Chaotic Times and Disasters: I Hunt Down Martial Arts Masters and Become a God

The Stone Statue, with nine levels of meridians, is composed entirely of hard ancient stone, each stone as hard as cold iron.

Fu Qing was shocked. He gently placed the two people on the stone steps and drew his sword to fight.

The stone golems' defenses far surpassed those of the snow ape and the giant rhinoceros. It took him thirteen strikes to shatter both stone golems. The rubble rolled down the stone steps and along the ten-thousand-step staircase, and it took a long time before the echo of the stones hitting the ground could be heard.

He sheathed his knife, turned around, lifted the two of them up again, and continued climbing.

Nine thousand eight hundred steps, and there were three more stone demon statues.

Fu Qing had several wounds on his body, and the bruises on his back from being punched by the stone golem were bleeding through his clothes.

At the 9,900th step, five stone demon statues awakened simultaneously.

After Fu Qing shattered them, he knelt on one knee on the stone steps, panting for several breaths before standing up. Blood dripped down the hilt of his sword, leaving a trail of dark red marks on the stone steps.

An Sheng and Xiahou Jun caught up from behind and shared some of the pressure with him.

Although the two had already broken through to the peak of the seventh level of the Meridian Opening Realm, the pressure of the artistic conception in the latter half of the Ten Thousand Steps Stone Staircase was still a great test for them.

An Sheng raised his spear to fight each stone statue he approached, while Xiahou Jun's double maces smashed several holes in the stone statues, which Fu Qing then pulled away from.

Although it was tough, the two were also very excited about this experience.

...

It was four hours later when Fu Qing reached the summit. He could barely stand; his muscles were exhausted to the limit.

He gently placed the Yunnan Zhihe Suwen on the stone platform in front of the Heavenly Palace Gate, then sat down heavily on the ground, leaning against the platform and panting.

Sweat mixed with blood streamed down his forehead, stinging his eyes and making him wince.

Yunnan Zhihe and Suwen also slumped down next to him.

Yunnan's deep purple outfit was soaked with sweat and clung to his body, his hair disheveled and scattered over his shoulders.

Suwen's medicine box straps left two red marks on her shoulders. She panted as she placed the medicine box on her lap to check if the medicine bottles inside were broken.

The three stood back to back, and none of them spoke.

The wind was strong in front of the Heavenly Palace, making their clothes flutter loudly.

Before long, An Sheng, leaning on his silver spear, climbed the last few hundred steps. Once he reached the top, he didn't even bother with the spear anymore; he threw it to the ground, lay prone, and pressed his face against the cold stone slab. His muffled voice came from between the stones.

"Damn it! I'm never climbing mountains again!"

Xiahou Jun was the second to come up. He put his double maces on the ground, fell backward, and hit his head on the stone slab with a crisp "thud." He gasped for breath, his eyes fixed on the starry sky above.

"Fu Qing, I'm not going to be with you anymore. We won't do anything together... Even climbing a mountain will wear everyone down."

"Just come up here, that'll solve everything."

"Yes, I made it up, but I climbed up by myself. You dragged two people up with you."

Xiahou Jun glanced at Fu Qing, then closed his eyes. "The difference between people is greater than the difference between people and dogs!"

...

After another hour, everyone gradually came up.

On the stone platform in front of the Heavenly Palace, people lay sprawled out, their breathing rising and falling.

The sea of ​​clouds surged beneath their feet, and the moonlight reflected off the clouds, creating a layer of silvery-white light.

Fu Qing glanced at the fat man who looked like a dead dog, chuckled, and looked at the majestic heavenly palace behind him.

The palace doors were tightly closed, with patterns of the sun, moon, and stars carved on them, and starlight flowing through the cracks in the doors.

He walked to the gate of the Heavenly Palace, placed his hands on the door and pushed hard. The heavy stone door made a long rumble and slowly opened to both sides.

The sight inside the hall left everyone stunned.

The dome is engraved with the sun, moon and stars. The sun moves slowly, the moon waxes and wanes, the Milky Way runs across the entire dome from east to west, and nebulae rotate slowly in the Milky Way.

The four walls are painted with mountains and rivers, all aspects of human life, and the war and coexistence between the demon race and the human race.

Some people are working in the fields, sweat dripping from their foreheads; some demons are cultivating in the mountains, absorbing the essence of the sun and moon; there is the fierce battle between two armies on the battlefield, with broken flags burning in the wind; and there is the bustling market where humans and demons trade, with stalls filled with specialties from various ethnic groups.

All these murals are alive; the mountains breathe, the water flows, and the people and demons in the paintings live their own lives in their respective worlds.

"This...this is not a painting."

An Sheng tilted his head back and spun around in place, his voice trembling.

"It's alive! Brother Fu, look over there, those two demons are fighting! They're really fighting, look at that tiger demon's claws slamming into the wall, the bricks are shattering! Did Qingming Jushi paint this? One person painted an entire living world?"

