Chapter 2: Heavenly Prophecy
Chapter 2: Heavenly Prophecy
“The Chang’an City, we have arrived. Please gather your belongings. Be careful when opening the door, watch your step when disembarking…”
The carriage door opened, and a crowd of people poured out.
The lurking solicitors hidden on all sides seemed to materialize from nowhere. Truly worthy of being Chang’an locals, they were well-versed in military tactics. They flanked from both sides, chased from the front and blocked from behind, some besieged points to attack reinforcements, others charged straight in. Their encirclement was watertight.
“Nightmare carriage, treading fire and riding the wind, as if driving a qilin! A symbol of status. For just one gold coin, you can tour the entire city…”
“Anyone going to Mount Li? Just two more seats left! A team of four Azure Plume Dragon Eagles for transport, round trip in a quarter of an hour! If you miss it, you’ll have to wait for the next one!”
“Accommodation, anyone need accommodation? The women at our establishment all have Succubus bloodlines! Here’s the catalog, take a look, absolutely genuine, tsk tsk, fair deals for all…”
Mingling in the crowd, Li Yi was somewhat dazed. His eyes were unfocused, and he turned a deaf ear to the surrounding clamor.
In his consciousness floated an ancient, simple ring, dark and eerie.
The square face of the ring was surrounded by countless Great Dao Runes. At its very center were two ancient seal script characters—”Heavenly Prophecy.”
“This, is this one of those three supreme treasures?”
Li Yi looked skeptical. He lowered his voice, but no one paid him any attention.
He closed his eyes, and his soul resonated. A loud, unrestrained laugh echoed, brimming with an overwhelming sense of arrogance and tyranny.
“The world only knows I campaigned north and south, subduing the barbarians on all borders. How could ordinary mortals understand that I also played a grand, long game!”
“Northward, I drove out the Mongols and seized the ‘Spirit of Ten Thousand Beasts.’ Eastward, I expelled the Mohe and absorbed the ‘Breath of Dawn.’ Westward, I reached the Rift Gorge and gathered ‘Abyssal Essence.’ In the Eastern Sea, after nine battles, I extracted the ‘Will of the Vast Sea’! Combined with items plundered over years of warfare, like ‘Dragon’s Reverse Scale,’ ‘Sea Demon’s Tendril,’ and ‘Giant’s Sole Eye,’ all smelted together in one crucible, it became this—the Heavenly Prophecy Ring.”
“The pinnacle for mages is Heaven’s Decree; for warriors, it is Heaven’s Mandate; for magical beasts, it is Heaven’s Revelation; and for magical artifacts, the pinnacle is Heaven’s Retribution!”
“This ring has reached the level of Heaven’s Retribution. Its title is—’Deductionist’!”
“Deductionist? What does that mean?”
Li Yi’s heart pounded. Although he didn’t understand, to be equal to the great titans and powers in history, possessing a title uniquely its own, this ring was clearly extraordinary.
He noticed something, and his expression changed again, his gaze turning peculiar.
Inside the ring band, a circle of inconspicuous small characters was carved.
“I am what you call the world, or the universe, or god, or truth, or the whole, or the one.”
Li Yi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This artifact, which had reached Heaven’s Retribution, still hadn’t escaped Xiao Changkong’s clutches.
However, he did ponder and grasp a hint of its nature.
Xiao Changkong had some twisted tastes, but one thing was certain: he wouldn’t act without purpose.
“The characteristic of this thing is equivalent exchange?” Li Yi rubbed his nose, his eyes somewhat playful. “Does it want my body, or my soul?”
Not long after, he composed himself, brushing aside baseless speculation. Right now, there was a more practical problem.
How to survive in this Dusk Capital?
Manual labor? His body was weak.
Craftsman? His hands were clumsy.
Merchant? He was poor with words.
Entertainer? His kidneys… ahem, I’m just hollow inside, not…
“It seems, there might not be any other choice… Magical aptitude?”
Li Yi looked hesitant, pausing for a moment before spreading open his palm. Lying across his palm was a silver token.
“Young friend, since you could hear the ‘Soul Chant,’ you possess magical aptitude. Take this Dawn Token; it allows you to enter the magical institution—Dawn Cliff for cultivation. Right now happens to be the enrollment period. Hurry up, and you can catch it…”
Right before disembarking, an old man’s voice had nagged in his ear again.
“Don’t worry, no tuition fees are required, and room and board are provided.”
At that time, the old man seemed to have seen through his plight and didn’t forget to add that.
“Dawn Cliff?” Li Yi stood there dumbfounded, a bitter smile of melancholy appearing on his face. “Do they teach Hearthstone? I want to go home…”
“Oh right, I still don’t know, where is Dawn Cliff?”
“Let’s ask for directions first. I wonder if people here have accents. I can’t understand Shaanxi dialect…”
Muttering to himself continuously, he forcibly suppressed the gloom in his heart.
…
Mount Li.
Dawn Cliff.
“Hiss—”
Li Yi sucked in a sharp breath, his expression as if his finger had been caught in a door.
