Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
"Azure Dragon… Fate…"
Tang Jie lay on the small boat, his hands cushioning his head as he looked up at the sky and muttered to himself.
Ever since that conversation with Lin Xin, Tang Jie realized that Silver Eyes had been right. That green snake really was connected to the Azure Dragon of High Antiquity.
If this was the case, then the entire Verdant Cloud Domain might share some close connection to the Azure Dragon, which would also explain the problem of luck that had confused Tang Jie in the past.
But Tang Jie had never really believed in fortune.
Fortune was too ethereal, unreliable.
Cultivating Immortality was to seek the path of the celestial, but this was not the same as the fantastical or absurd.
All spell arts had their own principle and reasoning that could be followed.
This was why one could advance through diligent cultivation.
If one cultivated something that did not operate on any reason or law, why did one even bother to cultivate? Everyone could just go and jump off a cliff and see if they got lucky.
This was why few cultivators of the Great Stellar Chiliocosm let luck guide their actions or cultivation. As for diviners and fortune tellers, there were such people, but few of them in high places, mostly unaffiliated cultivators who wandered about.
But most cultivators understood that there was a way that fortune could be understood or studied: the Dao of Fate.
Fortune was under the Dao of Fate.
But as the most enigmatic and ethereal of the Twelve Great Daos, the Dao of Fate was just too difficult to comprehend.
Comprehending any Dao was difficult for ordinary cultivators, let alone the Dao of Fate.
It was for this reason that even though Tang Jie had interacted with almost all of the Twelve Great Daos, the Dao of Fate remained unfathomable to him.
Although he had obtained the Fate Standard, he still couldn't comprehend its principles and make it truly his own.
But Lin Xin's words had lifted the veil of mystery by just a little.
Fate was not fortune, but another form of power!
Each of the Twelve Great Daos had their own power, like the power of Slaughter or the power of Karma.
These powers appeared in their own special ways, and when they were congealed, they became Dao Runes and Dao Standards.
To comprehend the Dao was to possess the ability to see, grasp, and use this power. Entering the Dao was to concentrate this power so that it could be used for even greater things, with those Dao Runes carved into the body serving as a physical manifestation of it.
The same was true for the Dao of Fate.
It was so mysterious and incomprehensible not because it was rare. On the contrary, it was too common, too broad, too vast, such that no one could see its entirety, which was why they were so mystified.
They were lost within the vastness of the mountains, unable to see its true face.
Understanding this finally gave Tang Jie a little insight into the meaning of Fate.
Moreover, he also had a Fate Standard that could guide him, serving the same role as the Myriad Immortals Cauldron.
But Tang Jie didn't plan to study it as he had with the Myriad Immortals Cauldron, instead choosing to use this opportunity to guide him into magnifying his comprehension and thus gaining a deeper understanding of Fate.
Thus, Tang Jie broke precedent and decided to stop cultivating, instead choosing to read.
He ended up reading books for a little less than half a year.
In this half a year, Tang Jie read most of the books regarding the history of the Verdant Cloud Domain, getting to see the rises and falls, the shifts in the world, the ways of the ancients, the joys and sorrows that came from partings and reunions.
For all of this was Fate.
Fate was like a net, going from past to present, spanning the entire universe, influencing all things and all beings.
For this reason, it was everywhere in every possible way.
It didn't have a direct effect like the other Great Daos. It had a weak existence, never making its power known, instead subtly changing everything akin to the spring breeze or a light drizzle.
To Fate, the universe was a chessboard, and everything else was a piece.
Fate did not create, destroy, control, or manipulate these pieces, but it would silently influence them so that they moved in particular directions.
Fate was the link between all things, all things working on each other, influencing each other, changing each other.
If Karma was a single line, Fate was a giant net made from countless intersecting lines of Karma.
This was why Fate was the ultimate manifestation of Karma.
Almost half a year of reading and experiencing had allowed Tang Jie to develop a very deep understanding of Fate.
He felt like he had already reached the threshold of comprehension. He just needed a little more time, a little boost.
This boost was undoubtedly the Fate Standard. He would just need to use it, and he would immediately have comprehended the Dao.
But Tang Jie knew that this was not the best choice.
A voice inside him was telling him that the Fate Standard was only a guide, and personally comprehending it was what was most important. As the most important of the Twelve Great Daos, it could not be allowed to degenerate into a mere subordinate of Yin Yang.
So Tang Jie continued to patiently wait.
He spent his days reading history books and diligently ruling.
The edicts issued from his mouth traveled across the land.
Through Tang Jie, the Silver Eyes Empire began to quietly change.
Under Tang Jie's rule, humans were no longer existences that were raised and casually killed by fiends. Some humans of special ability were freed and entrusted with the important task of developing the city. In this way, numerous human slaves became special free citizens, living within fiend cities. An unprecedented way of living was beginning to spread through Tang Jie's territory.
The participation of humans meant that the destitute fiend cities started to thrive. Although the heavy labor made life tough for the humans, at least they were able to survive. And the thriving of the cities meant that the fiends' way of living began to degenerate and decay, for the fiends found that they could get everything they wanted without needing to go through all the trouble, and that humans were not the only delicious beings in this world…
As the Silver Eyes Empire prospered, the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor "shamelessly copied" his old foe's unconventional ways, putting humans to work in developing cities.
