A Pawn's Passage

This book recorded Ancient Wuism in detail, even listing the similarities and differences between the Daoist Order and the Ancient Wuist Sect.

Although the Daoist Order and the Ancient Wuist Sect shared deep roots, there were still clear differences between the two.

Strictly speaking, the Ancient Wuist Sect’s lineage, also known as the Great Witch lineage, should be considered an independent system, not included among the Five Immortal lineages. The Daoist Godly Immortal lineage developed upon the foundation of this Great Witch lineage.

The relationship between Great Witches and Immortals was somewhat comparable to that between Heavenly Immortals and Earthly Immortals.

For this reason, Daoist records stated that the Heavenly Emperor originally followed the Godly Immortal lineage and later, with the help of the Primordial Daoist Ancestor, transformed into a Heavenly Immortal lineage.

Back when the Heavenly Emperor was a Human Sovereign, ritual sacrifices were handled by the Ancient Wuist Sect, while military affairs were personally commanded by him. At this time, the Human Sovereign practiced the Great Witch lineage. But when the Primordial Daoist Ancestor manifested as the Immortal Elder Guangcheng, the Heavenly Emperor went to him and sought the Dao. That triggered Ancient Wuism’s decline, and Daoism rose in its place.

Daoists believed that the Primordial Daoist Ancestor possessed countless incarnations. The Three Pure Ones were incarnations of the Primordial Daoist Ancestor’s Three Corpses. Beyond that, the Primordial Daoist Ancestor also severed a Heavenly Immortal incarnation to undergo tribulations in the mortal realm. Thus, different eras produced different incarnations with various forms.

For example, during the Heavenly Emperor era, he appeared as Elder Guangcheng. During the Zhou Dynasty, he appeared as Li Dan—widely known as Laozi—from whom even the Confucian Sage had sought the Dao. Later still, there were historical records of yet another incarnation who accepted the Ancestral Heavenly Preceptor as a disciple, formally establishing the concept of the Daoist Order.

The cultivation method of Heavenly Immortals was strange. Each time a Heavenly Immortal incarnation was severed and sent to the mortal realm, so long as it could ascend, the original body’s cultivation would increase greatly. By this logic, the Primordial Daoist Ancestor had achieved ascension more than once, so his cultivation level had long surpassed mortal comprehension, even exceeding Third-Tribulation Immortals.

Under the guidance of the Primordial Daoist Ancestor, the Human Sovereign abandoned the Great Witch lineage and turned to the Daoist lineage. In the end, the Human Sovereign successfully ascended and transformed into the Heavenly Emperor.

It was precisely because the Heavenly Emperor and Yinglong ascended that the Great Witches came to hold supreme power in the mortal realm, giving rise to the later internal strife within the Ancient Wuist Sect.

As subordinates of the Heavenly Emperor, the Great Witches likewise followed the Great Witch lineage, so the Great Witches’ lifespans far exceeded a century. They remained active in the mortal world for several hundred years.