Fire Monster

Chapter 253: The Rise and Fall of Zhenhai
"I am a junior, meeting Master Cheng. Thank you for your compliment. I actually went through this mental calamity without knowing why. Can Master Cheng help me understand this?"

Zhao Guanshan bowed and saluted.

"You don't know about the inner demon tribulation?"

Cheng Muye was very surprised.

"I really don't know, because I am not from Cangwu Taoist Palace, but from Linjiangfu Taoist Palace. The situation is a bit complicated in our place. I am just a fifth-level Qi Refiner, but I became the headmaster of the Taoist Palace. However, I have no say. Elder Cheng should understand what I am saying."

Zhao Guanshan smiled bitterly.

"The forbidden art of conferring the gods, awakening the people's wisdom, attempting to cultivate destiny. Haha, have you, the Linjiang Prefecture Taoist Palace, also taken this path?"

Cheng Muye laughed. Of course he understood what was going on, because the same was true for Zhenhaidao Palace.

"So, Fellow Daoist Chengfeng, you still have your physical body left in the Linjiang Prefecture Dao Palace?"

"Yes."

"Then I have something to say to you. Either don't get involved from the beginning, don't interfere, hide yourself, and don't let anyone know that you are a Qi Refiner, or just be a state master. Don't ever think that you can still suppress the four directions and stir up the situation as a Qi Refiner. Once the destiny microclimate is formed, it will be a disaster for Qi Refiners like us in the mortal world."

Zhao Guanshan asked curiously at this time, "I have also heard of the microclimate of destiny, but it is still difficult to understand. Can Mr. Cheng give me some guidance?"

"I don't dare to give you guidance, because no one knows the ins and outs of this matter. I am only a ninth-level Qi Refiner, not a cultivator, let alone an immortal. I don't know everything. I can only tell you about the situation of Zhenhai Dao Palace."

"Since the collapse of the immortal cultivation world two thousand years ago, five great immortals joined forces to build the Zhenhai Dao Palace, which luckily created a refuge for tens of thousands of immortal cultivators and millions of mortals in Zhenhai Prefecture. Later, with the establishment of the eighth-level spirit supply tower, the establishment of the Qi training system, and the evolution of the imperial seal instruments, the trend of large-scale utilization of spiritual energy was inevitable, because, I believe you know, the eighth-level spirit supply tower is really too useful, and the advantages of spiritual energy are also too useful."

"I wonder if you have heard of the word efficiency, Fellow Daoist Chengfeng. Utilizing spiritual energy, developing spiritual energy, and promoting spiritual energy, how should I put it? It's just—"

"It smells so good?" Zhao Guanshan added.

"Yes, yes, it's so good! This description is so accurate. Once spiritual energy is used, it is really good. In the first three hundred years of Zhenhai Dao Palace, the five great immortals personally promoted it and personally developed everything related to spiritual energy, including small and large imperial seal instruments, and even built an imperial seal war fortress as huge as a mountain!"

"You simply cannot imagine that scene. By utilizing spiritual energy, we can not only resolve the attacks of evil spirits, but also greatly enhance the overall strength of the Dao Palace. It can also allow weak Qi cultivators to play a huge role."

"So you guessed what happened later. Psychic power is great, but it requires enough manpower to control it, so low-level cultivators have to give birth to children. Moreover, there are not many resources for cultivation, and hunting twilight dust moths is only a stopgap measure. We can't have everyone cultivating immortals."

“That’s how the divide was formed.”

"The conservatives believe that spiritual energy can be used to a limited extent, but the main focus should still be on the immortal cultivation-qi refining system."

"The moderate school believes that spiritual energy can be used to a great extent, but as for cultivation, the most talented people should be selected, so that a small number of people can practice, and the majority of people can be responsible for the inheritance of mankind and for resisting evil spirits."

"But there is still a small number of radicals. Of course, in the beginning, all radicals were moderates. Both sides had different opinions at the beginning and tried to remain restrained or ignore each other. You take care of your territory and I take care of mine. Until the population of Zhenhaidao Palace exceeded 30 million!"

"thirty million?"

Zhao Guanshan was shocked. It was amazing that the population could exceed 30 million when the evil spirits were destroying the world.

"Yes, it took only three hundred years for the Zhenhai Dao Palace to reach a population of over 30 million, because, as I said before, the Level 8 Spiritual Supply Tower was so powerful, and its spiritual energy conversion provided too much protection for the Zhenhai Dao Palace. At that time, the Zhenhai Dao Palace was even more dazzling than the Fuyun Dao Palace, which is in its heyday today and is like a weather vane for the Dao Palace."

"With the concerted efforts of all the five great immortals, they rescued the fragments of the continent floating in the devil's fire at the first moment and pieced them together. In just three hundred years, the Zhenhai Dao Palace expanded its territory by three thousand miles." "When the five great immortals finally realized that something was wrong, it was already five hundred years later."

"In the past, when the Immortal Cultivation World still existed, there were actually many small countries in the mortal world with a population of tens of millions, and large countries with a population of more than 50 million. As long as the population did not exceed 100 million, the situation would not get out of control."

