Divine Brilliance - Chapter 2

Divine Brilliance
Divine Brilliance
Author: Kai Huang
© Webnovel

Chapter 1: Chapter 1 Half Monster Zong Shou 15
Translator: ryangohsff Editor: Nora

Chapter One: Half-Monster Zong Shou
“I probably really time-traveled—” 4
Within the exquisitely decorated carriage, Zong Shou looked at the circular mirror in front of him expressionlessly. 3
The image in the mirror was obviously an underage teen. He was around thirteen years old, and his face was ashen white. However, his five basic features formed a rarely seen excellence; he was breathtakingly handsome. 6
He had a pair of almond-shaped eyes like a Phoenix, glowing brightly with many colors. At this moment, those eyes were filled with bitterness and helplessness. 1
Not long ago, he still had a normal and common face, the type that one would not be seen if thrown into a crowd. He was working as the manager of a library in one of the small countries of the Cloud World, sitting around and waiting for his turn to die. His identity could not be any more normal.
However, after he woke up from a dream, he found that his body had become one of utmost handsomeness. Although it was sickly and weak, it was undoubtedly top-class in terms of looks. Even in his last life, those famous male celebrities were far from this level. If he had to point out a lacking aspect, it would be his temperament.
But at this moment Zhou Shou did not feel any happiness or delight; he only felt worried and uncertain.
He was like a fish swimming freely and living however it wanted in the ocean, suddenly arriving on land.
Everything around him, apart from feeling unfamiliar, suffocating, and filled with surprises, gave him a sense of fear and loneliness.
Unwilling to give up, Zong Shou pinched his skin hard, and felt a sharp pain instantly. Naturally, he did not find any scars on his face from plastic surgery.
“I feel pain, so I shouldn’t be in a dream, right? But what is my identity now? And where the heck am I?” 2
‘Zong Shou’ was the name in the memory of his current body. In his last life, he had another name, but living in the present and in this place, that previous name no longer held any meaning to him. 2
He muttered a few sentences to himself before sighing and turning away his line of sight. His chest was bloated with a feeling of despair, and he had totally given up hope of waking up from the dream or returning to where he came from.
Actually, many days had passed since he appeared in this body. Pretty much every time he woke up, he would repeat the previous series of actions. Today was already the seventh day. 2
Looking at the decoration style of the carriage, it seemed to be from the ancient times… but also didn’t.
Opening up the blinds and looking outside, he was faced with endless wild plains, green and brimming with life, making one’s heart feel comfortable and relaxed. The air was refreshing, totally different from the polluted environment of his era.
If one looked down, one would realize that although this horse carriage had wheels, it was hanging in mid-air three inches above the ground. The horned horses at the front, sixteen in all, were stepping on the air, proceeding forward with an up and down motion.
As a result, although the carriage was big – in fact, just the carriage alone was forty square meters – they were able to travel over any terrain like it was flat land, regardless of how complicated the geography was.
At the current moment, there was no one driving the carriage, so it rushed forwards in a straight line into the distance. 1
On both sides of the carriage were some knife cuts and blade marks, if one paid close attention to it.
Zong Shou felt a little dizzy as he sat weakly on the soft, swan-feather-padded mattress.
The horses were tamed elite beasts, and the carriage was a Cloud Crossing Carriage. According to his knowledge, these two items only appeared twelve thousand years ago in the Cloud World, and they should have been really old antiques.
With a slight thought, he recalled a series of memories appeared.
They were all broken fragments and incomplete parts. Among them were some words and many faces. Suddenly, they were cultivating; suddenly, they were studying. Witnessing life and death battles, seeing people flying through and tunneling into the ground. There was also a giant mountain protruding into the clouds, and an unimaginably huge school that occupied half of an island within a lake. 1
It all felt strange yet familiar to him; he also felt a slight tinge of fear. These types of feelings were extremely complicated and weird.
Lastly, the only perfectly kept series of memories were located in the deepest parts of his brain. There were numerous magical words, which combined together to form a complete book.
