Chapter 23 – The Sea of Stars
Chen Chang Sheng successfully went on the path of xiu xing and no obstacles had appeared so far. If others knew about this, they would definitely feel confused. He himself did not feel anything himself, especially after he confirmed the meaning behind his master making him reciting the three thousand scrolls of way.
Of course, after all this was a happy thing… If he could solidify his spirit, then he could choose a star. If he could choose a star, then he could absorb starlights and purify. If he could purify, then he could meditate and self observe. If he could meditate and self observe, then he could reach heart seeking and understand the rules behind the nature. If he could reach heart seeking, then he could fuse the starlights onto his body and become immune to the diseases. If he could reach starfusing, then he could become a saint and eventually deity, jumping out of fate or at that time he no longer needed to change his fate anymore?
Yes, to Chen Chang Sheng the goal to xiu xing was always clear and it never changed. Maybe on the path of xiu xing he could pursue something else such as seeing some beauties that common people couldn’t see, experience some feelings that common people couldn’t experience, or return the humiliations he had back to those people that humiliated him, but these were all not important. What was truly important was the final goal.
He just solidified his spirit. He did not even complete the first step to xiu xing. He already began to think about the deification stage that only existed in the legend. Even Chen Chang Sheng knew that he was dreaming of something that was so far out of reach. If he told someone his dream, he would easily get laughed at but at least he would never tell others about it.
In comparison to people his age, Chen Chang Sheng was relatively quieter. He dealt with things in a relatively calm fashion. Because of this people in Xi Ning Town often thought he was three or four years older than what he actually was. He understood clearly. He could solidify his spirit successfully in one day and night. The most important reason was his master built up a good basis for him since youth and had prepared him well, but this definitely did not mean he surpassed the true geniuses like Xu You Rong.
The second day morning he still woke up at five. He cleaned up and began eating his breakfast. What happened yesterday did not have any influence on his daily schedule. Only his slightly tired eyes showed that he was not as calm as what he appeared to be. He did not have a good sleep last night not because there were still a smell in the small building but because he was truly happy.
The Tradition Academy was still crowded. The workers were at the main building fixing and cleaning up. The library was still quiet. Because of his request, nobody came to bother him xiu xing.
Purification was the first stage of xiu xing. It could be separated into three steps. The first step was solidifying one’s spirit, but also the premise of all. The second step was to find his destined star. This sounded like a very mysterious step, but Chen Chang Sheng did not really worry. What he was really worried about was the third step, absorb starlights onto his body and purify them. Until then, he would finally ascertain what impacts would the issues in his body cause.
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The so called xiu xing was to borrow the world’s power. After the Books came to the world, humans began to xiu xing. They developed countless xiu xing methods. They tried infinitive ways. Some xiu xing methods absorbed fire, some were close to nature to absorb the power of fields, and eventually the Tradition was established. Because of human’s infinitive years of experiments, humans’ xiu xing gradually started to absorb power from the stars.
The high temperature magma in the volcanoes could be converted to the Qi in the human body, helping xiu xingists to become really strong. The power in the fields could also be used by the xiu xingists, but all of these energy sources were not as good as stars.
The stars were in the sky. Their locations never changed, continuously shining on the continent. People who lived on the ground only needed to look up to see the infinitive starlights. Since their youth, the stars had been silently accompanying them. To the continent and people living on it, star is light, is direction, is energy, and is time : because of its permanency.
Humans eventually chose to convert starlights into Qi. It was not largely related to these literal descriptions. The main reason to use starlight was because starlights were the purest energy source in the world. It contained no impurities and they were more mild than sunlights, magma, etc.
The Yao race could also absorb starlights. Moreover, they had a different body system so they did not need any xiu xing methods. They could directly absorb the starlights into their body and convert it into their own power. Because of this, any Yao race who could transform into human form always had huge amount of power.
In comparison to Yao, humans could not directly absorb starlights. In another word, directly absorbing starlights was inefficient for them. Therefore, humans creatively created a xiu xing method and starting from that day humans began the road to dominate the world.
—- Light up the destined star.
At night there were infinitive amount of stars in the sky. It is as vast as the ocean. Its number was much bigger than the human population. If a human xiu xingist wanted to purify, he had to find the star out of the trillion stars in the sky that belong to him. That star would then be his destined star.
No one could explain the principle behind the destined star. Why was there an unbreakable connection between that star and you? Why could the star respond to humans from infinitive miles away? Even the greatest scholar in the history of the Tradition could not explain this phenomenon.
