Once Upon A Time, There Was A Spirit Sword Mountain

The Specialized Nine Regions History Class in the Teng Cloud Hall on the Misty Peak of the Spirit Sword Mountain began right on time.

The teacher, dressed in a dazzling black crystalline gown, passed through the gate on top of a multicolored ray of light and was immediately welcomed by a round of applause and cheer by the students inside the hall.

“Good morning, Ninth Elder!”

“Hello, Teacher Hua!”

“We love you, Teacher Hua!”

The one who came was Hua Yun, the leader of the Carefree Peak, as well as the Ninth Elder of the Heavenly Sword Hall and the sect’s youngest female Elder.

She was called Elder, but her lively and pretty countenance belonged to a sixteen-seventeen years old girl. Her engaging and amiable smile made her seem like the sweet girl next door. Moreover, Hua Yun’s character was frank and vivacious, completely devoid of the indifference and cold aura of an Elder. Thus, amongst the younger disciples, she was the most popular person in the entire Spirit Sword Sect.

This was also one of the reasons why this specialized history class could gather more than twenty students while “Professor” Liu Xian, who taught Specialized Nine Regions Geography Class, only had five or six students in his class.

“Good morning everyone! I will be your teacher for today’s class!” Ninth Elder gave off her radiant smile to all the students on her left and right as she walked to the podium and put down a thick book.

“Everyone, please sit down and be quiet. Any students who have yet to eat their breakfast can sit down at the rear and quietly eat there. Also, any students who have to answer the call of nature can always get up and leave at any time, but please don’t disturb the other students. Okay then… Now, please open your textbook.”

While speaking, Hua Yun flicked her hand, and then, on top of each disciple’s desk appeared a book with a title of Specialized Nine Regions History. Below the title, there were small texts which read Spirit Sword Sect’s book. After the students received their textbook, they opened the specific page and waited for teacher Hua Yun to explain.

“On the previous class, we finished with the introduction of the several talented geniuses who were born ahead of their time and their brilliance. The next chapter is the Age of Chaos. The entire content of this Age of Chaos chapter is quite depressing. A lot of the popular heroic characters that we studied before would meet their ends in this chapter. For example, the Patriarch of Penglai, Daoist Master Miao Xi… I am not comfortable in talking about these, it’s too heartbreaking. So, let’s speed things up a little bit. Let’s skip the details on ‘how’ and just say that they all died. But don’t worry, in the next chapter, I am going to tell everyone about the recovery and rebirth, and introduce some new heroes, including our Spirit Sword Sect’s Patriarch!”

After she spoke, the class burst into applause.

“Great!”

“Hooray!”

“Teacher Hua, we love you!”

Hua Yun returned their appreciation with her smile. “I love you all too! I never thought that a boring history lesson would be attended by so many people, I am really happy and touched… However, our time is limited, so please be quiet, I am going to continue the lesson.”

The Teng Cloud Hall immediately fell into silence. The only remaining sound was the sweet voice of Hua Yun who lingered in everyone’s ears.

“Up until now, there hasn’t been a clear-cut analysis of the so-called Age of Chaos. Nobody could really tell what the reasons were or how did it happen… Interested students could thumb through the related materials inside our sect’s library. However, today, that is not the focus here. In short, because of various reasons, more than six thousands years ago, the spiritual energy on the Nine Regions continent suddenly undergone a massive change. How drastic was the change? It’s probably similar if a large meteor falls down from the sky… What was even more deadly was that, when a cultivator reached a certain stage, their connection with the surrounding spiritual energy is completely lost. If the change is only temporary, people can adapt or resist via various methods and means. But the extreme change in the Age of Chaos continued to last for a full two hundred years. Two hundred years later, the surrounding spiritual energy had been completely dried up; the environment had changed beyond recognition…”

When she spoke to this part, a trace of sadness appeared on Hua Yun’s face.

