1029 Real Martial Sword Academy (1/2)

Deity Xuan entered the Black Tortoise Celestial Palace with him and summoned a god with a turtle's back. He retrieved a divine whip and ordered, ”Prince You Ming has been too talkative, and it cost me 99 Five Thunder Pots. You shall take my whip and whip him 99 times.”

That god took the whip and left.

Qin Mu hesitated, but in the end, he didn't try to plead for the prince.

The dragon qilin and Yan'er looked at one another. Yan'er whispered, ”Why doesn't Master plead mercy for Prince You Ming? He was the one who guided us. He has a good temper too. Now he's getting 99 whips.”

The dragon qilin whispered, ”Cult Master's words are taken lightly due to his low stature…”

Qin Mu stared at him, and the dragon qilin shut up.

A stone statue was in front of them, and it resembled Founding Emperor Qin Ye.

Qin Mu walked forward to examine it. It was Founding Emperor's statue, but it was of a younger version of him. It emanated vigor, unlike the Founding Emperor of today.

”Founding Emperor had good relations with us. During the dawn of the Founding Emperor Era, before the Founding Emperor Celestial Heavens was built, he was here.”

Deity Xuan said, ”The place around his statue was a sword academy that he founded named the Real Martial Sword Academy. A lot of our younger disciples studied the blade under him. I even had an exchange with him there and learned his Sword Dao. In exchange, I taught him formation spells. Now that 40,000 years have passed, we have many experts of the sword called the Real Martial Sword Sect.”

He brought Qin Mu around, and he saw many cornerstones of the academy. It was large, and it likely had thousands of Black Tortoise disciples learning in it.

”However, after the Founding Emperor Era ended, the celestial heavens ordered the destruction of the academy. The only thing preserved was this stone statue.”

Deity Xuan continued, ”If those disciples heard of your arrival, they would surely be delighted. Qin Ye also brought two girls and a woodcutter. They were Di Yiyue, Yan Yunxi, and Wen Tiange, respectively. They were very well-mannered. Di Yiyue learned the Great Dao of Black Tortoise from me, Yan Yunxi learned formation arts from me, while the woodcutter learned algebra from me. They were extremely smart, and their accomplishments superseded mine. I learned a lot from them too.”

”Heavenly Teacher Zi Xi and Teacher Woodcutter were here too?”

Qin Mu's heart fluttered as he asked, ”Has Founding Emperor been to the East Pole?”

”Of course.”

Deity Xuan continued, ”Qin Ye also established an academy at the East Pole. It was called the Real Dragon Path Academy, and it was popular too. I heard that the one who cultivated with him was a real dragon called Qing Wang that came from the dragon bloodline of Founding Emperor's nation.”

Qin Mu thought about it. He had seen no signs of Founding Emperor being in the East Pole. It must have been completely wiped away by East Deity.

From this, one could see the different administrative styles of Deity Xuan and East Deity. East Deity was more stubborn and authoritative. If he couldn't control something, all of it would be wiped out.

Meanwhile, Deity Xuan cared more about old ties. Despite the fall of Founding Emperor and the end of his era, he left behind his stone statue and allowed many disciples to continue cultivating the sword.

Founding Emperor pushed Postcelestial Great Daos like the Sword Dao to the extreme, which constituted reform. Outside of the Sword Dao, there were other Postcelestial Great Daos developed in the Founding Emperor Era, such as the formation path, forging path, and knife path. It was the peak of the Postcelestial Great Daos then.

One could say that the Founding Emperor Era was the era that Postcelestial Great Daos exploded and became competitive with the Precelestial Great Daos!

Deity Xuan was skilled with formations and algebra, which showed his acceptance of Postcelestial Great Daos. It was just that he was hindered by Precelestials, which prevented him from pushing these two Postcelestial Great Daos to the extreme for him.

They moved on, and Qin Mu saw more marks left behind by Founding Emperor. There was a stage to discuss the sword, a pool to wash the sword, a Heaven and Earth chess game left behind by Yan Yunxi, and a wall containing the Black Tortoise Six Directions Scripture left behind by Di Yiyue.

”If you had such good relations with Founding Emperor, why did you lend out your divine weapon to end the Founding Emperor Era?” Qin Mu asked.

Deity Xuan explained, ”I was forced to by the circumstances. I was thinking about how if the Founding Emperor Era lasted for 300,000 years like the High Emperor Era, the Postcelestial Great Daos would be imprinted into the void and the gods of the Founding Emperor Era would be able to use Postcelestial to become Precelestial and form the new ancient gods. In that case, one could fight against the celestial heavens.”

Qin Mu's heart shuddered. The reason that the ancient gods supported the Founding Emperor Era was to create a new batch of ancient gods!

”Then, Founding Emperor's benefits would have aligned with ours. They would have become new ancient gods, and we could have worked together to eradicate the celestial heavens. In the end, Founding Emperor would have become the new ancient Celestial Emperor.”

Deity Xuan said, ”Even if the Founding Emperor Era had only lasted 100,000 years, it could have become independent and sustainable still, which would have allowed us to split ourselves from the celestial heavens and prevented them from being able to attack us, the ancient gods. However, unexpectedly, the celestial heavens only gave it 20,000 years, which forced us to cooperate or die.”

He walked to the Jade Stage, shook his head, sighed, and whispered, ”Only 20,000 years… As for Eternal Peace, hehe, 800 years.”

Qin Mu followed him and hesitated before asking, ”Deity Xuan, there's something that I don't know whether I should ask. Your relationship with Deity Wu seems to be broken. Why is that?”

”You could tell that too?”

Deity Xuan sighed. ”We were saints born from the celestial river. We controlled a part of it each, and we didn't interfere with each other's affairs. However, more ancient gods were born, and our individual strength was weaker than the big guys like Green Dragon and Celestial Empress. However, together, we were stronger than them.”

He led Qin Mu through the Jade Pool, which was also split into two.

The Black Tortoise Celestial Palace was smaller to the celestial heavens. If they walked anymore forward, they would reach the God Execution Stage.

Qin Mu's expression expressed his curiosity. The God Execution Stage was cut neatly as well. Even the God Execution Mysterious Knife, which had two Daos tangled together, was cut neatly too. All that was left was blood-colored baleful air.

Deity Xuan said, ”We combined to protect ourselves and our status, which was why people called us North Deity Xuan Wu. However, later on, we found out that we had incompatible tempers, and we had a small fight every three days and a big one every five days. Life couldn't go on like that. Add to that how we were the strongest of the four deities, which caused people to instigate a split, and life got harder. Thus, we separated when we separated ourselves from the celestial heavens during the Dragon Han Era.”

He laughed. ”The witch even wanted the kid to be cut in two! It was a good thing that You Ming made a mistake and got suppressed, or else he would've really been cut in half.”