Heavenly Harem: Raising My Disciple With Infinite Dual Cultivation

Lin Tian kept watching the cycle unfold with unwavering focus, his mind circling back again and again to what could possibly be driving it.

No sense of passing time reached him. He had no way of knowing how long he’d been trapped within this dimension. All he could do was hope it wouldn’t stretch on much longer.

Death and life? A cycle of reincarnation? Doesn’t quite fit. Some of these concepts don’t connect to each other at all.

Cause and effect? No, that’s not it either. What’s happening with the peach tree and the mortal family has nothing to do with cause and effect.

Then what is it? What dao concept is heaven trying to reveal to me?

He watched again as the cosmic battle raged, stars torn apart, new life rising from the wreckage of dead ones.

The peach tree grew lush and full, leaves budding each spring only to wither and fall before winter set in.

The mortal family, living out their days within an old house, leaving life behind only to give way to emptiness once more.

Of the three cycles the heavens had shown him, Lin Tian found his attention drawn most to the mortal family’s story, the one built around that worn, aging house.

He kept watching, studying every detail, something in the rhythm of their daily lives tugging insistently at his attention.

And within that flow of life, what caught him most was the little girl’s unchanging habit, holding out her bowl for more rice, even when it still sat completely full.

To fill the bowl, she first has to empty it. Could all three cycles be tied to this same idea... of emptiness itself?

Lin Tian returned his focus to the first cycle, the cosmic conflict between towering cultivator powers.

He studied it carefully, then wove it together with the concept of emptiness he’d drawn from the third cycle.

Cultivators and stars alike represented existence itself, entities that had come into being and persisted, unbroken, through time.

The cosmic explosion tore through everything, killing immortals, shattering entire star clusters, leaving behind only one thing: a sky, dark and utterly empty.

Existence gives way to emptiness. And from that emptiness, new existence is born.

His eyes watched clearly as scattered dust drew together, forming the smallest seed of a new star.

Emptiness was the beginning of existence, not the end of it, not the destruction of being itself.

The cycle shifted from cosmic battle to the peach tree growing at the heart of that old residential complex.

That day, Lin Tian watched its branches grow thick with leaves, heavy with ripening fruit.

But as time passed, the cycle turned with the changing seasons.

Spring brought the tree into full bloom, but come autumn, its leaves fell away and the fruit stopped growing.

Then winter arrived, white snow piling heavy across its bare branches. The cold settled over the whole area, and the tree’s growth ground to a complete halt.

Yet when spring returned once more, Lin Tian watched new leaves unfurl thick and green, the tree bursting with fruit all over again.

In autumn, the branches empty out. In spring, new leaves grow back.

Emptiness, it turns out, was never about loss at all.

It was about how old life makes room for new life to take its place.

The cycle shifted once more, back to the final thread, that mortal life within the aging house.

Lin Tian stepped forward, drawing closer to the small family’s dinner table.

He watched it clearly now, parents sharing a meal with their child. As time passed, the child grew into a man, but the seats his parents once sat in stood empty.

Silence settled over that old house, the man sitting alone at the table now, no laughter, no warmth from his parents left to fill the room.

Existence leaves behind an emptiness that aches.

Losing his parents had turned what was once a house full of laughter and warmth into something hollow, quiet, nothing left but the sound of chopsticks against a bowl.

Time raced forward again. The grown man married and had two children of his own.

The seats that had sat empty so long finally filled once more.

The house that had known only silence grew loud with life again.

Warmth pushed back the cold, lonely quiet that had lingered there.

Emptiness gives birth to existence. Emptiness isn’t entirely a bad thing. It exists so that people can learn to treasure the true worth of existence itself.

The man grew happier, lighter, more at peace. No longer weighed down by grief, the emptiness in his heart now filled.

In an instant, Lin Tian found himself somewhere entirely new. Ahead of him stood a small pavilion perched above a pond. That pond... it was the very fish pond back at Sect Lingxian.

He looked around, taking in his surroundings, and realized this truly was Sect Lingxian. He could see every building, every courtyard, every mountain, even every disciple.

He walked forward, approaching the small pavilion, finding nothing inside but a single wooden table, and atop it, a kettle and a cup.

Lin Tian sat down and poured tea from the kettle into the cup. The moment he took a sip, he froze in shock, finding An Yue kneeling before him.

"Lin Tian?"

"An Yue?"

"I’ve missed you," An Yue said softly.

"So have I, Yue’er."

"When you reach Soul Formation, will you forget about us?"

"What? Never!" Lin Tian said firmly.

"Cementing your dao concept requires a resolute dao heart, Lin Tian. You’ll never reach Soul Formation unless you place your dao concept above your worldly attachments."

"So, will you forget us?" An Yue asked again.

