Unsheathed

Cheng Shuidong waved his sleeve, causing the Purple Sun Residence to temporarily transform into a small world. He then retrieved the small immortal boat that he had used to travel to the starry sky in the past, and he stepped onto the wooden boat before gesturing for Wu Yi to follow him aboard. Only then did he ask, "Who do you think is the strongest being to have existed in the world?"

"The founders of the Three Teachings?" Wu Yi replied in a timid and uncertain voice. "And those powerful fourteenth tier cultivators who are unwilling to show themselves in the world? The former group of people are as omnipotent as the heavens if they stay inside their territories, while the latter group of people have already transcended from the notion of cultivation bases. They also possess incomprehensible mystical powers..."

Cheng Shuidong didn't comment on his daughter's answer, and he casually pointed at the Iron Plate River and said with a smile, "There's the incense temple, and located slightly further than that is the river goddess temple of the White Swan River. Even further than that is the residence of your brother, the river god of the Cold Food River. Several other mountain god shrines and river god shrines are also located in the surrounding areas. What is the common point between all of them?

"Forget about it, I'll just tell you the answer straight away. Otherwise, you're purely wasting my spiritual energy by making me wait for your slow brain to turn and come up with an answer. The common point is that mortal people in the world all expect deities to form a gold statue if they have a shrine dedicated to them. Regardless of how poor a deity's cultivation aptitude was in the past, they would all gain a gold statue after having a dedicated shrine built for them. In other words, they can ascend to the heavens in a single step.

"That being the case, will they still need to cultivate afterward? They can simply enjoy incense offerings, becoming more powerful as they receive more offerings. At the same time, their godly body will also decay at a slower rate. This is a separate Great Dao from the cultivation of Qi refiners, and it's because of this that it's often said that gods and immortals walk two different paths.

"And now looking back at that word, returning, do you understand it now?"

Wu Yi shook her head and replied, "I still don't understand."

Cheng Shuidong sighed with emotion and remarked, "If you suddenly disappear without a trace one day, it will definitely be because you died from stupidity. Do you know? In order to advance to the Nascent Tier, your younger brother was much harder on himself compared to you. He abandoned many innate mystical powers of flood dragons and directly chose to become a river god that faces many barriers and restrictions."

Wu Yi's eyes lit up, and she asked, "We need to become deities if we want to 'return' to the nascent form?"

Cheng Shuidong looked at his daughter with pity in his eyes. He was fast losing interest, seeing that his daughter was a rotten piece of wood that couldn't be carved. "Your younger brother's train of thought was correct, yet he took things too far and ended up severing his Great Dao that belonged to the path of flood dragons. Because of this, I've already lost all hope in him. Otherwise, I wouldn't have discussed any of this with you.

"You're focused on cultivating heretical techniques, and you're using an outside power to polish your own cultivation. This is also a correct path, but you're still yet to find the correct method and you're still yet to travel far enough. Even so, there's at least a sliver of a chance for you to succeed."