"It's not just drawn, it's created."

Ling Yuxi walked to a mural, reaching out to touch the figures in it. His fingers stopped less than an inch from the mural, afraid he would damage it.

"Martial arts cultivate oneself, Confucianism cultivates the spirit, and painting cultivates creation. I used to think that painting was just about drawing things that were indistinguishable from the real thing, and that it was not very useful. Today I realized that I was looking at the sky from the bottom of a well. Qingming Jushi is not a painter, he is the creator."

"If we could enter the world depicted in this painting, would the people inside know that their world was created as a painting?"

Yufu pulled a small notebook out of his bundle and started drawing something on it while muttering to himself.

"What are you drawing?"

"Make a copy of this mural, and then have my father find a painter to make one to hang in the main hall of the Yu family mansion."

"This is an original work by a great master painter. Can any random painter replicate it?" An Sheng said, both amused and exasperated.

"Even if we can't replicate it, we'll still replicate it! Hanging a replica is cheaper than hanging a genuine one, and the customers won't be able to tell the difference anyway."

In the center of the hall, on the main seat, sat a skeleton with a pale gold body, sitting cross-legged.

Each bone looks as if it were cast in gold. Even after a thousand years, it still radiates a faint golden light.

That's a phenomenon only cultivators at the Golden Body Realm possess—their physical body may die, but their bones remain intact.

The skeleton held a scroll in its hands. The scroll depicted a moving landscape painting. The mountains seemed to breathe, the water flowed, and there were even humans and demons living in it. Like the murals on the four walls, it was alive, but more detailed, grander, and more like a real world.

"These are the true relics of Qingming Jushi."

Standing before the skeletons in Yunnan, one looks up at the painting. A painting can live for a thousand years; the world within it continues to turn, and the lives within it continue to be born, grow old, get sick, die, fight, and live in peace.

Qingming Jushi did not die in the secret realm; he lived his life within the painting.

Next to the main seat stands a stone tablet with inscriptions carved in ancient seal script.

Fu Qing walked to the stone tablet, wiped the dust off its surface with his sleeve, and read it aloud word by word.

"I spent the first half of my life practicing martial arts. At the age of 120, I entered the Golden Body realm. During a time of chaos, my loved ones perished in the flames of war. I then abandoned martial arts and turned to painting. At the age of 400, I reached the second rank in painting. My hidden injuries recurred. Knowing that fate cannot be defied, I used all my life's work to create this secret realm as my final resting place, and also as a gift to future generations who are destined to be here."

He paused, his gaze falling on another line of smaller characters on the side of the stone tablet. The handwriting was even more hasty than the main text, as if it had been hurriedly carved in the final moments of his life.

"In my lifetime, I participated in the struggle for the Heavenly Seal. This seal is one of the nine seals and is related to the secret of ancient ascension. I have hidden one of the seals in a secret realm, waiting for a destined person to take it. The most treasured thing in my life is the landscape painting scroll in my hand. This scroll can contain heaven and earth. I hope that future generations will make good use of it."

"The Heavenly Seal?"

Xiahou Jun frowned. "I've seen similar records of this seal in the Kang Kingdom's royal palace. It's said that there are nine of them, scattered throughout the world. Once you collect them all, you can unlock some ancient ruins, but those are just legends, and nobody takes them seriously."

He turned to Fu Qing and asked, "Have you heard of this?"

"I've heard of it, and I've even seen one."

Everyone looked up sharply, and Fu Qing said, "I once retrieved one from the Jun family. That seal was lost by the royal family, and I gave it to the emperor."

Ling Yuxi raised her eyebrows slightly, but said nothing.

...

Directly in front of the stone platform was a pool of blood-red water, its surface as still as a mirror, without a single ripple.

The pool water was deep red, with rich spiritual energy and water vapor rising up. Just standing by the pool, one could feel the enormous energy contained within it, and every breath felt like drinking a tonic.

An Sheng squatted down, dipped his finger in the pool water, and put it in his mouth. His eyes widened suddenly.

"This is damn blood essence! The blood essence left behind by the Qingming Hermit before his passing! Brother Fu, try a drop; the energy contained in this one drop is more effective than a one-hour medicinal bath!"

Fu Qing also dipped a little in and put it in his mouth. A surge of extremely pure blood and qi flowed down his throat and into his dantian.

He turned to look at the stone tablet, the inscription of which stated that this was the pool of essence and blood left behind by the Qingming Hermit before his death, which contained the essence of his life's cultivation and was of great benefit to martial artists.

"Get down, all of you."

Fu Qing took off his outer garment and threw it on the stone platform. "Don't waste this great gift that Qingming Jushi left to future generations. An Sheng, Xiahou, you two go down first."

The three of them took off their outer clothes and jumped into the pool of blood, where the water reached their chests.