Inside the furnace, Xi Ping was swept up into countless cycles of birth and death, losing all sense of time.

Outside the furnace, Xi Ping could see the long river inside the Unbound Furnace at a glance, flowing from the wild ancient era before the spiritual mountains had formed all the way to the present day. In that long river into which all eternity was compressed, there were noble people and low people, good people and bad people…as well as flowers, birds, fish, and insects, all with his own face.

On the two banks of the river, desolation and prosperity mingled; growth and decay, winter cold and summer heat coexisted.

Sages wrapped in their swaddling clothes wailed, masters learning to walk stumbled, demons tirelessly pursued cultivation with self-restraint, unhappy couples were still in their period of tenderness and affection, solemn pledges of love wearing away along with the mountains and seas.

A boy forced by the servants to wash stone steps amid freezing rain instantly grew a head of white hair and reached out to point to the sky; cold moonlight swept through the ditches he was unwilling to give another close look to.

Brothers born from the same stem joined hands to withstand the trials of heaven and earth, then fell out over that same heaven and earth, becoming locked in a mortal struggle.

Xi Ping’s consciousness inside the furnace was stretched out to the length of millions of years, from the ancient past to the present. Before he could recover, he was thrown staggering up onto the bank.

A fresh and tender fruit fell. He grabbed it, but its sweet fragrance only lingered at the tip of his nose for a moment before it instantly came to full ripeness and decayed, the thick fragrance turning rotten, the fruit becoming putrid liquid in his hand.

Finally, sweetness and foulness both disappeared. He was left empty-handed, holding a handful of nothingness.

And the golden light drawing him into the furnace was still racing wildly towards the infinite future.

The Xi Ping inside the Unbound Furnace relied on his point of view outside the furnace to remain clear-headed and rational.

The Xi Ping outside the Unbound Furnace was so full of the thousands of sensations within the furnace that all his senses went numb.

Only an instant of real time had passed. None of the sounds from the outside world had had time to reach his ears. So in that moment, he had lost all companions—teachers, kin, enemies, and friends were all out of reach.

There was only himself, watching himself.

Xi Ping watched that guiding golden light and didn’t rashly chase after it. He stayed where he was and calmed himself down, slowly let out a breath, and thought, So this is the magic of a toolmaking furnace. If I’d gone to Moon Plated Peak, I may have ended up in the toolmaking path along with Master Lin. Ah, isn’t this much more interesting than my shifu spending all day chipping away at ice with a sword?

Just then, he heard a soft laugh in his ear, startling the rebellious disciple who had just mentally criticized his shizun into a jump.

This was a slightly hoarse female voice. Xi Ping looked in the direction it had come from and saw that the golden light that had flown far away had at some point returned before him. The golden light was so resplendent it was dazzling, as hard to look at directly as the scorching sun. Xi Ping narrowed his eyes and saw a vague human form amid the light—a woman of middle height, with an unusually slender frame, a handful of bracelets stacked on both wrists… He had a very profound impression of this figure. When the Riverward had been in Qiu Sha’s hands, it had formed into this figure, though unfortunately it had been dispersed by the Law Breaker before it could fully take shape.

Was this an image Hui Xiangjun had left behind?

Xi Ping’s mind was shaken. He cupped his hands towards this person. “Senior.”

In fact, only a living person or a living consciousness could hold a conversation. Ways of the Heart left behind in weapons were inert matter and vestiges—even if some vestiges contained realistic images, they were still like old paintings that you could see but not touch.

It was a little silly to be saluting a “painting,” but she was truly too lifelike; Xi Ping decided that no one could fault him for excessive politeness.

The woman inside the golden light beckoned to him, her bracelets briskly clinking against each other. “Come.”

Xi Ping had never seen what a proper Way of the Heart looked like—Yuan Hui’s false one didn’t count. He was a little curious, curious about Hui Xiangjun’s Way of the Heart, and also curious about why after two hundred years Xiang Rong had yet to wipe away the Way of the Heart of the Unbound Furnace’s original master, so he followed immediately.

Eight hundred years ago, Chu’s bold and innocent folk customs probably hadn’t been as hypocritically fussy as Great Wan’s. The hand stacked full of bracelets pulled him over without any sense of taboo and pulled his head down. Then the woman in the golden light stood on tiptoe and pressed her forehead to Xi Ping’s.

Xi Ping automatically closed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw that everything around him seemed to have turned into an exploded painter’s palette.

Plants and beasts were all laid out in their basic essences. Observing the world from this strange angle, there was for a time too much for his eyes to take in. Then he learned that in the fragrance of fully ripe fruit was a scent that shared a common origin with flowers, that the spiritual energy around a vital weapon presented an identical shape to its owner’s consciousness at the moment it separated from their body…

Xi Ping immediately understood that this was the world through the eyes of a master of the toolmaking way.

All creatures and all things had hidden connections. These sounds, colors, and spirits either combined in her hands or formed a delicate equilibrium because they repelled each other. Time…as well as she herself, everything was only another kind of material. She used her hands to mold a bizarre and jumbled world.

