Legend of the Great Sage

The centre was embedded with a black gemstone, pitch-black in colour. When he gazed at it, he felt like even his soul was about to be sucked away.

It did not possess any great power, but its structure was very complicated and delicate. Even the spirit turtle was unable to deduce the entire thing in a short amount of time. Instead, it emanated a bizarre sense of beauty.

Pi Yangqiu said, “This is the main formation disc of the Xuanming dwelling.”

Li Qingshan pulled his gaze away from the black gemstone and asked, “I can control the formation and overwhelm that true dragon Ao Xuan?”

Pi Yangqiu smiled. “Of course… that’s impossible. After all, he’s the true master of the Xuanming dwelling.”

“Tsk, the Department of Heavenly Dwellings is useless!”

Pi Yangqiu was not angered. He said earnestly, “This is just a key to help you open the front door, but you can’t use it to stab people!”

“Alright. Thanks for this, senior brother!”

Li Qingshan clasped his hands and stowed the “key” away. He had been expecting this too, so he was not particularly disappointed.

“Are you really planning to resolve this through force?” Pi Yangqiu said in surprise.

Against a fifth heavenly tribulation true dragon, most people could only come up with a few ingenious plans. Directly confronting him was a horrible plan that they would not even consider.

Li Qingshan shrugged. “Who knows?”

“I’d advise you to undergo the fifth heavenly tribulation first, or try your best to negotiate with him!”

Li Qingshan shook his head. “I’m not as smooth-tongued as you, senior brother. Instead, it’s very easy for me to anger others.”

“That’s the exact part that I admire about you. I have one last reminder for you. No one can help you with this, whether it’s me or junior sister Ruan Yaozhu. You’re on your own!” Pi Yangqiu said sincerely.

At this moment, an attendant in black walked in and reported, “The Department of Military Provisions has sent an officer. He says he’s looking for Li Qingshan.”

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Pi Yangqiu furrowed his brows. “That kid Ge Xing really shows me no respect at all! Let him in!”

“Ge Xing!” Li Qingshan muttered. He had seen that name on the Myriad ranking before, taking eighteenth place.

In a short while, an officer dressed in military attire with a stern expression walked in. He bowed towards Pi Yangqiu first. “Senior brother Pi, I’ve come under the master of military provisions senior brother Ge’s orders to enlist Li Qingshan.”

As he said that, he took out a piece of paper and passed it to Li Qingshan. Under the huge title of enlistment, there were a few lines of simple, illegible words. Li Qingshan only managed to recognise his name. The person who wrote the letter seemed to be in a great hurry, and he did not write it seriously at all, perhaps even feeling a little angry when he did. Below was the seal of the Department of Military Provisions.

Li Qingshan looked up at Pi Yangqiu. “Is senior brother Ge one of the gamblers?”

“He is, and he’s the stingiest of them all. He’s infamous for being a miser. He’ll even haggle over a single Black Wood bookmark.”

Pi Yangqiu spoke ill of Ge Xing in a seemingly fearful manner, making the corner of the officer’s eye twitch.

Then Li Qingshan asked, “What does the Department of Military Provisions do? Why are they enlisting me?”

“The Human realm is connected with the many worlds, so there are a lot of conflicts, especially from invasion attempts of the Demon domain all year round. All major sects need to organise people and participate in the battle. The Department of Military Provisions is responsible for enlisting cultivators and preparing military provisions to be sent onto the battlefield.”

Li Qingshan immediately recalled the books he had read in the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes recently. A majority of them described the war that had lasted until now since the beginning of saṃsāra.

If a world were a country, then the six realms of saṃsāra were like six powerful countries. Coupled with the Demon domain, it was a struggle between seven powerful states.

The most renowned was the historical grievances between the Asura realm and the Heaven realm. From the moment they were born, they began warring against one another. The Heaven realm had the thirty-three heavens, or the Trāyastriṃśa, led by Śakra, where the Asura realm suffered mostly defeats. However, as soon as the opportunity arose, they would raise their weapons at heaven.

The Ten Courts of Yanluo, the Four Great Adjudicators, and the Ten Hell Guards of the Hell realm had always devoted themselves to suppressing the Hungry Ghost realm, bringing the dead back into the cycle of saṃsāra, allowing none of the dead from the various worlds to slip past.

