Tribulation of Myriad Races

Su Yu was still listening to the book spirit in Culture King’s Residence.

He was eating and sipping tea while listening.

Initially, he was quite calm. But his curiosity got hold of him as he asked, “Who’s Zhou Wu?”

Was that Martial King?

Wasn’t Martial King Tai Shan?

Zhou Wu…was a name that could easily cause one to think of Martial King. (wu = martial)

In truth, Su Yu was very curious about Culture King’s name as well, but he hadn’t asked. It was considered rude to speak the name of such experts directly, and followers of Culture King like the white dog might not be willing to even speak his name.

But year nine of Yong’an Calendar? What calendar was that? The white dog, who was eating while wagging his tail, said, “It’s Martial King.”

Su Yu raised his brow and asked, “Who’s Tai Shan?”

“Martial King as well. His original given name was Zhou Taishan. After becoming the Martial King, Master renamed him Zhou Wu. Master said that Taishan has too many meanings. He refused to call Martial King by that name.”

Many meanings?

What?

After thinking about it for a bit, Su Yu concluded that father-in-law was probably one of those meanings.

Culture King sure was petty. Was that a reason to change someone’s given name?

“Was the gap between Martial King and Culture King so big?”

The white dog thought about it deeply while eating. After a long while, he said, “He wasn’t Master’s match. But he was very strong back then. Much stronger than all the other human kings and Pseudo Emperors.”

In short, Culture King was stronger. Much stronger than the other human kings and Pseudo Emperor as well.

“Senior, do you know Martial Emperor?”

Su Yu thought of Old Zhou, the Martial Emperor, who was also a Zhou. He was starting to confuse the two.

“Martial Emperor?”

The white dog sank into thought. It had been too long since he last heard that tittle. After taking a large bite off the roasted peng wings, he said, “That was a human expert from the era before Master and the others established the imperial court…”

“At the time, Master and the other lords had just risen in power. The Myriad Realms were in chaos. Humanity was powerful, but not the strongest among the various realms. During that time, Martial Emperor was one of the three strongest human experts. But something happened and numerous human experts died. It was said that Martial Emperor was the one who had killed them.

“I remember that one day, Martial King arrived and told Master that Martial Emperor was slaughtering the innocent and strengthening himself with the blood of his fellow humans. Because of that, Martial King wanted to punish Martial Emperor.

“After Martial King left, Master said that Martial Emperor might not be the culprit. Eventually, Martial Emperor was defeated by Martial King. That was the battle that had spread Martial King’s name throughout the Myriad Realms. At the time, he wasn’t known as the Martial King yet. But due to his victory over Martial Emperor, he was eventually appointed the Martial King.”

Martial Emperor, a human expert from the primordial past. Sure enough, Old Zhou was a human. As far as Su Yu was concerned, that was most likely a genius as talented as him. After all, that was someone who had opened all 720 acupoints and apertures. However, it was unknown if he had forged his body as many times as Su Yu.

And someone like that wasn’t a match for Martial King, who was also far weaker than Culture King. Yet above all these people, there was the Human Emperor, the strongest of all. Su Yu inhaled deeply. Just how strong was the Human Emperor?

Even these days, legends and stories about Martial King and Culture King could still be heard here and there. Even the stories of Time Sage could still be heard in some circles. But the Human Emperor was an exception. He was rarely mentioned. Just how strong was he?

“Senior, can you tell me more about the Human Emperor?”

“Human Emperor…” The white dog shook his head and said, “I don’t know him well. I met him several times, but I can’t speak too much about him. It is taboo to speak of an honored leader. Master had never spoken of him behind his back.”

That was understandable. No matter what, Human Emperor was their superior. It wouldn’t be proper for them to gossip about their superior behind his back.

“Was he stronger than Culture King?”

“I think so?” The white dog answered uncertainly, “I don’t know. Master was very strong, but they had probably never fought before. I’m not sure.”

Fine.

As the discussion ended, the book spirit continued his lesson.

The records in the book were quite random. They read more like a diary, describing Culture King’s daily life alongside some records pertaining to cultivation when Culture King was in the mood.

At times, Culture King would even write about some gossip in the book. For example, there was an entry talking about Zhou Wu. At the time, Zhou Wu invited Culture King to his wedding, but Culture King did not feel like going since it was already his third wedding. As a result, Martial King came visiting on the wedding day with his three wives, forcing Culture King to attend the ceremony.

How random.

In Culture King’s records, the ancient past seemed like a fun era.

And when the lesson reached the parts where Culture King wrote about the great daos, Su Yu sank into a state of comprehension.

“There is dao in all of existence. The so-called dao is a form of law, a form of restriction. No form can exist without laws. When reality first came into existence, it was filled with numerous loopholes. The great daos were responsible for filling up these loopholes…”

Su Yu listened as he ate.

The great daos. The laws. They were meant to make up for the weaknesses of reality. That was Culture King’s theory.

For example, reality was too big. It was tiring to traverse the massive reality. Thus, the dao of space came into existence to assist one with traveling. Well, this was Su Yu’s own comprehension, not something mentioned by Culture King.

