Chapter 9: Actually, I Was Also a Tang Sect Disciple
After Chrysanthemum Douluo had walked some distance away, Xia Tianling didn't reveal the Douluo's identity. Instead, he feigned surprise, pointed at Tang San's belt, and said, "Yo, Little San, that belt of yours looks pretty impressive! It actually has twenty-four jade stones embedded in it? Quite extravagant!"
Tang San scratched his head embarrassedly. "This? Oh, Teacher Yu gave this to me. I named it Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridges."
At this moment, Xia Tianling channeled his inner actor again, pointing tremblingly at Tang San's waist. "You... you said your belt is called what? Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridges?"
"Yeah, is something wrong, Brother Ling? I think the name Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridges sounds very nice," Tang San asked, somewhat puzzled.
Xia Tianling took a deep breath, placed both hands on Tang San's shoulders, and stared intently into his eyes. "Little San, no matter what I say next, absolutely do not cry out loud."
"Uh, okay."
Then, using pure Mandarin Chinese, Xia Tianling recited word by word, "Twenty-four bridges, the bright moonlit night; where does the jade beauty teach flute playing!"
"Brother Tianling, you!" This time, Tang San was truly stunned. He desperately wanted to cry out but forcibly held back. His identity as a transmigrator was the deepest secret in his heart. The language of Soul Land was vastly different from Chinese. Hearing this familiar language again after six years deeply stimulated Tang San's mind.
"Brother Tianling, could it be you too..." Tang San asked tremblingly.
Xia Tianling quickly hugged Tang San, preventing him from seeing the expression he could barely control, took a few deep breaths, and then released him. He then replied with a smile, "That's right. I also come from there."
After saying this, he secretly communicated with the system, consumed some Fate Power, and used a mysterious function.
"Never expected this, never expected... I thought I was all alone, I never thought Brother Tianling, you too... No wonder you knew so much and were so mature when we were kids," Tang San murmured. "So, when you called yourself a prophet back then, were you actually using divination?"
"Mm, you could say that." The Dao Sutra does indeed contain knowledge about stargazing and divination, but Xia Tianling only knew the basics; being able to predict the weather was already pretty good.
"Little San, I want to ask you two questions. First, when you transmigrated, or rather, when you died, what era was it? Or what was your government, your dynasty, called back then?"
"When I died, it seemed to be... Xiantong... I don't remember the exact year. The emperor seemed to be called Li Wen, no, maybe it was Li Cui," Tang San answered after racking his brain for a while. In his past life, he was solely obsessed with hidden weapons and never stepped outside the Tang Sect; it was normal for him not to know.
Xiantong? Li Cui? Isn't that the late Tang Dynasty? Never thought Tang San's world's timeline would overlap so closely with my original world. Good thing I studied tourism and love history, familiar with the era names, temple names, and posthumous names of emperors from various dynasties. Anyone else would be screwed. "So, Little San, the dynasty back then was called the Great Tang, right?" Although he was already quite sure, Xia Tianling still asked.
"Yes, that's right. Could it be, Brother Tianling, you also died around that time?" Tang San asked somewhat excitedly.
"Of course not," Xia Tianling smirked. "Me? I probably died tens of thousands of years after you. The Great Tang you were in was already dust in the annals of history by our time."
"What? Tens of thousands of years!" Tang San, who had calmed down somewhat, widened his eyes again.
Before Tang San could recover from his shock, Xia Tianling dropped another bombshell. "If I'm not mistaken, Little San, you should be a disciple of the Tang Sect from Shu, right?"
"What? You even know this?"
"Of course," Xia Tianling pursed his lips. "In a certain sense, I could also be considered a Tang Sect disciple."
Tang San: !!!!!!!!!
He was too shocked to speak.
"Mysterious Jade Hand, Purple Demon Eye, Hidden Weapon Hundred Separation, Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, Mysterious Heaven Skill, right? Actually, when you were cultivating on the back hill as a child, I already had my suspicions. Who could be born with such knowledge?" Xia Tianling said with a smile. "The Purple Demon Eye can only be cultivated by absorbing that sliver of purple qi during the 'Purple Qi Comes from the East' at sunrise."
"If I guessed correctly, you are precisely that Tang San who stole the inner sect's secret techniques, created the Buddha's Fury Lotus, and then jumped off a cliff to prove his conviction, right? Never thought you'd end up here too."
"Brother Ling, you know me?" Tang San hesitated. "And Brother Ling, you don't seem to have cultivated these Tang Sect secret skills?"
"That's natural," Xia Tianling shrugged. "In our era, these things had long become history. Including you, you were also part of what was recorded in history books."
"To be precise, even the former Tang Sect was just a few lines in a history book. The Tang Sect of our era had long merged with several other sects to become the Shushan Immortal Sect. About a thousand years after you died, a Spirit Qi Recovery occurred, and the cultivation system progressed significantly. However, the Tang Sect's mechanism-type hidden weapons and techniques were passed down."
"Under the wheels of history, the Mysterious Heaven Skill, or rather, the former cultivation methods, were all eliminated. In later generations, we cultivated more powerful Immortal Dao techniques: Refining Essence into Qi, Refining Qi into Spirit, Refining Spirit to Return to the Void, Refining the Void to Join the Dao, and finally, Ascending to Immortality!"
"As-Ascend to Immortality?"
"Yes, ascending to immortality, becoming the immortals of myth and legend. In my previous life, I failed during my tribulation, my body died and my Dao vanished. Unexpectedly, I ended up in this place instead." As Xia Tianling spoke, he put on a look of sighs and regrets, as if he were truly a great power reborn after failing tribulation.
"Unfortunately, however, I can't teach you the cultivation technique I practice. Firstly, the
"Secondly, the emergence of a new system inevitably brings with it correspondingly vast knowledge. Many things that are common sense to me would be absolutely unbelievable Arabian Nights tales to you, Little San. Even people in our time, along with starting their initial cultivation, had to compulsorily study continuously for a full twenty years before they could continue cultivating."
The first point Xia Tianling said was true; wanting to switch cultivation techniques, especially one that's such a dimensional upgrade, requires crippling the previous cultivation system first. For the second point, he only told half the truth. Certain common knowledge things would be pure gibberish to an ancient person like Tang San; he simply couldn't understand.
Take the simplest example: the Earth is round. How do you expect an ancient person who believes the heavens are round and the earth is square as cosmic truth to understand this? How much basic astronomy would you need to explain?
This
This Dao Sutra even states at the beginning: Foundation Establishment in 100 days, Golden Core in 3 years, Nascent Soul in 5 years, Spirit Transformation in 10 years. It teaches you step-by-step how to become immortal. Ascension? Just having a Dantian is enough. It could truly be called 'very scientific'.
Of course, the stuff about compulsory twenty years of learning was purely bluffing the kid. It does require a lot of learning, but for someone like Tang San with a cultural foundation, picking it up wouldn't be slow – one or two years would suffice. It's purely that he's too lazy to teach and wants Tang San to back down out of perceived difficulty. Besides, doesn't Tang San still have the Mysterious Heaven Skill that can cultivate to God King? Maybe he wouldn't even care for this cumbersome Dao Sutra of mine.
"Brother Tianling, don't feel bad. It's the same if I continue cultivating the Mysterious Heaven Skill," Tang San said after weighing his options for a while.
"Ai, alright, alright. If you change your mind anytime in the future, just come find me."
After this round of bluffing from Xia Tianling, Tang San's trust in him indeed increased significantly. He then told Xia Tianling about his recent situation in the Spirit Hall.
(End of Chapter)