Beyond the Timescape [Wuxiaworld]

The ethereal voice echoed back and forth in the temple. The person who had spoken was clearly right in front of Xu Qing, yet for some reason, it seemed to him like they were separated by countless years. It was like a person in the past, plucking a zither, the sound of which carried with it the sensation of the timescape.

The god’s finger wasn’t capable of sleeping, and could only lay there trembling.

As for Xu Qing, his heart was pounding as he looked at the palace lord of the Summer Immortal Palace, whose cultivation base he couldn’t read. In fact, he couldn’t sense anything about her. She seemed both illusory and looming at the same time. The older Xu Qing got, the less often things like this happened. He had dealt with beings as lofty as Imperial Sovereigns and as lowly as grues. He had seen just about everything. He even had multiple experiences dealing with gods. In other words, he had a lot of reference points to call on when assessing someone’s aura. But right now... this palace lord was impossible to read. As a result, it didn’t matter what reference points he had.

In fact, the sensation of the mixture between past and present, and the combination of illusory and material, was growing stronger. All of these things created even more mystery within Xu Qing’s heart. Because of that mysterious sensation, the palace lord’s words seemed deeply meaningful. It was as if she spoke with the voice of all living beings.

Summer Immortal....

Xu Qing collected his thoughts, then waved his right hand, causing Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior to fly out. The iron skewer, which now looked more like a fiendish club, landed on Xu Qing’s palm.

“Is this what you’re sensing, Senior?” he asked softly.

Silence reigned in the temple.

The patriarch trembled on Xu Qing’s palm, terror raging uncontrollably within him. He felt like he was in the presence of a god. Little Shadow was also trembling, though it managed to contain all of its emotional fluctuations. That actually gave Xu Qing a better idea of this palace lord’s cultivation base.

“Yes. And no.” The woman in the homespun garments sat with her back to Xu Qing, speaking as if from ancient times. “Do you know what a Summer Immortal is?”

Xu Qing didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he thought back to everything he knew about Summer Immortals.

Finally, he said, “Summer Immortal is a cultivation level.”

The woman in the homespun garments slowly shook her head. “Correct. But also incorrect. See for yourself.”

She reached up and pointed to the first of the nine paintings behind the candles. The blurriness of the painting turned into clarity, and the person depicted became visible.

He was an old man, tall and burly, with white hair and a white beard. He seemed straightforward and even boorish, and in his hand he held a walking stick that was golden in color, except made from... a bone. It was not an ordinary bone. It was the bone of a god. Even though it was only a painting, the shocking energy that Xu Qing could sense seemed to surpass Crimson Mother! Though it was clearly an unmoving artistic depiction, the old man was so lifelike he looked like he might step out of the painting at any moment. The shabby clothing he wore didn’t do anything to diminish his character. In fact, it made him seem more profound and ancient. His eyes seemed to contain stars, as if he could understand anything and everything.

As Xu Qing looked at the painting, he tried to commit the details to memory, except that even that simple act wasn’t possible. It was as if... the person in the painting could not be remembered by another.

Once again, the voice of the woman in the homespun garment filled the temple. “Gods cannot be looked at directly. Immortals cannot be remembered. You’re looking at the first of the nine Summer Immortals of the Revered Ancient mainland. He wasn’t human, and no one actually knows what he looks like. That image is a depiction of the venerable master’s mortal husk.”

The woman’s voice suddenly seemed to thrum with an even greater sensation of time. She reached out with her delicate hand and pointed at the second painting. It became clear.

It also depicted an old man, but he was very different from the first. He was not domineering. Instead, he was scholarly and refined. He wore the garment of an academic, and had a long, flowing beard. His face was ruddy, and his eyes were profound, as if they contained heavenly daos. His hair was neatly bound with a wooden hairpin, and his garment was covered with complex scholarly designs. Every stitch and thread seemed full of an aura that surpassed anything mortal. It was the aura of a god. Shockingly, every stitch and thread contained a sealed god!

“You said that Summer Immortal is a cultivation level. That’s correct. But that’s more like a definition applied to the past by people in the present. The people in the present are the cultivators of Revered Ancient. They believe that after Smoldering God comes Imperial Sovereign, and that after Imperial Sovereign comes Quasi-Immortal, also known as Grand Emperor. Break through from Quasi-Immortal, and you’ll reach Summer Immortal.”

The palace lord waved her hand, and the third and fourth paintings became clear to Xu Qing. They depicted a woman and a man respectively.

She was graceful and elegant, with a face as beautiful as an immortal. Beautiful hair cascaded down her like a waterfall, and her eyes seemed like ponds during spring. She was the type of person whose every frown and smile could entrance anyone who looked at her. She was surrounded by countless glowing spheres. If you looked closely at them, you would realize that the spheres were actually stars.

The man in the fourth painting was middle-aged. He seemed awe-inspiring, with raven-black hair hanging down behind him. His eyes were profound, as dark as the night sky, and glittering with wisdom and insight. He had a prominent nose, thin lips, and seemed calm and thoughtful. Astonishingly, he stood atop a mountain of god corpses! Golden blood flowed into a stupefying sea at the base of the mountain. Just looking at the image caused Xu Qing’s heart to race. Even though it was just a painting, he could still sense the terror imparted by those gods. Some of them seemed no weaker than Crimson Mother, and there were some that were clearly stronger. And yet... every single god in this man’s presence was nothing more than a corpse.