He was really familiar with these words, and one could even say that he knew them like the back of his hand. When he was a student, he had studied them a lot, and he had even written a thesis specifically on this topic.
“Indefinite Spirit Emperor Art, such devilish words still exist. Is this place ten thousand-odd years ago, where martial cultivators and spirit masters prospered? These features in my memory shouldn’t be wrong…”
Thinking about the chants those spirit masters pulled off every day in the bits and pieces of memory he had of the school, as well as all sorts of spiritual energy, the corner of his lips could not help but twitch. However, his face still remained in a daze.
It wasn’t that he had never seen similar scenes before, but they were all in games!
The Cloud World in the future prohibited fighting. With the spiritual energy in the land drying up, only some special regions known as Shrines had thicker energy. Cultivation started to fall behind. With the appearance of various machines, technology started to rise up.
However, the people of the Cloud World still inherited the genes of their ancestors, to continue to strive to become stronger, to fight against Heaven and Earth.
Unable to cultivate normally, they could only make up for that in the virtual game worlds.
The most famous one was a virtual reality MMORPG known as God Emperor. It was said that they had hired all the famous martial artists of the era and hundreds of historians. They were able to recreate the era of thirteen thousand years ago. It was the time before the God Emperor descended, where heroes and legends were common. Martial arts and chanting cultivation methods proceeded as a part of daily life, and everything was exceedingly close to reality. 2
Oh yes. He remembered that in the last life, his last bit of consciousness was within God Emperor.
The battle of the Seven Emperors of the Cloud World. He had one sword, challenging groups of heroes. However, at the final moment, his body suddenly felt a current, and he lost consciousness. 1
After he woke up, he found himself in a different body. Everything in front of him was not the familiar world from before.
So was he currently in the game, or was he truly in an era thirteen thousand years in the past? 1
His brain felt dizzy once more. Zong Shou decided to put down everything and not think about it anymore.
Anyways, he had nothing to do inside the carriage. Zong Shou took out a meter-long green steel sword and started to practice his sword technique in the relatively large carriage. 2
His footsteps advanced and retreated, twisting and turning. With the movement of his body, the sword gleamed brightly.
Like in his last life, each sword stance, each footstep was accurate to the extreme. It could basically be called perfect.
However, after such a basic sword technique, Zong Shou was panting in just eight minutes. Cold sweat dripped down his entire body.
The image training of the sword technique could not help but go off pattern, and he only relied on his will and unwillingness to admit defeat to hold on and not fall to the ground.
Only after he used up all the remaining energy in his body did this stop. He panted heavily as he sat on the mattress.
When his focus dissipated, he instantly felt a sharp burning pain pierce his bones, muscles, limbs, and lungs.
He was not doing this because he felt bored. Rather, it was due to the uneasiness he felt. This world and his situation left him sensing danger and feeling nervous. He eagerly wanted to obtain some strength, so that he at least had the ability to protect his life.
In the game during his last life, he trained the martial artist basics to the ancestor level. In the entire Cloud World, only around a thousand people had a similar achievement. 4
The sword theories, the sword changes; he had grasped all of it. What he needed to do now was to make this body remember it, and make it a reflex action.
The only problem was that his current body was simply horrible. He could only last for the time it took to brew tea doing such basic training, and his stamina was less than half of a normal person’s.
The part that depressed him most was that those basic internal cultivation techniques could not be trained at all.
It wasn’t that Zong Shou’s body was truly weak. He even exceeded normal people by a wide marge in terms of strength, explosiveness, flexibility, and the like. His spiritual roots and bone structure could even be considered that of a top-rate genius. However, he just felt extremely weak for some reason.
After seven days of testing around, Zong Shou had an idea that it probably had something to do with his meridians. Being a half-human and half-monster – a human/fox mix – resulted in his handsome face, but it also caused him to possess a weak physique. 8
It was nothing surprising. After all, be it his father’s race or his mother’s race, they both had exceptional histories.
