Zongwu: Aspiring to be the mastermind behind the scenes

Chapter 401 Expectations Too High, The Legend of the Temple of War
Jian Yue dismantled Mo Mei's projection and, sure enough, found a small black stone inside.

It is made of the same material as that relic.

"There is a faint connection between this small piece and the original relic. If a large amount of true energy is used, this connection can be strengthened, allowing commands to be issued to this relic remotely..."

"Then the remnant soul of Mozi within the relic can directly control all the energy within the entire relic, affecting the external mechanisms and thus controlling the entire Azure Dragon mechanism!"

"However, this method of control is extremely wasteful, so the best way is to insert Mo Mei directly into the control panel in the control room, which saves time and effort..."

Zhou Ming understood the operating principle of the Azure Dragon Mechanism, and couldn't help but sigh. He casually tossed the relic aside, and it dissipated into countless rays of light.

To be fair, I gained a lot this time.

The enormous mechanical Azure Dragon is itself a deadly weapon.

The dragon roar that was revealed earlier was an extremely rare sonic attack mechanism, capable of directly affecting an army of tens of thousands, demonstrating its power.

However, based on the disassembly results, this is only one of the many lethal mechanisms carried by the Azure Dragon.

Each of these mechanisms, when disassembled individually, is a formidable weapon on the battlefield.

If we use all our strength, even if the enemy has an army of 200,000, as long as there are no Grandmaster-level experts among them, we can defeat them all.

Even if a grandmaster were to intervene, the five thousand years of power contained within the black relic would not be to be underestimated.

With the addition of some targeted mechanisms from the Azure Dragon, it can definitely hold its own against Grandmasters.

Even without mentioning all of that, a single black relic could allow Zhou Ming to mass-produce master-level subordinates.

Although according to Jian Yue, the true energy within the black relic contains the spiritual imprint of the Mohist school, which can have a great impact on people, what if Zhou Ming gives it to the Rakshasa army?

Could mere spiritual imprints possibly shake the treasure that is the Rakshasa amulet?
The fragment of Mozi's memory that was found within the black relic was also a considerable gain.

The fragments of Mozi's spirit are quite complete, and they should contain a large number of memories.

But Zhou Ming was still very disappointed.

Perhaps it was because he had too high expectations for the Mohist school's heritage.

When Zhou Ming learned of this foundation, he wondered what it might be.

Could it be that Mozi's mechanical arts were perfected, making flesh and blood weak, and allowing machines to ascend to immortality?

Or perhaps it inherited the ancient way, directly storing its own soul and waiting to be possessed?

Upon inspection, it was discovered that all Mozi had left behind was a black relic, which contained remnants of his spirit, but only dull memories and no autonomous functions.

Compared to Zhou Ming's own imagination and expectations, it was far from what he had imagined and hoped for.

Although Zhou Ming himself understood that in a martial arts world, it was probably unlikely that the things he imagined would appear.

If it were the gods and demons of the ancient era who came up with these tricks, then it would be somewhat plausible.

But Mozi could never do that.

Ultimately, Mozi was merely a grandmaster.

Moreover, he did not come from a noble family. Although his ancestors were nobles, their lineage had long since fallen by his generation. In his youth, he even had to work as a shepherd and learn carpentry to support himself.

Apart from having a noble ancestor, he was basically no different from a commoner.

In the Qin state, the gap between the rich and the poor, and the gap in social status, were the largest in the entire land of China.

It's not even as good as Zhongzhou.

After all, Zhongzhou was already in chaos, and as long as one had military power, even an ordinary person could rise to prominence.

Even though Mozi had cultivated to the level of a Three Flowers Grandmaster in this land, and was still very young when he reached this level, he was not valued by the monarchs and nobles of various countries.

It wasn't until he became a Grandmaster that this situation changed.

It wasn't until he was over 150 years old that Mozi founded the Mohist school. With his mastery of the art, his extraordinary ideas, and his unparalleled mechanical skills, he attracted a large number of people to become his disciples.

The Mohist school grew rapidly and gradually became a school of thought that stood alongside the Confucian school, known to the world as the "Confucian-Mohist" school of thought.

The Mohist school has existed for over three hundred years.

The Grandmaster lived to be three hundred years old.

Therefore, Mozi had already passed away more than 150 years ago.

After all, in this day and age, the realm of celestial beings has long become a legend.

Even if the founders of the Hundred Schools of Thought were all exceptionally talented, it would be difficult for them to become legends.