Just as Lin Tian moved to answer, a blinding red light burst across the sky without warning.

The pavilion’s roof shattered, several sect buildings crumbled to ruin, and the surrounding trees caught fire.

"Most paths toward immortality begin by severing one’s bonds."

"Will you walk that path?"

Lin Tian panicked, reaching desperately for her hand. But the instant his fingers brushed against hers, An Yue’s body crumbled instantly into ash.

The entire grounds of Sect Lingxian transformed into a wasteland of ash, the earth beneath it burning crimson.

The sky above tore open, meteorites raining down, the same cosmic destruction he’d witnessed unfold in the very first cycle.

Now he watched it happen firsthand, upon one of the very stars being torn apart.

He still held the ashes of An Yue’s body clutched in his hand. His fist clenched tight, and his eyes snapped upward, blazing with fury toward the sky.

"What dao heart is this?!"

"A dao heart should stand in harmony with mind and soul, not against them!"

"A dao heart stripped of all feeling isn’t the true path of heaven. It’s nothing but a hollow deception meant to enslave!"

"If you’re telling me to smother the fire burning in my worldly heart just to become some feelingless immortal, then you’re dead wrong!"

The qi aura radiating from Lin Tian’s body surged with tremendous force, his eyes blazing white, "I, Lin Tian, vow to walk my heavenly path with a dao heart that stays pure, not one stripped bare of feeling!"

"I will not twist my heart just to chase after heaven. Let heaven come to recognize me as I am."

Thunder rumbled violently across the sky, shaking the very ground beneath him. Lin Tian understood at once, heaven itself had been provoked by what he’d just declared.

To many cultivators, severing one’s bonds was the very path toward immortality, unlocking the full potential of one’s dao without the burden of worldly attachment ever dragging them down.

But to Lin Tian, that belief was dead wrong!

To walk the path of true immortality, bonds were necessary to preserve one’s reason, one’s grounding.

Without a heart still capable of feeling, an immortal became nothing more than a puppet, easily toyed with by the heavens themselves.

But Lin Tian saw it clearly now. He understood that the heavens had been testing him all along, testing his grasp of dao, and above all, testing the very heart within him.

If he bent to what the heavens demanded of him, he would never grow. He would never be able to protect the people who mattered most to him.

In the end, if the path to true immortality demanded he stand against the heavens themselves, then so be it. He would fight!

For the feelings of those he loved, for their hopes, for the true immortality that every other immortal truly sought, deep down.

From within the rumbling clouds above, the mass suddenly split apart, revealing the same heavenly guardian figure that appeared within Lin Tian’s own techniques.

The towering guardian summoned a massive golden spear, crackling with lightning, and hurled it downward with tremendous speed, aimed directly at Lin Tian.

A crushing wave of cultivation pressure slammed into him, driving him to his knees, blood spilling from his mouth. But he refused to yield.

The manifestation of heaven’s will had begun to crack. Its only remaining option was to shatter the very dao concept Lin Tian had come to grasp.

But Lin Tian carried unshakable resolve in his heart. He wanted, above everything else, to protect everyone he cared for, even if it cost him his own life.

He rose to his feet and activated the Primordial Grand Heaven Transformation, his body and appearance shifting at once, his power surging dramatically upward.

Lin Tian’s eyes snapped open. He stood firm and unbroken on the ground, facing down the massive golden spear bearing straight toward him.

He lifted his head, golden light blazing in his eyes, fixed unwaveringly on the spear closing in before him.

FLICK!

He snapped his fingers, and the golden spear’s momentum halted instantly.

Within seconds, it dissolved into scattered dust, drifting off into the sky, leaving the heavenly guardian seething with fury.

"Emptiness doesn’t bring destruction. It gives birth to a new existence!"

From his own hand, Lin Tian summoned a spear of identical shape, manifested from his own condensed qi.

The golden spear grew larger, humming with overwhelming power.

"Emptiness was never about loss. Emptiness makes room for new life to arrive."

Lin Tian swept his fingers forward, sending the spear rocketing toward the heavenly guardian.

The guardian reacted at once, thrusting out its hand to catch the incoming spear, its strength now noticeably weaker than before.

"Existence crumbles and leaves emptiness behind. But emptiness was never something to fear," Lin Tian said. "Existence only becomes truly precious once one understands the meaning behind that emptiness."

The golden spear shattered, but Lin Tian refused to stop there. He splintered the fragments of the broken spear into countless smaller ones.

He pressed the attack, striking again and again until the guardian’s primordial body finally collapsed, disintegrating entirely within that dimension.

Lin Tian stood firm upon the ground, watching the sky above clear to a bright, cloudless calm.

"My dao heart will never bow to heaven. My dao heart answers to no one but me!"