“I am still not sure about the features of my human blood. But this monster bloodline obviously belongs to the Seven-tailed Fox. In the entire Cloud World, less than a hundred people have this bloodline! It would be great if one side suppressed the other. However, both bloodlines are of equal level. In the Cloud World, regardless of the era, everyone learns martial arts. Even an underaged teen would be able to open up a meridian. An unassuming civilian might be skilled in martial arts. However, to be like me, having zero internal strength and no ability to fight back, it’s simply too rare…” 5
Lying on the mattress, the thoughts that Zong Shou had forcefully suppressed rose once more.
In his thoughts, he remembered those series of magical texts in the depths of his mind.
The Indefinite Spirit Emperor Art also had an Indefinite Killing Fist and a Fish into Dragon Transformation; they were both secret martial art techniques.
Moreover, regarding this Indefinite Spirit Emperor Art, Zong Shou always felt that he had heard those words somewhere. However, he simply could not recall where.
“Top class secret art, and it actually has both a fist technique and a body technique. A body having two types of top class bloodlines. The identity of this person definitely isn’t simple. Is he a distinguished person in the Cloud World? Is this Zong Shou from an aristocratic Family? Surnamed Zong? Did he come from the Sky Fox Zong Family that was wiped out? Who knows why, but that name feels really familiar. Oh yes, there were also two servants…” 1
When he thought of the two people who had traveled together with him for these seven days but were currently not present, Zong Shou could not help but feel dizzy once more.
With how out of the ordinary those two were, his status probably exceeded what he imagined. 1
Thinking about how the world in the game became reality, and how he was trapped within it, Zong Shou really could not believe it.
Just as he felt his head hurting, a whistling sound spread out from outside the carriage. Zong Shou frowned and looked out through the window.
He saw a girl in a colored skirt moving over. Although she was walking, her speed exceeded the sixteen horses. She was also dragging the corpse of a giant beast in her hands.
Seeing Zong Shou look over, the girl immediately raised her head and smiled sweetly. She had extraordinarily beautiful looks, picture-perfect, and at the sides of her head were a pair of really cute white cat ears. This was one of the two servants he had in this world when he woke up: Su Chuxue!
Behind her was a burly man. He was the coachman, Yin Yang. He was three meters tall, and his whole body was covered with muscles, like he was smelted from steel. 4
Yin Yang emitted a majestic aura. His footsteps were neither slow nor fast, but each one covered a long distance. His squarish face was calm and solemn like water, but beneath it, one could see hints of worry.
COMMENT
999+ comments

VOTE

SEND GIFT
Chapter 2: Chapter 2 Dual Meridians
Translator: ryangohsff Editor: Nora

The thick scent of meat wafted through the wilderness. A terrifyingly large beast leg was being barbecued above a fire. Occasionally, fat would trickle down, giving out a sizzling sound.
Seeing that the boar skin had already turned golden brown, Zong Shou carefully brushed on a layer of oil and fresh spices. The wonderful scent made one drool.
The wild boar that weighed close to four tons was split into numerous portions. At least half of the creature was fed to the horned horses, which were also called Cloud Stepping Foals. The boar meat was mixed with yellow beans and other grains, and they were eating heartily.
Of the remaining three boar legs, apart from the one that was still being barbecued, Yin Yang and Su Chuxue had both taken one. Currently, they had grease all over their mouths.
The former was still slightly gentlemanly and civilized, while the latter did not bother about her image at all. It was like she wanted to swallow up the entire bone. She chewed and gnawed while looking at Zong Shou with worshipping eyes.
“So good! So delicious! Young master’s barbecue meat skills are so much better than before…”
Her voice was vague. If one did not pay close attention, they would not be able to hear what she was saying. Zong Shou could not help, but smile. 1
Chuxue was his maid. She came from the tiger-cat race, which was a branch of the monster race. Although she looked really pretty, she was very active and loved to eat. She looked like a gentle and quiet person, like everyone’s dream girl, but she could not sit still for even a moment. When she ate, the jaws of others would drop. Although her name was Su Chuxue, apart from her skin being snow white, her temperament and personality were totally different from her name. 1
Based on the records, the so-called monster race were ancestors who injected the blood of strong beasts into their bodies to increase their fighting strength. They did this to face the wild beasts that swept the land.
