Rise of Humanity

by <unknown>

  Inside Zhong Yue, his psyche started to regenerate rapidly, gradually filling up his psyche ocean.

  After a few hours, Zhong Yue woke up. He quickly cultivated for a moment and entered his psyche ocean. He could not help but feel happy as he entered, because the capacity of his psyche ocean had increased rapidly. It was now almost twice the size it was before.

  The【Sword Gate Visualization Art】that had only increased his psyche by a bit more than ten feet after a few years. The【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】had almost doubled his psyche with only one attempt!

  Such a strong visualization art ... Just who is this Xin Huo?

  He collected his thoughts and continued cultivating the【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】. Due to the increase of his psyche, he managed to form up the entire Flame Order Palace, Sui Sovereign, and Flame Tree with less effort.

  After a moment, Zhong Yue’s soul opened his eyes and he could feel that the Flame Order Palace built with his psyche was much more stable now. Although it would still cost him a considerable amount of psychic energy, there was still a portion left unspent.

  There’s still quite a bit of energy left, maybe it can sustain for long enough for me to walk out of the Flame Order Palace? Zhong Yue’s heartbeat thumped quicker as this thought appeared.

  He had spent six years of cultivation and he could not even reach the Soul Liberty level. However, he was sure that he could achieve Soul Liberty now after practicing the【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】two times.

  In the Flame Order Palace, Zhong Yue’s soul that had morphed into the Sui Sovereign, started advancing toward the outside of the palace!

  As he started moving, his psyche also began to deplete each step he advanced. One step, two steps, and three steps. The seawater in his psyche ocean that resembled his psyche depleted rapidly.

  After the ninth step, Zhong Yue had managed to reach the entrance of the palace with one foot preparing to step out of the palace. At the same time, his psyche was close to depletion.

  Finally, as soon as he stepped out his ninth step, his psyche depleted at the same time!

  Boom!

  A loud noise roared beside his ear. The noise was so loud it could make him go deaf. Zhong Yue felt the world being swallowed by a massive whirlpool. Suddenly, he felt like he had entered a whole new world!

  At this moment, his soul walked out of his body and stood in front of himself.

  The stage of Soul Liberation!

  Zhong Yue felt extremely excited as he had finally achieved the Soul Liberty level!

  He had entered Swords Gate when he was nine and it has been six years since then. Six years of hard work. He had been more determined than others and had also trained more frequently than others. But, he had not managed to reach this level. However, he managed to make it there after only a few hours of practicing【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】.

  Zhong Yue was sad and happy; he felt like he wanted to cry and laugh at the same time to express his happiness.

  Flames sparkled from the weathered lamp. Xin Huo flew out and stood face to face with Zhong Yue. At that moment, Zhong Yue realized that his soul was so tiny, it was almost the same size as Xin Huo.

  The two little figures looked at each other in confusion, and then laughed at the same time.

  “The Soul Liberty level is just the beginning, there’s still a long way to go before becoming a Qi Practitioner.”

  Xin Huo measured Zhong Yue from top to bottom and said, “This level of Soul Liberty is too low, your soul is still weak now. You can’t even perform soul manipulations, let alone the manifestation of spirit.”

  “Soul manipulations?”

  After his soul returned to his body, Zhong Yue could only feel a very strong sense of dizziness, the side effect brought by the depletion of his psyche. He forced himself to resist the strong urge to sleep and said, “There are fifty thousand outer disciples in Swords Gate and less than a thousand are able to perform soul manipulations. How is this going to be something easily achievable?”

  While they were talking, Zhong Yue felt that his psyche had recovered slightly, but the speed was much slower than recovering through sleeping. If he wanted to recover quickly, he still needed to sleep.

  Soul Manipulate was another level. Once you got the soul out of the body, the soul could control objects and start moving them. However, it required a very strong soul to perform soul possession. Those who were able to perform them were all elites among the outer disciples.

  Are soul manipulations really that hard?, thought Xin Huo.

  Xin Huo landed on his shoulder and said, “You can try when you cultivate next time.”

  Zhong Yue felt that his eyelids were getting heavier and heavier as he muttered, “It is impossible to be that soon….”

  When he woke up again, he immediately checked his psyche ocean and found out that it had gotten even larger. He happily thought in his heart, Maybe I could really try soul manipulations this time.

  Eh? How come I’ve gotten thinner suddenly?

  He looked down and he realized that in just a couple of days, he had become much thinner, losing almost a layer of skin. He became shocked. Although he was only a fifteen-year-old boy, his body was one of the best among the outer disciples of Swords Gate. In fact, he was one of the minorities that practiced martial arts.

  Martial arts were not important to Qi Practitioners. There had not been many Qi Practitioners who managed to excel in the martial arts, causing Swords Gate to have little to no interest in this area.

  Swords Gate mainly practiced Sword Qi. They first manifest and awakened their spirits, and then practiced the Sword Qi through it. Average Swords Gate Qi Practitioners were able to stand in the air using their Sword Qi and cut down any objects with it. However, Swords Gate was a sacred land that had existed for a very long time. Therefore, they still had some martial arts heritages, and they did not forbid disciples from practicing martial arts.

