Perfected Spirit Pine stroked his round, plump chin, the sharp light in his tiny eyes flickering again and again.
But before he could figure it out, Gu Chengyin suddenly changed tack.
“However, the Dao recognizes no seniority. The one who attains it is the teacher.”
“Who says the Taihe Battle must end with one side killing the other before the final victor can be determined?”
Gu Chengyin’s voice carried across the silent square.
Under the eastern cloister, Perfected Xuanstone stood with his sword on his back. His brows lifted ever so slightly when he heard those words.
Beneath the gingko tree on the western side, Reverend Coldstone still wore his usual icy expression, but a thoughtful glimmer flashed through his eyes.
Even the ordinary cultivators who had already decided that Gu Chengyin was merely putting on a brave front could not help feeling curious now.
If neither side fought to the death, then how could the victor be determined?
Perfected Spirit Pine blinked, his mind racing.
He carefully went over every word Gu Chengyin had just said.
How could the winner of the Taihe Battle be decided without a fight?
The Taihe Battles of the Celestial Master’s Mansion had always been fought with real blades and genuine weapons. When had that ever changed?
Fists and feet showed no mercy, and blades and swords spared no one. Whoever had the harder fists was the winner, and whoever possessed the higher cultivation was the Taihe.
That was an ironclad rule of the Celestial Master’s Mansion, a tradition forged through the blood and sweat of countless generations.
Could Gu Chengyin be proposing a battle of words instead?
Perfected Spirit Pine had heard of scholars replacing martial contests with literary duels in theatrical stories.
Matching couplets, composing poetry, testing one’s knowledge.
But the Taihe position in the Celestial Master’s Mansion was not the top rank in the imperial examinations. Surely they were not going to compete in poetry and prose?
Gu Chengyin took in the confusion in Perfected Spirit Pine’s eyes.
He also took in the more than hundred gazes surrounding the square—some curious, some doubtful, and some deep in thought.
He did not keep them in suspense. Instead, he spoke clearly and loudly:
“Every one of you is a pillar of the Celestial Master’s Mansion, and an essential foundation of Great Luo.”
“You cultivate within the Mansion either to pursue the Great Dao or to protect the common people.”
“Regardless of who gets injured, it would be an irreparable loss—to the Celestial Master’s Mansion, and even more so to Great Luo.”
Gu Chengyin’s tone was sincere and earnest, without the slightest hint of false flattery or deliberate emotional manipulation.
“But blades and swords are blind. If we truly take the field, no one can guarantee that they will emerge unscathed.”
“When fists and feet clash and spiritual power collides, there is also a chance of harming innocent bystanders—not only those present.”
“There are also our fellow disciples who are cultivating in other parts of the Celestial Master’s Mansion.”
“If they were caught in the aftermath of the Taihe Battle, would that not be a disaster falling from the sky?”
At those words, the cultivators in the square nodded one after another.
That was precisely what worried them most.
Once the Taihe Battle began, it would be a clash between Golden Core cultivators.
At that level, even the residual force of their exchange would be enough to seriously injure or even kill Foundation Establishment cultivators as insignificant as ants.
They could not focus solely on watching the spectacle and forget that the spectacle itself could cost lives.
“So this junior’s opinion is that we should compete through our Dao hearts instead.”
“That way, we can avoid harming the innocent while ensuring everyone’s safety.”
Gu Chengyin calmly met the gazes of the several honored elders. The confident, composed smile on his face remained unchanged.
“Although this junior is only at the Foundation Establishment Realm, I already possess my own Dao.”
“My Dao heart has already reached the Golden Core Realm.”
The moment those words left his mouth, the entire square erupted in an uproar.
Under the eastern cloister, Perfected Xuanstone abruptly opened his eyes, and the black sword on his back let out a deep hum.
Beneath the gingko tree on the western side, Reverend Coldstone’s expression—unchanged for ten thousand years—showed unmistakable shock for the first time.
The cultivators of the Celestial Master’s Mansion who had been whispering among themselves instantly exploded into a commotion.
Gu Chengyin was only at the Foundation Establishment Realm, yet his Dao heart had already reached the Golden Core Realm?!
Was he even human?
They knew that anyone capable of earning Lin Qingyan’s favor could not be ordinary.
But no one had expected him to be so astonishingly talented.
What did it mean for someone at the Foundation Establishment Realm to possess a Golden Core Dao heart?
It meant that Gu Chengyin’s comprehension far surpassed that of every cultivator present—even every cultivator in the entire cultivation world of Great Luo.