If one's level of understanding is insufficient, it is naturally unlikely that one can perform the actions that Zhou Ming envisioned.

In fact, from the perspective of this world, being able to leave behind a complete spirit after death, containing all one's memories, is already an extraordinary feat that is completely unimaginable to ordinary people.

Zhou Ming was no ordinary person; he had exceptionally high standards and placed excessive expectations on the Mohist school.

With a wave of his hand, Zhou Ming projected another mechanical azure dragon.

"Keep dismantling, keep studying. All the memories contained in the fragments of spirit within Mozi and the relics are a treasure trove. We must investigate them one by one and record them!"

After giving the order, Zhou Ming lost interest, shook his hand, and disappeared.

Meanwhile, the three people in their personal space also divided their tasks. The mechanical Azure Dragon was disassembled into seventeen or eighteen large parts and transferred to the Loulan base.

These parts are purely mechanical devices. Although they are incredibly ingenious, Zhou Ming doesn't value them. Therefore, he only needs to hand them over to the mechanical engineers there to disassemble them and analyze the mechanical techniques within.

That black relic is actually the core and the most crucial element of the entire Azure Dragon Mechanism.

Naturally, it was left to the three of them to study at their leisure.

However, to Zhou Ming's surprise, while the mechanical Azure Dragon did disappoint him, the memories left behind by Mozi gave him a pleasant surprise.

"The Temple of War?"

"That's right!"

A few days later, Xiao Ai handed over the memory information she had discovered to Zhou Ming for review.

Within the relics, the spiritual fragments left by Mozi will repel any spiritual forces that intrude from the outside.

However, according to Xiao Ai and her team's research, as long as they use the true qi cultivated through the Mo family's internal energy cultivation, they can bypass Mozi's guard and thus successfully obtain the memory information left behind by Mozi.

Mozi was orphaned at a young age, but he was naturally clever and intelligent. While working as a shepherd and learning carpentry, he learned to write and use characters.

He also learned some basic martial arts skills through a secret manual passed down from his ancestors.

At this time, he encountered the greatest opportunity of his life.

War Temple!
This palace is a mysterious palace built by many great gods in ancient times.

The palace itself is not located anywhere in this world, but exists in the void, constantly drifting.

It will connect with this world roughly once every seventy years, and the location will be completely random.

Only a very few lucky individuals will have the privilege of entering the Temple of the War God. Within the Temple of the War God are forty-nine reliefs, which can only be understood intuitively and cannot be explained in words. Together, they constitute the ancient divine and demonic secret technique, the 'War God's Manual'.

It is said that Guang Chengzi, the teacher of the Yellow Emperor, once entered the Temple of the God of War, where he comprehended the secrets of the Shattered Vajra and created the extraordinary skill of "Longevity Technique".

After leaving this extraordinary feat in the mortal realm, he returned to the Temple of the God of War and shattered away.

When talking about the Temple of War, one cannot help but mention the Palace of Startled Goose.

This palace is located on a plain in the middle of the Central Plains and the southern part of the Nine Provinces and Four Seas, and it was built according to the celestial laws of the Three Enclosures, Twenty-Eight Mansions, Five Planets, Sun and Moon.

Its construction dates back to the time of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors.

The function of this palace is to draw in the Temple of War in the void.

Every thirty years, the palace accumulates enough power to forcibly pull the Temple of War into the real world and fix it in its underground location within the Palace of Startled Goose.

However, to open the door beneath the palace, one must first decipher the hidden mechanisms within.

In other words, there are two ways to enter the Temple of War.

One method is entirely based on fate, with the Temple of War opening randomly in another corner of the Nine Provinces and Four Seas every seventy years.

One method is through the Jingyan Palace. As long as the mechanism is solved, the War God Temple can be opened underground in the Jingyan Palace once every thirty years.

Guang Chengzi, the former tutor of the emperor, was able to return to the War God Temple after leaving it and creating the Longevity Technique. The fact that he was destroyed there was probably due to his use of Jingyan Palace.

The palace still stands today.

However, few people in the world know its purpose.

At the same time, because of the existence of this palace, the Temple of War in the void is mostly located in the void near the Palace of Startled Goose, which is in the southern part of the Nine Provinces and Four Seas.

This region is where the present-day Sui Dynasty is located.

Therefore, in the history of the Sui Kingdom, there were many figures who were related to the Temple of the God of War.

However, it rarely appears in other areas.

Unexpectedly, Mozi had that opportunity, just in time to witness the Temple of War traveling to other regions and opening up.

