Desolate Era (Book 11 - Book 15)

“Junior apprentice-brother, you can now go to the fourth floor of the Divinities Palace and choose a technique at will,” the fan-holding Silvermoon said with a smile as he walked over. With a wave of his hand, he collected the golem again.

Ning smiled. Fortunately, he had experienced the [Thousand Year Dream] earlier; his sword-arts had indeed stabilized and become more firm, and his execution of them had become more profound and unpredictable as well. That was the only reason why he was able to defeat the fourth golem. Otherwise…he would have probably only been able to beat the third golem.

This was as he had expected. After all, he had been forbidden from using any divine abilities, resulting in his greatest source of power, the [Starseizing Hand], being unusable. His power would naturally be much lower as a result!

Although he had become the champion of his Conclave of Immortal Destiny, he was actually a bit weaker than Cangwu Jiu, Xiamang Zishan, and the others when it came to his comprehension of the Dao. He had only become champion thanks to the [Starseizing Hand].

“Senior apprentice-brother, when ordinary disciples of Mount Innerheart first arrive at the mountain, which golem are they generally able to beat?” Ning asked.

“The newcomers are sometimes a bit weaker while sometimes a bit stronger. On the whole, they are on par with you, I suppose. However, they have generally trained for centuries before arriving, while some have trained for thousands or tens of thousands of years,” Silvermoon said. As they chatted, the sound around them was blocked from transmitting to others.

Ning laughed. “Given how many years the ordinary disciples have been in the mountain, they are definitely more powerful than they were in the past. It seems I am the weakest person here at Mount Innerheart.”

Still…Ning continued to feel complete confidence in himself. He had only trained for thirty years, and had just arrived at the mountain. After a hundred years, he would definitely be able to surpass them all! And he also had the [Starseizing Hand] in reserve! In these trials against golems, since his divine abilities were unusable, his greatest advantage had been neutralized.

Still…no matter what, compared to the ordinary disciples of Mount Innerheart, he was at the bottom of the barrel.

A thirty thousand meter tower starts from the ground. He still had to work hard!





* * *





Book 13, Chapter 7 - Thirty Years at Mount Innerheart


“Junior apprentice-brother, how long have you been training for?” Silvermoon asked.

“More than thirty years,” Ji Ning said.

Silvermoon instantly began to laugh. “Ah, no wonder! That explains it. So you’ve only been training for around thirty years. For you to be able to defeat the fourth golem despite having trained for such a short period of time…I trust that in the future, here at Mount Innerheart, your rate of improvement will be similarly astonishing.”

Ning smiled. “Thank you for your kind words, senior apprentice-brother.”

……

Under the gazes of the many humans, monsters, and Fiendgods, Ji Ning and Silvermoon stepped into the fourth floor of the Divinities Palace. The profoundness of any of the sword-arts manuals located on the fourth floor was comparable to the complete nine stances of the [Three-Foot Sword]!

“This truly is a blessed land for learning the Dao.” Ning flipped through the abridged versions of the sword-arts manuals, which included some of the preliminary parts to each technique. His eyes and eyebrows danced expressively as he read. “So many sword-arts…this place represents the collective enlightenment gained by countless Sword Immortals of the Three Realms. My own sword-arts will definitely improve dramatically after I draw from the wisdom of so many other Sword Immortals.”

……

And so, Ning’s life of learning the Dao at Mount Innerheart had begun.

If he wanted to leave his master’s tutelage, he had to at least be able to defeat the ninth golem and acquire a ninth-level technique from the Divinities Palace. Only then could he enter the Three Realms Palace, and only then could he leave. This was a prerequisite! He had to be trained as a personal disciple would be trained, which meant that he had to be able to enter the Three Realms Palace and learn the truly powerful divine abilities located within it. This was the most fundamental of expectations which Patriarch Subhuti had for Ning as his apprentice; Ning understood this quite well.

Ning and Yu Wei had agreed that they would reunite in the future in the Grand Xia world. And so…he had to enter the Three Realms Palace as soon as he could!

Ning didn’t want to spend centuries or millennia here at Mount Innerheart; if he truly did spend thousands of years here, then what in the world would happen to the people he cared about in the Grand Xia such as Yu Wei, Autumn Leaf, Mu Northson, or Yuchi Xiyue?

“I have to defeat the ninth golem as soon as I can, ideally within a few decades.” This was Ning’s goal for himself, but he knew very well how incredibly difficult this goal would be. “I can’t allow myself to be distracted whatsoever during this period of time at Mount Innerheart. Lotus techniques, divine will techniques…I’ll put them all to one side for now. Here in the Divinities Palace, I will exclusively focus on sword-arts manuals!”

Sword-arts, focused on attacks! This was Ning’s decision!

……

Time slowly flowed on.

Ning, the Whitewater Hound, and Little Qing all spent their time training on Mount Innerheart. And in fact, the Whitewater Hound and Little Qing were even more excited than Ning to be here!

“What should I do? The third golem defeats us with utter ease,” Little Qing said helplessly.

“It seems that we might not even be able to beat the second golem,” the Whitewater Hound said helplessly as well.

The disciples of Mount Innerheart were almost all incomparably talented monsters who came from throughout the Three Realms. Some of the others were spirit-beasts of Celestial Immortals who had trained for a very long time. By comparison, the Whitewater Hound and Little Qing had trained for a very short period of time.

“There’s nothing we can do. Let’s go do manual labor,” the Whitewater Hound said.

“That’s our only option.” Little Qing nodded as well.

And so, both of them went to accept the manual labor ‘trials’. They spent nearly a full month manually deweeding the surrounding hundred kilometers of land. Only then were they allowed to choose a third level technique from the Divinities Palace.

The techniques on the third floor of the Divinities Palace…any one of them when placed within the Black-White College would become the most treasured technique of the College!

“Hahaha, so someone like me can actually acquire a technique like this!” Little Qing snatched up a copy of the [Qiankun Sword Song] with absolute excitement. “I can now finally, truly train on the Grand Dao of Qiankun.”

“These are the writings of a Celestial Immortal on formations?” The Whitewater Hound was holding a book on formations. He, too, was incomparably excited.

Both of them were actually extremely gifted. Uncle White was a Whitewater Hound; although in other aspects he was rather ordinary for a Godbeast, in one aspect, he was exceptional – his intelligence!

Little Qing, in turn, had absolutely astonishing talent in the Grand Dao of Qiankun. She was even able to use the Void Blink (spatial teleportation) technique at the Xiantian level! Although at that point in time, there was no way Little Qing could actually understand the profound mysteries and principles behind spatial teleportation, this was her innate ability as a Godbeast. All she had to do was be able to touch upon just the slightest bit of this Grand Dao and she would be able to teleport. She didn’t need to actually understand it; just brushing against the Grand Dao of Qiankun allowed it!