Dragon Canon

The Water Blade spell was a Dao technique invented by the ancestors of the human race, with origins predating even the first Immortal Lord. Initially, Water Blade was actually Control Water, a spell used to draw water for irrigating fields. Later, people began adapting this technique to sprinkle water and cleanse courtyards during important ceremonies such as festivals and grand sacrifices. Over time, its application gradually expanded.

The first book Wei Yuan held in its hands recounted this very history.

Of course, an Immortal Lord would not write a book in the dry manner commonly seen in historical texts; he also included several corresponding spells from those early days. Thus, Wei Yuan learned Draw Water, Spray Water, and Summon Spring.

Wei Yuan kept his patience and opened the second book, finishing it in the blink of an eye. However, his expression immediately turned grim.

The second book described the earliest forms of Water Blade. In the past, when cultivators used Spray Water to remove stubborn grime, they had made the water stream increasingly fine and powerful. When a certain limit was exceeded, the water transformed into a blade capable of cleaving stone and metal.

The entire book detailed the spell structure of this most primitive version of Water Blade. The spell structure of the contemporary Water Blade Wei Yuan had learned was exquisite and intricate, its core no larger than a pea. In fact, the so-called process of learning a spell was really just memorizing its Dao structure, reconstructing it flawlessly, and then infusing it with Dao energy to unleash one or multiple Water Blades.

As for why the structure of a Dao spell was the way it was, it was like how one plus one equals two—everyone simply accepted it as a given and did not question why.

The more Dao energy was channeled into a Water Blade spell, the greater its power. However, the spell structure had its limits; once a certain threshold was reached, it could no longer accommodate more Dao energy. Forcing more into it would simply cause it to collapse and explode, potentially damaging the caster’s primordial spirit.

Yet, the spell structures introduced in the two books were so large and complex, they were as large as houses!

Even with Wei Yuan’s formidable perception, it took him four repeated readings to truly commit them all to memory. When he was just ten and had achieved some success in his cultivation, Wei Yuan could already read a history book containing over ten thousand words from cover to cover and memorize it word for word. At that time, only five or six of his classmates were at a similar level, while the least gifted ones had to read it three times to memorize it.

Thus, with focused effort, Wei Yuan had learned another somewhat potent spell called “Rushing Water Blade”. Its problem? It was as large as it was unwieldy.

A vague sense of unease began to stir within Wei Yuan. He opened the fourth[1] book and slowly read it from cover to cover. Then, he started over again. He would repeat this process another five times before finally grasping about eighty percent of it.

He knew that the remaining twenty percent was the true essence of the book.

Wei Yuan took a moment to compose himself before picking up the fifth volume. This time, he failed to understand about thirty percent of it. It didn’t seem like much, but Wei Yuan knew his own capabilities well. Essentially, he hadn’t understood any of the non-trivial parts of the book.

These two books provided a detailed explanation of the spell structure of Rushing Water Blade, breaking it down into dozens of components of varying sizes. The fourth book pointed out that some of these structural components were actually useless, serving merely as a decorative purpose. Upon reading this, Wei Yuan had an epiphany: no wonder he had found the spell structure to be grand and majestic. It even featured partners of birds, beasts, and insects, which looked rather beautiful.

Not only were these decorative components useless, they had significantly increased the difficulty of casting the spell as well. To give an example, the spell stripped of all of its decorative components could have been grasped by a disciple of the Scarlet Tide Sect, a fourth-tier sect. But with the decorative components, only a high cultivator of the Palace of Absolute Beginning would be able to learn it.

Immortal Lord Tinghai speculated that, back in the days where the Dao was taught from master to disciple, and knowledge was passed down orally rather than in writing, the masters had designed these decorative components in order to protect themselves from their disciple.

It was common for a disciple to study under a master for decades without mastering the art. Only when a master was on his deathbed—and assuming that the disciple was relatively dutiful—would he be taught the true Dao spells stripped of these decorative components. But if the disciple proved to be unfilial, then they were left to live out the rest of their days burdened by these bloated, impractical Dao arts.

However, fortune was as unpredictable as the weather. It was impossible to say when it had happened, but at some point, a master had died prematurely and was unable to pass on the secret. Thus, these bloated Dao spells—laden with all their decorative trappings—were passed down as they were.

These bloated spell structures were completely without merit, though. They were visually striking, and their complexity made it immediately clear that they were difficult to learn. Anyone would recognize at a glance that they were the arts of an immortal.

What Wei Yuan couldn’t understand was why the Immortal Lord considered certain components to be decorative when they clearly served a functional purpose[2].

The fifth book focused exclusively on three spell components, arguing that one could be eliminated outright, and two could be improved. It also explained the principles in detail. After reading it once, Wei Yuan learned the improved version of Rushing Water Blade and increased the spell’s potency by ten percent. The improvement was immediate.

Just like before, Wei Yuan learned the spell, but failed to understand a single word of the theoretical section. As expected of an Immortal Lord, he could write thousands of words even on a subject as minor as whether a single strand of Dao energy should curve upward or downward.

Fortunately, to accommodate eager young scholars, Immortal Lord Tinghai left a note at the end of the fifth book: “If there are any points that you do not understand, you may exchange for my modest work: The Principles of The Structure of A Dao Spell[3].”

By now, the familiar passage only caused a slight stir in Wei Yuan’s heart. He immediately offered up some nether soil in exchange for the Daoist texts. But to his surprise, The Principles of The Structure of A Dao Spell was such a text that it required three separate exchanges to complete.

Looking at the twenty books before him, Wei Yuan, resigned to the fact that he had nothing left to lose, opened the first one.

