“I have bought the Peony Pavilion, along with the rest of the other buildings and premises adjacent to it, Brother Ye,” Qian Shuxiao muttered suddenly, still plopped in his seat in Ye Que’s dwelling.

“The Peony Pavilion?” Ye Que managed. He was caught off-guard by the name.

“The place we were first met,” Qian Shuxiao described, further expounding more on the realization of his vision, “The preliminary phase of its renovations is almost complete. I wish to open it to the public in a few days.”

“Open it to the public? What are you doing with it?” Ye Que asked, the feeling of dread growing stronger with every word.

“A seminary for our Divine Sect!”

“I wish to start a Divine Sect Seminary!”

“This seminary shall be where we, the students of the Divine Sect, meet,” said Qian Shuxiao, the excitement and fervor evident in his eyes.

Ye Que took in Qian Shuxiao’s present demeanor with exasperation, frowning heavily. The boy was never short of new shenanigans to aggravate him, he thought. “I hope you have placed good thought in this,” Ye Que reminded, “Starting a seminary or a school is no easy feat; this is not an undertaking that guarantees you rich returns. Moreover, never build a stronghold or a seminary in the center of Luoyang City. Do you know why most schools or orders of Truth Cultivation seek only to build their strongholds at hallowed grounds or even a pocket dimension? That’s because you’ll need the rich spiritual force for training purposes; only these places have such concentrated deposits of spiritual force.”

“It’s different.”

Qian Shuxiao’s voice cut suddenly as he shook his head. “The Divine Sect Seminary that I envision to build, is different to most sects and orders of Truth Cultivation.”

“I have done my due diligence before I came to my decision. Almost all of the monasteries or strongholds of the greatest Truth Cultivation schools are all within the domains of pocket dimensions or hallowed grounds. The students that they accept into their ranks either show promises of great potential or hail from powerful and influential households. ‘You do what many dream of all their lives. Dream? Strive to do, and agonize to do, and fail in doing?’ Is this the fate of the common folk? That they could only fail and dream at what others are being able to accomplish?”

Qian Shuxiao placed a hand on his chest, indicating himself. “I understand my own limits; the sparse potential that I was born with. There is but only so much that I could achieve from continuing down the path of pursuing arcane knowledge and skills. But I have stepped through the threshold into a whole new domain, and I see the vision of a marvelous future.”

“Hence, I began meditating on my own Path!”

“What should the Path of me, Qian Shuxiao, be?”

“When I first began, I had not the slightest inkling of what to do. But it was you, Brother Ye, who had enlightened me. You consolidated the gangs and mobs of Luoyang City and had me handled them. You had shown me what should my Path be during that very instance.”

Qian Shuxiao cast a glance out of the house. There was an air of serenity about him. He threw his sleeves wide and chanted, “The sages of old helped educated humanity, helped them shape the very civilization we live in and bring fortune to all, ensured the tradition of their past predecessors, and brought peace for countless generations to come. I am but a common man. But it is my vision that even the common folk will not be denied the right to study the arcane ways of Truth Cultivation. It is my wish to see that even the poorest and most miserable beggar to be given the chance to feel and see with his senses the true length and breadth of the world we live in; to let the study of the arcane wisdom and skills be open and free to all who wishes to learn.”

“This, is my Path.”

An unnatural silence pervaded the little house.

Qian Shuxiao’s revelation of his vision spread uneasy ripples across Ye Que’s usually flawless confidence; the confidence bolstered by his once-invincible supremacy, in spite of his best efforts to show nothing of it.

“You wish to open a chance for everyone? The chance to learn and train in the arcane ways?”

“How confident are you?”

“It will be a doorway that opens to countless possibilities!”

Ye Que fell into silence, still wrestling in his mind over the virtue of his companion’s decision. At length, he spoke, “Do you know how difficult this will be? The challenges and obstacles that will seek to thwart your quest? To open the chance for everyone, you say? There is nothing but darkness before you; no one has done what you strive to do. You are walking in the dark without a guide, without even a lamp to light up your way! You will have to fight and hack at the thorns and briars of adversity that will earnestly try to hinder you. You might even be visited by the pain of Death itself.”

“I am not afraid,” Qian Shuxiao replied adamantly, without an iota of doubt in his voice.

“Besides, I am certain that it is not dark before me.”

“Why?”

“Because…”

“… I have you!”

Guilelessly, Qian Shuxiao drove his elucidation to the point. “You are the Leader of the Divine Sect, that makes you the Leader of the Seminary too! You will be the mental bulwark of all the disciples on their relentless pursuit of enlightenment in the arcane arts. You will remain untainted and unyielding; the unwavering rock that sustains everyone. As long as you remain, we will go all out and do our utmost in your name!”

Qian Shuxiao’s speech was rousing and freely spoken from the heart, but Ye Que stared blankly at him, his face pallid and ashen as he remained wordless.

Seconds ticked by awkwardly.

“Keep up, if you will.”

Ye Que could not pull himself to disagree somehow. Training and meditation—it was the only thing he was good at with unfailing efficiency; as if he was being born for this very purpose, to train and meditate for every minute and every second. Had he ever felt the tingle of loneliness pinching during his forlorn attempts to reach greater heights? In fact, he did.

“The never-ending journey of training and meditation might seem a tad shorter if they are appropriate and acceptable distractions, I guess,” Ye Que muttered quietly.

Qian Shuxiao rose, slapping his palms together with satisfaction as the discussion ended in his favor. “The Seminary will open in three days, Brother Ye,” he said, “We need a set of martial disciplines that would be suitable for elementary learners, but would also be proper and fitting! We need something suitable for everyone, old and young, male and female; so that they could strengthen their physical bodies, and yet sense and feel the awesomeness of Nature while appreciating the laws that govern it. Surely not something savage or terrible like that which you had given to Chu Dongnan!”