Thus, both fiend empires began to prosper, which influenced the other fiend empires into ultimately doing the same.
Of course, all of this would take a long time to take effect. In the short term, only the Silver Eyes Empire was benefiting.
Thus, the Fate of the humans of the Silver Eyes Empire had been altered by Tang Jie, and a powerful link of Karma was formed between them and Tang Jie.
These links created a vast and invisible web of Fate, with Tang Jie at the center. This web was expanding in all directions, and its various links were growing deeper and deeper.
At this point, Tang Jie was finally able to sense the existence of that sliver of Fate power.
And Tang Jie gained more insight into why cultivators found it so hard to grasp the Dao of Fate.
Other than being "lost within the mountains", the other reason was that one could only experience the Dao of Fate if one was a part of the world, part of society.
But the vast majority of the cultivators of the Great Stellar Chiliocosm were isolated from society, rarely concerning themselves with mortal affairs.
Yet Fate considered all people equal. Whether one was cultivator or mortal, Fate would affect everyone. Mortals vastly outnumbered cultivators, so cutting oneself off from mortals was essentially cutting oneself off from the Dao of Fate.
It was no wonder Fate was so inexplicable.
For the same reason, he now understood why the cultivators of the Verdant Cloud Domain were so committed to the mundane world.
Perhaps it wasn't because these cultivators were greedy for political power, but rather that they had been influenced by Fate from the very start.
Through the Dao of Fate, they joined society to cultivate.
If this world really did share some connection to the Azure Dragon, making it replete with Fate power, cultivators would instinctively choose to join society, resulting in this cultivator empire.
Finally, he recalled the history of the Verdant Cloud Domain. Not only were there oddballs like Er Hu who had their Spirit Eyes opened by sheer happenstance, there were also quite a few diviners and fortune tellers. Of Fengshan's three Violet Palace cultivators—two of them being Feng Wuxiang and Liu Zongchang—the third was a diviner, and people called him the Reverend Seer.
All of this indicated that the Verdant Cloud Domain shared some close connection to Fate, and it finally allowed Tang Jie to take that most difficult step.
After grasping that sliver of Fate power, Tang Jie knew that the time had finally come for him to comprehend the Dao.
———————————
Today, Tang Jie was sitting on his boat, quietly staring at the water, light flowing in his eyes.
He reached toward the water as if he was reaching out to his lover.
Splash! A fish flew out, flicking its tail and falling right into Tang Jie's hand.
It seemed simple, but if a cultivator were here, they would have realized that Tang Jie hadn't used any spell art. He had only plucked the string of Fate, and everything else followed as a matter of course.
But Tang Jie wasn't satisfied.
He shook his head. "It's still not enough."
He threw the fish into the air.
The fish flailed in midair, and as it passed by a fruit tree, its tail struck a fruit. The fruit fell from the branch, striking the head of a black bear that was lazing away in the sun. The black bear angrily swung a paw, striking a snake that had been passing by, mangling its body and sending it flying. The snake flew through the air and landed on the boat. Meanwhile, that fish bounced off a tree branch and back into the water. After this harrowing experience, it fearfully fled down below, not daring to emerge again.
"This isn't bad." Tang Jie smiled as he picked up the snake, his eyes glowing.
He had comprehended the Dao of Fate!
At that moment, the world became less simple in Tang Jie's eyes. Everything he saw was linked to everything else around him, each connection made of threads formed from the power of Fate, coming together in a giant web. By seeing it, understanding it, and grasping the way it worked, one could influence its direction.
Everything that had happened just now was the result of Tang Jie plucking at the Web of Fate. This didn't cost him much strength, as the Dao of Fate had never been very demanding when it came to strength, but it was very taxing on the mind. The Web of Fate was linked to too many things, most of them useless. Influencing Fate didn't require power, but the ability to clarify which among these myriad things was useful.
While Tang Jie's messing around with that fish seemed easy, this was because Fate was a web, and plucking any part of it could create an effect, but it might not be what one wanted. To get some desired result, one had to understand all the interlinking relationships.
Thus, while Tang Jie could control the Fate of any fish, or even any person, if he were to single out a particular fish to manipulate, Tang Jie would have to put his mind into overdrive.
Right now, Tang Jie was essentially firing an arrow and then drawing the target in front of it.
But with the Fate Standard, things were different.
Now that he had comprehended the Dao of Fate, he could finally truly use the power of its Dao Standard.
As Tang Jie took out the Fate Standard, that twisted light erupted.
Thanks to the Fate Standard, Tang Jie saw the area around him suddenly turn into empty whiteness, leaving only those countless threads extending in all directions.
These threads were directly linked to Tang Jie's Karma and Fate. They represented all the people or things that he was linked to.
The thickest bundle of threads shot straight up into the heavens and off into the distance. Tang Jie knew that this led to the Rosecloud Domain.
Alas, he still wasn't able to follow these Fate Threads to the other end.
But at the very least, he had found something else he wanted.
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