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Everyone had his own star. However, only the people who successfully solidified their spirit could find the star that belonged to him and form an unexplainable connection. Eventually he would use his spirit to light up the star.
There were infinitive stars in the night sky. As long as you could emit your spirit, then you could find your star. Such connection was like many other relations, absolutely repulsive to others. As long as you establish a connection with your destined star, no one could rob it.
Then a problem rose, what kind of star was most suitable to be the xiu xingist’s destined star?
There was basically an agreement on the continent. The farther the destined star, the better. Because infinitive generations of scholars in the Tradition tracked countless xiu xingists and investigated them, after collecting countless data and doing infinitive analysis, they ascertained that this theory was absolutely correct.
But why?
If xiu xingists directly absorb the destined star’s energy, shouldn’t the star be the closer the better?
In order to explain this phenomenon, the scholars of the Tradition built a model through reverse engineering based the reality. In this model, xiu xingists did not directly absorb the destined star’s energy but rather used the night sky as a wall. To light up the destined star was like hammering a snag on this wall. This would be a line tied between him and the night sky. Eventually using this line would swing back and forward. When that happens, the xiu xingist would be absorbing the starlight energy flowing in the night sky.
In this model, that shapeless line was like a wet cotton thread. The starlights in the night sky were like catkins that floated in the air during the spring. As the thread slowly swings in the spring wind, more and more catkins would stick it to. Eventually it would fall into the man who was holding the thread. If that thread was long enough, connecting from the tallest building in the royal palace to the top of the Mausoleum of the Books, then it could even wipe out all the catkins in the entire capital.
(Editor Bing: OK if you are like me who didn’t understand a single thing the theory was saying i will simplify it for you guys. Basically you connect yourself to the star with a line. This line is the thing that will absorb or catch Qi in space. So if you have a longer line then that means you will be able to absorb more qi. In order to have a longer line, you have to be connected to a farther star. So this is the theory behind why a further star is better than a closer one. Don’t fret guys if you didn’t understand anything of that… because i didn’t understand anything until i asked my friends to put it in simple english XD)
The scholar in the demon race, Tong Gu Si once proposed a harsh criticism to the theory from the Tradition. He thought this was an entirely non economical and a completely fake deduction. To this, the Pope at that time relentlessly rebutted. He said: “Only the established deduction could be the deduction closest to the truth.”
Next, the demon race scholar sent a letter to the entire continent. He asked in the letter: “after all, where is that line?”
If there was truly a line between the xiu xingists and the destined star, then the Tradition’s theory could be established. Because through observing the nature, it could be easily seen that the longer the line, the larger the amplitude. Therefore the energy produced was larger, like the previous catkin example.
The problem was, no one had actually seen that line.
The Pope answered concisely to this question in the capital. “Since there is connection between the destined star and xiu xingist, then there must be a line between the two. We cannot see and touch doesn’t mean it’s nonexistent.”
The demon race scholar Tong Gu Si then sent another letter to the entire continent. “Intangible things have no impact on this objective world. Then whether or not this line exists or not has no meaning to us. Then it should be nonexistent.”
To this comment the Pope pondered for several months. Then he created the most famous answer.
“The line, is fate.”
Yes.
The unexplainable connection, was fate.
The stars in the night sky reflected people’s fate.
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No one had taught Chen Chang Sheng how to choose a destined star. His master must had known, but he never taught it.
Of course, he remembered the sentence that Pope said. The three thousand scrolls of way definitely had this famous story.
Since the relation between human and their destined stars was fate, he appeared to be very cautious. After all, after he was ten the word fate was what he cared about the most in the world.
From morning to sunset, he had been trying to be familiar with the emission process of the spirit. He did not know after the incident when he was ten, how much spirit he still had, but what made him content was, his emission process of spirit was not very different from what’s written on the texts.
He closed his eyes. He let his spirit leave his sea of spirit and flow into the silent library. Even though he did not look, the surrounding faintly appeared in his brain. It was somewhat blurry, the lights were somewhat illusioned, and it was a completely new vision.
After night arrived, unlike other beginners who would still wallow in spirit’s sensation to the environment, he did not linger for any longer. He unhesitatingly drove past the window with his spirit, flying towards the sky. He flew higher and higher, passing through the bird’s thinnest feather, passing through the tiniest water particle in cloud, passing through the coldest flow of wind, and finally arrived between the infinitive bright spots.
That’s the sea of stars.