"In the world of immortal cultivation at that time, each sect drew its own boundaries, moved towering mountains, brought in surging rivers, or simply separated the land with the vast ocean. The immortal cultivators could travel between each other, but ordinary people would be confined to one place or one country for thousands or tens of thousands of years from birth to death. They farmed, did business, made things, served as officials, and lived a mediocre life. However, they lived in peace and harmony, and basically no troubles occurred."

“So, even though the five great immortals know about the microclimate of destiny, as long as the population does not exceed 100 million, they will ask themselves whether they can control it.”

"But perhaps it is because of the oppression of evil spirits outside and the spiritual energy inside that is the driving force of social development. Mortals have opened up too much wisdom and it is too profound. Especially with the rise of martial artists, the establishment of the apprentice system of Qigong practitioners, and the large-scale dissemination of knowledge, although they still admire immortal cultivators, they have become accustomed to the immortal masters' flying clouds, moving mountains and seas, and transmitting sounds thousands of miles away."

"At that time, the Zhenhai Palace, in order to better fight against the invasion of evil spirits, launched large-scale infrastructure construction. From south to north, from east to west, dozens of tracks for the high-speed five-spirit trains were built, with a total length of hundreds of thousands of miles. There were huge chariots, towering fortresses, and low-level spirit towers everywhere. The entire Zhenhai Palace was like a demon with bared fangs and claws, more terrifying than an evil spirit!"

"Martial artists among mortals can even pilot the Imperial Seal Flying Boat, traversing the Devil's Fire Abyss and hunting the Twilight Dust Moths."

"The mortal population had already exceeded 50 million at that time."

"They are very fertile, and most of their children are very outstanding. The problem is that these children are always unable to be selected into the Dao Palace and enter the Qi Refiner system due to some unforeseen circumstances. Then they can only become martial artists or Qi Refiner apprentices. When they show their talents in other aspects and become a sensation, it will be the time when the Dao Palace will regret it."

"After some investigation, the five great immortals realized that the 50 million mortals in the Zhenhai Dao Palace had somehow given rise to a microclimate of destiny."

"At this point, they all chose restrictions and introduced various bans at once, but you can guess what the result is."

"Unless the five great immortals want to completely destroy the Zhenhai Dao Palace and kill all the mortals, they can only restrict it but cannot eradicate it, because the destiny microclimate is not an object, not tangible, and not even intangible. It has no individual thinking, but is just a chaotic order evolved from collective thinking."

"Ancient immortal cultivators have long discovered this chaotic order from other creatures, such as bee colonies, ant colonies, and some strange insects."

"Humans are also inevitable, and the chaotic order produced by humans is far greater than the chaotic order produced by other life forms."

"In short, what followed was a long period of internal suppression and strangulation. Thousands of years have passed, and the total population of Zhenhai Dao Palace has remained at around 50 million. You should know what this means. As a result, inevitably, the five great scattered immortals successively went astray and fell. No one knows whether it was their uneasy conscience that caused the evil demons in the spirit world to take advantage of the situation, or whether it was the subtle influence of the microclimate of destiny."

"This is the most terrifying thing. The microclimate of destiny never reacts quickly, but rather with delay. You massacred a city a hundred years ago and declared, 'Who in the world can do anything to me? Those who disobey, kill, kill, kill!' Even if the blood flows like a river, the corpses pile up like a mountain, and no roosters crow for a thousand miles, the microclimate of destiny will not react, because it is not an individual mind, but it will record it, and at some uncertain moment in the future, it will invisibly guide you, using the situation and the general trend to launch a fatal blow against you."

"Whether you died in pain, whether you felt regretful, or whether you felt wronged, it actually never cared about you. It was just a manifestation of group thinking."

"In short, ever since the death of the five great immortals, their disciples and followers have all been terrified. Who wouldn't be afraid? The situation has already been formed, and nothing can stop it unless there is an external force."

"Since then, the number of moderates in Zhenhai Dao Palace has increased significantly. Unexpectedly, some newly admitted Qigong practitioners have become radicals because of this."

"Arguments, debates, attacks, suppression, conspiracies, open plots, chaos, disputes, and even a few times when the Eighth Level Spirit Offering Tower was nearly destroyed by evil spirits, hundreds of years seemed to be condensed into tens of thousands of years. Mortals are no longer fools. They read books and newspapers every day, and watch the Taoist Palace news every day. If they want, they can drive thousands of miles away in a day. If they want, they can chat with friends thousands of miles away. This is the Zhenhai Taoist Palace today."

"Although I am a ninth-level Qi Refiner, I cannot change anything. I have always been moderate and I am definitely not a conservative."

"I have always been guarding the spirit world with my clansmen and disciples, but since the spirit world was defeated several decades ago and the stronghold was lost, my hundreds of years of hard work went down the drain and I had to return to the real world. I don't know how I got involved in a coup d'état in the Dao Palace Council. During that time, I wanted to kill as many people as possible, but my clansmen had tens of thousands of descendants and my conscience couldn't let me go. So I made a choice between being a national teacher and dissolving into a corpse. I will dissolve my body into a corpse and let my spirit enter the spirit world to be exiled forever."

"Several of my disciples followed me resolutely, and this is what happened."

"I wonder if I can give you some advice."

(End of this chapter)