realm would mark the zenith of this path. Unless the Soaring Realm itself completely displaces the Grand Dao of Void Embrace, there’s nothing at the end of the tunnel but destruction, even for empyreans of the Soaring Realm. They will still eventually expire and rejoin the rest of creation once their mortal shells are shed.

Despite the Soaring Realm being an equivalent of Skysource’s Primordial Deity Realm, empyreans didn’t have nearly as long of a lifespan as primordial deities. Is that why immortalfallen exist? Was this the result of empyreans or even others on the martial path’s lower realms rebelling against the law of nature because of dissatisfaction with their limited lifespans?

An Jing shook his head slightly, knowing that it was a bit of a waste of his dao-comprehension state to speculate on things without basis. He needed to use his remaining time optimally to figure out the insights related to fey cultivation techniques and the martial path, obtaining what he truly needed from the Supreme Truths of Heaven Man so that he could acquire the ideal wonder, perfecting his Fortification Realm’s primordial state.

I don’t have the full text yet, but from what I know, True Dragon Spine is able to bundle up a myriad types of qi into one, making it the perfect wonder to simulate the beginning of the microcosm. It’s no wonder the dragons claim to be the rulers of true spirits. It isn’t just because they descended from the Ancestral Dragon. They really do have the kind of power and legacy to back up that claim. Xuan Tianji, Grand Chen’s founder, later developed the wonder into True Martial Spine, which allows one to use the masses one ruled over as a base and the heavenly sect country as a body to generate dragon qi. It is a mighty achievement in its own right.

Since he already had accelerated thought, he could grasp the temporal flow of the microcosm. In other words, he could decide when precisely to start developing it, whether Temporal Grasp could allow the flow of cosmic light. Next, he needed to gather qi essence and condense a spark to instigate the cycle of spirit and lethal qi for his microcosm, which Ocular Blaze was perfect for. The wonders after that could be anything as long as it could regulate spirit qi and serve as the central pivot for the microcosm, so Brightmirror Heart would do.

An Jing still needed two other wonders, one for stabilizing the foundation of the microcosm through absolute control over the minute changes of his internal body formation and the qi within. It had to have some aspect relating to space, a corresponding spatial wonder to Temporal Grasp. The other wonder had to be one that strengthened the physical body and transformed its nature, not to mention having qualities related to the configuration and nature of things.

Earth, water, fire, and wind, the four symbols and five phases, spatial void and cosmic light, qi and configuration, as well as a central pivot that harmonizes everything... It’s no wonder one can’t advance to the Clearing Realm without all five phases. Instead, the five phases just so happen to match with the five conceptions required for a microcosm.

He finally understood why so few among the general populace managed to reach the Clearing Realm. Even if some insanely talented rogue geniuses managed to crack the closely guarded code of a large sect’s core teachings and learned the importance of the right combination of wonders, they would misunderstand the nature of wonders and get misled to assemble a collection of wonders of the five phases superficially. Even if they managed to gather all five wonders, if those wonders didn’t contain the subtler qualities that the central pivot harmonized, the geniuses would not grow any stronger beyond the Clearing Realm. They would definitely face massive obstacles when attempting to advance to the Treasures Realm. In fact, few in large sects comprehended the subtler nuances perfectly. Most disciples just retraced the steps of their forebears as a matter of rote learning.

If An Jing was able to acquire a spatial wonder through properly understanding the Supreme Truths of Heaven Man and also comprehend a configuration-related wonder from studying True Martial Spine, he would have the perfect-scoring list of wonders to advance to the Clearing Realm. But was that really his limit?

Putting aside his proper foundation of five wonders, he was already capable of manifesting qualities of the Beginning Epoch of a microcosm within his body by mimicking the interaction between the fey core and its environment. Could he not go on to coalesce a drop of true-spirit blood too? Humans were also one of the many sentient spirits, the leader of all sentient life, in fact.

Why couldn’t True Spirit Blood simply be a wonder too? In fact, if he really did manifest the True Spirit Blood wonder using his set of five wonders and advance to the next realm in a perfect state, it could result in the manifestation of the Embodied Dao wonder! He would have a total of seven wonders, corresponding to the five phases, yin and yang! They didn’t even need a fixed formation diagram either, because those wonders already stood for the component parts that made up the actual cosmos! The cosmos itself was the fundamental formation diagram that he constantly learned from!

Grasping the movements of heaven marks the beginning of time! Bearing the transformations of heaven is a virtue! Temporal Grasp isn’t just about speeding up my thoughts. More than that, it determines the moment when heaven and earth come into being! Its true name should be Temporal Genesis, and it should’ve been something I only comprehended at the Treasures Realm.

The moment he gained that spark of insight, the text in jade tome in his hand jumbled up. Countless spirit patterns came flying out of the tome, smashing into each other and reforming into a massive school of spirit-pattern fish. The many fish eventually fused together to form a massive heaven-bearing pillar before his very eyes, surrounded by coiling dragons. Countless sentient beings sang praises to the mighty construct. A golden light at the base of the pillar climbed upward, experiencing nine transformations and eighty-one different presentations by the time it reached the top and turned into genuine innate qi.

One who ascends heavenward thus becomes the man of heaven. With no wing or feather, possessing neither sacred nor dragon nature, how ought mankind ascend to heaven? Through using wisdom as a foundation, using mind as material, pervading heaven and earth with the body, transforming the celestial ladder, coalescing the Heavenly Pillar, embodying the virtue of bearing heaven’s burden and grasping the beginning of heaven!

By using Temporal Grasp or a similar method to micromanage spirit qi, spreading it through the spine and the nerves and meridians that branch out from it, one can strengthen the senses to better perceive spirit qi, manipulate it and even transform it. It doesn’t strengthen the body directly like True Martial Spine, only the capability of fine qi manipulation. Paired with the accelerated thought of Temporal Grasp, one can transform a single unit of energy into nine different forms in an instant, achieving a degree of granularity that nobody else can attain! The flourishing of transformation and succession is a heavenly virtue. Using it, one can ascend heaven and become the Heavenly Pillar!

An Jing’s eyes snapped open as the spirit qi around him gradually entered his body, spreading pure spirit light across every inch of his being. His lifestar halos glowed brightly behind his head.

In a whisper, he said, ”This is the wonder... Heaven-Bearing Pillar, or rather, Heaven-Bearing Virtue!”

An Jing turned to look at the silver squirrel that had been watching him respectfully the whole time. He laughed and patted the little critter on the head. ”Count yourself lucky, little thing. You managed to coalesce a fey core because of me. I, on the other hand, not only managed to acquire Heaven-Bearing Virtue, but also gained insight into the fundamental wonder of the fey path, True Spirit Blood!”