Within the fastness of the imperial palace;

Thrice Zhai Xingzi had conducted the rites to request omens from Heaven; his auguries had invited retributions of appalling consequence: five of the great halls in the imperial city were utterly destroyed in one single night.

The Emperor would have been fraught with anger, if it was anyone else save him who had wrought such havoc. Rather, he was hardly displeased when news of the destruction and mayhem reached him. “The ruin of barely a handful of halls is nothing to our great Tang Empire,” he was heard saying, “I could easily rebuild as many as I wish to. What matters are the omens from Heaven.”

The entire Judicature apparatus sprang into full motion once the omens from Heaven had been augured.

Almost every seer and soothsayers from the Capital City, the nine great cities and all sixteen provinces across the whole Empire were assembled for one single purpose:

To assist in the auguries of the three omens from Heaven!

Every one of them began their work in earnest, trying their best with their eyes tightly shut in concentration.

For days and nights they labored, finally, in the dusk of the third day, the results of their calculations were delivered to the Emperor.

The omens were requested about the time and date to which the Divine Tool would make its appearance; but instead, what came was only three runic scripts: “Man”, “Demon”, and “Blood”.

Strangely, on the surface the three runic scripts seemed to hardly have anything to do with the manifestation of the Divine Tool. After some calculations and discussion, it was deduced that the appearance of Divine Tool had little to do with time and date; rather, its manifestation required a condition; one that conjoined the elements of “Man”, “Demon”, and “Blood”.

The requirements might appear to be superficially difficult to fulfill, yet that might also hardly be the case: much blood would be spilled between Man and Demon since the beginning of time; there was no lack of carnage and destruction between both races in their strifes against one another.

However, the omens did indicate that the Divine Tool would manifest at the Imperial Mausoleum, where, in most cases, the ley lines of the Imperial family’s sovereignty would remain hidden. This was a secret where few among the common folk would know. But anyone close to the Imperial Household would find it easy to locate the site of the Imperial Mausoleum which was an open secret to almost anyone in the Imperial family. But the Imperial Mausoleum would only be built on one of the most auspicious hallowed grounds in the country, making it one of the most ten carefully guarded spots in the country.

Moreover, to enter the Imperial Mausoleum hastily would be nothing but a fatal folly! Common folk without the abilities of practitioners of arcane skills would surely perish if they were to venture in haphazardly. In fact, the dangers that lurked within the macabre vault that housed the remains of the Imperial household were so great that even practitioners of sorcery and martial skills would die if they lacked enough power and strength.

Only those above the ranks of the Psychic Realm and below the Formless Realm, would be able to explore the Mausoleum with relative safety.

The contingent of seers and soothsayers had little to no disagreements as to the first two inquiries about the Divine Tool. The greatest catch remained on the third and possibly the most critical question.

“Into whose hands would the Divine Tool fall?”

Only one single rune was given as an answer: “Sword”.

The cryptic message first made everyone think of Mount Shu, for it was the greatest school of swordsmanship in the domain of the Cultivation World, in addition to their association to one of the key objects of this entire mystery: the Secret Key to the River Soldiers. It was hard not to believe that the omens pointed to them, given the clear signs that Mount Shu might have in fact taken possession of the River Soldiers.

“But if Mount Shu had indeed claimed possession of the River Soldiers, why did the signs not say “Shu” or “Mount” instead? The runic script of “Sword” does not point to Mount Shu at all, I say.”

With People comes Conflict, thus the existence of the Jianghu; the seers and soothsayers, all from varying school of thoughts and practice, began bickering about their beliefs and theories. “If the script of “Sword” points to a sect or an order, then we could easily include a few other organizations that wield power similar to Mount Shu for them to claim the River Soldiers. The Priory of Swords of Qingqiu can be counted as one of them; the Tomb of the Swords and Bones of the Peak of Blight is another, while there is also the Chamber of the Rainy Duel from the kingdom of Nanyue in the south.”

“But if you were to argue that the runic script of “Sword” points to a person. Say, one of the young swordsman prodigies who rank between the Psychic and Starburst Realms maybe? This argument shows greater promise to me.”

The Crown Prince had remained dutifully by his father’s side throughout the ordeals of the recent days. He had long seen the contents of the papers that bore the calculations of the seers when his father first pored upon them. He hesitated for a second after hearing the arguments between the soothsayers, and spoke softly to his father suddenly. “There is a matter which may be of consequence, Father,” he said, “I wonder if I should disclose it to you.”

“Speak freely, my son,” the Emperor replied, waving lazily for the Crown Prince to go ahead, as much of his attention was still on the calculations on the papers clasped in his hand.

“You may not have noticed, Father, that during my youth, I have had a daughter outside among the common folk. During her Zhuazhou rites, she had picked a sword. Hence, she was named Jian Qi, because she was the seventh of all the offsprings I have sired.”

“Since her young age, she has been trained by an Abbess Qingyin, reaching the Starburst Realm at the age of seventeen, a feat never before accomplished by anyone in a century, in addition to growing to be a rare prodigy in wielding the sword.”

The Crown Prince paused for a breath before continuing. “She may not be included into our household, but I have always viewed her as one of mine,” he said, as his voice grew meek at the end. “But the rites of augury this time was fomented by Your Majesty’s aura and spiritual force, with our Imperial Regalia, the Divine Tool, as a vessel…”

“Continue.”

“Can it be possible?”

“The “Sword” script indeed refers to my daughter, Jian Qi?”