Way of Choices: Book I - Youths We Were, Schoolmates

by Mao Ni

  Cultivation was about making the energy of the world into the energy of humans. After the Heavenly Tomes descended to the earth, humans began to cultivate, developing countless methods of cultivation, trying countless methods. Some cultivation methods absorbed Celestial Fire, other methods drew close to nature so as to absorb the energy of the wilderness. Finally, with the formal establishment of the Orthodoxy, and also because of countless years of practice as evidence, human cultivators gradually began to draw upon the energy of the stars.

  The blazing hot magma of volcanoes truly could be transformed into true essence within the human body and assist cultivators in becoming extremely powerful. The fresh and clean energy of the wilderness could be used by cultivators. However, the sources of all these energies were far inferior to the stars.

  The stars were in the night sky, their positions ever unchanging, solemnly and serenely shining over the continent. The people living on the ground only needed to raise their heads up to be able to see the limitless starlight. From infancy, all the way until they were bowed with old age, those stars would be their constant and quiet companions. To the people living on the continent, stars were light, were coordinates, were energy, and were also time…because they were eternal.

  That humans eventually chose to convert starlight into true essence did not have much to do with these artistic-sounding descriptions. The most important reason was that starlight was the purest source of energy in the world. It had no impurities and was much gentler than sunlight, earthfire, and other such energies.

  The demi-humans could similarly absorb starlight. In addition, their constitutions were special. Without any sort of cultivation method, they could directly absorb the starlight into their bodies and transform it into energy. As a result, any demi-human that could undergo metamorphosis always possessed extraordinary strength.

  Compared to demi-humans, humans could not directly absorb starlight. That is to say, the efficiency of directly absorbing starlight was too low. For this reason, humans, using their creativity, invented a cultivation method, and it was precisely from that day on that humans set off on the path of dominating the continent.

  That method was to light up one's Fated Star.

  The night sky contained innumerable stars, as vast as the sea. They were impossible to count, their number far surpassing the population of humans. If a cultivator amongst the humans wished to undergo Purification, they needed to search amongst the millions upon millions of stars for the star that they would call their own. That star was their Fated Star.

  No person could explain the principle of Fated Stars, why one could form an unbreakable connection between a particular star, or why, though separated by countless li, the stars could distantly resonate with humans. Even the greatest scholars in the Orthodoxy's history could not explain this.

  Every person had a star that belonged to them.

  But only those that had succeeded in condensing their spiritual sense could find that star of theirs and thus form an indescribable connection with it. Ultimately, they would use spiritual sense to light up that star. This was called Lighting up one's Fated Star.

  The profuse stars in the night sky were infinite, but as long as one could disperse one's spiritual sense, one would eventually be able to find one's star. Moreover, this connection was like many other connections, absolutely exclusive. As long as one established a connection with one's Fated Star, no one else could steal it away.

  But this brought up a problem: what sort of star was most suitable to act as a cultivator's Fated Star?

  At present, it was widely held on the continent that the farther away the Fated Star was, the better. This was because countless generations of the Orthodoxy's scholars had surveyed countless cultivators, and after exhaustive analysis and calculation, determined that there was not a single problem with this conclusion.

  However, why was this case?

  If cultivators directly absorbed the energy of the Fated Star, shouldn't it be that the closer the star, the better?

  In order to explain this phenomenon, the scholars of the Orthodoxy inferred backwards from facts and created a model. In this model, the cultivator did not directly absorb energy from the Fated Star. Instead, the night sky was treated as a wall, and a Fated Star was a nail hammered into this wall. With this nail, one could tie a line between oneself and the night sky. Finally, this line would swing to and fro, absorbing the starlight that drifted amongst the night sky.

  In this model, that invisible line was a moistened cotton thread, the starlight drifting in the night sky the willow catkins that danced and filled the air in the late spring. As the thread slowly swayed back and forth in the spring wind, it would catch more and more catkins, which would ultimately fall into the hands of the person holding the thread. If the thread was long enough, extending from the highest building of the Imperial Palace to the peak of the Mausoleum of Books, then it could sweep clean all the catkins of the capital.

  The Demon Grand Scholar Tungus issued a strict criticism of this theory of the Orthodoxy. He believed that this was a completely uneconomic and purely imaginative delusion. The then-Pope relentlessly struck back at this criticism, saying that only a conclusion that is tenable can be the conclusion that is closest to the truth.

  Ultimately, the Demon Grand Scholar Tungus sent a letter to the entire continent. In his letter, he asked, "Just where is that line?"

  If there truly existed a line between a cultivator and his Fated Star, then the Orthodoxy's theory was tenable because if one observed the natural world, one could easily confirm that the longer a string, the greater its amplitude, and thus, the greater the energy it could create, just as described with the catkins.