The first book served as an overview, detailing the evolution of Dao spell structures ranging from the Distant Antiquity Era to the Middle Antiquity Era. It listed a total of thirty-six core structures and seventy-two specialized structures. If he could comprehend all twenty books, Wei Yuan should be able to learn one hundred and eight Dao spells in one go. The most essential spells from the early days of the human race were all contained within.

If he could comprehend them....

In truth, he could learn these Dao spells regardless of whether he understood their principles. Wei Yuan simply couldn’t admit defeat just yet.

These twenty books were no longer talking about the Water Blade spell anymore. Instead, it delved into the fundamental principles of the structure of a Dao spell—a subject that was approaching the Great Dao itself.

With a mind as still as water, Wei Yuan flipped through the books one by one, reading them through without seeking to grasp every nuance. Upon finishing, he realized without feeling any surprise whatsoever that he would need to exchange for another ten books.

Wei Yuan offered up the nether soil to exchange for the Daoist texts. Ten more books appeared in front of him.

Wei Yuan opened them and realized that these books were valued for their depth, not their quantity. Any single one of these ten books was more difficult than all twenty of the previous ones combined.

These books began with the principles of Heaven, Earth, and the Five Elements. It also explained the true nature of Dao energy, how to construct a Dao spell using the energy, and various techniques for building such structures.

Though Wei Yuan couldn’t comprehend them, he realized something: this was the Great Dao. Indeed, the closer one got to the Great Dao, the more difficult something became. All the aforementioned Dao techniques were merely “techniques”, insignificant compared to the Dao itself.

However, the books he was about to exchange for next were all advanced explanations of these techniques.

Nether soil went up, Daoist texts fell down.

That was when Wei Yuan realized that techniques were far from a simple subject. Exactly how difficult it was, he had no idea. He only knew they were immensely difficult. Worse, not only were there no redundant content, there wasn’t a single wasted sentence to be found in the thirty-odd books he received this time. They were all substantive content so profound that, not only could Wei Yuan not understand it, he didn’t even know why he couldn’t.

For instance, the principle behind the internal structural changes involved in transforming a water blade into an ice blade made Wei Yuan doubt the very nature of the world he lived in. He instinctively wanted to break everything around him into pieces just to examine them[4].

Meanwhile, the Bay Laurel Immortal Tree branch was standing quietly beside the jade hill, basking in the tranquil passage of the time.

Once more, Wei Yuan saw that phrase that was practically a devilish curse at this point: “If there are any points that you do not understand, you may exchange for my modest work....”

Nether soil went up, Daoist texts fell down.

Nether soil went up, Daoist texts fell down.

Nether soil went up, Daoist texts fell down....

Only after obtaining the new Daoists texts did Wei Yuan realize that the Dao of technique was not particularly difficult, it was the pinnacle of technique that was truly challenging.

For instance, one book described how, in order to maximize the power of a single Water Blade, the Immortal Lord had dedicated himself to studying the flight path of that single blade.

In the Immortal Lord’s eyes, wind was water, and water was wind. When a Water Blade reaches its maximum speed, the wind would become a massive obstacle. The entire book then detailed how the wind flowed past both sides of the Water Blade, what forces it exerted, what shape of Water Blade was best suited for cutting through the wind, how to harness these forces to alter the Water Blade’s direction, and so on and so forth.

Immortal Lord Tinghai had written these books after he attained immortality.

By this point, Wei Yuan had spent over twenty thousand merits to exchange for over two hundred and seventy Daoists texts. There were so many books that half the room was filled up. Suddenly, Wei Yuan had an epiphany: these two hundred and seventy-odd books constituted a complete path to immortality.

Immortal Lord Tinghai had not kept anything to himself. He had laid out his Great Dao before everyone. Any disciple of the Palace of Absolute Beginning with a sufficient amount of merits could exchange for them, and not one book in the whole set required a Heaven Merit to exchange. Yet, everyone in the entire Palace of Absolute Beginning, from top to bottom, chose to turn a blind eye to it, not even mentioning it in passing.

The reason was simple. It was not shameful to be physically inferior to another, but intellectually? Nothing could be more shameful. Anyone attempting to follow Immortal Lord Tinghai’s Dao path was prone to lapses in their Dao heart and being infested by heart devils.

When all was said and done, Wei Yuan silently set down the few copies of The Pinnacle of Technique, arranged them neatly, then bowed respectfully before the entire collection. Standing before this pile of Daoist texts, Wei Yuan felt as though a brainless creature like him was fit only to serve as a mount for the Immortal Lord.

Suddenly, it occurred to him that the so-called advanced mathematics and physics Xu Wenwu had made such a huge fuss about were likely nothing special compared to the Immortal Lord’s Dao path.

After collecting his thoughts, Wei Yuan suddenly realized something: Why did I exchange the Immortal Lord’s entire path to immortality again? I just wanted to learn some advanced Dao spells.

Had he grasped the Water Blade Storm? Yes he did. Did he fully understand it? No.

Failure to comprehend a subject matter fully was considered a cardinal sin in cultivation. That was the reason Wei Yuan had exchanged text after text. He did not stop until he was forced to face the cold, hard reality that he was, intellectually speaking, completely inferior to Immortal Lord Tinghai.

Suddenly, Wei Yuan understood there were likely many, many more advanced Dao spells similar to Water Blade Storm.

He also understood where Immortal Lord Tinghai had obtained the cultivation resources necessary for his ascension to immortalhood.

In the study of countless seniors of the Palace of Absolute Beginning, there must be a bookshelf solely dedicated to these Daoist texts. Wei Yuan believed that the vast majority of them were brand new.

1. If you’re asking where the third book went, activate standard response: IDK I’m just the translator. ☜

2. XD ☜

3. I sincerely hope some of you are having PTSD flashback. 😀 ☜

4. Welcome to science, brother. ☜