The forty-nine reliefs in the Temple of War are more indescribable than can be understood; what one can glean from them depends entirely on oneself.

Mozi was young at the time, and he only grasped a little of it.

But this also laid the most solid foundation for his later founding of the Mohist school.

"interesting……"

Zhou Ming continued flipping through the pages.

After leaving the Temple of War, Mozi's life trajectory was roughly as recorded in history.

He rose to prominence, studied Confucianism, but his path differed from others. He became a great master and founded the Mohist school.

However, the information from Mozi's own memory is clearly more accurate.

Besides these major life events, Mozi's favorite thing to do was to travel the world and search for ancient relics.

With his abilities, he actually found quite a few, which in turn propelled the rapid development of the Mohist mechanical arts.

He even traveled to the southern part of the Nine Provinces and Four Seas, hoping to re-enter the Temple of War through the legends of those Temples of War. Unfortunately, the legends were vague and ethereal, and there were no clues to be found.
In the end, I had to give up.

It was during this period that he found that black relic.

Zhou Ming skimmed through this information before going back to check the section about the Temple of War.

They quickly realized something was wrong.

The Temple of War is not an empty palace; a demonic dragon guards its exterior.

But Mozi never encountered this demonic dragon...

But on second thought, Zhou Ming also felt it was normal.

The ancient gods built the Temple of War for the purpose of passing on their legacy. The demonic dragon was merely a guardian; how could it block the inheritors from entering?
The random opening every seventy years is clearly the normal way the Temple of War is opened.

Those who enter the Temple of War in this way are naturally the inheritors chosen by the Temple of War.

However, the way Jingyan Palace forcibly restricts the War God Temple to open its gates every thirty years is naturally a disruption of the War God Temple's inheritance method by later generations.

As the guardian of the Temple of War, the Demon Dragon naturally disliked the entry of such a destroyer.

Therefore... once the Demon Dragon saw that Mozi had entered the Temple of War through random means, it would not show itself at all, let alone stop him.
However, if Mozi were to actually open the Jingyan Palace and enter the War God Temple from there, he would likely immediately witness the terrifying power of the demonic dragon.

As for why Guang Chengzi from ancient times could enter again and again... that's probably purely because Guang Chengzi was so powerful that the demonic dragon couldn't defeat him at all.

"The Temple of War Gods... the Palace of Startled Geese..."

Zhou Ming's eyes lit up: "How can we let such a good place go? Xiao Ai, gather information about Jingyan Palace!"

"Yes."

In the southern part of the land, there once existed a powerful and unified nation, namely the Han Dynasty.

However, after the fall of the Han Dynasty, this region experienced a long period of chaos before being unified by the Sui Dynasty.

Jingyan Palace was originally a secret known only to a very few top experts, and the long period of chaos caused great damage to history and heritage.

Even the most powerful clans in the Sui Dynasty might not know anything about Jingyan Palace.

More importantly, Jingyan Palace was not located within the territory of the Sui Kingdom, but on the plain between the Sui Kingdom and Zhongzhou.

Because of Emperor Zhou Cang's strategy of inviting foreign tribes into the Central Plains to suppress other countries, this region is now occupied by the Turkic people.

Among this Turkic tribe, there was a person of exceptional talent who achieved the Grandmaster realm, namely 'Martial Venerable' Bi Xuan.

With the presence of the Turkic people and this person, even if someone from the Sui Dynasty knew the secret of Jingyan Palace, it would be impossible for them to break into the grasslands and reach Jingyan Palace.

“I remember in the original novel, Bi Xuan once said that the reason he was able to master the ‘Blazing Sun Technique’ was because he got lost in the desert and stumbled into an ancient palace. He comprehended the Blazing Sun Technique on a stone tablet in the palace… Could it be that it was also the Temple of the God of War?”

Because of the Jingyan Palace, the probability of the War God Temple appearing in the Sui Kingdom is far greater than in other regions.

Therefore, the probability of it appearing on the grasslands is naturally greater than that of the Sui Dynasty.

"If that is the Temple of War, then based on the timeline, it's probably not long since the Temple of War truly appeared..."

Martial Venerable Bi Xuan is an old man who is nearly a hundred years old, and he has dominated the grasslands for decades.

Based on this calculation, the time he entered that desert temple must have been fifty or sixty years ago, or even earlier.

Therefore, it seems that the Temple of War will be randomly opened again.

"At this moment, even though the Temple of War is not yet open, it is probably quite close to reality. If we can find the Palace of Startled Goose, we might be able to locate the Temple of War..."

(End of this chapter)