However, once that intense and cruel era ended, humans started to fear these people. As such, they decided to form their own race among themselves, which was how the monster race came about.
After tens of thousands of years, this race had pretty much become extinct. Zong Shou had only seen them within the game.
Using the dagger in his hand to casually cut off a piece of barbecued meat, he started to slowly eat it. His gaze could not help but look toward the carriage at the side.
“Uncle Yin, with so many enemies eyeing us, isn’t it inappropriate for us to be starting a fire and stopping?”
Spending seven days in the carriage, although Zong Shou did not personally witness Yin Yang and Chuxue fight others, the marks on the sides of the carriage were really new. There were also numerous holes shot through the iron boards of the carriage. There were even blood stains on some spots, a shocking sight. It seemed like they had faced some dangers before he arrived in this world.
During these two days, the two of them regularly went away, saying that they were going to hunt. However, every time they returned, their bodies would be covered with the smell of blood. It was not beast blood, but human blood.
His words gave Yin Yang pause. He acted like he did not care, continuing to feast on the meat and coldly said, “Don’t worry, prince. The area for six hundred miles around here has been cleaned out. Only the eagles above are following us night and day. Whether we start a fire or not doesn’t matter. Chuxue and I also need time to rest up…”
Zong Shou looked up at the sky. As expected, he saw a few small black dots up in the clouds. His heart sank once more. With these ‘eyes’, the enemy knew the tracks of his group.
Furthermore, this carriage was really eye-catching, and it was nearly impossible to cover up its tracks. 7
It seemed like there was truly an enemy present, and the danger was evident.
However, what he cared about was what Yin Yang called him. Chuxue called him Young Master, while Yin Yang called him Prince.
Prince, within the monster race, it definitely meant the son of the Monster King!
There were hundreds of branches of monsters, and most of them were untamed and unrestrained. To be the inheritor of the Monster King and so weak, one could imagine the outcome he would have.
Sighing, Zong Shou continued to eat the wild boar meat in his hand. When he was around ninety percent full, he felt a warm current move around his body.
Zong Shou got up. He walked to one side and chose an empty spot. He started to move, stretching his back, bending over, and suddenly stretching out his four limbs. These actions were similar to those fat reduction exercises in the future.
At that moment, Chuxue had also finished the boar leg in her hand. She then tore off half of the front leg. As she ate, she looked over curiously.
“He’s training those stances again. It looks so weird, and also can’t be used to fight others. Did young master learn this from Linhai College? Those Spirit Masters only know how to cheat others, saying how what they taught were special, and they accepted everyone from the four seas…”
Zong Shou acted like he did not hear that, focusing on executing each and every action perfectly.
This basic direction of energy did not come from ancient times. Instead, it was self-created by some players in the game. The goal was to lead and direct the energy that the body absorbed from the outside world and turn it into their own. If it were trained together with heart-calming cultivation methods, one would benefit greatly. When cultivating basic cultivation methods, it could help raise the efficiency by thirty percent.
Zong Shou was one of the participants and founders of this method. Before he came to this world, he was developing the seventh set of actions. Unfortunately, before he could complete it, the Book of Eon Extreme Life was released, giving rise to the War of Seven Emperors.
He had then mysteriously appeared in this world.
At the current moment, any movement that he completed would direct an energy current into the energy sea in his stomach.
However, this energy was not truly internal energy. Rather, it was the so-called energy essence, made up of the purest spiritual energy. The energy from the wild boar meat should have dissipated on its own as time went on. However, Zong Shou was using this method to forcefully gather it in his dantian. It could strengthen his body, be used to heal up injuries, or be transferred to others; there were many uses for it.
In his last life, this energy-directing technique was the reason why Zong Shou was able to get ahead of hundreds of millions of players.
Usually, Zong Shou would practice this in the carriage three times a day. Chuxue had seen it several times already, so after looking on for a moment, she lost interest.
However, this was the first time Yin Yang had seen it, and his eyes shone sharply, not blinking at all.
