Scripture of Days Past

”Make sure to be careful,” Qiao Zhi cautioned from afar with a concerned expression.

Qiao Zhi had already retreated over three hundred meters away with the other fiends. Chu Qiguang rolled his eyes in exasperation at his cowardice, and then he turned his attention to the cage in his hand.

At this point, the cat demon had already settled down. She seemed to have given up due to the fact that she couldn’t break free from the cage. She was resting at the bottom of the cage like an ordinary cat.

Just as Chu Qiguang was about to activate his Ring of Ignorance, the cat sensed something and tried to escape from the cage with all her might. She tore at the cage’s bars with her fangs while trying to reach out to Chu Qiguang with her tentacles.

The sight confirmed Chu Qiguang’s suspicions. The cat demon had indeed been drawn to him by the Ring of Ignorance. Once again, he chose to release all his knowledge of the Elixir of Undying.

Immediately afterward, the cat demon erupted into a frenzy of activity. Countless tentacles, eyes, teeth, mouths, and various grotesque appendages appeared all over her as she trembled uncontrollably.

Meanwhile, Chu Qiguang’s eyes turned pitch black. He felt as if his consciousness had been pulled out of him. Amidst the darkness, an androgynous voice rang out.

”The more you glean the Heavenly Dao, the more prone you’ll become to demonification. Is there no other way to comprehend the Dao than through the six orthodox arts?

”Some say knowledge is poison, and that the more you learn, the deeper the poison takes hold in you. Some ask why the Heavenly Dao guides one down a demonic path. The truth is that the so-called demons are creatures of the Heavenly Dao, and knowledge comes directly from the Heavenly Dao itself...”

Chu Qiguang listened to the spiel. In a nutshell, demons weren’t evil creatures to be abhorred. Instead, they were a higher life form. Furthermore, knowledge wasn’t just pure information. It was actually a type of energy as well.

The dissemination of the energy known as knowledge was what gave rise to demons. Different demons that had taken on different pieces of knowledge would inherit different abilities, just as humans could learn different skills through studying different subjects.

However, demons were supposedly better at harnessing knowledge than humans, and the voice even proposed that humans were regressed demons. In other words, inferior beings that had gone back on the evolutionary line.

According to the voice, abandoning one’s lucidity and returning to a demonic form, where one could directly grow from absorbing knowledge, was the best way to conform to the Heavenly Dao.

However, ultimately, the owner of the voice couldn’t verify their hypothesis. They merely stated that all of their plans came to a premature conclusion with the passing of the emperor, but they had deposited all of their findings here for those who’d come after.

In the end, Chu Qiguang had more questions than answers. The six orthodox arts? But there are twenty-five now... Could it be that this message was left by someone from a very long time ago? The plan came to an end after the emperor’s passing?

Was this research being conducted by an emperor? How did they plant this message in this cat demon? And why was it revealed to me in response to my Ring of Ignorance?

***

There were only questions, but no answers. It seemed that the owner of the voice believed that anyone capable of accessing their message would already have the necessary background knowledge to understand everything.

Chu Qiguang’s consciousness passed through a boundless expanse of darkness, following which some lights and shadows appeared up ahead.

Soon, he saw a scene depicting two people in a room. The two figures seemed to be locked in an argument.

One of them was an old man, and he scoffed, saying, ”Take a look at what you’ve become! You were once my most prized disciple, my designated heir, yet over the past twenty years, you’ve made zero progress in your cultivation base. You’re still wasting your time on these useless things!”

Standing before the old man was a much younger man, and he pleaded, ”Listen to me, Master! I’ve already figured out the greatest use for the Elixir of Undying. It shouldn’t be used to pursue immortality. Instead, it should be used to grow flesh, which can then be used like tools, just like those demons—”

”Shut your mouth!” the old man snapped as he sent the young man reeling with a vicious slap. ”His Majesty has personally mandated how the Elixir of Undying is supposed to be used! Who do you think you are to claim that you know better?

”If all you’re doing is keeping some living corpses and blood pools, then I would have let you do as you pleased, but keeping demons is absolutely unacceptable!”

”Fine! In that case, I’m leaving the Heavenly Master Dao!” the young man declared.

The scene faded just as quickly as it appeared. Chu Qiguang saw a massive flash of fire, followed by a shrill cry, before everything faded into darkness.

Immediately afterward, some knowledge related to the Elixir of Undying flowed into his mind.

After receiving this knowledge, Chu Qiguang felt his consciousness being dragged out, and he caught a glimpse of a dark space, within which was a faint glimmer of light.

When he returned to his senses, he found himself back in Hidden Fiend Village, holding the same cage as before, and the cat demon had reverted to her normal cat form and was looking at him peacefully from inside the cage.

A piece of new knowledge about ”blood pools” had appeared in his mind. It seemed that the young man had developed ”blood pools” through studying the Elixir of Undying.

Chu Qiguang stared at the cat demon while processing this newfound knowledge, and the more he thought about it, the more astonished he became.

That young man seems to have been keeping demons, and he said something about leaving the Heavenly Master Dao at the end? Is the Heavenly Master Dao the Heavenly Master Religion in the present day? Wouldn’t that mean that the Elixir of Undying was originally developed by the Heavenly Master Religion?

Looking at what just happened, it seems like creating demonic tainting can feed demons, and in doing so, I’ll be able to access that place again. Could it be that there have been many people throughout history who reached that place by feeding demons and left their knowledge behind there?

Does that mean that I’m not the one in history to have received the Ring of Ignorance? Why is it that I’ve only received knowledge about blood pools? Is it because the knowledge I chose to release is from the Elixir of Undying?

With that in mind, Chu Qiguang became extremely curious about demons, the Ring of Ignorance, and the other people believed to have visited that mysterious place. If he wanted to find answers, he believed the only way to do so was to explore historical texts.

If there exists a place where information on this subject can be found, then it can surely only be the Demon Vanquishing Department or the emperor’s personal scripture collection. All of a sudden, Chu Qiguang looked forward to traveling to Jade Face Mountain.

I also need to test out the blood pool later to see if it’s really as incredible as it’s made out to be. Before that, he had another idea that he wanted to explore. If releasing knowledge on the Elixir of Undying had granted me knowledge about blood pools, then what would happen if I did the same thing with the Sumeru King Scripture?

Shortly afterward, Chu Qiguang returned to his senses once again. As soon as he regained his vision, he noticed a message that he had written for himself on the ground. ”You just relinquished your knowledge of the Sumeru King Scripture.”

However, he had obtained no new knowledge.

Would it be different if I had the Sumeru King Scripture with me? Chu Qiguang decided it was worth a try, so he retrieved the Sumeru King Scripture before returning to the cat demon.

He focused his gaze on the Sumeru King Scripture while activating the Ring of Ignorance, and sure enough, his consciousness quickly returned to that dark and mysterious space.