The Quest for Immortality

Mo Hua sank into thought.

Ordinary Causality Skills, involving the success or failure of a single matter, or the life and fate of a single person, belong to a small scope.

But if the matter is important enough, involves many people, and the causal force is strong enough, then it becomes a great causality.

And that which concerns the rise and fall of a whole state boundary, even the fortune of all living beings under heaven, an even greater scope of causality, is what is called ”Heavenly secret.”

People of the world often mention ”Heavenly Mechanism Causality” in one breath, but in truth, there are many differences within.

If one has not carefully studied causality, one truly cannot make sense of it.

The causality of most people is limited to the blessings and misfortunes of a single person, and fundamentally cannot rise to the level of ”Heavenly secret.”

This is a division on the level of grand pattern.

In addition, from the underlying structure, the power of causality is also very special.

Just as Mo Hua had previously foreseen, the socalled ”power of causality” is not purely a cultivation power on the level of Divine Thought—

For example Telekinesis, Deceit Power, Evil Thoughts, Divine Sense, and the like.

Nor is it purely a cultivation power on the level of ”reality”—

For example physical strength, Spiritual Power, flesh, and so on.

Judging from Mo Hua’s present insights into Heavenly secret, and his instinctive intuition, causality is more like a Power of the Great Dao in which Divine Thought and reality interpenetrate.

It has a portion of reality as its composition, taking reality as its medium; and likewise contains a portion of guidance on the level of Divine Thought, taking Divine Thought as its bridge.

It is a state in which ”substance” and ”void” coexist.

Causality transcends above ordinary objective forces, mysterious upon mysterious.

Yet because it has a ”substantial” aspect, it is not purely ”mysticism,” nor purely ”Divine Way studies.”

It is more like...

Mo Hua knitted his brows, then pondered it over in detail.

”Like seeking out the Law of causality from within objective existence, then, by means of Divine Thought Skills, seizing hold of the Law of causality, and then going on to reverse objective existence.”

”From substance to void, then using void to turn back into substance, and at last uniting reality and void as one...”

This was some insight concerning the Law of causality that he had stirred up, by comprehending the Great Wilderness Demon Bone Divination Skill on the basis of fundamental Causality Skills.

This ”insight” was somewhat obscure.

Mo Hua only hazily felt that it ought to be so.

But as for the concrete logical rules, and how they manifest within the myriad things, he was not very clear.

After all, he had only just studied it, just stepped through the door. He still needed to study more, see more, practice more, uniting knowledge and action, in order to attain a deeper insight.

Only then could his Causality Skill grow stronger.

Enlightenment is only the foundation.

Walking the Dao is the essence.

To attain Enlightenment yet not walk the Dao is the same as having attained no Enlightenment.

”Then how exactly is this Causality Skill to be concretely used?”

Heavenly Mechanism Causality is the largescale pattern.

The transformation between void and reality is the underlying logic.

Then what of the concrete application on the level of ”Skill” itself?

Mo Hua fell into contemplation; after a moment, he spread open the illustrated scroll of the Great Wilderness Demon Bone Divination Skill and carefully went through some of the Essence texts and hexagram diagrams within once more.

The Demon Bone Divination Skill’s writings were intricate, its hexagrams chaotic.

Yet the core principle of its ”Skill” also relies upon causality.

Stripping away the surface layer of ”Magic,” Mo Hua briefly summarized the inner causal principles, and they could roughly be divided into three types.

Tracing the cause: based on certain known ”effects,” to peer into the past.

Projecting the effect: based on certain known ”causes,” to calculate the future.

And the generalpurpose ”calculation”: based on certain causal relations, to calculate the current time and place and the auspicious or inauspicious state of a certain person, certain matter, or certain object.

These three Divination methods differ in form, but in essence are all applications of the same sort of causal Law, and so among them, the boundaries are not absolutely clearcut.

And apart from the spell point, causal Divination also requires specific media and consumes large amounts of Divine Thought.

If the causality being Divined is great, one must even set up an altar and prepare rituals, and the like.

These are all merely issues on the surface level of ”Magic” application.

On the deeper level, the issues concerning the application of ”Causality Skill” are likewise extremely numerous.

Causality Skills are not as simple as they appear.

Nor are they like Spells, Daoist cultivation methods that, once learned, can certainly be used and certainly possess might.

The variables within are truly too many.

The same Causality Skill, used by different people, yields different results.

Using the same Causality Skill to calculate for different people also leads to different fortunes and misfortunes.

For instance, ”Mr. Witch”—he used the same Demon Bone Divination Skill; calculating for others posed no problem, but when he calculated about Mo Hua, he died for it.

Indeed, the strength of a Causality Skill and a person’s own fortune and misfortune are sometimes not so necessarily connected.

Under normal circumstances, if a person does not understand causality and cannot calculate his own fortune and misfortune, he will, with high probability, fall into a dire situation and die.

If he is proficient in causality and can know fortune and misfortune, auspice and ill omen, and can seek benefit and avoid harm, naturally he can live longer.

But conversely, an ordinary Cultivator who does not understand causality generally will not peer into great terrors, and thus will not incur great calamities because of it.

Yet a Heavenly Mechanism Cultivator whose Causality Skill is extremely strong and whose insight is keen will instead, because his ability is too strong and his calculations too deep, unwittingly peer into an existence that should not be peered into, thereby inviting the descent of great terror.

Not studying causality is very dangerous.

Studying causality may be even more dangerous.

Moreover, the study of causality is unfathomably deep.

The Great Wilderness Demon Bone Divination Skill can only be regarded as an introductorylevel causal spell point, containing only some fundamental ”Divination Skills,” which, even within the causal system of the Great Wilderness, would probably still be considered rather ”crude.”

Even within such a ”crude” Divination Skill, there are far too many subtleties.

In Divination through Demon Bone, different Demon Bones must naturally correspond to different methods of calculation.

Different methods of calculation must naturally give rise to different hexagrams.