  The problem was that nobody had ever seen this line.

  In the capital, the Pope gave a concise response, "Since there exists a connection between a Fated Star and its cultivator, there must exist a line between the two. Just because the living beings of the continent cannot see it or feel it does not mean that it does not exist."

  Demon Grand Scholar Tungus sent another letter to the continent, saying, "If it cannot be touched and has no influence on the objective world, the existence or nonexistence of this line is meaningless. Thus, it must not exist."

  To this pointed and fundamental question, the Pope thought for several months before finally delivering his most famous reply.

  "That line is precisely fate."

  Yes.

  An unexplainable connection was precisely fate.

  What the stars in the night sky reflected was precisely the fate of all living beings of this world.

  No one had taught Chen Changsheng how to choose a Fated Star. His master had assuredly known, but he had never spoken about it.

  Of course, he knew of that Pope's reply. The three thousand scrolls of the Daoist Canon would not exclude such a historic story.

  As the connection between him and the Fated Star was fate, he became very cautious—from the age of ten, the word he cared about most was the word 'fate.'

  From early morning to twilight, he familiarized himself with emitting his spiritual sense. After that peculiarity at the age of ten, he did not know how much of his soul remained, but what pleased him was the fact that his emitting of spiritual sense was not much different from that described in the books.

  He closed his eyes, allowing his spiritual sense to leave his sea of consciousness and drift about the peaceful library. He was clearly not seeing, but an image of his surrounding environment appeared faintly in his mind. It was somewhat fuzzy, the light somewhat hallucinatory. This was a completely brand-new understanding to him.

  As night approached, he did not act like other beginning students and still remain absorbed in his spiritual sense's perception of the outside world. Without the slightest hesitation, he ordered his spiritual sense to pass through the window and fly into the night sky. It flew farther and farther into the sky, passing through the finest down of the birds returning in the night, flying throu
gh the tiniest particle of water in the gradually dispersing clouds, flying through the current of the extremely cold wind, until finally, it arrived amidst innumerable specks of light.

  This was the sea of stars.

  Chapter 24 – A Myriad of Stars, Only One Can Be Chosen

  The sky was filled with stars that emitted infinite light and contained infinite energy. They also gave off an infinite number of thin and faintly discernible waves.

  Was this the so-called line of fate?

  Chen Changsheng's spiritual sense flew even higher, flitting past countless stars. Compared to the vast and empty space around it and the boundless energy contained within those stars, his spiritual sense was all the more tiny and insignificant; a feather in a hurricane, a drop of water on the verge of drying up in the middle of a desert. At any moment, it could be torn apart or evaporate into nothing...but miraculously, neither the stars nor their boundless energy brought any harm to his spiritual sense.

  In front and to the left of his spiritual sense was a red star, its surface fiercely burning and spewing terrifying flames in every direction. He didn't know how far away this star was, but from the almost frozen form of those flames, he could conclude that it was extremely far away, but this star seemed so close to his spiritual sense, which could only mean that the star was so incomparably massive that it almost filled up his spiritual sense's sensory capacity.

  The blazing red star spewed boundless energy into the void, giving off a very terrifying sensation. It seemed that if one got just a little closer, one would be burned into the purest energy. Yet it had an allure that made people want to melt away within it.

  Chen Changsheng felt somewhat uneasy, but not out of fear. He was sure that nothing in this sea of stars would do any harm to the spiritual sense of humans. The reason for his unease came from his feelings about the shape of this star and the conflict of their personalities. In other words, he didn't like the star.

  Thus, his spiritual sense floated off even higher. After passing through a clump of wispy substance that seemed to be made of stardust, a blue star was reflected in his eyes. This star was icily arrogant, particularly cold, and its surface even seemed to be covered in a thin layer of frost. It gave off a feeling of intensity, forbidding anyone from approaching. His spiritual sense floated there for a few moments before continuing its journey.

  When the spiritual sense of a cultivator left their body, there was naturally a limit as to how far it could go. As one's cultivation gradually increased, this limit would also gradually increase. However, when one was lighting up one's Fated Star, their spiritual sense was not restricted in any way when traveling in the space above. This was similarly an unsolved mystery.

  Chen Changsheng's spiritual sense continued to float farther and farther upwards, seeing all sort of stars and sights. He had passed by several stars that were particularly quiet. When his spiritual sense tried to approach them, it was pushed away by an invisible force, making him realize that these stars were the Fated Stars of other people.

