Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 801: The Peak

Freedom Hall.

Tang Jie was seated cross-legged on his throne.

In front of him floated the Imperial Sky Stamp.

A four-clawed golden dragon had been carved onto the top, winding in and out of some clouds, and on the bottom was the stamp, four characters carved onto it: "寿与天齐" (Life Equal to Heaven).

This stamp's original name was the Equaling Heaven Stamp, as this what was carved on it, but later on, the Beast Refining Gate felt like this was not impressive enough, so they changed to the Imperial Sky Stamp, meaning that this was the stamp of the emperor who had united all under the sky, such was their ambition.

The Imperial Sky Stamp was a Great Dao armament left behind by the Beast Refining Gate's founding ancestor, and its Dao was Life, its Will being Fusion. It was said that the Imperial Sky Stamp's original use had been to absorb life essence to strengthen the self and accelerate one's cultivation speed. But for some reason, this function disappeared, so the Beast Refining Gate was forced to use its Dao power to fuse lifeforms. In the end, they ended up creating the half-human, half-fiend freak that was Meng Guanshan.

Tang Jie naturally didn't need to use it to fuse with a fiend.

The Imperial Sky Stamp's Dao was Life, and it could provide large amounts of life force. This alone made it a dream treasure for countless cultivators. Every advance had a cultivator facing numerous risks and dangers, so having a Life Dao armament was one of the best safeguards. The Imperial Sky Stamp was a stand-out in this category, granting cultivators a powerful protection, even able to keep a human-fiend hybrid alive.

In terms of depth of arts, the Beast Refining Gate had always been lacking compared to the other five major sects. The reason it could have the most Violet Palace experts among the six major sects was the Imperial Sky Stamp. Without it, producing new Violet Palace True Lords or Divine Division fiends became excruciatingly difficult.

Tang Jie didn't need it to protect his life. Rather, he needed to borrow its pure life force to strengthen himself so that he could swiftly reach the peak of Infant Tending. To put it simply, he was treating the Imperial Sky Stamp as a giant supplement to make him more powerful. This was because the life force in the Imperial Sky Stamp was so pure that it could heal both the body and the Divine Soul, and healing the Divine Soul was exactly what he needed.

At Violet Palace, every ascension was an ascension of the Divine Soul, and Deification was no exception.

When an Infant Tending cultivator reached the peak, their Divine Soul would go through another refinement, attaining meridians and energy points, the ability to circulate energy. This made their Divine Connections much stronger, with the most defining difference being that a Divine Soul in this stage could break free of the physical body and use Divine Connections and other spell arts.

Han Wuxin's Divine Soul had attempted to do this right before his death, but alas, Nine Splendors had reacted quickly and destroyed it.

People once thought that this was the greatest extent to which a Divine Soul could be cultivated, so this stage was called Deification.

The intention was that the Divine Soul had already achieved godhood. But later on, as cultivators grew stronger, they came to see an even taller mountain, and they gradually realized that they were still far from becoming true gods. Even so, the name of Deification remained.

Gazing at the Imperial Sky Stamp, Tang Jie slapped it with his hand.

A majestic energy erupted from the Imperial Sky Stamp, and Tang Jie felt a pure life force flowing into his body. Tang Jie guided this energy to his Divine Soul so as to nurture his Primal Infant.

The little person within the Violet Palace smiled as if it was being caressed by a spring breeze, and its little face became translucent.

If one looked carefully, one would notice that while the Divine Soul was still small, it was no longer in the form of an infant and appeared closer to an adult.

This was a sign that the Divine Soul was growing and was the entire purpose of Infant Tending.

Over one hundred and thirty years, Tang Jie had nurtured his infant into a youth, but there was still some childishness to its face, indicating that it was far from reaching the peak. A true peak Infant Tending cultivator would look like a youth in their twenties. At this stage, one could make the charge at Deification.

If one didn't make the breakthrough, the Primal Infant would continue to grow and mature. This mature Primal Infant would be stronger, but it would consume large amounts of life force, reducing one's chances at reaching Deification.

Just like how one used a part of one's power to create the Violet Palace in the ascension to the Violet Palace Realm, one could choose the moment one ascended to Deification. The longer one waited, the stronger one would be, but the greater the dangers one faced and the lower the chances of success.

Tang Jie's immature Primal Infant didn't even have the right to attempt ascension, so the little Primal Infant was truly like a hungry baby, greedily drinking up the nutrients from the Imperial Sky Stamp.

As life force poured in, the Primal Infant's face relaxed in immense satisfaction. In just a little while, it seemed to grow half a year older, changing in both demeanor and appearance.

Alas, the life force soon stopped.

Tang Jie knew that the Imperial Sky Stamp's Dao power had been used up, and it would take a long time to recover it.

Tang Jie felt like it was a great pity.

It had to be understood that the Primal Infant aging by half a year wasn't worth an actual half a year of cultivation. Tang Jie had used a hundred and thirty years to age the Primal Infant to around thirteen, so the real exchange rate was ten to one.

This wasn't even considering the role played by the resources from the Martial Lord's hidden realm and the inter-domain trade. Another person might use twenty or thirty years. This was why going from Infant Tending to Deification could easily take five to six centuries.

In other words, the half a year provided by the Imperial Sky Stamp was the equivalent of at least fifteen years of cultivation.

This was why Tang Jie had been so focused on taking the Imperial Sky Stamp.

