Chapter 1227: Sudden Change
After Lin Yuanmiao left, Qi Xuansu walked around the alchemy chamber and discovered that the Bagua disc on the floor could be controlled. When he pressed a mechanism, the Bagua disc began to rotate. The 10-meter-tall alchemical furnace sank into the ground, and a jade platform rose up in its place.
Qi Xuansu took out the Guizang Lantern and placed it on the jade platform.
The Heavenly Preceptor had already lit the Guizang Lantern. Its seven-colored flame illuminated the alchemy chamber, casting Qi Xuansu’s face in shifting rainbow hues.
Qi Xuansu reached out and grasped the Guizang Lantern, then began to activate the pseudo-ascension method taught by the Heavenly Preceptor.
Someone once described the world as a sea of suffering, in which humans were adrift upon the sea, while cultivation was the act of crossing the sea. The human body was the ship, and the soul was the person aboard the ship. The ship carried the person toward the far shore. So in this case, should one cultivate the body and strengthen the ship? Or cultivate the soul so that the person aboard could better navigate the ship?
At this moment, Qi Xuansu felt as though he were sailing across the boundless sea. A true ascension was like an ironclad warship, as the person could control the direction and steer the ship toward their destination of choice. However, a pseudo-ascension was like a wooden sailboat, forced to drift with the currents and winds.
A wooden sailboat was far more fragile than an ironclad warship. One slight misstep was all it took for the boat to be destroyed and the person to be thrown overboard. It was no wonder the threshold for pseudo-ascension had to be the Zaohua stage. If one’s cultivation were any lower, it would not even be a wooden sailboat but a tiny canoe.
The different pseudo-ascension methods were like sea navigation charts, corresponding to different routes and leading to different destinations.
The Daoist pseudo-ascension method bestowed by the Heavenly Preceptor was meant to guide the sailboat toward an island called Kunlun. However, over time, this island’s position had shifted drastically. Most of it had sunk beneath the sea, so much so that even its lighthouse had disappeared.
Such an outdated pseudo-ascension method was, in the present age, considered completely useless, as it only brought disorientation.
However, at this moment, the Longevity Stone Heart within Qi Xuansu began to exert its power. It illuminated the path ahead, guiding Qi Xuansu’s sailboat toward another island called Lingshan. This island had not sunk or shifted. Instead, it had shattered into fragments, as if it had suffered a great earthquake. The original routes had been destroyed and danger lurked everywhere, with hidden reefs all around.
Meanwhile, the Guizang Lantern was like an infinitely extended rope, with one end anchored at Tongzhen Palace and the other end firmly tied to the ship’s hull. It ensured that Qi Xuansu could return along his original route and that he would not drift off course or become lost in chaotic currents in the event of any unforeseen accidents.