Taoist Master Xuanhuang

"Good, good, you did a good job."

The porters who returned to the Taishan territory received praise from the Lord of Taishan.

"My lord, I was merely repeating what others had said. The main ideas came from the two fellow Daoists of the Civil and Martial Temples. I was just reiterating what they had said."

The porter was not complacent; he spoke the truth.

"Alas, this is our fault. Due to our negligence, the gap between us and the two great realms is widening." Lord Taishan sighed.

Who could have imagined it would turn out like this?

Because of the initial reserve and caution, or rather, a little bit of pride, such a huge chain reaction was triggered.

Originally, I was the one closest to the Xuanhuang.

"Perhaps we are different," the porter said.

"Yes!" Lord Taishan nodded.

Indeed, they are different. They are divine beings who have truly cultivated themselves, while the civil and military temples are human beings who are divine.

At first, they dismissed this distinction, seeing it merely as a division among humans, and scoffed at it.

Slowly, the laughter faded, because, just as the human cultivators had concluded, their enthusiasm was simply not as sacred as that of humanity.

The two temples, Wenwu and Ermiao, were ahead in every aspect, and they could only watch helplessly as they sped along.

After finishing the business, Lord Taishan said, "By the way, the strange porter you wanted has arrived. Are you really sure about this?"

"Yes, I've thought it through." The porter was visibly delighted to hear that the strange creature he wanted had been delivered.

They confirmed and had thought it through when asked by the Prefect.

Not only had I thought it through, but strictly speaking, it was too late; I should have done it a long time ago.

Looking back, I started from the same point as the corpse retrievers, Zuo Qiuming, Yan Lai, and others.

But now, look at those fellow Daoists from the past, how carefree and comfortable they are.

Not only was the sacred avatar elevated to the fifth-order Venerable level, but the original avatar also forged its own path in the human world after reincarnation.

Their cultivation level alone is already on par with the strongest group of human cultivators.

I was one of them too.

Unfortunately, I was unlucky. At the beginning, the three great masters were still in seclusion, and the one who was in charge of everything outside was that muddle-headed Venerable.

The Confused Venerable was very dissatisfied with Xuanhuang, and even somewhat hostile.

Because of him, a great opportunity was wasted, the civil and military temples went further and further away, and we could only watch helplessly.

Fortunately, the three great lords, Lord Taishan, Emperor Fengdu, and Lady Bixia, appeared later and corrected the course. Otherwise, they would have all become enemies of the Xuanhuang Dao Lord.

How terrible is it to become the enemy of the Dao Lord?
They have the most say in the Taishan region.

Putting aside everything else, the Heavenly Realm above Mount Tai and the Yellow Springs Realm below were both resolved by the two avatars of the Xuanhuang Dao Master.

If it weren't for these two, the Taishan Realm would still be under the siege of the two great realms, still immersed in anxiety and unease.

This is still the Dao Lord's split-spirit ability.

If I were to become enemies with the Dao Lord, I'm afraid... I dare not even imagine.

Compared to such risks, not keeping up with the corpse retrievers like Zuo Qiuming seemed like a trivial matter.

At this moment, he is finally about to take this step.

Over the years, especially after Lord Fu took charge of the domain, he has not been idle.

They are also constantly searching for their own path, the same path as the corpse retrievers.

He didn't want to compare himself with Zuo Qiuming, Lü Dongbin, and Peng Yue, nor did he dare to.

What is his status? He is both a legendary figure and a historical hero.

I'm just a Frankenstein's monster; how dare I compare myself to these three?

If you're going to compare yourself to someone, compare yourself to someone who retrieves corpses; that's the kind of person you should be comparing yourself to.

Corpse retrievers can be considered everyone's mentors, but what about them?

Peng Yue, Zuo Qiuming, and Lü Dongbin, who disappeared from the world, continue to make progress, while the corpse retriever has to bury himself and start anew.

This is the difference.

It must be admitted that truth is always important, even if it truly existed and belongs to the past.

Anything that truly existed is better than a fictitious, Frankenstein's monster like myself.

Over the years, he has read many books and humbly asked questions of everyone, regardless of their strength or weakness, as long as there was something he could learn from, he would study it with sincerity.

He finally discovered a path that belonged to him.

Abbreviation: God and Demon in One, or God and Deception in One.

The phrase "God and Demon as One" didn't sound right, so he simply called it "God and Demon as One."

The flaws of the divine are self-evident, but their greatest adversary, the bizarre, makes up for these flaws.