One could also say that the various daos were the various improvements to the natural world implemented by those living in it. For example, in a world without fire, one could create the dao of fire for that world. When one felt like taking a bath, one could then create the dao of water. All these elements did not exist when the world first came into existence.

Numerous thoughts emerged in Su Yu’s mind as he listened. Eventually, a character took form. He didn’t even know if this could be considered a natural character, but it did not matter.

“Dao.”

Yes. The dao character. His thirty-first character.

The various characters floated all over his sea of willpower. The newly formed character reached the second tier right away, similar to any other natural character.

The white dog glanced at Su Yu before shifting his gaze toward the little furball who was stealing bites off the gigantic roasted peng wings. Once again, the little furball was drunk.

Since Su Yu was still in a state of comprehension, the white dog decided to speak to the little furball instead. He said, “Soy Bun…no, Little Soy Bun.”

He knew Soy Bun, so he decided to use Soy Bun’s name on the little furball as well. The drunk little furball looked at the white dog blankly.

The white dog said, “Like Soy Bun, you’re a natural dao. Others might need to open their own dao or fuse with an existing dao, but that’s not the case for you. You are the true chosen of heavens.”

“The likes of you and Soy Bun are either sentient daos or the daos of some dead supreme experts. Cultivation for people like you is much easier than a regular person.”

The drunk little furball nodded his entire body. Yes, yes. They were all super geniuses. They were all better than Yummy!

“Therefore, you need to stop relying on only eating to cultivate.” The white dog explained, “You keep eating and growing without understanding the reason for your growth. Instead, you need to comprehend your own dao. Do you even know what your dao is?”

The little furball shook his entire body. Nope. He had no idea.

The white dog shook his head. Sure enough, this was yet another dumb ball. He could only recall his master’s words and said, “You need to keep trying and learning. Your race is capable of consuming characters and willpower, but you don’t necessarily walk the dao of consumption. You can all consume characters and willpower because as the dao incarnate, you need to sustain yourself with the power of laws. But that’s not necessarily your dao.”

The little furball had the same blank look on his face.

He felt like he, his dada, and his mama all walked the same dao. The dao of consumption. Was that not the case?

Seemingly knowing what the little furball was thinking, the white dog shook his head and said, “No. Consuming is merely a manifestation of your need for the power of laws. The way you consume will be different from someone truly walking that dao. There are no two identical daos in this world. They might be similar, but not the exact same.”

“Then…what am I?”

The white dog shook his head, “I don’t know. You have yet to reach a sufficient level to manifest your dao. I can’t see it yet. But to manifest your dao, you need to first know what your dao is.”

“Oh.”

The little furball sank into thought. After spending so much time with Su Yu, he was no longer as ignorant. But he was still confused. He did not know his own dao. He loved eating characters, but he did not enjoy the taste of all characters. To truly grow, he had to first learn the nature of his actual dao.

He wasn’t that far from the Sunmoon Realm. He had been growing steadily. He was still quite young, but due to his time spent with Su Yu, he had grown rapidly from the sheer amount of treasures he had eaten. But like Su Yu, he was also completely clueless about the various great daos.

According to the white dog, he was supposed to be the chosen of the heavens. Because he was a dao in itself.

Someone like him only needed some wisdom to access his dao. In such a situation, he would be able to progress smoothly until the Daofuse Realm or more. Or to be precise, the Daofuse as known by Su Yu was actually the Eternal Realm.

Someone like the little furball would only start having difficulties when trying to enter the Great Dao Realm since that was a realm requiring one to further perfect one’s dao. Every single soul devourer was a natural born dao founder.

Hearing all that, the little furball sank into deep contemplation for the very first time of his life, asking himself one question: what was he? He only knew how to eat. He only knew how to detect things through smell. What else was he good at?

What was his specialty? Perhaps…he walked the dao of eating? Or the dao of sleeping?

In truth, the little furball was quite relaxed about his strength. He had never been the type to relentlessly pursue strength. But as of late, Yummy had stopped needing his help in fights. He felt like his personal farm was on the verge of abandoning him. Thus, change was needed.

He also felt like his dada and mama had taken a liking to Yummy. Would they steal his personal farm? He did not care about his cultivation, but he cared deeply about his personal farm. Thus, he started longing for strength.

***

The little furball started contemplating about his dao.

As for Su Yu, after forming his new character, he decided to make use of the Soul Expanding Hammer yet again. It had been quite a while since he last used that hammer. He started hitting his own sea of willpower with the hammer, compressing his willpower, stabilizing his apertures, and strengthening his characters.

He had grown so much that not even the Soul Expanding Hammer could keep up with him. Its inability to kill an Invincible with one hit was the biggest reason Su Yu had not used it much lately.

When he was hammering himself inside his head, the white dog sensed what he was doing and asked, “Are you hitting your own head?”

“Yeah.”

“That hammer…” The white dog paused slightly, seemingly recalling something before saying, “It feels like the embryonic form of a great dao. You can try to meditate on it more. You might be able to turn it into a character.”

Su Yu blanked out slightly. He opened his eyes and asked, “Turning it into a character?”

The white dog said matter-of-factly, “Each character is merely a type of manifestation. That hammer of yours is likely the embryonic form of a great dao. Like characters, it is also the manifestation of a dao.”