Emperor’s Domination

Li Qiye nodded in response: “Yes, I happened to be passing by this desert and found that it was very suitable to train the body, so I chose to do so.”

“Cultivation is about refining the dao foundation, what’s the point of training the flesh? Even if your body can become stronger, is it going to be as strong as a weapon?” A’Bao wanted to go against Li Qiye.

Li Qiye looked at A’Bao and smiled: “The pain of the flesh is the most direct type of pain. Only when one can withstand the pain of the flesh would they be able to bear the pain of the mind. If one can’t even withstand pain, then there is no need to talk about the dao heart. The dao heart is the true foundation of cultivation.”

Yi Chuan couldn’t help but praise after hearing this: “Little friend is still young and not from a famed sect, yet you have such wisdom, truly extraordinary! The phrase ‘dao heart is the true foundation of cultivation’ is quite enlightening, just like the morning bell.” 1

With that, he told the disciples behind him: “You all need to learn from this little friend. There are many types of training, enduring suffering is one of them as well.”

Many disciples looked down on Li Qiye’s training. However, they didn’t dare to comment in front of their senior. In their eyes, a mortal walking through a desert was not training at all, it was only the suffering entailed in a mortal’s life!

“So you are refining your dao heart.” The girl whose name was A’Li curiously stared at Li Qiye and thought that he was quite a strange guy.

“No.” Li Qiye gently shook his head: “I am only taking a walk. There is no need to hone my dao heart. It is as firm as a rock — completely unshakable.”

“Such arrogance! Even a Virtuous Paragon wouldn’t dare to claim that their dao heart is unshakable. At least make your bragging more believable.” A’Bao scowled and thought that Li Qiye was completely blustering.

Li Qiye only smiled. He was too lazy to reprimand a young man like A’Bao.

“Little friend, goodbye for now, I still want to take them training.” Yi Chuan laughed and bid farewell to Li Qiye before flying away on his carpet.

Li Qiye continued forward through the desert, braving the hot sun in the day while researching countless mysteries at night.

He had to ponder too many things, especially the vessel of athanasia. It had many details that required his effort. At the same time, he had a lot to learn about the Ancient Void Rune and the Heavenly Dao Primal Chapter.

The ancestors of the primal ground believed that they could find a heaven-shattering merit law by researching the chapter. However, Li Qiye’s focus was not in this regard. His aim was not merit laws since he had many powerful ones already.

He wanted to make them even more perfect, but even after many derivations and calculations, he didn’t gain any ground.

This was because he was lacking another piece of the puzzle. From a merit law or cultivation perspective, both the rune and the chapter were complete as far as training manuals went.

However, Li Qiye didn’t want such a thing. He wanted to reform the two to create a complete system! Nevertheless, this was not an easy matter. He only had two parts of the system, and he couldn’t figure out the remaining parts with just these two.

In fact, Li Qiye wasn’t the only one who couldn’t do so. No one could, not even Immortal Emperors.

The rune and chapter were involved in great secrets. Across the eons, no one had been able to gather the complete version! It could even be said that very few people truly knew about the existence of these two; not even emperors knew about their legends!

Eventually, Li Qiye put the two away and sighed. Just as the legend stated, creating a complete system was countless times harder than reaching the heavens.

“Dum—” Laws intertwined and the Dao Sword appeared in Li Qiye’s hand. Li Qiye immediately had an extraordinary feeling with it in his grasp.

This pitch-black sword lacked the sharpness and frightening edge of a sword. If it was thrown onto the ground, perhaps no cultivators would even want to pick it up.

Li Qiye gently stroked the blunt and harmless blade edges. Of course, he was not trying to feel the sharpness of the sword but rather the power of the laws and the nature embedded within. Controlling this sword was the same as controlling the supreme myriad laws, allowing one to become the ruler of all!

“Dao Sword, this is something that would make others salivate with greed.” Li Qiye gently stroked and sword and murmured: “Unfortunately, the Blood Progenitor back then never managed to utilize its real effects!”

“Dum—” Li Qiye put the sword away. His mind opened and two different rays of lights intertwined. One was a shimmering silver while the other was gold!

They coiled together like two little flood dragons and formed a perpetually revolving spiral!

The silver light was something he obtained from the silver maelstrom after destroying the Ancestral Realm while the golden light was from the golden maelstrom in the pond of Provenance’s Splendor.

In the past, Li Qiye understood their mysteries as well as the secret of the silver maelstrom in the Ancestral Realm after a lot of research. Now, he was looking at the golden version. He knew a bit about it beforehand as well, but he wanted to completely unravel its mysteries.

Eventually, Li Qiye closed his mind and the two rays disappeared. He opened his eyes and smiled: “The secrets are all in my hands! Immortal Demon geezer, you only know one part of the puzzle! The real secret is still in my hands!”

With that, Li Qiye stared at the far horizon and murmured with a serious glare: “I’ll come back one day! Emperors, gods, even the high heavens, I’ll slay everything in my path!” He was very much looking forward to that day.

Next, he started to meditate inside his sea of memories. He carefully searched inside, not daring to miss the tiniest of details!

There were many secrets stored inside his mind. A few of them came from the old man at the base of the precipice in the Drystone Courtyard. Moreover, his secrets were very scary, so scary that they could frighten even Immortal Emperors!

In a distant past when the Dark Crow was still inexperienced, before the days where he could do as he pleased, he was tricked by the old man when he arrived at the Drystone Courtyard.

The old man wanted the secrets in his memories, but he couldn’t grab them due to the seal within. At that time, the old man came up with a strange method. He directly connected his memories to Li Qiye’s. From then on, the two’s memories were linked.

The old man found out some information about the Immortal Demon Grotto and a few secrets from Li Qiye while Li Qiye also found out the old man’s secrets.

Back then, the old man was a very heaven-defying existence with extreme confidence. He believed that Li Qiye would never be able to escape his grasp. He didn’t expect for Li Qiye to endure for such a long period of time, so long that Li Qiye eventually fooled him completely and stole all of the secrets in his mind!

Li Qiye paid a huge price at that time, but he was rewarded with many great secrets. He even wanted the ultimate secret from the old geezer! Back then, he thought that this secret was hidden in the old man’s memories, but he couldn’t force it out. After this trip, the old man revealed that he had already obtained it. Alas, he still didn’t know where this ultimate secret was hiding right now.

Because of this, Li Qiye was going through all the secrets he squeezed out from the old man to figure out that ultimate secret.

“Old man, you’re really something special. I didn’t notice it at all.” Li Qiye flipped through the dust-laden memories and murmured: “Although you destroyed my body back then, you allowed me to massacre that place because of your secrets and preparations! When I’m fully ready again, even without your ultimate secret, I would still be able to make rivers of blood run across that land again!”

No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t find the ultimate secret. However, he was sure that the old man was not lying to him. The issue was that he was overlooking something. Nevertheless, he was not in a rush. He gazed at the sky and told himself: “Maybe the real trick to unlocking this secret requires me to make my way back there! I’ll definitely do so this generation no matter what! Just wait, those false gods will tremble beneath my feet!”

On the next day, Li Qiye continued on barefoot with the sun’s rays scorching him from above!

1. A couple of idioms are used here and localized since they become a bit wordy and confusing if translated literally.