You could say that the Weird isn't strong, but that's in comparison to the True Cultivator. Apart from the True Cultivator, which is an absolute monster, there's no one stronger than the Weird.

Moreover, the strangeness is formed from fragments of real rules, and it doesn't want its sacred identity to seem good, but it is restricted in every way.

What if it incorporates the supernatural?

It's not the kind of fusion where a human becomes a spiritual master, but rather one who, as a deity, merges with the bizarre.

What will happen?

He started to make connections, and then came countless difficulties.

Fortunately, all those years of hard work haven't been in vain; all the difficulties have been resolved.

The most important thing is opposition.

One is sacred, the other is eerie; this is the greatest opposition.

The biggest challenge is resolving the conflict.

He thought of the corpse retriever burying him, the spirit master's fusion with the strange and powerful, and the abnormal eating of strange creatures by true cultivators, among other methods that had already emerged.

Unfortunately, none of them are suitable for my sacred identity.

After all, apart from the corpse retriever's method, the latter two of the above-mentioned strengths come from oneself, and are things that one can control.

As a deity, all energy originates from the source of the realm.

If the origin of the realm disagrees, no matter how capable you are, it won't work unless you are not a saint.

But if it is not sacred, then nothing is valid.

After struggling with this for a long time, he finally came up with a solution.

This method, which is rather embarrassing to admit, can only be implemented after the seal on heaven and earth has been lifted. If it were implemented long ago, before the seal on heaven and earth had been lifted...

One's true form cannot leave the boundary; it is impossible.

In fact, the solution he came up with was very simple: he took advantage of the fact that the sacred power was not lasting and had no endurance.

This is about turning weaknesses into strengths.

Of course, the most important thing was that he received the support of the Master of the Minghu Realm, Fellow Daoist Xingmu Yuanjun.

Speaking of Star Mother Yuanjun, one must mention the previous 'masters' of the Minghu Realm, those spiritual masters of the Evil Suppression Department.

I won't go into the details of the Korean dance; it was orchestrated by a certain bigwig from the Martial Temple.

Zhao Zheng and Tang Zongcai were his role models; these two had transformed their strangeness into holiness.

Logically speaking, they should be the first ones.

I simply referenced the methods of these two people; my approach was a combination of the sacred and the bizarre, while theirs was to transform the bizarre into the sacred.

"If you've made up your mind, then do it. You are a person with great opportunities, and you deserve your future. It is the realm that has let you down."

Lord Taishan said.

The three of them strongly encouraged the porters to give it a try. Trying is always better than not trying at all; trying is a form of hope.

Don't forget that the construction of the Temple of Literature and the Temple of Military Affairs also began with the attempts of Zuo Qiuming and Peng Yue.

The porters had already told the three of them their method, and the three of them had helped solve a lot of problems.

Simply put, it's about porters going to the Minghu area.

This is equivalent to a deity from one realm going to another realm; one can refer to wandering deities like Gege.

The treatment of wandering saints is very clear.

Not being a favored child of this realm, they have no special privileges or preferential treatment.

All the benefits have nothing to do with the wandering saint.

Once you're dead, you're dead. Don't fantasize about being resurrected by the realm; it's impossible. Wandering saints are just consumables.

Most importantly, even if the realm wanted to revive, it couldn't, since it wasn't created by itself, so how could it be revived?

The porters' idea was that once they entered the Minghu territory, they would lose all contact.

The Taishan domain is beyond our control, since this is in another domain.

Moreover, it is not a simple realm; it is a realm modified by the Xuanhuang Dao Master, containing the Dao essence and magical power left behind by the Xuanhuang Dao Master.

Once tainted by the power of Xuanhuang, none of them are simple.

Even the top-tier Taishan Realm would be powerless to help, unable to reclaim its 'child'.

It can only mean that someone's own child died.

And that's what the porters do.

Once you enter the Minghu Realm, you can merge with the supernatural and transform yourself into a demigod-like being.

Then, I completely digested the eeriness, and the eeriness's reality filled the void of my sacred illusion.

A blend of reality and illusion, where one becomes the master of this new identity.

The reason why the sacred is said to be illusory is that everything sacred comes from the origin of the realm. Without the origin of the realm, the sacred is nothing.

The eerie, however, is real, and its essence lies in fragments of rules and resentment.

Once the two are combined, it's as if the mountain porter has made up for his real shortcomings.

It's like having your own energy source. Even if the origin of the realm strips you of your sacred identity, your strange, true self remains.

