The Sea of Stars

Chen Changsheng smoothly stepped upon the path of cultivation without any of the difficulty described in the stories. If other people were to find out, they would definitely be puzzled even after thinking it over hundreds of times. On the other hand, he did not feel anything much, especially after he confirmed what his memorization of the three thousand scriptures of the Daoist Canon entailed.

Of course, this was ultimately a matter worth being happy about…if one was able to condense one's spiritual sense, one was able to fix their star. If one was able to fix their star, one was able to draw in starlight and undergo Purification. If one was able to undergo Purification, one could perform Meditative Introspection. If one could perform Meditative Introspection, one could access the Ethereal Opening of the heart and understand the nature of the heavens and earth. With Ethereal Opening, one could condense the star in one's body and henceforth be immune to every illness. If one could condense the star in one's body, then one could walk amongst the Saints and ride the wind for ten thousand li. Finally, one could then conceal one's divinity between the heavens and earth, no longer bound to the wheel of fate. Perhaps at that time, defying the heavens and changing fate would no longer be required?

Yes, to Chen Changsheng, his goal in cultivation had always been this clear-cut, never deviating even once. Perhaps on his path of cultivation, he could conveniently pursue a few other things, like sights that the ordinary person could not see, experiences the ordinary person could not experience, or returning humiliation to those he had once been humiliated by. But none of that was important. What was important was the ultimate goal.

However, he had only just condensed his spiritual sense, not even finished the first step of cultivation, and he had already begun to consider that realm of Concealed Divinity that only existed in legends. Even Chen Changsheng himself knew that he was thinking a bit too much. If he were to speak of it, people would probably make fun of him. Fortunately, he would never speak of these thoughts to anyone.

When compared to those of similar age, Chen Changsheng was more taciturn with a tendency to handle matters in a more cool-headed fashion. Thus, when he lived in Xining Village, he was often regarded by the villagers as being three or four years older than his actual age. He was keenly aware that he was able to condense his spiritual sense in one day and one night primarily because, when he was a child, his master had laid down the foundation and made the preparations. But in no way did this mean that he far surpassed a true genius like Xu Yourong.

On the next day, he still woke up at five o'clock in the morning, washed his face, rinsed his mouth, tidied up, and ate breakfast. The events of last night had not affected his daily routine in the slightest. Only the slight exhaustion in his eyes served as evidence that he was not as calm as he usually was. This was probably not because the smell of mold in the house had not completely faded away, but because he was truly very happy.

The Orthodox Academy was still bustling with activity, the artisans and laborers at the main hall, intensely focused on cleaning and repair. The library was still peaceful. Because of his request, no one came to disturb him, allowing him to continue his cultivation.

Purification was equivalent to the first realm of cultivation and could be concisely divided into three steps. The first step was condensing the spiritual sense, which was also the prerequisite for all the rest. The second step was to search for one's Fated Star. This seemed like a rather mysterious step, but Chen Changsheng was not concerned about it. What he was truly concerned about was the third step: drawing starlight into the body for Purification…and it was only at this step that he could finally verify what sort of effect the problem in his body would bring.

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Cultivation was to make the energy of the world the energy of humans. After the Heavenly Tomes descended to the earth, humans began to cultivate, developing countless methods of cultivation, trying countless methods. Some cultivation methods absorbed Celestial Fire, other methods drew close to nature so as to absorb the energy of the wilderness. Finally, with the formal establishment of the Orthodoxy, and also because of the countless years of practice as evidence, human cultivators gradually began to draw upon the energy of the stars.

The blazing hot magma of volcanoes truly could be transformed into true essence within the human body and assist cultivators in becoming extremely powerful. The fresh and clean energy of the wilderness could be used by cultivators. However, the sources of all these energies were far inferior to the stars.

The stars were in the night sky, their positions ever unchanging, solemnly and serenely shining over the continent. The people living on the ground only needed to raise their heads up to be able to see the limitless starlight. From infancy, all the way until they were bowed with old age, those stars would be their constant and quiet companions. To the people living on the continent, stars were light, were coordinates, were energy, and also time. Because they were eternal.

That humans eventually chose to convert starlight into true essence did not have much to do with these artistic-sounding descriptions. The most important reason was that starlight was the purest source of energy in the world. It had no impurities and was much gentler than sunlight, earthfire, and other such energies.

The demi-humans could similarly absorb starlight. In addition, their constitutions were special. Without any sort of cultivation method, they could directly absorb the starlight into their bodies and transform it into energy. As a result, any demi-human that could metamorphose always possessed extraordinary strength.

Compared to demi-humans, humans could not directly absorb starlight—that is to say, the efficiency of directly absorbing starlight was too low. For this reason, humans, with all their creativity, invented a cultivation method and it was precisely from that day onwards that humans set off on the path of dominating the continent.

