Make the Immortal Sect Great Again

”Shing—!!!”

Inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace, a clear blade cry defied the laws of the mundane world. It rumbled through Cosmic Deep Space, carrying a peerless edge capable of severing all phenomena.

Heaven’s Will Profound Blade!

The blade’s light swept outward.

The many gazes that had converged on Wang Ping—drawn by the Taiping Sutra refining the Water-Fire Striking Profound Maces—were severed by this single slash.

”Step back!”

The blade spirit’s voice echoed within the ringing steel. Facing that peerless edge, the Qi Refining practitioners sensibly retracted their gazes, refusing to clash head-on with it.

As for a few lingering stares from True Persons—or even more obscure entities—they too withdrew once a radiant Immortal Decree materialized on the Heaven’s Will Profound Blade. They stopped trying to forcibly dissect Wang Ping’s secrets, choosing instead to watch from outside the Eight Trigrams Furnace.

As for Wang Ping, he was in no mood to worry about them.

After all, he had a far more pressing problem to solve.He had only just resolved the issue with the Water-Fire Striking Profound Maces. A glimmer of hope had risen, only to be cruelly dashed moments later—as fragile as a fleeting dream.

What do I do?

Wang Ping’s mind raced for a countermeasure, but he came up empty. He glanced up at Xianfu, only to find Xianfu staring right back at him with expectant eyes.

Fuck!

Do something useful, teammate!

You’re out of ideas already?

Wang Ping racked his brain, desperately trying to figure out how to strip the Longevity Immortal Physique from his body. Yet, while Immortal Physiques possessed their own profundity, they were fundamentally different from Divine Powers.

An Immortal Physique essentially adapted to the shifts in the world’s qi, reflecting those profound principles into the flesh. Despite the grand name, it was fundamentally still just a physical body. Stripping away the Longevity Immortal Physique meant destroying his very flesh. Was he supposed to cultivate as a naked soul from now on?

You’ve got to be kidding me!

Unless... I can overwrite it with the Martial Dao. Right, the Great Abundance Scripture! I can use my Great Abundance Scripture to refine the Longevity Immortal Physique and make it my own!

Or rather, this was exactly what the Great Abundance Scripture was designed to do.

The problem was, he couldn’t do it.

Up to now, I’ve barely managed to use the Martial Dao to command my four Immortal Physiques. At its core, the profundity of the Immortal Physiques still dominates. The Martial Dao merely acts as a binding thread.

Calling it the unity of the Immortal and Martial paths was just to make it sound impressive.

In truth, it was still the Immortal Dao, just wearing the skin of the Martial Dao. Yet, this was unavoidable. It wasn’t that his Great Abundance Scripture was weak.

In fact, ever since he comprehended this method, Wang Ping had fought his way through the Immortal-Brahma Sword Battle, winning clash after clash. The gathered momentum of the Great Abundance Scripture was already as immense as it could possibly be, fully meeting the standards he had set upon its creation. The reason he couldn’t completely master the Immortal Physiques didn’t lie with him.

It lay with the Martial Dao.

The Martial Dao is incomplete. It hasn’t reached a level of orthodoxy comparable to the world’s qi. How can it possibly command the various Immortal Physiques governed by that very same qi?

Thinking of this, Wang Ping sighed.

A moment later, his consciousness entered the Taiping Sutra space. He looked up at the towering tome, his eyes settling on the new scripture scroll that had just been added after refining Baohu.

Fate Makes Fools of People.

”At this point, I should just make a wish,” he murmured.

With a thought, Wang Ping activated the scripture scroll and made his wish. It was entirely unadorned: I wish to survive this life tribulation.

If he survived, everyone would naturally be happy.

If he failed, he would simply accumulate the ”fortune” required to guarantee a wish—and as for what that wish would be, Wang Ping already had an idea in mind.

...

Meanwhile, in another corner of Cosmic Deep Space.