Having witnessed firsthand the majestic grandeur of the Shen Tu and Yu Lei guardian statues, beheld the magnificent beauty of the Stele with No Inscription, and caught a fleeting glimpse of the eerie mystery of the Dragon’s Burial Ground on the way up the mountain, he considered himself somewhat immune to all sorts of bizarre and fantastical sights.
But at this moment, he was still awestruck, unable to restrain his admiration.
A majestic, towering pagoda rose from the ground like a sky-propping pillar, reaching straight into the clouds, impossibly high!
Its body, akin to lungs, inhaled and exhaled the magical elements between heaven and earth. The Elemental Tide ebbed and flowed, energy shockwaves rippled and vanished. It was a breathtakingly magnificent and thrilling sight!
Its soaring momentum seemed as if it intended to pierce the starry firmament, yet it abruptly stopped at the limit of sight.
This pagoda was not completed. Its diameter was already over thirty meters, and its height approached four hundred meters!
“Quite spectacular, isn’t it!” From beside him, a youth in white robes arrived gracefully. “This Star Radiance Tower is the first true ‘Sky-Reaching’ level elemental tower in history.”
“‘Sky-Reaching’ level… elemental tower?” Li Yi was stunned, not understanding.
“Oh, elemental towers are the predecessors of today’s mage towers,” the youth explained. He merely assumed Li Yi didn’t understand the meaning of an elemental tower, unaware that the young man before him was a complete outsider, utterly clueless.
Helpless, Li Yi could only nod vaguely.
“This elemental tower, its monumental feat is no less than the Eternal Ramparts,” the youth sighed. “If it hadn’t been left half-built because the one hundred thousand convict laborers of Mount Li were transferred by Zhang Han to suppress the peasant uprising, once this tower was completed, assisting the Twelve Golden Colossi, the Great Qin Empire might truly have lasted for thousands of generations!”
“Oh? I heard that the old woman surnamed Wu from the previous dynasty also wanted to build a ‘Sky-Reaching’ level mage tower,” a dark-skinned youth with a broad, strong build was drawn in and spoke bluntly. “Rumor has it, popular resentment was too great, so it never proceeded. Only a ‘Lofty Mountain’ level one was built.”
“Those are all distorted rumors, not worth believing!” The white-robed youth frowned, somewhat displeased. “Don’t lightly believe those hearsay tales.”
“Yan Zhao!” The burly youth paid no mind and introduced himself.
“Zhangsun Shenji.” The white-robed youth gave a light huff; he hadn’t let go of his annoyance yet.
“Li Yi.” Li Yi also gave his name.
The three walked together.
Yan Zhao talked volubly, but speaking too much inevitably led to mistakes. Every time he got carried away, Zhangsun Shenji corrected him.
Li Yi listened more and spoke less, occasionally asking questions. He needed to understand this world.
Upon arrival, over three hundred people were already gathered in front of the tower, all sitting cross-legged in complete silence.
Li Yi and his companions had to stop talking.
Yan Zhao, who had been in high spirits talking, looked somewhat disgruntled.
Zhangsun Shenji let out a long sigh of relief; the world was finally quiet.
They didn’t have to wait long before an old man with bare feet and rolled-up trousers strode over.
“He’s here!”
This old man was covered in dust, his skin coarse, dark, and reddish from long exposure to wind and sun. Compared to a mage, he looked more like a farmer facing the loess soil.
He didn’t waste words. After standing still, he unrolled a scroll and read aloud verbatim.
“Holders of the Dawn Token are Outer Manor Disciples. Each person is allotted one Meditation Chamber, one Identity Token, one scroll of Meditation Art, and ten Magic Crystals.”
“Magic Crystals serve both as cultivation consumables and as currency. The Repository Pavilion, Meditation Chambers, Alchemy Workshop, Rune Rooms, Beast Taming Valley, etc., all require varying numbers of Magic Crystals. As for how to obtain Magic Crystals, various tasks with their respective bounties are posted daily on the bulletin board.”
At this point, the old man glanced at the crowd below, not bothering to hide his contempt in the slightest.
“Let me give you a piece of advice—’within your capabilities.’ Tasks like collecting dragon dung, cleaning up alchemical waste, mucking out stables, and such. Don’t even think about the others.”
“Furthermore…”
The old man paused, his tone severe.
“At the end of each month, we will eliminate the bottom tenth of the students, continuing until the twelfth month.”
“In the twelfth month, all those who have not reached the Spell Apprentice Realm will be expelled!”
“My Dawn Cliff wants only geniuses. We do not raise trash!”
After this speech, the already fearful and quiet youths became even more silent, not daring to make a sound.
After finishing, the old man offered no pleasantries and simply turned to leave the platform.
Shortly after, a charming young woman swayed her slender waist as she approached.
The girl was pretty, smiling like a flower. The sinuous, snakelike, graceful undulation of her slender waist, especially as she twisted it, made many young men secretly swallow their saliva. Yan Zhao’s eyes were practically glued, and Zhangsun Shenji looked at him with disdain.
“After playing the bad cop, they send someone to play the good cop?” Li Yi thought to himself.
As expected.
“To encourage everyone’s motivation, three months from now, we will hold a Martial Display.” The girl leaned forward playfully, raising a finger. “The top three will have generous rewards! Want to know what they are?”