175 Chapter 174: Emergence (1/2)
It took me nine days, but I was finally able to get out of the Spirit World. I wasn't sure what happened either. One moment I was inside the room, practicing the techniques for the last time, the next moment, when I opened my eyes, I found myself back in the plaza, in front of a crowd of stunned people.
”Fei Wu! Are you all right?”
Tang Qi Hong was immediately at my side as I blinked groggily, trying to rise to my feet. It felt as if I had just woken up from a long slumber.
”I guess so,” I murmured, still a little dazed.
”You guess?” Lian Ro repeated incredulously. I nodded awkwardly. Trying to make sense of my surroundings, I asked the one question that mattered. To me, anyway.
”What happened?”
”You don't remember?” Tang Qi Hong asked, astonished. I blinked, an idea forming in my mind, but nonetheless I shook my head.
”Remember what?”
”…you were in a trance for nine days.”
This time, it was Sect Leader Zi who spoke up. He had arrived, flanked by the Great Elders, all of whom were staring at me curiously. I shifted uncomfortably under those intense gazes, feeling as if I was being examined under a microscope.
”A trance?”
”You had the privilege of attaining enlightenment from the Spirit Engraved Pillars!” Luo Zhi Chang exclaimed excitedly. ”You moved beyond just triggering a response in the Spirit Engraved Pillar and was actually properly communing with it! The qi around you…it indicated that you attained enlightenment and finally achieved true comprehension of the meaning behind the Spirit Diagrams!”
I stared at him and the enthusiastic Great Elders for a moment, and then shook my head. Inwardly I felt amused as I popped their bubble, but I was careful and tactful enough to not let it show on my face.
”There is no single true meaning behind the Spirit Diagrams. Different people will have different interpretations of it and will inscribe them differently.”
The Great Elders stared at me, stunned, their faces turning ashen. For old men like them, rigidly set in their traditional ways of thinking, this was a great blow. They understood my words as me not having attained anything out of the nine days I had spent meditating under the Spirit Engraved Pillars. Fortunately, it seemed they had hung around on the plaza, continuing to monitor the situation, make studies of their own and protected me.
”That's…”
The second Great Elder sounded disappointed, but Sect Leader Zi seemed more pleased than dissatisfied, raising a hand to forestall any comment the former would make. He turned to me, a slight smile curling across his face.
”So…how did you interpret the Spirit Diagram in the Spirit Engraved Pillar?”
This guy…he understood completely. No wonder he was the sect leader. I was amazed that someone as intelligent and wise as him wasn't able to trigger any response from the Spirit Engraved Pillar.
”Do you mind giving me a tablet?” I asked. For such matters, it was far better if I demonstrated it rather than merely talk about it.
Sect Leaer Zi nodded. ”Certainly.” He then turned and gestured for one of the technicians to come over. A guy in a white lab coat hurried over, producing a new, empty tablet, and I accepted it gratefully with a bow.
”Thanks.”
”Not at all!”
I then sat down and began inscribing the Spirit Diagram I had seen during my nine days in the Dragon King's Palace…or the Spirit World that the river-motif Spirit Engraved Pillar invited me into. It took me a few hours, but I didn't budge from my position, continuing to sketch quickly and impatiently with the stylus and replicating everything from memory.
No, it as not as simple as merely regurgitating what I had remembered during my nine days in the Spirit World.
”…”
I was adding my own style, subtly and unconsciously altering the Spirit Diagram according to my experiences and personal biasness. There was no such thing as an ”original” concept. Throughout the years, the concept and essence of the Spirit Diagram had evolved and changed continually, surviving the ravages of time by adapting. No one could claim to be able to replicate the Spirit Diagram as it first existed thousands of years ago or whenever it was first invented.
The predecessors who inscribed the Spirit Diagram before me had interpreted it differently, and those who followed after me would add their own experiences and styles to the Spirit Diagram. It was an ongoing process that would continue to transform and change the Spirit Diagram according to the accumulated lived experiences of the myriad of people who continued to preserve it.
To be sure, there was a similarity between the Spirit Diagram. There was an essence, a basic foundation of the concept that remained consistent throughout the ages, otherwise there would be nothing to preserve. While the Spirit Diagram now was very different from the past iterations, it wasn't as if it was a completely new thing altogether. There were still shared patterns that linked it to its precursors, a strong consistent similarity that remained in all versions. The alterations might not be slight, having been wrought to allow the Spirit Diagram to remain relevant in whatever temporal context it found itself used in, but their purpose was not to transform the Spirit Diagram into something completely new, otherwise there was no meaning in replicating and learning it. We might as well invent a totally new Spirit Diagram from scratch.
Yet, the changes were inevitable. Nothing survives the passage of time unchanged. Dinosaurs went extinct. Technology evolved. Modern humans were not the same as humans from a century ago, or even a decade ago, never mind millennia ago.
While those thoughts flashed through the surface of my mind, I focused on inscribing what I had learned into the tablet. As the hours slipped past, my pace grew faster and faster, almost as if the knowledge was pouring out of my mind. At first it was a trickle, then it thickened to a stream, and now it was a raging current.
