Destiny in Cinders

An Jing's talent had shaken Ming Guangchen to the point that he needed to make a completely new training plan, which would take some time. So, he simply mentioned the secret core teachings to keep An Jing hooked for now before his arcane corpus vanished, not giving An Jing a chance to ask him any more questions.

"That's a shame." An Jing looked at the spot where the arcane corpus had vanished. "I really wanted to know what the secret core teachings of Voidsight Mountain are. Other things aside, the Mirror Me ability alone would be perfect for someone juggling multiple identities like me. Then again, does a sage have the right to pass on their core teachings to an outsider like me?"

"What are you talking about?" Yvelbane said after observing the whole thing. "Spreading core teachings to an outsider? If anything, he doesn't have the authority to refuse to pass it to you! If you met a super genius back in my time and didn't hurry up and pass on the core teachings to make that genius one of your own, you'd get hung up and whipped by your elders and the head of the tribunal! Even if Ming Guangchen had reservations earlier, you already called him your master. So, he'd turn this false relationship into a real one right away. I bet he left to notify the sect about registering you already!"

"For real?" An Jing blinked in confusion. He was only a member of a small dojo in his past life and wasn't aware of how large martial sects conducted their affairs. Either way, it sounded like it would work out well for him. "Even though I never cared about properly joining a sect, being a member of a Dustdawn Sect would ease my life in Grand Chen."

"Of course. Not to mention, you'd be able to switch identities at the drop of the hat to do your own thing anyway. What's the harm in letting a sect help with your growth? If this sect is a decent one, they can even be a reliable ally to have for your future plans."

An Jing nodded.

***

Deep in Dustdawn was the Voidsight Mountain Range that consisted of a thousand peaks. The one at the center stood taller than the rest. This mountain seemed almost completely vertical and looked more like a celestial pillar than a geographic formation. There were five smaller peaks at the very top, arranged like fingers.

Those with special abilities or arcane eyes would be able to look straight at the top of the pillar and spot a voidlike mirror that reflected everything in the world. This was none other than the Void Divine Mirror.

Within the mirror was a microcosm complete with its own sun and moon. Tens of thousands of smaller mirrors could be seen in the vicinity of the divine mirror. A peculiar intersection of divine radiance and bright moonlight pierced through the clouds and didn't scatter in the least. This was none other than the entrance of the first of the five mountain sects of Dustdawn, the Brightmirror Sect!

The Brightmirror Sect had been around since mid-antiquity, rising during the fall of the former heavenly sect, the Hallowed Grand Court. It was the end of the middle era when the calamity of the time ravaged the lands and the many spirits and fiendgods of the Hallowed Grand Court. Chaos broke out as a result, allowing countless feys and fiends to spill humanity's blood all over.

The founding ancestor of the Brightmirror Sect was Venerated Voidsight, a member of a side branch of the Hallowed Grand Court who was tasked with the custodianship of the Brightsky Mirror. Alas, the Brightsky Mirror crumbled after the fall of the Hallowed Grand Court. Venerated Voidsight brought the shard of the broken mirror to the depths of Dustdawn's wilderness and began to cultivate.

All of Dustdawn had been covered in ice and frost, not to mention the fiends and feys that roamed unabated. There was simply no way for any normal person to survive such a harsh environment. As such, Venerated Voidsight used the heavenly mirror's shard to reflect the light of the sun to melt the snow and frost, illuminating the area around the mountain range and protecting the local savages and refugee subjects of the Hallowed Grand Court. Eventually, he set up a sect to pass down his legacy. That was how the mountain range got its name.

Back then, however, the Brightmirror Sect couldn't be called a sect just yet. After all, they were no different from the three thousand skewed sects that had their own respective sacred founding ancestors. A proper sect could only call themselves one if they had a venerated of the Sanctification Realm every generation and possessed a legacy technique that could be used to reach the Pure Yang Realm.

A thousand and six hundred years after the passing of Venerated Voidsight, the Brightmirror Sect produced their first Pure Yang transcendent, Transcendent Borrowed Light. That was when the Brightmirror Sect properly broke free of the skewed sects and became one of the eight hundred intermediate sects, dominating the northwest of Dustdawn from the mountains to the sea.

Apart from the main Brightmirror Mountain, the sect had eight peaks and thirty-two manors. Each peak was founded by a venerated. Only venerateds were allowed to occupy a peak. The main peak, Brightmirror Mountain, was typically left unoccupied; even the grandmaster of the sect only occupied one of the eight peaks. The only time the main peak would be occupied was if the sect had a living transcendent of the Pure Yang Realm.

The most current generation of the Brightmirror Sect had a Pure Yang transcendent. All eight peaks were also occupied by a venerated. The combined might of a transcendent and eight venerateds made them the second-most powerful sect after the Grandnight Sect of Voidgod Mountain.

One of the eight peaks was called Dawnlight Peak. At the very top were a dozen plain buildings of white stone and bamboo that looked completely different from the grand buildings at the foot of the mountains. A white-haired man with a mirror hanging by his waist sat within one of those buildings with some whitefloat dust in hand, facing a plain-looking spherical crystal mirror in deep thought. Then, the mirror flashed and projected the figure of a person, who bowed at him.

"How could it be?" the old man asked, opening his eyes slightly. "That disciple of mine that prefers to roam about over training with his master finally wants to pay me a visit. Tell me. Do you need spirit items or spirit stones this time? Or did you run into some problem you can't deal with, a predicament you need me to solve?"

"It's neither of those, Master," said the blurry figure in the mirror. "Your disciple here might have really found a dao seed of the immortals and gods this time around."

"Oh?" The white-haired man's face was flushed when he opened his eyes wider. A stream of extremely dazzling radiance leaked from his eyes, entering the spherical crystal in front of him and refracting through every polished cut on its surface, covering the room in beams. Surprised, he said, "To think that an arrogant monster like you would praise someone so highly. It seems to go against your character and lifearc. What kind of genius are you talking about?"

Ming Guangchen's projection in the mirror shook his head, causing a thought talisman to form before the mirror. The old man's eyes shook when he received the information transferred directly through the talisman.

In that instant, all the stone-bamboo buildings on the peak shook. It looked like the reflective surface of a water mirror just got disturbed, revealing what hid underneath the surface. The peak's surface fluctuated between rough and smooth rapidly. In fact, the buildings of stone and bamboo weren't real. They were all part of the projection of the venerated's inner world.

The old man's inner world itself shook, but he quickly calmed down. "A divine arc? One with such impressive talent? And he escaped the demonic cult much like you did in the past..."

"That's right," Ming Guangchen said. "That's why I wish to—"

"Wish your ass! Why did you bother to ask me? Pass him our core teachings right away! Mark him with the stamp of Dawnlight Peak!" The old man shook his head furiously. "Where did your usual decisiveness go? It's not like you to be so wishy-washy."