Only after Zong Shou completed the entire set of the Energy-Directing Technique did Yin Yang retract the sharpness from his gaze; he said expressionlessly, “Who knows where the prince learned this series of movements from? If you continue training hard in it, you will be able to become a mighty ruler, and it can also help you strengthen your body.”
Zhun Shou slightly nodded, expressing acknowledgment. However, he had a weird expression on his face.
During these seven days, the only thing he knew was that he had studied in the really familiar Linhai College. Furthermore, he was not there for only a short time. The two of them had only fetched him away recently.
Next, would be Yin Yang. Despite how knowledgeable and well-read Zong Shou was, he actually could not read the person in front of him.
Cold and calm, every action done with manners. No matter what, he did not look like a coachman.
After finishing the meat, Yin Yang and Chuxue went to meditate and adjust the energy in their bodies. Their breathing slowed down like they had fallen asleep.
Zong Shou also sat cross-legged. First, he tried to use a basic heart technique to transform the essence energy in his energy sea into internal energy. At the start, he did not feel much. However, when the energy entered his meridians, he felt a piercing pain all over his body. It was like hundreds of thousands of needles stabbing into him, making him cry out.
He instinctively took in a cold breath, and bore the pain without disturbing and alerting the two beside him. Only after a short while did the intense pain stop. Cold sweat flowed from his entire body.
“As expected! It is because my meridians are flowing together!”
A look of enlightenment flashed in his eyes. Zong Shou used his will to move that warm current back into his energy sea. He had already temporarily given up on cultivating internal energy.
All races in the Cloud World used the nine Chakra Meridians in their bodies as the foundations of cultivation. These nine Chakra Meridians circled the entire body.
When he was moving the energy, he could feel the traveling essence energy splitting up within his meridians.
Within his body, as he had expected, co-existed two sets of meridians!
This body was half-human and half-monster, possessing both the human race and fox race bloodlines. As both races had exceptional histories, someone having the strengths of both races, their spiritual potential and foundations would be extraordinary.
It was also this factor that caused a clash, resulting in his stamina being so shockingly low. It rendered him unable to train in any internal techniques.
Most people would give up on cultivation if they had such a body. However, he had no choice. 1
Coming to this world, what he felt most fortunate about was that his years of reading and experience in the game world had helped him amass a cultivation experience that exceeded all cultivators in this era.
Recalling all the information in his last life, Zong Shou’s brows locked tight.
There were many special cultivation methods suitable for people with dual meridians. Many of these were really strong, even exceeding the secret arts level. However, none of them were suitable for him.
First, he needed to obtain a few heavenly materials and herbs to strengthen one of his bloodlines to suppress the other. He needed to change his body and merge his meridians.
However, such items were exceedingly rare. Zong Shou did not even dare to think about them.
“I really deserve it! Blistering Blaze Cold Flame Method, Moon Brilliance Art, Diabolic God Technique, why didn’t I take a close look when I got all of them? Although they were a little rubbish…”
Just as he was wracking his brains, a set of words flashed across his mind like a sentient light.
“The Path of Heavens, reduce what is too much, increase what is too little. The Path of Man, reduce what is lacking and increase what one has.” 1
Zong Shou was instantly stunned. He immediately chased out those words like a person who saw a snake or a scorpion, dredging them from deep in his memories.
These words came from a set of ancient secret texts he had gotten known as ‘Swallow Energy’. It had once caused endless amounts of waves in the Cloud World, leading to several wars and gory fights. Its name spread far and wide, and people deemed it a prohibited art.
If he used this method, it could help to solve his bloodline conflict problem. It could even cause his cultivation to rise rapidly. However, this method was something he was unwilling to touch unless he was at a dead end. With his body, this might add more problems, which was why he hesitated.
He let out a bitter sigh. Zong Shou dispersed all the essence energy that he had gathered into his bones and limbs, to strengthen his body.
Especially his hands; the muscles, bones, and joints had all become tougher.
After which, he chopped down a commonly seen ironwood tree in the forest and used the elite steel treasure sword in his hand to carve it into a six inch long flying dagger.　　 2