Chapter 971: Invincible Heart (Part 2)
Seeing these two lines of text, besides learning of Ancestor Yin’s once-glorious past, Lin Chen also felt that invincible bearing; the image of an invincible youth leaped vividly to life before his eyes.
The words in this Jade Scroll weren’t a simple record, but carried Ancestor Yin’s Martial Path Will.
The youth hung suspended atop a mountain peak, with one figure after another behind him, unwilling yet convinced.
To sweep through the twenty-four sects and remain invincible among those of the same Realm—this overbearing dominance made Lin Chen’s blood surge.
These two characters “Unparalleled” that Ancestor Yin claimed were more than well-deserved.
[After ten years of campaigns, I returned to the sect, went into seclusion for ten years and entered the Innate Sixth Realm…]
Hiss!
Seeing this line, Lin Chen drew in a deep breath; twenty years in seclusion just to enter the Innate Sixth Realm—Ancestor Yin’s age back then…
Lin Chen quickly did the math: Ancestor Yin had crowned Martial Arts Mountain at nineteen, then fought abroad for ten years, plus ten years of seclusion. In other words, Ancestor Yin stepped into the Innate Sixth Realm at forty.
Among those who could comprehend first place on Martial Arts Mountain, not many could also enter the Innate Sixth Realm by forty.
[At forty I entered the Peak of Innate Sixth Realm; in my heart, all Martial Artists under heaven were mere chickens and dogs, so-called Celestial Prides no different. My Ancestor Uncle summoned me and told me the hidden secrets of the Flame Dynasty; only then did I know there yet existed far-ancient Remnant Races in this world…]
Looking at Ancestor Yin’s words, Lin Chen could sense that when Ancestor Yin learned of the existence of the far-ancient Remnant Races, he wasn’t shocked—instead, he was delighted.
Delighted that things were finally no longer so boring, that he could open up new campaigns again.
This Ancestor Yin truly possessed the pure heart of a Martial Artist!
[However, in the campaigns against the far-ancient Remnant Races, I lost ten battles out of ten!]
Lin Chen: …
This line of text nearly made his back go out—ten battles, ten losses?
That didn’t sound right.
It wasn’t like he himself had never crossed hands with the far-ancient Remnant Races; he’d even beaten several of them across Realms. With Ancestor Yin’s strength, there was no reason he couldn’t win.
In terms of talent, in terms of combat power, Ancestor Yin was still above him.
At the very least, he himself didn’t dare claim he could defeat all those from the twenty-four sects and remain invincible.
[Ten battles, ten losses. My Ancestor Uncle comforted me, saying the far-ancient Remnant Races possess bloodline gifts, their advantage grows the further they go; experts of the Innate Sixth Realm and Myriad Phenomena Realm among the far-ancient Remnant Races will be stronger than those of the various sects.]
Seeing this line, a thoughtful look appeared on Lin Chen’s face. At present he’d only crossed hands with far-ancient Remnant Races of the Innate Third Realm and Fourth Realm. From those fights, he indeed hadn’t felt anything especially extraordinary from the other side. It now seemed it wasn’t that the Remnant Races weren’t strong, but that their true power lay further down the road.
However, in Lin Chen’s view, Ancestor Yin definitely wouldn’t just resign himself.
And the following words verified his judgment.
Not only did Ancestor Yin refuse to accept his fate, he was instead roused to greater fighting spirit. Even after that, he continued to challenge experts of the far-ancient Remnant Races, going up against each and every tribe. Several times he was even driven to death’s door—that misery was something else.
Ancestor Yin never reversed his fate against the heavens; he just kept losing all the way.
Those ten years of experience were downright too tragic to look at.
Once self-confidently invincible, he went to the Central State, only to meet an old man fishing outside a city and get beaten up with the fishing rod in that old man’s hand.
He entered Beimo and was slapped into a rock crevice by a housewife, unable to move for three days…
If the first forty years of Ancestor Yin’s life had been forty years of invincibility, then the next ten were ten years of pure misery.
Not only did he lose to experts of the far-ancient Remnant Races, he even lost to some nameless nobodies.
And yet, precisely amid this string of defeats, Ancestor Yin actually stepped into the Myriad Phenomena Realm.
[Once again I lost to my opponent; after recovering from my injuries, I unexpectedly entered the Myriad Phenomena.]
Ancestor Yin only left this one simple sentence, but Lin Chen’s eyes narrowed; there was no way Ancestor Yin entered the Myriad Phenomena Realm just because he kept losing.
Very quickly, he got his answer.
[Invincible does not mean never losing; it means that even when you behold the boundless river of stars, you still dare throw a punch at the firmament!]
[To the juniors who obtain my notes, remember this well: the summit of the Martial Path has never been in the eyes of others, but in the direction your heart points. Even after I saw heaven beyond heaven, I still believed the fist in my hand could open a new sky—so long as this will does not fall, that is true invincibility.]
The text in the Jade Scroll came to an abrupt stop there. Lin Chen returned the Jade Scroll; he now understood why Ancestor Yin wanted to give him this Jade Scroll.
Ancestor Yin’s intention ran deep; this Jade Scroll was left specifically for the sect’s later-generation Celestial Prides.
The path he was walking was almost the same as Ancestor Yin’s; he was even a bit stronger than Ancestor Yin in terms of cultivation progress and invincibility. Ancestor Yin was worried that once he stepped into the Innate Sixth Realm, the opponents he faced would change again; if at that time his path of sweeping the same Realm invincible was cut off, it might cause his Martial Path Will to collapse.
In the Flame Dynasty, there were far too many examples like this, especially among those young Celestial Prides who had never tasted defeat along the way, whose cultivation speed far surpassed that of ordinary Martial Artists. Yet once they experienced a single loss, they sank down to become merely ordinary geniuses.
This was due to many reasons, but a very important one among them was that they had thrown away their invincible heart.
However, Lin Chen felt that Ancestor Yin was overthinking it; even if he lost, it wouldn’t shake his Martial Path Will.
Because the path he walked was different from that of other Martial Artists; what he sought was not invincibility. Even his hundred-thousand-win challenge at Martial Arts Mountain had only been to obtain Martial Arts Mountain’s rewards, as well as the panel’s rewards.
His Martial Path had already been set the very moment he stepped onto the Martial Path.
Progress!
So long as, compared to himself, his tomorrow self was a bit stronger than his today self, that was enough.
Back then, it was by relying on the numbers on his panel, by relying on this one obsession, that he went from having strength under a hundred catties, to later two hundred, then three hundred… until he succeeded in Qi Cultivation and entered Opening the Acupoints.
He had never compared himself to anyone but himself.
One month later.
Lin Chen was once again summoned by the Sect Leader to Canglan Hall.