”This…”
The research team had stopped their job momentarily to watch me. Later I would learn that they had made good progress while I was meditating, but right now the question of what they were doing all this time didn't even cross my mind. So focused on inscribing the Spirit Diagram I was that I was barely aware of the outside world at all.
And finally…I was done. Breathing heavily and perspiring a lot, I rose shakily to my feet and handed the tablet to a stunned Sect Leader Zi. He accepted it and looked through the tablet, gasping when he saw the mystical glow. His hands trembled as he absorbed the faint but potent aura of qi that was shrouding it.
”You…you produced a martial arts manual!”
”Nah, I merely replicated what I learned from the Spirit Engraved Pillar.”
Sect Leader Zi was barely paying any attention to me, sweeping his finger across the screen to view as much of the Spirit Diagrams I had engraved into the tablet with a stylus. His jaw dropped and he glanced at me.
”This is the long lost martial arts techniques…of the Divine Dragon Flowing Water Formula! How did you…?”
”I couldn't replicate it exactly,” I told him truthfully, aware that my own personal experiences, history and biasness had altered it subtly. ”But this is what I obtained from the Spirit Engraved Pillar.”
I didn't mention going inside the Spirit World. I wasn't sure if they would believe me, or they would just dismiss it as an illusion I was undergoing while I was meditating.
”Huh? Martial arts manual?”
”It's not a Spirit Diagram for a Spirit Artifact?”
”I mean, martial arts manuals are counted as Spirit Artifacts, but this isn't what we were expecting…”
The six Great Elders were glancing at each other, visibly disappointed. The fifth Great Elder strode forward and grabbed my shoulders, almost shaking me.
”What about the Spirit Diagram for Spirit Artifacts? The Heavenly Nine Winding River Spirit Diagram? Did you manage to comprehend that?”
Who cares?
At least that was the first retort that came to my mind, but I suppressed it and politely shrugged out of his rude grip.
”Sorry, but that's the only thing I managed to comprehend during the nine days.”
”Are you kidding me?! A martial arts manual? Not a Spirit Diagram for a Spirit Artifact?! You spent nine days meditating and that's all you managed to get?”
”Well, I am a martial artist, not a blacksmith or Spirit Engraver.” The sixth Great Elder was testing my patience, but somehow I managed to bite back a caustic retort. What was the matter with these old fogeys?
”Ha ha ha ha ha!”
We all turned around when we heard the delighted laughter. Sect Lady Da Ji was sauntering into the sect, clutching her stomach in amusement. She stepped to my side and placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder while glaring icily at the Great Elders. Even the venerable old men found themselves intimidated by her frosty gaze.
”Have you old men gone senile?” Sect Lady Da Ji's voice was soft, but filled with frightening power. The Great Elders trembled from listening to her tone alone. ”Do you have any idea how valuable this Divine Dragon Flowing Water Formula is? It's a legendary martial art, one of the most powerful water-type martial arts in the history of the Great Zhou Empire. The Martial Arts Alliance will kill to get their hands on this. In fact, I'm sure Xiao Zhang of the Reunion…I mean, of Wu Ling Academy, will pay a high price to acquire the contents of this martial arts manual if he learns of it. can you imagine how powerful our sect will become if we have our martial artists from the Blood Blades learn and master this Divine Dragon Flowing Water Formula?”
”Our standing among the eight major sects will rise, probably making us the top sect, if not the second. Higher than even the Celestial Creature sects.”
Sect Leader Zi mused as he stepped forward to back up his wife. The great elders shrank back, realizing their error.
”…yeah, that's amazing…”
”Sorry, we got too carried away with forging Spirit Artifacts that we forgot the significance of martial arts.”
”Even though we are renowned for blacksmithing and Spirit Engraving, don't forget that we are at heart, still a martial arts sect.” Sect Lady Da Ji glared at the six Great Elders while they mumbled their apologies, red-faced. ”And Fei Wu here has just helped us gain an unsurmountable amount of strength with just this martial arts alone.”
”O…of course.”
”Heh.” Sect Leader Zi chuckled as he glanced at me. ”Fei Wu really is a Blood Blade through and through.”
”That's a given.” For some reason, Sect Lady Da Ji looked smug.
”What about the Heavenly Nine Winding Rivers Spirit Diagram?” the fourth Great Elder asked uncertainly. ”Are we supposed to give up?”
”We can continue researching even without meditation and whatnot.” Tang Qi Hong looked a little annoyed. ”We got this far without Fei Wu's help, and he already contributed a lot by triggering a reaction from the Spirit Engraved Pillars and beaming the Spirit Diagram. We can handle the rest ourselves. Why are you trying to rely on Fei Wu alone? Do you really expect him to do all the work and comprehend the Spirit Diagram by himself?”
”That's the whole reason why we set up this research group in the first place isn't it?” Zi Xiao Ji interjected cheerfully.
”That's right.” Sect Leader Zi stepped up to back up both his daughters. ”This is a group effort. We'll only succeed if we work together. We can't just rely on Fei Wu alone. Genius or not, the sect does not revolve around one person alone. The sect is made of many different people. We all have our own part to play.”