Alas, the Imperial Sky Stamp was now out of power and would take a few years to recover. It would be rather difficult for him to use it to reach the peak.

But Tang Jie didn't care. He had been ready for this.

The moment the Imperial Sky Stamp ran out of Dao power, Tang Jie produced countless fiends from his sleeve.

He placed his left hand on the head of a fiend and his right hand on the Imperial Sky Stamp.

A harmonious white light radiated from his body.

The Dao of Life!

Controlling a Dao armament required both sufficient strength and also an extremely important foundation: comprehension in the corresponding Great Dao. Only the two combined could truly unleash the power of a Dao armament.

Among the Violet Palace experts of the six major sects, there were few Celestial Sovereigns, and few who had even comprehended the Dao.

For this reason, most Violet Palace True Lords had only Dao armaments that they had a hard time using, relying on their cultivation to just barely use them.

But Tang Jie was the opposite. With the Dao of Wisdom as his foundation, he had been able to study all the Great Daos and had comprehended all Twelve Great Daos, becoming a freak like Cang Qingfeng. What limited him was his cultivation, not his comprehension of the Great Daos.

Upon reaching Violet Palace, he became more capable of using Dao armaments than most people.

Tang Jie wasn't activating the Dao of Life to heal himself, but to convert the life force of the fiends into energy to recharge the Imperial Sky Stamp.

The Dao of Life could be used to save people, and it could also be used to kill. It was able to grant and seize life in equal measure.

Tang Jie originally didn't have a good enough grasp on the Dao of Life to do this, but he now had the Imperial Sky Stamp. He simply needed to activate it a little, and the Imperial Sky Stamp would extract the energy on its own. All Tang Jie needed to do was give it a helping hand.

One fiend after another was sucked dry of life force by Tang Jie's Dao of Life, withering and dying, their immense life force turning into thin strands of Dao power that passed through Tang Jie's body into the stamp.

If this Life Dao power remained in Tang Jie's body, it could turn back into life force, and while it couldn't increase the upper limit of his lifespan, it could restore whatever life force he had expended.

This was perhaps the greatest benefit of cultivating the Dao of Life.

A True Lord had a normal lifespan between three to eight thousand years, but one who cultivated the Dao of Life, so long as they possessed a decent Dao armament, could effectively live forever.

But Tang Jie had no interest in this life force, sending all of it to the Imperial Sky Stamp so that it could recover its Dao power.

Once all the fiends on hand had died, Tang Jie threw the bodies into the Mountain River State Diagram and produced another batch of fiends.

This went on for several cycles, but even after Tang Jie had killed all of the more than one hundred fiends he had captured, the Imperial Sky Stamp had recovered only a sliver of power.

"As expected, I'm still greatly lacking?" Tang Jie muttered.

He wasn't surprised. The life force comparable to fifteen years of cultivation of a True Lord was immense beyond imagination, not something a mere one hundred fiends could satisfy.

Tang Jie shot a bolt of wind into the air, and there was a clang.

A page boy entered Freedom Hall and prostrated. "Celestial Sovereign, what is your command?"

Tang Jie said, "Pass on my order. Starting from today, Freedom Hall has a standing mission to capture fiends, with no limit on the quantity."

"Yes!" The boy withdrew.

At Tang Jie's level, if he wanted something, he naturally didn't need to do it himself. He just needed to issue a mission, and there would be cultivators willing to serve him.

Wasn't this precisely what sects were for?

Fiend hunting became very popular in the Basking Moon Sect.

People quickly learned of Tang Jie's new hobby after his one for shattering tools.

If those above took a liking to something, those below had to satisfy them!

Now that Tang Jie was famous for vanquishing Godhead Palace and defeating the Beast Refining Gate, countless people heeded his every word and action.

Suddenly, countless cultivators across the Rosecloud Domain began to hunt fiends, from the Basking Moon Sect and from other countries.

There were so many people hunting for fiends that gifting fiends became popular for the next twenty years. Fiends were killed to such an extent that their numbers dwindled and their value grew, and the rising prices served only to stimulate the greed of others.

Fiend-hunting cultivators became commonplace, and even the various fiend-raising grounds of the Beast Refining Gate suffered from poaching. Many people wondered if this was one of the stratagems the Freedom Celestial Sovereign had deployed against the Beast Refining Gate. After all, the Beast Refining Gate hadn't retreated to a little corner of the world like Godhead Palace.

The irreverent jokingly referred to Tang Jie as the Scrap Metal Violet Palace, the Fiend-Eating Celestial Sovereign.

Tang Jie didn't know about this, and he wouldn't have cared if he did. He was too busy restoring the stamp.

The vast quantity of fiends being sent into the Basking Moon Sect was being converted into pure life force through the Imperial Sky Stamp, then sent back into Tang Jie's body.

Tang Jie's strength began to climb at a frenzied speed.

Ten-some years quickly passed.

An excited howl rose from Freedom Hall, and Tang Jie flew out of it.

The cultivators attending upon him immediately dropped to their knees.

Tang Jie shouted, "Hear this! Starting from today, there is no need to hunt for fiends."

He flew off into the mountains.

The fiend-hunting decree had been ended?

The disciples looked around in shock.

One of the disciples who understood what had been going on finally realized what had happened. "The Celestial Sovereign must have reached the peak!"

He was right! Tang Jie had finally reached the peak of Infant Tending, only one step away from Deification!