“In the face of this massive change, Immortal Cultivators with big magical powers became extremely vulnerable. Those brilliant heroes that we talked about in our previous lesson were one of the first victims. Their cultivation speed was the fastest among their peers, their cultivation methods were all top notch, and their connection with the surrounding spiritual energy was very strong. In short, they have limitless potential. However, that was before the Age of Chaos. At the start of the Age of Chaos, all of their advantages have become their burden. Once the massive change in the environment occurred, they were the first casualties. Then… Everyone can see in the textbook that your favorite, Han Zishuang, fell into misfortune in the first year of the Age of Chaos. At that time, she had just entered the Unity Stage; she had a boundless future. People in those days even regarded her as a True Immortal.”

Hua Yun looked up and found out that the face of the disciples in the hall were all gloomy and bleak. She sighed and said, “Okay, this part of the chapter is too depressing to continue. So, I am just going to skip this part…”

The time in the class passed quickly. Before long, Hua Yun had arrived at the last part of the lecture.

“…Thus, the drying up of the surrounding spiritual energy at the end of the Age of Chaos directly caused the Daoist Master Chi Yin, whose might once shocked the entire Immortal Cultivation World for a thousand years, ended his glorious life in despair and suffering because of qi deviation. After knowing what happened to Daoist Master Chi Yin, no matter how they tried to deceive themselves, the other Immortal Cultivators had to admit that after the change in the surrounding spiritual energy, they could no longer train most of the illustrious cultivation methods. If they forced to practice it, they would end up suffering from qi deviation, and even a True Immortal could not save them. Since even Daoist Master Chi Yin was not an exception, the other Immortal Cultivators no longer dared to practice those illustrious cultivation methods. Thus, hundreds of years after that, there were no more phenomenon of large scale qi deviation amongst the Immortal Cultivators. However, at the same time, almost all of the top notch cultivation methods were lost. Of course, it’s a shame that they were lost, but it’s much better compared to the alternative—die because of qi deviation… Okay, that is the end of the chapter.”

At this point, the classroom burst into applause to mark the end of a wonderful history lesson.

This lesson about the Age of Chaos was really hard to stomach.

More than six thousand years ago, the Age of Chaos fell upon the old Immortal Cultivation World for two hundred years. During this period, massive changes happened to the surrounding spiritual energy, leading to the countless deaths of the Immortal Cultivators who suffered from qi deviation. The Old Immortal Cultivation World Order, therefore, collapsed. In those two hundred years, more than eighty percent of the Immortal Cultivators died, and over ninety percent of the sects turned into dust… Today, six thousand years later, the Immortal Cultivation World still failed to return to its former glory.

Of course, just by hearing or reading it, one could only glimpse a part of it and could not fully comprehend how miserable it was to live in that era.

Plus, in order to accelerate the progress, Hua Yun skipped many details, thus limiting the student’s comprehension. Finally, this one hundred pages chapter, which should be divided into three sessions, was covered by her in just one session. And, instead of giving a lot of homeworks, she only recited those illustrious cultivators who were the casualties of that period.

“Elder Yuan Yue, Patriarch Peng Lai, Daoist Fang Zhen, Monk Xian Yun, Elder Ming Jiang, Daoist Master Miao Xi… Devil Elder Lie Yang, Immortal Sword Zi Li, Immortal Bei He, and Daoist Master Ta Xue.”

Nevertheless, this bonus “lesson” took one hour to finish. And because Hua Yun was a Yuanying Stage cultivator, she recited those names in a single breath. There was no need to repeat the details of their deaths because of how tragic it was.

Actually, this reciting-the-list-of-the-death teaching method was the last resort from the Spirit Sword Sect after years of fumbling through the other methods. When the Spirit Sword Sect started giving this cultural education, in the history lesson, the elders would often accompany it with large-scale illusion so that students could immerse themselves in the history. However, when the lesson reached the chapter about the Age of Chaos, that mournful and bloody history, even if they only provided the class with images, it would still give the students serious psychological burden.

Especially when fifty years ago, the Fifth Elder assumed the teaching task. She pranked the students by giving them a heightened illusion form, which, of course, scared the crap out of them. After that class ended, even three Xudan Stage Inner Court Disciples almost puked and crawled out of the classroom in distraught, much less the Outer Court Disciples. It was also that incident that caused the Fifth Elder to be barred from teaching the cultural education anymore. Since then, all of the teaching materials concerning the Age of Chaos were greatly simplified. The illusion technique was completely banned, and the teaching material was also cut by more than eighty percent. But when Hua Yun became the course’s teacher, she even simplified the materials by just reading the list of casualties, which won her great acclaims from the students.