It meant that the Dao he walked was not some unorthodox path, but a true Great Dao acknowledged by the Heavenly Dao.
Perfected Spirit Pine was even more incredulous. His eyes widened.
Those tiny eyes that were normally squeezed into two narrow slits by his flesh had now bulged into two perfectly round longans.
What had he just heard?
Gu Chengyin already possessed his own Dao, and his Dao heart had reached the Golden Core Realm?
Wait—wasn’t he only at the Foundation Establishment Realm?
How could his Dao heart have broken through first?
Who in this world did not first advance in cultivation before nurturing their Dao heart?
In his two hundred years at the Celestial Master’s Mansion, Perfected Spirit Pine had only seen a few cases in ancient records of someone possessing a Dao heart before attaining the corresponding cultivation realm.
Every one of them had been a supreme expert from the ancient era, and every one had shaken the ages.
Was this even reasonable?
Even Lin Qingyan had not been this monstrous back then.
As for Lin Qingyan, her face was filled with pride.
Standing on the stone steps, she finally stopped concealing the curve of her lips. It rose openly and unmistakably.
How could the man she had chosen possibly be ordinary?
Although Lin Qingyan had long since guessed that Gu Chengyin’s Dao heart had broken through to the Golden Core Realm, hearing him announce it in front of everyone still filled her with pride and admiration.
It was as if someone had placed a warm, glowing coal in her chest, leaving her whole body suffused with warmth.
One had to understand that even she, invincible among Golden Core cultivators, had not been monstrous enough to advance her Dao heart before her cultivation back then.
Dao heart and cultivation had always followed the order of cultivation first, Dao heart second.
Cultivation was the ship, while the Dao heart was the rudder. If the ship had not even been built, where could the rudder come from?
Throughout her cultivation, Lin Qingyan had seen countless prodigies. Yet those who forged their Dao hearts before pursuing cultivation—
Not a single one could be found in this generation. Even looking back several thousand years, she could not find one.
Even in the ancient era, when immortals had walked the earth in abundance and Great Vehicle cultivators had been as common as dogs, only a handful of people had managed to accomplish such a feat.
Every one of those few had gone on to become emperors who stood unrivaled throughout the ages.
Moreover, cultivators who followed the path of the heart were the most insidious of all.
Thinking of this, Lin Qingyan could not help muttering inwardly.
A Dao heart was not fists and feet, nor a technique, nor the flash of blades and swords.
It was an understanding of the Great Dao, a contest of temperament and will.
You asked whether he had won or lost, and he said he had attained enlightenment.
You said his technique was incorrect, and he said your Dao heart was impure.
You exhausted every means to beat him to the brink of collapse, only for a flash of inspiration to strike him and bring him enlightenment.
His cultivation would rise instead of falling, and all your effort would amount to nothing.
After learning this, Perfected Spirit Pine finally understood what Gu Chengyin intended to compete in.
He gave Gu Chengyin a deep look. The sharp light in his tiny eyes, normally squeezed into two narrow slits by his flesh, now gleamed intensely. There was no trace of his earlier casualness.
It was obvious that Gu Chengyin intended to clash Dao hearts.
The solidity of a Dao heart depended on one’s comprehension of the Great Dao, while spiritual power could restore the damage sustained by the Dao heart.
Thus, a clash of Dao hearts ultimately tested one’s comprehension of the Great Dao and the depth of one’s spiritual power.
Gu Chengyin was merely a Foundation Establishment cultivator, yet his Dao heart had already reached the Golden Core Realm.
His comprehension of the Great Dao was therefore certainly no weaker than that of any honored elder in the Celestial Master’s Mansion.
So there was only one question left.
How long could Gu Chengyin’s spiritual power sustain him?
for mindless slaughter, this isn't for you.] My name is Ye Shu, and I'm a transmigrator. It seems I'm supposed to be the protagonist, but that feels pretty unlikely. This world has been invaded by a system. The antagonists on the other side have suddenly become pure, flawless saints. The female leads have been force-fed the so-called "original plot," making them think they've been reborn. Now, everyone thinks I'm scum. Including the old lady in my ring. And here I am, in the Monster Beast Mountain Range, braising pork. To put my situation in perspective— It's as if, the moment Xiao Yan stepped into the Monster Beast Mountain Range, the Soul Emperor already knew he would become the Flame Emperor, and Yao Lao had been turned to the enemy's side. I have nothing right now. Oh wait, that's not true. I do have a white-haired loli child-bride who's the Heavenly Dao, and her only skill is acting cute. So, tell me guys... what are my chances of making it to the end?
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