While the Hungry Ghost realm stood no chance against the Hell realm, they rapidly devoured the trichiliocosm and continued to expand through their extraordinary will of the world. Often, they would attack the other worlds indiscriminately in an attempt to turn all of the living into the dead.

The Daemonic Beast realm was a primitive and wild place. Even though it constantly produced powerful existences, it was extremely chaotic. It was the one that least resembled a country. However, apart from the Hungry Ghost realm, it had no other enemy states.

The Human realm resided between order and chaos. Overall, it was not weak, but it neither possessed the strict and impartial order of the Heaven realm and Hell realm, nor was it fanned on by the intense will of the world like the Hungry Ghost realm and the Asura realm. The overt and covert conflicts between sects were even more intense than the Daemonic Beast realm, yet it also opposed all the other worlds at the same time.

Countless sects and cultivators, due to their own demands, would go to the Daemonic Beast realm to hunt daemonic beasts and collect mounts, go to the Hungry Ghost realm to raid tombs for treasure and enslave undead, or infiltrate the Heaven realm and the Asura realm to steal precious weapons and valuables. They even directly captured deva and asura, using their flesh, blood, and souls to cultivate, refine pills, and forge artifacts.

Without any heed for moral alignment, countless cultivators went to the Hell realm to break prisoners out purely because they were powerful, for the sake of various emotional reasons, leading to the most plentiful of bizarre stories. It left Li Qingshan with a very deep impression.

This obviously led to a very severe issue of boundaries. Deva, asura, and even daemons and undead could enter the Human realm freely, but they killed all intruding humans that resisted. In particular, the security in the Hell realm was the strictest.

This was not a particularly large problem either, as the Human realm also worked with the other worlds. Whether it were daemons or undead, there were no eternal enemies, only eternal benefits.

Small skirmishes continued endlessly, but rarely would they develop into a war between nations. The worlds all hated humans, but none of them treated the Human realm as an enemy state. Even the most invasive Hungry Ghost realm did not pose too great of a threat to the Human realm due to the suppression of the Hell realm.

However, wicked people would have their own kind to deal with, which was the Demon domain that stood independent from the six realms of saṃsāra. Fanned on by the wicked, chaotic will of the world, the twelve Demon Gods led the demonfolk army and colluded with various demonic sects, constantly invading the Human realm.

The orthodox sects of the Human realm were forced to band together and suppress these “wicked existences” internally while guarding against the Demon domain externally. With how established the Myriad sect was, they possessed a large number of cultivators, so they had always served as one of the primary forces.

Under these circumstances, the Department of Military Provisions possessed extremely great authority. When the need arose, they could conscript disciples into the army, and the so-called times when the need arose was when the master of military provisions thought there was the need. That also happened to be direct disciple Ge Xing.

“Li Qingshan, military orders are absolute. Those who defy them will be executed. Please report to the Department of Military Provisions with me immediately!” the officer said impassively.

“I’m an inner disciple. Can he execute me just because he wants to?” Li Qingshan said proudly, glancing at Pi Yangqiu.

Pi Yangqiu smiled. “That’s right. If senior brother Ge wants to forcibly enlist an inner disciple, it’s probably not going to be that easy.”

Seeing how Pi Yangqiu had spoken up, the officer eased up slightly. He lowered his head and clasped his hands. “I am acting under orders. If junior brother defies the military orders, I’ll return right now and report back to the Department of Military Provisions.”

Li Qingshan asked Pi Yangqiu, “What do I do? Do I go or not?”

Pi Yangqiu touched his nose. “Military orders cannot be openly defied. You still need to pay a visit to the Department of Military Provisions, but you can’t just go like this. Ask for help from your senior sister Ruan. You belong to the Hundred Herbs garden, and you’ve made such a great contribution to the Hundred Herbs garden. As such, she’s duty-bound to step forward for you.”

“What about you?”

“I manipulate everything from behind the scenes.”

At the same time, Xiao An stood on the arched bridge, between the waterfall, gazing at the two large words over the city gates—Myriad City.