It was an extremely remote star. The population was sparse, with human habitation limited to a single continent. Yet here, every household worshipped the Buddha, and everyone delighted in debating scripture.

Today, the dynasty ruling this continent was holding a grand water-land dharma assembly, hosted by the emperor himself. Monks from across the land flooded into the capital to debate the dharma. Every household was festooned with lanterns and banners. Pious expressions adorned every face as they spun Prayer Wheels in their hands, occasionally chanting the name of the Buddha.

A woman strolled right through the assembly’s bustling crowd.

”Amitabha.”

An old, heavy voice sounded beside her ear, laced with helplessness. ”My Buddha... How could my Buddha condone this? How can the spring plowing be delayed just to worship my Buddha?”

”Senior Longshu, the Brahma Nation is just like this.”

Lian Ruzhao paused and looked up at the sky. ”As long as they firmly believe in the Great Brahma Heaven,” she said casually, ”no matter how much they suffer in the mortal world, they will find liberation in the next cycle of reincarnation.”

”The more they suffer, the more they can reincarnate. Perhaps one day they’ll stumble upon some tremendous karmic fortune and even become a part of the Great Brahma Heaven.”

”Preposterous!”

Instantly, a heavy wave of Divine Intent boomed out, brimming with indignation. ”This is not the way of my Buddha Tathagata! This is a heterodox path! These are demons wearing my Buddha’s robes!”

”They must be purged!”

”Alright, alright, what are you getting so worked up about, you old bald donkey?” Daoist Tianxin’s rich voice echoed from the other side. ”It’s just a difference in ideology.”

”Look at my Qingtian Cult. Our inheritance even comes from the Immortal Gate. But that Biyang’s theory they preach? I glanced at it once and tossed it aside without batting an eye. I didn’t take it to heart at all. Us martial artists need to be a bit more open-minded. Don’t just flap your gums over everything—isn’t it simpler to just throw down and fight?”

”Tell me, which Brahma Cultivator pisses you off? Let’s go beat him up!”

”Excellent, excellent. This poor monk is not a brute of a Daoist like you, who only knows how to throw fists at every problem. This poor monk has always subdued others with virtue...”

”Ha! The bald donkey is spewing bullshit!”

”Bah! You shameless ox-nose!”

Listening to the lively bickering by her ears, a faint smile graced Lian Ruzhao’s face. Yet, it quickly faded back into indifference.

A moment later, the voices faded. Four streams of Divine Intent focused on her in unison. ”What’s wrong? Why so quiet all of a sudden? Did your intuition sense something off again?”

”You could say that.”

Lian Ruzhao smiled. ”My intuition tells me that my good disciple has run into some trouble... The Martial Dao, the Martial Dao. Trying to manifest it out of thin air truly leaves one with nowhere to start.”

Her voice filled with a heavy sense of wonder. ”That senior who founded the Brahma Nation all those years ago—how exactly did they manage to manifest a Brahma method like the thirty-two marks? I’ve walked across so many stars under the Brahma Nation’s rule, yet I still haven’t found the trick to it. I am truly far inferior to them.”

”Don’t be overly humble.”

Chan Master Longshu’s voice rang out again. ”They might have spent tens of millions of years in meditation before finally achieving it. You’re barely a hundred and fifty years old.”

”Exactly, little girl, you haven’t even had a man yet,” Daoist Tianxin immediately chimed in.

The other two Great Grandmaster Rank experts also spoke up.

”Don’t compare yourself to such mighty figures.”

”To cultivate to this stage, where your body dies but your spirit remains—and even allowing us to preserve our lives alongside you—we wouldn’t have even dared to dream of such a thing a hundred years ago.”

Right then, Chan Master Longshu suddenly spoke up.

”Wait, you just said your good disciple is in trouble again... Is it related to the Martial Dao? What’s going on? Can we help?”

”I suppose you can.”