  The deeper he traveled into the starry sky, the greater the number of stars. Gradually, there also began to appear many strange stars that were unlike anything humans thought of as stars. Quietly suspended in the void, those stars incessantly discharged radiance. Some of them seemed to sprout countless spiral arms, looking just like a child's plaything. Some condensed their star radiance into a bright pair of wings, seeming just like some mystical bird. There were also some stars that gave off the majesty of some ferocious beast.

  For an entire night, his spiritual sense drifted about the sea of stars, slowly feeling and being stirred by many nigh indescribable emotions. These emotions were related to the stars, but even more came from himself. This sense of freedom that came from breaking away from the shackles of the fleshly body had always been one of the primary motivations to cultivate.

  The spiritual sense of a cultivator passing through the night sky and drifting into the depths of the sea of stars was a very common situation in the human world, especially in the capital which was filled with crouching tigers and hidden dragons. Every night, many people would attempt to light up their Fated Stars, so no one noticed Chen Changsheng's spiritual sense.

  Suddenly, his spiritual sense saw an extremely bright ray of light. Different from the rays of light emitted by the stars, this light burned more fiercely, was more simple and honest. He was taken with the impulse to get a closer look, but he also faintly sensed that it was time to return.

  He opened his eyes and awoke, realizing that he was still sitting cross-legged in the library of the Orthodox Academy. His spiritual sense had traveled far before finally reaching the depths of the sea of stars, but returning required only an instant. He shifted his gaze and saw the sky outside the window gradually brightening. It turned out that it was dawn.

  For the first time in fourteen years, Chen Changsheng's daily routine was disrupted. He slept during the day to make up for it, then returned in the evening to the library to continue his roaming about the sea of stars. This time, when sending off his spiritual sense from his body, he was more experienced, more familiar with the sea of stars in the night sky. He did not spend any time carefully viewing the sights in the very first part of the sea of stars; instead, he floated into its depths, wanting to see just where he could go.

  When dawn was about to break, that flaring ray of light once more awakened him.

  On the third day, he once more repeated this procedure, and on the fourth, and the fifth. Every day, his spiritual sense would travel a little farther and would be able to see more stars, but he still had no intentions of stopping.

  The path of cultivating the Dao was long and distant, and he always felt it best to strive one's hardest to go as far as one could.

  On the sixth night, his spiritual sense arrived at a place he had never come to before. He did not know that very few people's spiritual sense could reach such a faraway place. One reason was perhaps related to the strength of one's spiritual sense, but the other reason was that the previously passed sections of the sea of stars were already enough of an allure for cultivators. Very few people could suppress their desire to light up their Fated Star and begin Purification. From a certain perspective, his ability to resist temptation was truly quite strong.

  This was because he knew more than anyone else what the true allure of living on this world was.

  However, he very quickly confirmed that this place was rarely visited by spiritual senses. Even though his spiritual sense roamed around for a very long time, there was no occasional encounter of a star that had been lit up by another person's spiritual sense, as there had been during the past five nights.

  Everything around him was new. The space was new, and the stars were also new, all of them waiting for him to casually pick one.

  Chen Changsheng's spiritual sense still did not stop because he felt that he could still go farther, see more.

  On the seventh night, his spiritual sense finally encountered an obstruction; that is to say, he encountered a wall. It was an invisible and transparent wall, a wall that might not even exist, yet he knew that this wall was here, and for the first time, he hesitated.

  What was on the other side of this invisible wall?

  He did not know that this invisible wall was the crystal wall that divided space. He naturally also did not know that only a supremely powerful being like the Golden Dragon could pass freely through this wall. However, he could guess that this invisible wall should be very difficult to pass through.

  But he still wanted to try.

  If this was the southern wall,[15] he would have already reached the foot of the wall. He would at least have to run his head up against it before resigning himself.

  He wanted to try, so he tried. He didn't have the slightest hope, and yet…surprisingly, his spiritual sense passed through without any difficulty whatsoever.

  This area was still a part of the sea of stars.

  But compared to the other parts of the
sea of stars that he had seen, his spiritual sense actually found the sea of stars on this side to be more familiar, like he had returned to his hometown.

  His spiritual sense continued to float upwards, increasingly tiny and weak, so much so that even in his drifting and vacant-minded state, he could sense that the connection between his body and his spiritual sense was getting weaker and weaker, possibly snapping in the very next moment.

  The rays of light gradually dimmed and the number of stars gradually decreased.

  Chen Changsheng sensed that this was the farthest he could go.

  Even farther away, he could faintly make out another part of the sea of stars, like the myriad of the twinkling lights of a city.

  He gazed at that place, feeling rather regretful. However, he knew that the time had come for him to choose.

  His spiritual sense searched all around, wanting to find the star that belonged to him.