  The physique refining art that Zhong Yue had gotten was called the【Jiao Dragon Winding Body Totem Art】. This was also a type of visualization technique that originated from a tribe who worshipped Jiao Dragons. To practice this technique, one had to imagine a fierce Jiao Dragon winding around one’s body to strengthen the body and grow immense strength.

  After a long period of practicing this technique, Zhong Yue’s body was much stronger than the other outer disciples. The reason he chose this art was because his family was in poverty and he needed something to protect himself when he had to go into the mountains to search for herbs in order to strengthen himself.

  The【Jiao Dragon Winding Body Totem Art】had helped him escape death numerous times. The claws of the beasts only left numerous scars on his body, but his soul remained intact and whole.

  He could not believe that in just a few days, the high-quality body he had after all these years of training would suddenly shrink.

  Although his body had become much thinner, he still felt that his strength did not deteriorate and it was still there.

  “Practicing the【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】requires a huge amount of energy. Your muscles were being used up in your two attempts at imagining,” Xin Huo explained patiently. “Your body was not weak at all, you must have practiced something, I suppose? You did a good job in this area as body, psyche, and soul are all very important. These three are related and they support each other greatly. In order to reach a higher level, you must have a very strong body! If your body was weak, you would have died due to starvation during the first attempt at practicing the【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】.”

  Zhong Yue was shocked and he shouted, “Practicing this art can lead to death!?”

  “Of course. The psyche is connected to the body. The stronger the body, the stronger the psyche. Exhausting the psyche will also exhaust the energy of the body. Therefore, if the body is weak, one will definitely die
during the cultivation.”

  Xin Huo then said, “Luckily, your body is still very strong, able to support cultivating twice. However, if you carry on for a third time, you will become a skeleton. Now, you must eat something and a lot of it. You must not only eat until you are full, you must also eat something good such as medicinal pellets of high quality, or your body will be depleted again.”

  Chapter 4: Totem God Pillars |

  Rare pellets and herbs? For someone who lives in poverty like me, not starving is already considered extremely good. How am I supposed to afford these expensive pills and herbs?

  Zhong Yue shook his head. He picked up the weathered lamp and got ready to return to Swords Gate. Under Xin Huo’s curious stare, he suddenly stopped and turned back. Zhong Yue bent down and took out a hoe from the medicine basket. He then spent almost half an hour digging a hole and he prayed for the dead body before burying it. Lastly, he filled up the hole and prayed for another moment before leaving.

  Inside the weathered lamp, Xin Huo showed his approval. He waited quietly until Zhong Yue finished doing what he was doing. Later, Zhong Yue hung the lamp in front of his chest and started climbing up the cliff. Xin Huo could not help but say, “As a formidable member of the celestial race, I can’t believe you can’t even fly and have to walk with your legs. You’re a disgrace to the celestial race! Members of the pure-blood celestial race are natural sacred beings, they can fly by controlling the air with their tails.”

  Zhong Yue climbed up the cliff and said while laughing, “I have no tail and I am no celestial race member, so it is completely normal that I cannot fly.”

  Xin Huo immediately jumped out from the lamp. He walked around on top of Zhong Yue’s clothes while touching his tailbone and said, “You do have a tail, but it is not fully grown yet. I’ve encountered the Fuxi celestial race before, and all of them had a tail. How come yours is not grown yet? If you don’t believe me, go and touch your butt to check if there’s any sign of a tail.”

  Zhong Yue listened to Xin Huo’s words and touched his own butt. He was shocked when he felt the signs of a coccyx.

  Could it really be that we humans are really the descendants of the Fuxi celestial race? But that is impossible, our race is so weak, to the point that we are considered the weakest race among all races. How can we possibly be the descendants of the most honorable royal race among the celestial races?

  He collected his thoughts and continued climbing the cliff. With the help of Xin Huo and the bronze lamp, the black haze would not be able to cause him any trouble. In a flash, Zhong Yue had reached the top of the cliff. When he looked down, all he could see was the black haze that covered everything beneath them.

  “Xin Huo, can you see what is inside the black haze?”

  “As a member of the formidable celestial race, you can’t possibly not know how to use your god’s eye. Right … your god’s eye has devolved. Just touch the area between your eyebrows, is there an area that is slightly sunken? That is the location of the god’s eye, the third eye of the Fuxi celestial race!”

  Zhong Yue touched the area and found out that there was really a sunken area. Curiosity grew in his heart and he thought to himself, The Sui Sovereign in the【 Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】also has a third eye, maybe we humans also have a third eye?

  The light illuminated by the weathered bronze lamp became brighter and brighter and shone further and further. It pierced through the black haze even though the haze was very thick.

  Zhong Yue’s eyes followed the light and looked around beneath him. He then got the shock of his life.

  A huge foot stepped into the deep valley. For some reason, there was no flesh on this foot, only a skeleton about half a mu in size!

  He looked up and saw an immense skeleton giant standing in the thick black haze, wearing a full set of weathered armor that has been corroded by a few hundred thousands year of time.