The palace lord’s voice once again echoed in the temple. “The truth is that, in the early days, Summer Immortals weren’t called that. In the Brilliant Heaven god world, the most famous people from Deep Earth were called Lower Immortals. Later, as time went on, Lower Immortals came to be called Summer Immortals.” [1]

Xu Qing took a deep breath. This was information he hadn’t heard before.

The palace lord pointed at the fifth painting.

As it became clear, Xu Qing saw a young man. He wore a white robe that swayed in the breeze, and he overflowed with immortal energy. His garment was embroidered with beautiful designs that emphasized how honorable he was. He had long, slender fingers that held a fly-whisk, the strands of which also drifted in the wind. And at the tip of every single strand, there was apparently an entire star system, each of which contained countless worlds and unending life. The young man didn’t seem to be very old, yet his eyes contained something profoundly ancient, as if he had seen many things in life, and had experienced countless things. Despite that, he hadn’t changed much. He had a smile as warm and gentle as a spring breeze, the type that would cause anyone who saw him to admire him greatly.

“There were nine of them in total, all from different species. During the heyday of humankind, there were five. And that’s why humans in Revered Ancient produced three Ancient Emperors.”

The palace lord pointed at the sixth painting. It depicted a woman with a smile as kind and gentle as a blooming white lotus. Her daoist robe swayed in the breeze, making her look like an immortal walking in the mortal world. She had long hair that flowed freely behind her, shapely eyebrows, almond eyes, and skin as fair as snow. Her eyes glittered like deep springs of clear water. Behind her floated a sword as black as ink that pulsed with a sensation of destruction and death.

“The other three perished in the ancient war. Their immortal will transformed into 54 of the 99 ancient heavenly daos.”

The palace lord sighed. She waved her delicate hand again, and the final three paintings became clear to Xu Qing. All of them seemed faded and old.

One depicted a woman with streaming black hair and fair skin. She seemed graceful and otherworldly, with crimson lips that accentuated a beautiful face. She had the most attractive smile of all the people in the paintings. It was obvious that, when she was alive, her good looks were as refreshing as the warm spring sunlight. Sadly, she had long since died.

Next was a young man with ordinary facial features but profound eyes. His face seemed full of the passage of time, and he wore a simple daoist robe that rippled freely in the wind.

The final painting, despite having been revealed by the palace lord, depicted a figure that wasn’t fully clear. It seemed to portray an old man. Though his features weren’t possible to make out fully, the painting made him seem like the kind of person who could prevent the dome of heaven from collapsing by holding it up with his hands. He was like an unshakable mountain.

“The last one had no time to form a mortal husk. He could only leave behind a scrap of his aura before he perished.”

The palace lord looked up at all the paintings.

Xu Qing, meanwhile, bowed deeply and solemnly to all of them. Then he looked back at the palace lord. “Senior, might I ask why you summoned me here today?”

“Most people know of the Summer Immortal Palace’s mission to record the history of Revered Ancient. But the truth is that the Summer Immortal Palace has another mission. And that is to keep a record of the techniques that changed the immortal essence of the Summer Immortal Palace.

“Your soul seeds created ripples in the immortal essence, and therefore, I would like to ask… if you would be willing to leave one behind here, to be stored for all eternity in the immortal essence of the Summer Immortal Palace? Consider it a contribution. And in return, you can seek enlightenment of any technique you find in the immortal essence.”

The eyes on the little butterfly’s wings suddenly glittered.

“What?” the butterfly said. “That’s what this is about? Master, it was his crappy technique that caused a stir in the immortal essence? This is immortal essence we’re talking about!”

The butterfly seemed both disbelieving and also envious.

Xu Qing thought about it for a moment. He honestly could never have guessed that the Summer Immortal Palace was interested in his soul seeds. The reality was that none of this mattered much to him. That said, he was interested to learn some more about this ‘immortal essence.’

“Senior, what is this immortal essence you mentioned?”

The person to answer him wasn’t the palace lord, but rather, the butterfly. “It’s something created by the nine Summer Immortals after they elevated Revered Ancient. It’s the only thing that surpasses the heavenly daos.

“In the never-ending worlds of Deep Earth, it serves as the source of all techniques and divine abilities. All magical techniques in Deep Earth actually come from immortal essence, although they’re all propagated in different ways. At the same time, the immortal essence is also responsible for collecting all rare and unique daos, then organizing them for later distribution. In that way, people from our homeland can practice cultivation for all eternity.

“This is outright preposterous! How could your soul seeds provoke a reaction from immortal essence?”

1. This is the wordplay I eluded to many chapters ago. The words ‘lower’ and ‘summer’ are pronounced exactly the same in Chinese. The word used in Chinese that I’m rendering ‘lower’ could be interpreted in different ways, but there’s a line in the text that I left out (because it’s irrelevant linguistically due to how I’m rendering the terms), which clarifies that it was used pejoratively. In other words, “Lower” was intended to be somewhat insulting or at least negative. In terms of the wordplay, something similar in English would be: “In the early days, they were called Profit Immortals, but later they came to be called Prophet Immortals.” The pronunciation doesn’t change, but the meaning does. The idea seems to be that people changed the name so that it came across as something more impressive and respectful. As of yet, there does not seem to be any further explanation of this term in Chinese, but as of releasing this chapter, I’m barely 200 chapters behind the latest release. There could theoretically be a later wordplay explanation clarifying some sort of hidden meaning for the term. If that happens, I might change ‘Summer’ to something else, or I might keep it and just use a footnote to explain. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens. ☜

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