That method was to light up one's Fated Star.

The night sky contained innumerable stars, as vast as the sea. They were impossible to count, their number far surpassing the population of humans. If a cultivator amongst the humans wished to undergo Purification, they needed to search amongst the millions upon millions of stars for the star that they could call their own. That star was their Fated Star.

No person could explain the principle of Fated Stars, why one could form an unbreakable connection between a particular star, why, though separated by countless li, stars could distantly echo with humans. Even the greatest scholars in the Orthodoxy's history could not explain this.

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Every person had a star that belonged to them.

But only those that had succeeded in condensing their spiritual sense could find that star of theirs and thus form an indescribable connection with it. Ultimately, they would use spiritual sense to light up that star. This was lighting up one's Fated Star.

The profuse stars in the night sky were infinite, but as long as one could disperse one's spiritual sense, one would eventually be able to find one's star. Moreover, this connection was like many other connections, absolutely exclusive. As long as one established a connection with one's Fated Star, no one else could steal it away.

But this brought up a problem: what sort of star was most suitable to act as a cultivator's Fated Star?

At present, it was widely held on the continent that the farther the Fated Star, the better. This was because countless generations of the Orthodoxy's scholars had surveyed countless cultivators, and after exhaustive analysis and calculation, determined that there was not a single problem with this conclusion.

However, why was this case?

In order to explain this phenomenon, the scholars of the Orthodoxy inferred backwards from facts and created a model. In this model, the cultivator did not directly absorb energy from the Fated Star. Instead, the night sky was treated as a wall, the Fated Star a nail hammered into this wall. With this nail, one could tie a line between oneself and the night sky. Finally, this line would swing to and fro, absorbing the starlight that drifted amongst the night sky.

In this model, that invisible line was a moistened cotton thread, the starlight drifting in the night sky the willow catkins that danced and filled the air in the late spring. As the thread slowly swayed back and forth in the spring wind, it would catch more and more catkins which would ultimately fall in the hands of the person holding the thread. If the thread was long enough, extending from the highest building of the Imperial Palace to the peak of the Mausoleum of Books, then it could sweep clean all the catkins of the capital.

The Demon Grand Scholar Tungus issued a strict criticism of this theory of the Orthodoxy's. He believed that this was a completely uneconomic and purely imaginative delusion. The then-Pope relentlessly struck back at this criticism, saying that only a conclusion that is tenable can be the conclusion that is closest to the truth.

Ultimately, the Demon Grand Scholar Tungus sent a letter to the entire continent. In his letter, he asked, "Just where is that line?"

If there truly existed a line between a cultivator and his Fated Star, then the Orthodoxy's theory was tenable. This was because if one observed the natural world, one could easily confirm that the longer a string, the greater its amplitude, and thus, the greater the energy it could create, just as described with the catkins.

The problem was that nobody had ever seen this line.

In the capital, the Pope gave a concise response, "Since there exists a connection between a Fated Star and its cultivator, there must exist a line between the two. Just because the living beings of the continent cannot see it or feel it does not mean that it does not exist."

Demon Grand Scholar Tungus sent another letter to the continent, saying, "If it cannot be touched, if it has no influence on the objective world, the existence or nonexistence of this line is meaningless. Thus, it must not exist."

To this pointed and fundamental question, the Pope thought for several months before finally delivering his most famous reply.

"That line is precisely fate."

Yes.

An unexplainable connection was precisely fate.

What the stars in the night sky reflected was precisely the fate of all living beings of this world.

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No one had taught Chen Changsheng how to choose a Fated Star. His master had assuredly known, but he had never spoken about it.

Of course, he knew of that Pope's reply. The three thousand scrolls of the Daoist Canon would not exclude such a historic story.

As the connection between him and the Fated Star was fate, he became very cautious—from the age of ten, the word he cared about most was the word 'fate'.

From early morning to twilight, he familiarized himself with emitting his spiritual sense. After that peculiarity at the age of ten, he did not know how much of his soul remained, but what pleased him was the fact that his emitting of spiritual sense was not much different from that described in the books.

He closed his eyes, allowing his spiritual sense to leave his sea of consciousness and drift about the peaceful library. He was clearly not seeing, but an image of his surrounding environment faintly appeared in his mind. It was somewhat fuzzy, the light somewhat hallucinatory. This was a completely brand-new understanding.

As night approached, he did not act like other beginning students and still remain absorbed in his spiritual sense's perception of the outside world. Without the slightest hesitation, he ordered his spiritual sense to pass through the window and fly into the night sky. It flew farther and farther into the sky, passing through the finest down of the birds returning in the night, flying through the tiniest particle of water in the gradually dispersing clouds, flying through the current of the extremely cold wind, until finally, it arrived amidst innumerable specks of light.

This was the sea of stars.