The Modern Martial Immortal

The Radiant Heaven Hall was where the Heavenly Dao Sect's sect master handled every matter.

More than three thousand arrays of every size were laid out here, linking to each of the sect's major departments, ensuring that the moment the sect master wanted to know something, he would immediately learn of anything happening inside the Heavenly Dao Sect, and of all manner of information coming from all over the North Sea Star.

The supreme elders, led by Zhen Xuanyuan, joined Yaoguang in summoning the Golden Book Venerable once more, so that he could transfer the sigils controllable only by the sect master into Yaoguang's hands one by one.

As he refined each sigil, Yaoguang studied the Golden Book Venerable and, compared to every previous occasion, noticed something new.

The Golden Book Venerable himself was, in all likelihood, a semi-immortal artifact. Not in his current identity, after evolution upon evolution, but back at the time of his original refinement.

The Great Dao Golden Book had been forged by the Heavenly Dao Sect's founder, the Primordial Chaos Dao Lord, who also bore another title: the Primordial Chaos Dao Venerable. Supreme among the Great Dao.

Unlike the Penglai Dao Lord, who held the title of number one in the North Sea, no one alive in his era could match the Primordial Chaos Dao Venerable's talent. He had dominated an entire era, single-handedly beating every Dao Integration cultivator on the North Sea Star into submission.

Human race, fiend race, divine race, insect race, star race, countless Dao Integration cultivators had all proven unable to stand against him. That era had been the Dao Lord's, a foil to his brilliance and glory.

Because its founder was such a legend, and because he left behind so many treasures and legacies, the Heavenly Dao Sect became one of the few top-tier factions on the North Sea Star whose Dao Lord lineage had never once broken, and that endured to this day.

The Primordial Chaos Dao Lord cultivation was not his only exceptional aspect. His artifact refinement skill was equally astonishing, having reached at minimum the peak of level 15, and arguably just barely crossed into level 16. Gathering materials from every corner of the world, he had built the Great Dao Golden Book directly into a semi-immortal artifact.

Later, successive Dao Lords of the Heavenly Dao Sect poured their own insights into the Great Dao into the Golden Book as well, refining into it whatever immortal artifact materials they were lucky enough to collect, and by the present day this semi-immortal artifact had long since reached the absolute ceiling of what an ordinary semi-immortal artifact could attain.

If it were carried into the Immortal Realm someday, its transformation into a true immortal artifact would be only a matter of time.

𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Yaoguang had a premonition. Once he became a Dao Lord and advanced his Refiner branch a little further, he would not even need level 17. As long as his progress exceeded 20%, he could take the Great Dao Golden Book from a semi-immortal artifact to a true immortal artifact himself.

After finishing his appraisal, he couldn't help but feel slightly regretful. If only I could take the Great Dao Golden Book apart... I'd have every material I need for a top-tier Dao Artifact.

The Golden Book Venerable, in the middle of condensing sigil after sigil, suddenly felt that something was off, though he could not say what. In the end, he still transferred every sigil into Yaoguang's hands, exactly as the Heavenly Dao Sect's regulations prescribed.

With the transfer complete, the Golden Book Venerable did not linger. "Alright, the Heavenly Dao Sect's future is in your hands now. I hope you handle its affairs well. I'll be going."

"Wait a moment, please, Venerable." Yaoguang went straight to the point. "Our southern domain intends to refine a top-tier Dao Artifact, and we're still short of many materials. Do you have any materials?"

"Refining a top-tier Dao Artifact?" The Golden Book Venerable gave him a look.

You, a refiner, are asking me, an artifact spirit, whether I have any refinement materials?

"No. Farewell." The next instant, the Golden Book Venerable vanished outright.

Watching him leave in such a hurry, Yaoguang nodded his head slightly. This way, if he temporarily "borrowed" some top-tier materials from the Heavenly Dao Sect's stores, the Golden Book Venerable presumably wouldn't pop out to stop him. Especially given that not a soul in the Heavenly Dao Sect would say a word about it. But before that...

"Let's contact the Central Heaven Dao Lord," Yaoguang said.

Zhen Xuanyuan nodded, and together they headed to a nearby palace. The palace had no roof, but its interior held many array patterns.

Thanks to his current cultivation, Yaoguang could now see that those patterns touched not only on communication, space, truth, and streaming light, but even on the mysteries of karma and time. At most, the concentration of those Great Dao within them simply fell short of the depth achieved with the void, truth, and streaming light.

Sigil in hand, Yaoguang activated the array without any difficulties. At once, all the array formations in the Heavenly Dao Sect's innermost region began feeding energy into the communication array until it emitted a pulse of unusual energy that crossed the barriers of space and time and touched a domain whose principles even Yaoguang could not fathom at a glance.

"Now we wait patiently for the Dao Lord's answer," Zhen Xuanyuan said. "Depending on the Dao Lord's distance and whatever he happens to be occupied with, if we're fortunate, he'll respond very soon. If not, or if he's held up by something else and the transmission fails, waiting up to five years for a reply would be perfectly normal."

As much as five years? Yaoguang found himself at a loss over that kind of efficiency.

Then again, considering a transmission like this could cover millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of light-years, waiting that long to make contact wasn't exactly incomprehensible.

With time on his side, Yaoguang turned his thoughts to the two Dao Artifacts he needed to refine next.

