Chapter 538: Nine-Tiered Heavens
Translator: Yukidaruma Translations Editor: Yukidaruma Translations
‘The cultivators in the Western Land are known as Friars. They are also segregated into level 1 to 30, as well as first transition, second transition, and Divine level.
‘At the first tier of the Divine level, the consciousness can be materialized, and the will is one’s source of power, capable of interfering in the physical world.
‘At the second tier of the Divine level, one’s will can be turned into one’s flesh. Unless the consciousness is destroyed, the physical body is almost imperishable.
‘At the third tier of the Divine level, one’s physical strength is built up directly through ether particles. The person would be connected with the entire world’s ether particles and have an endless amount of energy. The person would almost never experience a weakening of his power.
‘At the fourth tier of the Divine level, one’s consciousness can accept futuristic information from ether particles, which may cause one to receive sudden inspirations, as well as sense fortunes and misfortunes.’
Fang Xingjian looked at the secret manual in his hands. It recorded the research the Mountainous Sea Dynasty had with regard to the Divine level. It was a pity that although the Mountainous Sea Dynasty was powerful, they had not experienced any world metamorphosis before and thus only knew about the first four tiers of the Divine level.
As for the words written in the manual, they were closer to the words about the Heaven's Volition Sword Intent that had been engraved on the dragon’s scale. The words were also close to the Chinese characters the Earth’s Xin Country used.
Western Land, Heaven’s Volition Sword Intent, Xin Country… Looking at the words in the manual, Fang Xingjian felt that there seemed to be a series of mysterious connections between them.
However, this was not the time for him to work on unravelling these mysteries. Fang Xingjian placed more of his focus on the contents itself.
‘I see... This is how Divine level experts are distinguished? There will be a limit to one’s physical strength, but the power of the will can increase limitlessly.’
Fang Xingjian then flipped open another book and sighed, ‘Going deeper into ether particles… when one’s microscopic view reaches a great extreme, one will be able to sense the many passageways in the world, as well as travel to various unknown time and space. This is the world beyond the heavens.
‘Therefore, diabolic energies are transmitted from ether particles. And this is also why the powers of Mages, magic prints Warriors, and Knights are so similar.
‘And the way to strive for the Divine level is to gather all of one’s power throughout the body, condensing it into a will. The will would dive deep into the ether particles, and break through the world’s passageway in the microscopic world, getting out of the world’s restrictions.
‘It’s a pity that the distance of the passageway is far too great. Even a Divine level expert might never be able to pass through it. Only existences like the evil gods from beyond the heavens would be able transmit power across space via the passageway.
‘However, after transmitting power into the world’s passageway, one would be able to gain the core secrets of countless worlds and obtain a lot of information concerning the third transition.’
Striving for the Divine level was to break through to the world’s passageway with endless determination, charging through. The further one charged in, the more the information one would obtain, and the more powerful the job would be for the job transition. The person would also become more powerful after successfully attaining the Divine level.
Fang Xingjian suddenly thought of the legend that claimed there was a world in every speck of sand. He had not expected that the ether particles, which formed everything in this world, would really contain other worlds. As long as one could pass through the world’s passageway, one would be able to arrive in the world beyond the heavens.
This was so similar to the legend of there being a world in each speck of sand!
However, it was not easy to pass through the world’s passageway. Therefore, one would require an extremely powerful will. The stronger one’s will, the further one would be able to travel in the world’s passageway. This would mean that he would get more and more information about the job transition, and have an even greater chance in attaining the Divine level.
If the third transition job was not powerful enough, one might end up being stuck at tier one of the Divine level forever.
‘Those on the path of Knights can temper their physical strength, turning all their physical strength into will and unleashing a world-shaking explosive strength to break through the world’s passage and complete the job transition.
‘This is the reason why, despite being similar at the Divine level, Knights are more powerful than magic prints Warriors. However, this isn’t absolute either. As long as one’s will is strong enough and one gets to know of these information beforehand, magic prints Warriors and Mages can also increase their achievements for the third transition through various secret arts.’
Various pieces of information concerning Divine level experts flashed through Fang Xingjian’s mind incessantly. He now had a clear image for his path to attain five tiers of perfection, as well as the Divine level.
‘As long as I can attain five tiers of perfection, the power I will get after attaining the Divine level will far surpass that of the First Prince’s. However, what if in the area of specialty seeds, I can also attain the 9,270 external specialties aside from the 1,440 internal specialties?
‘Moreover, if my forces of heavenly thunders and terrestrial magnetism can breakthrough past level 29, reaching the level of Divine Remains Equipment… How powerful would my third job be?
‘If I can defeat the First Prince and gain the power to lord over an area amongst those in the Divine level experts, I’ll have enough confidence to head to the City of Universal Truth in the north to look for my mother’s remains.’
Thinking of his mother and that black-clothed man, Fang Xingjian’s expression turned slightly gloomy again. If he wished to understand everything, get to know of his mother’s secrets, and find out how he had gotten his talent at the cost of having only five years to his lifespan, he would have to find the black-clothed man. Moreover, he must possess great power.