Xi Ping understood it intuitively, deciphering the first level of the eternal spring brocade’s toolmaking way: all forms were illusory, all appearances were inconstant, all things were subject to dissolution and reconstruction; toolmakers were the creators of the universe.

This was linked to the Law Breaker’s hidden realm suspended over Tao County. It wasn’t hard to understand. Xi Ping thought it was very interesting, but he didn’t think it was surprising, so he asked, “Is there more?”

In the golden light, two long, narrow eyes opened and met his gaze, their corners curving slightly. The next moment, that bizarre and jumbled world vanished.

Inside the Unbound Furnace, a multicolored human figure dashed by, surrounded by a fragrant breeze.

Xi Ping was startled by this big bright bird coming out of nowhere. He quickly turned to let the figure pass and took a close look. The skirt that had been torn because it was hard to walk in was very familiar, and he recognized that this individual was himself, having shocked the whole Lingyang River with his flight at the House of Overflowing Splendor.

Xi Ping suddenly found that his mortal self’s running footsteps were very heavy. Though he was young and lively, his each and every movement looked subtly uncoordinated to his present self. The sparse spiritual energy brushed shoulders with him and went by as though it had nothing to do with him. First he smelled rouge and powder, then the “human odor” under the cosmetics—a trace of sweat, not yet unpleasant, but which would undoubtedly begin to stink in a day or two if left unwashed.

Next, the “big bright bird” stepped onto a sword, the eye-searing gauze dress removed, the cosmetics vanished. Xi Ping saw himself fly up on a sword and become a half-immortal. Spiritual energy passed through his spiritual eyes and meridians and was once again set free. There was a faint layer of spiritual light over him, constantly peeling off the dust and stains that settled on him.

Then Xi Ping saw his sword-flying self change once again, a qin that shared an origin with him appearing in his hands. His hair suddenly grew longer, and his aura suddenly deepened, connecting like a whirlpool to the surrounding spiritual energy; he turned his head carelessly to look back—this was his current appearance.

Xi Ping was stunned. He suddenly found that his sense of “physicality” was disappearing bit by bit.

The body of a mortal was like the fruit he had held in his hand when he had landed in the Unbound Furnace, flesh and blood that could age and rot. There were always parts of that body being worn away and renewed. It would stink if unwashed, the skin would have blemishes, the tips of the hair and fingers would dry up. That terror of the possibility of deteriorating at any moment was precisely that “physicality,” exceptionally vital because it was at death’s door.

In comparison, a timeless and unblemished established foundation immortal was like a cold white spirit statue. Even with several parts broken off his body, his flesh and blood spilled all over the Unbound Furnace, he still no longer had that physicality.

Just then, golden light flashed before Xi Ping’s eyes. The surging spiritual energy slowed hundreds upon thousands of times in his eyes and was magnified hundreds upon thousands of times. After breaking apart and reconstructing sound and color, the Unbound Furnace was taking aim at “spiritual energy.”

After slowing and magnifying, Xi Ping saw that so-called “spiritual energy” consisted of countless tiny points of light held in the wind.

Mortals, plants, and beasts also contained those points of light. Just a few fragmentary bits were enough to allow them to grow and multiply without end. And that little bit was all they wanted. No matter how dense the points of light around them, they couldn’t seep into their bodies.

But a half-immortal could voluntarily draw in and expel spiritual energy. The “points of light” traveled through their meridians. The vast majority of them were once again released into the surroundings, but a small amount of the spiritual energy light points would stay behind within their flesh and bones, lighting up the dim mortal bones bit by bit—this was the most important aspect of an open-eyed half-immortal’s cultivation: cleansing and refining their spiritual bones.

And at the established foundation level and above, a cultivator’s whole body was soaked in the light points of spiritual energy, with their own internal cycle of it. As they insatiably absorbed new spiritual energy to merge with their essence, their essence became richer and richer, but the cultivator’s boundaries became blurred, gradually trending in the direction of merging with the spiritual energy outside of them.

Xi Ping had just felt faint discomfort when he saw a hand glowing with golden light reach over and gently touch his eyelids.

The light points of spiritual energy once again slowed and magnified. Xi Ping was startled: he found that these points of light were formed of minute inscriptions clumping together.

Though he had never deliberately studied, he still had some experience. After all, the Sanyue Immortal Mountains were known as the foremost home of inscriptions in the world. On his way, he had seen many inscriptions of all grades, but he hadn’t seen a single one of these miniature inscriptions!

The next moment, the golden light flashed again. The person in front of Xi Ping disappeared, and the immortal mountains rose sharply from the earth.

Sanyue, Xuanyin…the bodies of the mountains were transparent, flooded with those tiny inscriptions. A part of them were stuffed into the spiritual stone mines within the mountains, and a part permeated the veins of the earth, spreading outwards to the whole country.

Xi Ping abruptly raised his head and said to the woman who couldn’t answer, “Senior, do you mean that the higher your cultivation gets, the more you’ll be assimilated by the spiritual mountains?”

