Chapter 154: The Great Dao and the Heavenly Dao

"Ah!"

Upon hearing the name Wang Yuanfeng, Daoist Three Caves froze in a daze. It was only after Wang Yuanfeng had been gone for quite a while that he slapped his thigh and muttered, "I should have thought of this earlier."

Right outside the military camp of the Marquis of Wu'an, he had once spied on him and roughly guessed his identity. He recalled the recent rumors about a faction rising in Mount Tianzhu—one with its own unique philosophy, advanced ideology, and lofty goals, seemingly established specifically for practitioners of the Dao.

Though not widely broadcast, walls have ears. Many practitioners had made their way there out of curiosity, especially among the demon kind.

In this era, the fortune of the demon race was growing increasingly thin, having only the remnant luck inherited from the ancient demons. That epoch-shaking upheaval had nearly depleted all demon fortune. If nothing unexpected happened, within a thousand years, beings capable of attaining demonhood would almost entirely vanish, forced to survive only in the most desolate and inaccessible wildernesses.

Daoist Three Caves had witnessed these changes over the millennium and deduced certain truths from the grand trends of heaven and earth. In recent years, the eradication of demons and monsters had grown scarcer, while ghost-catching had flourished.

This did not mean demons were no longer hunted; rather, demons were becoming increasingly scarce. Where there is demand, there is a market. Most demons had fled. In these lands blessed with the thickest fortune, they were virtually nonexistent; those that remained were either organized or had reached agreements with the Daoist sects not to casually harm mortals.

Compared to a thousand years ago, their numbers had plummeted beyond reckoning. With no demons harming people, there was no longer any need for people to slay them. Meanwhile, ghosts—which could once be easily exterminated with a wave of a hand—began to rear their heads now that high-level magical practitioners were absent, giving rise to numerous ghost-catching professions.

Therefore, profit comes from what is there, but usefulness comes from what is not.

When something loses its function, it also loses its reason to exist. Consequently, high-level practitioners found their paths increasingly arduous. As heaven and earth underwent drastic changes and the path of cultivation grew harder, many practitioners were forced to seek new outlets.

This was why heretical sects proliferated and great demons stirred into action—all to carve out a way forward for themselves. To simply drift along and await death under the current of this cosmic torrent would only narrow one's path until cultivation became impossible, leaving no choice but to re-enter the cycle of reincarnation upon the exhaustion of one's lifespan.

When Daoist Three Caves recently heard the rumors about Mount Tianzhu, he had taken them to heart. Although most practitioners were still sitting on the fence, a few had already gone to pledge their allegiance to Mount Tianzhu.

Originally, he had harbored such thoughts as well, but held back by pride and lacking an introduction, he could only linger here. To think he had actually met him today! Daoist Three Caves felt a pang of regret, bitterly lamenting that he had missed a prime opportunity.

He glanced at the radiant deer on the ground, and suddenly his eyes lit up. Didn't Wang Yuanfeng say the radiant deer was fated to be with him? As long as the deer was around, he could surely bask in some of that residual fortune.

With this thought, he grinned, revealing his prominent rabbit-like front teeth. With a wave of his hand, he drew the radiant deer toward him, grabbed it firmly, and flew off in the direction of the prefecture.

***

After Wang Yuanfeng left, he quieted his mind. During the recent battle, he had lost all perception of his surroundings, but now that he had relaxed, he suddenly felt a reaction from the Armillary Sphere within his spiritual platform.

He withdrew his consciousness into his spiritual platform to take a look, only to discover that numerous stellar palaces—ones he had previously been unaware of—were twinkling like stars within the space.

"What is the meaning of this?"

Wang Yuanfeng asked himself in mild perplexity, observing how the stellar mansions emitted a faint glow, vaguely resonating with one another. Although they had not yet fully lit up—unlike Kang the Metal Dragon, Lou the Metal Dog, and Kui the Wood Wolf, which were completely illuminated and operated autonomously—the rest spun at a microscopic, almost imperceptible pace under the mutual influence of those energies.

