When "God" Decides To Start Over

Li Xiu thought to himself, "You always take credit for everything, but when I got the invitation card, you were still in jail at Good Luck Slope. What does it have to do with you?"

"What do you mean by that?" Li Xiu asked with feigned surprise.

"It's a long story; it all started from the last time I divined the Celestial Secret..." The old man really began recounting a long and detailed story.

The Celestial Master Institute doesn't actually have much power; it usually just manages some rituals and celebrations. The only real task is the Divining Celestial Secret, which happens once every sixty years.

So the Celestial Master Institute doesn't have many people. Besides the Celestial Masters, there are just a few staff members, and when there are major events, people are temporarily brought in from other places to help.

However, the history of the Celestial Master Institute is even older than the six groups of Longevity. It has existed since the time of Longevity Heaven and the Eight Great Families. It could be said that the Divining Celestial Secret every sixty years is a tradition handed down through the millennia.

By rule, each Celestial Master can serve for at most one cycle, which is sixty years.

Each Divining Celestial Secret is presided over by a different Celestial Master. But in the history of Longevity City, there have been a few exceptions. Before the Eighth Master, three Celestial Masters presided over the Divining Celestial Secret two to three times.

The names of those three Celestial Masters are well-known. Even Li Xiu, who doesn't know much about Longevity Heaven, has heard of them because they are legends in the history of the outside world.

The Eighth Master said all of this to tell Li Xiu that he was among these outstanding figures because he was going to preside over the Divining Celestial Secret for the second time.

And he was even more remarkable than those Celestial Masters who at most presided three times and lived longer.

But the chairman had never postponed the Divining Celestial Secret for any Celestial Master. Yet, he was the only one for whom the chairman would delay the process by a few years just to wait for him to divine the Celestial Secret.

"Do you know why the chairman must wait for me to divine the Celestial Secret?" The Eighth Master said proudly.

"Why?" Li Xiu had to play along and ask.

"Because something went wrong the last time the Celestial Secret was divined, revealing an unexpected result." The Eighth Master sighed and said, "Because of that unexpected result, I had to leave Longevity Heaven and secretly explore outside for decades. I eventually discovered the house at Good Luck Slope, but ended up trapped there for decades as well."

"What do you mean by an unexpected result?" Li Xiu was genuinely curious now.

"Let's say divining the Celestial Secret is basically about foreseeing what might happen. Usually, there's a rough conclusion before the actual Divining Celestial Secret. The results on the day itself generally align with prior predictions. You could say it's complying with the Celestial Mandate or guiding public sentiment. Anyway, in the face of some great reform or major event, they would seize the opportunity during the Divining Celestial Secret to make announcements..."

"So you're saying the Divining Celestial Secret is just an excuse, like how two families of the Eight Great Families declined not due to the Celestial Mandate, but because the chairman wanted them to decline?" Li Xiu understood the old man's point.

"That's about right, but it's not entirely up to the chairman. Since it's about divining the Celestial Secret, the Celestial Master still has to consider the auspices of the Celestial Mandate. It's just that the chairman's previous decisions didn't conflict with the Celestial Mandate. But during the last Divining Celestial Secret, there was an unexpected outcome. The result I divined was completely contrary to the chairman's expectations..." The Eighth Master drank sullenly.

"And even after that, he's letting you preside over it a second time?" Li Xiu laughed.

"You think he doesn't want to replace me? It's not that he doesn't want to; he can't. After that Divining Celestial Secret, the chairman didn't dare to find someone else to be the Celestial Master and divine the Celestial Secret again." The Eighth Master chuckled.

"Why?" Li Xiu asked curiously.

"An immortal person supposedly found out he might die. Isn't that strange? Would he dare to have someone else divine the secret for him?" The Eighth Master said with a complex expression.

"It's not that strange. Even if you have eternal life, it doesn't mean you can't be killed by someone. What's so strange about that?" Li Xiu said.

"It seems you don't understand the meaning of 'immortality.' What you mentioned is just longevity, merely living longer. It's not the same as being immortal." The Eighth Master shook his head.

"You mean to say that the chairman not only has eternal life but also cannot be killed?" Li Xiu was starting to find it unbelievable.

As far as he knew, nothing in this world was truly everlasting.

Of course, it could also be his limited knowledge, not having reached that level yet.

"Yes, that's what I mean. Basically, nothing can kill him. During my first time presiding over the Divining Celestial Secret, there wasn't much going on, so the chairman whimsically decided to find out how much life he had left." The Eighth Master lowered his voice and continued, "A person shouldn't bring misfortune upon themselves. As someone who's supposed to be immortal, why even bother measuring how much life you have left? It's just looking for trouble."

"So you measured that the chairman was about to die?" Li Xiu looked at the Eighth Master incredulously.

"If I had measured that, I would probably have been dead by now." The Eighth Master chuckled, "I didn't measure how much lifespan he had left, but I did foresee that someone would kill him."

"Who will kill him?" Li Xiu was becoming more and more curious.

"I don't know who or when." The Eighth Master shook his head.

"Didn't you measure it?" Li Xiu frowned and asked.

"What I measured was just a single character: 'Ling'. The one who might kill him could be a demonic spirit, someone with the surname Ling, or someone whose name includes the character Ling. There are too many possibilities..." the Eighth Master explained.

"Your divination seems quite unreliable. Does the chairman trust it?" Li Xiu laughed.

"Whether he believes it or not, I'm not sure. But since then, he officially formed the Magic Armor Master group. Although it wasn't formally established as a group, all the Magic Armor Masters were integrated into one group, and it was under the management of the Bai Family, the chairman's most trusted." The Eighth Master said.

Li Xiu understood the Eighth Master's point. Trial Masters could easily be associated with the character "Ling," having demonic spirits on them, and could even be super spirits. There were many connections to the character "Ling."

But Magic Armor Masters were different. Aside from fighting demonic spirits, they didn't have much to do with the character "Ling."

As for the term "Spiritual Sense," it was called differently in various regions, with most people referring to it as Spiritual Force.

Perhaps the chairman's desire to form a Magic Armor group had been sown on that day.

"Didn't the chairman ask you to continue divining what the 'Ling' character truly meant?" Li Xiu asked.

"How could he not ask? But sadly, divining the Celestial Secret involves the Heaven Refining Furnace; without it, such results are hard to achieve. The Heaven Refining Furnace can only be used every few decades. Without it, I can't even divine a single 'Ling' character..."

The Eighth Master said helplessly, "Unable to divine it in a short time, the chairman ordered me to find the origin of the 'Ling' character. So I could only half-divine, half-guess, and half-speculate, wandering outside for decades, until I finally found Good Luck Slope and met that incredible woman."