Order

A few months before Wu Xue formed his literary heart, Xu Ling managed to get a very powerful technique for the Essence Refining Realm, she bought it through some troublesome channels.

The origin of the technique is a rather ancient lower world, it's more ancient than most of the then-existing middle worlds, and its history can be traced to the previous Cosmical All-Heavens Catastrophe, it was the only surviving lower world of that episode.

The name of the technique was "Pseudo Dao Integration."

It enabled someone in the Essence Refining Realm to integrate an artistic conception into their whole being without the need for a much higher cultivation base, but it only enabled one artistic conception.

It could be seen as a type of shortcut to gain greater power without advancing the cultivation base, but could also be used to build a better foundation.

An ordinary artistic conception would have a limited impact on the foundation of a cultivator when aiming for higher Realms, but a powerful and special artistic conception could be of immense help.

Xu Ling advised him to choose one of the four artistic conceptions of the highest status, namely Space-Time, Myriad, Life-Death, and Yin-Yang. But Wu Xue already set a higher goal for himself.

Because of the risks involved, he didn't dare to say his plan to his masters and even hid the fact he comprehended an even higher level of artistic conception, named Order.

"Beat loudly," Wu Xue giggled and put a hand on his chest, "Hearts!" He spoke to his two hearts, the fleshy and the literary.

He made a gesture with one hand, as if grasping a pen, and wrote in the air the word "Order."

"This is the path I chose, Master Ru Meng," he muttered, "Imitation."

The floating word "Order" was full of literary power and the Order artistic conception, it shone brightly and entered his Dantian in a blink.

"Converge," he concentrated all his soul power and began to use the Pseudo Dao Integration technique.

His body began to tremble because of the pressure, he channeled his Blood Qi strongly throughout his body to stabilize it.

In his Dantian, his True Qi began to form something like a web, it 'captured' the word 'Order' and began to merge with it under the precise control of his soul power.

Beads of sweat began to fall like a waterfall, his face was so wet he seemed to have just taken a bath.

When the word 'Order' completely merged with the web of True QI, Wu Xue decisively merged all his available soul power into it.

His mind went into a blank, he fell unconscious, but he expected that. His Blood Qi was still circulating as if it gained sentience.

His body began to tremble even more and his Dantian began to crack, the immense pain allowed him to regain a trace of consciousness.

He used the last strand of strength he had and commanded all the True Qi in his Dantian to be expelled from his body.

All his pores burst and blood began to dye his whole body red, small clouds of True Qi condensed around his body, it was almost colorless.

He weakly made a gesture with both hands, his palms were separated but all the ends of his fingers were almost touching each other, it was as if he was trying to crush a ball.

All the True Qi around him began to converge between his two palms, and then he began to put his Blood Qi into it too. The before colorless energy was now crimson red as flaming blood.

His hair and clothes began to wave as if a strong wind was passing by, Wu Xue also managed to recover a bit more soul power.

"Condense for me!" he shouted with veins popping in his forehead, "My future!"

The energy began to converge more strongly and turned denser and denser, the whole room began to glow crimson red, as if everything was on fire.

'Not enough? It has to be enough!' Wu Xue began to feel powerless after seeing the energy not reaching the critical density.

He clenched his teeth and began to empty his body of all its energy, all the Blood Qi that was being constantly generated and used to maintain his organs... everything was put into that point.

His internal organs immediately began to struggle and his blood flow was interrupted, but Wu Xue didn't hesitate, "Now!"

His everything was in that moment, all of his being, concentrated in a single point between his palms.

The concentration of energy seemed to reach a type of criticality and began to glow like a raging star and then... it exploded. Just when it began to explode, Wu Xue put his palms together, as if trying to stop that.

The raging explosion was divided into two streams of explosive energy, it was channeled through the meridians in his arms and coursed his body until it reached his Dantian.

There, the two streams of energy collided and finally turned into a supernova.

That explosion didn't occur in the room but in his Dantian.

Wu Xue fell unconscious and his body began to experience a terrifying inner explosion.

His Dantian was full of cracks and almost exploded, his meridians were trying their best to share the pressure with the Dantian but they also began to crack and rupture.

His internal organs began to bleed profoundly, his bones began to crack too, and his skin was constantly ruptured.

His life force began to wane, he was truly on the verge of death.

Just when the flame of his life was about to vanish, two figures appeared beside him and cast spells to stabilize his situation.

Ru Meng and Xu Ling sighed and said nothing, they already understood what happened.

In truth, they already noticed their disciple was extremely ambitious and was going to try something reckless, but they didn't stop him.

It was both a test and a valuable experience for him, both of them thought alike.

"He really thought he could hide it from us..." Ru Meng smiled bitterly and shook her head, "He is usually wise and smart, but still lacks lots of experience."

"He suffered too much damage, his soul is also crumbling," Xu Ling sighed and took a bottle out of her storage space.

She opened the bottle and made a drop of a milky liquid fall from it into Wu Xue's mouth.