Lian Ruzhao smiled. ”It’s just that I might not be able to perfect the Martial Dao out of thin air exactly as I wished. I might have to borrow some profound methods from the Immortal Dao.”

”This...”

Chan Master Longshu immediately frowned. No one understood Lian Ruzhao’s obsession with the Martial Dao better than he did. After all, to purely refine her Martial Dao, even when her lifespan was nearing its absolute limit—and despite possessing a spiritual root that would have allowed her to extend her life through immortality—she had stubbornly refused to touch even a single Immortal Dao cultivation method.

”Senior Longshu, you misunderstand.”

Seeming to see through Chan Master Longshu’s concerns, Lian Ruzhao chuckled. ”At this point, I’m no longer so rigid about the divide between the Immortal and the Martial.”

Chan Master Longshu still couldn’t help but worry.

”But you said back then that if you cultivated immortality, your ’Self’ would no longer be pure, and it would actually harm your Divine Intent... Don’t intentionally sacrifice yourself.”

”Hahaha.”

Lian Ruzhao’s laughter grew bright and clear. ”That was back then. People change, and so does the ’Self’. It all depends on whether your heart is willing to accept it.”

”If you accept it and go along with the changes in your heart, that is still the ’Self’.”

”If you can’t accept it, and you go against your heart, only then have you lost the ’Self’.”

She sighed softly. ”And the me of today is no longer that Lian Ruzhao who stood all alone, hell-bent on revenge.”

”I am still the First Seat.”

The Martial Dao’s First Seat.

It was a title she had carried for decades, ever since she swept across the world and established the Tribute Hall. It was inextricably bound to her very existence.

Thinking of this, Lian Ruzhao parted her lips and exhaled a long breath. ”I am the head of the Martial Dao, reigning above ten thousand Martial Masters. How could I possibly hold my own disciple back? Never mind. It is just the Martial Dao. If I must borrow some profundity for now, then I will. I’ll just find a way to make up for it later.”

With those words, Lian Ruzhao looked up at the sky.

”Rumble!”

Instantly, as she released her Divine Intent and stopped strictly guarding her Martial Dao, a stream of the world’s qi up and down the Cosmos eagerly resonated with her.

The Civilization-Manifesting Ultimate-Founding Qi.

The Human Yang Fire!

This qi was rooted in civilization, in creation, and in universal salvation. It favored brand-new orthodoxies above all else. If Lian Ruzhao hadn’t been actively suppressing it, the Martial Dao would have attracted this qi instantly!

”Sorry, I’m only giving you a little bit.”

Facing the roaring Human Yang Fire qi, Lian Ruzhao merely chuckled and plucked a single strand from it. ”Any more than that, and you’d be the one in charge.”

A moment later, she drew that strand of Human Yang Fire qi into her body. It was like igniting dry tinder; her aura skyrocketed instantly. Yet, within her originally pure and flawless Divine Intent, a trace of fire qi had visibly appeared, fusing completely with her as she broke through.

Seeing this, Lian Ruzhao furrowed her elegant brows slightly.

Her intuition screamed that this was harmful. By borrowing the profundity of the Civilization-Manifesting Ultimate-Founding Qi to forcefully manifest the Martial Dao, she had compromised its independence.

The originally pure and independent Martial Dao was now faintly subservient to the Human Yang Fire.

This would bring a hundred harms and not a single benefit to her cultivation.

Yet, she did it anyway.

Having cultivated martial arts to this day, possessing her profoundly innate Divine Intent and her supreme intuition for so many years, the single most important lesson Lian Ruzhao had learned was this:

Don’t always follow your intuition.

Never let yourself live with regrets.

This is fine.

Because this is the ’Self’.

At that thought, Lian Ruzhao suddenly chuckled. She then murmured softly, ”Mountains and rivers, earth and skies, the sun, the moon, and the stars. Across the heavens and the earth—I alone am supreme!”

On this day, the Martial Dao was achieved, manifesting in the world!