The woman didn’t respond, smiling silently.

Xi Ping waited a moment, saw that she didn’t react, then knew that he had probably misunderstood.

“No?” A little frustrated, he pinched the center of his brow, frowning as he scrutinized the spiritual energy flowing past him. “I’m a hopeless amateur when it comes to inscriptions. I wish san-ge were here…”

As he whispered, he idly scooped with his hand. He scooped up a handful of the tiny inscriptions in the spiritual energy light points. Then Xi Ping gave a sudden cry—he found that those miniature inscriptions were repelling him. First they tried to slip out of his hand. Then they were absorbed by force by the powerful essence of an established foundation cultivator, unwillingly merging into his palm.

Only then did Xi Ping find that there were all different kinds of inscriptions among the tiny ones in the spiritual energy light points, but they were all out of place next to the spiritual energy inside him. After being absorbed by him, the external spiritual energy inscriptions were first assimilated as they struggled, and only then were channeled into his meridians.

Xi Ping’s thoughts moved quickly: Yes, his way wasn’t among the three thousand paths of the Great Way. Even using spiritual energy didn’t seem so legitimate; there was an extra step involved.

This time, when Xi Ping looked up at the images of the spiritual mountains, he saw Sanyue and Xuanyin flooded with the three thousand paths of the Great Way, all taking different roads to reach the same end. At the roots of the mountains there was also an enormous spiritual seal, composed of countless identical tiny inscriptions. Through the veins of the earth, they permeated out towards the whole country, obeying the terrain of the mountains and rivers, outlining the borders of the spiritual mountains.

Xi Ping turned to the woman next to him: “Whose way lies at the roots of the spiritual mountains? Is it that of the full moon sages?”

Almost imperceptibly, the woman nodded.

So that was it. This was just what Zhuoming had said—“Heaven and earth are locked in constant struggle.”

The way of the spiritual mountains was the way of the sages. In the Great War of Gods and Demons, all cultivators had been struggling for power. Afterwards, with their Way of the Heart as a basis, the winners gathered countless spiritual stones in one place and constructed the spiritual mountains, got a hold over the territory through the veins of the earth, grasping all of creation in the palms of their hands.

What the ancient sages and demonic gods had been struggling over was authority!

There hadn’t been a full moon sage on earth for thousands of years, because the spiritual mountains were already in control. The present shed skins could only spend their remaining years drawing ever closer to the ways of the sages. But no matter how they were pruned, even if their Way of the Heart had been inherited from the sage to begin with, the course of their lives being different, after hundreds and thousands of years, there would always be slight deviations, so they could never completely merge with the spiritual mountains.

“So the reason Xiang Rong cooked himself in the Unbound Furnace was so that he could reconstruct his Way of the Heart to match the Black Emperor’s!”

No wonder he hadn’t wiped away the traces of Hui Xiangjun’s Way of the Heart after all these years.

Xi Ping said, “Senior, will a melon picked out of season still serve?”

The traces in the golden light couldn’t answer him. Perhaps it was Xi Ping’s mistake, but the woman’s figure seemed to become a little clearer. He saw her face… Her features looked very similar to Qiu Sha’s, just a little more delicate. Perhaps Qiu Sha had been imitating her looks.

“Then…what is your true Way of the Heart?”

Dissolving everything, reconstructing everything?

If she hadn’t come to a premature end, would she ultimately have been able to refine all the great spiritual mountains, unifying all of creation, renaming it “eternal spring brocade” in its entirety?

For some reason, perhaps because his heart wasn’t one with the spiritual mountains and he was purely seeking knowledge, Xi Ping kept thinking there was something wrong.

He had a powerful intuition that this Unbound Furnace…was missing something.

“Senio…”

Before Xi Ping could finish, a hurricane unexpectedly arose in the Unbound Furnace, sweeping away the woman in the golden light.

At the same time, it was as if he was shredded to pieces. It turned out that after a moment, Xiang Rong had already discovered the change in the Unbound Furnace. With a single thought, this new full moon sage could mobilize any spiritual energy within Western Chu’s borders.

Xi Ping’s body outside the furnace…and even that reincarnation wood branch that was less than a thumb’s length were turned to powder simultaneously. The fire inside the furnace abruptly went out!

The scenes inside the Unbound Furnace disappeared with a rumble. The boundlessly extended time collapsed backwards, unifying with the outside world.

Xi Ping didn’t even have time to react. His body and form scattered entirely.

When he had been shattered by Zhao Yin at the bottom of the Impassable Sea, his consciousness had been dreaming inside the star stone. There had been no pain. A thread of his consciousness had ended up in Yuzhou, and when he woke up, he didn’t remember anything. This time, the part of him that was hidden inside the Unbound Furnace knew exactly what had happened. He well and truly “died” this time.

When pain reaches a certain point, it can overwhelm a person’s mind. In an instant, all of Xi Ping’s thoughts flew away. His mind was a complete blank.

But a dark red lotus stalk suddenly stretched outward from the small segment of his body inside the furnace, crawling up the nape of his neck like a tattoo.