Wu Cue's body began to heal quickly, all his internal injuries quickly vanished and his severely damaged dantian and meridians returned to normal. His soul also stopped crumbling and began to produce more soul power.

After a few seconds, Wu Xue opened his eyes and smiled awkwardly, "I greet masters."

"You..." Ru Meng was visibly angered, "You almost died."

"Is that so?" Wu Xue tilted his head, "I thought I succeeded, did I underestimate the inner explosion?"

Xu Ling smacked his head hard and said, "We have always known you were planning something reckless, and you really almost managed to pathetically kill yourself."

"I'm happy I succeeded," Wu Xue laughed naively.

"You failed!" Ru Meng snorted, "What is the use of anything if you die? If not for us, you would have died! So you failed miserably!"

Wu Xue caressed his nose with his finger and said nothing, he knew his master was angry.

"So?" Xu Ling took a deep breath and asked, "Are you satisfied? In disapointing us?"

"Master..." Wu Xue didn't dare to look at her, "I'm sorry."

"That's an experience you shouldn't forget!" Ru Meng said sternly, "Any naivety in cultivation can and probably will lead to miserable death!"

"I understand!" Wu Xue kneeled and kotowed, "I ask for forgiveness, I know I was wrong."

"You little bastard!" Ru Meng began to twist his ear with her hand, "Do you think I don't know you were faking repentance?"

"It's not very good to peek into your disciple's emotions, master," Wu Xue smiled awkwardly.

Xu Ling sighed deeply and caressed her temples, "What artistic conception you did use?"

"Huh?" Wu Xue looked at her with surprise, "I thought you both were observing me."

"We are not so bored," Ru Meng snorted, "We just cast a spell on you to alert us in case your life force begins to wane."

"I see," Wu Xue nodded in understanding, "I used the Order artistic conception."

"..." Both Ru Meng and Xu Ling doubted their ears.

"I know I'm too amazing," Wu Xue began to act proudly and childishly, "But I really comprehended Order."

Ru Meng and Xu Ling looked at each other and were more than in shock, they felt their views were crushed.

"...Show us," Xu Ling managed to recover first and ordered with eyes showing a tinge of absurdity.

Wu Xue took a deep breath and absorbed the aura around him, he converted it into his True Qi in his Dantian.

Different from before, his True Qi now had a mix of white and black colors. He didn't externalize his True Qi and just amusingly observed the stupified expressions of his two masters. They could feel it even if it was inside his Dantian.

"It's really Order..." Ru Meng began to doubt life, "But how can it be possible?"

"Wu Xue..." Xu Ling approached him and asked with complex eyes, "How did you comprehend it?"

Wu Xue tilted his head and said, "When I heard about the Chaos artistic conception, I thought it was complete bullshit and illogical.

"I concluded that what people called Chaos was not chaotic at all, it was just their swallow minds playing tricks on them.

"The so-called Chaos artistic conception is just a badly comprehended artistic conception, one that is much higher than any other."

"And so?" Ru Meng swallowed her saliva.

"Then I concluded that the so-called Chaos was in truth orderly, and then I called it Order. It seems other people also name it that way."

"Just like this?" Xu Ling was dumbfounded.

"Of course not," Wu Xue shook his head, "I made a few poems before comprehending it.

"Then, I used it to deduct my own inner literary path, Imitation."

Ru Meng looked to the sky beyond the cave ceiling and began to laugh dumbly, she felt she was in some sort of illusion.

Xu Ling was almost puking blood, "You just wrote a few poems?"

"Just like always," Wu Xue shrugged.

Xu Ling suddenly smacked his head hard for no reason other than extreme envy.

Wu Xue was knocked unconscious without the ability to even see the blow coming.

"Why didn't I possess such comprehension back then?" Xu Ling muttered with an unbearable expression.

"...Let's kill this kid," Ru Meng suggested, "He is obviously a dangerous anomaly."

"I agree," Xu Ling nodded seriously.

Of course, they were both joking, just trying to recover a bit from the blow they just took.

After a few hours, Wu Xue awakened and felt great pain in his head, it was as if he could sense his master's fist.

"Scary..." Wu Xur trembled, "But why did she hit me? I did nothing wrong this time..."

"You did," Xu Ling suddenly appeared beside him and said, scaring him.

"You did something worse than you could imagine," Ru Meng also appeared.

Wu Xue swallowed his saliva after hearing them.

"You made us envious," Ru Meng said with a complex expression, "This is a great crime!"

Xu Ling twitched the corners of her mouth and sent a voice transmission, "We weren't supposed to say the truth, but to scare him."

Ru Meng shook her head and disappeared.

"Master?" Wu Xue looked at her in confusion, "I made you envious? Is that why you hit me?"

Xu Ling couldn't control the urge and hit him again, sending him back to his dreams.

"Why are you such a scary little monster?" she muttered but cast a spell to make him sleep peacefully, "Just don't grow to be a true monster."

She then looked at the black and white True Qi in his Dantian and frowned, "That's an extreme variable, there are too many possibilities, but most of them are disastrous...

"Oh, my dear disciple, you have no idea of the true impact it will have on you."