The strange energy did not originate from any realm.

Another point is that this meticulously planned accident will mean that when I reappear, everything will already be set in stone.

Once it was a done deal, the Taishan Realm discovered that their missing child was not dead and had reappeared, but was different.

This way, they won't be directly wiped out.

If the porter were to attempt to merge with the strange entity in the Mount Tai realm or the main world, it would be as if the realm's very origin, governed only by the rules, would be erased the moment it was discovered.

How could they tolerate their own child being fused with something so bizarre? That simply doesn't exist.

This idea can only be realized within the Minghu territory.

Once everything has happened, the essence of the Taishan realm will shut down, and it will find that it has encountered problems that it cannot solve.

Because such a problem simply does not exist in the rules.

At this point, things changed, and the porters became the porters.

The newborn child, exceeding its own rules, along with the strong support of the Lord of Mount Tai and others, meant the porters would be safe.

Once it's set in stone, the outcome will change dramatically.

It's like the porter, a child from the Taishan region, has discovered a new path—a path that devours the bizarre and makes him stronger.

A new path is a new law, and a new starting point for civilization.

What is civilization?
It is the existence most desired by the realm, even more important than fortune.

As long as a realm has sufficient civilization, it can receive the gifts of its superior realm, the Heavenly Dao.

This means that civilization is power.

With the addition of a new civilization, the rules of the realm will change, just like those of corpse retrievers, Zuo Qiuming, and Peng Yue.

Not only will the Mount Tai realm not eliminate the porters, but it will also devote even more of its essence to this child, making it not impossible for him to be promoted to a fifth-order Venerable.

Peng Yue, Zuo Qiuming, and others did just that.

The porters' method can be said to have taken advantage of favorable timing, location, and human factors.

Just think about the path taken by those who retrieved corpses back then; even those who were pioneers needed to bury themselves for a long time.

The porters carrying loads on the mountain believed they were far inferior to the corpse retrievers, but the circumstances were different.

Back then, corpse retrievers didn't have the conditions they have now. If they did, why would they have to work so hard, and why would they have to bury themselves like this?

He couldn't compare to the corpse retrievers, but he came up with this method; it was all due to changes in the environment.

I am the one who occupies the light of the environment.

“I have no such thoughts. Everything we do is preordained. I do not feel that the Realm owes me anything. In the end, without the Realm, there would be no me. Everything I have is indeed the achievement of the Realm.”

The porters didn't have much hostility or resentment.

Ultimately, the sacred are dissatisfied with being bound, but without boundaries, they wouldn't even exist.

If it no longer exists, there will naturally be no dissatisfaction or resentment.

Ultimately, it's just that people are never satisfied; once they have this, they want that, and it's impossible to be content.

There is no such thing as being satisfied, wanting more after getting what one has, taking an inch and then a mile, or becoming arrogant after achieving one's ambitions.

We are all San Dezi.

“Ah, I see now. Your temperament alone is unmatched by any other deity. If only we had a temperament like yours,” said Lord Taishan.

He was referring to other sacred sites within the Taishan region.

They are very troublesome, except for the muddle-headed Venerable One.

Even now, there are still many who look down on true cultivators, still believing that their sacred status is the most dazzling.

Sometimes, the thoughts of idiots are really hard to understand.

Recently, with the lifting of the seal on heaven and earth, many players have been able to go out and have started complaining about the restrictions imposed on them by the realm.

Look at the porters' awareness; they no longer complain about their own shortcomings.

Instead, he sincerely stated that without boundaries, there is no self; people may be dissatisfied, but they should not forget their roots.

Would those deities exist without boundaries?

They don't even think about where they came from.

They only saw their own flaws.

The porters are different; they see the stains as part of their journey, not as stains.

With such a broad mind and vision, Taishan became the first sacred place in the region to forge its own path.

Thinking about this, the Lord of Mount Tai wondered what caused it, or what reason had changed the porters.

There seems to be no other reason than that the porters were the first to come into contact with the main world, the first to come into contact with the Xuanhuang Dao Master, and the first to interact with true cultivators.

This seemingly insignificant earliest event is the reason why the porters changed.

Therefore, the kings within the realm cannot stay in the realm forever; they need to go out to broaden their horizons and bring about change.

Changed by the main world, influenced by the main world.

A realm is ultimately a plane within the main world; only the main world can change a realm, not the other way around.

This may be the essence of it all.

...(End of chapter)