The Guixu Mystic Crystal belongs to the void and carries a thread of soul mystery within. It is a supreme treasure. If my ability were sufficient, I could refine it into a void immortal artifact or a soul immortal artifact...

He went through the various materials in his possession and found that he had more soul-type materials than void-type ones. That came down mainly to the sheer number of void Dao Lords, who had squandered the void materials, leaving the soul-type ones behind.

My progress toward Dao Integration depends entirely on refining three Dao Artifacts. To fuse smoothly with the Great Dao of void, void has to be primary and soul secondary. And on top of that, the three Dao Artifacts need to stand in for my own essence, qi, and psyche...

Weighing that against the Guixu Mystic Crystal's properties, Yaoguang soon settled on a reasonably compatible immortal artifact: the Heavenly Ten Directions Mirror.

It was an immortal artifact that both strengthened one's compatibility with the void and heightened soul perception, roughly equivalent to combining the old Void's Child with the True Spirit Light.

Beyond those supporting effects, it also possessed powerful resistance to soul attacks and curse-type immortal techniques.

Of course, what Yaoguang had to work with for now was the simplified version of that immortal artifact, the top-tier Dao Artifact version: the Eight Desolations Mirror. Its effects were far weaker, but none of its functions were missing.

The Dao Artifact fused with my psyche will be the Eight Desolations Mirror, and the one fused with essence, which is the Dao Artifact that shapes the physical body, will be the Endless Tower, the top-tier Dao Artifact equivalent of the Heavenly Abyss Tower, which is an immortal artifact. It holds an endless heavenly abyss inside it and can absorb a massive volume of Dao Techniques and immortal technique attacks until the abyss itself bursts open... Of course, how it actually turns out depends on what kinds of refinement materials I can get. If the materials don't fit, I'll just have to pick a different immortal artifact to work with...

As Yaoguang mulled it over, he began paging through the alternatives to the Endless Tower in his mind.

***

Perhaps because the opening of the Gate of the Immortal Realm was drawing near, this transmission took only six days before the Central Heaven Dao Lord answered.

Splendid light coursed across the communication array art, and a psychic thought fluctuation giving off a faint Dao resonance condensed from the array, finally taking the shape of a man who looked a little past thirty.

Feeling the Dao resonance on him, countless times weaker than the Penglai Dao Lord's yet unmistakably familiar, Yaoguang identified him at once.

The Central Heaven Dao Lord. A powerful existence who had lived more than 39,000 years.

That age was not considered old among Dao Lords, and calling him in the prime of his splendor would not have been overstating it.

Any older, and a cultivator's mind gradually grew clouded by the boundless weight of years accumulated over a long life, with sharpness of thought and outward perception both slowly declining. Past a hundred thousand years, that decline could even reshape a Dao Lord's personality.

It was like shutting a mortal in a small dark room; ten days or half a month would drive one mad. The power of long years eroded a Dao Lord's mind the same way, gradually stripping their ability to control their own power, carrying a being with a theoretically limitless lifespan toward ruin.

The process was called the five signs of decline of heavenly beings, and that phrase turned faces pale throughout the cultivation world.

Beyond 120,000 years, especially, entering the stage of the great limit of life and death, a Dao Lord's mind was thoroughly buried in dust and could no longer be judged by ordinary reasoning.

Naturally, because their minds were clouded, a Dao Lord at that stage operated under the heavy shackles of age, weighing on both psychic thought and cognition. Much as the elderly struggle to concentrate, such Dao Lords found it hard to bring their mental, spiritual, and soul states to their peak even in battle, and their combat ability dropped considerably.

Add to that the fact that Dao Lords who had lived over a hundred thousand years were usually worth a fortune, and it was no surprise that there were factions in the cosmos that formed teams specifically to hunt them.

While Yaoguang was still turning this over, Zhen Xuanyuan had already stepped forward and bowed. "Greetings, Dao Lord."

Yaoguang gave a fist-and-palm salute.

The Central Heaven Dao Lord glanced at Zhen Xuanyuan, then swept his gaze over Yaoguang beside him. "The Gate of the Immortal Realm shouldn't be due to open yet. What have you contacted me for?"

He followed it with another question. "And Zong Wenxian? Is he still the sect master?"

"The southern domain under Sect Master Yaoguang's control has improved by the day and now overshadows the central domain. He has already succeeded Sect Master Zong Wenxian and taken command of the Heavenly Dao Sect." Zhen Xuanyuan hurriedly made way for Yaoguang. "This is Sect Master Yaoguang."

"Oh?" The Central Heaven Dao Lord's gaze settled on Yaoguang.

Perhaps because of the sheer distance, though the psychic thought contained many of a Dao Lord's marvels, none of them could manifest.

So after looking Yaoguang over, the Dao Lord merely nodded slightly. "Jinghong has told me about you. Achievements like these after barely over a century of cultivation... not bad."

That attitude, without question, endorsed the change of sect master at the Heavenly Dao Sect.

"Thank you for the praise, Dao Lord."

"I'm not praising you, only trusting Jinghong's judgment. Manage the sect well for the time being." The Central Heaven Dao Lord paused to calculate. "I'm already on my way back to the North Sea Star. I'll arrive at the Heavenly Dao Sect in one or two centuries, or between three and four at the slowest."

He gave Yaoguang an encouraging look. "When I return, bring me any difficulty you run into in your cultivation. With your talent, you may well be able to go a step further in the future and attempt to break through to the Dao Lord Realm."