  All sorts of beautiful symbols were carved onto the skeleton of this giant. It was like the carvings on totems. The skeleton started moving forward and its tail started swinging around. What kind of race did this giant belong to?

  A ragged flag glided past Zhong Yue silently in the air. After that, one by one, multiple huge skeleton legs fell from the sky and walked silently within the black haze. To his surprise, the feet of these giants were already a few times bigger than Zhong Yue!

  Later, uncountable skeletal giants slowly rose from the ground and joined the army of skeletons. The strange thing was that although they surfaced from the ground, they left no trails on the dirt or stone.

  Totem carvings were all over the skeletons of these giants, showing no traces of fading even after centuries. Similar to apparitions, these giants have no physical body at all. They would just pass through mountains as if the mountains were not there and they would walk across water as if the water was just land. Without making any sound, they followed closely behind the floating flag and devoured the flesh of any living beings they encountered.

  Not long later, gigantic skeleton beasts appeared one after another. Rotten flesh hung on the skeletons of these beasts, and ghostly fire burned brightly in their skulls. The giants rode on these gigantic beasts. There were even some giants that had various animal meats hanging on their bodies.

  There were other flags that floated in the air somewhere even further away. Even more gigantic skeleton giants and beasts appeared along with the flags, but they were nowhere close to the vicinity of Zhong Yue’s current eyesight, thus, all he could see was the spirit fire that represented the eyes of those giants and beasts.

  All of a sudden, the lush green areas around Swords Gate that are filled with flora and fauna became a shadow isle rampant with ghostly shadows!

  “These are the devil souls. If the grievance of gods condense after they die, devil souls will be formed naturally,” Xin Huo whispered from the lamp. “Such strong grievances, something extraordinary must have happened here that made them resent so much. Besides, they look like they are trying to search for something. This thing that they are searching for must be incredibly precious if they are still looking for it even after their deaths.”

  Zhong Yue said shockingly, “They are of the celestial races?”

  “There are both celestials and demons, but they’re the low ranked. Only the nine honorable races like Fuxi, Nuwa, Huaxu, and Yanzi are the real royal celestials with the most distinguished bloodlines. You have the bloodline of the Fuxi celestial race in you, but it is too diluted, to the point that you are even weaker than these dead low-level gods. Therefore, you are not suitable for the heritage of Xin Huo, or you would’ve been the new inheritor of Xin Huo1.”

  Zhong Yue identified the right direction and walked toward the Swords Gate.

  ------

  When he walked out of Juyun Mountain, the devil souls within the black haze had already dispersed. Around half a day later, the black haze disappeared too.

  As soon as the black haze was gone, Xin Huo also stopped talking. These last few days, with the company of this talkative and bizarre little being, Zhong Yue did not feel bored at all. When Xin Huo suddenly stopped talking, Zhong Yue could only feel a little bit uncomfortable.

  He. opened up the lamp chimney and discovered that Xin Huo had disappeared from his normal lamp plinth, leaving only a flame that was the size of a fingertip

  “Xin Huo, are you still there?” Zhong Yue shook the lamp and asked.

  “Don’t disturb me.” The flame vibrated and Xin Huo's little head appeared faintly along with a yawn. He then said, “I’ve been resisting the black haze for these few days and used up too much of my psyche. Right now, I need to rest a little bit more and look for an inheritor of the Xin Huo heritage to live in his soul, or I won’t be able to hold on any longer and evaporate. I’ve been asleep for too long and am much weaker than the old me….”

  Xin Huo then fell asleep again. Zhong Yue stood there and after a brief moment of thinking, he put the lamp into the basket
and covered it up with herbs before walking into Swords Gate.

  Different treatments are given to the outer disciples according to their level. Those who achieved the Soul Liberty level get to stay in the upper house, are distributed ten Yuling Pellets every month, and get more advanced techniques. I have to head to the Cloudless Hall and pass the examination to improve my treatment!

  Zhong Yue went straight to the Cloudless Hall as today was the day for the registration of the Soul Liberty examination that occurred once every month. If he missed it, he would have to wait for another month.

  There were a lot of outer disciples in Swords Gate. The absence of Zhong Yue did not attract any attention from Swords Gate at all. Besides, for someone like him that came from a small tribe like the Zhong Shan Tribe, he would not be able to cause any commotion even if he died outside.

  Soul liberation, I wonder if I can achieve that with the【Swords Gate Visualization Art】instead of the【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】?

  Zhong Yue was a little bit worried, as Swords Gate valued their heritage greatly. If they discovered that his technique was not from the heritage of Swords Gate, he would be expelled. If worse came to worse, he could even end up losing his life.

  When he reached Cloudless Hall, he found around a hundred outer disciples gathered there, waiting for their turn at the examination. A few of them that were holding totem god pillars carved with strange figures anointed with the blood of exotic beasts.

  In the Great Wilderness, totem pillars were the god pillars that were used for purposes of worship in the human tribes. These pillars had magnificent effects when it came to nourishing souls and cultivation.

  In most cases, only upper-class tribes were qualified to possess any totem pillars.