After she finished her lecture, Hua Yun reorganized the podium and said, “Okay, next lesson, I will talk about the Recovery and Rebirth chapter, which was also the Dawn of the Age of Heroes. I hope you guys can keep on being punctual in attending the class. There will be no homework… but I want you to prepare well for the next chapter. Well then, see you guys next time!”

As she finished the class, Hua Yun flew away on her flying sword accompanied by the cheer and applause from the students.

After the morning class was over, the disciples began to disperse in groups of three or four people. Most of the blue and white disciples returned to the carefree peak, while the black and white disciples took advantage of the time before lunch to meditate or compare notes with other disciples.

As for the only red and white Successor Disciple in the hall, Wang Lu, he remained on his table, waiting for the meal time. Although he could freely eat and drink at the Misty Peak through his Master’s arrangement, it was too conspicuous since he was the only Successor Disciple who ate with the Inner Court Disciples [1]. He felt some pressure every time he ate there because the other disciples looked at him like he was a mascot or something.

Not to mention the Misty Peak cafeteria was quite notorious. Many years ago, the Chef and the disciples had some grudges. He cooked the rare immortal vegetables and spirit meat into something similar to dog shit. When asked why, he shirked his responsibility by claiming to be ignorant, which caused widespread indignation amongst the disciples.

The more ignominious thing was when several years ago, the head of the Misty Peak, Liu Xian, determined to reform the cafeteria to improve the quality of the meal. No one knew who egged him to hire a famous gourmet from the Western Continent as a chef with high salary to offer western style meal for the Misty Peak. That chef was quite “professional”. On his first day at the Spirit Sword Mountain, he learned that the Sect Leader lived at the Stellar Peak, so he creatively cooked a big meal called “Look up at the starry sky” as a gift… which was simply ten fish heads, with face upward, put on top of a cake; a simply appalling meal.

Seeing those ten fishes who died with injustice unredressed, Liu Xian’s complexion became as pale as that cake. But since he had already signed the contract, he was unable to back down…

The contract to hire this “starry sky” chef was worth tens of thousands per year, so Liu Xuan naturally lost his face. However, he couldn’t terminate the contract because it would waste the sect’s fund. Therefore, the contract continued, and this “starry sky” chef was promoted as the chef of the Misty Peak cafeteria. Since then, the number of black and white disciples who ran to the Carefree Peak to have their meal became increasingly large. When asked, their reason was to promote the internal communications between sect members…

Consequently, the long-term meal ticket of the Misty Peak had repeatedly been devalued. One day, when the having-unpaid-tab-all-year-round Fifth Elder found out about this cheap yearly meal ticket, she immediately bought it for Wang Lu.

“Alas, I don’t know if today’s meal is going to be fish and chips or chips and fish. Damn, just don’t let it be haggis. I really can’t take it anymore…”

Wang Lu secretly prayed for a more humane dish today, but then he remembered the consistent style of that “starry sky” chef and he became pessimistic again. In particular, he recalled some time ago a few freak younger martial brothers from the carefree peak came to the misty peak. The stranger the food was, the more they wanted to try it! Look up at the starry sky, haggis, kidney pie… They ate them all with glee! While eating, they even praised those foods, which pleased that “starry sky” chef to no end. He then promised to redouble his effort to introduce every traditional western cuisine for everybody.

While he was thinking, a pebble suddenly flew towards his head. Wang Lu’s reaction was quite fast; he immediately caught that pebble with his hand. He was about to scold the one who did this, but when he looked up, he couldn’t help but laugh because what he saw was a familiar figure.

That person wore a coarse long gown. It was a simple dress, yet it couldn’t mask that person’s amazing figure, beautiful face, lovely smile, and a few trace of wild and unruly aura. Wang Lu immediately stood up, wiped away his saliva and darted over to her.

“Braised Pork, oh no, Lady Boss, here I come!”

…

[1] The other disciples could instantly recognize him since the Successor Disciples wore the red and white robe, while Inner Court Disciples wore black and white robe.