Fang Xingjian went through the records from the Mountainous Sea Dynasty and looked at the various jobs, including Green Lotus Sword Immortal, Xuanpin 1 Old Ancestor, and Nüwa Gladiator. These were third transition jobs unique to the Western Land, filled with the culture and aura of the place.
Fang Xingjian then picked up many other manuals belonging to the Mountainous Sea Dynasty while concurrently scanning through them, strengthening his knowledge and experience.
Wang Xiaoyan, who was at the side, said, "Why, you’re still looking at these? Our clan has lost too many of our legacies, and what’s left isn’t a big deal. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been the case where my uncle was the only one to attain one tier of perfection over the past 100 years. Moreover, he had only succeeded in this thanks to the world’s metamorphosis.
"Furthermore, after having seen the treasure map I gave you, don’t you want to try out the Panwu Heavenly Raiment? With your talent and abilities, if you can get your hands on the Panwu Heavenly Raiment, it won’t be impossible for you to unify and rule over the world in the future. The Panwu Heavenly Raiment is said to have the prowess for one to rule over the world."
Hearing what Wang Xiaoyan said, Fang Xingjian shook his head. "If I were to go get the Panwu Heavenly Raiment now, putting aside the question if I can successfully suppress and use it...
"With how the First and Fifth Prince are both aware that I know of the existence of the Panwu Heavenly Raiment, how could they possibly not pay any heed to my actions? If I were to go get it now, they would definitely try to pull a fast one on me while I look for the Panwu Heavenly Raiment.
"Therefore, before I get my hands on decisive power, I won’t try to lay my hands on the Panwu Heavenly Raiment."
"Alright. What you said made sense too," Wang Xiaoyan agreed, resting her head on one of the hands. She looked at Fang Xingjian and asked with a smile, "Then when are we going to head off back to Great Western City? This time around, I’m going to move the entire Wang Clan over and get you to back us up. With that, other people wouldn’t dare pay their hands on the Wang Clan."
"That’s fine. You guys can take your time to pack up. I’ll be staying here for a few more days to browse through these manuals from your clan in order to increase my knowledge of martial arts."
With that, Fang Xingjian returned his focus to the various manuals around him. Although most of the manuals from the Mountainous Sea Dynasty had become badly damaged and incomplete when they fled from the Western Land, there was still a large amount of profound cultivation theories and knowledge, especially concerning the introduction of the first four tiers of the Divine level recorded in what that was left. These were information which Fang Xingjian needed but had not been able to get his hands on.
‘Is the cultivation beyond the Divine level to break through the Nine-Tiered Heavens?
‘To strive for the Divine level, one must start from a small perspective, breaking through to the world’s passageway that is within ether particles. Then from there, one will obtain information relating to the third transition and of the world’s profound secrets.
‘And after attaining the Divine level, the breakthrough of each tier of the Divine level must be approached from a wider aspect. One must break through the Nine-Tiered Heavens which encompasses the entire world.’
These wide and narrow aspects contained all the profound secrets to the Divine level.
Hidden in ether particles, which were the smallest existences in the world, was the world’s passage and the means to attain the Divine level.
Meanwhile, the greatest existence in the world, which was the boundary that encompassed the entire world, hid the profoundness to the cultivation after the Divine level.
The Nine-Tiered Heavens... According to the records of the Mountainous Sea Dynasty’s manual, the world was a sphere, the clouds were at the top of the sky, and then the outer space was where the sun was. The outer space was also where the legendary stars existed. Then at the very end of the spread of stars, that was the end and the boundary of the world.
It was fine for the ether particle density in the world to be low during ordinary times, but after the world underwent a metamorphosis, the ether particles across the world had increased incessantly. These ether particles then continued to affect each other, pushing against each other and applying pressure toward the entire outer space until they reached a limit as to how much they could expand out. This was also what the world’s boundary was. All the ether particles would eventually be amassed at the world’s boundary.
With the spherical world as the core and the end of the world’s boundary as the extremity, layers and layers were formed. In the end, there would be a total of nine extremely thick ether particle layers. The closer toward the world’s boundary, the more extraordinary the density of ether particles would be.
It was because the ether particle density there far surpassed that of a human’s imagination. Under such a high ether particle density, various information and energies were amassed together, forming many strange phenomenons while holding the profound mysteries for each tier of the Divine level.
A breakthrough to the Divine level meant that one had to break through the nine tiers of ether particle layers. With the destruction of each layer of profound mysteries, one would be able to attain a breakthrough to one tier of the Divine level.
The entire process seemed to be depicting a scene of breaking through the world’s restrictions, having the human body transcend the world.
However, right now, Fang Xingjian had not even reached the Divine level, so it was useless for him to be reading these. He picked up another manual that was violet and gold in color, appearing to have been created from some kind of unknown material.
It was the martial technique which the founder of the Mountainous Sea Dynasty had cultivated. This was a technique which no one from the Wang Clan had been able to comprehend for the past 100 years—the Mountainous Sea’s Book of the Way.