Chapter 91: The Wordless Heavenly Book

“Don’t panic, Master. You are about to awaken an innate martial soul!”

Little Helper’s explanation filled Qingxi with delight.

As a rule, once one stepped into the Innate Realm, there was a chance of giving birth to an innate martial soul.

Though the odds were vanishingly small, comparable to the birth rate of an earth-grade spirit root, the cultivation world was vast enough that people blessed with innate martial souls still appeared from time to time.

For instance, Qiu Yingying possessed a heavenly talent with a sword soul of the metal element.

Back then, Qingxi had envied her greatly. He had never expected that such a blessing would soon be his as well.

Happiness had come too suddenly.

“Helper, what should I do?”

Qingxi was both nervous and eager.

“Do nothing. When an innate martial soul is born, it will consume all the true energy in your sea of qi at once. During that process, Master only needs to watch quietly.”

At Little Helper’s reminder, Qingxi relaxed and waited in silence.

Soon, the true energy in his sea of qi was devoured by the golden vortex.

Within it, a ray of golden light emerged, carrying an air of supreme dominance.

Qingxi said in surprise, “Golden... could it be another metal sword soul?”

When the light faded, Qingxi stared at the lone object left in his sea of qi, utterly baffled.

A book.

It was a long, dark-gold book, thick and weighty, with ten blue-gold openwork patterns on its cover, exquisitely refined.

With a thought, Qingxi summoned it forth.

The book was half a meter long and thirty centimeters wide. Though it contained three thousand pages, each page was extremely thin, leaving the whole volume only three centimeters thick.

Yet when he opened it, the inside was blank.

Qingxi was instantly dumbstruck.

He had thought it would contain some peerless art, but there was nothing at all.

“What kind of thing is this?”

Staring at the blank book, Qingxi fell into deep suspicion of life.

Other people’s innate martial souls were either swords, capable of splitting heaven and earth apart, or fierce beasts endowed with overwhelming power.

Without exception, they all brought enormous increases to a cultivator’s strength.

So why had his turned into a book with no words?

After activating the reading and scanning functions, several lines of text appeared at once.

Type: Innate Martial Soul

Name: Book of Blank Pages

Note: To put it simply, it is hard enough. No one of the same rank can pierce it, including the owner of the Book of Blank Pages.

Seeing this meager explanation, Qingxi almost fainted.

Not from excitement, but from helplessness.

“Hard?”

“What’s the use of that? To crack walnuts?”

He rolled his eyes. If this was the only function, wouldn’t it be better to have a shield-shaped martial soul instead?

Why did it have to be a book?

Little Helper teased, “Don’t panic, Master. The problem is huge, and panicking won’t help. Look, once this Book of Blank Pages is spread open, its surface area is even larger. It would make an excellent shield in the future.”

Qingxi, unwilling to give up, asked, “Helper, can’t you scan and read out some more useful information? Look at this book—it has more than three thousand pages. Could it possibly correspond to the three thousand great ways?”

“The reading results show that the Book of Blank Pages has nothing to do with the three thousand great ways. It is simply hard enough that no one of the same rank can break it. Actually, this martial soul is very strong. After all, its defense is invincible among those of the same rank!”

Hearing Little Helper’s off-topic remarks, Qingxi decisively seized the Book of Blank Pages with his left hand and struck the cover with his right. He found that it really was absurdly hard.

So he set the Book of Blank Pages on the ground and tried many methods in succession.

Yet no matter whether he hacked at it with blades, split it with axes, or even used his domineering strength of twenty thousand jin, he still could not break its defense.

At that, Qingxi’s gaze toward the Book of Blank Pages changed at once.

No longer was it disdain and self-doubt. Now it was excitement and joy.

The saying was true after all—

The more you look at it, the better it seems.

After studying it for quite some time, Qingxi moved his mind, and the Book of Blank Pages shrank into a streak of golden light, returning to his empty sea of qi.

Then, feeling that hollow sea of qi, he hurriedly circulated his technique and transformed heaven-and-earth spiritual energy into true energy until it filled the entire sea.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

...

A deep and lingering bell tolled out, nine times in all, echoing endlessly throughout the Spirit Origin Sect.

“Nine tolls—this is the highest-level summons of the sect. Could something major have happened?” Qingxi awakened from meditation just as the resonant bells reached his ears.

After thinking for a moment, he concluded that it must be related to the invasion of the outer-realm demons, and hurried to the sect great hall.

The sect great hall was the most magnificent building in the Spirit Origin Sect, with a vast open square before it.

By the time Qingxi arrived, more than a thousand people had already gathered there.

Aside from the handyman disciples and those temporarily unable to return, nearly everyone else was present.

Qingxi stood casually in an open spot and looked toward the front of the hall.

There stood dozens of Innate Realm elders and more than ten core disciples.

Within the Spirit Origin Sect, core disciples were also known as principal disciples.

Anyone who could advance to the Innate Realm before the age of thirty could become a core disciple and gain the qualifications to compete in the future for the position of grand elder, or even the sect master.

Among the core disciples, Qiu Yingying was not the oldest, but because she was the strongest and could utterly crush the former number-one core disciple, Li Tiantian, she was revered as Senior Sister.

Amid the surrounding elders, the sect master, Qiu Mingzi, stood solemnly before the hall doors.

Beside him stood an old man with a small tuft of white hair at his brow, his entire body radiating an immense presence no less formidable than Qiu Mingzi’s.

Race: Human

Name: Mo Kongxiao

Spirit Root: Spirit Grade

Cultivation: Spirit Core Realm

Note: This man is an outer elder of the Violet Firmament Sect, one of the three major two-star powers in Cloudriver Province. His cultivation is in the Spirit Core Realm, slightly below Qiu Mingzi.

Qingxi reviewed the information he had read.

A Spirit Core Realm cultivator, within the Spirit Origin Sect, would already be held in the esteem of a sect master. Yet to think that in the two-star power known as the Violet Firmament Sect, he was merely an outer elder.

It seemed the two-star powers were indeed formidable.

“Silence!”

Sect Master Qiu Mingzi pressed down with Spirit Core Realm might, suppressing the entire crowd. His loud voice rang out: “This is envoy Mo Kongxiao of the Violet Firmament Sect. Next, I ask the envoy to announce the important matter.”

Hearing that the visitor was actually an envoy from the two-star power Violet Firmament Sect, all the disciples were shocked, yet none dared speak under Qiu Mingzi’s pressure.

Mo Kongxiao stepped forward and said gravely, “Recently, our sect master received an order from the Lord of Thunder Dragon Prefecture, stating that the outer-realm demons will soon launch a massive assault on our Cloudriver Province. All cultivators must go out and slay the enemy. None may disobey!”

At this news, not only did all the disciples erupt in uproar, even the high-ranking elders changed color.

All cultivators?

Did that mean even those in the Qi Refining Realm had to go?

Hadn’t it always been only those above the Innate Realm who were called to battle?

Could it be that this invasion of demons was on a far greater and more violent scale?

At the thought, everyone’s expressions turned solemn.

Mo Kongxiao continued, “In resisting the demons, every person in the cultivation world bears responsibility. The master of my Violet Firmament Sect, together with the masters of the other two major sects, has reopened the Demon Subduing Rankings. Anyone who slays an outer-realm demon will receive corresponding points.”

“Among the young generation listed on the rankings, the top ten will be allowed to enter the Scripture Pavilion of our three great sects and borrow all black-iron and bronze-grade supreme arts.”

For the outer and inner disciples in the Qi Refining Realm, this did not stir much in them.

But the core disciples who had stepped into the Innate Realm all had their eyes blaze with light.