Yet, this alone was enough to reveal a great deal. Gazing in the direction of Mount Tianzhu, he looked into the distance and saw that the stellar aura above the mountain was extraordinarily dense. In just these few short days, it had already condensed boundless astral power.

"Splendid!"

Wang Yuanfeng murmured in silent praise. He had never expected that the development of events would far exceed his original expectations. It was as if he had merely scattered a seed, and because it happened to fit this era, the seed had begun to grow on its own at the speed of nuclear fission.

Since ancient times, whenever the operation of heaven and earth grew unsmooth, saints would emerge in response to the times, using universal truths to right wrongs, restore order, and allow the cosmos to function reasonably and continue its evolution.

Wang Yuanfeng looked at the Armillary Sphere. This was an object he had fashioned by utilizing the myriad phenomena of the universe and correlating them with the various parts of the human body, along with certain subtle cycles.

Its original purpose was to deduce countermeasures for bodily illnesses and regulate the normal functioning of the physique. But for reasons unknown, an anomaly had occurred: tainted by the primordial breath of heaven and earth, the Armillary Sphere had transformed into a treasure of the spiritual artifact class.

Reflecting on its ultimate appearance in this world, Wang Yuanfeng secretly surmised that his own arrival here was also connected to the Armillary Sphere—or rather, to this world itself.

The world was originally a perfect system capable of self-operation and evolution, but its laws were clearly incomplete; it could not even give birth to the Three Realms through its own growth.

Driven by a primordial instinct for survival, the world had sensed the Armillary Sphere and pulled it across space, dragging his reincarnated soul along with it into this realm.

Judging from the things he had come to know, his actions could be said to conform to the Heavenly Dao, but they could equally be viewed as the deliberate arrangements of this world's Heavenly Dao. From the very beginning, he had acted passively, with very few matters proceeding according to his own will.

To outsiders, this appeared glorious, but deep down he knew that if he refused to act thusly, he would be violating the Heavenly Dao, the consequence of which would be descending calamities or even death.

***

By then, his fortune would not only be stripped away, but his path would grow increasingly difficult, and the Armillary Sphere would surely be snatched away by another. Whoever seized it would undoubtedly be the next Son of Fortune, whose endeavors would meet with effortless success.

A sudden chill crept up Wang Yuanfeng's back, making him feel rather uneasy. The pursuit of Dao cultivation was the Supreme Boundless Dao, not the Heavenly Dao.

Fortunately, he had realized this early on; otherwise, once influenced by the Heavenly Dao, he would have continued blindly along the predetermined path set by it, drifting further and further from his own Dao. How would that differ from being a mere puppet?

He might become a saint of this realm, or even the supreme sovereign, but he would forever remain a servant to this world, abandoning all hope of advancing any further.

As for returning to his original world, that would be utterly impossible. At the very end, as he chanted...

Right, the Heavenly Venerable!

Wang Yuanfeng suddenly recalled that his original world had protected him at the very end precisely because of the Heavenly Venerable. Though he had not seen him, the fact that he retained his consciousness was undoubtedly linked to the Heavenly Venerable.

To cultivate the Dao was to refine and correct the self, not to lose oneself in submission. If one lost the self, could it still be called cultivating the Dao? If he merely walked according to arrangements made by heaven and earth, how was he any different from a puppet?

Wang Yuanfeng hurriedly chanted the sacred title of the Heavenly Venerable a few times in his heart, suppressing that wave of discomfort as he realized how close his mind had come to becoming lost.

He thought to himself that he must exercise greater caution in the future. The Heavenly Dao is impartial; it merely bestows its favors upon the virtuous.

The Heavenly Dao possesses no desires or thoughts. Whether one sinks into oblivion or achieves transcendence depends solely on oneself. He secretly warned himself not to be overly influenced by the Heavenly Dao; otherwise, in the end, he would dissolve into the Dao, becoming a mere fragment of heaven and earth while his true self vanished completely, leaving not even a spark of true spirit behind.